Valentina's Reaction to Part 4

Touchdown

As Richard Preston returns to the land of deadly explosive viruses, he was accompanied by the nonchalant tour guide, Macdonald and his wife and kids and a couple other men into Kitum Cave. It was ironic how four people went with him, but he only took one safety suit with him when the rest of his crew could have become the host for Ebola related viruses right after he came out from the cave. They were made vulnerable to all the possible attacks, like if a moth that was a host flutters close enough it could’ve easily infected them and Preston later on. I liked it how at the beginning of part four, Preston builds up this climax about his self journey into the deathly cave and how viruses could be “preserved” in bat “dung or in drying urine” for a long period of time without dying or how anything small or big could be the virus’s host (398 Preston). He made the Kitum sound as if the cave was the size of a few large football fields when in reality it might’ve been the size of one impossible football field to tackle. By the time he finished exploring the cave he came to realize that maybe the virus did not originate from the cave. Monet and Peter Cardinal could have caught the virus on the way back from the cave or while traveling back to their hometown. So instead of saying that the virus magically appears, Preston uses the metaphor of the Earth recognizing a “human parasite” and try to immunize itself by “attempting to rid itself of an infection” so that it could go back to the natural and healthy way that it was before (407 Preston).