アフリカに行く？行かない（英会話レッスンから）/ If you go to Africa（英文エッセイ）

2026年6月28日 21:38

アフリカに行きたい、という生徒さんがいる。

ユーチューブで、アフリカの雄大な自然や、野生動物を見るのが好きだとのこと。

お金さえあれば、行けるのに。

でも行ったら行ったで、色々、心配事もある。

その1つが、蚊。

蚊は、マラリア等、色々な病気を媒介する。

蚊に刺されるのは嫌だ。確かに。

病気というと、コンゴという、赤道直下で、熱帯雨林が広がる国がある。エボラウィルスや紛争で、よくコンゴのことは耳にする。

エボラウィルスの流行がなぜ、なかなか収束しないのか。

アフリカに行きたい生徒さんによると、伝統や風習を重んじる現地の人は、葬儀で、感染症で亡くなった人に濃厚接触する(to have close contact)ことで、感染が広がるとのこと。医者を信用しない現地の人たちが、医療用テントに火を放つ事件まで起きている。

風習や伝統は、各々の文化において重んじるべきものだが、なるほど、だからいつもエボラウィルスが、なかなか収束しないのかと、興味深く、話を聞いた。

で、結局、アフリカには、行きたいのですよね、と聞くと、

色々考えたら、まあ、家でアフリカのユーチューブでも見てたらいいかな、とのこと。

確かに。

こちらは、英語で書いています。

If you go to Africa

by Toshihiro Kimura

One student wrote in her essay about her dream of going to Africa someday. I asked her why she wants to go there. She watched some videos filmed by a Japanese who shows African cultures and traditions to viewers on Youtube. She was fascinated by the natural beauty of those African countries and the beautiful wild animals that live in nature.

She seemed very much interested in going there. She said if she were rich, she would want to fly to Africa now. But there are problems. She is afraid of mosquitoes. She will be in trouble if she gets mosquito bites, because mosquitoes can carry various diseases. She doesn't want to get sick by getting insect bites. She's worried about the posibility of getting very sick.

We talked about Ebola virus disease in Africa. Congo often has the outbreak of ebola virus disease. She told me why it is difficult to fight the virus there. Local people don't trust doctors. Many of them don't want to get treatment at hospitals. There are the U.N. and other medical experts who are trying to stop the virus from spreading, but it's difficult to do so because many of the locals don't follow doctor's advice. They value their custom. They put their tradition first. Even when the ebola virus is going around, they have close contact with sick people. At funerals, they touch the bodies of thier family members who have died of ebola, which makes the virus spread easily. Recently, angry locals set fire to hospital's tents to get back the dead bodies of their family members.

I was surprised to hear what she was talking about Congo. I understood why they can't stop the virus from spreading there. They don't trust science. So, it's about education. And education always takes time. The world must wait until they start trusting science and put welfare of people before tradition. It won't be easy.

As she talked about the diseases and the situations in Africa, I asked her if she still wants to go there now. She said it would be enough to watch Youtube and experience Africa virtually for now to be on the safe side.