Editor's note: David Cogswell is currently on a tour of Ethiopia, which you can follow here, here and here.
Here in Ethiopia, traveling around the country to look at tourism resources with the NTA Product Development Trip as guests of the Ethiopian Tourism Commission, I am seeing a great variety of things. They include historical and religious sites like the rock-hewn churches at Lalibela, natural wonders like the Blue Nile Falls, Gondar Castle in Gondar and the ongoing procession of African life in the cities, villages and the countryside.
One thing I am not seeing is anything remotely connected to the ebola epidemic in West Africa.
That's not entirely true: at the Sabean Hotel in Aksem I saw a TV screen in a lounge that was tuned to CNN and there was a report on the ebola tragedy in Nigeria. That was the only mention of the disease I have heard since I arrived last week.
There are no cases of the disease reported in Ethiopia, or anywhere else in Africa except the five countries we've been hearing about: Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Nigeria and Senegal
After being off the grid for a couple of days I arrived tonight in a hotel that has good Wi-Fi - not a given in Ethiopia by any means - and I pulled up Google News to try to catch up on what is happening with Ebola. Because I am in Africa, logging onto Google News takes me to an Africa-centric version of the news page, with a grouping of stories especially suited for African viewers as determined by the masterminds at Google. I see exactly one mention of the disease on the entire news page. The article is about "Fear Among Flight Attendants After First Ebola Diagnosis in U.S."
So I guess the U.S. is ahead of Ethiopia in terms of Ebola cases reported. "Dallas is a city in fear…." the ABC news announcer reports with great drama.
Africa is a continent as large as the U.S., Canada and all of Europe combined, so the fact that a deadly disease in West Africa is not causing much of a stir in East Africa is not really surprising.
When I travel to Johannesburg, South Africa, from New York on South African Airways and the flight stops in Dakar, Senegal, in West Africa, I am only half of the way from New York to Johannesburg. When I head on from Johannesburg to Durban for Indaba, the annual travel trade show, on the east coast of South Africa, I'm actually farther from West Africa than New York.
But, you might say, you are on the same continent! But as we have seen with the Ebola virus turning up in Dallas, the Atlantic Ocean, vast as it is, is no barrier to Ebola when we have the world connected by an arterial system of airline routes.
For me one of the best things about traveling abroad is getting away from the hysterical vibe of the 24-hour news channels that just thrive on fear. God knows if there is something terrible in the world, they will find it, and not only will they find it, they'll create a logo for it and pound you with it relentlessly until the Next Big Disaster comes up.
Africa has plenty of problems, no doubt about it. Traveling around Ethiopia this week I have seen heartbreaking poverty in some places. Tonight traveling on a highway full of pedestrians, burro-drawn carts, herds of cattle and much more, I saw a cow lying on the highway in a pool of blood, surrounded by a crowd of people. Apparently the poor thing had been struck by a vehicle. Yes, there is no shortage of problems in Africa.
But it is a great relief to be out of the realm of media hypnosis that seems designed to keep everyone riled up and on edge. When there are catastrophes, it keeps people glued to the tube, and that makes ratings go up and keeps sponsors happy with the advertising rates they are paying.
So if there is anything horrible to report, the news channels will find it. And the news media in general will get on board and trumpet it until your mind is numbed by it. And when the public interest in that crisis wanes, they'll find another one.
People who spend all their time in the U.S. have no idea how consumed they are in the media hysteria. It is said that a fish has no concept of water because it is the medium in which its entire world exists. It has never experienced a situation without water, so it is not even a thing.
Americans need to get out of the country sometimes just for that if nothing else; just to cleanse themselves of all the bad vibes constantly poured on them from their mass media.
Over here in Ethiopia, all is well. There's no Ebola and no one seems to be too upset about it. It's a national security concern so the government is monitoring all flights to West Africa and taking all possible steps to prevent what happened in Dallas from happening here.
Ebola is an international issue, not limited, obviously, to Africa, and hopefully with international cooperation the disease will be contained in the countries where it now is, and then brought under control.
Meanwhile, I'm going to go back to my trip to Ethiopia. Having a fabulous time, wish you were here!
For the latest travel news, updates and deals, subscribe to the daily TravelPulse newsletter.
Topics From This Article to Explore
