Rolihlahla Mandela - LONG WALK to FREEDOM

On 5th December 2013, Rolihlahla Mandela walked into the sunset to rest with his forefathers who had gone on before him.  The whole world practically descended on Johannesburg & later Qunu to pay tribute to an enigma. As for me, I spent time on the internet beaming all stations & reading anything to provide me a glimpse as to the reason for the fascination with this one soul.  So, it made sense that I should buy Mandela's autobiography as part of my Christmas reading.  I needed to hear from the horse's mouth. For some strange reason I had never felt that need to do so until Mandela's passing.

I cannot do justice to this autobiography though I must say at the outset that it is an excellent autobiography to read. 751 pages is long and the reader needs patience & stamina to go through the narrative without tiring.

I must digress by recalling my second visit to South Africa in 1999. I made friends with a white student in my class of German & Boer descent.  As we chatted about the New South Africa, some of his first remarks to me were about just how little he knew about the plight of black people during his youth.  What he had read of Mandela & the struggle in the white press at the time was not so objective.  He mentioned that the only black person he was acquainted with was the lady who cleaned  his parent's home.  TS took me to various suburbs in the Cape including to a church in the black suburb of Kayelitsha.  I had an inkling that he was somewhat atoning for the sins of his people because he bent over backward to ensure that I had a wonderful time.  A coloured classmate  later explained to me the policy on different suburbs for different races and how his own family were relocated.  As for me, I had - in my school days -  listened to freedom songs, watched the play 'Sizwe Bansi Is Dead", read 'Mine Boy', 'The Power of One' & other books, Watched the movies 'Cry Freedom' & 'Sarafina' but never quite comprehended the extent of the South African struggle.  How can one understand it unless they really live it?

What can I say really?  Let me start at the beginning.  My best chapter remains "A Country Childhood".   I am not a country bum but reading this chapter reminded me of my parents' native villages. A number of the Xhosa customs were so similar to those of my people & so it was with nostalgic fever that I went through Mandela's description of life in the Eastern Cape. To add icing to the cake, I was reading this book from the serenity of my parents country home ( after a 10 year hiatus) listening to the mowing of cows waiting to be milked , sound of crickets, crowing cocks, clucking hens...I felt nostalgic for the beauty of a virgin life unaffected by the hustle & bustle of  modernisation.

I cannot imagine being incarcerated for 27 years in the prime of my life.  It is a very high price to pay...even for freedom.  As I write this, I know that there are many other unsung heroes paid the ultimate price with their lives.  

 

How God must weep that the Dutch Reformed Church propagated the policy of "Apartheid" - Apartness in his name.   I wonder what verses were used to sanitise a system so brutal and so contrary to the Bible's fundamental teaching.  I wonder whether there will be mercy or  pardon for those who committed atrocities in the name of God.  

 

The movie "Sarafina" appealed to my emotions. I have watched it many times and I still shed tears each time.  It is not possible to watch the snitch Kitaa and not weep for him.  It is not possible not to watch "The funeral song", "Siwelele mama", "Safa Saphel Isizwe" and not be moved even though not comprehending the lyrics.  It is impossible not to understand the plight of Crocodile, Sarafina & their fellow students who had grown tired of the hopelessness of an education system that was taking them nowhere.  But Politics is complex.  It is amazing that many countries turned a blind eye to the suffering of the black Nation.  There are those nations who put their interests ahead of those of the suffering populace for after all South Africa was a rich country. There are others who were more afraid of the communist threat than they were passionate about the plight of a people so down trodden.

 

'Long  Walk to Freedom' appealed to my intellect and helped me understand the 'why'.  I felt - probably due to space constraints - that there were too many gaps...too many unexplained things.  I would need to read many other autobiographies to understand the whole story.

This is a book that every leader must read & grasp.  The understanding that 'a nation's grievances cannot be suppressed, that people will find a way to give voice to those grievances' is one that many leaders ignore in their pursuit for power.

I have learnt a lot of lessons for myself.   I did not get all the answers to the questions in my mind. But, one key lesson for me was the finale. " I can rest only for a moment. ...I dare not linger, for my long walk is not yet ended".

Solomon Northup - 12 Years A Slave

I compelled Olivia to purchase Solomon Northup's narrative penned in 1853 or thereabouts for my Christmas reading.  My fascination was triggered by the fact that a Kenyan lass - Lupita Nyong'o is acting a part in the motion picture based on the narrative.  Ted also took me a movie watching so that I might be found on the right side of literary history. (What patriotism!)  As I write, Lupita has been nominated for Best Supporting Actress Award at the upcoming Oscars and invariably many articles are being written about her.  Like Obama before her, she has put Kenya positively on the map. The Mexican birthers be damned.

My sister, Wendy, remarked that this was one movie she has watched in which there was no opportunity to smile or laugh.  So saddened was she by the treatment of slaves that when the movie ended two hours later she 'felt cheated'.  As we exited the theatre - and considered other offerings -  she wondered why Ted hadn't selected something more palatable or uplifting for a Friday night.  My uncle quipped that the treatment of slaves was so gruesome that he was unable to appreciate Lupita's performance.  So incensed was he, when he countenanced the stripes on the bodies of the slaves. This is not a book to read or movie to watch when in a state of despair as it would only sink one further into the slough of despondency. Neither is it for the fainthearted.  Besides, the diction, syntax and accent in the movie is very old school that it might impede  one's understanding of the plot.

I complemented my literary exercise by reading reviews in the Independent, Guardian, New York Times, BBC & Daily Nation on both the book & movie.  I researched not just Lupita but also Chiwetel Ejiofor who plays the part of Solomon Northup. The 'funniest' related to fuss over posters in Italy advertising the movie. Brad Pitt who plays the minor part of Bass appeared prominently on the cover instead  of Chiwetel who, as Solomon Northup, is the main protagonist.  I was not surprised as Italy is still fighting her demons having been on the news lately on the racist treatment of a Cabinet Secretary of Congolese descent & the footballer of Ghanaian descent.  Oh! and Kenyan cartoonists have - in commemorating 50 years of our independence - satirised the common man's predicament as one of "50 Years A Slave".  I presuppose shackled  under the bondage of corruption, impunity, poverty, crime and unlimited vices from which the ordinary mwananchi is unable to extricate themselves.

I have gotten ahead of myself though. In reading the book, I was excited by 'old English'.  I marvelled at how spoken language has evolved since 1853. Were I to converse in the old way, my audience would have trouble understanding what I intended to communicate.  So it took me longer than usual to get through the 136 pages making up Solomon's tale.  When all is said and done,  as far as most motion pictures go, the movie is a faithful rendering of the narrative.  The producers have taken certain liberties without fundamentally altering the story line.

Like Solomon Northup, I too cannot "comprehend the justice of that law, or that religion, which upholds or recognizes the principal of slavery".  Over the years, atrocities have been perpetuated in the name of God & men/women have used religion and the law to subjugate their fellow man for personal gain.  Solomon absolves the slaver by stating that "It is not the fault of the slaveholder that he is cruel, so much as it is the fault of the system under which he lives".  This is the same explanation people profer about my country Kenya.  Is it the fault of a policeman when he bows down to bribery?

This is a book worth reading and I am glad that I bit the bullet.  The subject of slavery is complex but this narrative is rendered eye opening having been allegedly recounted by a negro, born free but unfortunate to be kidnapped and sold into slavery. Indeed Solomon was oblivious to what it meant to be a slave prior to his capture.  My favourite passage is "Let not those who have never been placed in like circumstances, judge me harshly".

In the end, Good eventually triumphs over Evil & Hoping against hope gets a just recompense of reward.  There are many who hold that this is a narrative of hope and indeed it is. Solomon Northup never gave up hope that he might - just might - one day be rescued from the sisyphean situation in which he found himself.  (The book demonstrates that even in the worst of human character there stand 'good' people like Mr Ford, Mr Bass, Ms Mc Coy & others who are willing to go against the grain.) Indeed all is not lost and we need not despair of this existence called life.  As St Paul famously taught us "Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the assurance of things not seen."

Albert Camus - L'Etranger

It would make sense for me to post this rant in French but I will try to do the best I can in English. I first read Albert Camus' L'Etranger in 1986/7  as the set book for French Literature and therefore obligatory reading for Advanced level French.  Twenty years later in 2007, I was excited to purchase the book off a book store in Laval, France where I had visited a good friend of mine.  As my children were studying French, I also had them read my copy of the book as my view was that one can never really purport to have studied the French language if they had not read Camus.

It made sense for me to dust the book from its place on the Book shelf on 7th November 2013 as that marked the centenary of Albert Camus' birth and completed rereading it a month later on a trip from Luanda.  I wondered whether, were I to redo my exams, I would get better grades in the French Literature paper since I have had the experience of life and the lessons that come with living.


The Los Angeles Times, in marking Camus' 100th birthday, indicated that Albert Camus was timeless and that article led me to browsing many more that had been written to commemorate the life of a man known for absurdist literature.  The Guardian in discussing L'Etranger held that Mersault (the narrator and protagonist)  who tells this tale from his perspective wasn't as unconcerned about his mother's passing as the prosecutor later made him out to be. The article put the blame on the telegram sent from the old people's home - l'asile - announcing Mme Mersault's death indicating that it was vague & callous. 


Where I come from the messenger of death must use as much tact as possible in delivering a message of death. Often, one is told that someone is very sick when they have already expired.  More often than not the word death was not even in the vocabulary as the language used phrases such as "one had rested" or "one had slept".  As a matter of fact death presupposes a finality whereas in my culture it is simply a transition. One is gathered to his fathers (and mothers!) to continue the business of living in the after world.  In these days of social media, this 'tact' is not always possible and so it was on 6th December 2013 that I woke up to messages streaming off Twitter, Facebook and even one from my mother many miles away that the great Madiba had thrown in the towel. Mr Ole Tumbi, a Kenyan that I follow on twitter, had the audacity to unceremoniously tweet about this death before a formal announcement had been made by the South African powers. In the IsiXhosa culture, the death of a King was never announced publicly because after all the King hadn't really died but had been gathered to his fathers to rule in the after world.  For the past few months since Nelson Mandela was admitted in hospital the Southern Africans were therefore insulted by the bevy of journalists that camped outside the hospital like vultures all awaiting the passing on of a man revered by many as an icon...unfortunately the last of his kind in the continent that I have the fortune to call home.  However the angel of death had not come a-knocking to the extent that many people circulated conspiracies that perhaps the great Mandela had already left for the next world.

Much has been said about L'Etranger ever since it was published in 1942, the year of my mother's birth - translated into English as the Outsider, the Loner or the Stranger - that I cannot do it much justice in this rant. I would love to explore the theme of aloneness, however in the aftermath of Nelson Mandela's death, I wager that death is an opportune sub theme to explore. There is so much death as one reads through the paperback's 186 pages.  The first paragraph of the book starts with Mersault telling us "Aujourd'hui, Maman est morte" which loosely translates to "Today, Mama died".   The second half of the book focusses on the fact that Mersault has been condemned to die by hanging for killing an Arab youth.  As Mersault awaits his turn on death row, he ponders about the absurdity of life & death and shares his thoughts with us.   His point of view can be juxtaposed against the bible verse that says:- "It is appointed for man once to die..." so what the heck?  "C'était toujours moi qui mourrais, que ce soit maintenant ou dans vingt ans" - It is appointed for him to die, whether now or in twenty years.  This understanding of the institution of death allows him to accept his situation without much regret. As Americans are wont to quip, "Only two things are certain, death and taxes".  Mersault says that there are those who will die at thirty and others who will die at seventy but the business of life & living still continues. Thinking about it deeply, in essence, life and the pursuit thereof is truly vanity of vanities...a chasing after the wind. "Everything is meaningless" says the writer of Ecclesiastes, who further tells us that "There is a time to be born and a time to die".  Regarding the subject of death, I found a lot of similarity between the thoughts of Mersault and those of the writer of Ecclesiastes.

 

Given the events of this past week - I must quote Nelson Mandela..."Nobody knows when they are going to die. Even though I am an old man, I do not dwell on the possibility of death.  Death comes when it is ready".  Death is personified in that quote and a few others attributed to Mandela.  It also reminds me of a play by David Ruganda where we are often reminded in reference to mysterious disappearances in post colonial Uganda, "The call of the beckon, who one can resist it?"  For some - like the 33 passengers who died aboard the Mozambican Airways TM470 plane on 30th November 2013 - it comes unplanned & unforeseen, whilst, for others like Mandela it will come after a life well lived.   As Franco Modigliani & Merton Miller  theorized regarding the capital structure irrelevance principle - the difference is the same whichever way one looks at it.


Although Mersault indicates severally that he is an agnostic and has no particular need to see the Priest assigned to people who are about to meet their maker - he has, like Paul -  learnt in whatever situation he is in, thereby to be content. He does not to fuss too much about his situation.  Throughout the book - in response to many things - he says "Cela m'est égal" or as the Tunisians love saying "C'est Kif Kif" meaning that it doesn't matter one way or the other.


Society, however, does impose some standards upon Mersault and by extension upon us.  It legislates our actions & behaviours including what we must feel towards life, death and everything in between.  Mersault is judged & condemned to die, not so much for the killing of an Arab youth in colonial Algeria (an act that he does very callously) but more for the fact that he does not abide by the tenets that society has legislated.  The case for the prosecution rests strongly upon the fact that the day after his mother's death, he smokes a cigarette, drinks café au lait, declines to view the body, sleeps during the vigil, goes to the beach for a swim and, as if to add insult to injury, soon after starts a sexual relationship with Marie.  For those misdemeanours & inadvertently going against what is expected of him, Mersault must pay the ultimate price. The prosecutor  - like Herod's dancing daughter in the case of John the Baptist - asks for Mersault's head.  This is not a punishment for Mersault as he has accepted his fate but a lesson to others who, like him, might be tempted to go against the grain.  I shall avoid digressing to the pros and cons of capital punishment in considering this view...


I am left wondering whether - in the context of organisational theory & relationships to the environment in which I find myself  - the better option would be to conform to the group or stand out like a sore thumb.  Ofttimes I have found myself  take Mersault's position or like Scarlett O'Hara (Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell) simply say, Fiddle dee dee!

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie - Americanah

An opportune place for me to start this rant is to refer to an article Daily Nation seeking to explain why Kenya’s literary class has fallen behind Nigeria’s. This was in response to Adichie’s Half Of A Yellow Sun film, when it premiered at the BFI London Film Festival.

http://www.nation.co.ke/lifestyle/weekend/KAMENCU-Why-Nigerians-are-miles-ahead-of-our-writers/-/1220/2047220/-/format/xhtml/-/kuaikh/-/index.html

A previous article in the same daily was written when the film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival. 

http://www.nation.co.ke/lifestyle/art-culture/Chimamanda-reflects-on-her-civil-war-novel-and-the-movie/-/1954194/2031320/-/format/xhtml/-/ay0k6h/-/index.html

Surprisingly for my countrymen, no comments were made to these two articles nor many others on matters literary.   This surprised me because Kenyans of all schools of thought always have something to say on a topic – no matter how mundane.

Americanah is indeed my fourth book by Adichie having read Purple Hibiscus, Half Of A Yellow Sun and This Thing Around My Neck (short stories).   I agree in toto on the danger of a one sided story and the necessity of the story of the hunt to be told from the perspective of the lions lest I only learn of the bravery of the hunters.  Since the good old days of the African Writers Series, I still seek out African writers and whine about the dearth of books by Africans.   As Kenya introduces “Nyumba Kumi” an initiative on knowing your neighbour a good place to start would be a book club where neighbours explore African Writers instead of concentrating only on the EPL or Politics.

Americanah brought so many memories to mind, some of which I would of course be too ashamed to pen down for all and sundry to gloat upon.

1.       If I were to summarise the thrust of Americanah, I would say it was about the life of Nigerians who have pursued a better life abroad mostly in the USA where Ifemelu and some others ended but also in the UK where Obinze and others experimented.  (It is of course more than that since it articulates many other themes interwoven around the stories of Obinze & Ifemelu). The challenges of applying for a VISA, of choicelessness, of illegal and legal immigration, of failure & success, of struggle & triumph in foreign lands, and ultimately the story of nostalgia. Americanah is the name given to those who return home from their sojourn with or without the accents to boot to participate in a modern Nigeria.  This surely is the story of Africans in general…Of Africanah! As I read this book, I could not help wishing for an Africa whose citizens did not feel the need to run away from. That Africans need not die as they traversed Oceans seeking a better life in other lands not because they were adventurous (like Vasco da Gama) but because they had no choice.  An Africa where Africans were proud to remain because they were hopeful.  An Africa whose citizens need not be discriminated against in foreign lands.  An Africa that did not lose her better brains to foreign lands when they were needed at home where they could thrive and develop.  When I thought of Ifemelu’s nostalgia,  I could not help wondering whether this was an agenda that the African Union should pursue.

2.       There was a recent “letter” by one Biko to diaspora Kenyans who – when then returned home – assumed that the world revolved around them. This letter upset many of my diaspora friends who responded with a lot of bile.  How I wish that Biko or those who rebutted may have turned this into a short story. In Americanah, Ifemelu joins a club of Nigerpolitans upon her return to her homeland who – although they love their homeland – suffer from the mentality of “things back home”.  I could not help musing what the reaction of my friends to the depiction of Ifemelu & her group of returnees would be.

3.       MF posted on FB that Naija men had raised the bar on what a woman expected from her man.  Her post & the comments of the women who responded were hilarious. The post was in response to the Emmy Kosgei nuptials. As if in tow, there was a Naija nite at Carnivore that was sure to be filled by many a Kenyan lass in search of a Naija man to fawn upon them.  Perhaps many of the lasses felt that Rev Kathy Kiuna is missing this important need in her sermons on marital bliss. This post could be fodder for a chapter in a book.

4.       I was regaled by Ifemelu’s tales of university life, exes and nicknames.  How similar to the same tales that one could spin about life in one of our many campuses & colleges. My phonebook is replete with nicknames – “VB”, “HB”, “S” etc.  A friend who recently browsed my phone was appalled by their nickname & wondered why this was necessary.  I quipped that it added fun to my otherwise dull existence.  Nicknames aren’t novel afterall since Ifemelu referred to Obinze as “Ceiling” whereas his friends referred to him as “The Zed”.  Perhaps I could spin a tale on some of those nicknames were I be tempted to write a book.

5.       Churches and those who attend them are similar irrespective of the country.  Some of the columns I read when bored are on The East African Standard’s Crazy Monday where I am bound to be regaled by an item concerning the goings on in one church or other. JM recently quipped that religion meant different things to different people and there was more than met the cursory glance.  On a recent visit to Kenya, she was appalled by the new church syndrome and wondered “what has happened to the church the way I knew it in this country? what is this I am seeing on TV called “Kubamba”?. Her post and the responses from her FB friends was something akin to the stories in Adichie’s Americanah.

6.       Nigerians have such beautiful names and are not ashamed to use them.  I write this from a conference in China and I realise that most Africans have adopted foreign names. I have always wondered what it was about Africans that made us think that our names are worse than those from foreign lands. What is it about Moira,  Jean,  Ted, Olivia, Maureen, Nancy, Hillary, Kenneth, Wendy, Richard & the myriad of names  that exist in my immediate family that make them more interesting that the names of our ancestors?  In protest, I used my African name in the name tag & had that translated into Chinese characters.

As these thoughts and many more flooded my mind, I figured that if Adichie could write about modern day Nigeria and the experience of Nigerians in foreign lands, so could we.  Well at least for now my countrymen & women can wax lyrical about Barack Obama who carries our genes and sits on the White House ‘throne’, Wangari Maathai of the Nobel Peace Prize, Lupita Nyong’o – she of the “12 years a slave”, Victor Wanyama who kicks the ball for Southampton and the men & women who win medals running for Kenya. 

As fate would have it…one cannot have it all and besides as BM says one in every four Africans is Nigerian. As for me, I am bound to be reading Adichie for years to come.

Anne Frank - The Diary Of A Young Girl

I am at a loss on where to begin this rant that can do justice to the gem of a book.   Let me begin by quoting Philip Roth (an American writer of Gaelic & Jewish descent):- "To read a novel requires a certain amount of concentration, focus, devotion to the reading".  It has taken me many days and weeks to get through Anne's diary - not because it did not grip my imagination but because I had too many distractions. In that regard, I lost some of my focus.

 

Let me start at the beginning. Many years ago, in my youth - when playing was all I cared for - my father waxed lyrical about Anne Frank.  I presuppose like me, he marvelled about how a girl so young could write a diary so poignant.  I read so many books from my father's library but I steered clear of The Diary Of A Young Girl because subconsciously, I was afraid that I would fall short of the traits that endeared Anne to my father.   I never thought of her until recently a friend of mine of the opposite gender was shocked that I too keep a diary/journal on and off where I jot my deepest thoughts.  He did not - for the life of him - understand why one would want to write anything down. This conversation led me to exorcise Anne Frank from the recesses of my mind and led me to buy her book in an attempt to understand why anyone would want to do this.

 

Anne's comment at the beginning of her diary helped me appreciate why anyone would want to keep a diary.  She begins "I hope I will be able to confide everything in you, as I have never been able to confide in anyone, and I hope you will be a great source of comfort and support".  Many years ago, I encouraged my kids - as my father had - to always keep a journal so that they would not forget their experiences.  Unlike Facebook, Blogs or Social Media, a diary is very private & intimate - it is a place where you write your things and hope that someone chancing upon your diary will have the decency to understand that a diary is not for public consumption. 

 

The Diary Of A Young Girl is written over a two year period  amidst the daily grind of hiding in an annexe together with other families. It nonetheless, is written with lots of whit and humour. For me, it is by & large the story of growing up because it is during our adolescence that we make leaps from being children to being young adults. It is a story of hope because Anne always wrote as though she would survive the events of the time and publish her diary.   She never really despaired that perchance she would not live to adulthood.   The diary is also the story of comfort & friendship - albeit intimacy with an inanimate object like a diary - because Anne knew that come what may, she always had her diary to go back to. 

 

I have highlighted so many passages in The Diary Of A Young Girl. I would have liked Anne because despite the fact that we are born so many years apart we 'suffer' the same emotional insecurities. Anne had to live under the shadow of her older sister Margot whom she loved, who she was bench marked against but to whose standards she felt she could never really measure. Anne suffered an identity crisis...She wanted to be herself and to be loved for who she was just as she was.

 

Oh Anne. I smiled when I read:-  "I argued that talking is a female trait and that I would do my best to keep it under control, but that I would never be able to cure myself of the habit, since my mother talked as much as I did, if not more, and that there's not much you can do about inherited traits".   When my school teachers wrote that I was a 'noise maker' in my school reports, my mother told me not to worry about it because she too had suffered the same comment from Mrs Bruce - her headmistress.  My saving grace was that my mother understood that I could not do much about my chatting...well as long this was accompanied by good grades.

 

Amazingly Anne had a good appreciation about the world around her. I guess any child would if they lived through a war. Instead of skipping, playing dodge the ball or with dolls she analysed the situation around her in a way that many people in this day & age would not.

 

I would have loved Anne...She says to her diary that she has a lot of self knowledge. She understands her strengths & weaknesses and thinks about them objectively. She does not suffer from delusions of grandeur. But I wonder whether she was too serious about life even for a girl living in an annexe with & other people day in day out.

 

The Diary Of A Young Girl finishes rather abruptly as the people in the annexe are discovered by the Nazis and taken to concentration camps.  The post scriptum is a sad one because everyone perishes except Anne's dad who lives to publish Anne's diary.

 

I should have read The Diary Of A Young Girl when I was younger.  My father should have insisted on it. But then I am sure he was fighting his own demons and did not have the energy to force me into reading.  I believe that I might have become the better for it.

 

JMAW - A Tribute to Dad Hon Dr Elon Willis Wameyo

My father inculcated in me a love for reading both by nature & by nurture.  Even though he was a Doctor, he was also a man of letters.   On many days & nights, I read and re read the set of 12 red encyclopaedias that decorated our home.  One of my best passages was "The Song of Hiawatha" by Henry Wardsworth Longfellow.  

 

I was fascinated very early on  by the Newspapers that were delivered every day without fail at our doorstep - I browsed through the Kenya Times, Standard, Nation Newspapers during an époque when journalists wrote extremely inspiring articles.   This was before google, social media & instant reporting. The political Weekly Review was a weekly staple and how I wish that Hillary Ng'weno had ploughed on.

 

Dad waxed lyrical about Anne Frank's Diary and wanting us to be like the legendary Anne Frank who kept a diary at a very young age.  At that time of our lives, all we could think about was playing with our siblings & friends and he must have been exasperated by our lack of enthusiasm for the lessons he wanted to teach us.  Although my brother confessed that he understood BODMAS - and never forgot it - through the old man.

 

I read my father's copies of the Godfather,  the Thorn Birds,  Papillon, (which my sister reminded me, had a butterfly on the cover page), Escape from Alcatraz and many other classics before I eventually came of age and started purchasing my own copies.  Somehow, I always knew that - when push came to shove - the inheritance that I would have wanted from him was his set of books so well covered and preserved. Like any other child and teenager, in between, I went through the phase of Fairy Tales, The Brothers Grimm, Secret Seven, Famous Five, Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, African Writers Series  & courtesy to my big brother, very many comics.

 

People remember my Dad for various things.  Recently, I stumbled on an article in the Standard on the "Allure of the Local Dance" that credits the likes of my father for the Local Dance in Western Kenya; My younger brother stumbled upon a dentist in Mombasa named for my father because the Doc delivered his mother of him;  Another brother went to school with a mate who is into my dad because Dad was his mother's gynaecologist & also delivered her of him. Some of his constituents remember him for the Sugar Cane wars, fighting for the farmer in Mumias Constituency during the four terms he was MP.  Like everyone else, he must have had detractors who could not abide him.  For me, I remember, "We once had a father who had a passion for books...".  Each time I read a book, I will remember that I do not need a DNA test to prove that "I am my father's daughter"!!!

 

In August 2003, our father walked into the sunset and never came back.  We cannot do justice to the man he was.  Although we have consistently fallen short of his ideals,  he left an indelible mark on us.  We see him in our eyes, laughter, habits & in the faces of our siblings.  We also see him in the faces of our children and in the way we rear them.  In his memory...

 

A Tribute to Dad Hon Dr Elon Willis Wameyo

Jodi Picoult - Handle With Care

When I first posted that I had completed a book on "wrongful birth",  the first two questions were something akin to: "Pray, what is wrongful birth?"  Prior to reading "Handle With Care", I was unaware that there was such a concept as "wrongful birth".  Our learned friends in developed countries have coined the term to refer to  "A medical malpractice claim brought by the parents of a child born with birth defects. It alleges that negligent treatment or advice (or lack thereof) deprived them of the opportunity to avoid conception or interrupt a pregancy." More often than not, it is brought against the OB but it is the Malpractice Insurer that defends the case and pays for any damages awarded.  I googled "Wrongful Birth" and was amazed at the cases that have been brought against Obs and Gyns in developing countries. I wondered what my Dad (God Bless His Soul), My Uncle and my Brother would reposit from a professional standpoint because the plaintiff's case lies on the premise that the OB did not do their job.

 

After I read the book, someone posted that a child had been born in Kitale - a  town in Kenya - with 4 heads and female genitalia on one head and male genitalia on a leg.   With my newly founded knowledge on "wrongful birth", my response was that the patient should have been aware - through ultrasounds and scanning - that there was something wrong with her pregancy.  She should not realise that she has  unfully developed foetuses after birth.  Someone reminded me that this position is fraught with many challenges. In Kitale, such services are not available and some patients may not even realize they were pregnant in good time or that certain medicines should not be taken during a pregnancy  Ignorance and lack of access to proper health facilities are Kenya's bane. As our country waxes lyrical about free maternity health care - and others take this as the licence to breed - medical practitioners should dialogue with policy makers to ensure that the free maternity services include sonograms and high quality ultrasound scans. Otherwise in this case, the "Wrongful Birth" claim should be taken against the government.

 

Back to the story.  I found some comments by medical practioners to my post quite insightful and interesting if Kenya is to achieve Vision 2030.

 

"On a serious note, Obstetricians should tell us how accurate tests to detect congenital anomalies are.  A search on the internet will show several cases where an antenatal test suggested an abnormality in a fetus but mother refused to terminate and went on to have a perfectly normal child.  How accurate are those scans and genetic testing even when done at the right time?"

 

"Our Obstetrics practice is a bit rudimentary. I will say with confidence that we do not do any genetic testing at required time of 14 to 18 weeks and we rarely do obstetrics scans recommended at 18 weeks to check for fetal malformations. However, I find the case above rather interesting because in Type III OI, the neonate maybe born normal but bones deteriorate as child grows. With high resolution scans, one can easily pick out fetal anomalies quite accurately but requires well trained sonographers who are equally knowledgeable in anatomy."

 

"What we lack is a national prenatal screening program and its unfortunate that anomaly scan is not even part of focused prenatal care. Genetics is only a fraction of it. Good prenatal diagnosis is mainly dependent on the ultrasound. Its a pity that a woman can carry conjoined twins incompatible with life to term and only come to learn of it after hours of labour and eventual cs. Although Obstetrics has always been a 'high risk' profession, this can be minimised if we learn to work as a team and not make individual decisions. Osteogenesis Imperfecta can easily be diagnosed by ultrasound and the woman given options. In an organised healthcare system this can be achieved"

 

"This case highlights again the changing face of medical practice. Central to this is communication skills. Listening and clearly documenting the patient's ideas, beliefs and expectations is now the norm. Litigation is part and parcel of our profession. Unfortunately comm skills not taught in med school. I and my colleagues trained abroad have had to re-learn the hard way incorporating defensive medicine into our practice. I also see it as inevitable outcome in Kenya particularly with increased access following 'free services'"

 

In conclusion, I found it difficult to agree with the jury who found for the plaintiff a case of "wrongful birth" and awarded her USD 8 million in damages.  I agree however that "although the decision to interrupt a pregancy  is the patient's, she should have good quality prenatal information".  The issue is that the patient should be given information to enable her make an informed decision about what is best for her. This book would make an interesting study for an Obs and Gyn Class.