Sea Angels in Rags
17 June 2020
Dear everyone,
We began the old fashioned way: food for our “Sea Angels in Rags” basic Thai reading & writing & arithmetic. Food because literally there was nothing to eat on that island, which the angels chose for us.
Malnourished sick pregnant mums, thus under-fed always hungry children, one in three infants dying in child birth, no medicine. No one on the small island could speak Thai. It was like 100 years ago, only much worse. Their traditional fishing waters had been wrenched/ kidnapped, stolen taken from them, mostly by unfriendly neighboring countries.
Then the Tsunami. Friends of no one, but the Moken ocean folks survived better than most. The evil Tsunami waters and storms did not drown them. Could not deceive them. They survived, but just barely. Their ancients Spirits of the sea whispered to them. Guided them. Let them survive, but not much more. But didn’t give them anything to eat.
We, land dwellers, Bangkok slum folks arrived at Koh Lhao, an island no one else thought worth saving. Didn’t know much about the Andaman Sea, and less about Sea Gypsy folks but were certainly smart enough to see a starving child, hear them crying in hunger and neglect.
We did what we do best. We immediately, set up a kitchen, began a dual language Thai/Moken kindergarten with plenty of food to eat for all the parents who brought their children. And asked them to help cook. Together with this, opened a basic first aid centre. And thus it has been for eleven years.
Old fashioned kindergartens and kitchens with starving mums and malnourished children- sea angels in rags - may not be that exciting in a camera lens, but wow – to see a hungry child ‘burb’ on a full tummy, maybe for the first time in their whole life, and a mum go to sleep right there on the floor, holding her baby, content with a smile on her face, and the baby – a sea angel in rags - sleeping peacefully –
That’s more beautiful that any beauty queen contest in the world.
For eleven years now, we haven’t changed. Have carried on. There is no electricity, - yes, we put in some solar panels four years ago, but they are now wearing out … as things do, although our one room wooden school built on Koh Lhao Island mud flats is still solar ‘well lighted’ A Beacon as it were. …no real path ways, no running water, no cars, no motorcycles, not even bicycles. Kids have to learn to speak, to read and write Thai as the normal language they speak at home is their own Moken tongue. An ancient unwritten language of the seas of our beloved sea faring Moken peoples.
Our trusty loyal staff live in our hostel on the mainland and travel back and forth daily, when weather permits, e.g. the seas are calm. As I write this, we have 17 ‘high school class’ kids living there with us going to Thai government secondary schools.
I said above ‘the old fashioned way’ of Development of a peoples. To care for Sea Angels in rags. There is no other way. And we haven’t changed Don’t plan to. Eleven years ago,
Our team, every school day, still go to the fresh market at four thirty am in Ranong town, buy fresh veggies because you still can’t grow much on this island, then to travel , the Moken sea people look at the sky, look at the wind and waves and tell us IF it be safe to travel by boat or not. If so, travel 50 minutes by ‘put-put’ so called fast boat to the Island – non attractive, no tourist wants to visit. Mud flats, no sandy beaches, not much beauty. Ocean garbage caught by the winds, drifting in with the tides. No real swimming area. But beautiful to us, because of the wooden shanty school built illegally on the outer mud flats there, and kids are learning to read and write and learning old Moken Sea culture and customs of long ago. And also learning Thai.
It’s about our beloved Sea Gypsies -the Moken children, & of course their fisher folk dads and moms. Beloved of us all. And the privilege and honor we have, that they allow us the dignity to serve them and enter into their lives. It’s been eleven beautiful years now / difficult – never an easy day. Never an easy week. Eleven years’ day by day, of traveling side by side with God’s wonderful people whom everyone left behind.’ Forgotten, except for the Tsunami ocean storms. The storms who left them behind / - to survive and asked us to help – remember than all ships rise with the incoming tide.
To finish for now, as one of our Klong Toey Slum angels in Rags said about our Sea Angels in Rags: Help I need Someone
Prayers & Respect Fr. Joe & all of us
----------------------------------------------
The Mercy Centre, a Bangkok-based Catholic charity run by American Redemptorist priest Father Joseph Maier, has been running community enrichment projects in a village of sea gypsies on Koh Lao, a small island in the Andaman Sea.
Over the years the Mercy Centre has initiated various income-earning projects for locals, including commercial vegetable gardens whose produce villagers can sell at local markets. The Catholic charity’s volunteers have also installed gutters on every home in the village so that rainwater can be collected as a clean water source for locals who have no access to potable water.
The Catholic charity also runs free schools for children and provides them with nutritious meals and snacks daily, in addition to various medications, to ensure they remain well fed and healthy.
The Mercy Centre has repeatedly warned of the precarious status and dire situation of Thailand’s sea gypsies, many of whom lack proper citizenship status in Thailand and so are technically stateless people.
“Because of their ambiguous citizenship status, the Moken are denied basic rights such as education and healthcare,” the Catholic charity said in a Facebook post. “Here in Koh Lao (where we have been serving the Moken since the 2004 tsunami) there are no healthcare facilities,” it added. “Hygiene is poor; the children are malnourished; and the village economy runs far below subsistence.”
The Mercy Centre has been working with the provincial government offices, village leaders, teachers and community members to improve the situation of locals. Yet elsewhere around their traditional roaming grounds at sea, many other Moken communities have fallen on hard times.
UCA News reporter, Bangkok
We began the old fashioned way: food for our “Sea Angels in Rags” basic Thai reading & writing & arithmetic. Food because literally there was nothing to eat on that island, which the angels chose for us.
Malnourished sick pregnant mums, thus under-fed always hungry children, one in three infants dying in child birth, no medicine. No one on the small island could speak Thai. It was like 100 years ago, only much worse. Their traditional fishing waters had been wrenched/ kidnapped, stolen taken from them, mostly by unfriendly neighboring countries.
Then the Tsunami. Friends of no one, but the Moken ocean folks survived better than most. The evil Tsunami waters and storms did not drown them. Could not deceive them. They survived, but just barely. Their ancients Spirits of the sea whispered to them. Guided them. Let them survive, but not much more. But didn’t give them anything to eat.
We, land dwellers, Bangkok slum folks arrived at Koh Lhao, an island no one else thought worth saving. Didn’t know much about the Andaman Sea, and less about Sea Gypsy folks but were certainly smart enough to see a starving child, hear them crying in hunger and neglect.
We did what we do best. We immediately, set up a kitchen, began a dual language Thai/Moken kindergarten with plenty of food to eat for all the parents who brought their children. And asked them to help cook. Together with this, opened a basic first aid centre. And thus it has been for eleven years.
Old fashioned kindergartens and kitchens with starving mums and malnourished children- sea angels in rags - may not be that exciting in a camera lens, but wow – to see a hungry child ‘burb’ on a full tummy, maybe for the first time in their whole life, and a mum go to sleep right there on the floor, holding her baby, content with a smile on her face, and the baby – a sea angel in rags - sleeping peacefully –
That’s more beautiful that any beauty queen contest in the world.
For eleven years now, we haven’t changed. Have carried on. There is no electricity, - yes, we put in some solar panels four years ago, but they are now wearing out … as things do, although our one room wooden school built on Koh Lhao Island mud flats is still solar ‘well lighted’ A Beacon as it were. …no real path ways, no running water, no cars, no motorcycles, not even bicycles. Kids have to learn to speak, to read and write Thai as the normal language they speak at home is their own Moken tongue. An ancient unwritten language of the seas of our beloved sea faring Moken peoples.
Our trusty loyal staff live in our hostel on the mainland and travel back and forth daily, when weather permits, e.g. the seas are calm. As I write this, we have 17 ‘high school class’ kids living there with us going to Thai government secondary schools.
I said above ‘the old fashioned way’ of Development of a peoples. To care for Sea Angels in rags. There is no other way. And we haven’t changed Don’t plan to. Eleven years ago,
Our team, every school day, still go to the fresh market at four thirty am in Ranong town, buy fresh veggies because you still can’t grow much on this island, then to travel , the Moken sea people look at the sky, look at the wind and waves and tell us IF it be safe to travel by boat or not. If so, travel 50 minutes by ‘put-put’ so called fast boat to the Island – non attractive, no tourist wants to visit. Mud flats, no sandy beaches, not much beauty. Ocean garbage caught by the winds, drifting in with the tides. No real swimming area. But beautiful to us, because of the wooden shanty school built illegally on the outer mud flats there, and kids are learning to read and write and learning old Moken Sea culture and customs of long ago. And also learning Thai.
It’s about our beloved Sea Gypsies -the Moken children, & of course their fisher folk dads and moms. Beloved of us all. And the privilege and honor we have, that they allow us the dignity to serve them and enter into their lives. It’s been eleven beautiful years now / difficult – never an easy day. Never an easy week. Eleven years’ day by day, of traveling side by side with God’s wonderful people whom everyone left behind.’ Forgotten, except for the Tsunami ocean storms. The storms who left them behind / - to survive and asked us to help – remember than all ships rise with the incoming tide.
To finish for now, as one of our Klong Toey Slum angels in Rags said about our Sea Angels in Rags: Help I need Someone
Prayers & Respect Fr. Joe & all of us
----------------------------------------------
The Mercy Centre, a Bangkok-based Catholic charity run by American Redemptorist priest Father Joseph Maier, has been running community enrichment projects in a village of sea gypsies on Koh Lao, a small island in the Andaman Sea.
Over the years the Mercy Centre has initiated various income-earning projects for locals, including commercial vegetable gardens whose produce villagers can sell at local markets. The Catholic charity’s volunteers have also installed gutters on every home in the village so that rainwater can be collected as a clean water source for locals who have no access to potable water.
The Catholic charity also runs free schools for children and provides them with nutritious meals and snacks daily, in addition to various medications, to ensure they remain well fed and healthy.
The Mercy Centre has repeatedly warned of the precarious status and dire situation of Thailand’s sea gypsies, many of whom lack proper citizenship status in Thailand and so are technically stateless people.
“Because of their ambiguous citizenship status, the Moken are denied basic rights such as education and healthcare,” the Catholic charity said in a Facebook post. “Here in Koh Lao (where we have been serving the Moken since the 2004 tsunami) there are no healthcare facilities,” it added. “Hygiene is poor; the children are malnourished; and the village economy runs far below subsistence.”
The Mercy Centre has been working with the provincial government offices, village leaders, teachers and community members to improve the situation of locals. Yet elsewhere around their traditional roaming grounds at sea, many other Moken communities have fallen on hard times.
UCA News reporter, Bangkok
