We were about to set out on our guided tour of the Gamboa Resort Orchid Nursery in Panama when some unknown creature ran through the group causing a panic.
“Wha that? A snake?” someone asked and answered their own question.
The word “snake” had barely been uttered before some of us were leaping so high off the ground, we probably set records for the high jumps. We left a gulf about as wide as the famous Panama Canal we had visited.
To our relief it was not a snake, and having realised that we would be seeing some of the reptiles along our tour, one male started to engage in a tiresome show of bravado about not being afraid to handle snakes, strangling them with his bare hands, etcetera, etcetera.
He probably didn’t say the last part – I just tossed that in to emphasise his empty boasting. Anyhow, his chest-thumping was interrupted after some sarcastic person in the group reminded him how, not so long ago, the less fearsome iguana had put him to flight.
What that little experience demonstrated was people’s initial reaction in the face of perceived danger and how their basic instinct would kick in under the fear of harm.
When our guide told us what we would be seeing, the crocodiles and snakes instinctively stood out in our minds. At the first sign of danger we imagined the worst and thoughts of self-preservation took over.
But is the emotion the same when it comes to our children? I reckoned that when it comes to our children, that feeling of preservation increases threefold.
I admit the death figures from reputed international health organisations associated with the disease are enough to put dread in anyone any part of the world.
So I cannot say how I might react to news that an isolation centre for the contagious Ebola virus would be sited next door to the place where I’m sending my child to be educated. But what I can say is that I know it would not be to behave in a condescending fashion to the people whose job it is to look after the health of an entire population.
I wasn’t there but from the video clips I saw and the reports I heard, the recent meeting between health authorities and parents of the students of the private school St Ursuline Convent was a vulgar flexing of financial muscle.
I’m not annoyed with anyone for believing that their children are princes and princesses entitled to the best in this world and the next.
Why that goes back to biblical times when the mother of Zebedee’s sons came to Jesus with, to my mind, the unreasonable request that her sons sit, one at His left and the other at His right, in His kingdom.
There was no outstanding reason why these two should hold any particular favour ahead of others, including a few of Christ’s chosen disciples, except that a loving mother thought it prudent.
Why heck, I might have made a similar demand and obviously I wouldn’t be alone in my over-zealous maternal view of my precious offspring. It is only the coldest of parents who would not regard their children in such a precious way.
However, does that give us the right to trample on others, disregard them or view them as beneath us?
I am amazed that hardly anyone sought to put these parents in their place when they verbally attacked the health officials and insulted them at the meeting discussing the centre. Power of position or wealth is not a licence for disrespect whether the people are at the top of their profession or the ones down in the trenches.
To hurl insults over the pronunciation of a word in an attempt to make someone feel small or to throw around your financial worth or your status as a means of intimidation is a sign of arrogance. When arrogance appears, sound reasoning can easily vanish so that not much is achieved in these type of gatherings.
There’s nothing wrong with a little panic setting in, but someone needed to put those disrespectful parents in their place, and there would have been nothing wrong with another parent doing it.
• Antoinette Connell is a News Editor.
