Zunheboto Church (under construction)

A few weeks ago, a friend saw a photo I had posted of Zunheboto town asked me what they were building on the hill. I suppose from afar one might think it was some kind of stadium, but anyone who's familiar with this part of the world would know that it's typically large churches you find at tops of hills.



It's been a few years (five?) since they demolished the main Baptist church in Zunheboto to build a larger one that can house most of the town's population (and that can provide sufficient parking). When I first visited Zunheboto back in February 2009, a friend took me into the construction site of the new church. Back then, it was only two storeys, but what shocked me was that pretty much anyone could just walk inside the construction site, climb up the makeshift bamboo stairs and go for a walk around the 1st floor.

Three and a half years on, the building's gone up a couple more storeys, but it's still pretty much open to anyone to walk in and take photos.

(Don't be fooled by the smile: I was quite terrified to be up there.)

My first thought was: occupational health and safety people would be having a fit! A few days later, I read a New York Times article a few weeks ago, titled "Safety Lessons from the Morgue", which reminded me of the current situation in India. One passage in particular struck me:

When Baker started her career in the 1960s, public health was still mostly about preventing disease, not injury. Tuberculosis and influenza killed tens of millions in the first part of the 20th century. To the extent that people were injured or lost their lives in accidents at home or at work or on the roads in between, corporate and government leaders generally viewed that as a cost of doing business, an unfortunate accompaniment to progress. It was the responsibility of the individual to keep himself safe from these dangers. [emphasis added]

Here, it's still pretty much the responsibility of people here to keep themselves out of harm's way. If I want to  wander around on a building site here, it's my responsibility to keep myself from falling off. In a similar vein, it's my own decision whether I want to use a seat belt or not, or to wear a helmet if I'm on a motorbike. Also, I'm not too sure about workers' 'rights' here, but I imagine that like early 20th century America, it's still seen as their 'responsibility' to look after themselves in such working environments (which by no means back home would be considered a 'safe working environment').

Still, one can only hope that as health risks decline across the country, occupational health and safety standards go up.