"My Reality" this year is one of extreme hardship

I have been asked numerous times to update this blog as my traditional readership has now left this site due to inactivity. You all know that my Dream turned into a nightmare on January 30th 2011 and I am yet to recover from it. In fact the bad fracture that I had at the accident, has yet not set properly, and I am entering the National Hospital tomorrow, hopefully to be operated on Wednesday morning, as I require a bone graft to help me along in the healing process.

After this there will be usual recovery and rehab which will effectively put me out of action for the rest of this year. I wont have access to a computer from tomorrow, so I will be out of touch with the world for a while.

Since the accident, most of my agricultural activities had to be curtailed. Much of the produce being sold on site for a fraction of what I could get if I was able to market it myself, and further due to the lack of responsible people to oversee the operations, I have incurred significant losses and so decided to let someone else farm the paddy lands for a share.

Just to illustrate the point, my mangoes are falling off the trees in their thousands, or being eaten my the monkeys, as it is hardly worth selling it on site. I had a person bring me 350 mangoes by bus the other day, and I distributed them to friends and family within an hour of their arrival. However the cost to me for their transport was not even covered as I gave away everything. In the days I was delivering and selling I would have received at least Rs30 per Mango. So that is the reality. I have a waiting list for the bees honey, but I have to go and pick it up, as I don't trust anyone with the purchase or transport. These are all the issues.

My vehicle was a write off in the accident, and I am currently living on the proceeds of the insurance for the vehicle, how I am going to get back on my feet is something I will confront when I can walk. I am told that now I should sue the Ministry of Defense as the police vehicle that crashed into me and was uninsured belonged to the Ministry of Defense. They are building a Rs20B headquarters for the Army but would fight tooth and nail to give me a dime for their negligence. If only you knew how the driver of the vehicle was treated you would not want to confront them. He lost his job, and was asked to pay Rs400,000 to repair the Police vehicle that crashed into me. The driver tells me the brakes failed and that is why he could not control the vehicle that ploughed into me.

Of course it is 7 weeks since the Minister, whose convoy was the cause of the accident came to see me, but despite many reminders he seems to be ignoring the issue hoping it would go away.

I have kept myself very busy these days and try not to worry too much of the current disability, but after I return to normal will have to re asses my options to be more practical in what I do, as I will no longer be able to carry king coconut bunches(around 25 nuts per bunch) up three flights of stairs single-handedly which I could before the incident!

Bear with me, and trust me there will be even more interesting stories to tell in the future. In the meantime try and obtain some level of consolation from my writings in the other blogs, some of which are quite controversial, but then why have an opinion if one cannot express it?

Thanks guys and gals for your patience and understanding. We have to face life's challenges in whatever form they are thrown at us and make the most of the circumstances.