I will admit that I've never been particularly good with keeping up with the news. As a student from the United States with more opportunities and access to information than Starbuck's locations in New York City or motorcycles in Vietnam, this is a terrible admittance and I really do feel ashamed. The usual defense (from the Western perspective) is that it's so easy to get caught up in the busyness of one's life. It's yours and it's right there, whereas the lives of others are far away from you-- out of sight, out of mind. However, it cannot be ignored that your daily life now includes the lovely and ever-connecting internet. People obsessively update Facebook or Twitter, check emails and sport scores, carry around their smart phones and absurdly small laptops- we can be and are constantly plugged in. And it's so, so, SO easy to open just one additional window and type in www.nytimes.com or www.bbc.co.uk. (The URLs are even shorter than your average status update!) In this digital age, there is no legitimate excuse for ignorance.
Since coming to Southeast Asia, I've been actively trying to be better informed and more aware. I've added watching the BBC and reading the New York Times online to my morning routine, right in between finishing my tea and getting dressed. And I always try to pick up a local English language paper in the cities that I visit. (It's very interesting to read the news from varying points of view, especially when it's about the United States. We're really not liked too much over here...) After a couple weeks of this, though, I can understand why it's easier to ignore world news. To put it plainly, it's sad. It's depressing. I wouldn't be surprised if more than 80% of reported news was bad or sad in content. For instance, while watching the BBC this morning, the main headlines, which prompted me to write this post in the first place, were about the cholera outbreak in Haiti and Typhoon Megi in the Philippines (among other stories).
When will Haiti get a break? Still recovering from the destructive earthquake from earlier this year, Haiti has enough problems to deal with. The country's infrastructure is still mess, with less than 10% of the rubble cleared and most of the population still homeless. Archbishop Bernard Auza, a Nuncio (a representative of the pope) based in Haiti, observed at the end of September, "The humanitarian situation is still in an emergency phase. Over 1 million refugees are living in tents and the number is on the rise" (Agenzia Fides). Living conditions in the camps are dismal and basic needs are barely met, if they even are at all. Access to clean water, proper sewage disposal, electricity and other necessities is extremely rare, while crime, sickness and death become much more common. And this month, cholera struck, for the first time in a century in the Caribbean. I mean, seriously? This isn't just kicking someone when they're down. This is tying them up with barbed wire, leaving them out in the desert for a month without water and under a heat lamp, putting them in car to be driven off a cliff (seatbelt-less naturally), and then kicking them. Almost 200 people have died already, and 2,634 have been hospitalized, with that number rising steadily (BBC). Still crippled by the earthquake, Haiti is not prepared for this. But they are trying their best to fight it. As of now, cases are largely concentrated in Douin, Marchand Dessalines and Saint-Marc, and clinics and hospitals are doing all that they can to prevent it from affecting other areas, especially the refugee camps. I can't even begin to imagine the chaos that would ensue if it broke out there... For now, let us hope that it can be contained, that more supplies will arrive to the affected areas quickly, that measures will be taken to purify the water supply, and that the Haitians will continue to be strong.
And then there's Megi. The Philippine Islands, and Southeast Asia for that matter, are no strangers to typhoons. At all. Talking to my aunt in the car last night, she spoke of past storms and typhoon seasons almost nonchalantly. "They happen," she said. "It's just a part of life here." That may be the case, but it doesn't make the situation better. Typhoon Megi was, and still is (it's on a route to China and heading north), reportedly one of the worst storms to hit. It hit the norther region of Luzon on Monday, leaving disaster and destruction in its wake. About 200,000 Filipinos are homeless, roads are torn apart, crops have been destroyed, and along with them the livelihoods of the poor farmers that owned them. There is still no estimate on how much infrastructural damage has been done. But! The number of deaths reported is low (11), especially in comparison to the 1000 reported during a typhoon of comparable magnitude in 2006 (BBC). It is clear that the Filipinos have learned from past disasters and they took great precautions and preparations when faced with Megi. Still, my heart aches for the farmers that were affected. My aunt told me that land and farm insurance doesn't really exist here, which means that the poor families that were struck by Megi not only lost their homes but their livelihoods and means of survival. These people poured months and months of what little money they have and strenuous work into these fields, only to have them washed away by the rains and winds. What are they to do now?
And so, I understand why it's easier to ignore the world sometimes, to stay within the safer realms of your own life, complaining about stand still traffic or expensive plane tickets to South Korea (my current whine topic). Such problems (although there are definitely others where this is not the case, and I mean not to belittle those by speaking generally) are easier to handle than fatal diseases or destructive typhoons. But, ultimately, it's important to acknowledge them and to know them. The people affected may be physically far and their problems beyond understanding or relating, but they're still people. And if you have the means of reading or learning about them, you should. If not for the sake of acknowledging their suffering and exercising compassion, or seeking in their stories the thread of human perseverance and determination, then to at least put your life into perspective to see that things may be bad but they could always be worse.
But yea. The world needs a lot of love right now. Infinitelove.
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