As writers, we observe life and report on it.
Here's an email from a friend's son who lives in Japan with his wife. I thought you might find it interesting:
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"We had an appointment to put our money down on the house yesterday but the realtor canceled it and told us to think it over a bit more.
We went to look at the house yesterday and the driveway and stone wall surrounding it were cracked. The tsunami also came up to the wall (about an inch) but didn't enter the yard.
It was amazing. Yesterday was the first time we had been out since the quake. The roads were all cracked, some telephone poles were bent. The supermarket shelves were bare... It looked like the apocalypse.
Apparently, there is no water in Kashima. We are ok because our house uses well water. As long as we have electricity we'll be fine. Speaking of which, they are about to cut our electricity for a few hours as part of a plan because apparently they don't have enough to go around. Anyway, we've opened our house to my co-workers to come and use for showering etc. and so far two have taken us up on it.
There is a lot of conflicting reports and information coming in as far as the power situation and the power plant (about 150 kilomoters north of us) which they are apparently now cooling down with sea water.
Thank you for the donation. Like I said, we are fine, but the images of the devastation up north is horrific.
I have tomorrow off and it's 'wait and see' for Wednesday. "
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The hardest thing I had to do today was make dinner. We have plenty of electricity and plenty of water, and all of our loved ones are safe.
What was the hardest thing you did today (or yesterday)?
This reminds me of my first visit home while I was living in Rwanda. I'd been gone almost a year. My dad said, "While you are here you should research health insurance plans because your monthly premium is the most money I pay out on your behalf each month." (He was paying my bills from my acct, including student loans.)
ReplyDeleteMy reaction was: health insurance? Are you kidding me? Do you understand how I've been living for the past year? Do you understand what the people of Rwanda have just been through? They don't have health insurance. They're lucky to get medical care.
So much of what's important to us here, is really not so important in the grand scheme of things.
I'm sitting behind a desk, air conditioning going, not experiencing any worry other than bills coming due. Yeah, I have it wonderfully good in comparison to those suffering in Haiti, New Zealand and Japan. Suffering like this really shifts our eyes for our own little selfish needs. Thanks for sharing this.
ReplyDeleteI've been through hurricanes (two in 3 weeks) where we didn't have power for days and it was really hot here in Florida. I got tired of boiled dinners on my little hot plate (hot dogs, tortellini). But that was it -- a few days, and everything was back to normal. I just can't imagine how long their "not normal" will be.
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