The end of Fairy Dancing

There are many instances in the last 6 years when I remembered thinking 'I'd have never believed this would happen in a first world country'.  This is one of them, something that is a warning but really just something that in my opinion should have been avoided. I'm not trying to blame anyone. As an historian I know the future usually just notes in these instances it was just a fail and a product of how we think and do things.

My daughter was 4 years old when the second big earthquake hit Christchurch.  She was half an hour before going to the highlight of her week: Fairy Dancing.  I never understood Fairy Dancing as a discipline - It was learning steps to Dancing to music while dressed as fairies.  It was and has been the only thing Charlotte was prepared to rehearse for.

When the 22 Feb quake hit, of course it was off.  So the ground shook for ages, she wanted to go to Fairy Dancing and she couldn't.

What was really upsetting was that the aged brick hall / church on Linwood Ave she was just about to leave for was flattened, leaving a pile of debris.  Charlotte and her fairies were incredibly lucky.  She was upset when she went passed the hall, but I think it was one of us that told her, in shock, that was where Fairy Dancing was.   She's never Fairy danced again.  As far as I know she's not seriously rehearsed anything since.

Little children are constructing the world.  This is the shop.  This is the street.  That is my school, that is another school, that is kindy, that is the church....  the world is small.  As they develop they understand what is constant and what they can rely on.  As time goes on like building blocks, the world grows, the specific classes and sets get bigger and they learn.

In the case of kids from earthquake zones, and I imagine war zones and other disaster areas, the construction of their world, their certainties, get broken.  The things they have started to count on are wrong.  The school isn't going, the shop is a pile of bricks, Fairy Dancing is gone.   And in our case tangentially, my parents don't love each other and daddy lives somewhere else- although that was 2 years away.
In Charlotte's story she went from being very excited and bubbly to reserved, moody and sad.  I'm sure my struggling also contributed, but she ended up in counselling and intervention with a range of professionals.  She started school the following year and 6 years later she still has fear issues but it's hard to pick what has caused what in her mosaic life.  But it has altered her.

Charlotte has done ok. We lived in the east; poorest, most affected. Some kids around us from broken houses, blended crisis families, living on the knife edge of poverty and gangs anyway may never recover; with a life of crime, mental issues and substance abuse beckoning already.

What I really wanted to say though was we did at least one thing right.  We enrolled Charlotte in a school that wasn't earthquake affected - over the other side of town.  Her brother was already there and Tim's earthquake story is another story.  Why was this good?  Because the government decided to review schools with an aim to closing a number in 2013.  Only in Christchurch : in the earthquake zones.  And in the poorest part of town.  Not in Auckland, Wellington or anywhere not broken by fault lines. And not schools that couldn't reopen.

So the children around us, got back to the School, their school, THE school, to have it closed in a protracted process that now seems disgusting. Many had lost their houses, their friends had moved, their parks had gone, and their parents traumatised. The one physical certainty many of them had or held onto was gone.   Adults also like certainty and things they can trust and the sight of crying mothers and other whanau will be with me as long as I hold my mind together.  And the children sobbing was gutting.  One leading example of many was Phillipstown School which had a vibrant Maori community, and merged with a larger, by reputation rougher, school.  It was closed, probably contributing to some big issues for the children that went there and I'd imagine any dollars saved will be spent in future years many-fold more as a result.  The rock for many will have been school opening again and going back. Little kids don't care about politics,they are learning about life and what they can trust; and the lesson we as adults gave them was bitter and brutal.

Was this a project someone had in their hard drive for a rainy day, or what was it?  Could rationalising schools have waited 5 years (after all repairing houses has)?

Whatever : it happened.  I believe WE as a nation failed. We failed people that didn't deserve bad treatment.  So my lesson from Fairy Dancing is when we think about crises and opportunities, we need to think about people first.

In any major disasters think about people, particularly the young, the old, the weak feel, as that is what a society (or community if you must), has to be judged on.

17 September 2016- history always repeats

I nearly didn't post this, but it was cathartic to write as i feel I've been here before and I really can't believe some of the things I see and hear. I may delete it, but I've spent an hour plus so for now...

My thought today is take a deep breath. Kiwis your life has changed. Probably irrevocably. Adjust. We aren't going back. Just find a Zen state and be mindful of what is happening.

First a disclaimer. I was crap at dealing with the Christchurch/Canterbury earthquakes. I fought the change and the loss. One thing I did learn though finally, was I had to learn to do less. There was an initial urge to pretend nothing had happened, do more to overcome changes and the unavailability of people, venues and time. I didn't accept the change and cut the cloth to match the situation. 

Rather than accepting travel was difficult and take longer I tried to ignore it and pretend no disaster had happened.

It took me back to my service in Sri Lanka, where I fought things until I finally had to just aim to do one thing a day. (Due to heat, travel issues, technology, dust, the people there). Anything more was setting up failure and stress. And I got good at that then.

And now?

What I saw in Chch : Stressing to do things while ignoring what is happening and our adjustment to living under threat and with change, is taking an advance on well being that has to be paid back later. This is where the upset, anger, mental health, substance abuse, violence and family meltdowns started. Not the events but how we reacted.

Wellington imo needs to realise what's happened and slow down, pick what's important and simplify, taking time to acclimatise to our new world.

Important is health and safety, the work of our awesome fire service, health, police and rescue workers and everyone's wellbeing. 
Unimportant is Continuing with all pre quake projects and workstreams and trying to catch up the lost week which is dumb.

Acceptance.
Rushing as fast as possible to do 'work' is not accepting. Moving back into all offices RIGHT NOW, given streets are broken, public transport disrupted and staff adjusting is also dumb. Move back in good time, or let people change how they work. We haven't had a major loss of life and a Kaikoura event in Wellington but need to think and prepare so we don't. Things have changed. We now live with imminent quakes not hypothetical ones.

We've had a disaster which impacts on people's energy and psyches as well as offices and carparks and we have ongoing and continuing seismic issues.

There will be more earthquakes, there will be continuing injury, health, building and transport issues. This will happen. There is already upset and panic, this will intensify. We have to focus on what is important managing this, and continued safety, not achieving the work programme we had before. They might coincide if we take time to work smarter - (rather than quicker and in spite of our situation).

I'd personally think from what I hear the number of urgent BAU issues and pre quake cabinet papers public servants are running around to complete needs to be examined. Our customers want sustainable quality outputs. Not rushed stressed half baked solutions from stressed staff in crisis.

Likewise those urgent restructurings.

And those vital performance reviews and reports and other things we do.  

There are important things we do. They go to the top of the list. And right now one of these is to accept the world has changed. This is life. This is reality.
My wish is we learn from 2010-15. We benefit from the insurance rebuild injustices, and the bad treatment of schools and communities. We learn to accept what has happened and we look after each other and our communities. We accept what we can't change, change what we can and are discerning about what we focus on.

Those who don't know the past.... redux blog

Blog posts coming.

So only 2 beggars the length of Lambton Quay today, normally I walk past 8-12.  By lunch time there were 5, just from Woodward st to Bowen House.