WAITING IN THE LONG GRASS
Westmeath star Sayeh preparing for end to Covid-19 crisis but knows his family in Liberia are not so lucky
MUCH of Boidu Sayeh’s life is governed by uncertainty these days.
He’s just completed his degree in sport and recreation management in Waterford IT, sitting his final exams remotely last week.
However, with the gym he works at in Athlone closed until August, like all others, and that industry set to be very much restricted once it reopens, his employment prospects aren’t as prosperous as he’d like.
With football and Westmeath, there’s not as much ambiguity about the likelihood of it resuming this year on the back of GAA president John Horan’s appearance on The Sunday Game earlier this month, though it’s still up in the air.
But that all pales in significance when placed alongside the predicament of his family back in Liberia.
Sayeh has lived in Ireland since 2004, his uncle Ben and his wife Therese, a native of Rosemount, having adopted him as a young boy and moved to Westmeath.
In Liberia, 83 per cent of the population live below the international poverty line. Ben, who is now working back there, is in the minority that fall on the right side of that line. Sayeh’s siblings aren’t so fortunate.
“He’s been working there for years and with his company, they have him in isolation but then I have other sisters and brothers over there and they’re not in the same position as Ben,” Sayeh explains.
“They’re in a lot poorer conditions and they’re trying to look after themselves but it’s a lot harder for them because they all make their income from going out and selling food and being out in public and at the moment, nothing’s happening.
“It’s not like here where we all get the government grant if we’re not working. Over there they’re getting nothing. They just have to figure out a different way of surviving really.
“I’m in contact with most of my sisters and brothers over Facebook and I can call them and Facetime them whenever so it’s not too bad.
“They’re all trying to keep safe but it’s a lot harder over there than here.”
They’re all living in shanty towns, four or five in a hut. It would spread so quickly, Jesus..
There are only a couple of hundred confirmed COVID-19 cases in Liberia but those numbers aren’t much of a guide, as Sayeh outlines.
“He (Ben) was saying the people aren’t really taking it 100 per cent serious. It’s hard for the health service to get numbers on it.
“It is spreading but they don’t really have control on the numbers over there so no one really knows if it’s affecting the place too much.
“He was just saying the only ones who are really getting treated are the people who are going in and having the symptoms but they’re kind of losing control a little bit over there.
“It’s such a poor, poor country. The people aren’t aware that you need to keep safe. You need to sacrifice a lot of things but they don’t really know that so that’s definitely hard. I’m just trying to keep in contact with them anyway and making sure everyone’s alright.”
The conditions in which his brothers and sisters live are fertile breeding grounds for coronavirus, should it come in.
“They’re all living in shanty towns, basically.. these little towns where everyone’s on top of each other and no one has room or space.
“There’s probably four or five people living in these little huts.
They’re all packed in together so they’re 100 per cent more vulnerable. It would spread so quickly, Jesus.”