Transparent ghosts Kibera
I spent a sneak chatting with patients and week writing whenever I have a free moment. I hide in the basement of the hospital, surrounded by old stretchers and wheelchairs, and from here I tell you that I have continued compiling beliefs about madness, about life and about death. there they go:
1.Madness is an act of revenge. And Kibera the belief has spread that madmen have killed someone, and it is the ghost of the dead that sits on their heads and ruins their lives forever. «Demon's Seat», they say in swahili (the seat of the spirit is the head of the madman). That is why they abandon them and do not approach them. That's why madness is punished.
It is the ghost of the dead that sits on their heads and ruins their lives forever.
-If you look at them - tell me James– they always see people that we cannot see. They refer to the spirits of people who have killed, who persecute them to get them to take their own lives. that's the goal, kill them from death.
-What happens to those who have not killed anyone? I ask.
-If they haven't killed anyone, they've done something else terrible and God is punishing them..
-What if I told you that madness is a disease?
-You say that because you haven't seen what I've seen. It is one thing to be sick and another is to be cursed. we know the difference, we know people's past.
It is one thing to be sick and another is to be cursed. we know the difference
2.-Are the ghosts you see black or white? -I asked to Nicholas, one of the hospital workers who lives in Kibera, and that assures me that ghosts exist.
-They are transparent, he said..
-And what do you do to get rid of them? -I continued investigating.
-We take a plastic tube, we buy gasoline, we make a hole in the tomb of the spirit, we put the gasoline and burn the body. Then the spirit disappears.
Are the ghosts you see black or white? I asked Nicholas.
3.I met a healer who claims to cure AIDS for the modest price of 352 shillings, about three and a half euros. The method? paid, you say a prayer for the next three days, and you never come home, because the disease stays there. if you come back, if you complain, the disease comes back to you.
4.I was chatting with a couple of doctors from the hospital over dinner. one of them said: “We should stop admitting psychiatric patients, they are dangerous, the best we can do is take them and leave them at the door, they will become disoriented and leave".
-but you are a doctor- I said.
-And they have a madness that comes from magic -answered.
I didn't listen, he had panicked and started screaming that someone had gouged out his eyes
5. Wilson baby "chang'aa" (which literally means "kill me quick" or "kill me fast") from the age of twelve. It recently accomplished it 25, but it looks easy 40. The drink we are talking about is made with very toxic products, sometimes they even use batteries to ferment the mixture. One of the nights he met to drink with his friends, the power went out. He began to get nervous and shout that he did not see, that he had gone blind, while his friends laughed at him. "Only the light has gone, you're drunk", they told him.
Wilson was not listening, he had panicked and started screaming that someone had gouged out his eyes. To prove it, he began to nail a wooden stick. At that moment one of the friends began to shout that Wilson was possessed. They all left the room and left him alone.. Wilson lost both of his eyes that night under an episode of acute schizophrenia.. If his friends had caught him and taken him to a health center, could have been avoided.
His mother won't let him in the house, so he can be seen wandering around Kibera, where he no longer has friends and where children throw stones at him. If you ask Wilson what happened to him, will tell you: "I've been bad".
Comments (2)
G
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poof! The world of madness is terrible wherever it comes from, but what you tell has no name. And how difficult it is to be able to help and break so much superstition.
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Lydia
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Mary, your stories always shock me. It must be very difficult to see people around you suffering and not being able to do anything for them.
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