Geneva, Monday 27 April 2020

This morning’s trip to the supermarket was wonderfully uneventful. For the first time since lockdown began, there were fresh flowers for sale. This made me inexplicably happy. 

Staying in my joy bubble, I was able to tame Donald-the-sourdough-starter to the extent that I goaded him into a delicious bleach-free loaf. Here it is bathing in that ultravioletful balcony sunlight waiting to be eaten with my disinfectant-less mulligatawny soup made from the vestiges of last night’s chicken curry.

All this positivity has got me thinking about the possible benefits of our lockdown. My wife has discovered that she loves working from home. Yay! We’ll see where this goes. The apartment has had the deep clean; every cupboard has been sorted and rid of its no-longer wanted bits ‘n’ bobs. We’ve experimented with different bread-making techniques: always fun! I have, through this diary, found myself putting stuff into writing that I thought I would never write about. This has proved quite fulfilling and has allowed me to connect and reconnect with many wonderful people. Let’s call my latest painting adventure work in progress; but I have found a style and materials that do not require a studio; (lack of which was the main reason for not painting over the last ten years.) I have read a ton of books. My putting has improved. 

My wife and I recognise that, to present, we have got off lightly. The time of COVID-19 lockdown cannot have been anything but dreadful for many people. Apart from world-wide job losses and business closures, murder rates have spiked in some countries along with increased reporting of domestic violence. Most bizarre is that calls to the UK’s helpline for “intimate image abuse” (a.k.a. revenge porn) has doubled. I can only imagine that this is because some people are spending that much longer engaged in and being driven by the less savoury applications of social media.

As to the origin of this virus, the more sensible voices out there seem to be be coalescing around the started-in-bats theory. It must be quite some mean little bit of single strand RNA because not only are humans infected but also, apparently, cats and mink. Jumping to multiple species, becoming highly contagious within the new species and then, well… going viral, would certainly win gold in the microbial olympics. This one has stamina.

I am fascinated by the COVID-19  statistics from different countries and the comparison thereof. (Bravo, Johns Hopkins!) There are a number of reasons for the differences. These include: when the pandemic hit the country; different reporting criteria (for example, defining what “a COVID-19 “case” is or how a death might be attributed to COVID-19;) the different counter-measures adopted; the population and the population density; public health infrastructure; and, quite simply, whether the virus affects people in different countries in different ways. Probably all come into play and will be the subject of PhD’s for years to come. Inevitably there are political implications. Sweden’s relaxed approach to social distancing seems to be causing quite the sensation; however, the Johns Hopkins stats show that the country has yet to reach its peak of daily cases. Keep your eye on this one.

New Zealand has today reported zero cases; this is likely due to savvy political decisions, a country with a refined public health infrastructure and the zero possibility of infected migrant workers slipping over the border and into crowded dormitories during the night. This last seems to be the current and major problem in Singapore. All governments are desperate to restart stalled economies and they are scrambling to find the statistics that justify it. The unlockdown is beginning and we should all be watching with bated breath. The elephant in the briefing room is the resumption of international flights.

This virus has put us in our place. At such a time one cannot help but reflect on one’s own existence in relation to humanity, other animals, all other life forms and our planet (and why stop there?) Given that I have time to read these days. I tackled “You are More than You Realise: The case for secular spirituality, interconnectedness, and the power of the mind” by Louise Doswald-Beck, a friend and former colleague. This highly qualified publicist has tackled an enormous subject. Firm in the belief of a non-religious and science-based spirituality, she has set out to bring hard evidence to its existence and argues that our lives and our planet would be better if we recognised it. Her material has been painstakingly accrued, referenced and presented as if she were defending her thesis in a legal forum. To this forum she brings evidence pertaining to, among other subjects, consciousness after death, re-incarnation, mediums, psychic phenomena, the placebo effect, a universal bioenergy, ghosts and apparitions, alternative medicine, evolution, relativity, quantum theory, cosmology and the raison d’être of international law. Whether the foundation of your beliefs is science, a god, both or something else, Louise gives those foundations a shake. Whether she ultimately succeeds in making her case, only the reader can judge. I was fascinated by her book but, because of my maybe-all-too-rigid scientific background, I could not readily agree with many of her conclusions. I am happy to admit, though, that I aim to be more open to the interconnectedness of such matters in the future. Given that, I am sure that there is one thing that Lousie and I would agree upon: if she, a priest and I were to discuss the material of her book, the arguments would make just a few ripples on the vast lake of all the unknown and unknowable stuff out there.

Geneva, Sunday 26 April 2020

A man driving along sees a penguin by the side of the road. He stops, picks up the penguin and takes it to the police station. The policeman says “Why did you bring the penguin here? Take him to the zoo!” The following day, the policeman is out in the street and sees the same man in his car with the penguin in the front seat wearing a cap and sun glasses. “Oi!” shouts the policeman. “I told you to take that penguin to the zoo.” The man replies “I did take him to the zoo. He loved it. Then we went to the cinema. Then we had a pizza and today we’re going to play golf!”

It looks like golf in Switzerland will open on 1 May and in France on 11 May. (We live in Switzerland but our club is in nearby France.) Sounding hopeful! We don’t yet know if we’ll be able to cross the border. 

The French Golf Federation seems to be right onto it and has published rules for clubs so they comply with French government stipulations on COVID-19 distancing. The main features are:

• The club house is closed but can keep the reception open and sell only take-away food;
• All players must reserve in advance with no hanging around before or after the round;
• Only two ball games;
• A three metre distance between all other players at all times;
• No sharing of caddy cars, trolleys or clubs;
• Hand disinfectant must be available on hole 1, 9 and 18;
• No exchange of score cards;
• No handling of bunker rakes;
• No handling flag stick or removing ball from the hole by hand.

This last means the flag on every hole must be equipped with a gadget to lift the ball out with the putter. For example…

Practice ranges are open but with similar rules as well as disinfection of ball baskets after each use.

We have, as yet, no idea when competition golf might recommence.

The next most important subject obviously is the art of bread-making. I don’t know how to break the news about our domestic bake-off: Boris (my wife’s sourdough starter) beat Donald (mine) on their first crust-to-crust encounter. Despite massive cheating on Donald’s part (doping with commercial yeast in training,) he was too wet and slippery and got stuck to the bottom of the Dutch oven.

Meantime, Boris did his bit for Queen and Country. His namesake returns to work tomorrow.

In today’s putting competition, I regained at least a crumb of honour by winning on the first play-off hole. That’s me up, 19-9. 

Geneva, Saturday 25 April 2020

It was 1989. I stumbled out of the small plane. “Welcome to South East” said Pauline, an OT nurse I knew from a previous mission. Big smile. Big hug. I was very happy to see a familiar face. I had already been travelling for four days. “It’s a two day drive to the hospital.” she said “We’ll be leaving tomorrow morning.”

This was my fourth trip as surgeon with the International Committee of the Red Cross. The out-going briefing in ICRC’s HQ in Geneva hid nothing. “South East” was the name given to a very discrete and politically sensitive surgical action in a corner of the poorest of African countries riven by a brutal cold-war era civil conflict. South East was a vast former national park occupied by rebels and their situation was desperate. Furthermore, no patients would ever get to us from the front within two weeks of being wounded. The whole set-up was so discrete that we would never know precisely where the hospital was. My other job, I was told, was to hook up by radio with the ICRC office in the neighbouring country and receive the weekly plan for our relief flights out from the capital on the government side of our conflict. (Direct communication with the ICRC team on the other side was not permitted.) I would give the flight plan to “the responsible person.” The idea being that if the rebels knew the where and when of our flights, they wouldn’t shoot them down. The system worked. It was also explained that my route in to South East was on a supply flight from another country and it would be circuitous to say the least. And so I left Geneva on a nice clean and comfortable Swiss Air flight for my first taste of Africa.

The flight in on the supply plane was five hours. I was the only passenger and was squeezed into a gap between boxes of hospital supplies. Under a huge African sky, the pilot flew just above the tree tops to avoid our being picked up by the government’s Soviet-made radar. The plane had no GPS. The co-pilot had a map on his knees. The intrepid pair assured me that they would find the airstrip but they might have to fly around the area a bit. Eventually they spotted it… and spotted a problem. A herd of elephants! The pilot buzzed them and they all charged off into the forest allowing us to land. We taxied to the end of the strip and out from under the trees trundled a lorry with a gang of young men in fatigues. And Pauline. While the plane was being unloaded, I was interrogated about my political sympathies and had my passport checked and stamped.

Early the following morning, we met the team that were coming up to the hospital with us. Our guard comprised five young men in khaki uniforms and red berets with AK47s over their shoulders. Chiko was in charge. They were all very happy. I was soon to learn why. We all clambered up onto the back of the lorry and set off; the boxes of supplies were to be our seats for the long journey.

There was no road. We were travelling through light forest and around wide swamplands. It was unspeakably beautiful. The ground was the softest of sand; progress was slow. Occasionally the lorry would lurch to a halt; usually because the driver had spotted some elephants. They would look at us for a while before lumbering away. When we came across some gazelles, Chiko gave an order and one of the guys took off through the bush and bagged one (using ten rounds on automatic!) This meant meat for supper… and explained why being detailed to look after us was such a great job. It was the only time they were allowed to hunt for meat. That night we feasted on the most delicious venison with fries and tomato ketchup.

The following day we were moving reasonably fast on some firmer sand. The lorry stopped. To a man, our guards were rigid; whites of eyes showing. “What’s the problem?” I asked. “Cobra!” one replied, pointing. There, about twenty metres right in front of us was a huge black snake coiled with head raised looking straight at us. We waited. I still couldn’t see what the problem was; we were in this massive lorry. When I asked why we didn’t just drive right by, I was told that a cobra’s spit could pass through the windscreen and the steel sides of the lorry. We would surely die. The only option, apparently and according to Chiko, was to kill the snake.

Very reluctantly, one of the young soldiers climbed down, knelt, took aim and emptied a whole magazine at the snake. When the dust settled, there it was; unharmed, coiled and still giving us the eye. “Give him some more ammo!” ordered Chiko. Embarrassed looks all round. Ah…. No more ammo! The decision was made, we had to run the snake over. The lorry reversed up. Moving forward with engine revved to the max – we must have been in third gear – we ran right over the snake. I looked over the edge of the lorry and saw that he had slithered out between the wheels and into a stand of small trees. The lorry stopped. Everyone was very tense. They were looking to see if they had squashed the snake. “Oh, don’t worry!” I said, “I saw it go into those trees over there.” So, inexplicably, they turned the lorry around and chased Hissing Sid through the forest snapping saplings off at the roots as we went. Eventually the snake got the better of us and Chiko decided that we should continue on to the hospital.

An hour later, we ground to a halt again. The driver pointed among some trees.

Advice: If you are ever in a country plagued by landmines, do not get out of your vehicle to grub about amongst a whole lot of elephant bones. Yes, that’s me holding the beast’s femur! I was young and foolish then. 

The extraordinary journey up to the hospital was simply a prelude to an extraordinary three months. I had been twice to the Afghan border of Pakistan and once to the Thai-Cambodian border. I thought that, by then, I had seen it all; then came South East. There was nothing glamorous. The wounded, those poor guys, arrived 40 or 50 at a time on the back of a lorry every few days. No first aid. Covered in dust. Heavy wound infection. The surgery was largely hopeless despite the best efforts of a great team. 

On coming out, I wept and wept. Maybe fatigue. Maybe malaria (that we all suffered.) Weeks later, working back in the UK’s National Health Service, I realised the cause of my overwhelming sadness. This was just one war on a whole continent; all over Africa many thousands of wounded people, soldiers and civilians alike, had no chance of ever receiving adequate surgical care. I had seen what that looked like. Organisations like ICRC and MSF, if they could get access, barely made a dent in the needs. Those prosecuting the war – right up to Washington and Moscow – didn’t give a damn. 

It’s some years since I was in the field. I’m pretty sure that, out there “in the developing world,” not a lot has changed. I sincerely hope someone will prove me wrong.