Winston and I have not been sleeping well, the smallest
thing can wake us up and it is then very difficult to get back to sleep, the
weight of the situation led by Ebola feels very heavy right now! On Friday night at around 1.30am we were
awoken by our neighbours splitting wood with an axe, right next to our bedroom
window, and talking as if it were the middle of the day! Now the whole of last month, during Ramadan
we endured their 4.00am meetings in which they and their friends would gather
to eat before they went to pray, and this was no quiet affair I can tell
you! We said nothing to them of this
knowing that once Eid had past it would stop.
However, I am exhausted! At my request Winston went to speak to them to
explain that we are trying to sleep and could they please desist from making
such a noise. This led to one lady at
the house shouting at him at the top of her voice. Now what her counter
argument was I cannot tell you because although, I think, I have a good command
of Creole, she was talking absolute rubbish.
At this tirade Winston came back inside and as the neighbours quietened
down we realized that the entire neighbourhood was awake, it sounded as if it
were the middle of the day! Then at around 2.30am Winston’s phone rang, the
person said that he was a friend of Winston’s from Bo and he was calling to
advise him to get up, heat water, add salt to it and wash with it to stop
himself contracting Ebola. Winston, with
much more politeness than I would have managed, thanked him and put the phone
down.
Yesterday morning whilst listening to the radio, we learned
the truth about what was really going on.
On Friday someone began circulating a text message, supposedly from a
Nigerian pastor who is very famous here, his name is T.B Joshua and he is the
‘overseer’ of SCOAN (The Synagogue, Church of All Nations) and has his own t.v
channel called Emmanuel. Allegedly, he
made a statement that he had had a message from God that the Ebola outbreak was
sent to West Africa as a scourge because of the sins of the people. In this message from God he was also told
that in order to wash ourselves clean of these sins, we must wake up in the
middle of the night, heat water (which involves lighting a wood or coal fire
here), add salt and wash with it. If we
do this none of us will fall ill with Ebola.
The radio DJ was quite clear that the advice was nonsense and no one
should be listening to it. She also
added that T. B. Joshua has denied that this advice did NOT come from him. Many
people are now saying that he did in fact say that people should wash with salt
water but is now denying it. The DJ did say though that when the outbreak was
first announced this pastor or prophet
issued a statement that he had 2000 bottles of Holy Water he was willing to sell to those from the affected
countries which were Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia at the time. Well thank
you Mr Joshua, how kind of you to offer for scared people from some of the
poorest countries in the world to add to your wealth. This man claims he is a prophet and he owns a
private jet….hmmm. You can read more about him on Wikipedia:
Hopefully this false advice will be dispelled and we are no longer
woken at the same time tonight!
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