Maybe I Should Stay Home

I am beginning to think that maybe I should try staying home for once, as it seems that whenever I go away something cataclysmic happens somewhere in the world. Over Christmas while we were blissfully playing in the ocean off the coast of the state of São Paulo, the same waves that teasingly tossed us around were reeking havoc and destroying lives all over Asia. It was only upon our return to civilization that I discovered what had happened. Suddenly, our beach vacation seemed frivolous and irreverent. Over New Years, while we had a bit of a fun time in Rio, revellers in Buenos Aires ended up trapped and suffocated in a club fire. And now, during a business trip to Brasilia and a weekend in Rio, I spent much of my free time glued to the television, confounded, mesmerized, shocked, and angered, watching the drama of the gulf states unfold. What made/makes this particular tragedy even more difficult to digest is not just the natural dimensions of it, but the human and institutional drama that followed [I'll leave it at that ....]. Around the world, the poor are always more vulnerable to natural disasters than are the non-poor, the latter usually having more options and/or facilities than the former to escape or weather the storm [no pun intended]. It's hard to watch. Those who can least afford to suffer, often suffer the most. My poor friend Ysa – not only was she travelling with me over Christmas, New Years, and now – she was also travelling during the shopping mall fire in Paraguay and the tube bombings in London in July. It is an unexpected world out there – stay safe, all.