Education = Knowledge + Exposures

As my mind linger on education, my mind was brought back to the scene in Koh-Hlau.

There was another tiny island that I visited in that trip. Because the whole island was totally wiped off by Tsunami, it appeared to be clean while compare with Koh-Hlau. A washed away freshness, the village was newly built. The attap houses were fairly new. No rubbish on the sand, or under the house. Not many men left in that village. Most died in Tsunami, some died in the sea. The remaining few went out for fishing in the deep sea, and will not return for a month or two.

The children were inactive, with their bounced out stomach which I afraid that would be mostly the work of parasites, their eyes were curious. When you make a funny face, they will giggle, and turn away.

There was a child, wandering in her naked body. Sometimes she screamed, sometimes she was violent, sometimes she was just a doll. She spit. She looked so tiny, I thought she was only seven.

The villagers told us about her story. They believed that she was demon possessed. Both her parents died. That was one night, she disappeared. When the villagers found her, she was on the mountain, and she was crying. Her mom tried to kill her too, she dug a hole, and buried her alive. Because of the limited of languages, (they speak Moken, and our interpreter was Thai worked with Mokens) we could not get the sequence right.

Hmm... supernatural agencies. There was a lot of hatred in her eyes. She was thirteen. She was insane. What had driven her to this madness? What had happened to her? Demonic or consequences of wrong human doing?

People's explanations for their health and illness are complex. We are able to think about health using the language of scientific medicine because that is part of our cultural heritage. Our common sense could be very different with what other societies and cultures believe.

Treatments would be so different under different perceptions. Ways of thinking about health and disease reflect the basic preoccupations of society, and dominant views of society and the world.

I believe, in this situation, education is a measure that will bring light and hope to these people. Education will work! Plus a clinic to provide basic care for the people. Proper wound treatment will prevent loss of lives in these people.

I felt strange, things that are most common to us, things which we didn't even care, became the most precious things in other societies and cultures. Simple medications like Iodine, was not even available in that place. I was like a stranger, evaluating, learning as I observed.

Knowledge of the existence of "other" society had never caused such impact in me. But the exposure to it did create a strong impact in all of us who participated.

The knowledge did not change our behavior or attitude, but exposure did change us. I think it was same with the Sea-gypsies and the Thai people that we worked with. The knowledge about some strangers coming in to the village would not make a change. But the exposure of being loved and cared did make a change in their lives.

Education, is Knowledge + Exposure.