A typical disaster

Well, I am still here in Bangkok. I have not been in touch because my life has just been so full-on with work and issues arising from it and life in general. Funny, I so hate using the word 'busy' that I use any other sort of term for it. Maybe it has become my hang-up in response to how I experience others using it all the time. It is as if all the world is just too busy but we can't be busy all the time and always need to remember what really matters in life.

The floods are all around Bangkok and in various parts of it. I have even seen them near where I work at Bangkok Refugee Centre. It sounds like extra-terrestrial sightings. The fact remains that so much of central Bangkok still remains dry and so do I. This makes for a funny feeling. You feel as if you are in a siege situation. You can see signs of that as buildings all around have huge sandbag barriers in front of them but still no water after so many weeks. It is like waiting for the Battle of Britain.

Bangkok remains an eerie sort of place in which to live. Then there is also the guilt. You feel guilty not having floodwaters under your feet as you know so many others are suffering but you aren't and should be. Funny that - as I don't want to be flooded, especially with all the yuck and awful things in it.

This disaster goes on and on. It is not just as simple as - there are floods, they come and then you clean up. It seems to just go on forever and you come to a point where you just have to say - life has to go on and when and if they come, so be it. This is not a typical Brisbane flood disaster. This is drawn out and the time it takes is itself taking its toll on everyone. There is the lack of good information on which to make any plans. People are stressed just by the nature of the threat and the time it is taking. It is not just the flooding itself. You feel stressed but you get on with it.

I have a motto for my work with urban refugees - just do what you can. That is fast becoming my overall motto for all my work in this unique disaster.