I was really very sick.
I lost pools of water in diarrhea. My ears were ringing and black strobe light flashing before me. It was gradual, from Tue I lost my appetite and became weak.
Thursday night, I was bloated, like a toad, could not vomit, just croaked. Then the diarrhea.
But now I am ok. I saw a doctor that thursday night, at the wonderful private health care clinic, the pristine Paramount Health Care. The doctor I saw was this petite woman with short black hair, dressed in a black sleaveless shirt. Dr Serfontein. She looked Bulgarian, my mom said, who drove me.
Dr Serfontein oozed professionalism. She just listened and made conversation. She asked about me where I worked while she palpate my tummy, while listened for my blood pressure. Smiling. She put me at ease. Her hands on my pulse, I could feel I was in trustworthy hands.
In short, she was badass, just like a doctor should be.
But she did not know I would have diarrhea five hours later. So she did not give me anything for rehydration. She did not give me the wonderful medicine against bloating that I received the next day from my general practioner, my family doctor, Dr Star.
The funny thing is that initially, Dr Star saw me on Tuesday, but she did not even touch me.
We kind of lost faith in her then, when I got worse on Thursday. What type of doctor was she? She just prescribed me vitamin supplemnt and that was it!
Then Serfontein, seemed so good. Race seemed to play a role, since Serfontein is white and Star is black. But then when Star gave me a drip to rehydrate me Friday and she gave me antibloating medicine and rehydration sachets, I regained my trust in her.
So, that is that.
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Monday, November 9, 2009
Today
I wonder Pancho, what is your life like?
So someone may ask me. I wanted to just keep on living, but I needed to write this.
I woke up from the floor where I sleep, on top of two concentric duvets that offer comfort. The flatness I like, its good for the back
At 06:20 I went jogging to the local service station where I bought a loaf of brown bread and a milkshake in a bottle for my brother. He took it before driving off to school. He usually does not drive himself, but this time my father was away and he instructed my brother to just take the car (dad's) and drive.
I listened to RFI and I heard about the fall of the BERLIN wall.
Went to work, by foot. Arrived five minutes late, but it was not big deal.
Spoke to my bosses about what needs to be done in the health facilities census we are concluding. Spent much of the morning swapping roles with my colleagues. Now I had to enter the data from a stack of questionnaires that assessed the laboratories of health facilities. They were relaxing and enjoying it. Entering data is not easy. Here I was entering data about labs and diagnostics for health, rather than being in one. This was my choice. I did a bit of that and enjoyed my time with colleages. When I got stuck or entered something wrong into CSPro I would call them and ask "Lavinia, what do I do here?" or "Katrina, please come". They are in the same avocado flesh green colored room. They did what I usually did, tell them how to move in case the questionnaires has not been answered correctly.
Later I called up health facilities "Good Afternoon, I am calling from the directorate of special programs in Windhoek on behalf of the health facility census, I would like to know about the following clinic....what is the managing authorit, is it a state or private clinic?"
I spent about an hour calling all over the country to investigate the managing authorities of different facilities which were thorns for us, because the interviewers in the field said one thing and the people who compiled the list of facilities say another.
I would at this point give a typical college alumni account of my job and what I learnt, what are the pitfalls and strong points. But I'll save it. Suffice it to say, I am learning alot about collecting information about health in questionnaires.
Afterword, I walked home. I had a quick dinner and started writing an article about bread, white bread and brown bread in Namibia. My thesis is that the preference for white bread of black Namibians is due to the legacy of apartheid and the inferiority complex it engendered, which results in a collective representation of brown (semi-whole wheat) bread as undesirable resulting in the loss of health benefits of brown bread.
I am going to speak about how collective representations are cultural constructions that William Dresserly speaks about in his article "Medical Anthropology: A third movment in the social sciences" and how these cultural constructions are a result of the institutionalized racism of apartheid, a social structure. Basically the objective, the structure of the past has engendered a collective representation of today.
It will be my way of introducing medical anthropology to general readers of the newspaper.
Then I went for a run, here and I and danced on the road. The tar road is warm in early evening, at twighlight. I ran by the open space that is set to become a park. Beautifull and breathtaking. As I was running, I was loving it and loving my time here.
I came back to my place my home, cooked a healthy dinner for my brother and came to write this.
I am here with my family, living a life.
What does it mean to live like this?
How am I a different Namibian, apart from the fact I have a different accent, not really American, not Namibian?
So someone may ask me. I wanted to just keep on living, but I needed to write this.
I woke up from the floor where I sleep, on top of two concentric duvets that offer comfort. The flatness I like, its good for the back
At 06:20 I went jogging to the local service station where I bought a loaf of brown bread and a milkshake in a bottle for my brother. He took it before driving off to school. He usually does not drive himself, but this time my father was away and he instructed my brother to just take the car (dad's) and drive.
I listened to RFI and I heard about the fall of the BERLIN wall.
Went to work, by foot. Arrived five minutes late, but it was not big deal.
Spoke to my bosses about what needs to be done in the health facilities census we are concluding. Spent much of the morning swapping roles with my colleagues. Now I had to enter the data from a stack of questionnaires that assessed the laboratories of health facilities. They were relaxing and enjoying it. Entering data is not easy. Here I was entering data about labs and diagnostics for health, rather than being in one. This was my choice. I did a bit of that and enjoyed my time with colleages. When I got stuck or entered something wrong into CSPro I would call them and ask "Lavinia, what do I do here?" or "Katrina, please come". They are in the same avocado flesh green colored room. They did what I usually did, tell them how to move in case the questionnaires has not been answered correctly.
Later I called up health facilities "Good Afternoon, I am calling from the directorate of special programs in Windhoek on behalf of the health facility census, I would like to know about the following clinic....what is the managing authorit, is it a state or private clinic?"
I spent about an hour calling all over the country to investigate the managing authorities of different facilities which were thorns for us, because the interviewers in the field said one thing and the people who compiled the list of facilities say another.
I would at this point give a typical college alumni account of my job and what I learnt, what are the pitfalls and strong points. But I'll save it. Suffice it to say, I am learning alot about collecting information about health in questionnaires.
Afterword, I walked home. I had a quick dinner and started writing an article about bread, white bread and brown bread in Namibia. My thesis is that the preference for white bread of black Namibians is due to the legacy of apartheid and the inferiority complex it engendered, which results in a collective representation of brown (semi-whole wheat) bread as undesirable resulting in the loss of health benefits of brown bread.
I am going to speak about how collective representations are cultural constructions that William Dresserly speaks about in his article "Medical Anthropology: A third movment in the social sciences" and how these cultural constructions are a result of the institutionalized racism of apartheid, a social structure. Basically the objective, the structure of the past has engendered a collective representation of today.
It will be my way of introducing medical anthropology to general readers of the newspaper.
Then I went for a run, here and I and danced on the road. The tar road is warm in early evening, at twighlight. I ran by the open space that is set to become a park. Beautifull and breathtaking. As I was running, I was loving it and loving my time here.
I came back to my place my home, cooked a healthy dinner for my brother and came to write this.
I am here with my family, living a life.
What does it mean to live like this?
How am I a different Namibian, apart from the fact I have a different accent, not really American, not Namibian?
Saturday, November 7, 2009
Sunday, November 1, 2009
Poem
I used to be a poet
did I really know it?
From my vision,
there came a flood of questions
to which I aimed to answer with no precision
Questions remain,
but will I
should I
refrai from answering them all
People caught in their common webs of meaning
that construct and destruct
a world where goats and people are killed
because of witchcraft
Then my own quagmire,
where to read about prisoners or wicked stealth
of people lurking
to kill one
for their body parts
or because their girlfriend broke their heart
O Lord, save us, I implore your Sacred Heart
and thank you Lord for the Arts.
did I really know it?
From my vision,
there came a flood of questions
to which I aimed to answer with no precision
Questions remain,
but will I
should I
refrai from answering them all
People caught in their common webs of meaning
that construct and destruct
a world where goats and people are killed
because of witchcraft
Then my own quagmire,
where to read about prisoners or wicked stealth
of people lurking
to kill one
for their body parts
or because their girlfriend broke their heart
O Lord, save us, I implore your Sacred Heart
and thank you Lord for the Arts.
What is a public health problem?
There are so many things that could constitute a public health problem. Usually I think of infectious and chronic diseases of the body. What about
- Killing of people for their body parts for muti (whitchcraft)
- The murder of women by their jaded lovers (violence against women)
The above problems involve people dying and their are imbedded in both the ways people contstruct meanings in their lives and the social structures that impinge on their lives, which result in deaths.
What about:
-Doctors who work in the public sector and are underpaid for the work they do: Does this cause a deterioriation the quality of treatment and care? For instance, if doctors that work part time for the government are paid at the same level as full time practioners, how does resentment on the part of full time workers affect the lives of patients?
All of these are public health problems and
- Killing of people for their body parts for muti (whitchcraft)
- The murder of women by their jaded lovers (violence against women)
The above problems involve people dying and their are imbedded in both the ways people contstruct meanings in their lives and the social structures that impinge on their lives, which result in deaths.
What about:
-Doctors who work in the public sector and are underpaid for the work they do: Does this cause a deterioriation the quality of treatment and care? For instance, if doctors that work part time for the government are paid at the same level as full time practioners, how does resentment on the part of full time workers affect the lives of patients?
All of these are public health problems and
Saturday, October 31, 2009
If there is anything that is good, worth of love and of joy, focus on that.
This is the paraphrase from some letter somewhere by St Paul (I am not soo knowledgeable of the Bible), but I know this - the verse tells us that no matter what, let us focus on what is good and wonderful.
My wonderful friends in Italy, that I met at the United World College, my friends from here and those I met in New Jersey. I love them. I am blessed with the dance, with a family, with a mind.
I am blessed
This is the paraphrase from some letter somewhere by St Paul (I am not soo knowledgeable of the Bible), but I know this - the verse tells us that no matter what, let us focus on what is good and wonderful.
My wonderful friends in Italy, that I met at the United World College, my friends from here and those I met in New Jersey. I love them. I am blessed with the dance, with a family, with a mind.
I am blessed
Halloween
Perhaps it is Halloween and its effect,but I feel awfully unnerved. Perhaps it is the harrowing news this week in one of the local papers that the body of man was found, with the genitalia, heart, several fingers, right foot, eyes and who nows what else, missing.
In the river dumped. It was in the North East of Namibia, where it is green and lush.
Before the article came out on Thursday, with the gruessome picture of the decaying body, my colleagues spoke to me about this on Wednesday. They told me about how it is dangerous to go about in the bush now, when it is green, lest someone kill and sell your private parts. In the Northeast of Namibia, the trade of human parts is notorious. To me this story is new, but not to those who live in this region of Namibia.
I was at my youth group yesterday, my old youth group and I met up with my friend Jean-Pierre there. I told him about this piece of the news - he had not heard of it. He said it was very dodgey, which means "sketchy" for all you Americans, with his eyes widened and his face brightened.
"Why can you not write about these people cutting others?" asked Lavinia, one of my four colleagues that enters the data for the health facilities census. "Cutting like a chicken, they must be killed also, why can't they bring death penalty only for these people." She bemoaned the situation, to say the least. I told her of how my letter was published in The Namibian, the independent newspaper of Namibia (one of many, but it calls itself that). I wrote a letter in about 40 mins about how ordinary people are precluded from calling in and chipping in on "Talk of the Nation" on television. This was on Monday, after I felt quite frustrated by non-participation.
I wield great abilities now, I realized : I can write a letter and get it published, I can mobilize the youth at my Church and get them to talk about volunteerism (that was today) and I can do wonderful research for my public health thesis (still to come). Now she wanted me to act, to write about this issue. It is a sordid, petulant, stinking issue - just thinking about it makes me want to throw up. Yet it is happening. I wonder what the relationship is between this type of fetishism and witchcraft and traditonal medicine. Traditional medicines are herbal and they mostly provide palliative treatment, especially for those suffering from the side effects of antirtetroviral therapy, according to a professor at UNAM. Now, is the relationship a continuum, where traditional medicine is on the light side of a spectrum of constructed views of healing and human fetishes are on the extreme dark side? Or are they two distinct ways of healing? Why does someone even take human body parts? Could it be for something distinct from their health, such as to get rich quickly, or to become sexually active again? Are the two things I mentioned actually separable from health in a meaningful way, given that the indicators of health (such as blood pressure in the West Indies) could be a function of collective representations of reality (cultural beliefs).
Just as the government condemned traditional healers that advocate the rape of baby girls as means for someone to rid themselves of HIV, I hope our government will unequivocally crack down on people who kill and commodify other people.
I think I will work on an article pertaining to traditional medicine and I will cast my net sufficiently wide to draw in fetishes into the discoure.
However, what about my idea for an article on the prisoners and HIV.
I still have this idea about prisoners and HIV. However, I find myself being pulled in the direction of discussion pharmaceutical policy in Namibia (how will we ensure the sustainability of our ARV rollout) and the difficulties in harnessing traditional medicine. Our government is going to pass a law that categorizes and standardizes traditional medicine for the consumption of the Namibian people.
In the river dumped. It was in the North East of Namibia, where it is green and lush.
Before the article came out on Thursday, with the gruessome picture of the decaying body, my colleagues spoke to me about this on Wednesday. They told me about how it is dangerous to go about in the bush now, when it is green, lest someone kill and sell your private parts. In the Northeast of Namibia, the trade of human parts is notorious. To me this story is new, but not to those who live in this region of Namibia.
I was at my youth group yesterday, my old youth group and I met up with my friend Jean-Pierre there. I told him about this piece of the news - he had not heard of it. He said it was very dodgey, which means "sketchy" for all you Americans, with his eyes widened and his face brightened.
"Why can you not write about these people cutting others?" asked Lavinia, one of my four colleagues that enters the data for the health facilities census. "Cutting like a chicken, they must be killed also, why can't they bring death penalty only for these people." She bemoaned the situation, to say the least. I told her of how my letter was published in The Namibian, the independent newspaper of Namibia (one of many, but it calls itself that). I wrote a letter in about 40 mins about how ordinary people are precluded from calling in and chipping in on "Talk of the Nation" on television. This was on Monday, after I felt quite frustrated by non-participation.
I wield great abilities now, I realized : I can write a letter and get it published, I can mobilize the youth at my Church and get them to talk about volunteerism (that was today) and I can do wonderful research for my public health thesis (still to come). Now she wanted me to act, to write about this issue. It is a sordid, petulant, stinking issue - just thinking about it makes me want to throw up. Yet it is happening. I wonder what the relationship is between this type of fetishism and witchcraft and traditonal medicine. Traditional medicines are herbal and they mostly provide palliative treatment, especially for those suffering from the side effects of antirtetroviral therapy, according to a professor at UNAM. Now, is the relationship a continuum, where traditional medicine is on the light side of a spectrum of constructed views of healing and human fetishes are on the extreme dark side? Or are they two distinct ways of healing? Why does someone even take human body parts? Could it be for something distinct from their health, such as to get rich quickly, or to become sexually active again? Are the two things I mentioned actually separable from health in a meaningful way, given that the indicators of health (such as blood pressure in the West Indies) could be a function of collective representations of reality (cultural beliefs).
Just as the government condemned traditional healers that advocate the rape of baby girls as means for someone to rid themselves of HIV, I hope our government will unequivocally crack down on people who kill and commodify other people.
I think I will work on an article pertaining to traditional medicine and I will cast my net sufficiently wide to draw in fetishes into the discoure.
However, what about my idea for an article on the prisoners and HIV.
I still have this idea about prisoners and HIV. However, I find myself being pulled in the direction of discussion pharmaceutical policy in Namibia (how will we ensure the sustainability of our ARV rollout) and the difficulties in harnessing traditional medicine. Our government is going to pass a law that categorizes and standardizes traditional medicine for the consumption of the Namibian people.
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