I Do Not Want To See A Body Today. -(2/3)-

I only stayed in Christchurch for one night, I was
flying out from there two weeks later so left until I
got back the catching up with the few other people I
know who are still there. Caught a bus to my trusty
southwards hitching point in Burnham, just across from
the army camp, and started down to Otago.

I've gone that way a few times now, so the rides are
particularly indistinct, but from within the blur I
remember a young Indian farm manager who told me about
Sikhdom and that I must check out Punjab, and an old
man, desperately sad because he was old, needing to
tell someone, anyone, that he had lived.

That night I was dropped on the near side (why is it
always the near side? Arrg) of the not-small town of
Oamaru (famous for its sandstone, art deco
architecture, and boy racers) by a young guy who'd
recently been seen out of a town on the West Coast by
the police over some altercation with an ex-employer
and his shotgun. I pitched camp in a horse racing
track and headed into town on the assumption that
there must be, surely, a cinema close by.
Against all I odds I actually found one, though it
took over an hour to do so, and ended up watching
'Talladega Nights, The Ballard of Ricky Bobby' which
at first I thought was kind of stupid, but then ended
up really enjoying. On the way back I got KFC because
it was the only place still open.

Most of the people I met in Wellington I knew through
some connection to the documentary. Which meant that
most of them were activists, anarchists and vegans.
Now, I certainly consider myself an activist (though I
could stand to be more, y'know, active), and I am
technically an anarchist (self determination! Whoot!)
but I am not, nor have ever been, a vegan. Which is a
shame, because the world would be a better place if we
didn't have to farm, refrigerate, transport and
distribute all that meat and stuff. But, I don't know,
it's just so haaaaard... and I really love dairy...
and it seems to me that if you want to be the full
vegan it means you're going to be reading the back of
everything you ever buy again and cooking every meal
yourself from scratch. Which I'm fully down with and
quite enjoy when I'm in a flat, but when I'm traveling
basically anything I can find which isn't actually
toxic, is, well, dinner.

(The savvy reader will have noticed that I just
suggested KFC isn't actually toxic, a false impression
for which I apologize and unequivocally retract.)

There was one time when I was round at the
squat/flat/community centre/anarchist paramilitary
stronghold and we'd sent Tim off to the chippy for a
feed. It was only later that I realised I:
a) had ordered fish with my chips
b) was surrounded by militant vegans
c) had managed to, somehow, make at least four
unrelated references to either consuming meat or the
meat industry within half an hour while everyone was
eating, and:
d) just didn't click why they were all looking at me
like that.

It was really quite impressive.
I don't know if they actually liked me that much.
. Why must idealists and pragmatists be at such
odds? A while back my father stated that 'old
idealist' was a contradiction in terms, at which I
immediately got all indignant and insisted that, damn
it, I would not be one to sell out and forsake my
idealism.
Until I remembered that I am not, nor have ever been,
an idealist. I'm like the world's biggest pragmatist.
I've got pragmatism for Africa. But I dug that
Wellington crew, and I do like and appreciate
idealists, even if we never really see eye to eye.

The next morning I was faced with a very long and
unpleasant slog through the town, but before I'd gone
more than a few hundred meters a woman asked me out of
the blue if I wanted a ride. She was only going into
the town centre, but it would spare me an hour's walk.
She had her young son and daughter in the back (super,
super cool kids. Her too.) and on the way I got a
little tour of the art deco downtown and some local
history. All I remember is that it all in some way
revolved around whiskey. Lots of whiskey.

I waited for quite a while on the other side of
Oamaru. Not 'Nelson' long (my new way of saying 'Why
Won't You Fuckers Just Pick Me Up?' long) but long
enough that I decided to walk a bit further out. I
waited a while there, too. Then I saw my first ever
serious traffic accident.

On the way the road had passed under a little rail
bridge. I was around a slight bend from there and
couldn't see it. But I heard the sound, like a bucket
full of sand being dropped, and looked over to see a
little cloud of dust rising into the air. Then traffic
started to back up, and a few people got out of their
cars. I crossed the road to get a better angle and at
first thought a truck had either blown a tire or
wedged under the bridge. But in fact it was a car, a
new sedan, with its front end completely smashed in.

I sprinted back to my pack, grabbed the little
first-aid kit I'd bought for the trip, and started
running back down the road. The car was very badly
crumpled, and I was thinking, 'I really don't want to
see a body today, I Really Really don't want to see a
body today.' I needn't have worried. When I got there
the driver, middle aged guy, was standing in the road,
looking a little dazed but otherwise ok. Some people
were talking to him, he was mostly concerned with the
fact he'd just written off what turned out to be a new
car. I was full of adrenalin and nerves at this point,
so a little twitchy myself, but eventually got him to
sit down by the side of the road while I cracked the
medikit.
There was a big campaign on the tv and radio at the
time about Hepatitis C, so I was very shakily trying
to find cotton buds or something in the kit to apply
the antiseptic, of which there were none. Finally I
just dabbed some on his finger and got him to rub it
into the cut on his nose and forehead, then applied a
bandaid.
Air bags really are wonderful things.
He was pretty pissed off about the car, I was just
like, dude, I am not currently trying to locate your
_head_, so maybe things could've been worse. Then the
ambulance turned up and I passed him over to them.
On the way back along the road a lot of traffic had
backed up so I got to tell everyone about the
accident. Most people were more concerned about the
driver's wellbeing than the delay. Most.

Then I took a deep breath, found somewhere to wash my
hands, and was back on my way.