When two or more disasters hit people at ago, the result is always catastrophic. When something is being described as “catastrophic”, it has a profound effect of great significance. With the chronic hunger, people have starved beyond starvation.
You do not need to tell people to undress so that you confirm they have lost the flesh; you simply notice it from the faces. With sunken eyes, prominent zygomatic bones, prominent mandibles, dry lips and all that suggest emaciation, what comes into your mind? Definitely, what comes into your mind is either sickness or hunger.
People look like they were discharged from hospitals yesterday. People look wasted and lethargic, no energy at all. People are operating under a body system called “Reductive Adaptation System”. With reductive adaptation system, the body slows down and does less in order to allow survival on limited calories.
So, if the heatwave strikes in such a situation, how many days can people spend alive? The little fluid in the body gets sucked by the heat. The little food, of course, half a meal, gets digested by the heat, instead of being digested by the stomach. You eat, drink and within 30 minutes later, you feel like the last time you ate was two days ago.
For hustlers, the heatwave is unbearable. The sun rises at 5 AM instead of its usual time. So, by the time the hustlers set foot out, it is already too hot. The hustlers who earn a living working on documents from office to office are affected as heatwave blow them off. The hustlers who earn a living on manual work are severely affected as heat and labour collaborate to dilapidate them.
Those whose cars, offices and houses have ACs think they are comfortable, but they are too affected as their co-workers without cars, offices and houses with ACs go absent from work because of this excessive heatwave. So, you find that everyone is affected in one way or another.
Now, is the closure of schools the solution? Is remaining indoors the solution? When one remains indoors, he is like someone being chased by a lion and when he climbs up the tree on the shore of the river, the snake chases him down. Wanting to throw himself into the river, he sees a crocodile waiting for him with its mouth wide open. So, death becomes inescapable.
As one remains indoors, hunger attacks very seriously and when one goes out for hustling, heatwave strikes very mercilessly. So, survival becomes difficult. Many people, especially children, have gone and the few ones living are living at the mercy of hunger and heatwave.
So, what then follows the closure of schools and directives from the Ministries of Education and Instructions, Environment and Forestry and Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Management combined? Hunger and heatwave are two different catastrophic disasters that need to be addressed as early as possible.
What is the government doing about this? Or is the endorsement of the presidential candidate the solution for controlling hunger and heatwave? What a big joke! Who is going to vote if voters are being left to starve to death? If the government is unable to provide food, it should provide electricity and drinking water until when the heatwave gets over. As a responsible government, there should at least be one time in a year where it tickles people to forge a smile. Where is that claimed care?
It is two weeks and a half now with this hot weather and the pre-existing hunger, but the government looks somehow hesitant about the condition. Closing the schools is one solution, but rolling out a nationwide campaign and vaccination against meningitis is another.
Thanks for reading “Sowing The Seed Of Truth”.