Well well well, talk about getting a topic going on here for the weekend which isn't light! Abundance.tribe has another question going on here which is really one to get people think a bit about what actually is going on there. I am really curious on what kind of honest answers will be coming up here, because the topic isn't light.
'What is the hardest truth you have ever learned'
And with this question, my answer takes us all back to 2017 on the island of Sint Martin.
Already a week before we all knew that this hurricane cat 5 was coming, but for me this was the first time experiencing a natural disaster while other friends and colleagues had already experienced more of them. They were often my go to people in form of questions on my preparations on what I should do with the house, and what I should stock up to in form of food and water.
One of them had answered the legendary words 'it is not about the storm, you will survive that, but it is about the time that comes after the storm which is the most challenging', which I never forget but at that time I couldn't really realize what he meant with them.
I thought that I just needed to get through these winds, and that afterwards clean up the place, rebuild some houses, eat rationed food in small portions and we would all be fine.
I had never thought that revuild some houses would mean that there 92% of all houses had damage on them, clean up would not mean clean up the houses but more the fallen walls on top of roads, and that the biggest threat was the people around everyone.
One of the first things that I saw when I stepped outside when the wind was dying down was a man walking with his son on the beach. The son had a bag of juwelry in his hand, and the father a flatscreen TV which he could barely hold because of the winds which were still pulling. They were walking towards their house which had no doors, no roof and no electricity inside there anymore but with their fresh television and juwelry.
Later on there was this homeless dude who was already homeless before the storm who stuck us his thumb to me and yelled 'now atleast we are all the same, we all have nothing anymore' We shared a can of beer together which we found on the beach
A couple of days later when I was passing towards the hospital which was an enormous hassle to get there because of all the debris on the roads I saw people looting the supermarkets. On the one hand because the coolers are off the food will spoil anyway, but on the other hand this could easily be divided over people equally, not the first come first serve for yourself principle. People were just taking stuff for the sake of taking stuff.
I spoke to a head man of the disaster team who was sent out to provide aid after natural disasters and he said me: '*don't look so puzzled sweet Karin, we see this after any natural disaster. People show the worst of themselves, not only because of survival but because there is anarchy and people like the chaos to take advantage of stuff.
It really make me think different about people in general very often afterwards. I had never realized this is the behavior which comes out of these kinds of things. In blogs I have very often referred to the series 'The Walking Dead' because of this experience because societies have to be remade and not everyone does this for the best reasons apart from creating power for themselves.
Mankind doesn't work together as ants for the general survival. They look out for themselves more and more.
/End pessimistic mode and back to weekend mode
All pictures were taken by me in 2017/2018