Earthquake in Java

The news out of my future home has not been too encouraging lately. The island of Java suffered a serious earthquake which has killed at least 4000 people so far. Many others wounded and displaced. The island is densely populated and so natural disasters like earthquakes (which happen in Indonesia nearly as often as they happen in Japan) are especially deadly. That, and the fact that it will take longer for aid workers to reach these locations than it would for help to find many other places in the world. All of this should be daunting, I suppose, but it just isn't. I don't know why.

When I was very young I was very seriously afraid of travelling to San Francisco. I knew that scientists were certain that a quake would destroy the city some day soon. As an adult I did go to San Francisco, and noted a US map that hung in a little shop near Haight/Ashbury. It was a map of what America would look like without California. The inevitiable disaster is anticipated with gallows humor.

I'm not nearly so cynical, although I did like the map and, in retrospect, should have bought it. If things like this happen in Sumatra, I will do what I can to help.

There's a truly wonderful song called 'days' by the Kinks in which Mr. Davies sings, "now I'm not frightened of this world, believe me.' That's my song these days. It's a good song to have as one's song.

athensinternational

athensinternational

As I first began to indicate to friends and acquaintances that I may be moving abroad, it was not rare for these people to occasionally make a jokey reference to bird flu. As of this week I know that I will be living on the very Indonesian island where a family has lost seven of its members to the aforementioned disease. It's no joke anymore. Still, I have steeled myself against all middle class worry regarding such dangers. The death I fear is the death of a life lived so safely, so unimaginatively that it bears no fruit whatsoever. I fear dying slowly in front of a hd television watching the corporations broadcast the worst circuses in history. I fear knowing about and caring about the personal lives of mediocre to awful actors, or worshipping the culture of celebrity, or hoping to join in among those our sick culture deems praiseworthy. Vipers and tigers and disease and acts of god are far less frightening than the slow descent into malaise offered by staying here. There's a big world that some would like to shrink, but they can't really shrink it. It still takes 30hours in a plane to get to Sumatra.

This is the start.

I am still over six weeks away from relocating to Medan. This is the first post and promises to be the least interesting. Ahead of me are weeks of anxiety, and so forth.

Sumatra is home to all sorts of life--much of it frightening. Poisonous snakes. Rhinos with one horn, rhinos with two horns. Tigers and elephants, water snakes, something whose named translated into english means the "spooky animal."

I expect culture shock, but what good will that do?

Posts will be more frequent and informative in the future. In the future, athensinternational will be a journal for observation and critique and who knows?

This is the start.