7 - 13 February 2002
Issue No.572
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 7 - 13 February 2002 Issue No.572 |
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The devil's curse
Poorly educated about the HIV virus, rural African towns are being starved and depopulated by AIDS. Alfred Omondi looks at the cultural obstacles that aggravate the AIDS scourge
Ten years ago, the Kenyan village of Kochite, some 10 kilometres from the town of Kisumu, was the envy of its neighbours. It was a small-scale African success story, thanks to effective trading links to Uganda through the border town of Busia. Over years of steady progress, Kochite became a relatively wealthy village.
Today, the village of Kochite is a broken-down place. Denuded of most of its population, the village is in a serious state of neglect -- a classic example of how the HIV-AIDS pandemic has brought havoc to the lives of rural families in Africa. The disease has spread like wildfire here, leaving a trail of death and destruction: deserted homes, widows and orphans are the inheritance of AIDS in Africa. In some areas, AIDS has even overtaken malaria as the number one killer.
In Kochite, most of the buildings have either fallen down completely, or are essentially uninhabitable. It is almost unbelievable that anyone still lives here, and even more incredible that one of the village elders, Mzee Absalom Kodiaga, is still alive.
The title "Mzee" is a Swahili word used to describe an elderly person who commands a lot of respect. But despite his distinguished status, it is clear that Mzee Kodiaga is starving. He has lost all his sons but one to AIDS, and he does not even know the whereabouts of his surviving son, or his grandchildren.
As he tells the tale of Kochite's rise and fall, the old man is filled with emotion. The good old days of wealth and prosperity were not that long ago, but they might as well have been another lifetime. As a youth, Mzee Kodiaga inherited hundreds of heads of cattle from his great- grandparents, who were livestock farmers. His lands of maize and sugar stretched far and wide. He had three wives and his family prospered. Though four of his children died young due to childhood disease, eight survived. The livestock was sold to pay hearty dowries and acquire more land. Some of Mzee Kodiaga's more enterprising sons used the money to set up a small trade in goods from Uganda through Busia.
But when one of his wives contracted the HIV virus, Mzee Kodiaga's life turned for the worse. "When my wife died, I lost everything," he says. "I was neglected by my sons. All they cared about was marrying more wives. They became more of a burden than a blessing to me," he says sadly. "Sometimes, when they came into a lot of money through their trade business, they would disappear. It could be two or three weeks before their wives even caught a glimpse of them."
Things went from bad to worse when his sons started dying of AIDS. Illiterate, Mzee Kodiaga lost all of his land to conmen plying him with false promises and fake documents. A broken man, he declares that he was damned by something other-worldly -- that he had lost his sons to chira, a curse from the gods. Pressed on the issue of HIV- AIDS, Mzee Kodiaga is unconvinced. "This is the work of the devil," he insists. "He has brought a terrible curse on my family. What is AIDS? People have gone mad," he declares.
The level of ignorance about the HIV virus -- how it is spread and the disease it causes -- is shockingly high in Africa, contributing to the rapid increase in AIDS-related deaths. Cultural traditions, like the tribal practice of "wife inheritance," contribute to the unwitting spread of the disease and diseases that prey on the weak, like tuberculosis, compound the problem.
Local traditions and customs require that a woman whose husband has died must be "inherited" by another man, regardless of the cause of her husband's death. The passing on of a widow is mandatory and the bereaved woman has no say in the matter. "I have been inheriting women when their husbands die for over 10 years now," says local "inheritor" Wellington Okudo. "We cannot allow women to be lonely when they lose their husbands," he added.
"We have a serious problem here where we see innocent widows forcefully married and infected with HIV virus," says Ochilo Anyango, a local chief. "There are also some cases where the woman infects a healthy 'inheritor.'"
"We are worried about the rise in AIDS and tuberculosis cases and we are appealing to the government to give us more support," Anyango says. "We have a serious problem in taking care of patients and even transporting them to hospital. The number of patients is growing daily."
Anyango says that Kochite is not an isolated case. The district of Kanyamam, in which Kochite is located, has lost at least 200 people infected with AIDS in the last two years alone, out of a total population of 2,000. Officials and farmers are growing increasingly concerned that the worsening HIV-AIDS pandemic is hastening an impending crisis in the agricultural sector.
This week agriculture ministers from 52 African nations came together in Cairo to tackle the issue of hunger at the 22nd regional conference of the United Nations food agency, the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). Though there are numerous factors that engender the poverty and hardship which cripples so many African nations, HIV- AIDS is not just a disease -- it impacts everything: government, culture, agriculture.
HIV-AIDS poses a major threat to food security. The progress in agriculture and rural development over the last 40 years is being undone in a matter of years. The AIDS epidemic has also had an impact on agricultural estates and profitability as workers become increasingly absent due to sickness. The tea estates in Kericho, in the Rift Valley province, have large populations of orphans left behind by deceased workers.
It is estimated by the National Aids Control Council (NACC) of Kenya that up to 17 per cent of the adult population is infected with HIV. Margaret Gathara, the NACC's director, pins the problem on promiscuous sexual habits and the failure of parents adequately to advise their children about the problem. The number of street children has risen dramatically in urban areas, as has the number of orphans and homeless adults.
Access to appropriate health care is also emerging as a major problem. In order to cope with the devastating effects of AIDS, more and more people have resorted to local herbalists, primarily because their services are so affordable. Apart from the low charges, though, many patients also insist that herbal treatments help without having the painful side-effects associated with AIDS drugs.
HIV-AIDS is also the leading cause of death in Uganda and Tanzania. The Kagera district in Tanzania is one of the most affected regions, where most household incomes end up diverted to cover funeral costs of family members. In Uganda, up to 45 per cent of the deaths in rural areas are HIV-AIDS related.
The writer is a Kenyan journalist.
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