Back in thoughtful mode

Lovely quiet day yesterday and today I feel back in my thoughtful mode - so forget trivia today and let's get our 'discussion caps' on!

I love days when I can think of something 'serious' to write about because it always promotes heckles, disagreements, corrections and such and we end up with one of those days when I wish we were all in one room with a drink of our choice and all in full voice (sorry - not an intentional rhyme).

One of the advantages   of going to bed early (9pm) is that I wake early; early enough to watch BBC television in the hour before Breakfast TV comes on and even then one or two breaks for 'serious stuff'.

This brings me to John Simpson's programme which each Saturday gets my brain going.   He is - to my way of thinking, one of the most unbiased interviewers (BBC World Affairs Editor).

This morning he had a ten miinute slot on the situation in the   Is rael/Gaza conflict and possible outcomes followed by a similar length slot on the situation in Myanmar, where the Military Dictatorship seems to be breaking down as various factions of the military begin to form about the country.

All good, sensible listening as far as I am concerned.

Then came 'Our World' and a fascinating slot on the mighty Mekong River.   A river which rises way up in China and flows through China, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia - all countries making enormous use of its water.

Today they looked at Tonle Sap and the floating villages where the villagers make this large inland lake the centre of their lives.   The  amount of water in the lake is entirely controlled by the ebb and flow of water from the mighty Mekong river.

In recent years China has built a number of Hydro electric dams along the river as it flows through their country.   Now these villages - in I think Cambodia - find their whole lives affected.   The lake is silting up, the fish stocks are getting smaller and smaller.   These villagers rely on the fish as their main source of protein and their main way of making a living - selling the fish to make enough money to be able to pay for their children to go to school. The men they spoke to spoke movingly about not being able to get their children an education - and some days not even getting enough fish to feed their own families.

And I thought of how progress makes us all have to change.   Progress is a necessity and it has always been so.   Even progression from the Stone Age to the Iron Age meant that man had to progress in order to survive and sadly as always 'progress' means 'survival of the fittest'.   Fortune favours the prepared  mind and the ordinary 'working man' - working to feed and clothe his family is the last to benefit.

I thought of my own father - as a small boy growing up in the fenlands of Lincolnshire - joining his family when they all had to 'take' a field of beet and 'single' it.  Beet-singling time meant a bit more money coming in to the family coffers.  Now machinery does the job that took them several days in several hours.

What will the Cambodian villagers do as the fortunes of 'their lake', 'their livelihood' dry up? When visiting the now underwater graves of their relatives (an important part of their way of life) becomes impossible?   They, like everyone else the world over, will have to change, have to 'go with the flow' like the mighty river and let their floating village way of life become a thing of the past.   Sad - but I guess inevitable. 

There will come a day when the old men of the village will sit and recall the days - plenty of chat always beginning with 'I remember when......' 

***If you want to see my wall friend Diego go to newnatalie.blogspot.com