Reflections on sunday : Welcome, Friendly, Feeding Mosquito!

No, I’m not talking about General Mosquito. In any case, which general would I be talking about? As far as I can tell, there are two generals by that name, one in Ghana and another in Liberia. General Mosquito in Ghana is a Mr. Johnson Asiedu Nketia, who used to, and may still, be General Secretary of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), one of the political parties in that country. General Mosquito in Liberia is one of the killer battle-front commanders of Charles Taylor before the latter was carted to the Hague. He is otherwise known as General Christopher Vambo. Apart from hearing about these two men when they were in the news, I don’t know much else about them. So, I’m talking about the good (or pricking bad?) old mosquito that has made our lives in Africa a living hell. For one, I know that it is responsible for my present bouts of insomnia, in addition to nerve problems. In the sprawling refugee camps of Nshungerezi, mosquitoes used to hunt us down and slaughter us with the zeal of Rwandan génocidaires of 1994. For instance, it’s Tuesday and you’ve woken up at the ungodly hour of five in the morning to go to Gikagati for a day of labour in exchange for food. In Nshungerezi, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday were days for that kind of labour. And it was not that we were not of school-going age, no. It was that people had to eat and, as refugees, we’d not yet got land to cultivate. The two weekdays were thus set aside as ‘food-days’ and the teachers knew it and only hoped that we’d not flunk their exams. Exams which, miraculously, we used to pass with flying colours. That Tuesday, then, you’d go very early and beg for a job of tilling the land. If you were lucky and got it, you’d start on it with the hoe they lent you, at about 6 AM. You toiled on the parcel of land up to about 1 PM, whereupon your Mukiga employer called you for a lunch of hot beans and pumpkins. You and your fellow refugee cultivators would gobble up the food hungrily, without waiting for it to cool, and be through in a few minutes. Then it was back to the parcel of land till 6 PM when you were given a packet of grains of beans, peas or whatever other grains had been proposed to you. After that, you put your packet on your head and set off for home, glad that that day you did not go to the other side of Nshungerezi valley. That side was up in the hills of Ngarama, where the Munyankore employer gave you a forbiddingly heavy bunch of bananas that literally shoved your head and neck into your shoulders. Anyway, in all cases you reached home exhausted and worn out and went straight for your bed, after putting down your load. Hardly had you stolen forty winks, however, than you were roused awake by the sharp sting of a mosquito and the vuvuzela-drones of other mosquitoes swarming around you. And that is how sleep vanished from your system. As for the nerve problems, before your heavy sleep vanished, the mosquitoes would have transmitted malaria-causing parasites into you as they sucked your blood. After repeated infections and treatments, your nerve system was forever kaput. That is why I received the news of a new, harmless mosquito with mixed feelings. With happiness because I know that today’s and future generations will be saved from the menace, but with regret because I know that I’m beyond the redemption effort of these new mosquitoes. And which are these new mosquitoes? In case you haven’t heard the news, entomologists in the University of Arizona, USA, have created mosquitoes that will not act as vectors. I understand the new mosquitoes will not only be non-transmitters of malaria-causing parasites but will also hunt down and eradicate the old mosquitoes. Knowing the way government works in Rwanda, I know that the new mosquitoes will be here in the country as soon as they are off the production line. Anyone who does not believe that need only see how malaria infection has plummeted over the last few years. Before 2003, malaria was the biggest killer of all diseases. While malaria still ravages many African countries, Rwanda today is all but malaria-free. Practically every family is supplied with free mosquito nets, and don’t forget that all homes are regularly fumigated. Or look at anti-retroviral medication. Whereas all HIV-positive patients were headed for certain death some 10 years ago, today the rate has plunged to a mere 2% thanks to provision of free anti-retroviral drugs by government. And the engine of this government? The no-nonsense, no-dilly-dallying, action-packed and action-packing patriotic party. Need anybody spell it out? Maybe time is not far when we shall be giving blood to female mosquitoes for the vital, progenitive continuum of the generations of their kind without paying with our lives. The power of reaching that time is in our vote tomorrow! ingina2@yahoo.co.uk