That's how you do it.. money, patience and ploddingly hard work!

Yaay, happy to shout out good news. Today's papers have a very good photograph of the first locally trained ER specialist. The local guy is standing central and a little forward and standing behind him are the four American doctors/educators from Vanderbilt University, Tennessee. It is such a great photo as is graphically represents what genuine assistance means. The local guy 'made it' with enormous help from the overseas people; of course he must be one of the many talented locals willing to stay back and fight the good fight and I am glad he has been given the opportunity to do so. 

I can't even begin to imagine the cost of setting up a master's program to US standards locally in terms of personnel and resources but am grateful that one out of the three locals made it to the end-- and was rewarded (?) with being promoted to head of department in Emergency care.  Surely THIS is the way to get ourselves out of the hole we find ourselves in and start getting rid of square pegs in round holes. The good news being that several more students are entering the program and hope, really hope that our local people can eventually shoulder most of the training - that's the way to do it. It has taken three long years, many young American doctors coming down to support the American doctor stationed here and God knows what else-- but success! Guyana would be surely richer for it.
Canadian doctors are setting up an Asthma program, there is currently an obstetrics program and a family medicine program on its way.

"plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose"

The above quote was a favourite of our first dictator, Burnham.  It is a French epigram meaning "the more it changes, the more it's the same thing".  Gerald Durrell in his 1954 book 'Three Singles to Adventure' decried the Guyanese propensity for making grandiose promises and not delivering. Foreigners/investors/exploiters years later have discovered the same annoying trait to the extent that they walk with their own workers to do menial chores as they claim Guyanese cannot be trusted!  It is basically The Peter Principle on a grander scale due to lack of people/education.

So by chance I happened to be reading about Waste Hierarchy, based on the European Union's rules for waste management. Now some very sensible people worked out the Stages to reduce the amount of waste that threatens us all on a large scale -- non-biodegradable waste can linger in the environment almost infinitely and/or then breakdown to cause further damage, poisoning the soil and water supplies in addition to causing Climate Change and its devastating effects-- witness the 'worse storm ever' in the Philippines.  These stages are - initially to try to reduce producing waste, re-using the product- either for its initial purpose or an innovative new purpose, recycling the product, other forms of recycling such as energy recycling ( Sweden currently leads the field - producing energy from waste- 50% from household waste - generating as much energy as 1.1 million cubic metres of oil) and then finally - responsible disposal - not just digging a hole and dumping the waste to rot - but lining the sides and base to prevent leaching of waste 'juices' from contaminating ground water, hopefully harvesting the methane produced and preventing pests from breeding.

Guyana in its wisdom and propensity for spending 'big money' on projects they are barely able to understand are diving headlong into the THIRD step - a recycling plant. To give some background, we have a lingerie shop called 'Secrets of Victoria', an opticians called 'Lenscrafter'- presumably one of the owners is called Len, and not to be undone... adisgruntled technician who used to work for them went off and set up shop as 'Lens Optical Designers' - there have been numerous ads in the papers taken out by companies who are keen to inform the reading Public that a Company with their misspelt name - is NOT them. 

So not unsurprisingly, a Guyanese living in Canada woke up to the idea of using a Canadian recycling company's name to persuade the Government to spent U$30 million( thinking about it-- I must be worng-- must be 30 million Guyanese-- U$150,000? always get mixed up with the noughts!) to open a recycling plant. The bona fide company in question told a local newspaper,opposed to the government, that a plant for this size of the population should be in the region of $3million ( where the 27 million going??). They did not point out that there are two other necessary steps before getting to recycling and both involve educating the Public-- and most likely the ignorant officials who think throwing other people's money is the answer to Life's problems.

Brings back memories of Mr 10%.

Restitution

So we had our first American-styled random shooting by a nutter, allegedly in a cocaine-induced paranoia state. His three children issued an apology to the victims - the first a Policeman who ran on the scene without any protective gear or back-up apparently operating without a plan!
It has been pointed out that a gun licence as recent as 2011 was issued to this man although he had a history of strange behaviour which would lead one to question his mental state.
The chickens have come home to roost where progressive Lawlessness is impinging in the lives of ordinary citizens - now making it difficult to go about your business in peace.
I really believe that Civil laws need to be re-written incorporating some form for restitution to the victims - in this case, presumably a miner building a hotel in Bartica and randomly shooting people with dependents - I think there are about 8 children without a parent as a result- would have resources that should be given to support these children.  There are just too many cases where the State fines the culprit  but the victims go uncompensated and the Culprit is free to repeat his/her actions.
This irresponsible attitude of bullying one's way is setting a wrong standard-- starting from the Top. If Human Rights are not respected then you would not get the Public's confidence to follow Laws and a near state of anarchy would rule. This I think is the main 'push factor' in Guyana.

Sustainable or not?

The week opened with the Headline that Guyana was in danger of losing 20 million from Norway as apparently Norway could not figure out how the agreement to pay for standing primary virgin forest gelled with the upsurge in Mining and Forestry- apparently the only thing bringing in Foreign Currency in spite of widespread illegal practices in that sector.  The newly-created post of Ministry of Natural Resources by the young Minister possessing an executive MBA, also the nephew-in-law of the former Champion of the Earth and being ably advised by a Cambridge Master's graduate in Environment should more than satisfy those pesky Norwegians, who for some strange reason are not accepting local figures but instead using GIS technology to map out the extent of possible deforestation. The fact that there are only 31% of original forest left standing in the World doesn't seem to sink in -- but then again conflict of interest links with various 'miners' linked to those in 'power' whether in government or opposition might have something to do with the selected blindness.
The week ended with the revelation that the Chinese may be getting a fisheries deal - even though the local fishermen have found evidence of declining stock and why on earth would a deal be struck with a people possessing much better technology than we can monitor and a terrible history of disregard for wildlife and environmental concerns?  Would THAT deal also be struck under the Ministry of Natural Resources I wonder?  IF not-- which and who is making these decisions? Exactly how safe IS our Natural Resources in their hands? Thinking about it, not only ours but the World's as the biodiversity is something still to celebrate--just the governance issue which keep sidelining the rest of the population in short-term fixes-- 

Not Ready Yet

One of my cathartic rants as it sadly sums up the way Guyana is headed.

I dashed into work to sort out a few last minute queries and was dismayed to find out in the mere half hour I was there some fool had parked a shiny new SUV across my drive - no note  where they might be; requiring me to make snappy enquiries at the card shop below my office and the photocopy place next door. The  unhelpful, bored and slightly belligerent guard on the other side had her usual response that she did not see whose vehicle and she didn't know if it was anyone visiting their premises.   It was 10.30 and I had booked a taxi to take me to the airport for  11 and had only half-packed! Talk about cutting it fine!

Hasty enquiries to the staff revealed ignorance of what transpired outside but thankfully a schoolchild on some sort of work-study said she thought the vehicle belonged to the doctor, I expressed my doubt as naturally one would expect more intelligent parking, also presumably not starting a clinic in the middle of the morning. I restrained myself from stomping down the corridor but couldn't resist an acid comment that maybe the person ought not to be driving if they were capable of such stupid parking. I would have happily paid my mechanic to tow away the vehicle but he is such a laid-back character he probably would not get there for another hour.  Went back to see if I could squeeze through by angling my car and ripping off the left side... Nope.

To my surprise, the doctor was one of my friend's trainees - one of the bright new hopes for Future Guyana,  on a program my friend had spent considerable time and energy to get off the ground with an American university to try and reach one of the Millennium Development Goals of reducing the Maternal Mortality figures. Now I had met this child at the local Pub Quiz and noted her and the other (younger) Guyanese way of doing the quiz which consisted of using cell phones. There had been a past hoohah between teams who took the quiz very seriously indeed over that same matter and the quizmaster  had several times tried to tell the new Guyanese teams that the point wasn't to be googling the answers on cellphones.

I told her that parking obstructing a driveway was probably not a good idea,  and although she said 'sorry' her tone implied the usual Guyanese attitude of 'what you getting annoyed at, can't you see I am more important?'  She then went on to qualify her remark that there was no other place to park her vehicle when she turned up. I debated about pointing out a note indicating where to find her, allowing enough time to find parking if going to work and treating other people's time with respect - both mine and presumably those people waiting to be treated, the foolishness of driving an oversized vehicle on roads not designed for them; but precious minutes weren't ticking by. She jumped into her vehicle and sat there instead of reversing into an empty space to let me out, as the focus was entirely about her parking on the other side of the street.  How on earth can you be a good doctor with such lack of empathy and surfeit of ego resulting in a peculiar form of entitlement?

My brother who has a great sense of humor, had us all in stitches with the picture of teaching Guyanese the mental equivalent of coming out of the jungle and learning to stand on two legs instead of four, then the painful and frustrating process of teaching them to  put one foot in front of the other to learn to walk but this lot have a misplaced arrogance and can be summed up with the local expression - you ain't ready yet!

Loneliness

'All the lonely people
Where do they all come from
All the lonely people
Where do they all belong?'      Stanza from Beatles song Eleanor Rigby

According to the article below, 'They’re the outsiders: not just the elderly, but also the poor, the bullied, the different. Surveys confirm that people who feel discriminated against are more likely to feel lonely than those who don’t.'...'A key part of feeling lonely is feeling rejected, and that, it turns out, is the most damaging part.'

Read an intelligent article on the effects of Loneliness on Human Beings:  http://www.newrepublic.com/article/113176/science-loneliness-how-isolation-can-kill-you#

"we’ve known intuitively that loneliness hastens death, but haven’t been able to explain how. Psychobiologists can now show that loneliness sends misleading hormonal signals, rejiggers the molecules on genes that govern behavior, and wrenches a slew of other systems out of whack. They have proved that long-lasting loneliness not only makes you sick; it can kill you. Emotional isolation is ranked as high a risk factor for mortality as smoking."

"Loneliness, ....—and this will surprise no one—is the want of intimacy."

The article went on to say that this is becoming a Public health crisis -- with a third of Americans reporting they don't feel close to anyone at a given time. The numbers growing from 1 in 5 to 1 in 3 from 10 yrs ago to now.

I felt pleased with myself when I read one of the researchers presumably back in the early '80s, thinking of imagining the world from a gay man's perspective, that I recognised a qualitative study -- considering the subject's point of view.

'If we now know that loneliness, a social emotion, can reach into our bodies and rearrange our cells and genes, what should we do about it? We should change the way we think about health. James Heckman, a Nobel Prize–winning economist at the University of Chicago who tabulates the costs of early childhood deprivation, speaks bitterly of “silos” in health policy, meaning that we see crime and low educational achievement as distinct from medical problems like obesity or heart disease. As far as he’s concerned, these are, in too many cases, symptoms of the same social disorder: the failure to help families raise their children.'

'As nearly half of all marriages continue to end in divorce, as marriage itself floats further out of reach for the undereducated and financially strapped, childhood has become a more solitary and chaotic experience. Single mothers don’t have a lot of time to spend with their children, nor, in most cases, money for emotionally enriching social activities.

“As inequality has increased, childhood inequality has increased,” Heckman said, “So has inequality of parenting.”

The article mentioned that depression- set to become the largest Public Health disease in the future - may be a symptom of Loneliness but is not the cause  (http://gtobserver.blogspot.com/2011/11/depression.html)  but ended on a positive note that we can be masters of our fate and change the outcomes with a deterministic attitude. 

UPDATE 25-Nov-1013: Canada too:  http://m.theglobeandmail.com/life/life-of-solitude-a-loneliness-crisis-is-looming/article15573187/?service=mobile
 

Curvilinear Lines

Guyana television churns up the odd interesting program in the mish-mash of junk.  One such program I happened across was the ‘Looking at and Understanding Great Art’ series.

I caught the end of one recent episode which put up a picture painted by the German artist Franz Marc who preferred to paint animals, horses mainly, in bold colours and curvilinear lines. The lecturer narrating the series said that curvilinear lines are more pleasing to the eye and it struck me why men like looking at women’s bodies – ‘cos they’re all curvilinear lines!  

 I remembered being surprised that Page 3 of The Sun – a rubbishy newspaper but one of the most widely-sold in England when I was a student – pulled in wide sales because of the topless young girl it displayed with something trite — the girl in question purported to say something like – ‘this is for you Dad, because I know how much you like Page 3!’ (?!!?!)

So, the Saturday Woman’s Feature of Stella Says in one of the local papers, is entitled Blurred Lines and is talking about the objectification of women – being so widespread that the young impressionable women can see hundreds, even thousands such images per day so that they do not think it is wrong to put up ‘sexy’ images of themselves in social media and for the world to view generally. She then extrapolated the knock-on effect on the local men, who began to feel ‘entitled’ to pass comments on passing women and said ‘if a man thinks he has a right to treat a woman with such disrespect and aggressiveness in public, he will do far worse in private.’  This sadly referred to often violent response of men to the realization that ‘their’ women is/was planning to leave them after putting up with years of neglect and/or abuse;  the papers have practically reported daily a case of a man killing the children and woman before fleeing or killing himself. (The book I am reading has a great line- ‘Sexual jealousy is the greatest crazy maker we have.’) The article ends saying that ‘as long as society continues to objectify women, the violence against women will also continue.  Sadly, women play right into this trap. They want to feel wanted and they have been given a how-to manual on what they need to do to be wanted by men.’ She said that it is ‘sentencing ourselves and our daughters to more violence and death’.

Makes me wonder how things get taken out of context and get out of hand rapidly – the natural appreciation of curvilinear lines morphs in porn then exploitation (cos dirty old men persuading young attractive females to view their bodies as commodities could only be that!). The natural inclination towards sweet and fatty foods is then exploited when junk has high fructose sugars and artificial flavourings added to it to fool our senses that we are eating something good for our bodies. A Facebook post—always subject to exaggeration - found a fast-food burger had only 2% meat.