Thursday, December 30, 2004

And that's not counting the missing. Or those poor villagers on islands nobody has taken a census of. There's so much death going on in the world, it doesn't really hit you until you're forced to stare at it in the face. And consider each of these 80 763 as individuals with father, mother, son, daughter, best friend, dog, boyfriend, fiancee, wife, schoolmates, teachers and dreams. And you wonder what happens to all these people now that a loved one is gone. Or many loved ones. How you would feel if your whole family was wiped out - right in front of you. And there's no way to take revenge - how do you revenge the sea? The earth? God? Where was God when this happened? Did He let it happen? Make it happen?

You look at all this destruction in the papers - read the stories of those who have lost loved ones, or who are looking for them. Then you put the paper down and look around you. And you see - nothing. Nothing to show that anything has changed. That maybe 100 000 people have been swept away, less than a day's plane ride away. We are so protected - economically, politically, socially, religiously even - and now we know geographically. Not that we didn't know before - just that we never realised to what extent. That our cousins and friends just a few kilometres away can be facing a situation where there is no hope - and that we can be facing a situation which doesnt appear to have changed.