writer: peter ylitalo leppa
photographers: thomas hommeyer
linda cullen
“What does fishing mean? ...
It’s their life.”
—gary dahl, country director
american refugee committee |
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To the fishing villages huddled along the coasts of Thailand, the Andaman Sea has been a primary source of sustenance. For countless generations, fishermen have deposited their sweat and toil into this liquid bank to withdraw a living. But fishing means more than a living to these villagers. “What does fishing mean? What does farming mean to a farmer?” asks Gary Dahl, Country Director of Thailand for the American Refugee Committee (ARC). “It’s their life.” Indeed, in these villages, fishing is the hub around which everything else revolves. Women can be seen making ropes, sinkers and floats, which they assemble into nets and traps. The fishermen then take these tools to sea and heave them overboard. These men spend long hours on their boats, sometimes staying out all night. When they return with their catch, the women meet them on the shore, untangle the fish and begin to prepare the catch for the market as well as for the dinner table. Other women busy themselves with the task of mending and maintaining the nets, after which they are returned to the fishermen for another dip in the sea.
On December 26, 2004, the sea swept over these villages and reduced them to rubble. As the last waves finally sank back into the sea, they left a trail of disaster in their wake. The wreckage from thousands of houses lay halfburied in the sand, each of these once home to a family. In some cases, even the families were swept away. For those who survived, the prospect of continuing living on seemed daunting. Among the wreckage strewn over beaches and floating in the water were the skeletons from thousands of fishing boats. As if the human losses weren’t bad enough, the wave had also demolished the primary tool of survival for any fisherman—his boat. At the time the tsunami struck, ARC had already been working in Ranong, one of the two hardest hit Thai provinces. Though most of ARC’s work had been with Burmese refugees further inland, the devastation of the tsunami called for immediate cooperation among aid groups in and around these provinces.
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| Within 48 hours, ARC connected with other organizations and immediately mobilized a team to be dispatched to the coast to assist in the emergency. Upon arrival they distributed clinical supplies, tended to the wounded and provided a mental health specialist for the bereaved. |
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Over the next few weeks, ARC, the Thai government and other partners conducted Rapid Needs Assessments that revealed the depth of the destruction. Nam Khem, one of the most severely impacted villages, had an estimated 805 of 845 houses destroyed, and 1,500 people were killed, more than a third of Nam Khem’s total population.
But the assessments would reveal another number that would prove staggering in the long term. In Ranong and neighboring province Phang Nga, nearly a thousand fishing boats had been destroyed. In communities predominantly dependent on fishing, this constituted a crippling blow to local economies. Without boats, fishermen could not fish. Without fish, they could neither eat nor sell at the market to provide for the basic needs of their families.
Here was the challenge for villagers and aid organizations alike: aid could only go so far when the underlying infrastructure had been so completely devastated. |
| According to Dahl, at one of the early distributions he and a group of other officials had been discussing how best to approach the needs of impacted villagers.They agreed that the immediate emergency would be addressed quickly, and a colleague at the Thai Ministry of Public Health advised Dahl to focus on more long-term needs, such as livelihoods. This meant rebuilding boats, and through this process, rebuilding communities. |
| “I need to go back fishing.” |
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According to Dahl, it was just coincidental that directly after this, he felt compelled to approach an elderly villager who had been watching from a short distance. Stepping away from the officials, Dahl sat down to talk with the old fisherman, who had just been released from the hospital, his head still wrapped in bandages. His wife had been killed in the tsunami. His boat had been destroyed. In response to Dahl’s question, “What do you need?” the man replied simply, “I need to go back fishing.”
In meetings throughout the affected regions, this sentiment was echoed again and again: livelihoods, fishing and boats. ARC listened and acted accordingly.
“[Rebuilding fishing boats] wasn’t my idea or anyone else’s idea,” said Dahl, “it was just listening to people in the community. They knew what they needed.” |
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