No Christmas break for Thailand’s tsunami clean-up

By Ed Cropley

KOH PHI PHI, Thailand (Reuters) – For 28-year-old Canadian
nurse Sandra Hodge, Christmas was spent just like every other
over day the last 10 months — sweating away under a tropical
sun cleaning up debris from the Indian Ocean tsunami.

But on the eve of the disaster’s first anniversary, Hodge,
veteran of a foreign volunteer movement instrumental in
rebuilding the Thai paradise isle of Phi Phi — backdrop to
cult backpacker movie “The Beach” — finally has her eye on the
exit.

“It’s been fantastic,” she said, mopping the sweat from her
brow with a pair of grimy workman’s gloves.

“Everybody has given so much time and energy and now their
Christmas to help out. But after this, I’ve got to go off and
earn some money. Volunteering has been amazing but it doesn’t
pay,” she said.

Under a blazing sun, around 30 volunteers of all ages
beavered away picking up litter, erecting tents and cleaning
chairs in one final push to ready the island for Monday’s
planned mass commemoration of its estimated 700 tsunami
victims.

One of the worst-hit parts of Thailand, where 5,395 people
died, Phi Phi received little to no official help in
rebuilding, leading to rumours of the government and
businessmen conspiring to turn the entire island into a
$1,000-a-night luxury hideaway.

As word spread along the backpacker trail and across the
Internet that an iconic tourist playground was under threat, an
army of everybody from Australian computer boffins to Irish
plasterers emerged to clean up the island for free.

At its height, the volunteer movement, which effectively
operated as colony for hippies with a work ethic, boasted more
than 120 people at any one time and over the last 10 months
roped in around 5,000 people, Hodge believes.

Even though things have slowed down since August with the
island gradually regaining its mantle as an “anything goes”
retreat for young European travellers, the desire of tourists
to “do their bit” remains.

“It’s very hot work but it makes you feel much better about
going out in the evening,” said 32-year-old Briton Amanda
Rukin, who is on a month-long holiday to Thailand.

For others, the backdrop of Phi Phi’s towering jungle-clad
cliffs, white-sand beaches and azure waters — themselves
cleaned up by teams of volunteer divers — make even the most
mundane of chores bearable.

“Today we are cleaning up and doing what has to be done,”
said 62-year-old child psychotherapist Judy Jeffreys from
Oregon in the United States, wandering around the beach with a
plastic garbage sack.

“But this afternoon, I will be going for a swim and then
having a pina colada. Life is still good.”