On Dec 29, 2004, at 12:55, Lynn Carpenter wrote:
David Collyer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Dear Friends,
I must say I've been amazed that in the past 3 days all we can find to talk
about is what Santa brought us, when the world's worst ever natural
disaster has just occurred in the Indian Ocean!
I think it's more a matter of taking refuge in what feels safe and sane,
rather than callousness over what happened.
Thanks Lynn. David, this is *precisely so*. The scope of the disaster is beyond comprehension; within the space of a few hours, Mama Nature managed to polish off as many people as the US Army in Iraq during close to 2 yrs of effort. And it is galling in the extreme, that there's very little one can do about it (either "it", for that matter)...
Happily, when I first heard about the disaster, my second-half-of-the-year checks to the UNICEF and to the Doctors Without Borders had not yet been sent, so I was able to tear them up, double them, write "Tsunami relief" across the accompanying form, and mail them yesterday. But that's *all* I can do, which is very little.
Like Lynn, I don't watch TV; unlike Lynn, I don't listen to the radio, either, and, at the moment, I don't want to. I don't want to twice as much as I didn't want to before; the newspaper is bad enough. I've done all I could; sitting here saying "oy, how terrible" isn't going to change anything or help anyone; I'd much rather pretend life goes on as usual, with Christmas gifts and lace.
If that attitude irks you, David... Well, you're a trained nurse, have no dependents... You can do more than I can: volunteer for in-the-field work out there. Just do it through a recoggnised organisation, not on your own. Part of the problem now is going to be the *un-coordinated* efforts to help, coming from all directions. It has happened in the past that airplanes bearing food and medical supplies had not been permitted to land, because the airports had been too clogged with all the goodwill. Of course, all the rescue workers have to be fed and housed too, along with the millions of the in-situ people who've lost that as well as everything else...
He has already had to deal with the still-strong possibility of his dad
being deployed to Iraq ("Why can't those Iraq people come here?" he asked
me), and now he has to worry that the lake will wash him away. *sigh*
My heart just goes out to the thousands and thousands affected.
And your son is among them, and I'm sorry. Children are always the most affected ones, both in "real time" and in their minds, probably because they're the most helpless of all. My stepson and his three (aged 7-13) are coming tonight and, for once, I'm not looking forward to the visit...
-- Tamara P Duvall http://t-n-lace.net/ Lexington, Virginia, USA (Formerly of Warsaw, Poland)
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