I woke up today with a couple things on my mind this morning. Which is pretty normal when you’re living in a place that’s main news story is the Plague.
It’s certainly not good that the Plague is so active but it’s also not as scary or as threatening as some of the statistics and news stories might have you believe. There are areas where there are more cases and it is a bad situation for those areas and those people affected; but that’s not everywhere and that is not everyone’s reality, it’s certainly not mine. (Nor any of the volunteers that I work with.)
Plague is a super scary word. It conjures up images and ideas of medieval times and apocalypse. But even as the number of total cases rises to 805 this week, it’s not always obvious here and it’s not changing everything and for some, it’s not changing anything.
This is a serious situation but it is not an all encompassing one for everyone. There is much of the island untouched by the plague. We pray that remains the case.
We also pray that the circumstances which help a disease like this spread – poverty, lack of sanitation, insufficient healthcare – begin to improve and bring wholeness, health, sufficiency, trust, faith and peace to Madagascar now and in the days, weeks, and months to come.
We are thankful for the international resources that have arrived on the island, they are needed and they will help fight the disease.
I write this as a reassurance for friends and family back home who may be wondering or scared for me and the volunteers with whom I work. We are fine, we are healthy, we are prepared, we have access to all the things we need to insure that. The problem here is that there are a whole lot of people in this country that can not say the same, something I will likely comment on more at another time.
For now, I’ll leave you with some visual proof of things unchanged…these are all out my front window today. And I’ll add a video to my Facebook page for more of today…a whole 53 seconds of it!
Love and Peace to you from Madagascar!
And remember, this is a curable disease. I have the prophylaxis medication on hand to keep me healthy, in the highly unlikely time I might ever need it. (and so do the volunteers)
Madagascar Vaovao 