The Big Blue Marble Newsletter: Sample Article

We are all travelers in the wilderness of this world, and the best we can find in our travels is an honest friend
Robert Louis Stevenson

Open Suitcase of Relief

In February 2005, Brad Olsen, a prominent travel book author, visited Thailand with a mission to distribute nearly $2700 worth of aid to tsunami victims.?

He received donations from several parties including myself.? The following are two e-mails that he sent to contributors.? One,?entitled In the Tsunami Wake,?is about a possible Scandinavian victim of the tsunami, Katarina Hallgren, and the other, Open Suitcase of Relief,?is about his contributions to the tsunami relief effort.

In the last several months, I've been asked a couple times about volunteering to help the tsunami victims.? If you're interested, read Brad's report for possible contact information.

IN THE TSUNAMI WAKE
? 2005, Brad Olsen

HER TOOTHBRUSH WAS STILL IN A JAR BY THE SINK. Her toothpaste, makeup, vitamins, pills and other toiletries were in the bathroom too. Her hair brush had what looked like dark blonde hair in the combs. Outside on the porch her bathing suit hung on a clothes line. Katarina Hallgren liked to collect sea shells. An assortment of colorful shells, along with two plastic bottles filled with sand, remained at the bottom of her hotel room closet just below a hanging floral dress and a pretty blouse. Situated on another closet shelf was a book written in Swedish and a breakfast coupon for the Seagull Andaman Hotel. The date stamped on the coupon was ?27 DEC 2004.?

Entering Katarina Hallgren?s room was like stepping into a personal mausoleum. Everything was just as she had left it on that fateful morning. Katarina Hallgren was likely having breakfast when the infamous tsunami hit. Either that or beachcombing the picturesque Khao Lak beach she loved to explore. Placed on her room desk was a copy of Khao Lak Inside magazine featuring the cover story ?Happiness Knows No Limitation.? She may have been thinking about what she would do on her final night in Thailand. Her Scandinavian Airlines boarding pass from Phuket to Gothenburg (dated Dec 27 DEC at 7:50 PM) was on her bed, perhaps being readied for transfer to her money belt. But like thousands of others, her return flight was never to be used.

Ironically, if she had been in bed nursing a hangover from a Christmas late night party she would be alive today. Her room was on the third floor. Just after 10:00 am the second wave unleashed its undiscriminating fury on a completely unsuspecting foreign clientele at Khao Lak. Tourists and locals alike were swept away in an instant. Hotel rooms like Katarina?s on the third floor were frozen in time above the 50-foot (15-m) surge. Rooms on the second floor of the Seagull Andaman had been nearly filled with water so when they drained most personal effects were deposited haphazardly in the open air hallway. The ground floor illustrated the sheer force of the tidal wave. Solid cinderblock walls were punched open, sometimes up to six walls in a row, with everything in the rooms smashed against the final wall to hold its integrity. Trees were plucked from their roots and tossed about the resort at random. The swimming pool was now a fetid swamp. Delicate landscaping was covered by several feet of mud and sand. Even the jungle across the road from the Seagull Andaman where the tsunami made its final stand was touched by the stain of death ? the saltwater had killed all the undergrowth.

* * *

FOLLOW-UP KATARINA HALLGREN: It is possible that the woman who?s SAS Boarding Pass I found in a hotel room in the tsunami-ravaged Khao Lak region of Thailand may still be alive! How and why she left her personal belongings and plane ticket behind would be the first thing I?d ask her if we were ever to communicate. A few other ?Katarina Hallgren? Swedes I found on the Web have gotten back to me, of course saying it wasn?t them in my article. The Swedish police have informed me that they do not have a person by that name on their missing person?s list. Of course I hope she is OK. Since there was uncertainty of her status, and no photo of her, ?The Reader? didn?t run my story. I called Sweden about a dozen times but have not heard conclusively either way. She may be a citizen of Denmark or Norway too.

Since the article won?t run I?ve given up my search -- seems there are a dozen or more Katarina Hallgren?s in the greater-Gothenburg region alone -- so until I know for certain I will leave her story up on my website in hopes that she will see it and contact me. But there is, sadly, the possibility that she just hasn?t been accounted for yet.

OPEN SUITCASE OF RELIEF

The original plan was to distribute our several ?Open Suitcases of Relief? to the hardest hit cities in Banda Aceh, Indonesia, but reports of the region being closed to journalists, along with safety issues such as disease, unsafe water, no accommodations, and a discernable threat to foreigners (especially Americans), forced us to choose Thailand as the destination to receive our aid. Our mission was threefold: distribute medical aid, emergency food, and children?s toys; hand out cash donations to worthy recipients; and to produce media spots to set the record straight.

After sitting in on a dozen press conferences at the ASEAN Tourism Forum in Malaysia and at our hotel meeting room in Thailand, the message was clear: ?If you want to help the survivors of the tsunami, please come to the region for a vacation.? Indeed, the entire Andaman region is now suffering from the effects of an ?Economic Tsunami,? as tourism has collapsed this year during the high season. Thailand, Malaysia, India, the Maldives, Sri Lanka, and even Myanmar are practically begging the tourists to return. ?Lightning, like tsunamis, does not strike twice? said a prominent Phuket hotelier, ?It is safe to return.? However the Indonesian government says the Aceh region is closed to all visitors, but the rest of Indonesia is open for tourism. Along with three other journalists, we made arrangements with the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) to provide us access to the tsunami ravaged regions.

Despite arriving five weeks after massive clean up efforts began, Koh Pei Pei, Kamala Beach and Khao Lak still looked like war zones. Only Patong Beach on Phuket Island was starting to resemble its former self. One local village on Pei Pei island was completely abandoned, with the discernable smell of rotting corpses still in the air. Some bodies had obviously not yet been collected. I dared not search myself, but the smell was unmistakable. This village was the saddest experience of all. A cracked clock on the ground displayed the exact time when the wave struck here ? 10:36 am. Children?s toys, kitchen wares and photo negatives of the families were left strewn about. Wood and bamboo huts were uplifted and tossed into trees. It was so sad because there was just no one there anymore. The village was completely wiped out. Unfortunately all the ATMs were waterlogged and not working on Pei Pei, so my final planned donation did not occur. If it?s all right with everyone, I will donate the final $496.72 to the Red Cross (the NGO most locals said did the most for them.)

Most of the cash donations went to Khao Lak, but some were distributed in Phuket as well. The breakdown is as follows:

• 2/2/05: Phuket Tourism Association: Tourism Recovery Center 18,000 bhat = $470.83 to benefit effected families and businesses around the Patong Beach area.
• 2/4/05: Yan Yao Temple $490.00 to benefit the largest monastery that cared for the survivors and attended to the thousands of bodies that came here following the catastrophe. The ID process will continue for a year.
• 2/4/05: Bang Muang Refugee Camp 23,000 bhat = $601.62. Here our interpreter found a local woman who knew all the people who lost family members. She herself lost her husband and sister and was pregnant. I gave her, and eleven other families, 2,000 bhat each (apx. $50, which is a lot to rural Thais). One elderly man lost seven family members. I wanted it to seem fair to all. Besides, how could anyone quantify such losses? Unfortunately, near the end, we were being swarmed with opportunist people who had not lost family members, so we had to go. But the good work was done here ?
• 2/4/05: Bang Muang Temple 16,000 bhat = $418.52 to benefit the second monastery that cared for the living and attended to the thousands of bodies that came here from the north. Most of the ID process will transfer here in the coming weeks to get the smell of the bodies out of Yan Yao near the city.
• 2/5/05: Phuket Sheraton Laguna Relief Fund 10,000 bhat = $261.57 to benefit effected families and businesses around the Bang Tao and Kamala Beach area. All in all $2717.26 was collected and distributed.
  

My large ?Open Suitcase of Relief? was given in its entirety to Takuapa Hospital near Koah Lak beach. Although most hospital victims have checked out, this hospital was instrumental in helping survivors and needed more medical supplies. They graciously accepted my donation.

ENDNOTE:

The localized cleanup and rehabilitation of thousands of victims will take about a year. The three other journalists I traveled with are still in Thailand. Karen Gregory is filming around Phuket Island for her upcoming report on CBS News (email: dreamcatching1@verizon.net); Mike Snow (email: mikesnow@starpower.net) and Darren Moore (email: d@whereisd.net) are still on Koh Pei Pei assisting with the major cleanup effort there. Darren is going to be in the country another two months and he is accepting donations to distribute 100% to the tsunami victims and charitable organizations as I did.

Another group of foreigners doing long-term construction projects in the Khao Lak region: www.tsunamivolunteers.net.? Or, as I must restate again, if you really want to help the people in the tsunami stricken regions, consider a vacation to Thailand, Malaysia, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, the Maldives or India and spend your valued tourist dollars along the stricken Andaman Sea regions. The visible signs of destruction will be gone in a month or two. Besides, the tsunami was limited to only a few select areas. I learned a lot about human nature and the awesome force of nature on this particular trip, and it felt really good assisting the Thais in their time of need.

Note: Brad has?finished his?Tsunami Website is finished: and includes new text and?the best digital photos from the trip.?? He also reports that there is a deficit of funding available for victims in Burma.

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