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SUNDAY VISION ,August 31, 2014

There are no health facilities

pictures by carol ariba

The writer heading to the island at night. Right is the bush from where several women give birth

BY CAROLINE ARIBA
re you spending
the night on Tisai
Island? a horrified
motorcyclist asked.
I responded that I
had to if the alleged
desperation on the
island had to be unearthed. It was
about 6:30pm and nearly eight hours
of bus travel, I was not about to give
up. However, upon crossing the last
trading centre, the warnings from
the drunkards who expressed worry
at the sight of my life jacket got me
scared. Tisai? They asked and when
the cyclist nodded, they responded,
Kwisha! which is Swahili for
finished!
going to tisai
The decision to visit Tisai started
when John Opolot, a village health
trainer (VHT) who hails from Tisai
Island in Kumi district, made a plea
on behalf of fellow islanders. Are you
a journalist? he asked. Our situation
is very bad. If a child does not die
of malaria while still in the womb,
then it might die when it comes out.
If a woman does not give birth from
home, then chances are high that it
will be in the bush! he said.
Intrigued, I phoned the area

This boy dislocated his shoulder

but he has never got any treatment

Member of Parliament, Patrick

Amuriat Oboi, who confirmed the
story.
Yes, the people of Tisai are
suffering. It gets worse during the
night. Very dangerous, they have
nothing indeed! he said. And that
piqued my curiosity, I had to go
there during the night and uncover
the truth.
But as we crossed the lake, I knew
it was dangerous. In fact, I thought
that it would be the day I would meet
my death. My life flashed before me.
There was a chance some starved
crocodile would rise from beneath the
dark waters and tuck me into its belly.
The water, I later learned, was not
even the greatest challenge. The
challenge lay in tracing our way
through the snake-infested dark
bushes and slim paths to where a tiny
hut awaited us.
Is it true there are gigantic pythons
that can swallow things here? I asked
hoping otherwise.
Yes, just the other day, it attacked
a man called Justine Ebuut and a
bicycle repairer called Mukula,
Opolot responded. I went numb.
Also, where we are going, a woman
found a python coiled on her bed. I
picked my phone in a bid to send my
final text messages but there was no
network, so I opted for prayer instead.

Jessica
Aarakit has
never gone
for antenatal
care services

Have the gods

forsaken
Tisai Island?
By the time we got to our host,
Patrick Omongots compound, I
could not help but imagine the
horror of giving birth in such a
dark bush. When I said it out loud,
someone began narrating a story
of a woman who was bitten by a
snake when she was in labour in
the bush.
I lay awake listening to the
deafening buzz of mosquitoes. It
did not help that the frail
wall coupled with the brief door
did not feel safe enough. I could
not tell whether the hissing I was
hearing was in my head or outside.
Suddenly, I heard something
growling whilst rubbing on the wall
outside; had it tipped the fragile
door, I would be no more. Luckily
it did not, and in the morning, I
was combing through bushy paths
to meet the village women.
Horror of motherhood
Jennifer Achan froze at the sight of
a wild boar (wild pig) devouring
her newborn. This was back in
September 2009, but even as she

Her baby was coming out.

Painfully, she managed a faint cry
for help which fell on deaf ears, so
she took matters into her hands
and pushed her baby.
Slowly, I took off my skirt and
wrapped my baby, but it got
stained with mud and blood. So I
tried to crawl back to my hut to
get some clean clothes, her voice
drops to a whisper. She regrets her
decision.
Achan had barely managed
a crawl to her hut when a wild
narrated the story, Achans hands
boar charged towards her fragile
quivered from the grotesque memory. baby boy. In the faint moonlight,
I had a fever that afternoon. I
she could tell that they were two,
was almost seven months pregnant
tearing her son to pieces. That was
so I planned to go to the mainland
it! The adrenalin flashed through
for treatment the following day,
her sending her scream spilling
she narrates.
through the compound and casting
At about midnight, Achan who
her sleepy husband out of his hut.
slept in a separate hut from her
It was too late, the wild pigs fled
husband, felt like going for a long
whilst dragging her boys body
call so she walked out. Suddenly,
through the mud.
I felt my thighs getting wet, it
Joseph. I would have called
was blood. I tried to crawl to my
him Joseph, she whispers. Why
husbands hut but I could hardly
couldnt those pigs leave even just
breathe, she recalls.
a leg for me to bury my boy? she

Nearly every
woman on the
island has lost a
child either after
they are born
or through a
miscarriage