TSUNAMI

Tsunami

Some things the tsunami that ravaged South Asia and parts of East Africa taught me:

1. Human beings are so naive to think that air travel has made the world a global village. All along, Mother Nature has known this little speck in the universe to be at most a global village. She merely pops up a side of a piece of the jigsaw that forms the Earth's crust and unfortellable misfortune befalls the world's inhabitants.

2. If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans. Or better still, tell him how you fail to plan.

3. Perhaps God and Lucifer are one and the same. Don't get me wrong here. I'm not trying to be blasphemous. But if you are seething over the first statement of this point, you have just proven my point. Otherwise, goodness and badness are just artificial constructs of the mind. Also, think along the lines of "too much of a good thing is bad". Does it tell you something?

4. What differentiates us humans from animals is our ability to reason. However, have we humans given up our ability to connect with the world we live in because we've learnt to reason? Think along the lines of Adam and Eve after they've eaten the apple at the Garden of Eden. They gained a sense of propriety (and therefore, shame) but lost the right to live worry free lives in God's garden.

5. Perhaps water is also a good servant and a bad master.

6. Many people who died in the tsunami were washed away when the second wave came in while they were picking up fishes that were exposed after the first wave receded. When men "fish", they use a bait; when the gods "human", they use a fish.

7. For some people, high heeled shoes are considered relief items. So, does the victim look "pretty dead" or "dead pretty"?

8. Cows should never be let near airports - a plane sending relief communications equipment landed in Aceh and then mowed into a herd of cows. Now the plane and the airport are out-of-commission.

9. Thirsty men won't share a drink - relief officials withheld a consignment of 500 bottles of drinking water because the 800 survivors will kill each other to get a bottle.

10. If we are not told, we don't know what to do - relief agencies and governments waiting for joint meeting to provide direction for disaster relief. I think I see arrows pointing skywards for the victims!

11. The French know how to use perfume to mask a stench. The Somalis know how to use the tsunami to inform the world that its people are dying of lack of water and food. The request for relief is nationwide though the tsunami probably just licked the coastal regions!

12. In tragedy, you see the best and worst in people.

May there be a swift end and nice closure for the event.