Oppression in Sub-Saharan Africa's Slums by Liv Przydzial

Oppression in Sub-Saharan Africa's Slums

by Liv Przydzial

Imagine, that in this world,
Millions upon millions live in 
constant, 
unrelenting,
gripping 

fear.

Fear of losing their homes,
if one could venture to give such primal dwellings a name.
Five to a room is considered lucky,
even luckier if that room had a scavenged, makeshift roof to protect from the elements.
Such rooms were arranged nearly on top of one another,
in an overcrowded, Ghetto-like arrangement.

Fear of disease,
from each other and from neighbors.
Entire families, even blocks, wiped out by diseases,
in the span of only a few days.
A flavorful palette of pathogens,
run rampant through the cities.
Those infected,
dead within a week.

Fear of not finding water,
in which many thousands die each day from dehydration.
No water was to be found here,
not a single drop.
And if happened to be water,
it was far, oh so far,
from being up to drinking standards.
One either died from thirst or from water-borne illnesses,
there was no in-between.

And such fears, only a few from the endless list,
continue to ravage the continent.
Millions of people struggle to survive,
fighting to live while seemingly,
the whole world was against them.

And to say that the world was against them,
may be a stretch,
but maybe not to such a dramatic degree:
the rest of the world turned its back on these millions upon millions,
leaving them helpless and unheard.

In blissful ignorance,
the rest of the world watches.
as more and more of Africa's urbanized poor
fall into the inescapable trap, that many refer to as 'slums.'

Context:

“While its [sub-Saharan Africa’s] total population has multiplied by 2.5 over the past 30 years, its urban population has multiplied by five,” from the report, Urban Planning and Environment in Sub-Saharan Africa, from the Africa Technical Department Environmentally Sustainable Development Division, confirms the mass migration of people to sub-Saharan Africa (SSA)’s cities from more rural areas. In such cities, a massive 72%, nearly three-quarters, of the urban population resides in slums, as revealed by the State of World Population 2007 UN Population Fund report, which further commented, “In sub-Saharan Africa, urbanization has become virtually synonymous with slum growth.” Home to two of the world’s largest slums, South Africa’s Khayelitsha (400,000 residents) and Kenya’s Kibera (700,000 residents), SSA’s rapid urbanization and slum growth have become a significant, urgent issue. The United Nations defines a slum household as one that lacks one or more of the following: protection against extreme weather, no more than three people per room, access to safe water, sanitation (private/public toilet shared by a sensible number of people), and security of tenure (legal rights to property). The UN-HABITAT State of the World’s Cities 2006/7 report also remarked that “...Sub-Saharan Africa’s slums are the most deprived; over 80 percent of the region’s slum households have one or two shelter deprivations, but almost half suffer from at least two shelter deprivations,” illustrating just how deprived sub-Saharan Africa’s slum living conditions are. The article “Towards Africa Cities Without Slums” from the magazine, African Renewal, published by the United Nations, further discusses how the critical living conditions of slums promote the spread of diseases. “The lack of adequate sanitation, potable water, and electricity, in addition to substandard housing and overcrowding, aggravates the spread of diseases and avoidable deaths, according to a recent report of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.” The crucially oppressive slums of sub-Saharan Africa bear hefty implications, such as encouraging the spread of diseases and implicating low life expectancy rates and low fertility rates. If action is not taken to gain control over the growth of the slum population (via urbanization), sub-Saharan cities will remain largely impoverished in severe living conditions, ultimately stunting the region’s growth as a whole in long-run.

Unit 1 Voice Challenge by Liv Przydzial

Unit 1 Voice Challenge

by Liv Przydzial

In Unit 1, our class discussed how to dissect and analyze an author's structure and diction. One of the key topics we learned about was voice, and we did several exercises aimed at helping us develop our very own voices as young authors. In my December blog post, I just wanted to play around with different voices portrayed through my writing to challenge myself a bit, as exhibited below:

Example 1

Everyone was looking at me. I mean, how could they not? With my perfect bod, sparkling dress, long curled hair (each curl with the perfect level of bounce, of course), and manicured nails, it's visibly hard for people to take their eyes off of me. I was stunning. As amazing and gorgeous I looked, my science project was even cooler. Not only was my volcano oozing with lava at the perfect consistency, but it was also bubbling! As soon as they turned the lights out, everyone's socks would be knocked off by how the lava glows in the dark. I know, I'd be speechless too. God, I should be in college already! They should've engraved my name into the first place trophy for this year's science fair as soon as they saw my name on the sign-up sheet.

In this first example, the reader can experience the cocky, matter-of-fact nature of the character through the first person point of view. Through questions such as, 'I mean how could they not?', and statements such as, 'God, I should be in college already!', the author's voice clearly conveys the character's cocky nature.

Example 2: 

September 21, 2067: 

I can't write much. No time. 

It's been 5 years.
I don't know how we haven't died yet. By we, I mean me and my sister. 
Every1 else - long dead.
Food's running out. Window's cracked. Water's tainted.
We'll only last a month or so, if even. 

But Shaya's started coughing. 

September 25, 2067:

Shaya's dead.
No water. No food.

I'll be dead by morning.

This example consists of two dark, gloomy diary entries. The choppy sentences create a more dramatic aura by being very to-the-point. Through the use of short phrases, the reader gets the idea that the character was in a rush, and gains an understanding of the dire nature of the situation. The character who wrote these entries clearly takes a very realistic, down-to-earth view on her circumstances, as conveyed when she made a prediction for how long she and Shaya would last and in the second entry with the statement, "I'll be dead by morning.' She doesn't make any hopeful remarks but rather just accepts her situation, as can be seen by how she stopped writing after making the conclusion that she would be dead by morning.

Venezuela's, More Like Latin America's, Spillover Disease Epidemic By Liv Przydzial

(Sources:
- https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/travel/notices/watch/measles-brazil
- https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/world/wp/2018/10/31/feature/as-venezuelas-health-system-collapses-disease-spreads-beyond-its-borders/
- https://www.sbs.com.au/news/at-least-54-children-dead-in-venezuela-measles-outbreak-ngo)

Venezuela's, More Like Latin America's, Spillover Disease Epidemic 

By Liv Przydzial 

Venezuela, the victim of a five-year-long depression, has reached the point of societal collapse long ago. From government corruption, to food scarcity, to nearly 2 million people leaving the country over the last two years, Venezuela is, in essence, falling apart. As Venezuela is in a tropical climate, diseases tend to thrive in this country. However, Venezuela has typically been able to contain such diseases and eradicate them accordingly, seen most recently in the malaria epidemic decades ago. The disease was contained and wiped out from certain regions, which have been free of it since. This was all before Venezuela began the steep slide downhill. In the last few months, Venezuela has seen malaria outbreaks in the regions in which it was eradicated from decades ago. Immigrants brought over new diseases which flourished in the nourishing Venezuelan conditions, which are spilling over borders at an unmeasurable rate. Surrounding countries face similar collapses in the face of these detrimental diseases, with immigrants flowing from country to country in search of refuge from their governments and the diseases. Just recently, a new disease was brought to Venezuela: measles.

Venezuela was a relatively poor country to begin with, but with its economy in a state of constant turmoil and crisis, only a staggeringly small amount of people are able to get vaccinated for measles. Venezuela hasn't seen measles in years, but in the Brazilian Amazon, Venezuela's next-door neighbor, measles have recently been devastating the region. Diphtheria, a bacterial infection affecting the nose and throat areas, is extremely rare here, but has now taken over Venezuela's people, who cannot afford to be vaccinated (this disease is easily prevented with a single vaccination, but considering the economic state of the country and its people, it is with no surprise that they cannot afford such vaccinations for such a (previously) rare disease). With more than 170 new cases every week, the epidemic is spreading at an astronomical rate, and diffusing into neighboring Latin American countries. Furthermore, many doctors are inexperienced when it comes down to measles, given that most had never seen a single case of this or other introduced diseases in their entire careers, only reading about them in textbooks.

Pictured above is a measles patient with her mother at Delphina Rinaldi Abdel Aziz Hospital in Venezuela. She ended up pulling through and surviving the disease.  

Containing these diseases, let alone treating them, has become an increasing challenge over the last handful of years. Doctors complain of the holes in the walls in disease wards. Some point to the overlooked slipping of Venezuela's health care system as the culprit for this growing crisis, while others look to the collapse of the country as a whole. Vaccines aren't being delivered to hospitals, and even the capital's largest hospital, Caracas University Hospital, has reported that it has not received new shipments of vaccines due to the inability to transport them. Cars and trucks are dysfunctional due to the lack of spare parts needed for them to be fixed and to function and the many blocked roads. Many doctors fear voicing their opinion on the issue, as making one wrong move could lead to a potentially fatal avalanche of government reprisals.

Workers from the Health Surveillance Foundation are pictured preparing measles vaccines for waiting patients. 

With the interior tensions brewing on economic, social, and political fronts, countries are turning on each other as new cases of such diseases pour through their borders. With so much unrest, diseases such as measles, malaria, and diphtheria have become a pressing new threat and the new symbol of this conflict. After all, this is not just Venezuela's problem - it's ours too. Just by looking at how uncontrollably fast diseases such as measles are spreading, this conflict could very quickly threaten not only Latin America, but other, vaster regions of the world, and even us, as immigrants move across the globe.

Want to learn more? Here's a quick video on herd immunity, which directly discusses measles as an example. (The video wouldn't upload, so here's the link: https://www.sbs.com.au/news/at-least-54-children-dead-in-venezuela-measles-outbreak-ngo)