it's raining, it's pouring......

It's raining, it's pouring,
The old man is snoring.
He went to bed with a bump on his head
And he couldn't get up in the morning.
Rain, rain, go away,
Come again another day.

A traditonal nursery rhyme, first published in 1939, though believed to have been written in the 1800's. Not much known about its British origins  .....or the origins of any nursery rhymes for that matter.Though Brits do say "It's pouring!" meaning it's pouring with rain. They also say "It's pissing down" & " It's raining cats & dogs".....possibly a reference to the extremely poor sanitation of 17th / 18th century England, causing dead animals as well as debris to be swept along the street gutters during heavy downpours.

This thought conjures up dire imaginings of what the rainy season will bring to the people of Port-au-Prince. Current reports on the relief efforts in Haiti are not good. How can more than a billion donated (US) dollars worldwide be so, apparently, ineffective still ? Disorganization & lack of co-ordination among the now over 900 NGO's operating in the most severely affected  zones seems as catastrophic as the disaster itself, the sheer numbers a root problem. We see food still being dropped from helicopters as if feeding wild animals, in a devastated urban jungle were only the fittest, the strongest, are going to reap the benefits. Surely, a month & many millions of dollars later, a more workable & humane plan should be in place. As jot said, a marshall plan is desperately needed.

But I digress, from the old man who snored while it poured with rain! Musings here were initiated when I found the above pic in my files. It was taken the day I wandered the wet downtown streets of Granada, Nicaragua, in a tropical depression rainstorm. The sidewalk on this section of El Cazada is sheltered by an avenue of great trees, name unknown. Nature's leafy umbrella kindly protected my camera. The briskly striding yellow-raincoated pedestrian flashed in my peripheral vision. Another beat & he was gone. Only got one shot. Without giving up the tree as frame, anyway.*~* Remembering that day of pouring rain resurrected the sing-song nursery rhyme of childhood and laid it, unbidden, into the soundtrack of the photograph. When I was a kid I used to wonder what happened to the old man & why he couldn't get up in the morning. Now I imagine he had a concussion & couldn't get up because he died in his sleep. So many nursery rhymes do, after all, have morbid or violent intonations. The farmer's wife cut off the tails of the 3 blind mice who chased her. Goosie Goosie Gander threw the old man down the stairs because he wouldn't say his prayers. Sounds like Goosie had anger management issues. The farmer's wife? Let's say she was the prototype hysterical woman suffering musophobia whose irrational fears drove her to cut off their tails. But what of the lullabies ? Some are anything but soothing. "Rock-a-Bye, Baby" has the cradle & the baby crashing to the ground when the wind blows. Perhaps coined by a vindictive nanny not happy in her work who released her frustrations by directing her young charges into the sleep of nightmares!  That it could have been the nanny was suggested to me via google. Her mean character traits came out of my own heart. *~*

catapult.....

The simple catapult. Or slingshot as you non-Brits call it. It conjures up memories of childhood... a forked piece of tree branch, a strip of rubber, a stone .....and warnings to "be careful". Well, mostly my brothers were getting that warning. I was too much of a scaredy-cat for brash behaviour. The catapult. The most basic of toys, or assault weapon, depending on one's intentions for its use. Its beginnings were not innocent. In 339BC, Dionysius 1, tyrant ruler of Sicily, urged the country's craftsmen to construct new weapons for military use. The invention of the catapult, and its concept of propulsion, changed the face of warfare forever. Hey, wait a minute. What about David? Biblical stories tell us that 17 year old pipsqueak David slew the 9 foot tall Goliath with a single pebble & slingshot. And that was around 1024BC, 700 years earlier. Too bad young David didn't patent his simple weapon before those wily Spartans stole his invention centuries later. And I hear tell that Dionysius rewarded his inventors with untold riches & accolades. Sure pulled the wool over his eyes, didn't they?

The photo was taken in Nicaragua. A little boy & his sister who would sit on the front steps of the house where I was staying in Granada. And get chased away by the woman who owned the house. She didn't like kids hanging around. Said she felt threatened. He was 7 years old! He gave me a demonstration of his catapult prowess, in the middle of the street. A most compelling performance he put on. His whole body became a part of the action of pull & release. Like a dancer. Streamlined.....pebble bullet going forth as if it was an extension of his lithe body. A bow & its arrow.

I was in Granada specifically to meet, get to know & take photos of the children of Villa Esperanza, a poverty stricken barrio of Granada. In the 2 weeks that I spent time with the kids each day, in the barrio, I did not see one single toy, a manufactured buy-it-in-the-store toy, that is. The children ran, they climbed trees, they played in the mud with empty tin cans & bottle caps, they did handstands & jumped off walls & chased each other. You know, all the stuff our kids used to do before they got lost behind screens of varying sizes. But no toys. With an average family income of less than $2 a day, the order of the day is food to feed the family, not toys. A few balls. And lots of catapults. All home-made, of course. And so proud of them, they were. A couple of the boys asked me to take photos of them posing with their catapults. Rubber band pulled taut for maximum effect, of course. *~* When was the last time you tucked a catapult, or slingshot if you prefer,  into your back pocket? Or took aim at a tin can?