Hurricanes

I know what you're thinking -- "Why is a blog about Afghanistan discussing hurricanes?" Given that the storms I've experienced here in the past month have left all of a dozen raindrops, it is a fair question.

I can't really write much about Afghanistan at the moment (and I do have some stuff to tell you yet -- been an interesting week here, after the elections). My mind (and heart) are someplace else, back home in Louisiana. I'll try to get back to what I am supposed to be writing about in the near future, promise.

My adoptive home, New Orleans, was shattered by Katrina a few weeks ago. (I call it my adoptive home because I lived there a few years after graduating from law school. Had the Foreign Service not come calling, I would be living there still, deeper in debt, probably overweight, but happy in other ways.) This was a surprise to no one in the area. A friend of mine from LSU worked for a software company which did a computer model of the damage that might come from a major hurricane hitting New Orleans. Casualty numbers they estimated in the tens of thousands, something on the order of Bangladesh. They did this study in 1995. 1995!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! People have had the information for 10 years, and did nada. I work for the U.S. Government, and I'M frustrated. Why is it our system only moves, and in halting steps at that, AFTER a disaster, rather than being proactive for a change?

Katrina's toll, economically, and more importantly, in human terms, is horrific. My own family, I thought, lives mostly in the Western part of Louisiana and in East Texas, Houston and its immediate vicinity. Now with Rita, even they are threatened. My folks and my grandmother are holed up with relatives in Baton Rouge, and my sister has gone north to stay with her in-laws.

In case I have not mentioned it before, I married a wonderful woman from China (the light of my life -- as cheesy as it sounds, it's true) in 2003. In marrying her, I have become much more aware of the Chinese way of thinking about things (not that I agree with them on everything -- far from it!). One has to do with the Chinese Zodiac. This is the Year of the Rooster. I am a Rooster, and will hit 36 later this year. According to my mother-in-law, when it is your year of the Zodiac, either things go really, really well for you, or they go really, really badly. I'll let you guess which way I believe this year is going now.

For all of you in Louisiana and Texas, be strong, be safe. I don't pray that much, but I have been this past month. In shallah (God's will), you will get through this one as well.