Global News Podcast - The Happy Pod: Puss in the post
Episode Date: May 4, 2024This week, the adventures of Galena the cat who ended up hundreds of kilometres from home after climbing into a box. Also: How a stick on patch can vaccinate children against measles and rubella -- wi...thout the need for doctors or nurses. And video-calling isn't just for people, it's for parrots too. The happiest stories in the world - our weekly collection.
Transcript
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This is The Happy Pod from the BBC World Service.
I'm Paul Moss, and in this edition, uploaded on Saturday 3rd May...
It was just really odd and unusual that we couldn't find her anywhere.
We, you know, tore our house apart
trying to find her. The cat whose love of boxes took her hundreds of kilometres from home.
Also, the small sticky patch that could save lives as an alternative way to give vaccinations.
There's been a lot of excitement about the result. This is really now moving the field
forward to something that now could be game changing. We'll also hear about the result. This is really now moving the field forward to something that now could be game changing. We'll also hear about the killer whale calf trapped in a Canadian lagoon and how it
finally swam to safety. It was just extraordinary. I was beside myself. I was so proud of Brave
Little Hunter. It felt wonderful to know that she finally had a chance. It's incredible. Also in this
podcast, we hear from players in a blind football league that's helping to tackle discrimination in South Sudan. When I'm
playing, I feel like I don't have disabilities. I'm very happy. And we hear from listeners about
the joy of moving to a new country. Now, each week, the team here at Happy Pod headquarters have an uncharacteristically
serious debate about what should be the main story. This week, though, the conversation wasn't
too heated, as there was universal agreement about the news that really mattered. And that,
of course, is the tale of the cat, which mysteriously went missing in the US for a week
and turned up hundreds of kilometres from home.
Galena usually spends her days indoors with her owners in Utah,
but was found inside a box at an Amazon warehouse in California.
My colleague Nick Miles spoke to Galena's owner, Carrie Clark,
who described first their alarm that their pet
had gone missing. It was just really odd and unusual that we couldn't find her anywhere.
She's an indoor only cat and she's also the kind of cat who like always stays by my side wherever
I go in my house. We, you know, tore our house apart trying to find her. Everything that we
looked into, every possible idea that we could
think of, she was just nowhere to be found. Okay, so further down the line, days pass,
you must have been getting more and more desperate. Tell us what happened.
Yeah, so seven days passed. We had gotten friends and family together searching for her.
I started to give up and lose hope, feeling like I would never find out what happened
to her. And then miraculously, that afternoon, I received a text informing me that Galena's
microchip had been scanned. And within 30 seconds of receiving that text, I got a phone call from
a mysterious caller who told me that they had my cat Galena and she was currently
in California, which is 650 miles away from my home in Utah, her home in Utah. And so we eventually
found out through the caller that she was a vet in California and Brandy Hunter had found her at the Amazon warehouse. They take their
time sending the returns back. Unfortunately, the reality of it was that Galena was trapped in that
box without food and water for six days. And how on earth did she survive? I mean, that's a huge
amount of time without any water. I know, it's massive. There were so many miracles that led up to her surviving. Like the first miracle was that the box that she was stuck in, that she was trapped in. Well, first of all, it was a really, really When my husband boxed up the package of the boot, he like checked the box and made sure everything was in order.
And then he closed the flap and walked over to another room to get tape and scissors.
And when he came back, he just put the tape over the box, assuming everything was fine.
The only thing we could think of that must have happened is that Galena had snuck into that box.
So Galena makes her way back home ultimately.
And what was the reunion like?
Being able to be reunited with Galena is something that I will never forget.
Right as we heard that she was in California and we heard the ordeal that she had gone through. And we just,
you know, flew out to see her as fast as we could and bring her back home to us because we just
adore our cat. I'm so happy she's okay now. That's what matters the most is she's okay now.
Are you going to fit her with a GPS tracker now?
Yes, she's wearing it right now. She's actually by my side at the moment.
So now she is wearing a collar with an AirTag on it,
and I can track her with my phone.
We're so happy to have her back home.
And if I could just say one last thing,
please consider microchipping your pets.
That's the way that we were able to get Galena back to us
and to triple-check your packages that are delivered out.
Carrie Clark, and I've got to say that if that cat has nine lives,
I reckon it's presumably used up at least two or three of them,
next to a small invention that could have a big impact,
saving lives around the world.
And can I be honest, it's also rather welcome news to me personally.
It's a bit embarrassing, but strictly between you and me,
I have a real phobia about injections. So I was delighted to
hear that medical researchers have come up with an alternative. It's a patch, a bit like a sticking
plaster, that you can use to give vaccinations. Now, it's aimed primarily at children, but in fact
it could help adults too, because unlike the liquid they put in hypodermic needles, the patch
doesn't need to be kept cold,
so it's possible to use it in remote places which perhaps don't have refrigeration.
The device has just been successfully tested in the Gambia by a team affiliated to the
London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. I spoke to two of the team involved, Dr Mohamed
Yissa and Professor Ed Clark, who first explained in more detail
how it worked. So rather than being given with the normal needle and syringe to the normal injection
that people are used to, the same vaccine is embedded within these tiny microneedles,
so to speak, on the back of what looks really like a sticking plaster. And the microneedles
penetrate the skin, so they go through the skin essentially painlessly with some very minor sort of sensation. They dissolve very rapidly and they deliver the vaccine.
So is this just a matter of convenience, something rather nice for those of us who
don't appreciate needles very much, or is there more to it?
One critical benefit is that they're easy to administer by people who are not healthcare
professionals, that they're expected to be easy to administer following very brief training by volunteers.
The other perhaps most important advantage, again,
from our perspective in West Africa,
is that they don't need to be stored in the fridge
in the same way that normal vaccines do.
So this means it's easier to reach the most hard-to-reach,
vulnerable populations of children
who may be a long way from standard healthcare facilities.
Mohamed Youssef, I can bring you in here. I know that medical scientists like you can spend
years and decades pursuing a line of research all for nothing and not much significant gain.
How's it been to see that this does look like it's going to benefit an awful lot of people?
It's always good to see that the efforts that you have put in
has such potential to change lives around the world.
Be honest, Mohamed, when you were doing this trial,
were you pretty confident that the patch was going to work
or were you really waiting with, I don't know,
bated breath to see if it really did have the effect you wanted?
When we started the trial, the technology itself was very fascinating, especially because it had a lot of promise of being pain-free and all that.
So I was hoping for it to work because of the advantages, yes. But I have no idea if it was going to or not.
Ed Clark.
We were obviously the first people to see the data here in The Gambia, so it was a really big day. And I remember looking at it with my colleagues.
This patch has been developed over actually decades by colleagues in the US Centers for Disease Control and other organizations.
So I know, you know, when we again gave the data to them and showed them the data, it was a really big day.
And there's been a lot of excitement about the results since.
This trial has you using the patches to deliver the vaccine for
for measles and rubella but I mean are you going to be trying to use it for other vaccinations that
would be important in that part of the world? There is a real drive now we've got this data
and lots of interest in using this these patches or this technology for delivering other vaccines
the same similar technology has been used in adults already, in fact, just to deliver flu vaccines in the US. So this is obviously a very different population.
So if it is left to me, I would like to see maybe every other vaccine on the schedule
delivered by patch, maybe the option to choose a needle and syringe or a patch.
That's one thing I would like to see in an ideal world.
This is really now a big hurdle to
moving the field forward from those first ideas to something that now could be game-changing.
Ed Clark and Mohamed Yissa. It has the honour of being the world's newest nation, but South Sudan
has had more than its fair share of troubles. It was born out of a long war to win independence
from Sudan itself, with victory finally coming in 2011,
and has been beset by its own divisions ever since.
But if there's one thing that unites South Sudan's disparate people, it's a love of football.
Indeed, despite suffering poverty and ongoing violence, football still looms large in people's lists of concerns.
And more recently, a different version of the sport
has been gaining popularity,
with the launch last year of a blind people's football league.
Rebecca Wood reports.
A shout from a team-mate.
And a goal.
The sounds of a football training practice underway.
But these players can't see their team their teammates, the goal or the ball.
I'm called Jimmy Just, Jimmy Just Agustin, and the nickname is Messi.
It was in 2012 when I lost my sight.
My name is Jonas Abre.
I was a player before in one of the division teams in South Sudan.
So it is very unfortunate I got blind.
In a sport where sight has no place, sound is everything.
Simon Madul is head coach and technical director
for the Blind Football Premier League in South Sudan.
We have five players in the field.
The goalkeeper is someone who is sighted.
So also Ag has a guide.
Nice one, nice one.
And we have the coach, which Ag has the guide in the middle of the field.
And most importantly, our ball has a jingling sound inside.
And also there are some words that we say, for example, if a player is attacking,
he has to say boy. Because you cannot just come silently trying to attack.
Set up during COVID in 2020 with help from the organisation Light for the World,
from small beginnings it's gone from strength to strength.
No mean feat in a nation torn apart by conflict.
We started only with two players but today we are reaching hundreds now.
The sport is for people who are visually impaired
but we also think that it's very important for us to also train people who are not visually impaired.
Raising awareness of disability inclusion in ways like this
and challenging the stigma faced by the nation's disabled population is the aim of the league,
as well as having a positive influence on the lives of people like Yona and Jimmy.
When I'm playing, I feel like I don't have a disability.
I'm very happy.
I got blind. From there, I feel like I don't have disability. I'm very happy. I got blind.
From there, I stayed two good years at home. Even I don't know what to do. I lose hope.
Now I'm feeling so proud. Of course, it's not just in South Sudan you'll find blind football. It's been a Paralympic sport since 2004 and has more than 60 internationally recognised teams, with Argentina, Brazil and Japan top of the men's leaderboard.
For Simon, Jimmy and Yona, heading abroad is their dream.
And while that may seem a far-off goal for now,
they believe anything is possible with growing interest and team spirit.
A lot of people, they enjoy our playing.
We come from different states, different tribes,
but through this blind football, it has united us.
We're like family.
Good! Very nice!
Nice one there, Captain.
That report from Rebecca Wood.
Coming up in this podcast...
We gave them a bell, and when they rang the bell,
then the owner would come over and present them with a tablet,
and there was profile photos on the tablet,
and the parrot could use their tongue to select a profile photo on the screen.
The highly social, tech-savvy parrots. Thank you. and the global story, plus other great BBC podcasts from history to comedy to true crime,
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In the last episode, we asked for your stories
about how moving to a new country has made you happy.
Well, Shirley Markutainan got in touch.
20 years ago, she swapped Texas for El Salvador.
Not too far geographically, but worlds apart in other ways.
Shirley left with her husband and two young children
to help open a new facility for a computer firm.
She told the Happy Pods' Isabella Jewell why they decided to make this move.
I grew up a military child, and so I was used to living abroad,
and I just think the excitement of it, learning a new culture,
and I wanted to expose that for my children too.
You learn something different
than you've grown up with. I think our biggest issue became our language. The children started
school and the school spent half their time speaking Spanish, doing history, math, all in
Spanish, and then half the time in English so that the other people that were from El Salvador would be learning English at the same time.
So we were the opposite.
We took Spanish classes the whole time.
And I think at the end I was OK.
Can you tell me a little bit about some of the other culture shocks you might have experienced moving?
This is obviously a very different place from the States.
El Salvador can be a rough place.
We tried to think of it as living in a big
city. There's probably places you can go to, can't go to. So when you go to a grocery store,
or if you go to a pharmacy, you'll see a lot of armed security guards, even on the beach.
I think that for a little bit, it took us back, but then it became quite normal. Time. Oh,
that's a big one. In the US, you're very conscious of time. So you arrive to a party,
you know, if they say the party starts at seven, you probably arrive a little before seven.
And that never happens in a cell door. And it took us probably a couple years to realize that you know people are much more relaxed about
time even 30 minutes late is okay it was a much more relaxed approach to thing you don't get so
uptight about everything so would you say coming away from that experience you're happier now in
your everyday lives because you've borrowed aspects of the culture from El Salvador.
We are definitely happier. And I think that we look at things differently.
And if you had one piece of advice to someone or a family who wanted to move to the other side of the world or to a different country, what would it be?
I would say definitely do it. It's an opportunity for you and for your family. Think about where you're going to live, where you're going to send your children to school and how you're going to approach it.
If you're going to move to another country, embrace it. Learn all you can.
Don't try to stay in a bubble and just stay with your own culture and your own ways of doing things.
Shirley Mark with Tynan. And if moving to a new country has had a positive effect on your life,
we'd love to hear from you. Now, the name killer whale isn't exactly designed to inspire sympathy.
It sounds more like a creature from a scary movie. But despite their menacing name,
killer whales or orcas spend most of their time eating fish, and they're very rarely a danger to humans. On the contrary, they seem to inspire intense affection
from those who get to know them as individuals.
That's what I learned when I heard the story of a very young killer whale
who ended up stranded in a Canadian lagoon.
The mother had died and her orphan daughter was nicknamed
Brave Little Hunter by the local community.
And they then got involved in the many attempts to rescue her.
I learned all this from Rob John, who comes from the Ihartisat First Nation,
and also Jared Towers from the whale conservation group Bay Cetology.
He explained first why there was some urgency in getting Brave Little Hunter back to sea.
Being that killer whales are social animals,
they really rely on other killer whales to thrive and survive. And
unfortunately, being that this killer whale is in a very unusual place, it had a very small chance
of connecting with family. Also being that it was only a two and a half year old calf,
we were a bit worried about what kind of food resources were there for it.
Rob, John, what was the reaction of the community that you live in
to the presence of this orphaned killer whale?
It was definitely the top of the list of conversations.
People lined up on the beaches just to view the incident.
Now, you then jointly, as a community, tried to rescue the killer whale, tried to get her out to sea.
How did you go about that?
We had found a recording of whales' great hands.
And if they hear another killer whale, then they usually want to socialize.
And the whale swam in the opposite direction, almost like she potentially knew that it was a hoax.
That tried and tested method didn't work and the other methods hadn't worked either.
How were you feeling about this?
I think we were feeling the pressure.
Those of us on site really cared.
You know, giving up was not an option.
So we were pretty dedicated and focused.
Rob John?
I was very concerned with the whole situation.
I just continued on feeding her, visiting her and singing to her.
You sang to her?
Yes, I did, yes.
While I was in my little Zodiac, my small boat there,
I was out in the lagoon with her and feeding her by hand.
I was singing to her in our language and using her culture.
Rob, there's all these elaborate efforts going on to coax brave little Hunter out to sea.
But then it seems she just went of her own accord. Is that right?
It was a long fought effort.
You know, after we established a good connection, my co-worker and I, you know, she was coming to the boat.
She was following and she was feeding straight from the surface beside the boat at this point. And we guided her to the sandbar,
and she was still reluctant to travel over the sandbar.
So I started going back and forth over the sandbar,
just showing her that it was safe.
How did it feel to see Brave Little Hunter back out in the sea?
How was that for you?
It was just extraordinary.
I was beside myself.
I was so proud of Brave Little Hunter for gaining the courage.
And each obstacle that she had to go through, she put her trust in us.
Gerard Towers?
Well, it was amazing.
It had been over a month, and it felt wonderful to know that she finally had a chance.
And it still feels that way.
It's incredible.
Gerard Towers and Rob John.
It's 24 years since UNESCO named its first annual World Book Capital.
And the United Nations Education Agency has just selected the latest one.
It's Strasbourg in eastern France.
The idea of awarding the title is to promote reading,
and that's certainly something close to Strasbourg's identity.
It claims to be the city where the first ever newspaper was produced back in 1609.
Lucie Atchison asked the mayor of Strasbourg, Jeanne Barcéen,
what winning the title meant to her.
Oh, I must say it was a very powerful moment.
My colleagues and I were overjoyed because Strasbourg becomes the first French city to receive this label of World Book Capital UNESCO.
Why is it so important to you and to the city of Strasbourg?
Our city, Strasbourg, has a very long history with books. We are the city where Gutenberg invented printing. And so it is very important to us because it means the history of our city, but it's also its future. And we want to say with
this label that with books, we can also promote debate, we can change the world. And so it's
also about the power of books.
What are you hoping it will mean for the city in terms of long-term positive impact?
This label from UNESCO is about promoting books and reading in all forms and for all ages. also to fight illiteracy and inequalities.
And so we also used the opportunity to give new books a location in schools and nurseries so that this amazing label could have a long-term impact.
Have you been inspired by other World Book Capitals?
Of course, most recently it was Accra in Ghana who were awarded the title.
It is an international network of 25 cities.
We welcomed a big delegation from Accra.
The mayor of Accra is also a woman, and it was a really strong moment between us as she
gave me the flame of the World Book Capital. And of course,
what the other cities did in the past was for us a big inspiration. And we will keep in touch. And
it's also a great partnership to come with the next World Book Capital next year, 2025, it will be Rio de Janeiro. They came also to Strasbourg and I can wait to
go to Rio to give the flame to the mayor of Rio next year. Strasbourg Mayor Jeanne Barsayan.
Now, when you're away, there's a good chance you'll have caught up with family, friends or
colleagues through a video call. It's a much more personal way to connect than a text or an email. New
research from the University of Glasgow in Scotland suggests this isn't only true for people,
as Anna Murphy's been finding out.
Hello? Who's there?
Yes, you heard it correctly.
Those are the squawks of two parrots talking to each other via video call.
They're taking part in a study into the way that animals could use the internet to connect with one another, much like we do.
Now, I'd love to play you some more of that video and to tell you the parrots' names,
but we've been told we need to protect their anonymity.
The lead researcher of the study was Dr Ileana Hersky-Douglas. and to tell you the parrot's names, but we've been told we need to protect their anonymity.
The lead researcher of the study was Dr. Ileana Hersky-Douglas.
Initially, we did a lot of research where we connected parrots together online through video calls and we trained parrots to use our video call system and we found that all parrots would
use this video call system. But it was a lot of work for their owners. You know, they had to set
up the call, sometimes the parrot was busy in another call, all these different things that can go wrong. Oh dear. The classic problem of clashing
parrot social schedules. But Ileana had an idea. Then I thought it might be interesting to connect
them to videos instead, because these are a lot easier. You can just play these in the background
when the parrot requested, and these can be used for a long time. So the other parrot doesn't need
to be available for instance. But we didn't know how they would perceive online calls. Did they perceive them the same with the
video? Did they know another parrot is live? Well the findings suggest that yes they did know.
The nine parrot participants seemed to prefer the live chats as they spent far longer making
video calls than they did watching the pre-recorded ones. Now the important thing to note here is that
it was the parrot's choice. They were trained to at least in part be in control of their own social lives. We used a
system where we gave them a bell and when they rang the bell then the owner would come over,
present them with a tablet and there was profile photos on the tablet and the parrot could use
their tongue to select a profile photo on the screen. We did a lot of work around training
them to use this system and also we then did a stage of introductions, we called it meet and greet, where each parrot would
meet each other online. And as it turns out the parrots even formed friendships and just like us
preferred calling some parrot friends over others. So it seems to have been an enjoyable experience
for these nine parrots but what about the wider benefits of this research? For parrots specifically because they do live in these large flocks in the wild but traditionally
in homes they live in much smaller groups we're hoping that something like this could potentially
give them some social benefit and then if we start looking at this wider we have lots of other
animals that we keep either in our homes zoos aquariums or various different situations which
don't have access to the number of animals
that they would in the wild. So I really see the animal internet or animal video calls as
potentially expanding an animal's world much in the same way as it expanded ours.
Ileana told us that as well as chatting, the parrots groomed, sang and played with toys
together whilst on the calls. But there was one more question I just had to ask.
What were they talking about? Do you have any sense of what they might have been discussing?
No, it's something I would also like to know.
What's the topic of a parrot video call?
So for now, what the parrots were talking about
and who these parrots were will have to remain a mystery.
I suppose we're all entitled to our privacy.
Anna Murphy.
Now, we'd love to hear from you if you have any
pets who'd like to do video calls. And that's all from us for now. Remember, if you'd like to be
part of the Happy Pod, you can email us any stories to share that will make us all smile.
As ever, the address is globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk. This edition was mixed by Graham White and the producers were Anna Murphy,
Holly Gibbs and Rachel Bulkeley.
The editor is Karen Martin.
I'm Paul Moss.
Until next time, goodbye.
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