Sent on a fool's errand to possible frustration

Like a fool’s errand

At a government mandated training course this morning where the disconnect between all related departments became so apparent that it was laughable, the dead hand of government protocols landed with a thud before us.

The question was whether any of the participants knew why they had to attend the course on advice and instruction of their advisors, for literally all the answers given, none was close.

Persuade to dissuade

The referral office was just ticking boxes without knowledge of the reasons to tick boxes, as each answer ranged from helping to write CVs, finding work for long-term unemployed, interviewing technique tips and useful preparations for work.

Surreptitiously, part of the purpose of sending people for this course is to frustrate them off the welfare roll and at least one of the attendees disappeared the moment the group broke up for the first break session.

To the market with the marketable

However, in the midst of the mundane and rudimentary, there are nuggets of wisdom, clues as to how people can alter their outlook and mind-set, leading to gainful employment.

Fundamentally, a CV is marketing literature; it is the means of selling yourself to the market. A market seeking talent and expertise you may possess.

The CV should create enough curiosity to excite interest, but it should never be overloaded such that there are no discussion points to give depth and detail to the ability and personality of the person.

The demeanour to project

We rise to challenges thrown our way in everyday walks of life but that boldness and confidence with which we effortlessly tackle problems seems to be lost at interview.

It is important to act naturally, being oneself rather than trying to impress thereby giving rise to nervousness, one of the factors indicative of poor interview technique.

Blessed at the font of the double page

The advice whilst useful could be quite prescriptive as preferred fonts being Garamond or Verdana, set headings providing uninspiring structure, page setups with set margins or that a CV must never exceed two pages with the employment history restricted to five years except for security or artistic roles.

For information technology roles, the suggestion is to use LinkedIn to document the other roles or have a webpage containing that detail.

Some things

Avoid clichés like ‘hard-working’ or ‘customer service skills’ in the profile because people are expected to be hard-working regardless, and customer service skills are innately functions of a person’s respect for others, acting courteously, politely and with a friendly disposition – you either have it or not.

Besides all this, forms, yes, many forms filled to the point of distraction but with the challenges, opinions, reviews, assessments and the ideas, it really was not a wasted day. Another day of observation and participation is set for the morrow.

Thought Picnic: To wilfully forget a parent's birthday

An unfortunate breakdown

It probably signifies a breakdown in relationship building when parents and children grow considerably distant that the only connection between them becomes that of grudging filial duty rather than longing friendship.

Association challenges some children and at times blackmail spurs action through comparison and embarrassment; caught between comparison and envy of others who have cultivated better of parent-child interaction.

These things do not happen in a vacuum, opportunity and choice over the years left untapped and unexploited defines what becomes of how parent and child respect, acknowledge and support each other in whatever paths they all choose and thrive in.

Emotions in turmoil

This might catch a child between resentfulness and gratitude; the former borne of unfortunate inadequacies on both sides and the latter recognising that as age diminishes the influence of parentage, their being around still offers some slight opportunity at reconciliation and renewed friendship.

Resentfulness however is a consuming fire that leaves a person in danger of being past caring, indifferent, unconcerned, disinterested and unaffected.

Exasperated kids

Children are not perfect, and parents do strive to do their best within the spectrum of the knowledge and experience they have from handling the responsibility of making basic provision of shelter, protection, education and material needs, but these are no substitutes for the intangibles of love and affection borne out of proper emotional engagement.

Children do get exasperated starting with parents demanding respect through to parents being overly controlling that the child never gets to live their own life. Crudely, you find instances where the father expects to be feared, and the mother will not countenance the idea of joking or laughing with the children in idle banter.

A lack of adaptation

Independence cannot then come too quickly for the child to break free. The nature of the break if not properly recognised by the parent such that they adapt will lead to unavoidable disengagement as each party goes their different ways, decades separating them until it appears they do not matter to each other anymore than through the intrusion of emotion brought on by nostalgic impudence.

That things could have been better is no more the discussion or argument, whether the time can be redeemed is another issue, but worse still is the possible regret that might follow never having done something when things could be done on the side of both the parent and the child.

Whatever!

You then ask; can a child wilfully forget a parent’s birthday? At which point your realise that things have really gotten that bad and rather than face the trepidation that infuses each conversation when they talk, the greater peace though without comfort is best served by just getting on with your life and the sadness of the story being told.

Providence and consequence draws on a long history of experiences, we are young, we cultivate relationships and grow old living the knowledge of our lived out truths. For those whose memory is the keenest, the hope is that the good remembered outnumbers the ready reckoner of the bad and the ugly when it is all put in the balance.

C’est la vie will say the French, but just west of France, in Spain, one might hear, Que sera, sera.

Thought Picnic: To the letter for the better

Getting the letter too right

If I am to access customer services anywhere, I take the time to find out what is expected of me to easily obtain the assistance or service I need.

There is nothing like having too much information at hand to help determine what you really want and in the same vein; it prevents the situation where they could persuade you into going for something else that does not suit your purposes.

When I went shopping for my high specification laptop that came with 4GB of RAM but had a capacity for 16GB, I had obtained the information for the 16GB option, bought the default configuration and upgraded the laptop at home; saving me, about £200 if I went for a laptop fully configured to me desired specification.

I visited the shop with 16 pages of information, and each sales pitch fell flat as I flipped page after page of my research stressing why I had made my decision and emphatically making it clear that I would not be swayed.

Showing the letter to fight

Today, I walked into the 3Three mobile telephony shop to remove the adult content filter on my phone. This is not to entertain bawdry activity but to take of restrictions where somewhat overzealous censors might have blocked innocuous websites.

Besides, I should not be embarrassed to visit websites of an adult nature, and I do not want the establishment to determine what I can or cannot view even if I do not end up viewing sites the sententious might presume will corrupt my morals.

3Three provides one of the following three ways of removing the adult filter.

1. A refundable credit card charge.
2. By visiting a 3Store with identification to verify age.
3. Over the phone by calling customer services and still having a credit card.

I chose to visit the store because that meant I could have questions answered along with all the assistance I require if there are issues.

I approached the counter and asked to enable Adult Content and the customer service agent said I should call Customer Services because the adult filter cannot be lifted in-store.

Giving the letter to sight

Patiently, I attempted to access a possible adult site and the filter warning came up with the instructions, the letter of which was clear, it can be done in-store and so I expect it to be done in-store until such a time when the advice on the 3Three website is removed.

Seeing that I had won the argument, the agent himself called Customer Services and went through the process that involved reading disjointed numbers off my SIM card, reciting my phone number like a mantra and though I am a good many years over 18, I still had to prove I was over 18.

Having things done to the letter can be pernickety but I will not be fobbed off by recalcitrance in the face of compelling information.

Seeing the letter of blight

As I left the store and got to the City of London, not too far from a church, a little inhabitant scurried into a cranny defying to the letter the metaphor of being as poor as church mouse, this mouse was probably too well fed to be swift on its feet.

Perish the thought that besides the vermin of banksters that roam the skyscraper sewers of the City of London gambling away our futures for bonuses today, we have the compounded infestation of vermin in subterranean sewers too.

In no way, have I found to love these scenarios to the letter without a fight for the right in the sight of blight.

Where is Dick Whittington and his cat to make history again?

Thought Picnic: What the gravely ill need

Between myself

There are some traits I recognise about myself that leave me feeling quite strange as if a foreign mind inhabits that encasement of flesh and blood that constitutes my corporeal existence.

Just over four years ago, I watched as this body began to malfunction because of the many choices, good, bad and ugly that I had made before. Some choices in the search of meaning, other choices in search of identity and many choices in search of some satisfaction, pleasure, enjoyment or fulfilment.

I am a driven man, driven to achieve, driven to realise, driven to obtain and sometimes driven to distraction. My simplicity and complexity finds a person caught in the conflicts at the intersection of culture, religion, race, sexuality, and status.

On the verge of crazy

Strangely, I write as an extrovert but in person, I am probably quite introverted though there are settings where I have rationalised that I can maintain a balance between reserved and uninhibited, I am perched on the verge of crazy.

Looking back at how I started this blog and the thoughts that now occupy my mind as I type, I am nowhere near my intended destination, I wanted to write about what the vulnerable need when very ill and in hospital and what this is about?

We have a bed for you, upstairs

I had no idea when I left home in the morning of the 22^nd of September, 2009 what laid ahead of me apart from the fact that I had a serious condition, and I was in excruciating pain to the point of delirium.

My uncommitted and vacillating partner accompanied me to the hospital; got me a wheelchair and wheeled me to the Department of Internal Medicine where wise heads opined about my condition from observation and their experience. Then their chief, a professor of Internal Medicine arrived and decided, there and then; in his words, “We have a bed for you upstairs.”

Everything was set in motion from then on; he, my partner, had to go to work but not before I had given him a list of numbers of who to call and inform that, I was now a resident of a major teaching hospital in the East of Amsterdam.

Eighteen days, I spent there where I learnt I had cancer, it was curable and during my stay, I took the first of seven sessions of chemotherapy.

Visits that lift

As I came to the acceptance of what I had and then beyond that what really mattered, considering there was the possibility that I could be dead in five weeks. I was that diminished in strength and capacity, but I write about the things that brought comfort.

Visits from friends and my neighbour who did everything beyond the call of neighbourliness to help, by running errands, by fixing things and providing great encouragement.

Other concerns

My partner was hardly around apart from when my laptop was delivered the next day, I saw little of him, he hated hospitals and I felt abandoned in a foreign land far away from family and cognisant of the fact that major preparations were in place to celebrate my father’s 70^th birthday in the month of October 2009.

Part of my cultural heritage is living for the party, though it is not what I have ascribed to as a person, I find the charade alien and vulgar, but this is what Yorubas literally live for, celebration and jollity.

For instance, on hearing of the news of the passing of an uncle, the regret I heard from some corners pertained to life going out of the great December parties the uncle used to host in my hometown.

Encouraging presence

The visits mattered, old work colleagues, friends I had not seen in years, even one who had once battled cancer years before who I could not pluck up the courage to visit when she was ill, but she was at my beside the moment she heard. She is now of blessed memory, may she rest in peace.

For spiritual comfort, the hospital chaplain came to see me and we had a very long talk, and each Sunday I took communion in my bed, but without the wine. I could have done with some support from my local church, but it was not until I left hospital before we engaged.

The joy of good food

The hospital food was bland and tasteless, if it had any nutritional value, it never registered on the tongue nor did it have an inviting aroma. Each time the food was served, I lost my appetite, but I had to eat it to use my pills.

My friends brought tasty meals that I kept for as long as I could. Besides, the drugs pumped into my system altered my taste for dairy, poultry and seafood products that I was left with sickly aftertaste; sometimes it was impossible to keep the food down.

It took another 6 months for me to recover the known good taste of these foods.

My writing

My blog played a vital role, I wrote daily about my condition, typing on my netbook and using the Internet connection on my phone to post my blogs.

However, because I was still blogging, my brother reading my stuff in faraway Nigeria felt I was quite fine, he had no idea, not an inkling of how serious my condition was.

Through my blog I made new friends, a bouquet of brilliant colourful flowers arrived from Sweden on the first day of chemotherapy; others who had once been hospitalised too wrote in to offer strength and encouragement. I began to appreciate the significance of my social media network, many of the people who read my blog then I have eventually gone on to meet in person.

Money matters

When in hospital other worries occupy the mind, because the bills are coming in, and they need to be paid. I did not immediately ask for social security assistance thought I learnt that I was quite entitled to support due to generous contributions I had made into the system for about 9 years.

With that came untold hardship and worry with my credit cards maxed up and then my land telephony line being the first to suffer before I lost Internet access, and there followed a catalogue of other losses.

The hospital intervened when my application for welfare support stalled. I lost two months of entitlements in the process, the monetary gifts I received in the hospital and then over the first few months of recovery was helpful, but I was already back to work within 6 weeks of the last chemotherapy session just because I felt pressured to earn to keep what I had.

Every little helps

All I have to say is every little helps; I am well aware of this because of my experience that visits, food, communication and money can significantly help the recovery process of those who have taken seriously ill.

Between my introversion and my extraversion, I have not developed or cultivated enough relationships to help in my lean times, yet I know the value of such and I cherish the few who have stood with me as the winds beneath my wings when I was frail and with nothing apart from a slither of hope.

Once again, thank you friends.

The Cancer Tales section of my Blog Themes provides links to the blogs I wrote when I was in hospital.

The psychology of the wash

A bath or a shower

When I owned my own place, it is strange that the decision to buy my apartment could have hinged on the bathroom having a bathtub instead of the installed shower unit.

There were times during the negotiation process where that was a niggling thought at the back of my mind, the place became a stronghold, a refuge, a kind of security from the things that ravaged my life and worth many years later. I spent ten and a half wonderful years there before I sold up.

The shower was a special place, the feeling of water cascading down my body, the temperature of the water set to just about bearable, but very comfortable, the floor of the bathroom heated such that the cold of winter was barely noticeable.

The wash for something

Indeed, there was something about the wash; I could adjust the showerhead to deliver the spray as a soft rain through to a pulsing massaging hosing down.

The quest for cleanliness also offered a cubicle of meditation, but there were times when I spent much longer in the shower as if I could get rid of a dirty thought or a feeling of a grimy existence not cleansable with the shower gels scented for seaward ambience and greenish blue hues.

We all have a predilection for some sort of wash, especially we of African descent, whilst those of other cultures might have concoctions to drink and possibly ointments or powders to rub on our skins to provide protection, fortify us for the formidable or empower us from some nondescript daring-do, we have the wash.

The ritual of the soap

I have prayed over waters and bathed in the strangest places, using soaps that would not pass the science of reasonableness to be applied to the skin.

Yet, the soaps, black or any other colour purported to grant powers for the favour from all mankind or defence from the dark arts are well sought for by the many who publicly appear rational but privately can be found in grottos ministered to by shamanic priests, fetishists or witch doctors.

The wash is not limited to these events, Christianity talks of the wash too, the washing away of sins as much as it pertains to baptism as a sign of faith, the Mohammedans perform the wash of ablutions before their prayers as a sign of purification before approaching their deity in submission and supplication.

Ritual purification is a function of many belief systems as Hindus will wash in the River Ganges, and the River Jordan has significance to both Judaism and Christianity.

The wash is deeper than the skin

For the holiday, the wash is in a swimming pool or at sea, we have an affinity for water caressing our bodies with or without particular reason – we cannot deny that regardless of who we are, the wash is critical for our presentation and thereby it determines how we are accepted.

We find that the whole context of clean and being clean is defined by the wash, the health of the body, the mind and the spirit might we be affected by the wash too even though the water only really touches the body, but the effect is much deeper than what we see or feel.

Nigeria: The issue of sub-standard ARV drugs is a critical emergency

The drugs are not working

I was contacted this morning about a grave and critical issue where the person believed their life was imperilled by the use of therapeutic drugs meant to manage HIV/AIDS.

My first reaction was one of shock before I collected my thoughts to determine where I could get more information about critical pharmaceuticals in Nigeria, the management of their standards, the organisations that cater for HIV/AIDS sufferers and the supply chain that governs the acquisition and distribution of anti-retro viral drugs (ARVs).

Sub-anything is serious business

It is important that we differentiate between fake drugs which is not the issue and sub-standard drugs. Fake drugs would be the passing off of different chemical concoctions as the real medication, whilst sub-standard drugs will pertain to potency, quality, shelf-life, efficacy and utility of the medication.

These elements raise serious issues where sub-standard or possibly sub-strength drugs might well not manage the virus in the blood leading to a rapid deterioration of health presenting AIDS.

The other aspect of this is where sub-strength drugs might lead to drug-resistance if the commensurate dosage is not adjusted for potency needing the use of second-line and more expensive non-generic drugs. The environment in Nigeria will probably leave many at greater risk if their normal medications are not working and the bleeding-edge medications we have access to in the West are out of reach.

No excuses are satisfactory

The worst situation to be in is not so much to have no access to ARVs, but to be given ARVs that are effectively placebo drugs, and that is both unacceptable and a health emergency.

Now, there are organisations in Nigeria that may want to easily explain this away and link it with some social response to the provenance and pedigree of the drugs.

The “Made in Nigeria” label may not lend itself to sophisticated goods, but I doubt those on the receiving end of these life-saving treatments have carried their everyday hedonism to the level of refusing to use their drugs because they do not have designer labels.

A known problem

Searching for “Sub-standard ARVs in Nigeria” on Google, I found a YouTube video highlighting that this is an emergency and Treatment Action Movement (TAM), a coalition of HIV treatment activists across Nigeria, in collaboration with the AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF-Nigeria) gave a press release on the matter. [AIDS Healthcare Foundation]

The AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) will probably put a few backs up with their advocacy and activism. They are more than a necessary organisation in the fight against the scourge of HIV/AIDS, the inertia of the government and other vested interests in the face of unacceptable statistics and paucity of programmes to get more people tested and treated, especially in Nigeria. [AHF - Nigeria]

Old but useful drugs

The TAM-AHF press release mentions a company but more importantly, the drugs in use are the AZT/3TC/NVP and the TDF/3TC combinations.

The WHO recommends the use the AZT/3TC/NVP combination for the treatment of Antiretroviral therapy (ART), ART-eligible pregnant women in developing countries, which also means that we cannot afford substandard drugs or episodes of recidivous decline to drug apathy for whatever reasons and the reasons appear to be many.

Besides treating HIV/AIDS patients, it is critical we prevent the transmission of the virus in-vivo to the foetus during gestation.

Really poor standard

The press release suggests the drugs “are brittle, break easily and dissolve in one's mouth before swallowing, and furthermore the package presentation is substandard, with poor labelling that resembles the work of professional counterfeit drugs peddlers.” [AIDS Healthcare Foundation]

This is just unacceptable either from the perspective of quality and quality controls to giving the HIV/AIDS patients the confidence to ingest their medication and have the medication be efficacious.

Whether binding agents or preservation agents are poor used or corners are being cut for profiteering, I expect the people who are the public faces of HIV/AIDS advocacy to be at the forefront of pushing for improved standards rather than present excuses for this seeming atrocity.

One voice for many

The person who contacted me had both the opportunity and the options; there are millions who do not have any of the opportunities and the options, that person has but they must be heard too.

It is a cause of our wider humanity beyond Nigeria and its local problems or politics to ensure that either these people have a voice. The Federal Ministry and other agencies must arrest an untenable situation by demanding better standards of drug-formulary or we have to embarrass them for unconscionably allowing avoidable deaths through the dereliction of responsibility, their diminished oversight functions and their lack of purpose towards managing the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

Once again, the issue is about sub-standard drugs and not fake drugs, it is an emergency; shoddy quality controls just would not cut it, and the raising of standards must be of the utmost urgency.

We obviously need to research this issue more to appreciate the extent to which people might be put at risk, but one person on sub-standard ARVs drugs is one too many presaging avoidable and preventable tragedy.

Thank you.

A great man, we've lost

A tribute

The realisation dawned on me like a lightning bolt, shock, utter shock and sadness engulfed me as I scrambled to ascertain, to confirm and to understand.

I have been incommunicado due to issues unfortunately beyond my control but social media today plays a role in the communication spectrum of our lives that we cannot ignore. Much as we hope to keep things traditional, this is where I have learnt of things of joy and things of sorrow too.

A brilliant star, a shining beacon, a light in the firmament, excellent, generous, wonderful, affable, reliable and a man much more than a mentor has gone into the irrefutable annals of time.

He blazed the trail of uncles whose academic brilliance could not be ignored, those who could ensure the doors he needed were opened did so; he gained access to the full potential he went on to fulfil in many numerous ways.

As an inspiration and as an example, he counselled, he admonished, he advised, he helped and never once did he withhold praise and encouragement, I never once heard a word of criticism from him, just words of positive reinforcement, time and time again.

When I was left without the means to access one of the biggest opportunities in my life, I paid him a visit, and it was sorted out, he was just that kind of man, he brought fun, jollity and experience to situations that lifted your sights beyond your circumstances.

Homely, lovely and true, I treasure and cherish those memories that will never be forgotten. Saddened at his demise at such a young age, he leaves a legacy of goodwill, of example, of accomplishment, of success, of integrity, of honour and of principle that many much older can only aspire to.

To a great man, a man of achievement, a man with vision, who fulfilled his mission – cometh the time, cometh the man and history is made of the stories of the footsteps of men like him who did well and touched the lives of others after them, lifting them up to do well too. For Uncle Jimoh Ogunnaike.

Adieu! Requiescat in pace eternal.