A BOY IN MY NEPHEW’S CLASS

For a long time my nephew had been complaining of Musa, a boy in his class, Kindergarten 2 (KG2) who he claimed did not know how to talk properly but always ransacked his school bag and took his snacks. He said he had been telling the teacher who had tried talking to the boy and even punishing him but the boy persisted on.

After hearing enough about Musa,  my nephew's mother tried a trick that involved camouflaging the snacks by wrapping the package in a newspaper before putting it in the bag. This worked for some time.  Musa would ransack the bag and would only find what looked like a ruffled newspaper, but with time, he learned that in fact what was in the papers was food.  With this knowledge he started checking the bag thoroughly and would take whatever food he would find wrapped in the newspapers.

My nephew reported the new development to his mother who devised another method. This time round the snacks would be given to my nephew’s older brother so that its handed to him during break time. When Musa realized this, he too upped his game. He strategically started waiting for the handing over of the snack such that as soon as my nephew’s big brother was out of sight, he would run and forcefully snatch away the snack.

We all got alarmed at Musa’s zeal. We started wondering what kind of a boy Musa was and why the teacher was not helping much.  We decided enough was enough. We were not going to take any more stories about the boy Musa and were up in arms ready to face the KG2 teacher and the school administration. On reaching the school compound it did not take long before we met Musa. My nephew spotted him right from the gate and pointed at the fat brown boy, quite big compared to his class mates.

We went to my nephew’s class and took our time to explain our problem to the teacher……nothing had prepared us for what the teacher told us and soon we were all seated on the little baby chairs deeply engrossed in the story of Musa.

“In fact Musa is the reason am teaching in this class”, she began while apologizing for telling us the story, for she knew this was the only way we would understand the situation she was in. “None of the other teachers could handle him because they say he is troublesome and does not know how to talk properly", she narrated “I am meant to be teaching KG3 but the school administration requested that I teach this class because of Musa. He is troublesome, yes. A slow learner yes, and does not know how to talk properly. But I decided to take up the challenge.   

A deeper story about Musa touched our hearts even deeper. Musa was a twin. At about seven months when he was still in his mother's womb the doctors discovered the other twin had died. The doctors said it was not possible to remove the dead fetus without interfering with the live one hence they decided the mother would have to wait for two more months until the surviving twin is nine months before they operate on her. Two months later the operation was done and Musa was born.  Though with a slight mental and communication disorder, he is a charming boy who bubbles with joy. His aggressive behaviour is in fact a way of communicating which is misunderstood for being a bully.

The teacher concluded by asking us the BIG question, “What would you do if it was your child? I have decided to take Musa and love him the way he is and look”, she said while showing us his classwork, “he has improved a lot, even his vocabulary has increased tremendously”.

My sister in law and I decided that from that day henceforth we shall be packing a little extra snacks so that my nephew can share with Musa and that we would try and help other people to understand the plight of challenged children both in regular and inclusion schools.

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TABOOS TO BLAME FOR POOR HEALTH

TABOOS TO BLAME FOR POOR HEALTH

By Pamela Omwodo (1993)

Women in developing countries are often in poor health and over burdened with pressure of work.  Many suffer from malnutrition, a state that is partly due to age old practices that hamper their health.  Up to date food taboos that have defied health education still deny women and especially pregnant ones the protein rich foods which are a necessity in their nutrition.

Among the Miji Kenda group – a Swahili word meaning nine villages – along the coastal region of Kenya food taboos are still prevalent. 

“Women are not allowed to eat fish and eggs throughout the period of pregnancy”, says Josephine Kalama, a mother of three. Josephine is from Chonyi, one of the nine Miji Kenda groups.

Among the Miji Kenda it is believed that a child whose mother ate fish or eggs during pregnancy will have eyes like that of a fish and that his head will be round and hairless like an egg.   They also believe the child will be born with jaundice, because of the yellow colour of the egg yolk.

The prevailing belief has been handed down from generation to generation.  “These are beliefs that have been there ever since I was born and so I have to adhere to them”, justifies Josephine. Mothers adhere to these prescriptions mostly because they believe; the unborn child’s life can be harmed if they violate the taboo. 

Many other tribes in Kenya also still have one or so such beliefs that affect the female gender.

In Yambo County situated in South Sudan, pregnant women are deprived of chicken, eggs and red meat from certain animals.  The taboo persist among the Yambios two largest tribes – the Zande, estimated to have 80,000 in the county alone and the Balanda.  The believe that a pregnant woman who eats chicken or eggs during pregnancy is bound to have  a baby who will be slow in grasping languages and may stammer in his speech. 

A pregnant woman is also banned from eating giraffe and elephant meat for fear that her baby will be born with a spotty skin or a long nose respectively. They also believe eating meat from the spotted antelope may lead to breach birth.

Despite the repeated messages on the harmful practice to traditional birth attendants and mothers at ante-natal clinics, the taboos have persisted except among the wives of the well to do who are a minority in the developing countries.  In Kilifi and Kwale district where the Miji Kenda and the majority, it is estimated has 61 to 71 per cent of all the women are illiterate according to the Kenya Rural Literacy Survey of 1988.

Because of the wide spread observance of the taboos among the Miji Kenda, the Yambios and many other women in developing countries, many women are anaemic, a situation that is worsened by repeated attacks of malaria.  As a result maternal mortality is very high.  Estimates from rural hospitals in the Coast Province show that for every 100,000 live births in 1984, 350 women died from pregnancy related complications.  Dr. Katini Nzau-Ombaka, an obstetrician and gynaecologist at Kenyatta National Hospital, stressed that ” a pregnant mother’s highest needs amongst all the food stuffs is proteins which she can  only get from eating eggs, fish, meats, liver, milk, beans among other legumes.

The World Health Organization recommends 2535 calories a day for pregnant women yet between 20 – 45 per cent of women of child bearing age do not eat the WHO recommended calories a day under normal circumstances.

In a study on maternal mortality in Kenya carried out between 1991 and 1992, Dr. Shanyisa Khasiani a senior consultant with the Population Council of Kenya found out that among the Miji Kenda and most other tribes of Kenya, men still believe it is the women’s duty to do all the household work even when pregnant and vulnerable.  If she acts lazy and sickly, then she is not a desirable woman. The saddest bit of this she says,   is that the work load will certainly not be reduced even if she is malnourished.

Among the Miji Kenda a woman must look strong at all times.  She must work out her house chores without help.  She must bear as many as eight to sixteen children among them must be several boys. She is also expected to be brave and persevere the pains of child birth and if possible give birth with as minimal help as possible. Women who are operated on during child birth are perceived by the culture as weak.  For this reason most of the women do not seek medical help lest they get a caesarean section

Anne Ouma, a 36- year old expectant mother of five from Busia district admits. She says pregnancy is not a disease.  “Even now that am pregnant I still have to collect firewood, fetch water three Kilometers away, look for food and cook for my family! That’s my duty, I don’t have a choice”.

The house chores plus garden work may just take an expectant woman a longer time to do because of the state of her health, but it is still expected of her.  Like Anne Ouma many millions of women in the developing countries accept this as normal and one of the most disturbing things is that they bring up their daughters

Poverty, combined with other factors that undermine women’s nutritional status like heavy work, repeated pregnancies, low social status and discrimination in food distribution within the family make it very difficult to educate women about their nutritional needs.  The customs reflect the relative status or value assigned ages ago to different members of the family. 

In Africa where women are responsible for 60- 80 percent of all food production, one would expect malnutrition not to be a problem, but it has persisted on. Tanzanian women use up to 20 per cent of their daily calories intake fetching water. All these a woman does with no credit even when she deserves it. “Looking at some of the cultural practices, women were restricted from doing certain things when the resources were limited.  May be the restrictions were a means of helping the family allocate resources”, observes Dr. Khasiani.  She challenges researchers and nutritionists to study the taboos deeply and find out if the cultural beliefs were for vulnerability purposes hence protecting the women.  For example women are known to have food cravings when they are pregnant.  To date people are being discouraged from eating too many eggs which may cause cholesterol.  Could traditional communities have recognized this? She wonders. One thing is clear, any effort to improve child survival must include improvement of literacy and other forms of basic education for women.      

              

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DRESSING UP AGAINST AIDS

               

DRESSING UP AGAINST AIDS

By Pamela Omwodo (2006)

               

“Wow”,” Absolutely stunning”, “Creative”…...,

These were some of the comments in Adriana Bertini’s visitor’s book at an exhibition of her master pieces at the 2006, XVI International AIDS Conference in Toronto Canada.

Adriana Bertini, a rubber artist from Brazil’s handiwork attracted more than 350 interviews from top international journalists who all sought to interview her.  Speaking in broken English and in a very heavy Spanish accent, Adriana a humble and soft spoken Brazilian artist spent most of her time struggling to answers questions from  hundreds and hundreds of the XVI International AIDS Conference participants who all sort to know more about her unique handiwork, her way of fighting AIDS.

When I first saw the bright and beautiful clothes the mannequins were wearing at her exhibition, I was equally stunned and refused to believe what they were made of.  Despite of a very clear notice at the bottom of every mannequin with the words “DON’T TOUCH”, my eyes refused to see the notice and my hand went forth and did the violation.  I touched to believe.  Thereafter, I could not speak, and opted to take photographs and sort to know who was behind this.  

I later tried severally to get to Adriana for an interview with no success.  Every time I went to her exhibition space, there was either someone interviewing her or a photo session of her works going on. What I did not know was that at the end of the 4 days exhibition I was the 350^th journalist to interview her, each journalist requiring ample time to do their thing. In her own words she apologized saying “Please forgive me if I wasn't able to speak with you or to give you the attention desired due to the great number of people I had to talk to, the stress I had, and the little lack of mood at some moments. Please just understand that between 16th and 18th of August I gave more than 350 interviews to different media which was the reason for my fatigue.”

I was just one of the many journalists let alone interested persons who sort an audience with her and when I finally got the chance to interview her I was ecstatic.

The theme of her exhibition was entitled “DRESSING UP AGAINST AIDS”, a theme so befitting the all condom international designs only seen on fashion catwalks.