Accepting HIV/AIDS In The Community - Essay Example

Lecturer Mwaibale In the land of Moshi, Tanzania, there lived a great herbalist called Mwaibale. Although he was not educated, he was the most popular ‘doctor’ in the larger East Africa. This made him be in a position to receive lots of clients who came using different means of transportation. Whereas others came on foot, others came by bicycle or bus. At the same time, the few rich clients had to take a flight to Mwaibale’s home. One thing that made it extremely difficult for these people to access the doctor’s home is because his home was located right in the middle of Kilimanjaro forest. Living in such a secluded location made it hard for the doctor and his family to freely mingle with the other sections of this society. In this forest, was Mwaibale, his wife Lucy and their children, Johanna, Markus and Naomi. One thing that remains clear from this kind of life is the fact that Mwaibale, right from his childhood, lived not to understand and to a worse extent, appreciate the role of education. To this family, live revolved around food, livestock and hunting. This made it for their children not be lucky to acquire formal education. In fact, Mwaibale’s children did not even get an opportunity to see the doors of a classroom. The only thing in this compound was a heap of herbs that were being used by this professional to handle any type of ailment, be it superstition or anything that anyone would imagine. As a result of claims to be knowledgeable in all the diseases, people had to flock in to this compound to seek for treatment for any thing they believed could be treatable. Even if he did not obtain any form of formal education, most of his customers were educated people from the city. Whenever they visited him, they could be attended to by Mwaibale with assistance from his eldest son, Markus to whom he was to descend the mantle he got from his late mother who died when he was nine in the last century. All the visitors would be directed to his small mud wall thatched house in the middle of his compound. Here, they would be diagnosed and prepared for what was now awaiting them- examination and further treatment. Since there was no formal injection of drugs, the doctor would use a razor blade to pierce their bodies to put this injection. So, each and every one of them was to bring a quarter a dollar to use for the purchase of this important gadget. A typical doctor’s day would begin right before sunset when preparing to receive his patients. At this time, he would assemble all his paraphernalia believing that soon, his home would flock with the people he would use as a tool to empower himself economically. One Monday, Mwaibale was visited by Astoria, a female client from the city. Her case was a bit complicated in that, she was visiting the doctor to get an ultimate solution to her problem. After explaining to the doctor that she was seeking his hand in snatching another woman her only husband. As usual, Mwaibale, the only person she could entrust with the remedial task of liberating her, offered to assist. As part of a scheme to charge her exorbitantly, nearly the whole of her body was pierced for the insertion of medicines before giving her a full basket of herbs to carry home for the preparation of the concoctions he was to use for the whole of her treatment period. A few minutes after her departure, another patient, Maryanne came to see the doctor. Her case was a bit different in that she wanted to be helped to retrieve back her husband from another woman who had taken him away from her. After carefully explaining her problems to Mwaibale, she underwent the same treatment procedure without knowing that something was unique in her case. While doing all these, she never realized that the cunning Mwaibale opted for recycling the same razor he had started using long before Astoria’s visit. After ‘solving’ her problem, Maryanne left jovially preparing to spread the good news to the friends. Just like the other clients, she too had to leave a few coins for the purchase of a new razor which had been ‘used’ to treat her. This, as was later discovered, never came to be, and instead, turned out to be so detrimental to the rest of this region. Because Mwaibale was believed to be well endowed with the knowledge of treating anything, he was prepared for this. A few days after Maryanne’s visit, Mwaibale was visited by another patient from the city. This was now a vey educated person who wanted to visit this ‘professor’ to solve his problems just the way he had done to others. Okenyu was his name and his major concern was to deal with a new disease that had just emerged in the city, not in the forest where Mwaibale had been peacefully living with his small family( Douek D.C. et al., 2009). However, long before his visit, Mwaibale had heard some rumors about it. It troubled him a lot, ‘this new disease, killing people in the city; what could it be? Does it result from the breaking of our cultural practices?’ he asked. He remembered how at one time he had people discuss about how it is caused. From their discussion, he was convinced that he could not get this disease that results from indiscriminate unprotected sexual intercourse. After all, he had not engaged in the sexual intercourse with any other woman other than his wife, Lucy. As usual, after Okenyu’s visit, Mwaibale who had been wondering about some contraceptive he had hear about. He was troubled whether it is called condo…condooo…condooomooo…or condom. Instead, he took his razor, chanted out loudly and made a lot of piercings throughout his body before giving him a bunch of herbs useful for the preparation of concoctions he would use as part of his dose just like other patients. The next person to pay a visit to Mwaibale was Awinja. He was a professor of Psychiatry from the University of Dar as Salaam, the only institution of higher learning in the land. Though he was the most educated person in this society, he felt that Mwaibale was more ‘educated’ and would give him a solution for all the problems he was undergoing in this cruel society. What brought him to the ‘professor’ of medicine was to seek for a way through which he would be promoted as the only head of his department. He bitterly explained, ‘After all, I am educated. I should not be led by an underdog!’ in this regard, he wanted to look for an easier way through which he would eliminate his boss and become at the helm of his company. Just like the other clients, Awinja was carefully treated after following all the procedures. Unfortunately, during his treatment, no one bothered to confirm whether the razor that was used to pierce his body was new or had been used before. However, to Mwaibale, it was not an issue, because, after all; it was a money minting scheme to secretly keep all the money he had been given for the purchase of new surgical instrument. The professor left the forest happily, not knowing that he had joined the long list of the preys of this deal. Coincidentally, true to his expectation, Awinja got promoted after a mysterious demise of his predecessor. This made him took a return visit to the ‘professor’ purposely to thank him for all the good things he had done to him. Hence, after receiving his gifts, Mwaibale gave him another injection aimed at giving him more protection against his aggressors. Later, Awinja brought his sickling wife to the doctor for further examination. Magdalene seemed not to be lucky because, according to Mwaibale, her body looked so emaciated and generally unhealthy. So, she must have been a victim of this new disease in the city. Naturally, she was given the same dose before being released to go back to the city to use the given concoctions. Unfortunately, Mwaibale later learnt that Magdalene had passed on with her husband Awinja in a critical condition. Later, Awinja died on reaching Mwaibale’s compound, where he had been ferried by the well wishers. The death of Awinja, Mwaibale’s principal client marked the end of this great family. This scenario made it known to all the people that this new disease was now spreading at a very high speed. Therefore, according to the government report, individuals needed to be so careful. They were continuously warned through any available media to refrain from anything that would jeopardize them. So, they were told not only to stop unprotected sex, but also to avoid sharing of pins and blades and receiving of unscreened blood from anybody known or not known to them. However, things were so different for Mwaibale. All these vital information could not easily penetrate up to his home in the forest. He and his family were behind the scenes. True to everyone’s expectation, Mwaibale’s day later reached when he found himself joining the long list of the victims whose lives had been endangered by his dirty game. As he was using the same razor to trim his long mails, his youngest son abruptly jumped on him to show him his appreciation for the parental love he had been enjoying from him (Douek D.C. et al., 2009). Unfortunately, the razor slipped from his nail and made a very big cut on his hand. This made him bleed profusely, he blood that he later sucked and swallowed hence putting him in a dangerous position of contracting the disease of the people from the city. After the death of Mwaibale, his wife and many of his clients, everyone came to learn that it was necessary to visit a medical facility (Douek D.C. et al., 2009). From here, they were encouraged, they would get tested, treated and counseled on how to deal with the dreaded disease which was now not confined in the city. This made all the people in this society to accept the reality in HIV/AIDS and to treat it not as a curse, but as a disaster that they all had to come up strongly and fight in their midst. Work cited Douek D.C. et al. (2009). Emerging Concepts in the Immunopathogenesis of AIDS. New York: National Institutes of Health. Read More