A project is budding

I have been thinking of natural disasters and human lives and how can it be helped each time there is a disaster. Watching these disasters on TV can be depressing be it floods in Labasa (Fiji), cyclone/ floods in North Queensland, Sri Lanka, the annual floods in Bangladesh or earthquakes in South America to the most recent one in New Zealand. Help comes in and a lot of help comes from other countries and organisations like Soroptimist International, Rotary International etc. which is great! Sitting here (faraway), I often wonder how can we help! I strongly believe and encourage that everyone should donate no matter how small your donation, it all adds up as well as reaffirms solidarity amongst human beings!However, each time a disaster hits, I sit back and wonder is there something substantial that can be done...we may have just found the answer together with my daughter. We had a good skype conversation yesterday (23rd feb) and a project is budding! Later in the evening, discussed it with Atul, he liked it too. What better day than 23rd February (Rotary International 106th Anniversary) to conceive the idea! Hopefully in 2 months time, I should be able to post something substantial on this blog regarding this project, here is hoping. Keeping fingers crossed.

P.S. Posted on 24th Feb, 2011

Reguregu and meeting Lockie

Yeterday, I attended a 'reguregu' (an offering made to the grieving family usually with mats, tapa, yaqona commonly known as kava etc.) with some friends. The deceased was a Fijian man married to a Papua New Guinean woman and thus my connection to the 'reguregu'. This is second 'reguregu' I have attended in the last one month and emotions are running high. The ceremony sucks you in the cultural traditions and it is an experience that just cannot be described in words. As I came out with my friends and try to start my car, the car makes a 'click' and thats it. So we decide to jump start. Amidst all our talking and moving of cars, I see a pair of shiny eyes and a tiny structure looking at everything with a sort of expression, "Yes, this is what you need to do!" We pull out the jumpers and we hear "positive to positive and negative to negative". We all turn back and here is this little boy tiptoeing and looking inside the engine looks back at all us and smiles, we all smile back. I asked him his name and what he wanted to do when grew up, he told me he wanted to be a mechanic. And I said why not an 'engineer' and he said yes , ok. We talked for a short while with my usual rant of 'Work hard and utilise your time well'. And then he asked me will I come for the funeral on saturday, I looked back at him and just wanted to give him a big hug. Instead I said, 'Go home Lockie, its getting late now and remember what we talked about, engineer not a mechanic, just work hard and you will get there' and waved, he waved back. And we drove off. All the way back, my friend and I were discussing Lockie. There was just something about Lockie that I cannot forget and had to mention it here and write something today. Now I wonder whether he will have money to study till university or he will just stop after school and fulfill his dream of "I want to be a mechanic", I can vouch for those twinkling eyes that Lockie will make a brilliant mechanic. There are so many Lockies in the world and I just hope they get all the help they can. If you can help a child by sponsoring for his or her education, do that.