Giant_and_Dwarf-FIN

Low Hanging Fruit. Central Europe and Development Aid for Africato a faint whisper. One time he explained to me why he did it. Chimpanzees were createdfrom people, more specifically from followers of Mohammed who did not obey Allah’s ordersand who did not pray on the holy day, Friday, as was custom. Some of the chimpanzees werecreated from blacksmiths. ‘But that’s all just a story’ he confided in us.”Religion in Africa has and had much more serious consequences than this unique andhumorous “theory of evolution”. The phenomenon I have in mind is the brutal mutilation offemale sex organs, which is connected to religions pre-dating Islam and was later adoptedby various sects of Islam or the fanatic resistance to contraceptives, promoted by variouswings of Christianity and contributing to the extremely high birth rates devastating Africansociety and the spread of the HIV virus. In 1967 the world was a long 10 years away fromthe moment the last verified case of smallpox was diagnosed in Somalia in the spring 1977,which no one could expect at the time. The Chrappas encountered the apocalyptic smallpoxas well. It happened during their final trip to Guinea’s capital which they described itin the following context: “After arriving in the city we immediately realized that smallpoxwas in the city. Officially it was never announced, so the pilgrims went on their merry way tofaraway Mecca while fantastic tales spread throughout Conakry of dozens to maybe eightydead. It was certainly unpleasant. The residents here are not regularly immunized and epidemicscan spread to unfathomable dimensions.” Thankfully for the world, smallpox waseradicated in Guinea, Nigeria and Somalia before the religious fanatics managed to preventthese efforts. The same cannot be said today for polio.If anyone happened to think that the life of European doctors in Africa is one long vacationin a tropical destination, they are certainly way off base. The only difference today isthe significant decrease in the feeling of isolation and being alone thanks to mobile communicationsand the internet. In July 1965, Dr. Chrappová made the following entry in herjournal: “Everything is covered in mould, everything has to be aired out on a daily basis, shoesand furniture has to be cleaned. The films and instruments are in hermetically sealed containersin the fridge. With the rains comes a rapid increase in sickness. Daily I see a hundred toa hundred and fifty children in the office... It tugs at our isolation and the never-ending raingets on a person’s nerves. Both of us overcome a minor bout of malaria... Ninety per cent of theinhabitants of Boké suffer from malaria. We took medication as a preventative measure butsomehow we didn’t manage to escape it... If only I could help them more effectively! The drugshave run out again. We’ve had to carefully ration the antibiotics. We’ve run out of dry milk,the hospital’s stores and the city pharmacy are empty...” In November she continued: “Here inBoké we have a hard time treating even the most common illnesses, and that’s what brings onthe feeling of isolation. We feel bound to one another more than ever before because we havebecome dependent on one another. Sometimes we feel down. We remember how the forestsmells at home and we begin to count the months, weeks and days that separate us from ourreturn home. Good thing we still had meprobamate. We always remembered that we hadmeprobamate in our first aid kit and good whiskey in the bar...”. They certainly didn’t havetime to dwell however: there were the only two doctors for the four hospital departmentsserving a radius of 80 kilometres around Boké. Just the two of them.219