And yet we remain USA-centric, even to the point of calling this the "Christmas earthquake." It might have still been Christmas in New York, but it was just after midnight Greenwich Mean Time, and it was after seven in the morning in Sumatra when the quake hit. I suppose that "Boxing Day earthquake" just doesn't have a good enough ring to it to sell many American newspapers though.
CNN did an informal poll this morning, asking how many of its readers had sent money to aid the areas devastated by the tsunami. Only fifteen percent of us had. I can only hope that this percentage is not a true reflection of my countrymen's altruism. Judging from my coworkers though, it may be an optimistic estimate.
Interest in news from the Indian Ocean has been high here, but I notice that my associates have no problem in turning away from the television when the news is over. On September 11th we couldn't look away from the television, and when circumstances forced us away, we still had our Walkman radios and newspapers from the front lobby. Now, when the CNN newscast turns away from the tsunami zones to talk to us of Jude Law's birthday or the high school kid who shot Santa with a bee-bee gun, we have no trouble switching our lunchroom conversation to what we're wearing for New Year's Eve or to what our vacation plans will be for the coming year.
There's something wrong with me. I can't make the switch from news to "real life". I don't see the dead on the television screen so much as the living. The man who had to choose between letting go of his wife or letting go of his son. Another man who clutched his six-year-old son and watched the bubbles of his last breath surface through the raging water. The mother who lost her eleven children. The lost fishing villages, crushed fishing boats, the bloated carcass of a cow that probably represented someone's primary wealth and major means of support. It's half a world away, but in a way it's more real to me than the events two hours to my north from 2001.
Those who survived the collapse of the twin towers had the support of a wealthy nation, and most never faced true financial ruin. They had family to support them. They had a community to turn to in times of grief. In Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India and other places entire communities are in mourning, or in some cases gone completely. Outside support is just reaching some places. It is a fair prediction to say that the devastation has not yet peaked, and that to have survived the waves does not ensure survival. Illness of the body and of the soul will claim yet more victims.
I gave to the Red Cross when help was sought for the September 11 victims. I had not yet been diagnosed with my own illness, and had not yet been brought to living from paycheck to paycheck. I'm only just now starting to see my way free from bottoming out financially. And yet, compared to what the survivors are left with, I am rich beyond measure.
The Socialist, who is not big on fancy dinners out, agreed a week ago to humor my whims and go out for a fancy dinner tonight, New Year's Eve. I realized a day ago that I cannot celebrate on a night when so many have been brought so low. We're staying in tonight, and the money I'd set aside for my big dinner out I sent to Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières. Clean water and medicine are needed most there, and no group is better equipped to assist with these needs than MSF. The contribution doesn't make it easier to face the television, but it does make it easier to face my own image in the mirror.
May the new year bring joy, peace and satisfaction to my friends reading this.