Reviving the Old Moken Soap

The October holidays brought a Christian Surfers camp in Phang Nga province — Philip and seven boys, a surfboard each on the back of the bakkie — and a spell of hard work upgrading the garden with a sea-wall and shade-net so it could survive the heat and salt.

In November a friend sent simple soap-making materials, and as Philip taught the children, the Moken revealed something he hadn't known: before they ever bought soap, they made their own, milled from a forest seed. The children went hunting for it, the elders guiding them, and the milled powder worked beautifully — washing away oil and scent and leaving them clean. A partner in Phang Nga was thrilled and urged marketing it as traditional Moken soap. But the seeds wash down from the forest with the rains, and they had found only the last of the season's; so they wait, patiently, for the next. It was a small act of the very thing Philip had vowed to do — recover, rather than erase, what is the Moken's own.

Wud and Tine, the tuck-shop boys, had earned a bag of coins and needed somewhere to save it. That ran straight into a wall: the banks don't recognise the Moken residency ID, because the Moken are not counted as residents of Thailand. After a search through a string of banks, one finally agreed to open accounts — but only by treating the boys as foreigners, with all the rules that entails. Philip grieves the government's refusal to see the Moken as belonging. Still, the two now have their own accounts; the Sunday gatherings keep growing, the children no longer shy to take part; and the village celebrated Loi Krathong under the full moon.