When No One Is Looking
Photo by Gantas Vaičiulėnas from Pexels As long as I can remember, I have always cared about the issues that affect Africa, Africans and people of African dissent, with special focus on how these issues affect women and children. Even as a child in primary school, I can remember expressing anger at people who treated women and children poorly and standing up for the girls in my class. It would not be far-fetched to assume I was born this way, having what can be described as a gnawing need to lend my voice to women and children’s issues. I was probably around 10 years old when I learned about basic human rights and the government’s role in protecting them. Without meaning to, that became my Bible and code of conduct. I started creating content from a very young age. I wrote stories and school plays that centered women and children in roles that were not usually associated with their sex or age. These stories became church dramas because for most of my teenage years, I found expression in the church. Granted, most of what I created then was quite gruff and had a diamond-in-the-rough kind of feel but a central theme shone through all my pieces: women and children were human in themselves and needed to be treated with the full respect accorded to them by their basic rights. I remember a play I wrote that we performed in church. It started with the parents of the lead character – a young teen – finding out that she was pregnant. Rather than be judgmental, it promoted allowing yourself to be hurt if your child gets pregnant ‘out of wedlock’ but, loving (and supporting) the child regardless. It showed that children were themselves overwhelmed by the consequences of their actions and beating them or kicking them out of the house was not a fair way to handle the issue. This play connected so well with people that the way teen pregnancies were handled – a problem that was predominant in the community where the church was situated – became markedly different. It was for this openness that I was chosen when I was about 14 years to be part of a peer-education capacity building session on complete sexuality education. This opened my mind’s eye to the Millennium Development Goals and a world bigger than the things my environment had constrained it to. I began to actively promote these goals because I was: unhappy that the world didn’t take the eradication of extreme poverty and hunger as seriously as it should; wondering what could be done to achieve universal primary education; sure I needed to actively promote the idea of gender equality and the need to empower women; broken at the rate of child and maternal mortality and wondering how I could help; hated all discriminatory acts to people living with HIV/AIDS in a world where it was okay to do so; didn’t want anyone to die from Malaria or any other disease that could easily be prevented with small lifestyle changes; and, hated that our environment was gradually becoming dirty and unsustainable as a result of poor sanitation due to reduced enforcement of communal environmental protection activities. These issues became my issues. They mattered to me. And I wanted to do something about them. As I grew from teenager to young adult, I began to refine the areas that I was interested in. While I wanted to work in the field to directly help women and children, I knew it was cost heavy and living on the poverty line myself at that time, I didn’t think there was much I could do to help these people. So, I chose a path that centered more on creating content that could cause a mind shift in the general public and change behaviors that put women in boxes marked, ‘second class citizens’. I continued to write stories and plays for church, making sure to include the women empowerment nuggets in the overall message of the Christian faith. With the advent of social media, I found a bigger outlet for my work…especially as I was questioning faith and removing myself from the church. I began to share my views – my very gruff and many times, antagonistic views – on my social media platforms. A friend told me about blogs and the possibilities they held for massive, and maybe even global, reach. So, I learned about this new frontier of communication and started my blog: Shades of Us. I continued to evolve as a person, finding more perspectives to human rights and seeking even more succinct ways to communicate my ideas around them. When I heard the word ‘feminist’ during Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s TedX Talk – We Should All Be Feminists – I knew this was the word that perfectly described exactly who I was and the issues that mattered to me. So here I was: Ramatu Ada Ochekliye, creating content around the Sustainable Development Goals and hoping I could change the world with my words. But, reality check. The world really doesn’t want to be changed. If the world has its way, it will continue to be patriarchal, misogynistic and abusive to women and children. It would continue to express hate against people whose sexuality is different from the accepted norm. It would continue to be intolerant of people’s rights to association, religion, belief and dignity. This is why, my work – and the work of other feminists, human rights activists and advocates, and anyone who just believes in the basic rights of all human beings across the world – can be really tasking. Nobody tells you that it is easier to maintain the status quo, as oppressive as it is, than it is changing anything. And because of this, many activists suffer the painful burnout that comes with wondering if their work even means anything. Oh! There are many reasons to keep
Girls Hold Up Half the Sky
Participants at the Speech Contest I have been volunteering with Sow Purpose Initiativesince 2017. At that time, it was called SOW Foundation and the general mandate was to empower young (and vulnerable) women and girls by reaffirming their worth, addressing societal bias that keep these women and girls struggling to catch up with men and boys in this century, and promoting a culture of excellence for them. When the founder, Dr. Victoria Kumekor, reached out to me in 2017 to give a talk to the girls about body positivity, I was excited to do it. A number of students were chosen from different schools in Zaria, Kaduna State, Nigeria, for the pilot event. It was a beautiful event where we got to bond with students from different backgrounds and ideologies. I knew that I was invited to teach the girls, but it really was a give-and-take session; I learned so much from our interaction. Seeing how much we inspired these young women, I decided that I would continue to volunteer with the Initiative as long as I was required to. So when Dr. Victoria, or as I call her – Vick, reached out to me to talk about the event planned for this year, I knew that I was going to make myself available. While the first two sessions had happened in Zaria, this one was going to happen in Akure, Ondo State. I remember when I saw the theme for this year’s event; ‘Half The Sky’. I wondered what it was about and asked Victoria to explain. She sent me the working document for the event. When I finally understood what she meant, I was even more excited. But more than that, I was pumped that the format for this year’s event was a little different from the previous two. SOW Purpose Initiative was going to organize workshops on educating girls and discussions on equality in the different schools they had reached out to, with a speech contest by representatives of each school serving as the culmination of these workshops. These workshops were meant to dispel myth and misconceptions about the place of girls and women in the home, their immediate community and the world at large. After months of planning, the events began to draw near. The team started with workshops in each of the schools and on October 12, 2019, the speech contest was held in commemoration of the International Day for the Girl Child. The workshops were eye opening…but not as shocking as I would have expected. I think I am now jaded but that is a conversation for another day. When the conversations started with the students in their schools, two major talking points were focused on; 1. Career choices the students felt were off-limit to girls; and 2. Their thoughts on basic equality, human respect and rights. Photos from the Workshop Most of the students – and it begs to be emphasized that this includes male and female students – believed that girls shouldn’t be in engineering, construction, mining, carpentry, politics, professional driving (and they didn’t mean Formula 1), and a couple of other supposedly male dominated careers. They all agreed that these jobs were ‘inappropriate’ for women and girls as they were not ‘strong enough’. In similar fashion, when asked if girls should be respected the same way boys are, there was a resounding ‘no’. The reasons were many: ‘Girls were made to serve boys by God’, ‘Boys are more special than girls’, ‘Boys are physically stronger than girls’, ‘Girls are incompetent’, ‘If given same level of respect girls tend to misuse it’ and the ever present and usually unsurprising, ‘Girls are not equal to boys’. They were literally parroting what the greater society thought and felt towards women and girls. But as unsurprising as it all was, I was still sad that at their young ages, they already had these beliefs that seemed so set in stone. Could we really change their views? Not to be daunted, the Initiative explained why these postulations were untrue and why it was of utmost importance that these students unlearn the things they held as truths. Each of the schools were then tasked with presenting one boy and one girl who would speak about girls holding up half the sky at the speech contest. The day finally arrived. As the students began to trickle into the venue of the event, I wondered what I was going to be hearing from them. I was to serve as a judge for the contest and I think I was probably more nervous than the students. I am very easy to read, and I needed to get my poker face on. Soon enough, we were good to go. The Judges. From left to right: Mr. Eze Chinedu, Dr. Oguntade Funmilayo and Ramatu Ada Ochekliye (me). It was interesting hearing the students speak about the topic. With many of the boys and girls, you could tell they were just going through the motions. With others, their belief shone through. Two girls in particular caught my interest; Okhiulu Gima from Evangelical Church Winning All (ECWA) Group of Schools and Nancy Orisamolor from Becky Parker School, both in Akure. Gima was amazing with her storytelling, linking each of her points to the next in a way that just made you stay glued to what she was saying. It is important that I mention that she was soft-spoken; something that could have worked against her as most of the other students were boisterous. But her cool and calm, coupled with her storytelling technique, kept me rivetted. Nancy on the other hand brought her points home. While most of the other speakers were mentioning Malala Yousafzai – I mean, everyone mentioned her! – Nancy led by sharing the work of Becky Anyanwu-Akeredolu: an aquaculture farmer; proponent for early detection of, and curing cancer; and First Lady of Ondo State. Nancy mentioned other women who were Nigerian, before she spread out to
(Mis)Diagnosing Depression
Photo by Ian Espinosa on Unsplash I was at a literary event recently when the conversation swung to depression. It started when a man presented a poem about this state of mental health and suggested that ‘a smile, a hug, and some love’ could get people out of their depressed state. For the most part, the poem resonated with people because it was relatively well written and delivered, and being a sensitive topic, people could relate; or so I assumed. While I was processing the words of poem, someone mention that it was important to note that depression was not ‘having a couple of bad days or being sad. It is a clinically diagnosed illness and must be treated that way.’ In the past, I would have nodded my head in agreement. I understood the sentiment and the need to be sure that people weren’t misdiagnosing depression when in the real sense, they were briefly unhappy or in a funk. But, my idea about depression changed a while back. Before I get into what caused the switch, let me share a train of thought that I followed through as I listened to the debate. Have you ever had a blinding headache? Those things can be the worst! You can’t think, you can’t sleep, you can’t eat, you think you head is about ready to split, and if it is really bad, you are almost crippled from the pain. When you go to the hospital, the doctor may diagnose a headache, migraine or something worse. In essence, the doctor is affirming what you already feel. You know the intricacies of the pain you are feeling. What the doctor does is to give you a ‘fancy’ name for what you are dealing with, and hopefully, a medical solution. So, let us say that you don’t go to the doctor. Do you still have the symptoms? Yes. Can you tell that you are in great pain? Yes. Do you know that something is wrong with you? Yes. What you may not know is the technical term for what you are going through, but you knowthat something is wrong. In some cases, you know that if you can just sleep, you may be better for a bit. In other instances, you know that seeing a medical personnel and taking some drugs can help you get better. And while you may want to take that option, you know that sometimes, there are a number of factors that may prevent you from seeking that help. So, you sleep. Or eat. Or rest. Or just lie down because you know that it would get better…until the next bout comes up. In this case, does the absence of a medical diagnosis negate the existence of your headache? I think the answer is no. The same is true for depression. People who are suffering from depression know that there is something wrong with them. They knowthat the gnawing emptiness they are feeling is a symptom of something bad. They understand that those panic attacks are not normal. They realize that their appetite – whether they are eating very little of way too much – is a sign of something troubling. They wish they didn’t have to sleep so little…or so much. They get that their complete lack of desire for anything, and sometimes, their only desire which seeks to end it all, is a product of a situation that is…bad. They know this. They also know about the days when pretending to be fine is the wall they need when their entire essence is crumbling apart. They understand the need to reach out, and the countering need not to be a burden. They can taste the fear of not knowing whether they would be understood or dismissed, or the hope that someone would see through their façade and help them. They also remember all the times when the voices in their head tells them, ‘didn’t I tell you? Nobody cares about you.’ They know this. What they may not know is the fancy name for what they are feeling. A little over six years ago, I began to feel sad and unhappy about my life. I didn’t seem to be making much progress for the timelines I set for myself and I started having this feeling that I was failing at this thing called life. It was a gnawing feeling that seemed to be here today and gone the next. However, I noticed that, with each session, the sadness seemed to take deeper roots. It felt like I was in quick sand and while I was only ankle deep, I couldn’t get out. As the years wore on, I continued to descend into the abyss until it got to a head a little over two years ago. I lost my mind. I started having repeated panic attacks, and once, when I could feel my heart closing up and my lungs refusing to draw in enough air, I thought I had come to the end of the road. When it passed, I felt empty. For one week afterwards, I didn’t have a shower. My bedroom was a dumpster; filled with plates from days before, wraps from junk food, bottles and clothes strewn everywhere. I was listless and couldn’t feel anything beyond the overwhelming emptiness of what was my life. I was depressed. And guess what? It started with a couple of days of sadness. It started with some unhappiness. It started with days when I was in a funk. Which is why when people say, ‘depression is not having a couple of sad days and being unhappy’, I shake my head. Only a person having those feelings can tell you what they are feeling. Only a person having those feelings can tell you how deeply lost they think they are. Image from Twitter It is important to note that people who are depressed do not share the extent of their listlessness with other; one, because explaining it is hard, and two because, there is
Policing Childbirth and Risking Women’s Lives
Woman breastfeeding her newbornImage: Feature Shoot My first experience with childbirth was when my youngest sister – Sadiya – was born. I was seven years old then. I remember my mum trying to put on a brave face as she was aided to the car. In all honesty, I didn’t understand what was going on, but my aunts and uncles seemed to be in a panic. I can’t remember what my father’s demeanor was, but I know we didn’t see our mother until the next day when we were introduced to our newborn sister. There was happiness, excitement and an air of love all around. If my mother was frazzled after the birth, she didn’t show it or…I didn’t notice. I gradually began to see women around me give birth to babies and carry on with their lives. They didn’t pause to take a break or stop taking care of their families. Life just went on. Then sometime in 2013, I went to visit a friend in Garkida, Adamawa State. I was a serving corps member then and my friend – a doctor – had been posted to that community for his service to the nation. I went on his ward rounds with him and as usual, was depressed by the smell of the sick mixed with pungent anti-bacterial detergents and caped off by the stinky attitudes of nurses. But the most unnerving thing I saw was the sad look of dejection on the face of a frail woman who was carrying a child on her back, with a branch of leaves hanging from the side of the baby. Without being told, I knew something was wrong. I asked my friend if carrying her baby with the leaves like that was healthy, and if he could do something about it. ‘The baby is dead. The leaves is to let everyone know.’ I looked at the woman again and felt a wave of sadness wash over me. It wasn’t that she was crying; because she wasn’t. Beyond the air of brokenness around her, she seemed so stoic in her resolve as she walked out of the hospital and into the surrounding hills. When I asked my friend what was wrong, he explained. ‘She is a nomadic Fulani woman. From my experience with them, their culture demands that they give birth with the least fuss possible. When they go into labor, they usually look for a corner and squat. They then begin to push as quietly as possible until the baby comes. Many of them are so weak by the time the baby comes and it is not unheard of that a great number of them die in the process. And in many cases, the children do not survive either. In that woman’s case, the baby came out sickly; jaundice. If she had given birth in the hospital or had come in as soon as the baby was born, something may have been done to save the child. But they wait until almost nothing can be done and by the time they make the long trek to this hospital – which is the only healthcare facility that is in this town – the baby would have died.’ I was heartbroken. Not only did the baby not have a fighting the chance, the mother also had to trek a long distance after newly giving birth; when she herself had not even healed from the traumatic experience that she had gone through. And what was the cause? A culture that said Fulani women were strong; that these women should give birth at home; that giving birth should be done silently; and one that only sought the hospital when things had gone awry. The memory of that woman walking into the hills with her dead baby strapped on her back stayed with me for a while. Soon though, the thought of childbirth went to the far recesses of my mind. A few month later, I fell ill and had to be admitted to the hospital. It was a private hospital and by the time they were ready to give me a bed, there was only one space left; the maternity ward. Two incidences happened in my brief stay in the hospital that brought the childbirth conversation back to my radar. One woman came in about ready to pop. She kept pacing up and down with barely any sign of the contractions wracking her body beyond the occasional wince. Soon, she was called into the delivery room where she had the most quiet delivery possible. When I say quiet, I mean she didn’t scream, didn’t shout, and barely even moaned. The only time she cried out was when – in my opinion – she was being stitched up after the delivery. The nurse kept saying she was such a strong woman. Less than an hour after she gave birth, she was dressed and ready to go. As soon as she entered the ward, everyone started praising her; ‘strong woman’, ‘Hebrew woman’, ‘real woman’. Even though I was weak from the receding plasmodium in my system, I couldn’t help but give a small clap when everyone did. She smiled slightly, basking in what I had come to see was the ultimate praise. Hours after she left the hospital, people were still talking about her and how ‘strong’ a woman she was. But we didn’t stay on her case for long. Another woman came in to deliver her baby and she cried like hell. She shouted, screamed, yelled and any other word that connotes expressing agony. The nurse – same one who delivered the first baby – screamed right back at her. ‘Abeg no disturb us with shout here. When you dey fuck, you no shout. Now, you wan tear our ear. Abeg! No shout for us here. Na we cause am?’ I was desperately shocked. Why the hell was it okay to shout at that woman?! Why was it okay to insult her?! Did the nurse
Poor People Work Harder…for a Whole Lot Less
Men watching from a gate.Image: The Daily Maverick I live in one of the poorer communities in Nigeria’s capital city, Abuja. Like most of the communities surrounding it, Jikwoyi is a densely populated area. Because most things – accommodation, food, clothing and transportation – is much cheaper than other areas in the Federal Capital Territory, it is not unexpected that there are more people who live around these areas and places like this. One of the first things you notice about the neighborhood is that it pulses with activity and life; almost like a hive. People are always busy. Activity starts as early as 5am; earlier in fact. People who want to beat the eventual daily traffic jam leave as early as possible. And trust me…you don’t want to be in that traffic situation. So as early as 5am, you begin to see lots of cars heading out to town. Because the number of buses allocated to our part of town isn’t nearly enough to cater to the number of people in the area, many private vehicle owners pick up people as they head out to their ‘8-4’s or ‘9-5’s. It is an opportunity to make an extra N500 or N1,000; depending on the size of the car. Shop owners also begin to open up for the day’s activities. Most notable are people whose businesses are in the food sector. They may not be catering to the early birds – unless they sell things like Akara, puff puff, massa or other such fried foods – but come 9am, most of the rush to head out would have begun to slow down and people who work in the community would need to eat. And when school is in session, students pile the roads on their way to getting an education. They need to be catered to by provision store owners who sell biscuits, drinks, sweets, and other pacifiers children take these days. Or it could be to provide books, pencils and pens, or other necessities for school. Soon after, other businesses open up for the day and Jikwoyi becomes a full hub of activity. It is not hard to tell that the soul of the community is driven by work. What is surprising (to me) is that this work doesn’t seem to let up until late at night when I return home, which is usually between 8 and 9pm. In fact, if anything, it seems to pick up at night. Lights blazing, open grills, loud noises as cars jostle to pass the narrow roads, hawkers and street vendors calling out their ware and people generally conversing in louder tones because of the racket of everything else that is going on is how you would describe Jikwoyi at night. The sounds of chaos and the smells of all sorts of food mixed with putrefying drainages and gutters greet you as soon as you return to the community. Jikwoyi at night is bedlam. But it doesn’t end there. There is an active night market scene in Jikwoyi. You can buy almost anything at the Jikwoyi Market from between 6pm and 9pm when some people begin to close up shop. So if you had a craving for Ogbono soup at 7pm, you wouldn’t have to worry about satisfying your craving because, not only are there a myriad of restaurants that sell the soup, the market will be open if you are the type to want to cook yourself. I learned that many people who owned shops in the market – and the entire stretch of shops that are at the Jikwoyi junction and surrounding areas – are also those leaving the community at 5am to do their day jobs. To make this clearer, many people in this community leave for their offices in the day time and return home to their businesses to make a little extra cash before they go home at around 10pm (or later) so they can wake up again and set out for work at 5am the next day. For these people, the rat race seems a bit unending. In spite of all these, neighborhoods like Jikwoyi are home to some of the poorer people in Abuja. It is a mix of the extremely poor, people just above the red line of poverty and the aspiring middle class hoping for one move away to wealth and knowing that they could also be one move away from poverty. These types of neighborhoods are replicated everywhere in Nigeria and many parts of Africa. But it gets worse. Neighborhoods like mine are only considered ‘poorer’ neighborhoods because they are in the Federal Capital Territory and because they pale in comparison to the suburbs at the city center. In reality, there are many more neighborhoods with people living in extreme poverty than there are neighborhoods like mine. And the people in these neighborhoods have to do even more to survive. It is not hard to see that these are some of the most hardworking people in the community. They have to be up earlier and usually not by choice; they have to deal with some of the worst traffic as they leave for work; they juggle at least two jobs, with very little increase in income; they come back home through even more traffic at the end of the day; then they come home to their businesses in a quest to make even more money. In spite of all the work and time they are putting into their day jobs and night time businesses, many people in these types of neighborhoods will never get out of the poverty that they are mired in. The big question is…why? For one, the economy isn’t helpful. Inflation means that the prices of goods and services is constantly going up. This wouldn’t be so bad if salaries are increasing concurrently. But they aren’t. Which means that you have to spend more out of the steady pay you are getting. Think rent, water, electricity, feeding, healthcare, spousal and
Getting It Right With Arthritis
Photo by Ricardo Fontes Mendes on Unsplash by ABE ONCHE It creeps into your joints and plays havoc with your nerves, and at the worst times it keeps you up late at night. It leaves you spontaneously swelling, sapping your strength and before you know it, the simple joys of going down the stairs or pressing a remote control become a waking nightmare. You can hold off the call to your pastor, though. It’s no malevolent spirit, it’s more likely ARTHRITIS. What is Arthritis? This is a bit like asking a mechanic what is wrong with your suspension. Arthritis is a common term used to describe a joint disorder that features varying amounts of pain, reduced flexibility and dexterity, as well as fatigue. The tissues, muscles and bones of the joint all show varying signs of damage that worsen as the condition grows. There are several forms of arthritis that are classified for the specific characteristics that people exhibit. Is it genetic? How is it contracted? The major causes of arthritis are trauma to the affected joint, infection and aging. “Trauma” refers to differing degrees of injury that collectively lead to wear and tear within the joint. Infection, mostly by bacteria, is also capable of producing similar trauma to the joints. This damage features eroding the bone and tissue until they grind together like old gears. In infectious cases, called septic arthritis, damage to the joints is controlled by rapid detection and administering antibiotics. What are the predisposing/contributory factors? Obesity, sedentary living and a previous history of injury to the joints are the things that predispose people to arthritis. An unbalanced diet low in calcium has also been suggested among the culprits. Arthritis is mostly associated with older people, especially women, primarily due to the most common form called osteoarthritis which is coupled with decreased calcium retention in the onset of menopause. Women by the age of 60 tend to have some osteoarthritis, so when Mama starts to complain, you should listen. Osteoarthritis is less common in men, and almost rare in children. However, other forms of arthritis affect a much broader population, with notable examples like septic arthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, lupus and gout. Major symptoms of arthritis · Pain – all victims of arthritis suffer from pain in the joints · Swelling – more common in rheumatoid and gouty arthritis · Difficulty moving the joint/loss of full range of motion · Poor sleep and general discomfort What are the available treatment options/procedures? Diagnosis of arthritis is by clinical examination following a study of the history of the joint, and x-rays are likely to be performed. Recent research has been able to pinpoint biomarkers for rheumatoid arthritis. Think of them as Nature’s little red indicators that can help very early diagnosis. There is no cure for arthritis, so forget about popping pills and laying back. Arthritis is best handled by physical therapy and lifestyle changes. In more extreme cases, orthopedic braces are required and even surgery (a procedure called arthroscopy) can be performed but it is universally accepted that physical therapy is the most effective.
