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The struggle with many a rigid Logooli cultural practices

  The Logooli community is one of the deeply cultured societies – with near everything supposed to have been done as per custom – to allow another custom to follow. One example is that for a mature man (with a child or more) to be buried, there must be a house structure at home. Another is that a boy must be circumcised and nursed in father land. If maternal family decides to, the boy will have a hard time reconnecting with father people - a dent on his masculinity. There were two children who got burnt to death in a house in Nairobi. The single mother had left for night work. Elders were told that one of the children was Logooli. The other, the woman had sired with someone else. The Logooli family wanted to burry their little one and long discussed the do’s and don’ts. Of a man who died childless and the grave was placed as if he had died as a man with children. It should have been dug on the sides, the grave. A real thorn should have been thrust in his buttocks, his name go...
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A government hospital as a last option

A woman left the public hospital this evening with a heavy but relieved heart. Were it not for the Norwegian donors whom the woman is a beneficiary because she has AIDS, she could have done what others have done before- wrap her child in some shukas or risk by the window. Ever wondered why the wards are far away up and soldiers all over?

Before the sun rose this morning, two children shared a bed with whom I will call Nata. Nata is a ten year old girl suffering from Anemia. Her skin has yellowed and her belly protrudes suggesting symptoms of one meal boredom. I wondered what she looked like ten days ago when she was admitted now that her mother saw her in her best. One child died around midnight and could only wait for the sleeping attendant come morning. The second child died with the coming of the light outside the window. The woman knew who was to die next- her child.

As I rushed past people waiting for the busy lifts to open to take the stairs my eyes opened to what awaited to join the lifts- a human being on a wheel bed. Well, I had no time for my curious eyes because an hour from thence the bill would mutate. Later on as I was told to pick a receipt from her and pay over there did I see the dead man on the wheel bed. A visit to the hospital can be so detrimental to someone whom for long has evaded the pain of life- sickness. Dead!

The discharging nurse moved by the amount of money paid for the bare meals and sleepless nights wondered why we lacked the medical insurance card. The child is as a result of denial mode after her husband died ten years ago leaving at her care five children. Hers is a face of disappointment putting into mention the fire that razed her house down, her teenage girl who conceived and the lack of a home- she lives with friends. And as we parted, promising to get back to her with prescribed medication (the hospitals do not give) I wondered what the child would eat as her first meal in the house pitying that she would be forced to walk some distance for there is no strength in the mother to carry her.

She was relieved because she was finally going to inhale fresh air (Is there fresh air in the city?) as if from prison and her child would not be infected with Tuberculosis because a child was brought in that very morning to add on the congestion there. Had the doctor not been informed by one of the parents, the attendant would have caused more harm to the children in barely a day. It is easy to contradict a disease in a health facility than it is away- no wonder such hospitals are left for the poor to check on their conditions and populations.

Is there a thorough book written from the eyes of a satirical doctor, heath attendant or a patient with a good eye as there is in politics? Give me the Title(s).

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