Blogger me !
An old friend, last seen in the mid 70's and last exchanged Christmas cards probably over 10 years ago, emailed to ask if we had been affected by the recent tsunami.
He said he got my email address from this Blog site ! What a nice surprise to hear from him and what a very pleasant side effect of blogging. Thanks Walt, it was great to hear from you and catch up with your last 25 years of news ! I hope we will now keep in touch.
Sean performed at a concert last Sunday with his friends, affectionately known as 'M5', the quads - Michael, Maxine, Michelle, Monique - and their younger sister Celine. Unfortunately the timings for the show reminded me of the old 'booze up in a brewery' line and the kids went on stage 4 hours behind schedule. The auditorium was packed with 500 people but the youngsters were not the least bit intimidated and played their 10 minute set very well. The microphone settings meant the singing did not come across too well but the piano & keyboard pieces were just great.
M5 have become firm friends with Sean. He has known them since they were all at kindergaden together when they were about 3, we lost touch for a while after they went to a different school then last year started seeing eachother again regularly. Their parents Sheila & George have become great friends of ours too and we enjoy a lot of family activities together as well as a bit of golf and Man Utd watching.
We are still amazed at how well they cope with 5 children aged 7-8, when we seem to feel challenged and sometimes exhausted with just the one ! Could it just be that it is because they are much younger than us ? !
Tsunami
Boxing Day evening dinner party at a friend's house.
H: did you see that tidal wave hitting Thailand, Sri Lanka, India & the Maldives on the news?
S: what ?
H: you haven't heard ?
S: no, haven't had the tv on all day.
H: there was a huge earthquake, 9.0, near N. Sumatra this morning. It caused a tsunami that smashed into the coastline from Thailand to the Maldives. Thousands of people are dead. Beach resorts in Phuket are wrecked. Half the Maldives must be under water. Not much news from N. Sumatra yet but it must be terrible there.
It seems we were the only ones who had not been glued to the tv all day. But the descriptions of the pictures seen on the news were enough to make us go very cold on a hot, sticky Jakarta evening. Knowing that thousands had been killed in Sri Lanka alone made us all wonder what kind of catastrophe this must have been in Aceh/N Sumatra.
The remoteness of the NW Coast of Sumatra meant that very little was yet known about the situation there after the quake & tsunami and only after several days did the news start to catch up with the enormity of the disaster in Aceh.
It now looks as though well over 100,000 people died in Aceh - as well as over 50,000 in other countries.
All around the world people have been praying, making huge donations and offering support to the areas affected by this biggest natural disaster in living memory.
Colin Powell, US Secretary of Sate, said even through wars and visting other disaster areas, he had never seen anything like what he saw when he flew over Aceh in a chopper last week.
Our company has 2 of its Aceh Branch staff missing as has a sister company. Our distributor's warehouse and office in Banda Aceh - over 3 km from the coast - has a large boat marooned about 50m from the front door.
Shock, grief and sorry is all around. Buses & Trucks carry banners "Indonesia Menangis" - Indonesia weeps.
Last year there was a hit record by the Black-Eyed Peas called "Where is the love?". An outstandingly catchy chorus with a provacative, haunting and challenging lyric.
In the aftermath of this awful tragedy at least one good thing has become apparent - the answer to the B-E Peas question. Love is all around, thank God. Maybe it is incidents like this that can get us all to wake up and finally start to live as one world. Only love is going to defeat the jealousy and hatred that fuels the seemingly endless discrimination, feuding, terrorism and killing. Being part of the jolt that created a wave reconciliation and harmony around the globe would be a fitting epitaph for the thousands of innocent victims of this disaster whose surviving relatives must right now be wondering why on earth this awfulness has descended upon them.
