စက်တင်ဘာ blues ၃
History has repeated itself numerous times, but we human beings never learn from it. We witness it, experience it, and yet fail to change or grow from it.
Things heated up a day after I booked my flight ticket to Ngapali. The cyclone Komen left Myanmar in disrepair. Most of the cities, along with 10 out of 14 states, went underwater. Up to 150,000 people had been displaced or had their livelihoods affected. Aid workers flooded into the affected zone. In and out of the country, from back streets to main roads, and at every corner of every junction, we saw groups or kind-hearted individuals with an outpouring of compassion raising money for the flood victims.
Almost every day, we heard about the tragedies in flooded areas involving violence and loss of life. The number of deaths increased again due to road accidents on the motorway, many of which were the deaths of volunteers who had rushed to the flooded zones to provide aid. Another storm was forming in the Bay of Bengal, getting ready to hit either Myanmar again or Bangladesh. Nothing was good—everything was unpleasant.
Eventually, the day came for me to fly to Ngapali. I was worried that my flight would be cancelled due to bad weather, but luckily, it wasn’t.
At thousands of feet high in the sky, as I sipped the complimentary coffee, I looked down through the plane window at the flooded areas in the Irrawaddy Division and felt sympathy for the people. I felt so sorry for them, that they had to endure such a terrible disaster and once again lose what they couldn’t afford. I saw those rice paddy fields submerged and imagined the skyrocketing prices they would have to pay for a sack of rice next year and how it would affect their lives. However, my thoughts were distracted as I heard an announcement from the captain that we were approaching Ngapali airport.
Then, out of the blue, we hit turbulence as the pilot tried to land the plane. The rain and strong wind outside shook the aircraft, making it lurch unpredictably. As we experienced this unpleasantness, I could not help but noticed the fear in the middle-aged man who sat next to me. He was gripping the armrest so firmly, and sweat was dripping from his forehead. As for me, I wasn’t really scared. I looked around and saw the fear in people’s faces. Then a thought came in—a devilish one: what if we all die? I’ve never thought it was creepy to think about death. Besides, the afterlife doesn’t matter to me.