Introduction
Lack of information or the know-how to handle a situation can lead to untold suffering and pain. This is evident in Nlqombothi's story, Memories we Lost, where the narrator's sister suffers greatly from schizophrenia. Due to ignorance, in the belief that she is possessed by ghosts, she is subjected to rituals and herbs that do not help to cure her.
Illustrations
The narrator's sister suffers schizophrenic attacks. The attacks terrify her; moreover, they alter her, she becomes unrecognizable due to the pain. The attacks affect both the sister and the narrator, and they lose their speech and their memory. Once the narrator's sister runs away from home, screaming, in the night. Men and boys have to look for her in the night, and all return empty-handed and defeated. Her mother is able to find her; she comes home with her the next day, carrying her on her back. No one is able to understand her sister's condition, so the sister does not get much help.
The narrator's sister, in another instance, bangs her head against the wall till she bleeds. She begins rocking back and forth, then goes on to hit her head against the wall. She does so till she screams; it is as if she is trying to rid herself of the thing that has possessed her. She smashes her head against the wall continuously and violently until she leaves blood stains on the wall. The narrator is alarmed by the attack; she. tries to stop her sister but she pushes her away with the strength that only comes to her when she suffers the attacks. A sangoma is called in in an attempt to heal the girl. She cleanses the spot where her girl had bludgeoned her head, but the stain on the wall remains, and the trauma too — the narrator begins to smell blood in her dreams, her clothes, in everything, the smell of blood lingers for a long time.
The sister suffers the attack when hovering over a hot porridge pot, and she flings it across the room. The narrator gets burnt across her chest, and the pain is unbearable. The sister is shocked and devastated later when she regains consciousness. She does not even know she is the one who burnt her sister, and the narrator does not let her know. The narrator's sister is forced to drop out of school by her condition. She suffers an attack at school, and in the process flings a desk across the class and breaks a window. She also breaks a chair and screams incoherently.
Only when she sees the narrator does she regain consciousness. The narrator is affected by this incident. She feigns illness and plays truant so that she can stay at home with her sister. She tells her sister that she will only go to school when she herself goes to school. The sister however fears that because her mother, the teachers and the principal will never let her back in school.
Out of desperation, the narrator's mother subjects her daughter to more sangomas and more churches. She is also given bottles of medication, so that she becomes unresponsive. She only nods and shakes her head at irrelevant moments, it is obvious that the medication will not help her, The narrator only realizes this when she learns more about her sister's condition in school, She helps her sister avoid the torture of medication by getting rid of it.
The narrator's sister is subjected to rituals that leave her dazed and emotionless. In such rituals, the villagers would assemble at the narrator's home. The ritual involved shouting insults at the 'thing' that possessed the sister; the elders kept referring to it as the devil's work and demons. The sister is so traumatized by the ritual that her sleep is disturbed. She holds the narrator in the night, squeezes her and sinks her teeth in the pillow so that she does not cry. This demonstrates her extreme psychological suffering.
Due to their ignorance, the narrator's mother and step-father plan that the sister should be taken to Nkunzi, a famous sangoma. The sangoma is famous for 'baking' the people taken to him. This involves making a fire from cow dung and wood, and once the fire burned red, the demon- possessed person is tied onto a section of zinc roofing which is then placed on the fire. The narrator cannot 'bear having her sister subjected to this torture; she escapes with her sister. With the little she knows of her sister's condition, she finds her way to the town, and hopefully, to a hospital where the sister can find help.
Conclusion
Lack of information as to what disease the narrator's sister suffers causes her more suffering. The ignorance about mental health causes the young girl and her family to go through a lot of pain. It also exposes them to exploitation by the sangomas and some preachers. If the mother and the society had the correct information, so much suffering would have been averted.
marto answered the question on August 27, 2019 at 07:03