Tsunami

Sometimes my nightmares consist of tsunamis, churning waves and drowning.  Often I’m sitting in front of a giant floor-to-ceiling plate glass window looking out at some magnificent view when the waters rise up violently and shatter the glass.  I am caught in the tumbling force of water, somersaulting and sinking. As a child I was told if you die in your dream you die in real life. I now know this isn’t true. I have drowned countless times in countless ways, but for me there’s always an escape – an alarm clock, my cat or just a panicked return to waking.

When I arrived at Koh Phi Phi in Southern Thailand I wasn’t sure how, if at all, it had been impacted by the Tsunami in 2004. I was naive in hoping it had been spared or that maybe just one of the two main beaches was affected, but the island is shaped like a dumbbell with mossy, limestone mountains weighting the ends and anchoring the sandy strip that connects them. Beaches run the length of the strip on both sides. They are divided by a buzzing community of hostels, cart vendors, open air bars, dive shops and local families who live in between. When the waves came they flooded straight across, wiping out everything from beach to beach.

As I walk the island's interior I think about that day. There are no cars here, just a maze of narrow alleys lined with flimsy buildings that block the breeze and corrode beneath the sun. The stone walkways feel like claustrophobic chutes and I wonder where I’d run. The options are limited and my panic seems real.

I watch the locals going about their routines. What was that day like for them? Those here now… those who survived. There's an elderly man sweeping fruit peels from the cobbled path, a teen pushing a towering cart of bottled water, a woman selling ferry tickets to safer shores. Each has a story, a decision, a moment of chance or luck that allowed them to still be here. Their great escape. How? I wonder about their loved ones who didn’t make it. Are they grateful or regretful?  

Just how much does this island grieve beneath the stalls of leather bags and seashell bracelets? Do the tattoo parlors recognize a different kind of pain? I won’t pretend to know the horror or sorrow, but even so I am moved. I am saddened by the immensity of loss. I ache with empathy and compassion. For them it’s ten years past. For me it’s only just today.

I am told it was the tourism community that brought Phi Phi back to life.  That travelers and Western volunteers played key roles in returning to the island to clean up and rebuild.  I’m told it was the dive companies who took charge of clearing the waters, retrieving trash, debris and broken pieces of life from the seabed.

  

Gazing across the bay I can’t imagine how the clean-up was even possible. The volume and scale must have been devastating, the contents of just one mini-mart seems like an overwhelming burden to clear, add to it hundreds more shops, restaurants, hotels and homes. Unlike other holiday communities where locals simultaneously rely on and resent the temporary masses rolling through, I'm told Phi Phi has nothing but gratitude for its steady stream of visitors. Tourists are welcomed and valued as the source of recovery. I can’t say if this is true, but the people are certainly friendly.

Today, there’s not much sign of any of it – just a small family resort built from reclaimed wood with four memorial longtail boats. Each is named in honor of a loved one the owner lost.  The market stalls and massage houses are back as they were before. Pierced college students flirt and chug beer in the sand where churning waters tormented so many. Cats mew and scratch in the trees that survivors clung to in panic. Fire jugglers spin lit batons teasing guests with near misses on beaches where victims fought for air. Pounding rhythms of youthful dance parties wipe out any lasting nighttime echoes. Life has moved on and the locals have appeared to let go. If you weren’t thinking of it you may never know it happened, but that would be a sadder story yet.