In a previous blog posting, I confessed
how I hold an idyllic view of rural villages – being originally from
a rural village myself. The village in question here is in the Manyeleti (loosely
translated as Place of Stars in the local Shangaan language) area, located on
the north-eastern part of Mpumalanga Province in South Africa. This happens to be one of those
few places where I can marvel at the unblemished sight of starlit skies at
night, with a clear view of the Southern Cross and the radiant Pleiades (called
Xirimela in the local language). When the weather is clear, one can behold the
sheer glory of the silvery stars and smile. As the famous poet once narrated, “earth
has not anything to show more fair…dull would he be of soul who could pass by a
sight so touching in its majesty.” That is the sense of awe one gets when gazing
at the skies at night down in the Manyeleti area.
But there is a storm brewing in
this area. It was not that long ago that informed people sounded out warnings about
the impending doom that would be brought about by HIV-Aids. The narrative at
the time warned us that HIV-Aids would devastate large swathes of South Africa,
especially the much poorer areas where people do not have the inherent adaptive
capacity to survive shocks and nasty surprises. We paid little attention at the
time and simply laughed off the warnings thinking Aids was something affecting
rich people in far off places like Johannesburg. Unbeknownst to the poor village
people, the monster was lurking in the shadows waiting for the right moment to
pounce. This then is a chilling story
from a humble village not much different from other villages in South Africa.
There once was a
quiet sleepy village..
You’ve probably known places like
the one I’m writing about here. People get on with their lives and hold fast to common beliefs and ways of doing things. Traditional practices hold sway. People carry
on with life drinking traditional beer and harvesting vegetables from the
fields. One can get by on a pittance here.
So it is in this relatively quiet
backdrop that the monster crept in. The disease completely obliterates villages
and the traditional life set-up. The poor villagers go about their normal
practices of going to local shebeens for traditional beer and a good time. After
a few drinks, they start frolicking with local ladies. One thing leads to another,
and the inevitable happens. This is the typical setup in most of these villages. So the pattern of infection multiplies. Their poor wives back at
home are none the wiser and get infected as well. So it all becomes a sad chain reaction. When
the husband or wife gets sick, they are completely clueless about how to deal
with their condition, even with the ready supply of antiretroviral drugs in
public hospitals and clinics.
It turns out one needs to understand exactly what
they are dealing with in order to be able to stick to a treatment plan and make
suitable adjustments in their lifestyles. This seems to escape the poor country
folks. Blame it on their traditional practices. Blame it on the never-ending stigma associated with HIV-Aids. Or on lack of education.
Even worse, the poor people
become easy targets for opportunistic preachers and spiritual healers who
promise instant solutions. They get swindled out of their hard earned money by
these shameless vultures. These are desperate people of course, the sort you’d convince
and sell a magic potion to. Instant solutions sit well with their beliefs.
After all, claims about traditional doctors who’ve mastered some cure-for-all
ailments refuse to die. The poor village people swear by these stories. Except
the stories aren’t true. Desperate people do not have much to cling to in a
storm. They’ll hold fast to anything that gives hope, however outlandish.
These poor people can’t be
trusted to stick to doctors’ prescriptions faithfully, which is pretty much
what is required with antiretroviral drug treatment. And that is the real cause of the
tragedy.
So is there a way
out?
In the long run, there should be.
Organisms that do not quickly adapt to changing conditions eventually lose out
and get eliminated. They do not get to contribute their progeny to future generations.
Forgive me for being crude here, but that’s the way natural selection works. That
is probably the fate facing many poor people from the villages.
The sad thing is that hardly
anyone needs to die of Aids these days given the treatment options available. But
people do. This is owing largely to plain ignorance, or a lack of understanding
about the nature of the beast they are dealing with. And there is the little
matter of a clash between prevailing Western scientific knowledge and the cultural
traditions. The ordinary villagers find all these things befuddling. They can’t
faithfully stick to a treatment plan or doctors’ prescriptions. If they feel
better after taking medication, they tend to toss the pills aside and stop with treatment altogether.
After all, what’s the point of taking pills if one is not feeling sick? And if the magic potion guy shows up with his
cure-for-all, the poor village people will likely believe him. One can spin
theories and sell them to these folks. So the tragedy really lies in not having
enough understanding to deal with complex matters and choosing to act in old established
ways. No wonder so many of them die.
I walk down the streets and am
scared of asking about people I haven’t seen in a while lest they be among the departed.
This cuts right across the board; from the old, the young, and the happy beer-drinkers
who crowd the local shebeens. Incidentally, the shebeens are the killer corners
where the fate of many families has been written. Most shebeen regulars have
died. Many more will. The villages are places of dysfunctional families headed
by orphans. Most of them are places of little hope. The government should
surely think of a plan to save these families? Something’s got to give.
We can blame it on those many
years of foot-dragging by the government during Madiba’s and Mbeki’s tenures.
We are certainly paying a very high price. This has got to be front page news. I
wouldn’t be overly surprised if the population of the country has flattened
somewhat (or probably already decreased in some hard-hit areas). We probably
have immigrants to thank in those areas reporting rising populations.
The short end of the
stick!
I would argue that the village people got the short end of the stick through no fault of their own.
This was owing to conditions they find themselves in, which they can’t make much
sense of. So what’s gonna become of their lot? They are already faring badly.
The dreaded disease can only worsen things for them. It will be interesting to
examine the villages years from now to see what effects the marauding monster
has had on them. I’m not saying this as a pessimist, but as one with a vested
interest in the poor villages. I would want to see them develop and grow and
succeed. But I fear the dreaded disease is running the show here. Fate has
dealt these poor people a nasty deuce of spades. And their capacity to adapt
seems stretched beyond limits.
The types of businesses that thrive in this area are those connected
with death; the macabre type-businesses (funeral parlours, hiring out of tents,
etc.). You make your money when other people grieve the loss of their loved
ones. Very chilling indeed, but this is a fact of life in the Place of the
Stars.
A dose of uncomfortable
truths
I have seen hell, and it’s got an
ugly face. I’ve seen hell in a place called Manyeleti, which is part of the idyllic
lowveld area. This is an area with beautiful star-lit skies at night with a much
clearer view of the Southern Cross and other silvery stars. This is the place
with the highest infestations of the dreaded disease that I’ve seen
anywhere. The Place of Stars is part of the wider Bushbuckridge Municipality,
which itself is a microcosm of conditions in poor rural areas in Mzansi. The
government’s attempt to roll out free antiretroviral drugs, though well-meant, seems
to have very little effect here. Unsurprisingly the rate of HIV-Aids infections
in the country remains stubbornly high despite all the best efforts of
government and civil society according to the latest findings by the Human Sciences Research
Council. A few people benefit here and there, but even my poor mom can
attest that we seem to be slowly losing the war on the dreaded disease. Some
people do take the drugs and stick with the treatment plan, but a great many abandon
the prescriptions after a short while and sadly die.
It makes no sense why people
would continue to die in their numbers when drugs are available. But a cross section of the
area reveals some uncomfortable truths. One of these is the traditional
practices the poor people cling to. These practices must be done away with. Or better
still, the traditional practices ought to be held up to the light to expose the
cracks. Absence of knowledge is the biggest deterrent to progress. Sadly,
natural selection will drive for the exclusion of unfavourable traits which
hold our species back. One of those traits will surely be the absence of
knowledge, which reduces our adaptive capacity as a species.
