Fond memories

One of my best memories in the camp was the Songkran festival mid-April 2005. It's a 3 day water festival marking the start of the rainy season. There are huge waterfights. On this occasion in the camp they lasted for the full 3 days. People covered each other in water and talc and red dye. We went out in pick ups with huge tubs of ice-cold water chucking it over people. Others would line the streets and stop every bike or pick up that went past - soaking all the drivers and pasengers. It's supposed to be a blessing to be soaked. But the water is often ice cold !

The army were doing a lot of construction work in the area at that time so they were also out on their huge trucks with great big hose pipes dreanching everything in sight. It was such a laugh and it was the first time there seemed to be a real lift in people's mood. In some ways it seems like a healthy thing to be playing with water. It seemed like somehow it was healing a lot of people from the fear of water they had since the Tsunami. The community really bonded in the camp at this time.

On the last day we had a sports day and I ended up on the Morgan women's football team... and scored a goal that Michael Owen himself would have been envious of ! Though besides that our opponents were good and we lost! We had proper football shirts though and I had a pair of rather baggy football shorts to wear cos my little running shorts really weren't suitable for the occasion.

The other events were the tug of war and the sack race. I definitely felt it the next day.