Wish if it is different! :(

I was browsing to catch up on the news when one of my old friends started to chat with me. I told him I am back home and enjoying every bit of it despite the heat, the mosquitoes that suck my blood and the non-stop scratching I have to deal with. He cautioned me to watch out when I walk around Male’ because the traffic and people could be dangerous. He also reminded me it is an emotional place for me. Ha! It really is an emotional place not in the sense that he has reminded me though. I feel it is a stressful place for me now.

My interaction with some people in the last three days has made me realized how stressful everyone is around here. No one seems happy and content with the situation they are in. Despair, frustration and hopelessness loom around them. A range of problems such as, relationship problems, health problems, distressing issues about parents divorce after decades, the loans to repay, the children they leave with foreign maids to go for work, the monthly expenses on basic needs are issues that I heard in just three days. There are issues related to taking care of ailing parents and providing the care they need.

Senior citizens feel the loneliness most as their children are adults with responsibilities. They are too busy with their work and families, to take their old parents out for a breath of fresh air, let alone have the time for a  conversation. The feeling of being a burden to their children is breaking their heart. Their prime age was spent just the way their children are doing now. Working hard to make life better for their family. Their  main focus was on earning a good income and hoping to have a good comfortable life. There was no leisure activities they engage upon when they were young. As a result there is no hobbies, or interests that would occupy them and stimulate their mind and make them happy individuals when they are old and alone. Even though they are not fit and strong anymore, still they want to work to kill the boredom, to take care of grand children and do the household chores as it is the only way they know to spend time.

It is worrying to see people do not engage themselves in activities that would relax them. They simply do not have any time for tmeselves, to reward themselves after working very hard. Issues dealing with mental health and physical fitness are push back as though it is the least important factor in life. Watching cable TV, DVD’s or going for a round in a motor bike, zigzagging like crazy trying to beat and overtake a car or another motor bike is enough it seems. If in a traffic light, it is time to check on the pedestrians and stare as hard as one can possibly do. It does not matter if the girlfriend or the wife is sitting just behind. They may do so not to be rude but to see if it is someone whom they know as it is a small town. It is sad and depressing to see it and to hear it all.