Ah, the hot, damp summer days… Can’t wait for this to be over! Don’t see it happening for the next three months, so all I can do is put up with it and pray for a quick summer.
When we speak summer, we speak storms, lots of them. And when the rainfall is a little higher than average the first thing that happens in my neighbourhood is… lights out! I don’t know if it also happens to the rest of the city but we just need a few more raindrops or a stronger wind-blowing for the hollow trees go down in no time and bring the power cables with them. Yesterday it rained a lot in the afternoon but it eventually stopped before late night. However, out of the blue a blackout left the entire neighbourhood in the dark for more than one hour, for no apparent reason. Shorter power cuts happen during the weekdays for five, ten minutes maybe, and I can’t figure out why that is.
Tomorrow I’ll have a relatively early start at the school because I stupidly forgot to copy the files from my computer so that I could afterwards print them and have them ready for the 8am class. The fact of getting to the school earlier isn’t so bad, the problem is when I’ll be leaving the school in the afternoon. I would really like to teach either morning or afternoon, not both, because I don’t see all the work I gotta do being done in such a short amount of time and so far I haven’t been, you know, properly compensated for the extra effort put into organising the classes. My boss is coming back from holiday later this week and I’m definitely talking numbers with her, otherwise I don’t see us making any progress.
Being in the South hemisphere — and obviously away from any decent form of civilisation — we see things on TV or read certain articles that are simply unbelievable. The Underpants Bomber might not have carried out his plan all the way through — fortunately!!! — but surely brought back the feeling of panic in people. This morning I read this piece about this incident at JFK Airport about a person that mistakenly entered a place that only authorised staff had access. This was treated as a security breach and obviously hundreds of passengers got stranded for several hours. I mean, if it had happened pre 9/11 the person would have probably got away with a “sorry, wrong door!” and proceeded to board their flight. But nowadays if you happen to belch while going through immigration interview you run the risk of being arrested for emitting an unintelligible sound .
And then I wonder what the media’s responsibility is on that matter. Again, being far away from the incidents doesn’t help when trying to imagine what the situation is like. But I did experience some sort of “panicky” atmosphere in London, since I arrived there nearly a month after the London bombings. When you are bombarded by reports on terrorist alerts and unattended bags found on the street that mobilizes half the contingent of police force, well, you don’t wanna be on the upper-deck of a bus and realise that one guy that has just got off the bus left behind a sweatshirt on one of the seats. What could there be underneath the attire? I know, sounds a little too much but it was exactly what happened to me one day. I totally panicked.
And in Haiti hopes are now fading. This AC360’s report is shocking and only a small part of what’s coming next. There are still thousands of people buried in rubble and after almost a week since the earthquake struck there isn’t much to do in terms of digging up survivors. There will be the miracles, where after 10 days they still find one or two people alive, but it’s becoming scarce every minute. And what’s also shocking is what doctors call the “stupid deaths”, people who were dug up with relatively minor injuries that will die of infection and untreated open wounds because there isn’t medicine or equipment to be used.
P.S.: Yesterday, a little Daily Show marathon at night to have a laugh. I just can’t get enough of Jon Stewart!
-- Never too many beers -- 