EAST COAST SYMPATHIES          - 6/ 11/ 2012      <--Prev : Next-->


Last Wednesday morning I gleefully gathered together the ingredients for Morrocan Lamb Shanks, prepared the meal and set the slow cooker to gently cook Heehoo's supper, (Wednesdays are our free day from load shedding after all)

And then the power went out !!

Nothing daunted I put it all in the fridge for another day and decided to wash the "smalls" after all Wednesday is one of the three days in the week free from water cuts !! Oops, white smalls - dirty brown water !!!!!!! Not a good combination .....Grrrrrrr

So I went off to buy plants for the garden which is my ultimate therapy.

Ruminating on the irritating life we lead in the third world, I then thought of the poor folk living in New York and surrounds with that terrifying Super storm Sandy, and suddenly felt guilty at my own selfish exasperation.

Drought is bad enough but we have lived with it all our lives and have learnt to cope with it, but FLOODS?, now that's another story.

One can learn to deal with drought, if one is meticulous with ones water, if one has a garden that is drought resistant, if one learns to turn off taps while cleaning ones teeth.....etc etc

But to stop the onset of water from a hurricane is totally impossible. Those poor folk on the fiftieth floor of a skyscraper !! No power, possibly no potable water, no elevators, how horriffic.

Living in Zim we are prepared for power cuts, the lucky ones amongst us have our generators, our inverters, our candles, our torches. We have our containers of water for when the waterless days are upon us four days a week, and our hearts go out to those in desperate trouble on the east coast of the USA.

We have a blissful, generally warm climate, so heating thankfully is very low on the level of importance, unlike those folk on the East Coast of the USA.

We too have had no fuel, many times, not for a week or two, but month after month, but then our communities are small, we are pretty used to walking and biking, and what's more we have delightful weather so we can queue, suntan and have a barbecue at the same time. In fact the topography of Bulawayo is such that one could put a rock, or a drum, in place of one's vehicle, knowing that there is still 'honour amongst fuel queuers' !!

However what is so amazing to us is that people are actually able to complain to their government! To blame their government for a super storm?

If we do not have a service, if we have a crisis, we make our own plan; we have no one else to call upon! No one else to blame!!

How lucky Americans are to be able to call on their municipal and governmental bodies for assistance. With the exception of a couple of ministries, we would not even contemplate asking for the civic rights, that are due to us, and for which we are taxed heavily!!

---