|
Your Health & Happiness: Campaign highlights essential treatment and
care options for HIV/AIDS
Helping someone with HIV to stay alive is helping families to stay alive
Owen Elias, Health and
Development Networks
“In the first three months of 2005 alone, more people
have already died from AIDS-related conditions than the total number taking
antiretroviral drugs throughout the world. This grim milestone is a stark
reminder that as we grapple with the scale-up of global ARV access, we have
to keep people with HIV alive in all possible ways,” said Abby Erikson,
AIDS Care Watch campaign coordinator.
 ACW
campaign coordinator, Abby Erikson giving her presentation at the NGO forum
The monthly NGO forum held in Chiang Mai was just one of
several events taking place globally to launch the new AIDS Care Watch (ACW)
campaign. The forum brought together people living with HIV/AIDS (PWHA), NGO
workers and other interested members of the community to discuss the themes
of the campaign: Listening to voices that matter, staying alive with HIV.
Introducing the speakers, forum moderator, Ajaarn Laurie
Maund, of the Sangha Metta Project emphasized the vital importance of the
campaign. He stressed that there are many ways to keep people living with
HIV alive.
Abby Erikson opened the forum by showing a series of
images representing ‘voices that matter’. The images were of activists,
care workers and people living with HIV/AIDS from all over the world.
“These people are fighting for the rights of those living with and
affected by HIV. They are people who are inciting hope and working hard in
their communities to keep people with HIV/AIDS alive and healthy, and often
in situations where access to antiretroviral drugs is unavailable or
under-available,” said Ms. Erikson. “This is what the campaign is about.
It is about listening to civil society and people living with HIV/AIDS. It
is about us sitting in this room, coming together to let others know what
care and treatment we need in our communities.”
 Forum
moderator, Ajaarn Laurie Maund, of the Sangha Metta Project
Ms Erikson explained that the idea for the campaign
emerged during the last International AIDS Conference held in Bangkok in
July 2004, where it became clear that the large-scale AIDS treatment
initiatives (such as the World Health Organization’s ‘3 by 5’
initiative and the US’s emergency plan for AIDS relief) will not meet
their AIDS treatment goals as soon as expected or needed. The ACW campaign
aims to highlight all HIV/AIDS care and treatment options available to
people living with HIV. For the millions of people living with HIV who are
not able to afford or access ARV treatment in the next few years, there are
many ways that their lives can be extended.”
The forum in Chiang Mai focused on three of most pressing
care and treatment issues for people living with HIV in Thailand: prevention
and treatment of TB; tackling HIV related stigma; and pharmacotherapy for
recovering drug users, the speakers that followed illustrated some of the
ways in which people can be kept alive with HIV.
Representing the Office of Disease Prevention and
Control, Sumalee Amarinsangpen spoke about the importance of providing
prevention and treatment of tuberculosis to those living with HIV/AIDS.
Northern Thailand has a particularly high rate of TB infection and a high
level of TB/HIV co-infection. Sumalee emphasized the role that TB treatment
plays in extending the lives of people living with HIV/AIDS. “It is vital
that we develop integrated care for HIV and TB,” she said.
Addressing the devastating impact that stigma has on
people living with HIV/AIDS, Bounnieum Vongjaikham, vice president of the
Thai Upper North Network of people living with HIV/AIDS said, “How can
PWHA maintain a good standard of life when society looks on them as
germs?” Bounnieum spoke of the high level of ignorance and misconception
that still exists in Thailand, partly because of early government campaigns
that wrongly purported that ‘AIDS = death’. The stigmatization of people
living with HIV/AIDS discourages many from disclosing their condition and
seeking help, and restricts access to vital services and information.
“Many people with AIDS die of opportunistic infections that are treatable
and preventable,” he said.
Pharmacotherapy also plays a vital role in rehabilitating
injecting drug users (IDUs) and can be an important way of maintaining the
health of PWHA drug users. This was the issue raised by Montira Mayta of the
Faa Mai Drug Dependency Treatment Centre. Montira explained how methadone
maintenance treatment (MMT) worked and how much success they had had in
working with IDUs. Some of the highest rates of HIV infection are to be
found among injecting drug users but, Montira stressed, “MMT can help to
significantly extend the lives of PWHAs. They no longer need to go back to
heroine and no longer share needles, thus avoiding new infections that are
detrimental to their health”.
Finally, Mae Chee Wirawan, a nun working with the Clear
Sky Project addressed the participants. She talked of the importance of
acknowledging our physical suffering and of finding ways to heal our mental
pain. Recognizing the harmful effect of stigma, she advised, “No one can
hurt us if our heart and mind are strong – this is what the Buddha teaches
us.”
In the remaining time for participants to raise issues
from the floor ‘stigma’ dominated as an impediment to healthy living for
PWHAs. One of the participants called for “moral support for people with
HIV to continue their lives”, and added, “Restoration of human dignity
among PWHAs is essential.”
Bringing the forum to a close Ajaarn Laurie left us with this thought,
“There are many people affected for every one infected. Helping someone
with HIV to stay alive is helping families to stay alive.” The NGO forum
takes place on the last Tuesday of every month. For more information please
contact Owen Elias at Health and Development Networks, owen@hdnet.org
The Doctor's Consultation: What a wonderful world we live in
by Dr. Iain Corness
It is not often that I get depressed, but reading some
statistics from UNICEF about the plight of children in our world is certainly
depressing reading.
According to UNICEF, and as reported in the British Medical
Journal, more than half of the children in the world live in extreme
deprivation due to poverty, war, and HIV/AIDS. Read that again, “more than
half of the children in the world”! UNICEF also argues that these problems
are impeding the development of the countries affected.
Whilst I am sure that these problems do impede the
development of the countries, what about the development of the individual
children?
Again according to the BMJ, children experience poverty
differently from adults, and the standard measures of income or consumption
fail to capture the impact of poverty on children, the report argues. To gain
a clearer picture, the report’s authors, from UNICEF, the London School of
Economics, and the University of Bristol, analyzed access to seven services
and goods they considered essential to children.
They found that an estimated 1 billion children from the
total of 2.2 billion in the world were living in poverty. One in three (640
million) children did not have adequate shelter, 500 million had no access to
sanitation, and 400 million did not have access to safe water. Additionally,
90 million children were severely deprived of food and 270 million had no
access to healthcare services.
The statistics also showed that poverty was not exclusive
to developing countries. The proportion of children living in low income
households had increased over the past decade in 11 of the 15 developed
countries for which comparable data were available. The UK Child Poverty Index
for example shows that in Britain, around 30 percent of children live in
poverty! In 1991, 21.8 percent of American children - some 14.3 million in all
- lived in families in which total income failed to exceed even the Spartan
thresholds used to define poverty by the U.S. Bureau of the Census.
Extreme poverty was considered one of the central causes of
conflict, along with poor governance. The report found that 55 of 59 armed
conflicts that took place between 1990 and 2003 occurred within, rather than
between, countries. Children accounted for nearly half of the 3.6 million
people killed in these conflicts. Conflict also had a catastrophic impact on
overall health. In a typical five year war, the mortality of children under
the age of five years increased by 13%.
The impact of HIV/AIDS on children was seen most
dramatically in the number of orphans to AIDS - now totalling 15 million
worldwide.
Researchers in America also examined the links between
economic deprivation and children’s development, using data from the Infant
Health and Development Program, a separate sample of nearly 900
low-birthweight children followed from birth to age five. They sorted the
effects of income from the effects of family structure and other factors
generally considered together as “socioeconomic status.”
Their conclusions included, “Family income is a far more
powerful correlate of a child’s IQ at age 5 than maternal education,
ethnicity and growing up in a single-parent family. And the effects of
persistent poverty are roughly twice as large as the effects of transient
poverty on children’s intelligence. The effects poverty has on children’s
behaviour were also significant. Children whose families were poor the entire
four years of the study were considerably more likely than those whose
families were poor only part of that time to be fearful, anxious, unhappy, or
depressed, or to destroy their own things or have temper tantrums.”
(Childhood Under Threat is available at www.unicef.org.)
Agony Column
Dear Hillary,
My friend lost his wife three years ago, he had no child. He was so happy
when he fell in love with a Thai lady who was the mother of a very nice
little girl of six. He cherish both and look after everything for the
mother was always sick (emotion and women’s problems) or jammed with
unbelieved family problems, going to her place every week.
He gave them everything he could in a reasonable way
for the beginning (I know it was a lot) and he followed all the advices
every men, who live with a Thai lady he met in the street, knows. The
little girl loved him and of course called him Papa. He was so proud of
her. Would you believe the mother asked her daughter to watch and memorise
his ATM PIN number. When he went for withdrawals she used to stand back
and say “Go with papa, I wait here.”
One morning at 6 a.m. the mother went out to send her
daughter to school taking with her his ATM card who was back to bed after
giving the breakfast to his step-daughter. She went to the Bangkok Bank
thinking the camera was disconnected and she took 150,000 baht out of his
account. But he found out, and when the mother saw that he was going to
the Police Station, she said she needed water and told him she would be
back. She rushed to their hotel, took all her and daughter belongings and
go away.
Now, would you believe, she want to come back.
Everybody know the old song: Me love you... me sick... too much debt... me
sorry... baby want you so mutt...always cry for you, calling papa, papa.
How sad! This man was handsome, clean, not asking too
much for sex as she was always sick, he was caring in her sickness and he
was willing to give them all he had making them his beloved family. This
woman and her little girl would never have any money problem for all their
life. Now the three of them are miserable.
His friend
Dear Friend,
What a sad tale it is when people take advantage of genuinely nice people,
and use their own children as agents in the deception. There can be no
excusing this woman, who will always have a life of problems until she
starts to do the ‘right thing’ by everyone, and especially by her
daughter. Unfortunately, however, there is a tendency to tar all Thai
women with the same brush. Ask many of the expat men why they are in
Thailand, and you will find that the reason is that they were taken down
in their own countries, by their own countrywomen. There are also many
women in all the countries of the world, who have been taken advantage of
by men from all the countries of the world. This is a universal problem,
Petal, not just a female or Thai problem.
I know it is an ‘old-fashioned’ concept these
days, but long courtships gave both parties the time to really assess the
other. Those just in it for material gain get tired very quickly and move
on to more unsuspecting partners.
The answer is always to take time to get to know the
other person, no matter how breathtakingly beautiful or attentive. Trust
is something that takes time to build up, and has to be something that
both people work on. It is not something that happens overnight, or over
one night! Most of the problems I read come from those who cannot
understand the difference between love and infatuation.
Time will heal your friend’s heart.
Dear Hillary,
I have come over here from the UK to handle my elderly father affairs (72
years old) who has been living here for two years. When I spoke to him
from England I got the impression that he was still pining for my late
mother who died two years ago, but when I got here that seems to be
nothing like the reality of it. He is going to go-go bars at night and I
have seen these women, one quarter of his age fondling him in a most
indiscreet manner. How can he let himself be handled in this way? I find
it disgusting and would like your advice on how I get him to stop this
sort of thing, as I am sure you will be just as disgusted by someone who
used to be a loving husband and father. Is it a medical problem, or just
due to his age?
Agnes
Dear Agnes,
No my Petal, it is not a medical problem, it is a daughter problem. I
understand that you came over to handle his problems, but now you see that
he is being more than adequately handled by others! You should be pleased
that your 72 year old father is still showing signs of life and share in
his enjoyment of it. Life is for living, no matter what age you are. Time
for you to lighten up, Petal. If you want to do something for your father
in a constructive way get him a medical check up and a packet of Vitamin V
if he is fit enough.
|
Camera Class: How to shoot competition winners
by Harry Flashman
 There
are many photographic competitions that you should enter. Even some of the local
organizations will run photo comps, and with the advent of digital images and
the internet, it is quite simple for you to enter competitions overseas as well
as in Thailand.
One ‘amazing’ fact I have found over the years is that
many people have shot award winners, but are actually too shy to enter these
competitions. But for those of you who think you haven’t got a winner, let me
help you a little.
Imagine a competition called “Amazing Thailand”, and
although the words get done to death, Thailand is still an amazing place. There
are just so many aspects of life and the scenery here which will fit the theme.
Take these for example - when did you ever see five people on a motor cycle in
Montana? Or nineteen workers in the back of a pick up truck in Pittsburgh? A
motorized hang glider with pontoons in Paris? Or a Songkran soaking in
Saskatchewan?
We have all become too used to the funny little vagaries of
life here, which really do say “Amazing Thailand”. Have a look in that photo
drawer again and see if you have a nice shot of some of the things you found
“amazing” when you came here first!
Of course, if you haven’t got a nice shot, load the camera
with film and go and get it. But do so with a few concepts in mind first. Here
are a few.
Sock it to ‘em with colour!
Now I do know what judges look for in a photograph, having
been one many times. In amateur photography competitions they will be drawn by
bright colours, believe me. Really sock it to ‘em with bright colours which
jump out of the photo, if you can. Look for bright, bright contrasting colours -
reds against yellow sand, whites with blue skies, light purples against black.
Anything which draws their attention to your photograph is a plus in your
direction. So do not forget colour contrasts, or the polarizing filter that
enhances these.
Pull on their heart strings!
Judges are merely human and have just the same emotions as
everyone else. The things in life which make you laugh or cry will make the
judges laugh and cry too. Pull at their heart strings, make them laugh, get that
handkerchief out of their pockets, make them remember when they last played that
game or jumped that rope. As soon as a judge relates to the subject of your
photograph, you have that judge hooked!
One of the easiest ways to see which of your photographs is a
winner is to show them to friends and listen to their responses. An “Oh,
isn’t that nice!” reaction is enough to tell you that the photo has an
immediate appeal. An appeal which could win you some prizes if it grabs one of
the judges the same way!
Don’t be afraid of tourist destinations.
We’ve all been to the tourist attractions so many times
with friends, who come here for vacations, that we forget just how “amazing”
some of these are. Just because you pass the place every day on the way to the
shops doesn’t mean that it’s not worth a photograph or two. These
attractions are set up for tourist photography - so you may as well get that
advantage too.
Don’t be too critical of your own work.
Generally, the greatest critic of our own work is not your
family and friends, but yourself! Because you personally took the picture you
become very personally involved with it. You remember why you took it, what you
were trying to show and you will judge it as a successful picture if it
recreates those feelings for you. However, even if it doesn’t “say”
everything you had in mind at the time, it does not mean it is a “bad” or
“failed” photograph. It is probably a brilliant shot that creates different
feelings for different people.
I suggest some of the schools should try a photography competition, and you
be the first to enter!
Dr Byte's Computer Conundrums
by Dr Byte, Citec Asia
It seems from the first days of webcams there have been
websites to visit in order to peek at what’s going on in other people’s
neighbourhoods, even their lives. When there’s not much to do over a weekend
or maybe during the holidays, the whole family can enjoy seeing through someone
else’s eyes and what a choice there is.
View across the world: The first place to stop is the
grand-daddy of webcams - earthcam.com. Here you can get a bird’s-eye view of
streets around the world, including those near the Paris Hotel in Las Vegas, so
you can enjoy all the traffic jams, but without the road rage.
If you’re more an “off the beaten track” person, from
earthcam.com, visit the Sedona webcam in the middle of Arizona. While the
scenery doesn’t change much, the camera turns to view what’s around the
site. Stop by at sunset (about 8 a.m. Chiang Mai time) to see nature put on a
stunning display.
You’ll find plenty of interesting US sites to visit and,
then, when you’re ready, head across the pond by clicking the London webcams
link. You’ll find live footage from Trafalgar Square. The impatient can click
the 24-hour time-lapse view for a quick summary of what happened. It’s amazing
just how many double-decker buses travel around Trafalgar Square at 2 a.m.
If you were never treated to a drinking-bird toy that teeters
downwards to sip water, stands upright, waits and then does it all over again,
check on the Drinking Bird cam (go to: http://www.happydrinkingbird. com/).
It’s a funny retro experience for the first five minutes, and a cure for
insomnia thereafter.
Travel the Southern Hemisphere: A little closer to home,
visit the Antarctic any time of the year, from the Australian Antarctic Division
website (http://www.aad.gov.au/). There are live webcams at Casey, Davis,
Macquarie Island and Mawson. You have to feel sorry for the folks at Macquarie
Island - the webcam is supposed to update every 15 minutes, but often it’s too
wet to capture a picture. It looked pretty wet and miserable when I last
visited.
If sun and surf is more to your liking, visit webcam
.caloundra.qld.gov.au/webcam.htm and watch the waves at Caloundra from the
lifeguard cam perched high over the beach.
Or why not cross the Tasman to New Zealand, where you might
be lucky enough to see a rare purple dragon that hangs about inside the White
Island volcanic crater. Photos taken each hour from the webcam in the crater
appear on the GeoNet Project web site (http://www.geonet.org.nz/). Courtesy of a
tourist with a sense of humour, you’ll see a small purple dragon in the bottom
left corner of the pictures.
Here’s a project for the kids during the holidays or if all
this has given you a hankering to do it yourself, why not grab a USB webcam and
check the trial Active WebCam software from www.pysoft.com? DIY web cams for
your own home page and let the family everywhere else enjoy a view of their
nearest and dearest here in Thailand. Once installed, launch the program, choose
Create New Camera and use the New Camera From Wizard option to configure your
camera and internet settings. Then choose Local Camera and select your webcam
name and click Next to continue.
Set the broadcast method to FTP Upload and click the FTP
Settings option and enter your website’s FTP details. Click Next and, in the
Recording options, set the number of images to Record and Preview - use a
mid-to-low range for both, until you’re sure your computer can process the
data quickly enough. Disable Live Recording, click to create a web page to
display your webcam pictures and click Next. Configure a template and a delivery
method and click Upload to FTP Server. Your new page and applet will be uploaded
to your site and you can test the result. Then, all you need do is sit back,
smile at the camera and tell everyone where to go to watch you.
In the next column, I have a few more Questions and Answers
to share with you. Don’t forget to keep your preferred anti-virus and
spysweepers up to date. Do a full hard disc scan and sweep at least once a week.
Don’t open e-mails with funny attachments if your not expecting them and last
but not least, make sure your firewall is on.
Dr Byte appears in Chiangmai Mail every 2 weeks and if
you have any questions or suggestions you would like to make, you can contact me
at Dr Byte, Chiangmai Mail.
Money Matters: The China Syndrome
A five-dimension analytical model for deciding when (and when not) to purchase from the East (Part
2)
Alan Hall
MBMG International Ltd.
Five Dimensions
The five-dimension analytical model readily leads
procurement executives to a set of significant matters they need to consider
when making sourcing decisions.
1. Manufacturing Cost. China can provide Western
parts and materials buyers significant benefits in overhead and raw material
costs. Total overhead rates in China vary significantly by supplier, but can
be less than half of Western levels.
Chinese labour rates also are extremely attractive
relative to those of other countries. Including hourly wage rates and
benefits, Chinese wages are about 10 percent of salaries in the U.S. and
Western Europe and 50 percent of the average wage in Mexico. There is still
a large supply of low cost labour throughout the country, and manufacturers
in major cities (Shanghai, for example) are supported by government efforts
to keep wages low by bringing additional workers to urban areas.
Nevertheless, as more and more companies purchase
supplies from China, there has been wage inflation in some large cities. As
a result, labour-intensive supplier relationships, such as some automotive
OEM programs, are moving inland, where wages remain lower. Honda, for
example, is establishing its manufacturing centre, automotive assembly, and
supporting component operations in Dongfeng, in central China. Moving
inland, though, makes shipment scheduling more difficult and often more
costly, because of poor roads and the lack of developed logistics
infrastructures.
These trends show how executives should evaluate
manufacturing cost when making procurement decisions:
• The total labour content (direct and indirect) of
a product is the primary driver for China procurement savings. For a
product with a large labour component (i.e., 25 percent or more of the
product cost structure), low Chinese wages represent a meaningful benefit.
In these cases, the labour savings - applied labour hours multiplied by the
difference in the labour rate - can be significant. But for some products,
such as shoot-and-ship injection-moulded plastics, for which one operator
manages several high-speed machines, the labour requirements are too low for
China sourcing to be the best option.
• Real overhead savings can be realized in China.
Local labour rates are embedded in the price of many of the goods and
services that are critical components of overhead costs. And many suppliers
use local machinery, which can also cost as little as half the price of
imported equipment.
• Savings on raw materials in China are possible
when these materials are locally sourced from competitive suppliers.
Electronic components and some lower-end steel grades are areas where local
competition can lead to raw-material savings. However, when Chinese
suppliers have to import materials - such as high-quality steel alloys -
there can be a significant cost penalty in a procurement agreement.
• To gain the highest potential returns from a
Chinese procurement effort, the amount of labour should be maximized. It
often pays to think beyond the purchase of the part, and to include
machining and assembly activities in the sourcing contract. For example,
when an automotive company attempted to purchase raw aluminium castings from
China, the Chinese supplier offered savings of only 1 percent over the bid
of a U.S. supplier. By redoing the bid to include finished machining of the
parts and the incremental labour, handling, and overhead, the automotive
company realized a 15 percent total cost savings from the same supplier.
2. Transportation Efficiency. Procurement from China
naturally increases transportation cost over more local sourcing
arrangements. In China, a product must go from the factory to the port, onto
a ship, and then to the U.S. or another major market, where it is unloaded
and trucked to its destination. The cost of ocean transport alone from China
to the U.S. is $2,500 to $3,000 per container. For a $12 casting, the total
incremental transportation cost is $1.10, compared with $0.30 for a typical
Mexican supplier shipping to the U.S.
Financial assessment of China sourcing should be made on
the total landed cost of a product, which includes the manufacturing cost
differential as well as the full logistics cost - hence two major
considerations when assessing transportation costs:
• Measure the ratio of transport cost to total
product cost. Since ocean transportation costs are essentially a fixed
cost per volume shipped, economics favour China when smaller, higher-value
items are involved. For instance, thousands of small electric motors can be
packed in one container, spreading the fixed costs over numerous units.
Conversely, plastics and stamping assemblies for auto interiors require
protective packaging that results in low packing density and fewer parts to
share the burden.
• If airfreight is required - for instance, to meet
lead time requirements shorter than ocean freight allows - the savings
generated by lower-wage-rate manufacturing in China are usually eliminated.
Airfreight costs about $1.51 per pound; ocean transport, $0.06 per pound.
Only products with very high packing density and high value per unit (for
example, printed circuit boards) can support the costs associated with
airfreight.
Next week: 3 rd, 4th
and 5th dimensions…
The above data and research was compiled from sources
believed to be reliable. However, neither MBMG International Ltd nor its
officers can accept any liability for any errors or omissions in the above
article nor bear any responsibility for any losses achieved as a result of
any actions taken or not taken as a consequence of reading the above
article. For more information please contact Alan Hall on
alan@mbmg-international.com
Life in the Laugh Lane: Think Thai or Die: Got a Light?
by Scott Jones
I think Thais come out of the womb simultaneously singing,
playing the guitar, cooking and riding a motorbike. On a 100cc Honda Wave, they
can carry anything - their entire extended family with pets, several computers,
1100 newspapers, live or dead pigs, 358 food-filled plastic bags, massive
bookcases and bedroom furniture - maybe all at the same time. It takes
practice, balance and intelligence. So why do they ride with no lights at
night?
 Motorbike
at night with no lights, viewed from behind, ahead or the side, before or after
the accident.
In most countries, besides being the law, driving at night
with lights on is a simple survival technique: a tail light prevents a speeding
truck, tourist bus, or me from killing you from behind, and a head light keeps
you from killing yourself…in a pothole the size of Laos, in the butt of a
water buffalo with no tail light or in the recent wreckage of the bike with the
live pig (now dead) that was just hit by the bus. What’s their rationale for
riding with no lights? Wearing dark clothes on a black bike? On the wrong side
of the road?
1) “I’m an escaped criminal. I’m hiding.”
2) “I’m hunting escaped criminals who are hiding.”
3) “I’m invisible. And if I can’t see you, I’m
safe,” said the Ostrich with his head in the sand.
4) “I don’t want to wear out my lights. They’re more
valuable than my life.”
5) “I’m an alien. I have advanced infrared vision and a
powerful force field around me.”
6) “It’s just like riding around in the womb.”
Likewise, the issue of turn signals: handy, colored beacons
that clearly communicate your course so the 13 drivers behind you don’t have
to rely on their non-existent mind-reading capabilities. During the entire year
of 2004, only three bikers actually used them, probably unintentionally, and
then left them flashing for the rest of the day. In heavy traffic these lights
are generally replaced by vague hand or finger gestures that are not
particularly visible at night.
Sometimes there’s a Human Turn Signal sitting on the back
of the bike, randomly pointing with a purse, perhaps just waving to a friend or
maybe talking with one hand with a mobile phone in the other. Is the biker
completely unaware of the mass of mankind on his tail driving heavy, dangerous
machines? “I’m a self-absorbed idiot and the rest of the world has to take
care of me. Besides, when I learned to ride, my brother’s Wave was only one
other bike in the womb. And the walls were very soft.”
Think Thai or die. Or kill. They’re not going to change so
you have to take care of them…and yourself. It’s your choice: the womb or
the tomb.
One signal is used here zealously. When someone’s flashing their
headlights, do NOT think American. In the USA, drivers may flash them once
you’ve passed to tell you it’s safe to pull back in the lane. Or to alert
you there’s a patrolman ahead with a radar gun. Or to gently remind you to
turn on your headlights. Here, from ahead or behind, it means one thing:
“I’m driving very fast. I’m bigger than you. Get the hell out of my way
or I’ll take you home on my bumper as a souvenir.”
|
