NEWSFLASH! Am watching SBS (the ‘world’ channel on Australian free-to-air television) evening news right now (9:50pm, Thu 23/3) and we’ve got scandals ladies and gentlemen!
Seven athletes from Sierra Leone have disappeared - thought to have fled, as 70% of the team did at last Commonwealth Games in Manchester apparently. It is extremely sad that people will go to such lengths merely to escape the poverty of their own country for it wouldn’t be an easy life once their visas expire and they become illegal aliens. Thirdly, and lastly, my brother informs me that some police cheat and use special ‘Games’ road lanes in non-emergency situations. Hmph.
Oh, and some Indian weightlifters have tested positive to banned drugs and have been sent home in disgrace.
Anyway, it’s near enough the end of week 2 of the Commonwealth Games, and at the risk of further promoting myself as a Games hater, a couple more moans and groans to air out.
This is a ‘curly’ one, but bear with me, it’s going somewhere. January.
January is one of the most confusing months of the year. The festive season is generally finished (not for all creeds, not just yet), and everyone is usually back to work. Yet, everything still moves at this languid pace, reflecting the burden of heat and gradual adjustment back into non-carnivalesque life. This dream-like state doesn’t dissipate till mid-January or so.
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Wow, how must it have been for those Sierra Leone athletes. Training their asses off to get to the games in the first place and planning to run off as well…or maybe it happened once they got here and the full realisation of what it would be like to go back home hit them? I read that a Tanzanian boxer and Bangladeshi runner have also gone missing. Whoa, and I also read on ABC news that during the last Games in Manchester four years ago, 21 of Sierra Leone’s team of 30 went missing and their fate remains unknown. That’s just crazy.
Yes, what the government spends their money on sometimes has me boggled. Not that I claim to know all about politics, I know I shouldn’t, but I do my best to avoid it. But, in any case, yes, *healthcare* would seem an obvious choice of what a a good portion of it should be spent on. That’s terrible what happened to your mum! I didn’t know she was a nurse. I can’t believe the other staff just ran off. What the?
Hi VK! I think coming to a country that is so much better off than Sierra Leone, where 70% of the population lives in poverty (according to the same SBS news broadcast) would be a good motivator to stay, but at the same time, how does one cope with what’s left behind? What would their families think? Guess we must forget how lucky we are sometimes.
Ah yes, my poor mother. Recent legislation changes for private nursing homes apparently meant that only one registered nurse of the highest division is required to be on duty; in fact, my mother was in a lower division. I should get my facts, but I also believe that only 3 staff members were on duty for this night shift in a ward for how many I’m not exactly sure.
Of course, private care home owners are very happy with the Bracks government’s changes, because it means they don’t have to spend as much money on staff. Can you see how such ‘cost-cutting’ measures potentially affect all sorts of people?
That’s what happens when you turn a necessity into a commodity. Oh, and politicians with not a single bone of empathy or imagination are responsible for ruling one’s country. Boo.
Another fascinating post. I had no idea (not being a games follower) that so many people jumped shipped. One also has to think of their ’survivor guilt’, one cannot imagine that the families they left behind are given an easy time of it, in fact I imagine that all the atheletes are threatened with dior warnings if they DO abscond.
Awful.
And awful about your mother too.
Thanks Caroline, my mother hasn’t really been the same since she got attacked, it freaked her out pretty badly (perfectly understandable).
I didn’t realise that athletes fleeing was such a problem either, till I watched the news that one evening, and also VK’s comment about it being a problem in Manchester.
Yesterday I saw a poster declaring that the next Commonwealth Games are in India. Given that India is a developing nation, will they experience any such similar problems, I wonder.
Or perhaps world poverty will be a thing of the past by then? Wouldn’t that be wonderful (probably not for the politicians - hiss!). It’s a dream.
But cutting back on staff, hmpf…all it does is help the bottom line money-wise, it does not help the patients, nor the staff.
I saw on the news last night that 6 of the athletes have been found in Sydney’s north (kind of near me). It seems that it’s their famililes, among others that they are afraid to go home to. And I was thinking too, that their families might be at home, worried about them.
According to ABC news http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200603/s1601887.htm , the women say they will be forced to undergo female circumcision if they go home. One’s sister bled to death three weeks ago after a botched circumcision operation and one of the men “says he fears he will be killed because his uncle was a rebel. he was beaten and his 12-year-old brother killed in an attack shortly before he left to compete in the Games.” I guess the athletes were very lucky to get out in the first place.
I know it happens but every time I read about these kind of things I’m shocked. I cannot believe that humans can do this to one another. Completely abhorrent. Oh yes, we certainly can forget how lucky we are sometimes. I hope some solution can be come to for these athletes, at least if they can be helped somehow.
VK - this is exactly why I generally cannot watch the news, it just triggers off too many nasty things and I end up having nightmares, because some part of my brain clearly does not understand - or want to - why humans do these things to one another. We\’re just forced to take in these happenings and take it in our stride that we can\’t do anything?
I know it is not an aspect of our culture, but sadly female circumcision is part of theirs, for reasons eluding me (I might add I am not particularly interested in finding out exactly why either, at present).
Is it bad of me to wish that the athletes hadn\’t been found? No one can do anything, they\’ll have to go home, to these things they\’re so afraid of, the law will demand it. Yea law.
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