today maithri has posted a story of a swazi woman, disabled to the point where she must crawl to move around, whose life has been dramatically improved by filling the holes in her home to prevent rodent entry, a mouse baiting program, a new mattress and a new blanket. please take the trouble to read and absorb it here.
it struck me that sometimes it takes the simplest things to make a considerable difference to somebody's life. maithri (or any other observer) might have hoped to restore mobility, or to move the woman to a more comfortable home. in our rich and comfortable western world we might do these things almost by force but in swaziland the very simplest course of action has been taken and the woman concerned has testified to the way these simple actions have transformed her life from one wracked with pain to a life which is pain free.
sydney is a long long way from swaziland but the principle remains: what is the simplest action i can take to improve things for this person (or indeed, for myself)
when a situation seems impossible, unfixable, complicated, overwhelming there will probably be a simple action to improve it and just as a single straw broke the camels back, maybe the camel will be saved if we remove one small straw.
