Possum Valley in Drought

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It is that time of the year again when Possum Valley is in the grip of drought.  36 days without rain!   Dust behind cars!  Having to water pot plants!  Well, I’ve got one.  Not being able to wash the car!  Well I could, but as I’ve never done it before, this seems not the time to start.  In the picture you will notice the grass has gone from its usual emerald colour to a faded green.  Come back leeches, all is forgiven!

I am aware that I am whinging over nothing and deserve no sympathy.  In the next week or two I will suffer the minor inconvenience of having to fit a smaller nozzle on the hydro as the creek dries up, and I will get a bit less power.  It wont make much difference as I have a large surplus.  I wont ever run out of drinking and washing water.  I know that most of Oz suffers horrors of devastation from drought that denude the country and has the bony stock collapsing from starvation.  Other parts are ravaged by fires I have seen on the television, and I have to admit would scare the shit out of me if I ever found myself in one.

I have been to the central part of Oz, middle east, India and east Africa and seen the hardship and suffering from the constant struggle to get enough water.  Try to imagine how sparingly you would use water if you had to send your 9 year old daughter 5km to queue up at a well then carry it home.  Have you ever tried to carry 20 litres of water 5km each and every day?  Me neither and I’m not 9 years old.  I bet it hurts.  It would take half your day.

And here in Cairns we have the G20 economists trying to inflate the rich world’s trade with hot air, by passing memorandums of understanding and policy initiatives, contracts and bilateral trade agreements that are directly intended to keep the money and power in the hands of the established elites.  That is what the G20 is about in the first place.  Are they there to distribute wealth to the most needy?  I don’t think so.

I am getting increasingly frustrated and angry with the steady accumulation of power and wealth by first the developed countries, and within them by the powerful elite.  Even as it being touted worldwide as the paradigm of state governance, democracy is falling apart due to the stealthy takeover by old money.

Personally, I think I have come to terms with the concept of ‘enough’.   I have no debts, and I have good food on the table every night.  Apparently, this is not enough for some who’s boundless ambitions for wealth have corrupted governments, democratic and otherwise, around the world.

So while those elite and highly protected captains of finance try to jawbone the world economy into top gear to benefit the elite, I personalise it down to a girl in Africa who has to labour for her family to survive.

So this ‘drought’ reminds me that I have a wealth of fresh clean water that is literally on my doorstep.  It is wealth that can’t be created in a computer by some central banker in the G20, and is not governed by them.  Yet.