Wednesday 5 November 2014

Two images

There are two recurring images which I just can't get out of my mind today, and I wish to share them with you.

The first is of an adorable baby I met yesterday.   Just a month old, Alice lay in her mother's arms in the Audiology department of the hospital where the farmer went for his tests.   She had a mop of black hair, deep blue eyes and just the faint beginnings of a smile.   Her mum cuddled and talked to her and already there was a sense of communication between the two.   Alice was wearing the prettiest little white dress embroidered all over with pink daisies and a new white cardigan which her grannie had knitted for her.  Her Dad sat beside them (it was Dad who had come for similar tests to the farmer) and under his chair was the baby carrier with new white blankets - all beautifully cared for.   It was a delight to sit next to them and for a few minutes to share their happiness at this new addition to their family (they told me they had two older children and that this one was a lovely surprise).

The second image is from the BBC News bulletin at six o'clock last evening and is from a remote village in Sierra Leone.   Here, most of the adults are dead or dying from ebola.   Many of their bodies lay where they have fallen, in grotesque positions.   Some have babies by their sides, babies too small to join the other children.   The other children, some not much more than toddlers, stand quietly at the other side of the road through the village 'because  they think the fever might not cross the road, so they are safer there'.   When asked by one of the few healthy adults around to put up one hand for each parent who had died, almost without exception all the children put up both hands.   Who is there to help them?   Nobody at that moment other than a television crew.

Half of me thinks this television intrustion to be obscene - the other half thinks that the world needs to see this.   Apparently immediately after the showing help arrived in the shape of medical staff.   Then I began to think of other remote villages.   Then I began to think of the plight of so many of the poor children in Africa and in the areas of the Middle East where nobody has a secure place to be.

Alice had lovely little pink feet sticking out of her dress, feet which were kicking happily and when I touched one of her feet she looked at me.   I put my finger on her hand and her fingers closed round it - she is beginning to make contact with the outside world - a world which is friendly, secure and loving.   If only all the children in the world could say the same.

16 comments:

Yael said...

Thank you Weaver of the grass.
It is a sad world after all.

Unknown said...

Amen.

John Going Gently said...

We are old enough to remember Biafra are we not pat....?
That was the first African famine that was televised
And I remember as a boy listening to the debate whether or not it was intrusive to film the dying

The news report brought the first millions of pounds of aid into Africa,....

Maureen @ Josephina Ballerina said...

Once saw a poster? bumper sticker? that said, "26,000 people starved to death today. Do you really think God cares about your parking space?" I often think of that when trying to reconcile disparate images of life like you wrote about today. I have come to the conclusion that the answer is yes AND no. Good old Wishy Washy me. Maybe a better answer is yes AND yes. Just thinking'.

Elizabeth said...

As my old Dad always used to say, "Life's not fair..."
He then did his best to find some way of helping those to whom life had dealt a tough hand.
I really have little patience with people who whine about trivial things.
One hates to see children suffer. Lucky Alice!

Gwil W said...

There was a debate in parliament, if you could call it a debate, it sounded more like a shouting match, about asylum seekers being allowed or not allowed to work. At the moment they are not allowed to work here in Austria. I bet there are a lot of doctors and medics amongst those who have had to flee the various war zones of the world who are currently sitting in holding centers awaiting decisions that might take years.

Joanne Noragon said...

I wonder if famine and pestilence will every get better. God bless the people who try to mitigate it.

donna baker said...

Reminds me of the saying, "you can't save the world, but do what you can".

angryparsnip said...

Amen.

cheers, parsnip

Heather said...

What a stark and terrible contrast between your two images and how helpless we all feel in the face of such awful disasters. We can only donate and hope that enough others do likewise to provide sufficient aid where it is needed.

Julie Clay Illustration said...

These countries always seem to suffer such things....why?? Where do the diseases come from? I don't like to see little children suffer, at the same time you see the powers that be in such countries, who are usually rather large, no FAT, I mean, and living in splendour,basically not giving a damn, there's something going wrong in such places for sure.

Rachel Phillips said...

The hospital we have built is now finished. Let us hope the help is there now.

Cloudia said...

Amen.







ALOHA from Honolulu
ComfortSpiral
=^..^= . <3 . >< } } (°>

Cro Magnon said...

And, sadly, I don't think that just throwing money at the problem (and probably patting ourselves on the back) will do any good at all. The West African governments involved are probably all corrupt, and are sitting back waiting for foreign aid to do what they should be doing themselves.

I despair when I see those pictures; goodness knows how or when it'll all end.

The Weaver of Grass said...

Yes - seems we all have the same kind of thoughts. I saw that the hospital was up and running - maybe some help.

Em Parkinson said...

If something even a hundredth of the occurring here, there would be a public outcry. I think we definitely need to see what's going on and I;'m sure what we DO see is till heavily sanitised.