Return to the Sea: A Profile in Recovery

by Jason Rolan

On a recent visit to Khao Lak to survey for our Voluntourism initiative, I had the great fortune to meet Reid Ridgway, Director of the Ecotourism Training Center. The Center is a very new addition to the Khao Lak area. It is a non-profit organization which is working to help survivors of the deadly tsunami gain training as environmentally-sensitive guides and divemasters in order to be able to earn an income.

The center is quite successful in training its 18 students and even manages to give them a small monthly stipend as they have little time to work outside of the training. Alongside the diving, the students study English and Computer Skills. As the students learn to harness the power of new media (presentations, videos, websites, etc.), then they will be able to present a bold face for the future of Khao Lak after the tsunami.

Reid and the Students on a Field Lecture

JR: Tell me a little about your background and what brought you to Thailand?

RR: I was running a communications business in the States for 13 years, mostly biz to biz marketing and branding materials for the high technology sector, but other clients as well including entertainment companies and major record labels such as MCI and EMI. We did a lot of CD-ROM titles and computer based presentations for clients. I came to Thailand after my wife and I divorced. I was emotionally shattered in the proceedings and from the loss of my home. My business kind of followed suit due to many factors, but chiefly that I was too depressed to continue that life. I just didn't know why I should continue. But I came here to get as far away from that life as possible and I did. I became a dive instructor here and picked up a lot of freelance writing for local magazines and newspapers. And I'd go home and work for a few months when I needed to see my family and pick up some extra money.

JR: Have you always been an avid diver? How did you begin?

RR: Diving was always going to be for me. I'm a major junkie of Jacques Cousteau, Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom, and now Discovery and Animal Planet. I watched every show about underwater life they put on TV. My stepfather is a Marine Biologist and my Dad is Veterinarian so I love wildlife, and animals and nature. But I never started diving until my honeymoon in Hawaii about 12 years ago. And it didn't take a serious turn until after the trouble with my marriage when I went out an bought all the best dive gear and started disappearing on a regular basis. It was the only way I could really get away from my life and the people who were making it difficult. Down there no one bothers you and you can't answer your cell phone. So you just finally relax and feel OK again. I love diving. It may have saved my life.

Studying Mangrove Ecology

JR: During the terrible Boxing Day Tsunami, where were you? What did you see?

RR: I was in Rawai, Phuket. I was chatting online with my daughter in California. She's 25 and I raised her as a single parent since I was 18 years old. So we are quite close. Her name is Yevonne. Someone called on the telephone screaming at us to leave our house, that water was coming. Nam Tuam, Nam Tuam, Water too much! I was perplexed and not yet alarmed as it was a beautiful sunny day and I didn't think there was and dam above us in the hills that would have broken, but then I remembered reading online that there had just been an enormous earthquake, biggest ever recorded sort of headline flash. I still had connection so I looked at the map and where it happened and I realized it was a Tidal Wave. Like idiots we drove down to check it out and almost got swept up in the second wave. But we zipped uphill on a motorbike and watched the speedboats and longtails come flying up on shore and crash into the beachfront restaurants and bungalows. It wasn't terrifying though. In fact it was fairly mild where we were, and I kind of thought that people were overreacting and panicking for nothing. We didn't see anyone get hurt, just stuff getting wrecked, but we decided to go up high anyway and drove up to the lookout point. There we sat and watched and just generally were isolated and uninformed of how bad it had hit in other places. It was reported on TV that night that only 165 people had died in Thailand which was a lot, but not surprising.

Then the next day I went into Kata and Patong and that changed my feelings. It was totally a different thing and I began to realize that the magnitude changed drastically from place to place and that there was simply no way that death toll could be close to accurate. I went back and was glued to the TV which was all in Thai, but the numbers climbed and they started talking about Khao Lak, and I started to fear for my friends in the dive shop I freelanced for. My best friend Nui, was up there and so I took off for Khao Lak on the 28th, two days after. I hadn't heard anything and was panicking myself now.

Beach Cleanup Still Continues to This Day

JR: After the tsunami, what sort of response was there from the "big name" NGOs in the Khao Lak area?

RR: Honestly I saw only the DVI (Disaster Victim Identification) teams from Holland, a few Doctors Without Borders, and a Christian Science group from the States in the first phase. The other big names were down where the media attention was hot, like at the Phuket Hospital and so forth, pitching media tents. But for the first 3 weeks after it seemed like only the Thai Army and the grassroots community people like ourselves were delivering any real aid to anyone. The emergency phase was over before the others finally got here and when they finally did get here they held meetings. The big brand names are all here now, but they mostly run around in donated vehicles that say "we care" and hold meetings with the people who actually are doing things. Then, if they think the program will be good for their brand to support they step in (with as little money as possible) and pose for pictures and take credit for the project. That's kind of how I see it. I'm sure some of them have done some real projects, but for the life of me I haven't seen anything too impressive, and I've been all over the place with my video camera looking and documenting the entire time since it all went down. The big NGOs are kind of a big dark scam I think, and are really just one way reduction valves, taking in billions and outputting only thousands. I add up all the money that I hear is in their hands and allocated for this region and this disaster, and I figure with the 400 Million in just the hands of one of these big NGOs that surround us, that particular entity could fund 4000 ETC projects like mine helping some 100,000 people with jobs, training, and hope. All of them together could fund some 20 thousand programs like mine (helping some half a million people with same). 

But there's only one ETC project and none of them have shared any of their funds with us. We remain ignored and struggling to survive our first year in the midst of a billion dollar storm of money donated for the relief and recovery of this area. (The very task that we are performing so well.) It's hard to fathom, and a big mystery to us. We're like a flower growing up through a crack in the sidewalk. But that's our story, and you can quote me. I've got a great documentary in the works and it will illustrate the good, the bad, and the ugly. But mostly the good, because it's about our program—and not about the NGOs. They will be mostly absent in the story, but will not go unmentioned, because they've been mostly absent when it comes to pitching in on the task of recovery. We've got a great sequence or two that says it all.

JR: When did you decide to create the Ecotourism Training Center? How did that come about? Why did you feel the call to help?

RR: When I got to Khao Lak there were 600 bodies under the tent right next to the dive shop. The shop was gutted and I began to shake and fear the worst but fighting believing that my friends were gone. I got an SMS right then and it was from my friend, the shop manager, and it said "ok". I stayed and helped in the Wat, but we were not equipped to handle the work, and I had to leave after seeing and photographing thousands of corpses over 2 days. We went back with the smell of the dead in our ears and eyes and our clothing. You couldn't wash it off in the shower. It was so horrible. We started doing emergency relief work and I put out the call to family and friends to help us help people. We started working in the camps and giving emergency supplies, but after 3 weeks we decided to create a program to employ people and to get them out of the camps and a permanent state of helplessness. The ETC was our idea.

Learning in the Center

JR: How did you choose this first class of students? On graduation, what all will they be capable of?

RR: We interviewed many and recruited them from talking with the heads of each relief camp and telling them about the program and asking them to recommend honest hardworking young men and women to take the interview. We went with the help of a human resources expert who designed an interview strategy and he helped interview the first batch in person. The program is a comprehensive training program to give them specific and related skills in the Ecotourism Industry. English Language, computer skills, and Scuba Diving. But it's really more that just that because we are able to teach them about business and marketing and the natural environment as their product. We believe that when people are clearly connected to the environment to make their living they will understand the need to protect it. So it's a environmental education and it's linked with many like minded groups and individuals who give their time to the program and the students as well. It pretty slick and the students are growing and learning at an amazing pace. They are into it.

JR: Tell me about some of your students?  What sort of dynamic does the group have as a whole?  Had they ever done any diving before?

RR: We have 3 divemasters in the program to help train the beginning divers and bridge the language barrier. Those divemasters will graduate as Open Water Instructors, a position out of reach for most Thai people, and they can then certify and train new Thai divemasters from there. We will bring all the others to professional divemaster in the 9 months they are with us. The dynamic is very rich and very strong. They are really good people and it's a gas to see them growing and sticking together. They're also pretty thick friends by now. It's wonderful.

JR: How supportive have other organizations (i.e. NGOs, governments, private companies) been so far?

RR: We have grown up like a weed in the cracks of the sidewalk. We have the one of the most visible, productive, and well run programs in the area, and not one NGO has given us a penny. We are nearly 90% funded through individual contributions from kind people who saw what we were doing and just helped out. But it can't be sustained and must eventually get funded from the money in the hands of the big brand name relief agencies. We just don't understand it, but we are doing it in spite of being utterly ignored by all the big money.

Diving Practice in the Andaman Sea

JR: What are some of your biggest obstacles? And what needs are most pressing?

RR: We need additional staffing quite badly, we are both on collision course with burn out and fatigue and we need help with in the ETC itself. We need to raise more money but now we teach all day and organize activities and the rest of the time we answer inquiries from the media. But we just can't find the time to chase the red tape and bureaucracy and documentation needed to persuade the big NGO's they should help us. We need a transport vehicle to transport our students to dive, to clean up and restore the beach and undersea, to visit the forests and to generally get around. We spend a lot on renting 3 small trucks or jeeps to get them to the places they need to be to learn. We need a compressor and more cylinders for our dive program. And we need to raise the money to provide scholarships to the new batch of students next year.

JR: What dreams do you have for the center in the future? And for your students?

RR: I dream that we can make the center a permanent installation and that it changes the way Thai nationals are represented in the Ecotourism industry. I think they deserve a larger stake in the marketing and sales of their natural treasures. And I believe by achieving that expanded stake, that they will work hard to protect the product. And that's good for the planet. If they don't have a stake in it, why should they care? For my students I dream that one day one or several of them will form their own Ecotourism companies and be active in the fight to preserve nature in Thailand. I dream that one or several of them return to teach the new students of the program and maybe one of them becomes the director of the ETC as I move on to something new.

Relieve. Recover. Rebuild.

JR: Anything else you'd like to add?

RR: Thanks for helping us. You rock Jason.

JR: No Reid, you guys rock.

To learn more about The Ecotourism Training Center, visit www.etcth.org. They are always looking for benefactors who can sponsor students or even volunteers who can teach courses. If you can help, even a little, please do.