A family Death

 

Selina Shakele 2001 - 2020

In 2004 I met Jennipher. She came to the hospital guest house where I was staying and was looking for some support. At this time Jennipher had just started taking ARVs (antiretrovirol drugs) to control AIDs. Jennipher had two children of her own, one was stillborn and the other died very young.

The rate of HIV infection was, and still is, very high in Zambia. Many young people die from the

disease. Jennipher lost a number of siblings in the 90s and early 2000s and took in their children as her own. Selina became part of Jennipher's family when she was a baby.

When I returned to Zambia in 2005 Jennipher introduced me to her family. At this time Selina was a small toddler. There are two reactions to me from very young children in Zambia. They are either frightened and scream every time they see me or they smile and we make friends. Selina was of the latter temperament. I have always enjoying playing with my children and grandchildren and Selina would easily burst into laughter as she bounced on my knee and we played some games.

It wasn't very long before Jennipher's family became an extended part of my family. Each year I make several visits to Jennipher's home and she regularly comes around to wherever I am staying in Monze, Zambia. Sometimes she visits with some of her family. In 2014 she came to the UK and stayed at our home.

Over the years I would be greeted by smiles as Selina ran into my arms. Jennipher always has plenty of children around - some of whom she unofficially adopted. Selina had plenty of playmates and as she got older she would help look after some of the younger children.

As with all children life has it's events and challenges. Life in Pemba means being close to the land and animals. Vegetables are grown in the garden, chickens provide eggs and meat, goats give milk and are killed on special occasions.

In 2008 Selina broke an arm and spent several weeks in Monze Mission Hospital under traction - a great burden for an active child. I happened to be in Monze at the time and made several visits to see her in the hospital.

She went to the local school and in time passed her grade 9 exams and progressed to secondary school. She was a boarder at Pemba Secondary School. Boarding in Zambia is very different to what we are familiar with in the UK - for instance you need to bring your own mattress, soap etc! It meant that in recent years she was not aways able to egt to meet me.

A couple of years back Selina became pregnant and gave birth to a baby girl - who was named Maria after a friend of mine who Jennipher came to know when she visited the UK and who died last year from cancer. Maria has been brought up by Jennipher while Selina continued her studies.

Last year Selina improved her grade 12 results and started an agricultural course at an institute near the capital Lusaka.

In June I was told that Selina tested positive for COVID 19. Apparently she had to go into quarantine, but didn't require any treatment. During this month (August) she became ill and was taken to hospital where I understand the doctors recommended treatment with insulin. I discussed the issue with Jennipher. It is always very difficult to try to assess medical issues and relevant treatment in Zambia. My medical knowledge is extremely limited, medical facilities in Zambia are very poor and obtaining good advice is not easy. Jennipher suggested that Selina returned with her to Pemba where she thought she could get the relevant treatment and I agreed that would seem to be a sensible approach.

Selina spent a couple of days in the clinic, where I understand she was given a course of insulin treatment.

She returned home with Jennipher but awoke early the next morning, was sick and soon passed away.

Selina was a very part of my Zambian family and I will miss her a lot. Like so many she was taken too soon and never reached her potential.

May she rest in peace.

Chris

Jennipher

Jennipher

I write this on 29th March 2020. The UK and the world is a very different place, even compared with a few weeks ago. In Zambia they only have 20 or so confirmed coronavirus cases, though the true number is likely to be much higher - they too are introducing measures to try to reduce the spread of the virus.

However, I want to continue providing outines of my friendships with people I meet in Zambia. Here I will say a little about Jennipher, her family, friends and clients.

Today Jennipher is not well. I met her in 2004 soon after she had started taking medication for HIV/AIDS. Zambia had just started providing the drugs and Jennipher was one of the first to be put on the treatment. She had agreed to disclose her status and from that time began to encourage others to be tested and to be treated with the anti-viral medicine.

Jennipher has a determined and forceful personality, formed from a difficult life, requiring a fight just to survive. She has been there and experienced the difficulties which led her to the bars and the disease she now lives with. She talks from this experience and has been able to help hundreds of people to start living positively with the disease.

When I first met her however she seemed quite timid and in very low spirits. She came to the hospital guest house where I was staying and asked for help. As is my usual approach, I did not provide any money, but tried to listen. I was in Monze for 4 months in 2004 and as time went on Jennipher would see me around the hospital and approach me. I learnt a bit about her life and she leant a little about mine. After a couple of months she told me that she needed to re-thatch her house before the rains, otherwise water would get into the mud walls and her house would collapse. She also had an idea about a small business making and selling soured milk. She needed the equivalent of about £5 to finance these two projects. She caught me on a good day and we had come to know each other a little, so I gave her the money. Next time we met she was smiling and seemed to be a different person. To be honest I didn't care what she did with the money - it was worth £5 to see her smile!!

Since that time so much has happened. Jennipher has established many AIDS support groups. From being regarded as a nuisance, she is now very highly regarded among the health professionals and has helped move services such as testing nearer to the people. She has saved many lives.

Jennipher moved to Pemba - about 35 Km south of Monze and was given a piece of land where she grows maize and vegetables, she has a growing family and established a pre-school class. Her life still has many challenges and unfortunately she has experienced many deaths among her clients and also in her family.

Jennipher has always been willing to take in children from family members who have died and more recently from her clients. When I first met her she was looking after Sandra, Selina and Osward - nieces and a nephew. One day, after our friendship had been established, she told me Osward was having fits and needed to go to the hospital. In Zambia you cannot ring for an ambulance, so I borrowed a pick-up and headed for Pemba. When I arrived it seemed that he was responding to malaria treatment and no longer needed hospital treatment. Unfortunately, a couple of days later, the condition worsened and Osward died.

Sandra spent a lot of her time looking after Selina who was four or five at the time and doing the housework instead of attending school. When the opportunity arose I was able to help her back into school. She completed her schooling and gained her grade 12 certificate. She then trained as a nurse and took on a position in Livingstone. Unfortunately she became ill and, despite surgery in Malawi, she too died.

Since I have known Jennipher and her family, there have been several children who have joined the family - most have probably been infected with HIV/AIDS from their parents. I have come to know them and have felt the grief with Jennipher, when they have died. Baby Twambo, a toddler Chimunya, who fell down a well, Mike, who was training as an engineer and Raquel a lovely teenager, also died.

Jennipher has shown me some of the challenges, but also the joys of life. Emmanuel and Obadia were children whose parents died in childbirth and who Jennipher was willing to take in if I would buy a few months supply of dried milk. What a privilege to be able to give a chance of a reasonable life for children will little hope - both children are growing up strong and well and are at school. Jennipher and Maggie, who are also children of clients, have joined the family.

Selina - a two year old child when I first met her is now a mother herself, her daughter Maria is named after a friend of mine who died a year ago. Selina is about to finish her schooling and hopes to train at the local agricultural college. Maria is also being looked after by Jennipher.

Some years back Jennipher mentioned that she could get a borehole driiled and a handpump installed for the equivalent of about £200. I was sceptical! My understanding was that a borehole would cost at least £2,000 - £3,000 and a handpump on it's own would be about £400 - £500. Anyway I decided it was worth the risk and found the funds. A year later Jennipher showed me the pump which was installed a kilometre or so from her house, but in a suitable place for her support group. It had been designed to make it easy for disabled people and pregnant women to collect water for themselves. Instead of a stagnant pool a whole community now has fresh clean water to drink and can grow their own crops. Again what a privilege to be able to help this come about.

Over the years I have visited Jennipher's family and support groups and she is a very regular visitor to my house when I am in Monze - often introducing me to clients she has brought for treatment at the hospital. Her house has grown, in no small part due to her cousin Soloman who came to live with her some years back and is a great help looking after the crops, erecting buildings and even taking care of the children. In 2014 Jennipher spent 3-4 weeks in the UK with Dilys and myself, meeting my family and friends and seeing as much as possible of life in this part of the world.

Friendship is extremely rewarding, but also brings challenges. I have experienced so much over the years from my friendship with Jennipher - life in all its richness, but also its poverty and distress. I am very grateful for the opportunities. It is a privilege to spend time with someone who is very close to death and it is a great joy to hold a smiling child on my knee - thanks to Jennipher I have experienced many such moments.

Friends in Manungu

Recently I talked a bit about my experiences in Zambia at our church in Cheltenham. I wanted to stress the importance of relationships and to give a little insight into the way I have come to know people over the years. I tried to show how I been able to help improve a few lives and in return, how the people of Monze have greatly enriched mine.

While I am in the UK perhaps it is an opportunity to reflect over my visits to Monze over the past 16 years and tell a few stories of where our lives have overlapped.

Since leaving Zambia in December I constantly remember my little friend Nancy. Nancy epitomises the joy and pain of Zambia. I met her at a pre-school in 2015 – she was full of life, she had a cheeky smile and knew how to command attention. A girl with great potential.

The pre-school was established by Mrs. Musika not far from Our Lady of the Wayside Parish in the area called Manungu – on the south side of Monze.

About 10 years ago I was walking along the Livingstone Road when a young man approached me. “I have a problem!” he said. This is not unusual – I meet many people with problems, as I walk around Monze. He told me that his problem was that he walked with a limp because one leg was shorter than the other. They used to be the same length, but as he got older his artificial leg didn't grow like the other one!

As I say, I meet a lot of people with problems and I cannot solve them all. I try to listen, but invariably say there is little I can do. I did however promise to let people in the UK know about Obert's problem. Back home a friend gave me money for a replacement leg. It took two years before Obert found me again - this time at Our Lady of the Wayside church which I attend when I am in Monze. I had no idea that he attended the church – in fact, other than his name and that he had an artificial leg, I knew nothing about Obert at that time.

I came to know Obert much better over the years. Obert is a man of determination. When he was a young boy he told his father that he wanted a bike. His dad told him that he would never be able to ride one, so it was with great pride that some time later he rode proudly to his home on a friends bike. While at school he also had a dream to become a taxi driver – again he was told this was an impossible ambition.

Obert has been driving taxis for a few years now, he is married with a young beautiful daughter and with help from his dad has his own house.

Obert is the son of Mr and Mrs Musika who established the pre-school. Mr Musika is a builder who built the house at the Curia where I have stayed in recent years - as well as building the pre-school and other structures for his family. Mrs Musika also hosts a group of disabled children and their parents. They gain encouragement through mutual support and by undertaking some fund-raising activities they can ease some of the financial pressures a little.

The lives of my friends in Manungu are still very difficult – I don't know whether Nancy has any food at home today - but with a bit of support here and there, their prospects are a bit better than they would have been had I not met that young man with a problem 10 years ago on the Livingstone Road.

Chris

From Monze to Cheltenham

18^th February 2020

Despite my best intentions I find it hard to continue my blog in the UK. Here I will just record the final days in Zambia.

I returned to the UK the evening before the General Election and I had once again jumped into another world.

Ireen came around on Monday morning with my shirts before I left for my bus to Lusaka. It was raining so we gave her a lift to her shop before the taxi dropped me off at Tooters Roadhouse.

It was an uneventful trip to Lusaka. Although the roadworks were still ongoing and the rain made the mud a challenge for some lorries – at one point a tractor was used to push lorries up a short hill!

I arrived in Lusaka early afternoon and wondered how I would spend the next day and a half! I cannot remember being in Lusaka when it is raining with time to kill. In the event everything worked out well. I relaxed on the Monday, with a trip to the nearby shops, cafe and a shop which provides internet access. I had been booked into an executive suite! However, they were happy to change it for a standard room – which suited me better. It was an ensuite room and perfectly adequate.

On the Tuesday morning I caught a minibus to the museum and spent 3 hours or so going around. The displays follow the development of humankind including the discoveries in Zambia – notably Kabwe man. The development of Zambia is detailed, including colonisation and the slave trade leading up to independence and the subsequent governments. I had plenty of time and found it interesting and instructive. There was also a substantial exhibit detailing the building of the TAZARA Railway, which provided a route to the coast in Tanzania to get around the problems of exporting goods caused by Northern Rhodesia at the time of Ian Smith's government in the 1960s and 70s. I hadn't realised that the Chinese financed and managed the project. Apparently the Chinese and Zambian workers had a good and close working relationship.

A gap in the showers allowed me to walk back towards the hotel (1-2 Km). I had a bite to eat and logged onto my account to print boarding passes only to find that after lusaka my flights were now referred to as “standby”. I had been getting messages urging me to upgrade to business class, but was surprised that it appeared that my onward flights were no longer confirmed.

Again there was a break in the rain so I took the opportunity to walk to the cathedral. There is always a lot to take in during my visits to Zambia and a bit of quite time to reflect is important, before I return to my other life. The rain returned and for the next hour or so I sat quietly in front of the Blessed Sacrament.

The rain stopped and I was encouraged to return to the hotel for supper. A football match after supper kept me entertained until my taxi arrived to take me to the airport.

In the event the flights home went ahead without incident and I arrived home at about 10 pm.

Chris