Nipate
Forum => Kenya Discussion => Topic started by: Omollo on October 13, 2014, 02:25:00 PM
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YAOUNDÉ, Cameroon — Fans taunt them with chants of “Ebola.” Some opponents have hesitated to shake their hands or engage in the traditional swapping of jerseys. Humiliating medical screenings have become routine.
And in Cameroon, when the players on Sierra Leone’s exiled national soccer team checked into their hotel to prepare for an important match Saturday, some guests grew alarmed, and the police were called, a team spokesman said.
The Leone Stars then moved to a newly built hotel where they remain the only occupants, on the advice of Cameroon soccer and health officials.
“You feel humiliated, like garbage, and you want to punch someone,” John Trye, a reserve goalkeeper, said after hearing “Ebola” shouted at the players during a training session Thursday. “No one wants to have Ebola in their country. Sierra Leone is struggling. And they shove it in our face. That’s not fair.”
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The Ebola crisis that has devastated parts of West Africa and spread fear across several continents is inflicting tangential damage to the Sierra Leone soccer team, which has endured a string of indignities since the disease broke out in May. In August it was barred “until further notice“ by African soccer officials from playing in its own stricken country, turning it into an itinerant team that plays every match on the road as it struggles to qualify for the 2015 Africa Cup of Nations, the continent’s biennial championship.
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Fans with a sign saying "Stop Ebola" during a September qualifying match between Ivory Coast and Sierra Leone for the 2015 Africa Cup of Nations. Credit Luc Gnago/Reuters
At each stop, the fear and stigma of Ebola leads to what players say is demeaning and discouraging treatment.
The Seychelles forfeited a match in July rather than host Sierra Leone but did not notify the visiting team until it was set to board a connecting flight in Nairobi, Kenya. And last month, while playing a designated “home” game in the group stage in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sierra Leone was mocked with chants of “Ebola, Ebola” from beginning to end in a 2-0 defeat.
The same derisive chants greeted the Leone Stars as they took the field Saturday against Cameroon in a 0-0 tie, then subsided until late in what was another “home” match for Sierra Leone, though it was played more than 1,500 miles from the West African nation.
While facing Cameroon twice in five days, the Leone Stars (the team’s nickname) must submit at breakfast and dinner to temperature screenings for Ebola, even though none play professionally in Sierra Leone or have traveled to the country since July. After last month’s match in Congo, some players were screened four times in a single day as they attempted to return to their club teams in Europe and the United States.
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Players at a training session in Abidjan. After a match in September in the Democratic Republic of Congo, some of them were screened for Ebola four times in a single day as they tried to return to their club teams. Credit Luc Gnago/Reuters
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Mr. Trye said he was detained Wednesday night for three hours by immigration authorities after flying into Douala, Cameroon. Rather than submit to yet another Ebola screening, he took a four-hour bus ride instead of a 30-minute connecting flight to Yaoundé, the capital.
Players understand that countries must guard against the spread of the virus, said Kei Kamara, a Sierra Leone forward who remained with his club team, the Columbus Crew of Major League Soccer, rather than travel to Cameroon. But what is disheartening, Mr. Kamara said in a telephone interview, is that “we’re treated like we’re walking around with the disease.”
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The chaos related to Ebola worsened last week with infighting between Sierra Leone’s soccer federation and its sports ministry, which have long jousted for control of the national team. The factions appointed separate replacements for the previous coach, who was fired last month.
FIFA, soccer’s world governing body, threatened to bar Sierra Leone from future competitions unless the sports ministry quit interfering. The players were caught in the middle, threatened Saturday with nonpayment by the ministry. The issue was not resolved until 15 minutes before kickoff.
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A fan cleaned his hand with an antiseptic solution during the September match between Ivory Coast and Sierra Leone. Credit Luc Gnago/Reuters
“We have this problem of Ebola,” John Jeboh Sherrington, the technical director of Sierra Leone’s soccer federation, said to the players in the dressing room. “We cannot add another problem by refusing to play.”
Despite the tumult in Cameroon, the players said it did not compare with a demoralizing trip in September to Ivory Coast and, especially, to the Democratic Republic of Congo. At least here, players received applause and thumbs-up gestures after Saturday’s match from spectators who appreciated their perseverance and the difficulty facing any traveling team in Africa, much less a homeless one.
“They shake our hands,” said Alie Badara Tarawallie, a Sierra Leone soccer federation official. “They’re not afraid of us.”
Last month, some players from Ivory Coast gave fist bumps instead of shaking hands, which upset some of the Sierra Leone players. “Shaking hands is respect,” midfielder Khalifa Jabbie said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/14/sports/soccer/sierra-leones-soccer-team-struggles-with-stigma-over-ebola-outbreak.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&version=LargeMediaHeadlineSum&module=b-lede-package-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0
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Look like an AID like stigma is developing. This time though it more serious..Ebola is a quick killer.
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Look like an AID like stigma is developing. This time though it more serious..Ebola is a quick killer.
Ask the Kenyan soldiers who served in Sierra Leone to tell you what stigma they went through in that country. I remember having to drive over with food and water in landcruiser arriving by night because they could not be approached until they moved to their own barracks.
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The Negro lacks empathy. Same thing that was absent between Ham and Noah. These folks would have been treated like heroes in a bazungu country.
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The Negro lacks empathy. Same thing that was absent between Ham and Noah. These folks would have been treated like heroes in a bazungu country.
Theirs is genuine fear..its the way they are going about it that bothers my mind. Its happening everywhere even in bazungu land. There is a TV doctor at NBC who has had several campus appearnces cancelled because of this fear, now even more heightened after the death of Eric Duncan and the second case in Dallas. Now pray tell Termi how do you come up with the father -son comparison.... I cant see it, maybe its monday morning and my brains are slow.
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The Negro lacks empathy. Same thing that was absent between Ham and Noah. These folks would have been treated like heroes in a bazungu country.
Theirs is genuine fear..its the way they are going about it that bothers my mind. Its happening everywhere even in bazungu land. There is a TV doctor at NBC who has had several campus appearnces cancelled because of this fear, now even more heightened after the death of Eric Duncan and the second case in Dallas. Now pray tell Termi how do you come up with the father -son comparison.... I cant see it, maybe its monday morning and my brains are slow.
The father son part refers to Ham who laughed at his naked drunk father instead of covering him up. Some people believe the Negro is his descendant(personally I don't).
There is probably fear too. But it cannot explain the Ebola chants.
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The Negro lacks empathy. Same thing that was absent between Ham and Noah. These folks would have been treated like heroes in a bazungu country.
Theirs is genuine fear..its the way they are going about it that bothers my mind. Its happening everywhere even in bazungu land. There is a TV doctor at NBC who has had several campus appearnces cancelled because of this fear, now even more heightened after the death of Eric Duncan and the second case in Dallas. Now pray tell Termi how do you come up with the father -son comparison.... I cant see it, maybe its monday morning and my brains are slow.
The father son part refers to Ham who laughed at his naked drunk father instead of covering him up. Some people believe the Negro is his descendant(personally I don't).
There is probably fear too. But it cannot explain the Ebola chants.
The ebola chants, I cant explain......football fanatics are on a league of their own and have been known to go into extremes. Ham did more than just laugh at his drunk fathers nakedness..just ask vooke. In todays world, he would be referred to as a sic mind.....I mean who would do something like that to their own father. I also dont believe that it has anything to do with the dark skin as theologiens have debated for ages, but that aside.......In that context, that's abit extreme, dont you think?