THE MAD AGONIES OF SHINTAWA
BY EKWUEME UCHE
I may not be able to vividly recall how it happened. I may not totallyrecollect how the whole thing came off, but I lived for some three years without really knowing everything about what was going on around me. I survived for a substantial three good years unawares of my very own whereabouts. Maybe it was my destiny. Maybe I was designed to pass through this scorn anddisparagement at least, this once in my lifetime. But why me?? Why should this be me?? I have always considered myself blessed and respected, but now, I can barely look into people's eyes. What a shame!! Will I ever recover from this?? Will I ever be considered by people again?? My folks who knew me before this shameful predicament engulfed me, now find it hard to reckon with me. How I wish this didn’t happen. How I wish I still live as the young and charmingly cute lady I have always been. How I wish this didn’t befall me. How I wish!!
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My name is Shintawa. I won’t give you my surname. Not that I am all that ashamed of what I am about to say. No!! (After all no one forced me to recount this). The issue is simply that I recently graduated from vocational school, and I am already looking for a job. My whole life lies ahead of me, waiting to be built. I fear that my testimony floating around somewhere on the web might scare some away. I fear that my words may provoke too many uncomfortable thoughts, and then,my doors will remain closed.Yeah!
I used to be one of those very mentally destabilized African women you see in market squares with empty tins of beverages in their hands and dirty dreadlocked hair. I used to be mad. While in therapy, the use of the word"mad” was seriously frowned at. My 54 year old therapists preferredadopting the phrase "mentally deranged," but then, no matter how they tried to wash my mind off the fact that I was once called "a filthymadwoman", the more it dawned on me that I actually roamed around the streets of Darama in just a brownish pettybrassiere and a pair of very dirty black trousers, torn all over, with varying pieces of multi-coloured rags tied all around my waist. (They were really numerous). When I was showed the huge bag I carried around for my three years of acute madness together with my daughter (we’ll discuss about that much later), I wondered where I got all that strength from. It was so heavy; filled with debris and rubbish of assorted kinds. From tins of beverages to dirty clothes, down to bones of animals. A list of the stuff in that bag would make a story itself. One could actually make a fortune from selling the shoes I had in there if they were all new. There was virtually no-thing one wouldn’t find in that bag, and I carried it all day on my head roaming from city to city, from town to town, from suburb to suburb. The sight of that bag the very first time, made me cry for days. I felt so ashamed of myself. My hair was left tattered and halfbraided for three years without retouch. I stank like dead rat. I was a stench!! (My sincere thanks goes to antiseptic soaps and water).I am a bit ashamed to even tell humanity about my predicament but then,I think I would want to share the pains and sorrow of an average mad woman roaming any regular street in Africa.
When I was 23, I stopped eating. That is how it started. Or perhaps it started a few days before the very day I stopped eating. They said it was diabolic. They said the madness was caused by a charm or something, someone concocted somewhere. My dad had been having issues with his elder brother because of a plot of land somewhere in our home town and it is generally believed that it was my uncle that brought this calamity upon me. I don’t really know much about the details but basically, that was the cause of my madness. I’ve never ceased to wonder why it was me and not someone else. I wasn’t the one in the land tussle with my uncle, I wasn’t the first child or first daughter too. I have five other siblings; two brothers and three strong sisters, but then, it’s just okay that I bore this for the whole family. Maybe it’s just my destiny. Maybe!!
From not eating launch, I graduated to not eating both breakfast and supper. I was always in thought. My siblings became worried about me. My sisters would gather around me and cry. They would always say they wished my mum was here. (I lost my mum when I was 12). I didn’t see anything wrong with what I was doing. I was normal before my very own eyes. I would keep on telling them that I was okay but for sure, they knew I wasn’t. For two weeks, I drank only water. My eldest brother nearly slapped me one of the days he visited. He thought I was joking or maybe trying to put up a stunt. He couldn’t point to one reason why I had abandoned food while I wasn’t sick or suffering from something. He simplycouldn’t understand, neither couldI. I just lay all day, all night, thinking. Till this day, I have not been able to place a finger on what I thought for my two week of unreserved solitude. I stopped going to school. I had enrolled to learn the tailoring trade in a vocational school here in Darama. I was in my second year of the three year tailoring programme when Istopped. For three years, I stopped!! I was shrinking. I was reducing to a pack of bones. I couldn’t identify myself anymore. I knew slightly, that something was utterly wrong with me but I couldn’t finger what it was. I knew that I wasn’t the best of me. I knew!!Whenever my old pathetic dad does come to check on me, he would always say,
“Shintawa my cherry, you will be fine. Don’t worry my daughter, you will be alright”.
He often said that with some terrible degree of calmness, like he knew!! Like he knew how this whole thing originated. Like he knew the cause of this heavy misfortune that had way laid me. Like he knew I was still going to hit the streets. Like he knew!!
Once I had lost too much weight and my life was now in danger. I was hospitalized. My sisters and my elder brother gathered me and took me to a health care center. When we got to hospital, there was no suitable ward for my very annoying case. After a few days of checking whether the shock of hospitalization would suffice to make me eat, they found out that nothing could shake me, so they forcibly intubated me. I still remember the moment. Three nurses came into my room, immobilized with some few injections and then, shoved a tube into my nose, telling me to swallow when I felt something in my throat. I was fed with semi-solid meals through my nose. My sisters watched in pity. The doctors still, found nothing wrong with me, so I was discharged on the fifth day. Iwas taken back to my room. I hated everyone. I became a violent. I hated the fact that I was now a piece for all eyes. Neighbours, family and friends came just to say “sorry”. Their faces spoke of very a pitiable situation and I wondered what it was that brought people of gloomy faces every time to check on me. I became fed up. I hated myself, my family, neighbours, everyone! I resorted to violence. I started by shattering every mirror I had in my possession. From my wall mirror to my hand mirror.The small pocket mirror I leave in my bag while going out too was not left out. I destroyed them all. I cried for long hours after my first violent behaviour.
My sisters joined me some moments later. We all sat on the floor and cried for hours. We were all in the same state. A state of outright confusion. From that day on, destroying things became a hobby. I would bang plates on the floor as I cried, I would break tooth brushes and hit hard on doors. I almost broke the water closet and cistern one faithful Friday night if not for the timely intervention of Hashafi my eldest sister. We fought for minutes before she was able to overpower me. Till this moment, Hashafi still recounts that experience with surprise in her voice and eyes. She was categorically amazed at the manner of strength I put up while in the scuffle with her; afascinating surprise package from thevery malnourishedShintawa.
The memories of the day I left home will always be part of me even in the grave. I may have forgotten every other thing that may have transpired in my years of madness, but the very night I left home will never be a part of them. It was on a Sunday night. On a rainy Sunday night in Darama. My mind was at race.My mind was wandering. I sat down with my arms wrapped around my legs. I sat down filled with anger and disgust. I had earlier used a pair of scissors to cut some parts of my hair. My clothes were now truly representing what it entails to be a tailoring apprentice. I used my dear scissors on every cloth I had. My siblings had already become tired of me.I was an illustrative symbol of a living dead. Everyone was fed up, so was I. I was not only fed up with my young insanity (which was not obvious to me at that time, I only knew I had a worry), I was fed up with life, family, the world and its entirety.
I stood up as I watched through the window as rain fell so heavily that it sounded like they were making rain-holes on roof tops. Thunder strikes and lightening that surfaced every now and then were evidences that therain was meant for something. As my uncle later confessed, he was actually in control of my every thought. The rain was symbolic. It showed that evil was being perpetrated somewhere. The thunderbolts were not usual as well. They represented the evil my uncle was concocting. The evil that sent me to the streets as a full blown nut case!!
I packed some of my destroyed clothes into my bag; my hand bag. I took my make-up kit and my tooth brush (didn’t use it for once. Just a young lunatic trying to gather some property). I also took four of my shoes (my favourite shoe inclusive. I still miss that shoe till date). With a frowned face like a notorious thief caught in the act, I grabbed a hat from my ward robe, and I walked. Through the sitting room, I walked, straight to the kitchen. With one movement; one almighty movement that was mixed of anger, hate and depression, I unbolted the kitchen door.I let myself walk into the rain. I stood as I let the rain hit me at various points. I removed my hat and allowed the rain with its chillness to pour on my tattered hair, head and down my face. I had really missed water. Bathing had already become a thing of the past in my life by then. There was this inexpressible joy in my heart as I stood in rain. I have never felt that happy and joyous all my life. I felt like aweighty burden was heaved away from my head. I smiled for the first time in three weeks. I threw my left leg in front, I threw the right, the left again and once again, the right. I walked. In smile I walked, in the rain I walked. I simply walked away. Now I had my freedom. Now I would no longer be a cynosure of all eyes. That was part of the reason for my joy and that was why I smiled!!
------------------------TO BE CONTINUED NEXT WEEK------------------------------
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