Image by Getty Images via @daylifeTaking things for granted...
My daughter, my son and I flew back to Wellington from Christchurch at 7:40 am this morning. My brother's funeral was attended by many relatives and friends down there, some coming from the surrounding Canterbury district and Australia. Richard's service was held in the Buddhist monastery on the outskirts of Christchurch City. He converted to Buddhism when he married his Thai wife many years ago. Everybody was made extremely welcome by the abbot and the monks there. He had both a Buddhist and a Christian service. A lovely complex, but the temple is out of bounds until it is inspected by assessors because of the recent earthquake.
It was great to meet up with many of my relatives I hadn't seen for many, many years. But that is the way of funerals. We all need to find some other reasons to meet up, don't we? We as a family will all meet up again at a later date to scatter Richard's ashes at place yet to be decided. Thats the way he wanted it.
During the last few days we have witnessed at first hand some of the difficulties being experienced by Christchurch residents since the earthquake nearly a fortnight ago. Apart from the damage and horrible mess, and the smell of liquefaction, it has been the loss of electricity, water and sewerage that has inconvenienced people down there. Most have water, nearly all have electricity but a great many have had to resort to some basic toilet facilities better known in generations past - a hole at the back of the garden. Many portaloos - portable toilets have been distributed around the eastern suburbs. Can you imagine walking down the street to visit a portaloo, which is something the size of a telephone box? And perhaps even wait in line? We couldn't get into the CBD yet, because that is still a no-go area. Search and rescue has now been replaced by recovery. And the death toll count has continued upwards.
In civil tragedies such as earthquakes in New Zealand, or floods in Australia recently,and many other countries, it is the things you take for granted that can be denied you. People were still without sewerage on their properties months after the first earthquake last September - five months ago.
Christchurch is a sad, sad place, but the people battle on bravely and support one and another. There have been instances of unacceptable and despicable behaviour, but with about 300 Australian police in Christchurch at the moment, their chances of avoiding being apprehended are much less than usual. Catch you all again later!
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