Care Kenyan-style

Born and raised in sunny Kenya, I’d never heard of arthritis until I woke up one morning with painful, swollen hands. My feet felt as if somebody had stuffed them with pins. Even my hips were stiff…

I was just 17, stressing over A-levels!

Just over a decade later, I’d done marriage, had a son, then a daughter, and my husband had run off with his secretary! To add injury to insult, the tendons on my right hand had been rubbing relentlessly against the corroded wrist joint until they snapped.

Now I couldn’t play the piano, I was a single mum, and I needed to write to survive, but even typing was difficult. I eventually had an operation in Nairobi: my wrist was fused and wire inserted to operate the fingers.

I couldn’t even do up a bra or butter a piece of toast. My kids Michael and Siana (pictured above) rose to the challenge, and my mother came to stay. But my increasingly difficult ex-husband had moved next door with his latest girlfriend. It was time to leave Nairobi.

I found my derelict dream house: mud-walled and tin-roofed, no electricity or telephone or any other mod-cons, surrounded by buffalo-infested bush and no neighbours!

In traditional Kenyan society, a person with any disability is cared for by family and community. They don’t put their old or disabled people into homes. Kenyans go out of their way to assist somebody disadvantaged. They’ll rush to open a door, or help you upstairs on your crutches.

I can’t change a tyre on my Land Rover, but if my son, now 17, isn’t there, somebody always materialises from beneath a thorn tree and does it for me.
The unemployment situation in Kenya means that even if you like housework and gardening there are so many people pleading for jobs, you end up hiring them because it’s the only way they can educate their kids: too many women in rural Kenya are single mums.

A Maasai lady called Tuta came to work for us first. In return, I found a special school for her son, who has learning difficulties. When Tuta died of AIDS, she knew I’d continue his education.

I’d employed another single mum just before I’d fallen and fractured my hip. With the kids away at school, Alice had to do just about everything. She did – singing cheerfully, even waking up at night when needed. Family and friends visited, bringing supplies and taking the
kids to school.

Kenyans respectfully call their elders Mzee. While doing historical research in a remote area further north, I met a man believed to be 112. This Mzee lived in a one-roomed hut, could barely walk, was blind, and the nearest water supply was a muddied river in a distant valley. His son and great-grandchild helped him onto a sunny chair while his grand-daughter brewed tea. The contented Mzee told many extraordinary stories. He died the following year, surrounded by loving family.

My mother’s Kimeru friend, Wambui, has severe arthritis in her back. After five children, Wambui finally left her violent husband. When I was a child, we often had Wambui’s family to stay, and I would give them toys, books and clothes.

Wambui is no longer strong enough to work and can’t afford medication. One of her daughters is employed and able to assist, my mother and I help where we can, but Wambui spends most of it on drugs for her daughter, who has epilepsy. Wambui lives for her grandchildren, who come home and beg her to tell traditional Kimeru tales, handed down through many generations.

I visited England last year: thankfully my teenagers could carry my bags and help with chores. Persistent rain seeped into my joints, and I was ready to return home. When we’d travelled the rough and dusty road to Alice’s welcoming smile, I knew I was very blessed.

• Juliet Barnes, born and raised in Kenya, is a full-time writer and lives in a remote part of the Kenyan Rift Valley.

Parking chief parks in disabled bay

Rome’s parking boss was sacked after he was caught parking in an accessible bay while displaying a blue badge belonging to an 86-year-old woman.
Giovanni Catanzaro had apparently parked his red Alfa Romeo Brera near the Spanish Steps before going for lunch in a nearby restaurant.

Job rates slump for disabled Indians

Unemployment among disabled people in India is increasing, according to a new World Bank report.

The study, commissioned by the Indian government and based on a survey of 2,000 households, said the percentage of disabled people in work had fallen from 42.7 per cent in 1991 to 37.6 per cent in 2002.

Although the fall was partly because people with learning difficulties and mental health problems were not counted as disabled in the earlier study, the study still shows a fall to 39.6 per cent when these groups are excluded from the figures.

Between 1993 and 2000, the employment rate in the general population fell by only 1.1 percentage points.

The report concluded that further research was needed to determine the explanation for the fall in the proportion of disabled people in work.

Call for disabled councillors

A politician in Botswana has called for ten per cent of seats on the capital’s city council to be set aside for disabled people or relatives of disabled people.

Councillor Thuso Ogotseng, speaking at an equality day in Gaborone, the capital of Botswana, called for disabled people
to be included in all sectors of society.

Bruce Sebolao, a wheelchair-user, called for improvements to education for disabled children, and better access to the city’s shopping mall and public transport. He said he had never been able to travel on a bus or a train.

Braille is crime-fighting weapon

Belgian police have set up a new unit of six visually-impaired detectives as part of the fight against terrorism, drug-trafficking and organised crime.

Visually-impaired detectives (like Sacha va Loo, pictured above) listen to phone-tapping evidence and bugged conversations.

The recruits, who work at the federal police headquarters in Antwerp, use braille keyboards and voice-activated software to transcribe every wiretap.

They have been granted police powers but are barred from making arrests or carrying guns.

There are plans to expand the unit.