"Temporary" Venting Thread IV

[GrayMouser]

From Graymouser, 08/07

Typhoon Day, so no work/school.

It's been hot hot hot and dry dry dry (water shortages) so this is welcome.

And nothing like driving to a (safe) site overlooking the harbour and watching monstrous waves come crashing in while getting tossed by the wind and drenched with rain.

Be careful what you wish for- that Typhoon I was so happy about turned out to be Typhoon Marokot, the worst in fifty years, which killed hundreds of people, left thousands homeless, and caused billions of dollars of damage and massive devastation to the environment and infrastructure.

We were in the middle of it- if you've seen pictures on the news of an 8-storey hotel crashing down into a river, that's the hot-spring resort about 20 minutes drive from my home, where we go just about every weekend in the winter.

I've had some relatives of my wife staying for the past couple of weeks- mother and three kids- their house was completely flooded and they've lost everything.

Because of the topography, where we are was pretty safe, but our road/railway connections were out for a few days, with no fresh veggies/meat/dairy products available.

The entire coast for a hundred miles is literally covered with wood- a smear of logs and driftwood from twenty to one hundred feet wide, and some places piled two or three times as high as a person- God knows when we're going to get our beaches back. The harbours are blocked, and the outlying islands are relying on airlifts for supplies.

And OF COURSE our government proved to be totally worthless.

I did some volunteer work the first couple of days, loading supplies, but then went back at work, as they had all the unskilled labour they needed.

The last two days I was asked to do some special help, as a lot of the supplies donated by other countries ( Thank You, Everybody, with special hugs and kisses to the Good Ole USA ) were labelled only in English and other European languages, so I was called up to help translate instructions for things like water purification tablets, generators and pre-fab shelters- "stick slot A into tab B and then thread through C- no, that can't be right; stick tab B..."

Anyway, I realised I hadn't posted anything about this here, for a few reasons- one being that it has so dominated everything in our lives that this place has been an oasis to escape to, and another being that I've been talking about it so much on my other forum (an ex-pat site here in Taiwan) that I've really been talked out.

And to add insult to injury, I've got a week's holiday before school starts and can't go to the beach, can't swim in the rivers, can't go to the hot springs, can't drive or take the train anywhere, and the only movie theatre in town burned down last Tuesday.

Still. we're all alive and well- one of my sons was on a school drama trip to the other side of the island and it took him a week to get home- so we're counting our blessings.