Strange but true

Don’t you love those lists that float around these days with titles like ‘Amazing Facts?’

Sure, many of them are urban legend … but what about these:

• Dueling is legal in Paraguay – as long as both parties are registered blood donors.
• Carnivorous animals will not eat another animal that has been hit by a lightning strike.
• A jiffy is an actual unit of time for one hundredth of a second.

I was pondering some of that stuff a few years ago as I was wandering, of all places, along a jungle trail in Indonesia.

I was walking with David Bussau, a Kiwi philanthropist who’s given away most of his considerable fortune, so poor people can borrow money and start businesses.

It all started, in one sense with David Bussau building a dam on the island of Bali. He’d never built a dam before – kind of made it up as he went along! Anyway, the dam supplied water to a town of impoverished, but now grateful villagers – for many years.

Here’s the strange but true end to the story. Years later, The World Bank came along and spent 100 million dollars building a flash new dam for the village. In the process they dynamited a whole bunch of rocks; David’s dam took a bit of a hit.

The interesting part? The 100 million dollar dam didn’t work! A complete failure.

The little dam … built by a kiwi guy with a few determined locals … still brings some water to the town.

Strange but true … and pretty neat I thought!