COVID-19 and the strange things that have happened
On the 28th of March, a strange thing happened to me. I received an early morning call from a relative who was delivering strange news - that eventually led to the strange thing I did.
The call (s) came a few minutes past 5 am with express instructions. I was "ordered" to boil rainwater (the assumption was that I had collected rainwater since it had rained in many other places that day), add 3 tablespoons of salt, and take 3 tablespoons of salted-boiled-rainwater - along with everyone in my household of course.
Apparently, as the story was being told through express orders on phone calls, some talking baby (ties) was (were) born and delivered a message from God, that prevention against COVID-19 required us to take this salted-boiled-rainwater. This magically born baby (ties) died after delivering this life-saving news that spread like wildfire.
As a good son to my father, I had to take the express orders without question. He had rebuked me on phone against any attempts to question this instruction from God. Mbu, educated people want to have answers to everything forgetting that certain things have to be obeyed without question. Who was I to disobey my earthly God as well as an instruction from the heavenly one? I am not that disobedient son who does the opposite when elders give instructions to them. Besides, it was just salted water that would do no harm to tummy :). The only challenge I had to overcome was to cut my sleep short, ditch the sheets, and start boiling water.
COVID-19 has caused a lot of fear among our people. Countries like the US, UK, France, Spain et.al have turned in to places where scary news rather than inspirational stories are shared with some of us dwelling in what many call "poor, low-income countries - even when they generate huge sums of money from these countries". Asking me (A scientist and a strong believer in science and that which can be explained rather than the mysterious) to do the unthinkable, was a little easy. I took the "holy water" just like many hundreds of people that got express instructions from those who claimed to know what the baby talked about.
Now that we have known that there were no magical babies born that night and that we lost the sweet sleep drinking salted water (amidst heightened prices of table salt and its scarcity in some parts of the country), let's get back to washing our hands regularly with soap and clean water, keeping safe distances of 3 meters from each other, staying at home and or self-isolating when feeling sick.
One lesson to take home though, don't forget this one, "when others are running, run with them and ask questions later" - African Proverb
Aluta Continua!!