The Ghost of Christmas Present

This time last year, Emile Ouamouno died......he was two years old. He lived in the village of Meliandou, in a remote region of Guinea. Within days his sister and mother were also dead. His symptoms, fever, headache and bloody diarrhoea, mimicked those of common endemics such as Cholera and Lassa Fever, outbreaks of which are unremarkable in Africa, no one assumes their children will become adults.

We now know that Emile was the first victim of the current Ebola outbreak. In the next year a further 7,580 people died and thousands of children became orphans. In Liberia, a country brought to its knees by civil war that destroyed its infrastructure, there is one doctor for every 70,000 people.

If you have been lucky enough to visit Africa, you will know how harsh life can be for many, how bereft life is of everything we take for granted in the UK, such as water, mains drainage, electricity, schools, healthcare.

I heard on the news this morning that the estimated spend on Christmas in the UK is £22.5 billion.......

We are off to The Gambia in a few days, a country whose economy is based on tourism.....tourists that are staying away because they don't want to catch Ebola.....they couldn't if they tried, there isn't any.......yet. I shall be spending money there, I know some special children that want an education, that need to be lifted out of poverty, I want to help keep their proud little heads high. I don't want them to be remembered the way that Emile is.