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By Patpicha Tanakasempipat
MAE SAI, Thailand (Reuters) – Happiness is a birthday cake, a rice meal at the hog's joint, a hot bed and a trip to buy a new mobile phone.
Duangpetch Promthep, the captain of the Thai men's soccer team saved last week from a flooded cave, during his first hours at home.
"My bed was hot," says the 13-year-old. The 12 boys, aged 11 to 16, and coach of the 25-year-old Wild Boars football team, returned home Wednesday after leaving the hospital and appear on national television to describe their ordeal in the cave of Tham Luang
"When I returned home, there were so many people waiting for me, I was very surprised", said Dom, who was greeted by relatives from as far away as China. ] His first meal was cooked knuckle of pork on rice, a dish that he wanted to eat while he was stuck in the cave, where the boys had no food for days and survived only on water dripping stalactites.
Dom also blew candles for a belated celebration of his 13th birthday on July 3, one day after the boys were found by two British divers about 4 kilometers
Authorities requested that boys be allowed to to recover at home, away from the public eye, to return to their normal lives
Dom, who lives with his aunt, uncle and grandmother. , wrote on Facebook that he had to create a new account because of an increase in requests for friendship with him. He also bought a new cell phone to replace the one he lost in the cave
. Returning to normal means homework on the weekend and playing football after school, says Thanabad Promthep, Dom's aunt whom he calls his mother.
"He is a very good student," she said, adding that it meant no girlfriend for another two years.
The boys undertake a study course this month to become novice Buddhist monks, in the honor of Samarn Kunan. , a volunteer diver and a former Thai Marine SEAL member who lost his life during the mission to save them.
"It's a very important thing to do," Dom says.
Thais see the team as national treasures. the boys and the coach are technically stateless
Mongkol Boonpiam, 13, whose parents are from neighboring Myanmar, could benefit from citizenship as there is evidence that he was born in Thailand, declared a person in charge of his file. "Even though his parents are not Thai, they have been in Thai" Kittichai Charoenying, a municipal official in the northern province of Chiang Rai, told Reuters.
The cave trial highlighted the fate of people in Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar living in Thailand who are denied certain rights. opportunities because they are not citizens.
More than 486,000 people are registered as stateless with the Thai government, according to official data. Of these, 146,269 are – as three of the "Wild Boars" football team – under 18 years old.
Rights activists accuse the bureaucracy of slowing down the verification process in Thailand, but the authorities have promised to cross the four famous ones.
(Additional report by Jirabad Kuhakan in MAE SAI and Panarat Thepgumpanat in BANGKOK, edited by Amy Sawitta Lefevre, Darren Schuettler and Clarence Fernandez)
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