Thought for the week

Covid has given us all a new sense of perspective on life. Through the internet I have been able to keep in touch with my friends in remote rural South Sudan. The initial instruction to wash hands frequently and staying indoors did not work there as soap is a luxury item which few people can afford to buy even if it is available. It also wrongly assumes there is water readily available with which to wash. With no electricity or refrigerators or food storage, people starve if they can’t get to their allotments. So there is no question of staying in.

I asked the Bishop whether people were dying of Covid? He said it was hard to say, but no more people seemed to be dying than usual. What is ‘usual’? Expectation of life is only 58 years. There are very few old people. One in ten mothers die in childbirth. What a grim statistic together with high infant and child mortality. In a country where there are minimal medical resources anyway, there is no Covid testing or vaccinations and only a few ventilators maybe in the capital.

What about all the Aid programmes, you may ask? A great job has been done with anti-malaria programmes and provision of mosquito nets, but the bottom line is with the Government and leadership. Help is there, if they want it. But do the leaders want it? And what happens to the Aid money?

Meanwhile the Church, which is full of young people and growing, continues to provide stability and care at grassroots level. Yes, they count their blessings, which by our standards are few. Free medical care at point of need? Beyond their imagination! How does this compare with your Covid perspective?