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piqer for: Global finds
Ciku Kimeria is a Kenyan author "Of goats and poisoned oranges" - (https://www.amazon.com/goats-poisoned-oranges-Ciku-Kimeria-ebook/dp/B00HBBWPI6), development consultant, adventurer and travel blogger (www.thekenyanexplorer.com). She writes both fiction and non-fiction focusing on African stories that need telling. She has worked on diverse pieces for various international and local publications including Quartz, Ozy, The East African etc. She has travelled to 45 countries – 16 of them in Africa. 153 countries to go and 63 territories!
"Of goats and poisoned oranges" has been extremely well received in Kenya and beyond. It tells the story of a Kenyan middle aged power couple and their complicated marriage. The novel explores issues of greed, revenge, betrayal and murder. It runs from the 1960s to 2013. It has been described as “Wicked, funny, poignant, wacky, human, a big ball of fun and danger”, “A unique and captivating book”, “Fun and intriguing”, “Impossible to put down once you start reading.”
She recently moved to Dakar, Senegal from Kenya to work on her second novel. She also works at as the Africa Communication Manager at a leading global strategy consulting firm.
She holds a B.S. in Management Science from MIT with minors in Urban Planning and International development studies.
Spiritual Warfare — A Family's Last Resort When Their Country's Mental Health System Fails Them
The Donkohs find themselves in a difficult situation when two of their children experience schizophrenic episodes in a country where public mental health facilities have crumbled.The family's love for their children drives them to seek spiritual camps where prayer and spiritual intensive treatment promises to cure their children. They turn to these prayer camps as a last resort.
A mere 2 percent of Ghanaians with serious mental health needs had access to treatment of any sort; the relative few who were hospitalized were routinely subjected to involuntary injections, electroconvulsive therapy without anesthesia, and overcrowded, unsupervised wards. Not for nothing were Ghana’s government-run asylums popularly perceived as places where you went to die.
The stigma surrounding mental illness in most African cultures is a reality that the family knows only too well. Relatives advice them to abandon the children — one of whom is becoming increasingly violent. Society, including their own relatives, shuns them as mental illness is still viewed sometimes as a punishment for wrongdoing.
The treatment of patients at the prayer camps is deplorable, but families turn to them out of desperation.
The pastor who arrived demanded a severe but not unusual measure: that Samuel be shackled to a tree outside the family’s room. The pastor explained that, lacking more sophisticated methods of restraint (injections, locked isolation rooms, padded leg or arm cuffs), this was the only sure way to protect both Samuel and the other residents as they waited for God to heal him.
The article is heartbreaking. The family endures loss after loss as a result of their poverty, the children's affliction and still they keep moving.
The article does a great job of tying this personal story to the larger context of failing health systems, shortage of physicians and a general lack of understanding of mental health issues as a disease rather than a curse.
