What does it all mean?

If 2012, Climate Change, Peak Oil or any of the other forecast disasters were to bring about 'the end of the world' it would only be the world as we know it, 'we' being the fortunate developed nations. For certainly those who live the world of poverty know intimately that life will cling to any opportunity to exist.

As we begin the second leg of our journey we have a moment to reflect on our tiny snippet of experience and relate our opinions - which are bound to be sweeping statements, but never-the-less forming as we negotiate our way through a new culture and landscape.

For myself I am caught by the contradictions that regularly present themselves here - 
On one hand it is liberating to be removed from the constant focus on danger/safety, litigation/obligation; to surrender to fate/chance as you let your driver negotiate the wild honking of horns while the vehicles weave two, three or even four abreast along narrow roads toward equally random oncoming traffic; to ride helmetless on motor cycles, beltless in cars, in the boot of overcrowded taxi vans or stand packed-in on over crowded buses where broken seats, loose glass in rattling windows and groaning engines suggest less than road worthiness (not to mention the bus driver putting his shirt on as he drives no hands!!); to explore the ruins of ancient churches without guard rails around onetime wells or pits; to walk the busy streets taking your own care not to walk under the precarious bamboo scaffolding webbed around multi-storey construction sites;

to cross these streets amidst the frenetic crush of people, cars, rickshaws, motorcycles, trucks, buses, dogs and the occasional cow; to wander freely along the pathways that wind around the communities without fear of trespass... it is indeed a pleasant release.

On the other hand there is the reality that the deaths and injuries caused by a lack of imposed standards must create incredible hardship in a country that, already suffering, cannot afford the type of care required to recover from such; that the people cannot choose not to work under these conditions because the need for money to survive is so desperate; that the acceptance of this chaos allows for an acceptance of the injustices, the suffering; the loss of care allows for the filth and degradation - the legless beggar to be seen as lazy or onto a good money earner. How in a world where people live on, and scrape a living from, rubbish dumps can we get upset for cows that roam the streets feeding on cardboard boxes and choking on plastic bags or stray dogs that die from rotting wounds.

There is a strange contradiction to the dazzling painted delivery trucks, the immaculately turned out women, the flowers hanging in the front of the buses, the intricate stone designs,

to the waterways, road sides, backyards, choked with garbage, the tarpaulin/plastic tent homes. The potential of the country to be a magnificent beauty, to rival the most exclusive tourist destinations and yet the sheer impossibility of cleaning up an ocean of trash that threatens to drown it.

Meanwhile life is incessant. The baby banyons cling to the sides of old buildings reducing them to ruins. The jungle sheds its leaves to blanket the filth. The lady in the brilliant yellow sari lifts her tray of crushed gravel to balance on her head as she and a line of equally poised women trundle back and forth, part of the road gang building a new bridge. The cows queue at the rubbish skips outside shops.

The legless beggar dons his thongs - on his hands - and makes his way over the piled dirt from half built drains, through the crush of passing legs of people and cows, looking instead into the eyes (or backsides) of stray dogs, but smiling up “namesdae”.

Perhaps life is the contradiction between beauty and decay, the newborn and the carcass. Perhaps life just is and the rest is all a judgement - regardless, it continues relentlessly.