Category: Africa
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The lost papyrus? Eureka! An African voice
Ohakpougwu EmmanuelAccra, Ghana The year is 1279 BC, the beginning of the reign of Ramesses II. There are cries and incantations as the priests mumble words and family stand by my bedside alongside pots of medicines for my ailment. I lie on my death bed and drift through the memories of our achievements. If I…
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Making history by eradicating Ebola
Kenneth Okpomo “Funerals have become one of the most common social events in Africa in the late 1990s. Elderly parents are burying their sons and daughters…Workers are burying their bosses or their colleagues…” noted Elizabeth Pisani, an HIV and AIDs consultant, nearly fifteen years ago.1 But with the new highly contagious virulent Ebola virus ravaging…
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A tribe’s fattening culture and its impact on health
Victor John EtukDaura, Nigeria When nineteenth century European explorers began to colonize West Africa, they were shocked by the corpulence of the Efik people of the Nigerian coast—over seventy percent of the population weighed more than ninety kilograms.1,2 Little did the Europeans know that fattening rituals took place behind closed doors, which largely contributed to…
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Scarification: Harmful cultural practice or vehicle to higher being?
Kenneth Michael Felsenstein Bethesda, Maryland, United States Scarification is the act of “covering, disguising and transforming the body”1 by creating wounds in one’s own flesh in order to cause indelible markings. It is perhaps one of the most misunderstood body modification procedures done today, largely perceived in Western society as a tabooed and harmful cultural practice.2…
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Abandon
Chris BirdLondon, Great Britain Patient details have been changed to protect patient confidentiality. Once a month, the heads of service at Lulimba Hospital, in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo, sit in the meeting room (hard wooden benches in a hut of beaten earth, roofed with plastic sheeting) to go over the statistics.…
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Of starlit huts and Sahelian sand
Sara BuckChicago, Illinois, United States Landing in Dakar airport, the Air Afrique flight from New York hummed into the humid night air. Having traversed the nocturnal waters of the Atlantic, our plane descended upon the capital city, its sparse lights glittering along the coast and the nearby Île de Gorrée as if lava were streaming…
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A trip to the leprosarium: Forgotten people and their hope for treatment
Robert Schenck Henrietta’s hands Thirteen Congolese patients had gathered under the shade of an acacia tree to wait their turn to come forward and be examined. It was a typical clinic day, and a young woman, perhaps in her early 30’s, sat amongst the older people, her chin supported nonchalantly by her right hand, her…
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What God gives: Prayers from Africa
Marcia Whitney-SchenckChicago, Illinois, United States Rev. David Ambola from Mbingo, Cameroon, has remarked that Africans are incurably religious. Indeed, for many in Africa, religion permeates every aspect of their lives, from Christian messages on the rear windows of taxis to hand-crafted signs in hospital waiting rooms. Hand surgeon Dr. Robert Schenck and his wife, photographer…
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Prayers from Africa
Marcia Whitney-SchenckChicago, Illinois, United States Rev. David Ambola from Mbingo, Cameroon, has remarked that Africans are incurably religious. Indeed, for many in Africa, religion permeates every aspect of their lives, from Christian messages on the rear windows of taxis to hand-crafted signs in hospital waiting rooms. Hand surgeon Dr. Robert Schenck and his wife, photographer…