not to cry that is. i’m trying but not succeeding in not crying. and please don’t mistake this for an unwillingness to appreciate how lucky i am that i am alive and well and that i’m with family who loves me. i do. i understand that in such a wonderfully full way.
but aside from that – as i watch the news and it gets graver and graver – i am lonely in this uncertain feeling of loss and devestation.
i thought i was ready to write about this but i guess i’m not…
Tags: katrina
so it wasn’t the end of the world as new orleans knows it. folks who had to suffer through my worrisome talk on the road yesterday…repeating all the horrible details of an apocolyptic event that sits in the backs of disaster managment teams assigned to a place that is flanked by water on three sides and is 11 feet below sealevel.
as it turns out there is damage – but the city still stands.
for now things are still up in the air. school is closed AT LEAST until september 7th. i’ll keep checking our website for details of when to expect going back. if it holds i think i’ll go back sunday or monday so that i can assess the damage done. i’ll post any photos of damage that is lingering after i get home.
in the meantime, thanks for all the well wishing, prayers and thoughts…you all rock.
for video footage check out this link:
http://www.wdsu.com/video/4909978/detail.html
on a related note this excerpt from cnn caught my attention as painfully funny – i stress painfully
Van Heerden ticked off the problems anyone returning to the city would find: “no sewage, no drinking water, contamination, threat of rapid increase in mosquitoes, roads are impassible, downed power lines everywhere, trees, debris from houses in the roads, no way to go shopping, no gas.”
The water also has dislodged fire ants and thousands of snakes — including poisonous water moccasins — from their homes.
“If you came back, you would be coming literally to a wilderness,” he said. “Stay where you are, be comfortable; nothing’s going to change. If your house is gone, it’s gone. If you come back in a day or a week, it’s not going to make any difference.” http://www.cnn.com/2005/WEATHER/08/29/new.orleans/index.html
Tags: katrina
…and water and possible toxic waste, human sewage, swamp creatures and uprooted bodies. that is what i did today. 14 hours in a car – and i have only myself to blame. i should have left yesterday but i was tired (a crappy night’s sleep) and i didn’t really think she would be this big. she – in case you’ve missed the news in the last 48 hours – is hurricane katrina. the witch.
all i can summon is foux ferocity. really, at this point i’m just exhausted. after dozing for a few horus i was awaked by a friend around 4:30 – he urged me to leave. jaded by past evacuations that were for naught i turned on the tv to humor him. there was no humor. enter deadpan meterologist saying “get the bleep out of doge”. granted, he didn’t say it in so many words but the message was clear.
so at 5:30 am on sunday i jumped in my car with a few belongings – placing everything else on teh bed or table – not thinking much of it because i live on the third floor. i jetted down to I10west and joined the parkinglot – err contra flow.
in all fairness, the contra flow did work – it was just all us last minute idiots that slowed its roll. but i poked along at 2 miles an hour. it took more than an hour to get to the airport (usually a 10 or 15 minute drive). baton rouge took about 4 1/2 hours, lafayette 7. keep in mind that lafayette is less than 200 miles from new orleans.
at that point i was exhausted. then i got word that 49 was smooth sailing. so jumped three lanes and gunned my little baby onto 49 at the last minute. sure enough i was flying at 80mph headed toward fort worth, my sister, brother in law and neice. and i have been more than warmly recieved. granted it took me 14 hours to get here…but i’m here and i’m safe.
of course now i have time to think about my stuff – my home – my life in the big easy. everyone expects all that to be washed away in 28 foot surges…it is a lonely and specific feeling to know that the things that i took for granted as mine will most likely be lost to the power of mother nature.
it seems fitting that after visiting sri lanka and seeing the devestaion the water visited on her shores that i will soon see my own version of devestation on my shores. i’ll keep you posted as things come up.
in the meantime, forgive any mistakes as i’m exhausted and jittery…oh yeah, and know that my day ended with a fantasic meal with my brother in law and then my car breaking down. i think ti is the transmission.
ingrate i’m not – i’m so very thankful that it broke down in fort worth with my brother and in first so i could drive it to a parking spot…i’ve managed to find the bright spot in it…i’m looking for one in katrina…if i think really hard i guess i could say that now i’ll have less to pack up for my trip to new zealand. see there, bright sides all around.
Tags: katrina
there are any number of reasons why i could rant on and on about pat robertson and his call to off chavez…most of them are no brainers and don’t even need to be repeated (or maybe they do given that he felt comfortable calling for murder on a christian program!)…either way, i’m going to go another route with this story.
hugo chavez.
i was talking to a friend who was disgusted by dear pat’s comments but mentioned in passing that chavez is probably a maniac as well. which got me to thinking…how much do we really know?
the big problem when talking about politicians anywhere is that it is difficult to get to the truth. they tell their story, their opponents tell another story and the media mixes the two together with a few outside opinions and there you have it…a bunch of opinions that people will cling to as fact no matter what.
so i scoured the web searching for information on chavez. mostly i found stuff that links to this current hullabaloo…and i found some stuff that dealt with the problems he (and venezuela) had in 2002 with the strikes and instability…but then i found a piece that was more in line with what a friend of mine – working on his masters in latin america studies- told me. this article talked about, not a communist tie, but radical social reform.
the piece (not a hard news piece) dove into notions of social reform that are more common to places like cuba and sri lanka, but not so much here. things like free medicine, doctors and dentists for the poor, literacy programs, a redistribution of oil wealth that for years was kept to the elite while the masses suffered.
what i feel like pat old boy was trying to get america to “off” was less the man – but more the idea that people should have certain rights just because they were born. clean water, safety, education, health…
i’m in a class called health and development economics – right now we’re discussing how typically GNP/GNI was used to measure development of countries. in the 90s that thinking changed and people started looking at quality of life. the new measurement (physical quality of life index- PQLI) takes into account infant mortality rates, life expectancy, and literacy rates – to health indicators and an education one. the thinking is that those things tell about the way a society is constructed and what people can do within that society. using PQLI sri lanka and cuba fair pretty well, much higher than their sputtering GNPs would indicate.
i can’t help but wonder what amazing things might come out of a country that has the dedication to social issues and a GNP to support it.
in all this talk about pat and chavez and a call to murder…i hope someone brings up just what pat is looking to kill.
Tags: soapbox
looking at the “future” site of this new town emerging out of a thorn tree forest and there are more questions than answers. where will the elephants go? some say this is part of an elephant corridor.
where will people get firewood?
I am torn between the truth about what will sustain and protect people’s environment in the long run and the reality of what i’m pesimisticly certain will be. One of my classmates chimed in knowingly that the builders didn’t accomdate fire ktichens becasue it isn’t good to encourage the use of wood. but with no electricity yet and people with limited funds – what, but firewood, will pepole cook by? already developers have leveled the thorn tree forest to make way for human settlemtn – alreadythe expectation is that elephants should move. and for the human part, the hosues are already cracking. brand new, in the early stages of slow destruction, am i to believe that somone will subsidize fuel?
driving along the coast and the waves are rougher than i imagined. someone explained that the monsoon season is as much about rough waters as it is about rain. i watch the water curl on to itself and pull mightily with such force – dragging it’s feet over it’s head, over it’s feet back to the ocean.
i am interupting my own story of sri lanka to take a breath. i have not really taken a breath since before i left the country. in an effort to capture all the moments – by camera or by pen – to expereince all the wonders – both beach and development – to see all my friends – newly discovered and old ones – i have been running nonstop for four weeks.
it is starting to catch up with me.
all of a sudden my bed seems to be the most beautiful place and my apartment – hotbox that it is – the place i crave to return.
in recent weeks my life has changed. it isn’t noticable to the average roving eye – and probably not even to those who know me well and help me to make my way through the maze of life…but i can feel it. i can see how my life is taking its own path, how the decsicons i make affect that path and how empowering and overwhelming that can be.
i met a man in sri lanka who lost everything in the tsunami. both parents, his home, his business. even his will…for a while. seven months later he is strating to take back the parts of his life that he can. the control, the business, the peace of mind. he buried his parents…went through all sorts of frustration so that he could claim the bodies from the government before they mass buried them…he built his own coffins since there were none available, and he found a place in the forest to lay them to rest. in the coming weeks he will break ground on the new restaurant.
if he can manage the changes of a world that turned on its side after a 40 ft wall of water washed everything familiar away…i can decide what i want to do next…where i want to go.
i’ll fill in the blanks of my trip (hopefully with photos) in the coming weeks, but for now i’m concentrating on the lessons i learned that were not part of the class.
driving along the coast it is unimaginable – despite the footage from tv and stills from anonymous cameras – that a wave taller than most buildings here came ashore. in many ways it is hard to distinguish between poverty and nature’s wrath. but overwhelmingly…when the bricks are strewn and debris is heaped, it is a safe – though alarming – assumption that the ocean did that. of course, why devastation from nature is somehow greater than devastation for any other reason…subsidized housing, waning economies…why are disasters of the elements elevated to some grander scale of solemnity.
***
yesterday in colombo was my first glimpse of the war. the tourist haven of kandy shielded easily the reality of 20 years of conflict but as we wound past the water beating at the shore, through crowded streets stuffed with tuk tuks and flowing saris, we reached a barricaded area. metal grates with spikes slowing our progress. as we wound though. to the right – evidence of past bombings -parts still scorched…unmended. to the right, military police and other soldiers looking alertly around -guns at the ready. and posted at the entrance to the security zone, a bright yellow sign in sinhala, tamil and english warning – in case the guns and blue fatigues weren’t enough – not to take pictures.
***
it’s beyond sticky. my skin as damp as the sheets on the bed, nothing ever dries it seems. the air saturated with a mixture of salt and sand and maybe an urge to forget. driving through town today – meeting after meeting- footage of a disaster of epic proportions, and i didn’t realize – didn’t see – until pointed out – that the bustling dirty bus station with rows of tuk tuks and vendors of fruit and sundry goods – all of that was beneath a wave of salt water saturated with the debris of everyday living. back to normal back to normal back to normal. but the palm trees remember…for now…marked at their tops (the 40 ft mark) with a red tide line.
driving in the interior of sri lanka is like getting around the block by spinning around…you make it eventually, but you are dizzy and tired by the time you arrive. last night’s journey was brutal. winding through lush mountains and playing dodgeball with tuc tucs (three wheele buggy things) “thinking they can” up the winding roads was arduous. not to mention the time factor. only 116 km an it took over 3 hours to get there. there is more of the same tonight. last night we didn’t arrive until after 11 and our morning started at 6…more to come more to come.
***
colombo – for the brief time i’ve been here reminds me of houston. insanely large and mired in traffic. it took us an hour to go a few kms. we were late to our first meeting – a tamil member of parliment. such an intense concept to be sitting in a rooom and listening to people talk about the history and uncertain future of the country.
***
jesus is apparently still white. nestled at most corners or curves in the road, there is usually a statley buddha sitting or standing…serenity, peace, patience. further east the buddhas are balanced by ganesh. but along the coast approaching tsunami country a church straddles the corner – an alcove that usually houses a buddha statue instead houses a pale faced jesus dragging a cross behind him. an intersting contrast.
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