We stumbled upon the movie, 'Blood Diamonds' the other night. It was bloody torrid and full on. It encouraged me to have a little look at that shitful history and the short story is that the 10 years of misery and carnage was the result of unspeakable greed of the neighbour's leader, propelled by the corruption of western business tycoons. Yeh he's in jail now - in the UK, in some sort of first world jail luxury, which no doubt would have been and would still be the envy of all the poor souls his actions, left homeless and familyless.
The civil war in Sierra Leone ended in 2002, but the memory lingers, the poverty, the homelessness, the unemployment, and the appallingly low life expectancy of not even 50 years. Yep I am sure as shit pleased that I don't live there.
Steve and I visited The Gambia in 2006. It's pretty close to Sierra Leone, and whilst there was no overt violence it sure as shit wasn't Versace flash. The schools, the housing, the unemployment, the transportation - all not flash.
Anyway I was reminded of all this today cos I wanted to set up my studio, and I went about shuffling some stuff including some paintings we bought home from The Gambia.
Here's the list of First World choices I made today.
Iced Latte in lieu of a hot cappucino.
Kalamata Olives for tonight's pizza.
Tossed out old moldy paint bottles, and kept a few bottles of different mediums.
Dragged out the old bed ready to be taken to the humpity dump.
Washed old bedding from the bed in the Studio instead of ditching it.
Placed of the few furniture pieces in the space.
Downed the poison at 1pm.
Closed all the windows in case it rains.
And of course it is the Local Government election day.
Aren't we lucky to live where we have a choice.
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