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Village life　−Social and political issues
　Diet member's visit　Dr. Leon Alfred Opimbat
　Bambenga
　Ebola hemorrhagic fever -Outbreak and the end
 
 
Dr. Opimbat, past Minister of Health and present member of National Assembly from Mbomo came to the village. Literally all of the villagers welcomed him on his arrival, and sang and danced until late at night like festivity. He is really a significant person to them; whether they support his party or not did not matter.
 

On the next day of his arrival, there was a meeting at the school over four hours. The room was full of people, who were earnestly listening to Dr. Opimbat's report on the national and local budget, issues under discussion in the national assembly, and the election.

They are highly concerned with political issues, and asked a lot of questions. They appealed their distressed conditions of famine of teachers and medical staff, and undeveloped roads, but it seemed difficult to solve these administrative, not legislative, problems.
 

Have you heard of the pygmy? They are considered to be hunter-gatherers with short height living in the forests, but those who have settled in villages since their ancestors' days also live with the identity of the pygmy. They are called Bambenga in Mbomo. Since they don't have a good skill of living in the village, they feel inconvenience living in shabby houses and harvesting less crops in their fields, which has led to discrimination that they are employed for menial labor with low wages.
 
There are NGOs of villagers which support Bambenga so that they can live without being discriminated.
They wish to promote their activity to instruct agricultural technique, to show the world by taking Bambenga to the capital, and so on.
 
 

There was an outbreak of Ebola hemorrhagic fever in Mbomo in November 2003, which was the third time there. (Please refer to the web site of Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) regarding the way how it was controlled.) It is a disease with high mortality rate of 50 to 90 % and can be infected trough body fluid including sweat. Regardless of repeated advices to escape from the village by the Japanese Embassy to Gabon, I stayed in the village, avoiding contacts with sources of infection.

As soon as Ebola was suspected by two deaths, villagers stopped shaking hands which they do normally, and avoided touching others. Schools and churches where a lot of people gather were closed. The village became very silent: Some people begun to live in hutches in their crop fields deep in the forests, others tried not to go out and stayed inside their houses. My house was right outside the village, so I went out only for the forest where I did not have to pass through the village. Medical staff from WHO and MSF came and the situation was under control to prevent expansion of the infection. Displacement between other villages was restricted.

Ministry of Health came to Mbomo by plane. According to a villager who attended the meeting with Minister, he gave advices that they must not touch dead bodies, and should not depend on bushmeat but promote breeding livestock.

Succession of deaths stopped when entering December, and it was finally announced that 29 deaths occurred, and the source of infection was bushmeat of a wild pig. Those who died belonged mostly to the same families; one family lost as many as 13 members. Since they have a custom to wash dead body, it sacrificed women who played a role to take care of patients. Children were also vulnerable with less resistance. On the Christmas Day churches held carol service sermon, and the village was reenergized. Schools were opened in January 2004.

 

A meeting on Ebola was held in the village in mid January (Photo). Among three hunters who went into the forest, two had died of Ebola first but one survived, and was arrested for poaching of elephants. He was released from jail and made a report in detail how they spent the time in the forest. It surprised me that participants asked many questions which were dealt and proceded by village elders very democratically. However, unfortunately most of the remarks were made in the local language Mboko and I could not understand well. The biggest questions to villagers were, why some died and others did not albeit they touched the dead bodies at the same funeral, and why only Mbomo experienced Ebola three times albeit bushmeat was also frequently eaten in many other villages, which could not been made clear due to absence of expertise.

In and around the Odzala National Park, Ebola is now not only a threat to people but also to gorillas. Groups of gorillas which had been observed in the park suddenly disappeared, and dead gorillas were found in another place. There are researchers who are investigating relationship between distribution of gorillas and the Ebola.
     

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