Aug 5. 2014. Miraculous!

I read good news early in the morning that 2 American missionary workers who contracted Ebola saved their lives by experimental drug, ZMapp.

<Experimental drug likely saved Ebola patients>

http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/04/health/experimental-ebola-serum/

<Questions about this new Ebola drug>

http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/04/health/ebola-drug-questions/index.html

“Within an hour of receiving the medication, Brantly's condition dramatically improved. He began breathing easier; the rash over his trunk faded away. One of his doctors described the events as "miraculous."

Although WHO does not recommend using untested drugs in the middle of this outbreak, and Doctors Without Borders also gives concern that treatments/vaccines in very early stages of development have many scientific and ethical implications, Ebola patients are those who stand at the crossroads of death or survival. ZMapp needs the clinical trial process and approval for human use, FDA may have approved compassionate use of ZMapp for the case of 2 American Ebola patients. However bad, there is a hope out of this Ebola situation. I am glad to see these miraculous powers of healing!

Miracle happens for learning? Let us see. Lidya Botea, AIM-Health program facilitator of WVT, was really passionate about learning Korean language. When she talks to me in Swahili, I do not feel embarrassed anymore because I have a great defense; return in Korean to her! Whenever she heard Korean, she showed a puzzled expression on her face and said, “My friend! You are confusing me!” Then I am able to be free from random Swahili unprovoked attack. I seize the initiative and ask her to learn Korean. I am unsure as to whether I can learn Swahili so fast during my short fellowship period here, for two months. 

Is Korean easy to learn or not?

The Korean alphabet, Hangeul, consists of 10 vowels and 14 consonants. Unlike English, these vowels and consonants have to combine with each other to make some words. I wrote 14 consonants (가나다라마바사아자차카타파하) and 10 vowels (아야어여오요우유으이) on her note yesterday, sent her cell phone screenshot of Korean keyboard, and said, “Practice tonight!” without any anticipation. Surprisingly, she did some homework! She was trying to match English alphabet and Korean character, which was fun to me. In the Korean keyboard, all consonants are on the left side and all vowels are on the right side. However, she literally matched the English keyboard with Korean keyboard; for instance, A = ㅁ, B = ㅠ, C = ㅊ… on her note. It must be the first time for her to see new alphabet because Swahili is written by English alphabet. I tried to download Korean keyboard into her Huawei cell phone, but there was no function to add other keyboard in there. Both she and I absolutely need some time to understand each language.

Why can’t I just put some memory chip or USB into my head and play the program? Computer can do that, but my brain is worse than machines. I have to rely on Swahili dictionary/ translator apps and open and write Swahili what I heard on my note to communicate friendly with Tanzanians. When am I able to save all Swahili data in my head? There is no miracle… I feel like going back to babyishness when I have no idea what Tanzanians say, and I do not even know how I can start learning Swahili. At least, I know Swahili alphabet, which is the exactly same as English, so it would be a good start to memorize endless words while Lidya may be suffering for understanding Korean consonants and vowels.

Great lunch except the fact that I used a spoon

Denice, Lidya, Michael and I went to lunch. I forgot the most important Swahili word – meat, fish, vegetable, and chicken in Swahili – so I was at a loss what to order. Lydia seemed to enjoy this situation and did not help me out enough to order the food. After little meandering, I got ugali with anchovy soup, meat, and vegetables. However, I reached another impasse; everyone, including Denice, was using hands to eat ugali! I saw Sierra Leoneans also use their hands to eat fufu. I guess using hands is common to eat ugali, fufu, and any other similar type of flour meal in Africa.  Oh no… I wanted to take credit to myself for being a foreigner at this time, and busy with finding a spoon.

“You will not know the real taste of ugali!”

Lidya scolded(?) me that my behavior toward ugali was not polite. All people who had ugali were tearing off a little amount from big chunk of those maize flour, hand-rub it adorably to increase the density of sparse torn amount, dip it with all fingers in the soup, and set them to their lips. Is the taste really different between shoveling ugali into my mouth and hand-rubbing ugali? It may take some time for me to understand the importance of hand treatment for ugali. I know… There was no miracle for me to follow exactly the Tanzanians do at first sight.

Back to ZMapp, should we expect that all Ebola patients in Africa have to receive ZMapp? The word miracle means it is very unexpected and surprising. It does not mean that all other people will also be cured by ZMapp, just like 2 American volunteers. There has not been enough experiment for animals, not even for human body, so distributing experimental drugs may have a lot of risk. We know the Ebola epidemic is out of control and situation is so desperate; be that as it may, expecting the same type of miracle with other patients and supplying ZMapp would be a crude attempt. Sometimes, (or many times) all kinds of regulation, process, ethics, requirement, and securing evidence to develop vaccine or treatment may frustrate us, but it would be the best time to have deep views of Ebola outbreak that what actions would be for genuinely ensuring human beings’ health and safety. 

A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step! Okay, let's learn Swahili from the beginning. Oh wait, what was the Swahili expression that "I'm hungry?" ... :)