Japan

I'm not really one who follows the news. I generally avoid it like the plague. It's either super depressing (for a city of this size, it's good, but I think we have about 30-50 homicides a year and there are constantly accidents, child abuse cases, drug crap, etc. making the headlines) or super dumb (like our city making national news because of people wanting to name a building after an old mayor, Harry Baals).

So, when big things happen, I'm not usually on top of it. I follow the unspoken (well, now it's written) personal rule that if it's important enough for people to talk to me about it, it's important enough for me to know. If not, then, eh. Oh well. And when people talk to me, I'll do my own research online about it.

When the tsunami in Japan hit, I was not aware one bit. I believe it was the next day when a friend was over and she told me the death toll numbers thus far. I asked (and I kid you not), "Death toll for what?" That's the first I heard of it. Obviously, since then, I've heard more. And I've read about it. And spoken about it with colleagues and peers.

Hence, when I began to reread the first chapter of When Helping Hurts, well, actually the pre-first chapter and there is an excercise that uses the 2004 tsunami in Indonesia, Japan seemed much more relevant. And what is occurring in Japan should be relevant to all of us. But what do you do? What can you do when you are on the other side of the world from a place that has been said to have "more dead bodies than the living can take care of"?

Should we all just jump on a plane and go there to help? Is that even feasible? Is donating money to a relief source enough? Do we give a few dollars and then walk away, thinking "Welp, I did my part." What can be done?

Sometimes, it's just easier to pretend that the images you see are fictional, like a movie, because then we don't feel so helpless.

All I can do is pray.