Toilets, a Garden, and a Water Filter

Through late 2011 Philip settled into the practical grind of island life: rehabilitating broken toilets, germinating seeds in wet toilet paper to interest children in a vegetable patch, and (with a visiting Australian/American team part-funding it) building a water filter. He also began encouraging Moken parents to send children to the local Thai school — ferrying up to around 10 children daily by motorbike and trailer across a tidal channel on a precarious raft. The fatigue of carrying too many roles ("teaching, agriculture, medical, spiritual") is an honest recurring note.