Boys ask for less homework in ‘touching’ notes
mae sai — Scrawled deep inside a mountain in northern Thailand, heartwarming fragments of communication from trapped youngsters have reached families keeping vigil for two excruciating weeks at the entrance to the cave complex.
Players from the “Wild Boar” football team wrote short notes in the gloom, reassuring parents and relatives, making affectionate jokes and expressing hopes of being reunited in the near future.
“Love to Mum, Dad and my little brother,” reads one note from 15-year-old Phiphat Photi — who is better known as “Nick” — given to a diver on Friday along with the other letters and released the next morning on the Thai Navy Seal Facebook page.
“If I get out, please can you bring me some grilled meat and vegetables?”
“I love you, Dad, Mum and my sister. You don’t need to be worried about me. I love everyone!” wrote Pheerapat, nicknamed “Night”, who turned 16 underground.
The letters provoked a surge of emotion from families, who first endured nine long days before
their children were found dishevelled and emaciated but alive on Monday — and now face an agonising wait for a dangerous evacuation.
“I am so happy to see his letter, his handwriting. I’m almost crying,” Night’s mother Supaluk Sompiengjai told
“It doesn’t matter how long I wait as long as he is safe.”
She may have some way to go. It is still unclear how the boys will be rescued from the range of dangerous options on the table, as the country holds its breath hoping for good news.
“Please don’t worry,” the boys said in a collective message before each wrote short personal messages to their loved ones. “We’re
all healthy and strong. There’s so much food we want to eat when we get out. We want to go straight home,” they wrote.
However, the fate of the boys trapped in the Tham Luang cave complex in northern Chiang Rai province remained unclear. Narongsak Osottanakorn, Chiang Rai’s former governor, told reporters their best chance yet to free the party could be in coming days before heavy rains set in, although he did not give a precise timeframe for a rescue attempt.
The boys, however, were already looking ahead and appealed to their schools not to be too hard on them.
“Teachers, please don’t give too much homework,” they wrote.
The correspondence was posted on a Thai Navy SEALs Facebook page early on Saturday that said the letters were brought out on Friday night.
It has not yet been possible to patch phone calls through the limestone hillside.
The boys’ parents wrote their own notes, telling them they were greatly missed and urging them to take care and remain strong.
Given the complexities of rescuing the boys, some of whom can’t swim, other options include laying an oxygen line to keep them alive during Thailand’s monsoon season, which could last for months, or drilling a shaft down into the cavern.
“Please don’t worry, Dad and Mum, I’m only gone for two weeks. I’ll help Mum with the shop every day I can. I’ll be there soon,” wrote Ekarat Wongsukchan, or Bill, the 14-year-old goalkeeper of the Wild Boars Academy team.
The boys’ plight has coincided with soccer’s World Cup, the sport’s major event that is being played in Russia.
Football’s world governing body, Fifa, has offered to fly the Thai boys and their coach to the World Cup Final in Moscow on July 15 if they are rescued before then. Attempts to install a phone line to allow the trapped boys to speak to their families have so far failed. —
Please don’t worry. We’re all healthy and strong. There’s so much food we want to eat when we get out. We want to go straight home. A collective message from trapped boys I am so happy to see his letter, his handwriting. I’m almost crying. It doesn’t matter how long I wait as long as he is safe. Mother of a boy