For instance, in ChiShona the phrase "We are going there" can be expressed in a single twelve letter word like "tirikuendako". Another interesting word is "Rovambira" / "Rova-Mbira", which, as Illustration 1 below shows, can have two broad meanings:
 |
| Illustration 1 (click on illustration to zoom in) |
As Illustration 1 shows, the word Rovambira can have either of two meanings:
- An expert at playing the "mbira" or African xylophone. (this is a very loose translation) [3]
- A snake that bludgeons rock rabbits / rock hyraxes, i.e. a black mamba.
Unlike other serpents, the black mamba is very aggressive; in the rural areas of Africa you will hear tales of the snake "standing" upright on its tail to chase humans. You'll also hear stories of how the snake displays the black interior of its mouth to compel a herd of buffalo to clear its path.
If my memory serves me right, I last saw a black mamba in captivity around 14 years ago. I remember it being a thin, grey, very long snake with a coffin shaped head. I also remember how it was almost motionless in its shatter-proof enclosure, and, how it was difficult for me to reconcile the serpent's seemingly docile nature with the florid tales of aggression that the snake keeper narrated.
Sometime last week, I had a discussion on the topic of risk management with a successful businessman/hunter/environmentalist/conservationist. He used a riveting metaphor of a black mamba's hunting strategy to explain certain blind spots in risk management. I will narrate an abbreviated version of his metaphor below:
...The Miserable Fate of the Young Hyrax
In the Eastern highlands of Zimbabwe, temperatures sometimes drop, at night, to around three degrees Celsius. If you hike up the mountains at dawn (especially the mountains with rocky outcrops in their valleys) you may be "lucky" enough to find a black mamba coiled-up on a flat granite boulder; basking in the sun alongside ten to twenty rock rabbits / rock hyraxes (hyraxes have incomplete thermo-regulation; they use the sun's rays to warm up their bodies). For hours, the serpent lies motionless; seemingly oblivious of the 'nutritious activity' occurring within a short radius from its 'tanning bed'.
As the herd basks, rock-rabbit-sentries perch-up on high vantage points; where they scan the horizon for predators like jackals, eagles, wild dogs, and hawks. Illustration 2 below depicts such a scenario:
 |
| Illustration 2 (click on illustration to zoom in) |
When there is a predator, like an eagle, on the horizon, the sentries belch-out an alarm call that prompts the entire herd to make a dash for burrows within rock crevices. In the midst of this tumult, the black mamba arises from its ostensible slumber and repeatedly strikes, with immense grace and briskness, up to six (or maybe seven) members of the fleeing herd.
As you may know, the black mamba's venom is made up of powerful neurotoxins that immobilize the stricken victims within a fifteen to thirty second timeframe. Generally, the stricken victims tend to be the younger members of the herd, or, the slower-older members of the herd.
Usually, the snake consumes two or three of the smaller victims (or one large victim if there are no smaller ones) and leaves the remainder (for scavenging white-necked crows to dispose. The snake may also strike the crows if they are too hasty.)
The miserable fate of the departed herd members can be summed-up in Illustration 3 as follows:
 |
| Illustration 3 (click on illustration to zoom in) |
What the metaphor demonstrates: we tend to focus on the risks that lie on distant horizon, sometimes, to the detriment of greater more proximate risks. Further, when the proximate risk factors spawn undesirable events, we tend to err by linking the undesirable events to the distant risk factors that we were fixated upon.
...The 8th Edition of the World Economic Forum's Risk Report
Yesterday, I spent a small chunk of my time skimming through the current edition of the World Economic Forum's Risk Report. I focused on identifying the relationships, and, the first and second-order consequences of the risk factors in Illustration 4:
 |
| Illustration 4 (click on illustration to zoom in) Source: WEF Risk Report |
Illustration 5 expositions the inter-linkages, first and second-order consequences that I identified:
 |
| Illustration 5 (click on illustration to zoom in) [1] |
In this blog post, I will use scenarios to add contextual dimensions to the risk factors in Illustration 5, and, to demonstrate the linkages between the risk factors. My objective is to show how garden variety activities may advance these risks. And, how it is easy to underestimate them (i.e. the risk factors are more of "black mambas" and less of "eagles").
***
...Frontiers with Unknown Viruses
"If an intelligent extra-terrestrial was tasked with writing the encyclopaedia of life on this planet, twenty seven out of thirty of these volumes would be devoted to bacteria and viruses. With just a few of the volumes left for plants, fungi and animals, and, humans would just be a foot note... an interesting footnote... but a footnote nonetheless."
– Nathan Wolfe, Virologist
Where do most of the unknown viruses live? Answer:
- Oceans.
- Forests (particularly rainforests).
Illustration 6 below depicts the world's forest cover:
 |
| Illustration 6 (click on illustration to zoom in) |
As Illustration 6 demonstrates, the African forest cover, that lies between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn, is relatively under-exploited or "untouched". Therefore, it is reasonable for one to argue that most of the unknown viruses that will be discovered in the near future will emerge from African equatorial rainforests. Hence, the scenarios that would be narrated in this post will have their settings in equatorial Africa.
Illustration 7 below expositions some of the scenarios that would be explored in this post:
 |
| Illustration 7 (click on illustration to zoom in) |
Generally, the black scenarios are the most probable ones and the green ones, are ceteris paribus, the least probable scenarios. In this post, I will only narrate the most probable scenarios, i.e. the black mambas.
***
A scenario is basically a story about what happened in the future. Illustration 8 depicts the dimensions of the scenarios that will be narrated:
And so, the story telling begins [2]:
 |
| Illustration 8 (click illustration to zoom in) |
And so, the story telling begins [2]:
...The Bushmeat Hunter Scenario
Pierre Boma (fictional name) is a twenty six year-old father of five children. He lives in a small village that is located on the southern-most fringes of the Ituri rainforest in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Until about two months ago, he worked as a general hand at a Chinese lumber company. The firm was forced to shut down by rogue Congolese soldiers (owing to late payment of "taxes").
Unfortunately, the company owed Pierre about two months'-worth of wages when it shut down. Because of this, he is chronically short of money and cannot afford to purchase the bare essentials. To make matters worse, the crop of cassava that he grew on the wetland plot that the Mwami / Chief gave him (when Pierre got married) failed because of the torrential rains.
Further, the six 50 kg bags of soy meal, that Pierre got from the Belgian aid organization that visits quarterly, were collected by the Mwami and sent to the rebels in the jungle. Had the Mwami not done this, the rebels would have certainly: 1) sacked the village; 2) publicly raped everyone (male/female) in sight; 3) buried all the village elders alive; 4) crushed the skulls of all the infants; 5) abducted the young girls (for use as sex slaves); 6) forcibly recruited the young boys, and; 7) enslaved the men (for use as free labour in mines).
Further, the six 50 kg bags of soy meal, that Pierre got from the Belgian aid organization that visits quarterly, were collected by the Mwami and sent to the rebels in the jungle. Had the Mwami not done this, the rebels would have certainly: 1) sacked the village; 2) publicly raped everyone (male/female) in sight; 3) buried all the village elders alive; 4) crushed the skulls of all the infants; 5) abducted the young girls (for use as sex slaves); 6) forcibly recruited the young boys, and; 7) enslaved the men (for use as free labour in mines).
The only stable source of income that the Boma family has is the USD 2.50 per day that Pierre's wife, Carolina, earns from her evening "shift work" at the UN peace keeper base (that is 20 km from the village). Carolina, a buxom woman with a musical voice, never explains
exactly what she does at the base; she just brings the money home at the
end of every evening. Sometimes, she brings back blankets and provisions that are emblazoned with the UN logo. The blue berets are kind enough to pick-up and drop-off Carolina and other young women who "work" at the base every evening.
To sustain his family, Pierre hunts small game in the dense part of the rainforest that the rebels avoid. With his younger brother Patrice, he sets snares and traps in the undergrowth. On lucky days, they find pythons or small antelopes in the traps.
The brothers also use homemade bows and arrows to shoot down any monkeys and gorillas that they spot on their way in and out of the rainforest. It is this meat that their families subsist on and sell (if there is any surplus).
Just yesterday, Pierre's right hand was cut when he was setting the snares. As he heads out to check his snares and traps, he notices that the cut is bleeding intermittently. Unfortunately, when he gets to the hunting grounds, he finds nothing in the snares. However, he does manage to shoot down two small monkeys and one young gorilla. When he lifts up the gorilla it bleeds profusely, see Illustration 9, and some of its blood seeps into his unprotected wound:
 |
| Illustration 9 (Adapted From: Wolfe's TED Talk) |
What he doesn't know: The blood that seeped into his wound was
contaminated with a mutated zoonotic virus that will infect and kill him; his
entire village, 95% of the rebels, 40% of the UN peace keepers and 200,000 people
in the surrounding African countries (within the next 6 months).
Simply stated, Pierre, is what virologists term "patient zero" in an outbreak of a deadly pandemic that wipes-out entire communities.
...The Rebels in the Jungle Scenario
The Wizzi rebel group (fictitious name) is made up of young men from the marginalized Wizzi tribe (fictitious name). Like some rebel groups in the region, the group took up arms to pressure the government into returning the land that was unlawfully taken from the Wizzi.
Since August, the rebel group has been roaming in the Western fringes of the Ituri rain forest. The sanctions that the UN slapped on its foreign backers reduced their willingness to support it. Thus, to sustain its activities, it has had to resort to "preying" upon the surrounding communities. Naturally, these acts of pillage have spawned a strong anti-Wizzi tribe sentiment in the Ituri region.
Yesterday, the armed drones that were deployed by the African Union, in a well-orchestrated night time aerial raid, decimated the ranks of this rebel group. Remnants of this group are now hiding in a cave that is located in a limestone-rich pocket of the rainforest.
The wounded commander, Kenneth Goga (fictitious name), rises up to address the surviving members of his company (who are huddled around a lamp). "Gentlemen, it looks like the only way out of this quagmire is dialogue. The African Union..." Before he gets the opportunity to finish this statement, a bat appears from the middle of nowhere and bites him on his forehead. He grabs it with his bare hands, dislocates its neck and continues to deliver his speech.
What he doesn't know: The bat was infected with a lethal mutant virus that will infect him and all the delegates who will attend the African Union-mediated peace talks (that will occur in three days' time). The Rhabdovirus will induce Ebola-like symptoms in the affected people, and, it will have a mortality rate of 80%!
...The Research Scientist Scenario
Dr. Fionne von Trexlar (fictitious name) is a 31 year-old scion of an old European banking dynasty. Not only does she have movie star looks, she is also an over-achiever who excels at everything she ever does. At 16, she was part of the four-by-one-hundred Belgian women's track team that won a gold medal and set an Olympic record. When she participated in the Olympics, she had already published 15 papers in leading Zoology journals.
With a team of some of the best and brightest software engineers in Silicon Valley, she developed an algorithm that could translate, into complete English sentences, the grunts and gestures of bonobos. She spent three months testing the technology at a gorilla conservancy in Cameroon.
While she waits backstage for the TEDx host to introduce her, Fionne's mind drifts back to the conservancy in Cameroon. She gets goosebumps as she remembers how, Gogo, the matriarch of the lesbian bonobo sisterhood that she was studying, welcomed the frail primates (that Fionne had rescued when a patch of forest was being cleared for use as a plantation). She feels a bit feverish and suspects that it's just the nerves. However, this doesn't deter her from delivering a TEDx talk that receives a standing ovation.
At the end of the talk, multiple members of the audience congratulate her on the ground-breaking research. She locks into animated and engaging conversations with all the people who approach her. And, she looks forward to following-up on all the connections that she establishes.
When she gets home, she feels weak and the hot-cold flashes intensify. As she keys the details of each new contact into her Google contact list, she starts to feel dizzy and she collapses.
Luckily, her wealthy hedge fund manager boyfriend, Diego, walks into her home office just after she collapses and calls the paramedics. That very evening Fionne passes away.
She is the first of 200,000 New Yorkers who will die after catching what virologists will term Bubonic Plague on Steroids.
She is the first of 200,000 New Yorkers who will die after catching what virologists will term Bubonic Plague on Steroids.
***
Beware of black mambas!
[1] Viruses also attack bacteria. This forces the bacteria to mutate into what may very well be drug resistant super-bugs.
[2] The reader should use his or her own judgement to discern the facts (yes there are factual parts) from the fiction.
[3] The actual word is "gwenyambira". When used in a sentence like "gwenyambira ano-rovambira", the word assumes the loose meaning that I have stated.
[1] Viruses also attack bacteria. This forces the bacteria to mutate into what may very well be drug resistant super-bugs.
[2] The reader should use his or her own judgement to discern the facts (yes there are factual parts) from the fiction.
[3] The actual word is "gwenyambira". When used in a sentence like "gwenyambira ano-rovambira", the word assumes the loose meaning that I have stated.
