While I was down in the tsunami-affected areas for a reporting trip last August (that's when Nancy and I took our Phuket Island Big Gay Boat Tour on my day off) I dragged Nancy to a fishing village called Ban Nam Khem in Phang Nga Province, which was hit hardest by the tsunami. The fishing village lost about 1,300 people (official Thai citizens not including the uncounted Burmese migrant workers) a fourth of its population and the army was quick to build an emergency camp called "The Knockdowns," hundreds of temporary two-room houses on stilts -- yup, you guessed it, two families to a house. Anyway, we met this American family who live and work in the camp as volunteer English and art teachers for the school, which was being rebuilt at the time, so it mostly meant them teaching under a roof with no walls to classes of 50 plus kids who just lost a lot. The family itself was fascinating: they are Bruderhoffs, an offshoot of the Mennonites, and when we showed up on a brutally hot summer afternoon they were turned out in bonnets (well the mom was) long sleeved shirts and long skirts (although, come to think of it, the dad didn't wear a skirt either). It's dad, mom and three teenaged daughters and they get BOTH rooms of their knockdown to themselves.

Anyway, this is a drawing one of their kids made in art class. They have walls of them.