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MAK’S WORLD

Mak’s Story

Bucks County Courier Times
By Joan Sara Klatchko

Seven year-old Mak was at the temple in town with her aunt’s family when the tsunami hit.  Everyone who was at the temple survived, her uncle said, fixing his squid trap. “And everyone who didn’t, died,” he added, a bit unnecessarily. On that day, Mak lost her parents, and 7-month old brother, and most of her relatives.

The Moken or sea gypsies, are seafaring people in Thailand who maintain a semi-nomadic way of life. Mak and her family share a deep familiarity with the Andaman Sea, but nobody had ever remembered anything like the tsunami.

“Everything went dark, the aunt said.  “There was no electricity. We came back, and everything gone. There was no house, we couldn’t even tell where the house had been.” Worried that another wave would come, the family ran to the hills, where they lived in a refugee tent camp for the next month. But that first night, they slept under the trees, with no food, water, or light. People were crying, children screaming and everything was dark. And Mak?  She cried when told that her parents and brother had died, and then she went into shock, slept deeply for 24 hours, followed by a period when she couldn’t sleep.

 And now, two years later, she is quiet, with the kind of reserve hoisted on a child who knows that her world can change in a minute, who knows that her role in a ‘family’ now exists on the periphery, not the center. And in spite of – or maybe because of – these circumstances, she is an extraordinary student, with a real love of learning, and ability to focus on her schoolwork.  The tragedies in her young life have given her a real compassion for others: she’s the one who voluntarily helps the teacher, who hands out papers, who takes the younger ones to the bathroom. And she’s the one who still gets frightened when she hears talk of the tsunami.Most kids who suffered from the tsunami received a scholarship. Government subsidies, free school lunches, but Mak’s situation was complex. To start, she had no id card. When the tsunami swept away houses, it also swept away identity papers, legal plot papers, etc. And then – nobody really wanted her.

The group, ‘We Love Thailand’, quickly founded to help kids just like Mak, provided schooling and care until she qualified for primary school, but according to the principal, Mak was the worst case she’d ever seen. “When she has an ear infection, the family either didn’t have the money – or refused to pay – for medical treatment. Inside the house, there are only a few mattresses in the concrete rooms, and piles of clothing – but none for Mak. She wears her cousin’s discarded clothing. She had no toys – nothing of her own. And the principal paid for Mak’s transport to school with her own money – and bought her extra food, since the child is undernourished.

And that’s when the donation started to burn a hole through my money belt!