Ghana - Internet money fishing a nuisance and a net pest

Ghana flag colors

A few years ago and still I got/get e-mails from the middle-east and Africa. Those letters are about some deceased person with millions of US dollars to collect (for me) and where my name appears in a will. Or as in the most recent letter from Syria where the "right hand" of Bashar al Assad needs to move millions of dollars in funds from Syria out of the country asking me for assistance for a good provision. Now, my Skype account I left open for anyone to contact me and yes it started happening even here a few years ago. The calls that came in were exclusively from Ghana even though callers profiles listed origins from many different countries and often outside of Africa. The caller usually appearing a as girl in her twenties, starting off politely addressing me with Mr, dear or darling, later when asked for who they are and what they were doing replying with a template story as being an orphan with mothers and fathers killed in accidents or as in many cases killed in the Sudan wars then migrating to an uncle or aunt in Ghana, to live in a hut and there is a sick sibling too. The communication goes on with as it appears template questions for the called, anything from social, love, sex and finally economy. Well into the conversation you tell them that if they would like to continue chatting with you they better get themselves a Facebook page and then sending you an invitation. You may get an answer like "no, I not going to do that, I love you and I am very jealous, I don't want anybody else here (Ghana) to nab you from me". OK, next thing is that they want your e-mail address to continue communicating. Wow, after a few minutes of talking they ask you for your Internet identity, of course you already know what that could lead to so you decline, Knowing what will come next, a request for something material like money. I do not know what sort of victims they are looking for but I believe older senior persons appearing on the net as financially stable as they believe that those easily goes heart-broken with a sob story willing to open up their wallets.

Very often when the callers have a profile photo it is one of a young western woman close to movie star looking blond girl. Lately they started listing themselves as US residents. Often their name in Skype doesn't correspond with anything on social medias like Google+ or Facebook but when you get a match sooner or later you may see another face and even if it still is the photo of a woman it may be a man.

Some examples: I get a call on Skype, according to the profile, the name is an English one and the appearance is of a blond beautiful woman in her 30:ties. The name does not appear on Facebook. I tell her that if she wants to talk to me she must do it through social medias, she says OK and nothing happens for several weeks when I get a contact request on Facebook. I check her page out and she has profiled herself as from LA, USA. After accepting she immediately takes the back-door that is starts texting me, addressing me with "darling". She tells me that she is in Ghana, so I ask her what she is doing there, she replying "doing some work, does it matter what I do?". Then she goes silent for a couple of days, sporadically getting back to me with that typical "darling" then disappearing again. I take a new peek at her page and this time her profile photo is that of 20- year old African girl but still from LA. A nuisance only.
Another profiles herself as it appears correctly but when communications goes dry she gets to her point, she wants me to buy her a new laptop, I say no and I leave. Next day she texts me again and just after texting a few minutes she asks me for 100 USD so she can pay her landlord for an electric bill. I politely say no. Later in the afternoon I get another call from an unknown person. According to the Skype profile it is a blond beautiful girl from the USA. As always I receive the request for "add me to your contact list" and I reply - no, explaining that the only way to befriend me is through Facebook, "she" replies: I understand. Checking the name up on Facebook I see a profile photo of a young fairly attractive African girl from Ghana but in the profile album there is less attractive lady listed first, probably the owner of the account. The girl that wanted 100 USD gets back and I tell her about my latest call, she ask me for the name, then comes telling me that it is a scammer and a man behind the woman's page. She continue nagging me about money, I say no and she goes bombarding me with "add me to your contacts". This is when I start blocking these people. Those were just a few examples of numerous Ghana calls whereof many insulted me when I declined to give them money.

Is this a national decease of Ghana? I am posting an excerpt from a recent Ghanaian net publication "Today" with title: "Can Ghana stop begging donors for help":
"IRONICALLY, instead of pushing out of our cocoons by ourselves, we go out and beg for others to come and help us, crippling ourselves in the process. Our farms are crippled. Our rivers are crippled. Our environment is crippled. Our industries are crippled. Our schools are crippled. Our local talents are crippled. Yet we look for some help from outside"

The article is directed towards business and public organizations yet this begging seem to trickled down to an individual level. Individual Ghanaians reach out begging for help to much larger extent than any other corner of the world. Thinking about it, there seem to be nothing sinister in the begging it is something that for some reason has become national culture impregnating the entire Ghanaian society.

I have had the policy to be open with myself making it possible for people on the planet to contact me, but I am tired of this, it takes time, it is no fun as suspicion already is deeply rooted within me when I receive a call on Skype, their preferred medium for contact. I don't like when they continue to insist nagging me for for money, when they insult me or bombarding me with "add me to your contact list" after a no. I disabled public contact on Skype as I had enough of Ghana calling me.

In one of my recent "Tweets" about Ebola I said: "How should we see a black person on the street? A potential for acquiring Ebola? People are scared in Europe, reminds of Aids", A person replied: "we should see him as he is, a man from a continent that brings nothing good. sad, but true.

Sad but true.

don't stand-up Ebola, please take it seriously

Ebola protective gear?

Mel Robbins a brave women from the United States of America is heard talking about something she calls "Fear-Bola" a decease of the mind sparked by news frenzy about Ebola. I would not call this woman brave, I would call her frisky, that is downright stupid. I do not mind sexually frisky woman as I am sexually frisky myself though I am picky about subjects to joke about and Ebola is a no joke. Ebola is as a much a threat to the global world as ISIS (branded ISIL by Barack Obama in disrespect, like war lords do to belittle each other). Why fear anything, as our time on earth is limited, our time will come and for some it will mean suffering, long time suffering, sometimes bed-bound sometimes bound to a wheel-chair and a bed while Ebola or ISIS will offer us a pretty speedy departure from what the Buddhist call Samsara. Just imagine how fast our lights would be turned of by being beheaded in contrast to have our body covered by Napalm (Vietnam) burning to our demise in agony.

Mel Robbins is nothing else than a Twitter queen, I myself is Twitter king, Google+ DJ and your pain in the back, your hemorrhoids on Facebook, and the net is full of those and I did not even know that she existed or that she had got some ridiculous "Twittering award". The difference is what world media picks up to publish and pretty quickly to fade and die in the wink of the mind and in this case CNN (I don't know if this frisky woman's writing was published by other media).

Now, what is my concern. Primarily, Ebola constitutes not only a threat to our minds but also a real threat to spread and kill us, everywhere on planet earth. I don't fear it that much myself, I lived a pretty long interesting life but I do not want this to happen to my kids or anyone else when we could do better than die for a decease like this, with all that knowledge we already have.

I have been writing a few articles about Ebola the past 3 weeks and in one of them I mentioned that I considered volunteering going to Africa as it appeared that it was difficult to find willing people. For me myself it is far from realistic, I am tied down to where I am for family reasons and if I abandoned my self-imposed responsibilities, there would be no one to fill in my space. As I am concerned I am following the developments, the containment and rescue operations by different organizations of the world and of course what we are doing over here in Sweden to contribute. Suddenly all spots that my government is willing to support combating Ebola is filled up, really overfilled, the budget of 30 persons has gotten 35. I am watching a news program about how they are trained, in particular about gear, about how to dress and undress. When I see the gear they are offered, that is the clothing, the masks, how they are instructed to dress and undress, I realize that there is little hope for this world. Many of those health workers will panic just by wearing those and for that simple reason contract Ebola, others will stay calm and for that reason contract Ebola. The gear they are given is a joke and the classes they are given is another joke. I saw this people wearing the full gear (full metal jacket) and I saw the condensed water on their goggles in a Swedish low temperature setting, In Liberia, Gambia or the Gold Coast, they will have no vision at all in temperatures of 30-40 degrees Celsius, stumbling over all sorts of Ebola contagious matter.

The undressing of the protective gear was the most astounding, they were supposed to undress alone, sticking their by body fluids contaminated glows inside their protective clothing to undress. I could not believe what I saw. I am an engineer, seeing problems everywhere but also solutions to most of them. I immediately recognized the need for "dressers/un-dressers", that is, personnel dedicated to dress and undress personnel that will actively work with Ebola victims.

Personnel working with Ebola patients need hermetically sealed gear like space suits. They need breathing apparatus like for space-walkers or divers and they need a single pair of glows proven scientifically not passing the Ebola virus through, not a pair of regular glows over a pair of another regular glows.

I am loosing faith in humanity when I hear and see things like this.

Well folks, that was just my frustration over the light-footed "blogger" world and over societies/governments not taking matters for serious. Ebola is not a laughing matter. People are dying at an accelerated rate. The mental illnesses is it's causes in the western world and only a symptom how dysfunctional we are.

Our participation (Swedish) to combat Ebola is just something for a stand-up, inflicting more pain, doing more harm than standing back and for you "United States of America", shameful.

Ebola a global threat or is media the culprit again? Will Africans be treated with fear?

The Ebola virus

Am I scared about acquiring Ebola? Well I was not until today. I have been thinking it is a far away thing with a limited reach and considering no wild apes here..., am I joking, sarcastic or perhaps a racist son of a bitch. I have no idea how others are thinking, perhaps there are people less racist than me more humane than me more empathetic than me , how would I know without a slight provocation. Ebola has been no fear of mine, neither was HIV/AIDS even though there was a period in my life when I tried to prove myself sexually resulting in years of severe anxiety, it poured off though when nothing happened and I started realizing that part of the population is immune to HIV.

Today my Jesus guys came, that is the Jehovah’s witness, to my place as they normally do on Fridays even though they also serve surprise or drop-in visits to teach me about the Lord and the "good news". My life today is on the spiritual path and I am trying to learn and understand so much I am able to before my final times comes and that is why I invite them inside to enter whenever they show up. Today I could not attend them as I already was dressed up to leave to run a number of important errands. Took some time to talk to them though and one of the two expressed that he had fears for Ebola as he was going to Spain in the beginning of November. I told him to travel with faith, telling him that there was no real danger as the Ebola only is contagious only through contacts with body fluids. He replied, they (the scientists) don't know. I went on and said, well, if you get sick, you won’t have to suffer long, just imagine people that struggles with a deceases for months, years to die, you're suffering will be short, we are already old and we will all have to die one day, just go in peace and enjoy your visit. This did not console him, a man of Jesus and Jehovah, I could not believe what I heard. I told him I had been thinking about enlisting as a volunteer going to Africa fighting the decease but figured out that my situation would not allow it. They left, we said good bye and this man thanked me for pouring oil on his turbulent mind waves, but he still seemed unhappy.

I drove away from my house to my first errand, the recycling center with a couple of old water pipes of metal. Just a few hundred meters on the road from my house, my eyes and my mind is registering some delicious movements of a rear end, the rear of a female walking on the opposite side-walk. I had not seen anything like it for some time, quite unusual and not the movements of a native Swedish woman so while passing her I turned my head and saw that it was an African woman. Nothing more than a few more thoughts of that delicious rear wonder.

It took great part of my day at various places, After the bank I had a pair of cheeseburger at MacDonald’s. When I picked up the tray with my food I sensed it was wet and I felt a sudden discomfort but did not reflect. I saw a lot of African people everywhere as Sweden has been very open to accept immigrants from all hot spots of the world the past years but without giving it any particular thought. The last place was IKEA, pretty far away from my house, a place mostly for home starters meaning that many of those going there are immigrants, more Africans there as what you normally would see on the street. After paying for the goods I had purchased I went to the IKEA hot-dog joint to have a snack before loading up the car going home. There are tables where you stand to eat your meal and while eating I saw table was smeared with mustard and ketchup once again giving me that feeling of discomfort and reflecting over not having washed my hands before eating.

Eventually got home, made myself some coffee accompanied by a Danish pastry, still without having washed my hands after a whole day out. Now I understood what had been bothering me the whole day: I did not feel safe (from Ebola) anymore. I started thinking realizing that I had 2 tenants in my home, foreign students, not exactly very clean studying at the Stockholm university with other students from all over Europe and Africa. What if they brought home something? The university, perhaps the most dangerous environment of all, with students going home to see families at breaks. I am talking about African students of course. Am I going to avoid Africans now. Does people in general have fears like me starting to avoid Africans. I am a man and up until today I only saw the beauty in the African women, the strength in the African man.

Will Africans be treated the same way as we treated the gays after the HIV outbreaks in the 80:ties or have we learned something? Is fear stronger than education and knowledge?

Ship the HIV drug Lamivudine to Africa now

Gabriel Gorbee Logan

I read about a Liberian doctor a few days ago, Gabriel Gorbee Logan that started experimenting with drugs he had in his clinic to see if there was anything that would stop or cure Ebola in his patients. 15 of his patients got the drug Lamivudine that is a HIV drug, 13 of them got so much better already after 2 days that they started to function normally, 2 died. The difference between the survivors and the deceased was that the 13 came in 1-5 days after getting sick and the others 5-8 days after. This gives a lot of hope and as we have a (world) crisis with an accelerating spread of the decease there is not more to do than give it a shot, at large scale and distribution.

Today I read an article by Swedish doctor talking about anything else than giving Ebola patients Lamivudine. He mentioned about that the spread of the decease is getting out of our hands and compared it to a forest fire with strong winds igniting one part after the other, new parts lacking fire-fighters. Concluding the article trying to simulate some hopes mentioning that the international community has started to act planning to put more hospitals in the affected African areas. Outrageous, I must say and ignorant as the distribution of Lamivudine is a much greater promise even though not clinically tested yet (takes years) and no immediate need waiting for new hospitals to come up, at least buying time until buildings and professionals are in place. People are dying and the decease is spreading at an accelerated rate. Sick people comes to hospitals already full, being sent home. With Lamivudine at hand those people could be sent home with the cure and instructions how to take it, pretty simple. Distributing Lamivudine to existing clinics and even directly out to villages is the fastest way to curb the plague.

Take the promise and the risk for God’s sake.

Are we approaching game over, is there a salvation for the planet or is there not?

South China Tiger - Extinct

A few days ago one the young live-ins in my house asked me if I believed in the global warming. The answer I gave was perhaps not what he wanted to hear (I don't think you like it either), it was more about over population and over consumption than global warming caused by something that simple like burning fossil fuels. I believe that the focus on global warming will lead us to hell sooner or later, some call that hell, end of times or Armageddon in religious terms. Coming to terms with the global warming is only one aspect of a more serious problem. The underlying causes that are stymied by human behavior and politics are a much greater challenge.

WWF published the "Living Planet Report" a few days ago and in short some stark facts say: half of the vertebrate species of the planet is gone since 1970 (52% gone of mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish). For freshwater fish it is 76% and for species in the neo-tropics 83%. Astounding figures, play with it trying to calculate the rate of annihilation and you'll be ready for your own suicide. The report also says that we would need to add another 50% to the planet’s surface to meet the demands humanity demands from nature. What is the rate of destruction? Does it accelerate? My mind says that there is only 20 years left until we sit in complete devastation.

Some of this horrendous decline has primary causes and others secondary. The primary stems from when humans expand their "lebens-raum" (Hitler and the Germans used this term before and during WW2) invading or deforesting the territories of non-human species, to live in or to grow crops in. The secondary ones stems from deforestation and emissions (carbon dioxide) resulting in higher temperatures, warmer climate, mainly affecting marine species.

Back to my live-ins again. One of the two pulled out a half-filled pack of meatballs the other day telling me that he had to throw them away because they had gone bad. I remember when he bought them and I got surprised as it was just a few days ago, so I smelled them, no foul smell, smelled normal, I tasted them no foul taste so I told him I'll take them, so I did. Just a few weeks ago the same live-in bought and prepared a lot of food to prepare and eat for a whole week, he ate it during 2 days and then the rest sat in the fridge for a week, lots of food. I had to ask him what he was going to do with it and he replied that he was going to throw it away as it was bad. I smelled it, no foul smell, so I tasted it, no foul taste, telling him, I'll eat it and so I did. It was good and I did not get sick. It appears that people in the wealthy part of the world goes to the store when they are hungry, buying like a lust-murderer or serial killer then at home eating until they can't stuff themselves anymore to lose interest in most of what they over-bought when hungry, throwing it away. This behavior must stop as it is the behavior of an addict, extremely difficult to stop, and most of us are like this. Nobody sees this as cause for over production, over consumption and secondary to that, deforestation and global warming. Are you like this?

Then we have the stupidity of warmonging when we need the money and energy to combat over-production, over-consumption and over-population. We have the stupidity of international trade, the latest, the US poultry industry working for that Europe should open its borders for US chicken products! Imagine such a simple to produce product shipped from between 4000-8000 kilometers away to land at some ports in Europe to be redistributed again oven thousands of kilometers again. Or listen to this one, the Chinese started to abandon growing Soy-beans in favor of Corn as Chinese had turned into eating more meats. Growing Corn is done to feed live-stock, that is beef. Now, the Chinese still want the Soy-bean but production had plummeted so that demand far exceeded availability. Argentina steps in to save China starting growing the Soy-bean but to do that huge swaths of land are need and the answer is deforestation. The story does not end here as the Soy-bean produce has to be shipped to China. Here in Sweden we talk about "near-produced" foods to lower carbon dioxide from transportation but I guess that is a mere joke or marginal regarding the solution to our small problem. I could make very long list over the madness in this world sometimes coming under the name of free trade.

I have been travelling extensively between Europe and Americas since 1982. In my latest trips and in particular flying over US territory nightime I starting realizing how populated the US is becoming. Flying over Florida the lights and roads resembles a contigues city. Very different from 30 years ago. This prompted me to take a look at some US cities and states on Google Earth and the most astounding was when I saw how Phoenix, Arizona with all its suburbs had grown into a monster city covering 1/3 of the entire state, imagining the huge need for water and energy. When I passed by in 1977 it resembled a small and insignificant village.

We in the west are pointing fingers at many tropical nations for slashing the rain forests, in particular Brazil and Indonesia but what have we been doing ourselves? Did we quit harvesting our forests, no we did not and we have been doing since long before the term "rain forest" was known by the general population. Has our own deforestation slowed down, no it is accelerating while media seem not to care about reporting it. In Sweden where I live, farmers are having problems competing with the rest of Europe concerning milk, meat and crop production. To compensate and to stay alive they sell away their forests to pulp, energy and timber production corporations many times devastating large areas of their land. As I have been around Sweden for mineral prospecting and seen it with my own eyes and in fresh remembrance how tough a life farmers here would have it without the possibility to sell of the forests on their properties. It is easy to make up the math towards hell.

I have no solution for this, the very little hope I see is that there is information about what's going on but the problem is that we all behave like addicts and are embedded in lies created by governments, government sponsored "scientists" and those lies relayed to us commons by market controlled media. Nobody believes that we are on the brink of annihilation.

It will all end with people dying from starvation and others killing others for food, to live on for another little while. Some will get fried and others freeze to death. I am just another addict, but concerned.