smallcaps

So...six weeks on. Winter is coming. Infrastructure is still what is commonly known as 'munted', but we got the house more-or-less watertight. (This is in the east. The west is still an entirely different city, weirdly clean and intact.)

At this point, I need to go back to hiatus or flounce or whatever it is I was doing. Ongoing RL issues are still...ongoing, and compounded by various quake-related things. I'm still contactable via e-mail, PM, etc. if you need. I just wanted to let people know I was safe.

Google assures me that 'mensiversary' is a real word, so here we are, one month on from the Christchurch quake.

There's a lot of frustration in the city, and some murmurs from parliament that I hope are just cherry-picked/misleading reporting. So here are some things that make me smile, in a grim sort of way.

- The women behind Smash Palace are coming down for three days and offering to turn people's broken china into jewellery, no charge.

- MetService now includes dust cloud risk as part of the weather forecast for Christchurch. (Refer to my post re alluvial deposits.)

- Exploding toilets.


eta HOW COULD I FORGET

showusyourlongdrop

showusyourlongdrop

showusyourlongdrop

Kia kaha; awhina mai, awhina atu.

Well, I knew I'd been lying awake for awhile but I thought it would be something like 2am, not... seven. Sleep fail.

I guess I'm pissed and frustrated about this memorial in a few hours. I don't even know if I want to go anymore, and I'd rearranged a lot of plans to make sure I'd be able to attend.

I wanted to grieve for my friends and grieve for my city, and stand with people who were doing the same. I wanted to pay tribute to what's been lost and what's been learned and what we've shown we can do. But the politicians and the bureaucrats have different ideas about what's important, and the memorial they've planned is not the one I want or I need.

I've seen the programme described as an Anglican church service, and that's pretty apt. Despite the fact that many of the people who died weren't even Christian, that many of the people who live here and are dealing with this aren't Christian.

Since the earthquake, Christchurch, particularly in the southern and eastern suburbs, has been about community and helping each other and caring about each other. It has been about finding common ground, and that's exactly what I needed out of this memorial. Common ground, a goddamn connection with someone, anyone. Not a selfish, narrow memorial that spits in the face of everything we claim to value.


Fuck you, Bob Parker. Fuck you, John Key. Take your goddamn Bible readings and go choke on your crocodile tears.

Saw a road cone in a subsidence hole in the road (as opposed to next to it, marking it), so that just the wee orange tip of the cone was poking out. It was strangely adorable.

Tomorrow is the public memorial service; bring on the obligatory Dave Dobbyn appearance.

Status continues to be quo. Or as people round here call it: 'the new normal'.

Tsunami not a concern to Chch. Maybe ten centimetres of water? The main force wasn't aimed at the South Pacific so NZ (primarily top half of North Island) and Pacific Islands got off blessedly lightly.

A couple people in Japan I haven't heard from yet [eta: safe], also some in other countries around the Pacific. But since they are still releasing names of Christchurch dead it doesn't feel much different.

I do not need anything right now; there are millions of people far harder hit than me.

Still much the same. All kinds of thoughts whirling round in my head but not sure how to put any of them into some kind of meaningful form. They've released more names of the dead, and many more remain missing.

Thank you. All of you. For your support, messages, donations, and love.

He aha te mea nui o te ao?
He tangata! He tangata! He tangata!

What is the most important thing in the world?
It is people! It is people! It is people!

Nothing really new to say. Barring any major developments, I'm dropping down the frequency of these updates.

We will rebuild.

In ten minutes it will be exactly a week since the earthquake. This is my current status:

Cracks in the house are widening and lengthening.
Cracks in the nearby roads and footpaths are widening and lengthening.
It has been announced that the local supermarket will not reopen. At all.
I haven't had the heart to walk down and see the local school, my old school, which is reported as being one of the most heavily damaged in the city.
The little library I showed you here now looks like this:



People I know are among the confirmed dead.


We do have electricity.
We are (currently) physically abled and can walk to the nearest port-a-loo, water tanker or medical facility.
Hundreds of thousands of people are still alive.

I have mixed feelings about this post.

The Prime Minister, John Key, has called for two minutes of silence⁽¹⁾ at 12:51pm Tuesday 1st March, exactly one week after the quake that struck Christchurch and devastated my hometown.

On the one hand, I tend to consider those kinds of things a waste of time; give us money, give us port-a-loos⁽³⁾, give us this day our daily bread (turns out most of the large bakeries were in Christchurch, whoops, sucks to be the South Island); two minutes of silence is not, in the larger scheme of things, terribly practical assistance.

On the other hand, it makes some people feel better.

So, if you would like to participate, you can find out when that is in your timezone here, or you can do it at 12:51 your own time, or hell you can even close your eyes and think of Christchurch right now if it will help you.



(1) IDK why it's not the standard "minute of silence"; I guess to emphasise how big⁽²⁾ this disaster is for us?
(2) In terms of loss of life, this is currently at fifth place in NZ history; expected to end up at least third but may end up first. Per capita, it's equivalent to 2,119 deaths in the UK, or 10,518 deaths in the US. In terms of cost, it's estimated at 7-8% of GDP, compared with the 1% of GDP of Hurricane Katrina. The airport has put on 20 extra flights per day to cope with the numbers of people evacuating and I can't be bothered looking up the numbers to translate that into Real Country Equivalencies but just take my word for it that it's a lot.
(3) I am so not kidding about the port-a-loos. Send them all.
(4) I have not cried, for the sole reason that if I start I'm not sure how I'll stop. I've got shit to do, okay; there's a city to be rebuilt.
(5) Shut up; I like footnotes.