A Christmas Wish

2014 has been an awful year for Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia.

But even though Christmas has been for all intents and purposes cancelled in Sierra Leone this year, I am sure that the spirit of Christmas lives on in the region and will, in due time, return to the jolly, rambunctious celebratory mood that we all remember.

Meanwhile, we must not forget the lives lost, the businesses ruined and the educations postponed for the paradise that we wish our country will one day become.

Merry Christmas to all and a much, much better 2015 and beyond.

Tell Fren Tru

Macadamian Follies

Christmas is here again, bringing with it the urge to go places. As a result, the mind wanders west, south and eastwards from Toronto, a city that, at other times, remains one of the best places on earth.

So online I go, surfing for bargains to places where seasonal festivities are not likely to include snow or ice. Credit cards at the ready, I clicked on to a site famous for expeditiously arranging cheap flights everywhere, but here, there was nothing but disappointment.  The next “discount” site, was no better and was just bad enough to evoke bitter laughter. That wasn’t the worst, either. Content in the next site was nothing short of eye-watering, which led me to think that perhaps I might have left it too late... At prices like those I doubt whether I’d even be able to afford a trip round the block.

Flying to a western Canadian city, for example, was being quoted at around $850.00, US. To Miami, Florida, $676, and to London $1190. Perhaps going to Sierra Leone may not be too expensive, I thought. There were no options to there, though. The journey had to originate from a European point and only the Belgian capital, Brussels offered anything viable, starting at around $3000 and not including the price of the Toronto-Europe leg either. Besides, these are just coach prices.

While marvelling at these outrageous numbers, something unexpected, but related popped up, as things tend to on the internet. This one was a story about a Korean Airline exec, Heather Cho, who had got herself into trouble for demanding that a Korean Airline plane turn around just so she can eject a flight attendant who had annoyed her. What was the crime? The attendant had had the impudence to serve Ms Cho her inflight snack of macadamia nuts still wrapped in cellophane instead of on a plate. I expect the lady executive was travelling in a class befitting her station for which, ordinarily, she would have had to pay top dollar. Never mind that she was the boss’s daughter, and would probably have been travelling on a voucher. But first class is first class, and however you get there it must cost quite a bit of dosh. I know that whenever I managed to make executive or first class myself, whether through my own money or by other means (which we don’t need to go into here), I got the full treatment: starched linen, bespoke china, not to mention the fine wines and gourmet hors d’oeurves. Expectations mount, the sense of entitlement becomes bloated, even when the bill is not on your tab. And if you have to ponder the ruin on your bank balance, the last thing you need is anything to discomfit you further. What with the added stress and all of checking in at the airport these days, passengers are bound to be in bad humour by the time they reach their seat, anyway. It takes just the merest hint of disrespect to tip the most placid of dispositions into fits of air rage. For me, macadamia nuts are not that enticing anyway and Ms Cho could very well be another for whom macadamia doesn’t do much as well. I don’t suppose the cabin staff were in a position to know that these nuts were not among madam’s favorites, but sitting in the front of the plane must have provided enough of a clue that whatever nuts are served they must be presented with all due pomp and ceremony. I am not surprised that the lady blew her top. What is the world coming to? 

 However the blame for the fiasco overall must fall on the captain.  He was too easily influenced by the executive lady and should have been man enough to have disobeyed her command to turn the plane around. What was he thinking, I wonder? Isn’t the cockpit supposed to be protected from outside interference these days?

And here we are at a time when I can’t get to Sierra Leone,  grown people fool around over a few indigestible nuts and Ebola Virus Disease steals Christmas from millions in West Africa.

Tell Fren Tru

Is It Out of Control?

In Liberia, the Ebola situation appears to be easing, while in Sierra Leone things seem to be getting worse. It is not clear why the numbers should be diverging in these two closely-related countries. 

Many factors contribute to Ebola statistics. We must assume, first off, that those publishing the numbers are beyond the temptation of massaging them. That said, there are many other ways in which figures can be subject to error. For example, those who enumerate may not be able to do so accurately because humans are tricky creatures with minds of their own: they may hide, dissemble or otherwise make life difficult for the canvasser. Thus, final numbers must always be regarded as tentative, even when conditions are normal.

When things are as chaotic as they tend to be in the hothouse atmosphere that is Ebola, counting can be even less reliable. Besides, Ebola, in itself, is rather tricky. First off, we know very little about it in spite of the noisy declarations of “experts” and amateurs alike concerning its origin, infectivity, clinical manifestations and natural history. As for individuals afflicted by the disease, they find themselves in totally uncharted territory. They have no idea what is happening to them or what their eventual fate would be. They are petrified and their behaviour tends to the unpredictable. Some drift around and others may even cross borders without respect for immigration formalities.

Those who treat Ebola patients are also quite stressed and, sometimes, are confused too. Whether in America, Spain or in the disease’s epicentre there is lack of cogency. Rules are made up on the trot, and at the height of the confusion everything is likely to be slapped into quarantine on sight. Even unsuspecting dogs may be put down, a fate to which humans appear at some risk on return to their home country, judging by the shrillness among some sections of the media.

It is easy enough to mock these antics. But in countries where Ebola disease does exist, it is no laughing matter. The outlook is grim. Pundits worry that not enough is being done and dread the possibility of a pandemic. Why this anxiety? Is it because there is incompetence? Or malfeasance? Many are convinced that the latter is the case. They could see no reason why the problem should be so intractable when so much money is being thrown at it. It should have gone away by now, shouldn’t it? But it hasn’t. So there has to be some dodgy doings. “Follow the money,” they say. Money, in this case, is not an enabler, but rather a spoiler, a temptation too strong for the moral resolve of those in charge.

So Ebola remains wrapped up in all manner of theories and speculations. Money disappearing into the wrong channels is just part of that mix. However, as for the case of the origin of the epidemic, I remain, for the present, sceptical.

Eleven months down the line, we are beyond the shock and surprise that the epidemic chose West Africa to descend on in 2014 (2013, if you like). Also, for now, let us suspend recrimination over who or what did or did not do what when Ebola first struck. What is needed now is a ramping up of resources, human and non-human, local and international, for full engagement with a foe that gives no quarter.

Once the emergency is over, there will be time enough for an accounting.

Tell Fren Tru

Americans. Don’t you just love them.

America is a peculiar place. 

         Its land is vast with a population of over 300 million, enjoying the highest GDP on earth. The average American has an annual income of over $66,000. (We need not bother our heads over how this income is distributed). Suffice it to say that this is a per capita income that is exceeded by only a handful of tiny sheikdoms producing lots of oil, plus a few small European countries skilled in the management of secret money owned by extremely wealthy individuals. 

         Forty-two percent of Americans have a college education, bettered only by Canada (Number 1) and a few other OECD countries. America’s dominance in educating its people is underscored by the fact that 7 of their universities are among the 10 best in the world. It is well to note too that, in America, there are about 25 doctors for every 10,000 population; put in another way, every doctor registered to practice medicine in America has, on average, only 400 individuals to look after.  

          You may already be wondering where all this is leading. Well, the conclusion that any reasonable person would draw from this snapshot of Americana is that the land flows with milk and money. Sorry, honey. Enough honey to, at least, sweeten the temperament and lubricate neural circuits responsible for clear thinking. But most disappointingly, the country seems to fall down every time it is called upon to lead the world in rational thinking. Every time, before and since one of their greatest ever presidents asserted that the only thing that they have to fear is fear itself, Americans have consistently shown a fearfulness that is almost primal. They have been afraid to escape from the bonds of slavery; they have feared Japanese-Americans during World War II; they have dreaded communist bogeymen under the bed during the Cold War; they went wild with fear during the early stages of the HIV/AIDS epidemic; Al Qaida petrified them to the point of incoherence (but that, you might say was a GW thing); and in 2014, Al Qaida’s progeny, ISIL leaves America quivering. And this year also, America is gripped by fear just because of a single case of Ebola entering their pristine realm. 

        Why, you may ask, is America not using all its valuable assets to inform public debate and policy about Ebola? Instead, what we see is a shambolic media and political show concerning the remote possibility of Ebola threatening the American way of life.

To be honest with you, I feel totally let down by these antics because I had believed that Ebola's spread in West Africa was due partly to a lack of public literacy in a region where factors of well-being are orders of magnitude lower than in America.

          There is no upside to this type of paranoia. But downsides are many. Not the least of these is the prevailing view that Americans going to West Africa to help control Ebola there may not be allowed to integrate back into their community when they return home. It should be clear to all that if Americans are prevented from returning to the bosom of their loved ones there is no way they would want to go to the region where help is most needed. Is this what America really wants? 
      Please tell me it is not so.

 Tell Fren Tru