Archive for February, 2011

There are two parts to this blog, but if you bear with me you will see where I am coming from and how both parts are linked.As mentioned in my previous blog I have been ( and still am) working on our little cottage in a very remote part of  the country…well away from the distractions of Television, Telephone and the Internet. Without doubt it would be the ideal lifestyle for those wanting to escape the realities of city living however to me it is a protracted and often at times a daunting job including the finding of active Rats nests , petrified ( well almost) opossums under the floorboards caught in Gin Traps and being subjected to acrid and unpleasant dust and  paint fumes especially one called pigmented sealer.

But all this is nothing compared to the abject misery being suffered by our close neighbours and friends on the Eastern seaboard of Australia.For some they have in recent times suffered bush fires, drought, and within the last month a one in a 200 year flood that encompassed  an area the size of Germany and France combined.

Only tonight, in fact as I type , Northern Queensland is about to be hit by a cyclone the size of  biblical proportions…..winds of nearly 300 kms an hour, huge storm surges and an eye of the storm that in time lapse an amazing one hour of eire silence and stillness.

The storm stretches close to 1500 km in length and its velocity will be felt some 900 kms inland despite it losing some of its intensity.

On this evenings news a young lady was interviewed and she made the comment of saying she had just left Brisbane where she had been flooded out in the massive floods, hoping to escape to a more settled and idyllic lifestyle near Cairns in North Queensland.( the epie centre of the cyclone I have just described) What really made this news story was that she was from Christchurch New Zealand , from which she had left ( escaped from) having been subjected to some 4,000 after shocks  from the initial 7.1  October earthquake.

We all can only take so much in life  and we all feel the need to want to escape. Some times fear, or maybe the loss of prized possessions  makes us want to move to more pleasant surroundings. A place where we can escape to and hopefully make a new life and a new beginning , a place where the future will be better than the past , where hopefully in time the memories of the painful past will be erased  or in computer terms “minimized”.

One  news item that was largely overshadowed by the Australian floods , was  the devastating floods that occurred at the same time in Southern Brazil not far from the city of Rio de Janerio. From news reports a mountain area had received an abnormally large amount of rainfall  in a very short time, which washed down the  mountain side  drowning over a thousand residents in the villages below.

Having been in the area near to the disaster  on three occasions we have a pretty good idea of  what the terrain was like and the what the  aftermath of such a tragedy would be.The loss of loved ones in such circumstances must be unbelievably sad and indescribable .To lose absolutely everything from a ” possession ” point of  view and know that you are on your own as the government unable or refuses to compensate you in any way would make life intolerable  .

So why so little sympathy for the people of Southern Brazil? Maybe because Brazil is so far away, and not a lot is known ( by some) of Brazil’s culture and its people.

We seem to be inundated  with the constant  news of disasters.It is questionable whether there are more now than say 40 years ago. Maybe we are just more aware of them in the twenty first century .

But whatever or where ever the tragedy is, the very least we can do is to show empathy with those who have been affected , as one thing is certain if it was to happen to us it would be a life changing experience.

How we recover from such trauma requires exceptional fortitude that comes from deep within. It is not a learned behaviour but rather a tenacity that is God given.

Our thoughts and prayers are with the many in all parts of the world experiencing trauma at this point and time. Stay safe .

I will write again soon

Lindsay Walker

7th February 2011.