 Director's Note
In Africa, much of a family's wealth is often measured in the livestock they own. When lightning kills their animals, a large portion of the resources they use to feed, clothe and educate their family may be destroyed.
In many countries in sub-Saharan Africa, a 'bride price' must be paid for the families to recognize a marriage and the children produced. Usually the bride price, in livestock, money and other goods, is paid to the bride's family not as a 'purchase' but to signify the groom's and his family's respect and pledge to provide for her.
Our congratulations to Edmund Ataremwa, ACLENet's administrative head, and his new bride, Lydia, on their marriage this month! We wish them a long and happy union blessed by children and good health.
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Tell your story
We invite you to share your questions and stories about lightning with readers worldwide who are interested in lightning, especially in Africa. We will do our best to publish it and respond to questions with expert advice from our worldwide pool of research advisers and lightning safety experts.
If you witness a lightning incident, please report it, post images on our social media sites and be part of the effort to 'reduce deaths, injuries, and property damage'.
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LIGHTNING MYTHS AND FOLKLORE
A common belief in South Africa -
mirrors attract lightning.
People of all different cultural and language groups have recollections of their grandmothers covering mirrors during a thunderstorm. This was a common audience question when the lightning safety campaign in the USA was started, too.
An interview in Uganda revealed that most rural participants said they cover up the mirrors when there is lightning. A few said that this was because a mirror could reflect the lightning and the reflected lightning could kill you.
Pabale’s study in Limpopo (2006) showed that 28% of first-year electrical engineering students at the University of the Witwatersrand believed mirrors attract lightning.
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ICLP Conference Highlights
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The 34th International Conference on Lightning Protection was a wonderful opportunity for interaction and exchange of scientific and technical information related to lightning. It was hosted by the Polish Committee on Lightning Protection, SEP 2-7, 2018, at the Conference Center at the Rzeszow University of Technology.
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Selected conversations and meetings with lightning colleagues from around the world:
1. Collaboration with experienced lightning safety educators from Asia, Africa and South America to share and develop public education materials and ideas.
2. Strategies to decrease the costs with ACLENet's school protection program by using code compliant, locally sourced materials to avoid import costs.
3. Coordination with expert lightning protection design-volunteers to 'template' lightning protection designs for common building configurations. Uganda's Ministry of Education has shared drawings of their new primary and secondary school designs with ACLENet to begin this process. This collection could be shared across other African ACLE centres.
4. Results of early research into the effectiveness of shoes, sleeping mats and other measures individuals may take to decrease injuries from ground current.
5. Link to ACLENet papers presented at the meeting.
STAY TUNED FOR MORE UPDATES ON THESE ACTIVITIES!!
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ACLENet website now in over 100 LANGUAGES!
Use 'Select Language' pull-down at the bottom of the Home page to try it out.
To revert to English, return to the pull-down and English will appear as the first choice.
WE NEED YOUR HELP
If you are fluent in other languages spoken in Africa, please help us monitor news reports of lightning injury and damage in these languages -
CONTACT US to find out how!
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News Reports of More Lightning Injuries in September
August and September have been exceptionally light months as far as lightning injuries and deaths. This month we are adding on reports from French speaking countries. Prior to this, we could only scan English press reports.
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Guinea-Bissau: lightning kills three people
September 26, 2018
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