This article focuses on the effort of volunteers in Thailand and Southeast Asia in helping people recover the bodies of their family and friends who died as a result of the tsunami that struck the region. White clouds of smoke from dry ice hover inches above the ground at the Yan Yao Buddhist temple in Takua Pa, Thailand, where the last of the day's decomposed bodies wait in the open air to be tagged. Dressed in a yellow surgical robe, plastic apron, goggles, rubber boots and a breathing mask, Dr. Luba Matic struggles with a young boy's humerus bone, attempting to remove a DNA sample so that someone might one day identify him. At 32, Matic had witnessed death and atrocity in his homeland. Paige Fowler and Chris Pedersen, both 22 and friends from California, had been teaching English in a remote Thai town for only two days when they answered an Internet plea for volunteers and ended up in Takua Pa, nearly 900 miles to the south. The images of the day stay with them as they attempt to sleep on the floor of a hospital with scores of other aid workers.