Discussion on high suicide rate in Swaziland

Swaziland has a very high suicide rate. According to statistics released by the Royal Swaziland Police, 160 people committed suicide from January 2014 to January 2015. Of these, 126 were men. One hundred and sixty people in 12 months effectively mean about 13 people commit suicide in a month, and that’s a staggering figure. One of my friends, a beautiful woman called Siphelele Mngomezulu, is a Psychotherapist. I had wide-ranging discussion with her regarding why Swazis commit suicide at such an extensive scale, whether they are receptive to counselling and what can be done to curb this scourge, among other things. She’s a woman of many words, but an absolute pleasure to listen to. Please note that she spoke in her personal capacity, not on behalf of the organisation she works for. This is what she said:  

The high suicide rate in Swaziland is mainly cause by socio-economic issues, broken families, and lack of support in the family, but mainly it’s a result of financial meltdowns. People are not coping with finances, and then they commit suicide. Suicides also have a lot to do with relationship breakdown. You find that when women commit suicide, usually their husbands have cheated or left, and there’s no more money for school fees and other expenses.

HIV is also a major factor leading to depression which in turn leads to suicide. People are struggling to accept suicide as just a chronic ailment that you can live with. Right now our system is such that we initiate counseling for everyone that comes to the hospital. On arrival you are told to test. If as health workers we say, “We want to know your status before we treat you,” we are practically saying test or you won’t be treated. It doesn’t necessarily translate to readiness for testing for the patients. The comebacks are terrible. We get a lot of psychosis; people are failing to accept because they were not ready in the first place, mental meltdowns.  People will think, I went to the hospital with stomach problem and I came back HIV positive, how do I even begin to tell my husband. Doctors are increasingly resistant to treating people whose status they don’t know because they don’t want to treat the symptoms and instead of the source.

HIV is donor-funded. First they came with “voluntary counseling”, now we have provider-initiated HIV counseling. How do you say no to someone you need services from? When someone declines to get tested, ideally we should say it’s OK, but now the doctor will start explaining to you why it’s important for you to test and will demand the HIV results. So ready or not, the patient has to test. We cater for low to medium earning people who can’t afford to walk away from our institutions where very little is charged, R20 for consultation and treatment. Some, however, will accept that the test was a push in the right direction because they will get the right treatment and engage in more responsible behaviour.

It goes back to cope under difficult or new situations.

Rarely, you also get suicide when there’s abuse in the family, for instance children that are being abused by parents or teachers. Women in relationship ages like 17 – 40 have a lot of problems with their husbands and they feel they have to die as a result of those problems. Very few women commit suicide for financial reasons. They sometimes come for counseling because of stress and headaches, but seldom want to kill themselves for that. The majority of suicides are over relationships that break down, and most of them breakdown because there’s no money and they are not coping with the pressure. So the reasons are interlinked, somehow. They all have an effect on the other.

For men it’s usually because of financial pressures. They’ll think, “This woman cheated on me because I don’t have a job, I have so many debts and am not meeting family expectations.” I have also noticed there is a trend, there’s a season for a reason. In January we get a lot of attempted suicides because of school fees issues, finances are bad after the festive season. At some point in March you get a lot of school-leavers that have not done well in matric and then attempt suicides. Of course relationship-related suicides are all year round. But I find in the majority of cases, it’s a cry for attention more than a genuine wish to die, or fear of how will I be received having failed, more than wanting to die. If I’ve cheated and my husband has caught on, I’ll attempt suicide and go and lie on a bed somewhere while a social worker harmonises the situation, whereas if I had just gone home, the husband would have probably just picked up a sjambok, run after me and tell me to pack my bags and go. So I’m going to pretend I want to die. This is also evident in the types of methods people use to try and commit suicide. They’ll take Blue Death, for crying out loud it doesn’t even kill ants, how is it going to kill you, a whole human being? They’ll take an OD of a few Panados. Those who really want to die go for the weevil tablet, try to hang themselves, take very strong pesticides. Those who use the very small things, I always think they don’t really want to die.

Siphelele Mngomezulu: Psychotherapist

During counseling sessions, they want to call in the husband and harmonise the situation. They are not content with just being counseled and changing their mindset. The women are determined, “No! I want to come here, then you’re going to call my husband and make it a big issue and sit us down. And you’re going to make us ok. That’s what I want!” They feel getting counseling and advice on how to make their lives better isn’t enough. The man will say, “I want my wife here. I want you to tell her to forgive me, to tell her that I tried to kill myself because I love her.”

In situations where the woman tries to commit suicide because the husband is having an extra marital affair, she just wants to hear him on the hot seat saying, “I’m sorry, I’ll repent, I’ll make things better, I love you.” But two weeks down the line she’s back again after another suicide attempt because the husband is still not back. Sho it’s like forcing someone to change. They won’t change. You need to change your mindset. You need to be the one that’s better equipped to deal with it, than try to kill yourself, that’s my theory. Why must I die when I’m not in the wrong? You cheat, I die? How does it work? Why can’t I just move and start again? Most of the time we have women saying, if I move I don’t have anywhere to go, I can’t afford rent, I’m not working…” – socio-economic  factors linking again to relationship breakdowns. Root cause was the meltdown. The person will be attached and will say, “You took me out of school, I don’t have a qualification, you made me your wife, I have four children with you now, where must I go, so I’d rather die.”

These are even better than boyfriend and girlfriend scenarios.  A lot of girls try to kill themselves because their boyfriends are with someone else. Sometimes it’s about school fees. I know a child who went to pay fees at the bank. On her way back she lost the deposit slip and was afraid of the parents hitting her. She kept quiet. At exam time she was told she couldn’t write as she hadn’t paid. They couldn’t trace the money from the bank. She attempted suicide because she couldn’t face telling her parents that you’ve paid fees for the whole year and I’m not going to write exams because I lost the deposit slip. She really didn’t want to die. She just wanted someone to go and break the news to her father and make her look like the victim.

We live in a society that glorifies suicides. Our media sells with negative reporting, for some reason. Headlines like “Woman and man found naked doing witchcraft” get all the attention, but if a group of women stands up and goes to the rural areas to donate blankets, no-one wants to cover them. Reporters don’t want to cover you for doing good. They want to cover you for bad. Suicide is glorified. Also, in society when someone commits suicide, we talk about it. It becomes such an issue. And if we talk over and over about, it makes an impression on immature mind.  Suicides are then mimicked. Sometimes our children just wants to be centre of attention for a while, they don’t really know what they’re doing or why they’re doing it. A child committed suicide at a primary school and it was widely spoken about at the school. During that period I got a lot of children from that same school attempting suicide. Do you even know what it feels like to die? No. did you really want to die? No. Do you know where you go when you die? No. In about 8 out of 10 cases of children attempting suicide, there is someone known to them who committed suicide.

People that commit suicide might lose interest in things that they previously liked, suffer from lack of sleep, tiredness, and isolate themselves from other people. Some will become tearful with constant crying and general depression. But when you dig into a person’s problem and find the common trends of people who wanted to die but didn’t die, they have this underlying depressing issue, like, “I’m failing to come to terms with the fact that my son is autistic.” That’s real, they really wanna die because you have this feeling of not being a perfect mom, there’s turmoil in your soul. But some people that commit suicide are people that you sit down with and chat, and find tomorrow they’ve committed suicide. It’s not real, it’s a cry for attention, you don’t really wanna die. It’s difficult to pick up signs from a person who is doing it to get attention, because usually the signs just aren’t there. They think, “I might not die, I don’t wanna die, so what can I take to make me almost dead but not dead.” That’s when you get your Panado overdose, who’s gonna die from Panado? And they make sure they do it when they know they will be found before they die, like around the time the husband comes home from work. People that really want to commit suicide will send people away, they’ll be found dead for hours. They will create an environment that is conducive for committing suicide.

These methods also help us to assess the realness of the urge to really wanna die, because we could be spending a lot of time on counseling for people who don’t really need it. They just want your intervention to harmonise the situation they are in.  We spend a lot of time on those that clearly really want to die. Those that shout, “I’ll kill myself, I’ll kill myself, stop me before I do!” usually don’t really want to die but it is important not to ignore them. They should still be helped with whatever is making them even want to talk about suicide before they try. If you ignore them, they’ll attempt to take their lives to get attention and they could actually die. Even though we think it’s a cry for attention, we still don’t take it lightly. It’s only called attempted suicide if you survive. If you succeed, it’s suicide! You’re gone and we’ll never have answers. We’re left with questions and thinking if only I’d listened, if only I’d helped when she said it. Suicide is like a mental block and the only solution that stands is suicide. Those that commit suicide or try to do so for attention don’t get that. They deliberately go at it. That is the difference between someone who is suicidal and one who does it for attention. Those that keep things to themselves are really dangerous. Those are the ones you wake up to find dead with a packet of weevil tablets by their side.

That person, who is suicidal in more cases than one, suffers from a mental illness like depression, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or Attention Deficit Disorder, and at some point their brain shuts down. There is a relationship between suicide and mental illness. Those that attempt suicide for attention don’t have that, and during psychotherapy you discover that you can’t treat it because it’s not there in the first place, they just want your intervention.

I believe we all are mentally ill to a certain extent. I always say it’s a thin line between sanity and insanity. From time to time we cross over to insanity and then we cross back to sanity, just that some people don’t have the opportunity to come back. When they go, they go for good. And if you allow emotions, feelings, depression,  and situations to lead you to insanity too many times too much, you don’t have an accepting spirit, you don’t talk about things, you’re not going out there to get help, chances of crossing and not coming back are very high. People with addictive behaviour cope with situations in different ways. Some drink alcohol, in turn they become alcoholics because they’ve allowed problems to push them to the other side and have not come back from time to time to check if they’re still OK. So yes, our brains do get to a point where we do things that we don’t understand, that we wouldn’t do under normal circumstances. We should be able to trace back and say, “This is where it came from, this is the source,” and you should be able to deal with the source, not the symptom. Like if it pushes you to club a lot, understand why you’re clubbing, what’s pushing you away from your home so much. Deal with the root cause because you can’t solve clubbing for as long as the problem at home is still there. Set standards for yourself and keep checking if what you are doing is still normal.

People have a lot of mental illnesses, lots and lots and lots that go unnoticed. I was telling people the other day that so many people are functioning normally yet not so normally. We put it down to them having an attitude problem or taking out their stress on others at work. It’s a mental challenge and the only way to curb it is to confront the source. As long as you don’t solve it, it will eventually surface as abnormal behaviour.

Counseling helps a lot but people only come when they are referred. It’s a guided conversation that helps you think out of the box, someone talks to you without judging you, and helps you look at your situation from a different angle. Unfortunately Swazis are not receptive to counseling. They believe in tibi tendlu – you don’t air your dirty linen in public. You keep it to yourself. If my wife is cheating, I can’t go and talk to someone about it, I’m going to be mocked. And they don’t believe in telling their problems to a stranger or to each other. It makes it worse that counseling is a new profession in the African context and it’s mainly practiced by younger people. If an old man walked in and found me in a chair, he’d say, “What can you tell me about life, what do you know?” At the moment people are almost being forced to come for counseling, “Your BP is uncontrollably high, go for counseling.” If you ask them to come back again in a week for another session, they never do.  Because of limited resources, our follow-up system is almost non-existent. If you’re lost to follow-up, you’re lost.

Counselling works best when it’s voluntary. To force something down someone’s throat doesn’t mean they will swallow. We still leave people to exercise the freedom of choice in that regard, so that we know whatever advice or guidance we give will be received, it will be used and it will help.

Life generally presents a new situation every day. How do you handle it? You can pick up a child’s coping abilities from an early age. When you say, “No you can’t have sweets,” does your child throw a tantrum, does he cry, does he accept it? Like when I was about to have my baby, my mother said you can’t go through labour, you have to get an elective C-section. You don’t deal well with pain, taking out a tooth is a mission, labour will make you lose your mind. Lack of knowledge makes us miss a whole lot in understanding those around us. You know when you hit your child, does he sulk for a week, do they feel inadequate? If they do, then you know when you say to that child, “Ngifuna ukukushaya wena (I want to hit you) when you come back from school,” they might go and not come back because they are afraid. You should find ways of punishing your child that will not push them over the edge. Sometimes we push people around us over the edge because we don’t take time to understand each other.

Sometimes people don’t know that the walls are caving in on them until it’s too late. Others around them also don’t realise it until it’s too late. We hardly do mental education in schools. We need to educate parents and teachers on being observant of their children. You know there are children who, when the teacher says, “Who was making noise, I going to give you all three strokes,” they could wet their pants in fear. That is genuine. You don’t just wet your pants. To say to a child like that, “Tomorrow, I’ll get you,” that child you have put in suspense for the whole day and night won’t sleep nor eat. If that child has heard of suicide or knows how to commit suicide, won’t they try it before the next day? People need to be taught how to look out for the signs and know how far you can go with whom. We take things lightly and want to push people, keep pushing people, for what?

Previously counselors were found at the psychiatric hospital, so people have not come to terms with that. People still associate counseling with mental illness which is still discriminated against in our communities. The Ministry of Education needs to have counselors in schools in order to nip the problem in the bud. 

Related:

Appalling treatment of mentally ill people in Swaziland 

Robbing people in the name of Jesus

I’m very disturbed by the conspicuous consumption I see in the church leaders of today. It appears worshipping God or becoming a pastor has less to do with having a calling and more to do with having a clearly thought out business plan to hoodwink people using the bible. Gone are the days when people went to church to be spiritually enriched. Now they just go to be impoverished and spiritually tormented by demands for monetary contributions with promises of blessings if they give more. Most Christians don’t take time to read the bible by themselves and rely more on their pastors to interpret the bible for them. As a result, they become so terrified of God punishing them if they don’t give “to the church”. Who really is the church? I thought “the church” was the congregation, but pastors are the only ones benefitting from the hard-earned cash of the flock they are supposed to lead. They are wolves in pastors clothing, preying on the sheep that follow them blindly.

I’ve had several conversations with my friends regarding the issue of supporting the church financially, and some of their views are below. Some feel they should continue giving because the bible states that they should do so, others are more cautious. There are indeed verses in the bible that encourage people to support the church, but I know they don’t say the pastor should become a fat cat at the expense of the congregants. Particular stories that are abused include the one of the poor widow who gave everything she had to the temple (Mark 12:41-44), as well as the one about Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5: 1-11).

Pastors are cruising in top of the range vehicles while their congregants remain without two cents to rub together to support these opulent lifestyles. I remember a lot of things that have turned me into the bitter Christian I am today. I remember tithing seasons at the Methodist church I grew up in. Some people would completely stop coming to church because of the onslaught that was unleashed on those that dared not give a tenth of their earnings to the Lord. I also remember how a District Superintendent had a vehicle bought for him using church funds to enable him to supervise the churches in his constituency better. However, as he drove to church on Sunday mornings, he would wave at some of the people who contributed these funds as they trudged to church with their dusty shoes, never offering them a lift. Word on the church benches was that he even used the vehicle to go to Chiadzwa to illegally procure diamonds for his own (further) enrichment.

I also remember a time when the church hall had to be extended as the congregation had grown bigger and late comers had to listen to the sermon from the windows while standing outside. My father was responsible for fundraising for the project. He stays in a small town without a lot of industrial work, so the majority of the inhabitants are poor. But then again, even those in the big cities of Zimbabwe are also poor. Anyway, the project hit a snag when it was time to roof the hall. My poor father had become extremely unpopular for standing in front of the church requesting donations for the roof. The rainy season was fast approaching and the hall still had no roof. People would carry umbrellas to church to protect themselves from the elements.

Along with the rainy season came the pastor’s welcome party, and church protocol demanded that it was to be grandly commemorated, with the good shepherd being showered with gifts. This was despite the fact that the pastor was coming back to the church for his second term. He still had to be re-welcomed. People would dig deep into their shallow pockets to ensure they showed their allegiance. Section leaders stalked those who hadn’t made contributions for the big party, poverty was not an excuse.

My father was there again in front of the church before the grandiose event. He requested that the celebrations be postponed until the church roof was up. There was a huge brouhaha, instigated by none other than the reverend himself and supported by his henchmen and women. The reverend (with nothing to be revered about him as far as I was concerned) told my father that he was out of line trying to change church rules. He said the church would be in trouble if the headquarters heard that the party had been postponed, it had to be done at the stipulated time. Really? What would they have done, charge the pastor with misdemeanour and send him to hell for not receiving his gifts? The pastor’s friends looked at father like he was the devil in their midst. At the end of the service, people were huddled with the pastor, whispering, reassuring him the party would happen, and giving my father dark looks. I feared for his life and didn’t rule out an assassination attempt. In the end, the party went ahead and my father had to contribute to it too as all eyes were on him, wanting to see if he would be the anti-pastor.

I also haven’t forgotten the birthday parties held for pastors and their wives, with bibles pointed to the heads of poor congregants and mantras like, “give and you shall receive” being chanted ad nauseam. People would be forced to throw lavish parties for church leaders but had to contend with their kids singing Happy birthday to you when their own birthdays came.

My policy is that if I have money, I would honestly rather give it to the needy, not line pastors’ pockets. I doubt that God would judge me for that. I asked the Christians in my circle for their sentiments around the issue of tithing or giving to the church and their responses are as follows:

Dad: Partly we are happy when the monies we give to the church go towards pastoral support and are used to maintain the church hall and other necessities. But we grumble when we are made to fund the birthdays of pastor and his wife and that of the District Superintendent and to have to welcome pastor and DS despite being with them for more than two years.

Mainini Tatenda: It is biblical to give so that you receive and I think it’s the same principle anywhere else. It’s important for us to get preachings on tithing etc. as much as we learn about marriage and praying. It is now a personal decision on whether one should tithe or not. I have heard some preachings on giving first fruit and harvest. Because I have not totally understood it, I have not given any of these. Until I do have some idea, then I will participate…so more preaching on them is required for me. As for giving to pastors, I think it’s also biblical and it’s up to one to do so. Apparently some people have been blessed through it. Our giving should be well-rounded though, and remember relatives and neighbours who need giving too. At my church we are given a financial report that shows how much went in and expenses etc.

Sihle: I don’t tithe because I haven’t seen anywhere in the New Testament where I am required to do so. There is nowhere where Jesus said I should tithe. I understand that it was a practice in the Old Testament and all the other stuff that they used to do like those sacrifices. What I don’t understand or have a problem with is how everything else is done away with and people find it convenient to choose tithing. My argument is if people want to go by the book, then let’s not be selective. We are now in a new dispensation with the birth and death of Christ. Why do we go to church on Sunday when the word clearly says we should observe Sabbath? I do go by what the New Testament says that I should not give under compulsion and that I do where I feel led to do. I also don’t seed because there’s no biblical reference to it. Where in the bible does it say for you to receive your blessing you need to have sown a seed? My question is what happens to someone who doesn’t have money? Are we saying because they don’t have then they don’t deserve blessings? As for pastors’ birthdays, I have not time for that. The main problem is us the congregants who take our pastors as gods. But that issue is most prevalent in Pentecostals because they were formed by individuals, unlike the main line churches which don’t belong to a particular person.

Erica: I am a Christian and I follow the bible. I like sermons on tithing because they are guidelines from the bible. Other givings like birthdays, welcomes etc I give willingly depending on availability of funds and budget and I give knowing that I’m giving God’s messenger. Whatever I give, I’m happy as long as it’s being used in the church to worship the Lord. Even if the money is used to buy bacon (a delicacy for most Zimbabweans) so be it. What I know is I would have done my part.

Auntie Lillian: Tithing is God’s mandate. Everyone must give a tithe. The good thing about tithes is they are not compulsory, you just give a tenth. Sermons on giving and tithing are uplifting depending on what you think the bible says. The biggest issue is on the birthdays. People’s contributions or what they should buy are dictated to them. Sections are told how much to pay towards these birthdays even though some people cannot afford it. In such cases people should just be encouraged to give what they can, not specific sums of money. Often it’s too much for one person. Like you must fulfill church obligations, then the same person must fulfill obligations for RRW (Mother’s Union). If you have UMYF (youth) in your house, you are also responsible for their contribution. That is not fair, but with tithes, it I have $10, I can give $1 to the church and I’m done.

Tadiwa: Honestly I haven’t been tithing. I know it’s not biblical but I’ve been giving the needy what they need when I can. Birthdays shouldn’t be sponsored by church members. Pastor is at work in the church. No-one throws a birthday party for me at my workplace. If he’s clever he can do own party and catch the congregation on the gifts. Our church has become classy at the expense of looking after the poor.

Milcah: I think sermons on tithing aren’t bad as the bible says it should be done. What’s wrong is manipulating the verses by threatening the congregation. Then giving to the church is also an obligation of the congregation and the bible says so. But it shouldn’t be a daily song, rather it has to be a reminder once in a while since people tend to be reluctant to provide for pastors. What’s wrong is when those who give more financially are given positions or begin to be held in high esteem instead of having those who are spiritually gifted. I personally used to avoid going to the United Methodist Church during the harvest period because I’d be bombarded with preachings about money at church and cell group meetings. It’s almost like they’d be forcing you instead of encouraging you to pay. Birthday celebrations for pastors shouldn’t be mandatory. If the church is happy with the services of the pastor, they can easily spoil him with a birthday party. But if you are forcibly made to contribute, then that would be wrong. Whenever I have the money I make sure I tithe. When I was working I’d never skip a month. If I’m to work again I will tithe consistently. 

Related:
Of predatory men of the cloth, friends, and trusting yourself before others

Chicken Mayo Tramezzini

Chicken Tramezzini

I had the pleasure of meeting Thando Simelane, from Sofresh Lounge in Manzini, and she made this amazingly delicious chicken tramezzini, ideal to make for lazy afternoons or nights when you don’t feel like cooking up a storm.  The recipe below serves 1 person.

Ingredients

 2 chicken breasts

1 tablespoon cooking oil

1 teaspoon Cajun spice

1 teaspoon chicken spice

Half teaspoon chopped garlic

1 teaspoon lemon juice

1 ring pineapple, chopped

2 tablespoons mayonnaise

A dash of Aromat spice

Method

Warm some olive oil in a pan.

Take one and half breasts and cut them into strips.

In a bowl, mix the strips with garlic, lemon juice and spices

Add the chicken to the oil and stir fry until it is cooked through.

Add a dash of Aromat spice to the remaining half breast and boil it.

Drain the water from the boiled chicken and chop it until it resembles fine crumbs

Add Mayonnaise to the chopped breast.

Mix the chopped chicken with the fried

Add spoonfuls of the chicken into the open pita bread.

Slice in half and serve.

Appalling treatment of mentally ill people in Swaziland

A story published in last week’s Observer on Saturday about the appalling state of the National Psychiatric Centre was quite heartbreaking.  It appears people have just written off the patients at the hospital.

The story painted a bleak picture of patient-neglect as mentally ill people are living in very humiliating conditions where the hospital is flooding owing to poor drainage. It does not only rain but pours for these fellow members of our society, literally and figuratively. Not only do they have to live in less than ideal circumstances, they also have to contend with insensitive journalists who use derogatory terms to refer to mental illness. It now appears everybody is out to get them.

On January 22 2015, there was a headline in The Observer that referred to an alleged robber suspected to be mentally ill as a “nutcase”. More recently, on May 18, there was another story headlined “Stark raving lunaticson the loose in Siteki”. Now, that is a very insensitive way of referring to fellow citizens of the kingdom. The story published in May highlighted how there was an influx of mentally handicapped people in Siteki, with some of them accused of committing serious crimes. That is a huge concern that calls for prompt intervention and screaming headlines, but not those that are insulting to the mentally ill.

Following the offending headline, I spoke to Psychiatrist and Mental Health Specialist, Dr Violet Mwanjali, to get an understanding of the facts around mental illness. She defined mental illness as any illness that affects the mind, and there are many of them affecting thousands of people in the country. Schizophrenia, depression, bipolar,  autism, and eating, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive and post-traumatic stress disorders are examples.  

Dr Mwanjali called on the people of Swaziland to come together in managing mental illness so that it does not end up having adverse effects on society, such as crime, violence, broken families and suicides. It should never be forgotten that some mentally ill people are also caregivers, and failure to get treatment might result in them losing their jobs and failing to cater for their families, like paying school fees and buying food, for example.  Mental illness, very unfortunately, is one of the illnesses that suffer a lot of discrimination from the less informed. This discrimination, said Dr Mwanjali, is among the major impediments to treating mental illness.

It is worse when the discrimination is perpetuated by the media, because society usually takes what newspapers say as the gospel truth, and when headlines call mentally ill people “nutcases” and “stark raving lunatics”, some members of society will believe that it is acceptable to throw around such ugly names. 

 “Mentally ill people delay going to the hospital, even when they see the symptoms. Sometimes they are afraid to collect their medication because they are afraid that people will see them and laugh. They then end up with complications because they are afraid of the labels,” Dr Mwanjali said.

The state of affairs at the National Psychiatric Centre at the moment does not encourage anyone to go and seek treatment. Nobody wants to live in such a wretched fashion. Apart from drainage system malfunction, there is also overcrowding, which has seen some of the patients having to sleep on the wet floor as water seeps into their dormitories. Apart from the existing ailments they have, they might end up picking new ones as a result of the deplorable living conditions. If patients have to walk on human waste in an effort to take a bath, doesn’t it negate the whole idea of taking a bath in the first place?

Vision 2022 must certainly look like a castle in the air for patients at the Psychiatric Centre. In progressive countries a building like that would be condemned as it is not safe for human habitation, and those who ran discriminatory headlines would be censured.

We should never be seen to be taking advantage of those that cannot speak for themselves. We would never be that nasty to people with HIV, because they have the mental capacity to stand up and fight for themselves and a big stink, excuse the pun, would be raised by organisations that represent them. People with HIV and other ailments are also being hauled before the courts for committing crimes, but they are not profiled as is done with the mentally ill.

 Dr Mwanjali said the majority of mental illnesses, among them depression and suicide, could be totally treated if those affected consulted mental health professionals. Those illnesses that could not be treated could be managed, the same way ailments like diabetes and hypertension are. People with mental illness can lead normal, fulfilling lives if they get the correct help and take their medication as prescribed. They need moral support so that they do not feel that they have to deal with their condition all by themselves. Supporting them also involves accompanying them to the hospital as soon as signs of mental illness are noticed. Other family members also need to understand how the medication should be administered, just in case the patient is incapacitated to remember by himself.

What’s worrying now is that the conditions under which mentally ill people live might exacerbate feelings of desolation. I would feel despondent too if I had to be woken up at night to wipe away sewage water from the floor.

There is a saying that goes, “The greatest measure of society is in how it treats its vulnerable members.” What is happening at the Psychiatric Centre is shocking and deplorable. The patients there are real people, not shadows. They have aspirations to get better and get on with life like everybody else.  They are somebody’s mother, father, child, or aunt. They deserve to be treated with dignity. There are associations for the deaf, those with HIV, epilepsy and other conditions, but who stands for the mentally ill in Swaziland? Surely people can come together and forego a few luxuries to ensure that the ablution facilities at the Psychiatric Centre are fixed? The world is too rich to allow vulnerable citizens of the country to live like that. Hefty sums of money are being offered for the protection of the rhino, and we must believe there’s nothing for mentally ill human beings? It doesn’t make sense.  Let us be our brother’s keeper.

 Published in Sunday Observer

Related:
Discussion on high suicide rate in Swaziland

Having your 5-a-day and drinking it too!

It felt evil to mutilate this beautiful salad

I had the pleasure of meeting two lovely chefs for the Times of Swaziland cooking column which I contribute to. Chef Phindile Sihlongonyane and Nokwazi Gama made me fresh juice and a muesli fruit salad. I absolutely loved the salad.

Ingredients for the fruit salad

Quarter of cup muesli

Quarter apple, cut into small cubes

2 strawberries

1 banana

Quarter cup chopped pawpaw

1 kiwi

375ml plain or double cream yoghurt

Grapes, not used in this particular recipe

2 tablespoons honey

Pour muesli in a bowl and add a layer of yoghurt to cover the muesli.

Add a generous layer of all the fruits to cover the yoghurt, leaving some for garnish.

Cover the fruit layer with more yoghurt.

Place the remainder of the fruit on top of the yoghurt.

Squeeze honey over the salad and enjoy.

Chef Nokwazi Gama prepared the delectable fruit salad. Her expertise preparing the salad reflected the 15 years she has been at Pick ‘n Pay Manzini, some of them spent assisting with food preparation. She learned to cook on the job after being sent to various places for training. Chef Nokwazi said what kept her going was seeing regular customers who kept coming back to the coffee shop, which assured her that she and her team were doing a great job.

Ingredients for the juice

4 Apples

3 carrots

Half thumb size root ginger

Blocks of ice, optional

Method

Slice the apple in half and chop the carrots into four pieces and chop the carrots into four pieces

Throw the ingredients into the machine and wait for the juice to be processed.

When all the juice comes out, remove the froth that forms on the surface and serve.

Chef Phindile Sihlongonyane, who made the fruit and vegetable juice, has been with Thyme @The Hub for the past two years. She said she was proud of the juice she serves to her customers daily because it is pure, with no water or artificial additives. Her favourite juice is the one she prepares with beetroot, orange, and a little ginger.

How my friend lost her hearing

Image from pixabay.com

About a month or two ago, I had a sore throat. It was particularly worse in the morning when I woke up. I self-diagnosed and concluded that I was about to come down with a cold. So I made my concoctions at home and after about two weeks, the pain just stopped and the cold never came. Then one Tuesday the right side of my face was really sensitive to temperatures and touch. I couldn’t put a finger to where the problem was emanating from, but was a little concerned. In the evening that’s when an intense earache started. I would have wept if I hadn’t banned my kids from crying in the house. At midnight the pain worsened and I knew I could not go to bed with it shooting like that, so my husband and I went to ER. As soon as I told the doctor that I had earache, he asked if I had recently suffered from a sore throat or cold. I told him about the sore throat. He examined my ears and said my eardrum was as red as a strawberry, and it wasn’t supposed to be like that. My throat was also found to be just as inflamed. I got my medication and went back home. The earache took very long to heal and the meds made it very difficult for me to function. I didn’t know what was worse – the earache or side effects from the tablets.

A few days after my visit to the doctor, my dear friend told me how she lost her hearing well in her 30s. It just happened overnight. Don’t self-diagnose and self-medicate. I will never ever again. Not anymore. Read her tragic narrative below:

I lost my hearing in 2006 in August while travelling to Mozambique on a chicken bus. I was sitting close to the driver and the bus was making so much noise both from engine and old age. I was also suffering from tonsillitis. I had not sought medical advice before leaving for Mozambique. I overlooked it because I had always suffered from tonsillitis at least once a year in the previous years. So I just took Panado and lozenges. 

Now, looking back I realise it was a huge mistake because in the past I’d go to hospital and they would give me injections of penicillin for at least four days. I also blame the nurses because they don’t explain the nature of drug and why they are administering it.  If I had known then I’d have realised that every time I have an attack, I have to seek medical assistance. Anyway back to how it happened. We travelled all day and finally put up for the night. We slept on the bus, typical cross-border trader style. The next morning when I woke up around 4, it was so quiet on the bus. I just assumed everyone was asleep. I began to get worried when my mother-in-law who was sitting next to me was looking at me strangely. I couldn’t hear a thing! I tried to talk but couldn’t even hear myself either. At first people laughed, thinking it was a prank. I was shocked because I couldn’t understand what was happening to me

For the rest of the day I was deaf. It’s funny how we take hearing for granted. My sister-in-law had to hold my hand to push me out of traffic because I could not hear anything. The second day was much the same. On the third day, on our way back, one ear popped when the driver banged his door. My hearing improved but only to hear noises, not articulate speech. When I got back to Zimbabwe, people were shocked. I got back to my school and didn’t know how I was going to teach. I was traumatised and depressed.  I went to see my GP, who thought I should have my ears cleaned. He thought maybe it was wax blocking my hearing. He cleaned thoroughly and said things would improve. How I hated him at that moment and lost faith in him as a doctor! No amount of wax would do that to a person’s hearing!

I make sure I tell people of my condition but many don’t believe it or choose to ignore it because I find it difficult to hear people even if they are close to me or if they talk facing another direction. Worse when it’s in a crowd. Some shout, thinking it will help, but it’s worse. I have accepted my misfortune and try not to think about it. But it has made me so paranoid that I take my kids to the doctor even if it’s just flu. I don’t want them to go through what I did, even though at times doctors don’t know what they are doing. I bought hearing aids, which cost me and arm and a leg, US$1000, but they were not helpful. They became an expensive white elephant.

The children I teach understand, if we can call it that of these youngsters. You get some who find it funny or get irritated if I ask them to repeat themselves. But I always make sure I make my condition known to everyone that I’m hard of hearing, even my lecturers at university and my colleagues. I’d been lucky till last block when we got a lecturer who was inaudible even to those whose hearing was sharp. I also sit in front and make sure my better ear, the one with 60 percent is on the side where the lecturer is sitting or talking from.

I thank God that it wasn’t my sight that was taken. What would I have done? Of course, I’m partially deaf, but I can hear some, I can still see clearly. One has got to count one’s blessings.

My ordeal at the hands of low Swazi officers of the law

Freshlyground at the MTN Bushfire, Swaziland

My husband very nearly got me arrested on Saturday night. At midnight, after a day of good and bad music and a bit of dancing at the MTN Bushfire music festival, I took the wheel as he had been drinking since afternoon. I hate driving at night, and it was my first time driving that late. I was feeling very tense as cases of abduction, murder and robbery have been escalating. Driving a South African registered car puts you at a higher risk as robbers assume people coming from South Africa have a lot of money, particularly at the end of the month. When I realised many other people were also leaving after the Freshly Ground set, it gave me a sense of comfort, security in numbers.

I’m one person who sticks to the speed limits, regardless of how clear the road might look. Swazi roads are notorious for having domestic animals that mushroom from nowhere and many people have died on the roads as a result of this. That’s why I prefer to be on the side of caution. He seemed annoyed that we were the ones being overtaken by speed demons all the time, never doing our own overtaking.

Driving with my husband in the car is a nightmarish, hellish experience. It feels like cooking with a cruel mother-in-law in the kitchen, watching you like a hawk, asking you if that’s not too much salt you’re putting in the pot, peering in the pots and asking, “Won’t we die of hypertension or heart attack or both with that much cooking oil?” As she distracts you like that, you have a nagging feeling she’s secretly praying that you burn the meat so that she can have one more thing against you. That’s exactly how I feel driving my husband.

“Don’t do that! Do this! Stop! You will damage the rim at the rate you’re going.”

I tried to thaw the tension by talking about the duet between Oliver Mtukudzi and Ringo Madlingozi. Big mistake. I should have just kept my thoughts to myself. As I was doing so, I followed a car off a ramp I wasn’t supposed to take. I only realised it when my husband, in an annoyed tone said, “Where are you going?”  What made me follow that car? I don’t know. I had used that road on countless occasions and knew I wasn’t supposed to turn anywhere, but I did. I have a few suspicions why that could have happened.

1. Even though I felt alert, I must have been really exhausted.
2. The fear of being robbed I spoke about above must have been alive and well, and I absently continued following the car ahead of me for the security it provided.
3. The Bushfire event attracted a bunch of the arty farty types who smoked like chimneys. There was a great deal of weed in the air and I did a lot of passive smoking. It’s possible that I could have been high as a kite.
4. The atmosphere in the car was cold and that made me extremely nervous and distracted.

Back to the real story. When I was notified that I had made a wrong turn, I felt stupid but was all for proceeding as I was sure I’d find another way to get home, which wasn’t too far away then. My husband told me to reverse, which I did without question as the environment wasn’t conducive for a debate. I reversed, and no sooner was I back on the freeway did I see the evil blue lights on my tail. The police signaled me to stop, and as I was about to do so, my husband was giving another command, “Don’t stop, keep driving!” What, and risk being shot at? Many people travel from neighbouring South Africa into the kingdom to buy weed, and police sometimes open fire on people who refuse to stop. So I stopped, against my husband’s well-intended advice. A uniformed man came to my window and said, “Licence please,” upon which my husband hissed, “Don’t give him your license!” How do I refuse when I have clearly flouted road regulations? I gave the officer the license, and he asked me to step out of the car. My husband again said, “Don’t go out, just open the window!” I got out and he did too. “Come here!” said the officer, and we joined him and his colleague at their vehicle. He asked why I had reversed into the freeway, and I said I had taken a wrong turn and was sorry. He said that was a danger zone and we could easily have died. I said I was keeping an eye on the rear and ensured there was no car coming before me. By then everyone, the two officers and my husband were speaking at the same time. My husband was saying, “She panicked after taking the wrong turn”. But I didn’t panic. I just followed bad advice.

“We’re detaining you tonight and will take you to see the magistrate tomorrow. What you did was very dangerous!” said the other officer. My husband and I apologised profusely and then an indication of what was expected of us came.

OFFICER: What can we do to solve this problem here and now, so that you won’t have to be        detained?”
Anybody could have told he was asking for a bribe. And what was I supposed to say to that?  I had no idea as I had never had a police officer ask me for a bribe before. 
ME: What are you suggesting that I do?
OFFICER: I don't know. What do you suggest?
ME: You could give a ticket and fine me.
OFFICER: Fining is for the magistrate, my sister. You will see him tomorrow.
HUSBAND: Officers, she's breastfeeding and the baby can't sleep without her.
OFFICER: She'll stay in the holding cells while you go home to fetch the baby so she can sleep with the mother. 

They appeared to be getting really agitated now because their radio was going, and they said there was an accident they needed to rush off too, so we needed to be straight with them. Whenever I tried to put a word in, my husband would say, “Be quiet! Let me do the talking.” One of the officers said, “We are trying to be very lenient with you, but you’re not hearing us.” I had heard them loud and clear, but I didn’t know how exactly to handle what I had heard. When we couldn’t come up with a satisfactory plan, they said we should follow them to the police station so that I could be booked in, and they sped off – with my license. So we had no choice but to follow. As we followed, my husband was on my case again. “You should have kept quiet when I was talking to the officers! I told you to be quiet but you were not listening to me,” he said. I asked how I could just keep quiet when I was the one at the risk of getting charged with an offence and have a drunk person speak for me. “I’m not drunk!” he lashed. Right, which drunkard ever admitted to being drunk? He said, “You should keep quiet. I’m trying to teach you how to survive around cops because I have more driving experience than you!” Somebody please shoot me now.

Now wonder why they call alcohol the “wise waters”. Here was a man with the wisdom to get me into trouble and get me out of it too! Wow!

We found the cops parked along the way to their station. They gave us the licence and said they had to rush to an accident where people were injured.  “Drive carefully,” one of them said, and off they drove into the night.

By then it was almost 1 am, May 31. The episode left me rattled and put me off attending the day’s show featuring bands that I love so much, The Parlotones and The Soil.  Would I have paid the bribe if they had been upfront with me? No, because I didn’t even have 2 cents to rub together. We had finished all the money we had on food and the booze that made my husband drunk. If I had the money on me, would I have paid them if they had been straight with me? Most likely I would have. Rogue policeman have the power to make your life pretty miserable. I know many people who got into trouble for absolutely no reason at all. One was stopped at a road block in Johannesburg and they flagrantly asked him for money if he wanted to go free. He protested that he hadn’t done anything wrong. “Oh really?” they said before producing a stash of drugs from their car. “We’ll say we found these on you,” they said. He had to drive to the ATM with one of them to withdraw some money to pay for his non-existent sins. Here is a story I wrote about a taxi driver who is now doing time after he retaliated at cops who he said stole his money by shooting at them, with fatal results.  If I had money, and the cops had continued being vague about the bribery, would I have offered? Certainly not! I don’t advise anyone to either. What if they are pursuing promotion at their charge office and are looking to present themselves as being against corruption. Flouting road regulations remains a lesser offence than corruption, thank you very much.

Avoid secondary drunk driving

I, however, took a few lessons from this sordid experience:

• Don’t ever take driving instructions from a drunk person, even if he’s the one who paid for the car you’re driving. There’s a valid reason why people shouldn’t drive when drunk. It impairs judgment. Can’t drive, can’t give advice, period. Taking counsel on safe driving from a drunk person amounts to secondary drunk driving.
• Stand your ground if you believe you’re doing the right thing. Don’t ever be pressured into doing wrong, it’s your life that could end up in jeopardy.
• Don’t be absent minded on the road. Many have lost their lives due to absent-minded drivers.
• If you have a nagging husband, take measures to protect yourself from the nagging. Stuff your panties in his mouth and seal it with duct tape, drug him so he sleeps through the whole journey, or if he’s portable, shove him into the boot and close it!