This week I watched with mounting horror as the news of the terrible earthquake in Sichuan province of China became worse and worse. Today the floodgates of my heart overflowed when I received news that three of my students have lost friends or relatives in it and that others are waiting anxiously for news of loved ones in the area. Another girl used to impress me with her dedicated participation in an organization of student volunteers who go to poorer areas to help villagers. Today I learned that she was helping a year ago in one of the schools that collapsed and that the village she went to stay in for a week or more has been totally destroyed. I can’t imagine how you feel Christina. Your heart must be full of sorrow and you must be searching for reasons in your mind. Me too. I don’t know why such things happen.
My friend Carole is teaching my classes and that’s how I know about my students’ grief. Carole has been doing the only thing possible at times like these, opening her heart and her arms to comfort her students. I wish I were there to do the same. She cries with them and so do I. Carole sent me a link to a site with lots of tragic photos of scenes in the earthquake zone, including the horror of dead children in the ruins of their schools. Why look at such things? Because to see these made it real to me and I wept uncontrollably, as we all should.
The Chinese government has responded quickly and efficiently, pouring troops into the area to save who can be saved. The photos also illustrate their excellent effort. Well done China.
Let us not forget the people of the Delta area in Burma (Myanmar) whose government has obstructed international efforts to help and perhaps even taken possession of aid supplies without deploying them to the devastated areas. Now the one and a half million people affected by the flood are in danger of epidemics of diseases that flourish in the conditions left by the cyclone, of polluted water and the rise in populations of disease carrying insects. With almost all crops destroyed by the torrential rain and flooding they need food to be given to them and their government is obstructing its delivery. There is a real chance of many thousands more dying for these reasons.