26 March 2008 - The Residents

Wednesday the 26th of March
Evelyn sang through the night. I was woken up at 5 by her singing, I am worried she is disturbing her house mates if Martha and I can hear her from our own rooms! I asked how they were finding their new friend (the resident that we ‘picked’) and they all agreed that they like her. I suppose it is nice to have some music in Amaudo because it is a very rural and quiet area.

I am getting to know the residents in the house next door to me quite well. Catherine and Innocent often end up eating my leftovers. They are becoming like my children - they both seem to take it in turns to sit/sleep outside my house and wait for me. It’s quite sweet.

Today I went to ‘Repatriation’ (a meeting) to discuss the problems faced by discharged resident living at home. It seems that the root of the problems are coming from the fact people are not educated about mental illness in the same way as people understand it at home in the UK. When families are paying for drugs they expect instant recovery and for their relative to be as strong and able as any other person. Unfortunately the drugs used are often cheap ones which have some side effects such as to make the mentally ill person sleep all the time and make them feel hunger all the time; the drugs can also cause tremors. In some cases families decide to give up the treatment and send their relative away to a prayer house. This is a cheaper way of ‘helping’ their family member because there is a one off fee to take them away and they are going to be with people of the church who will drive the evil out of them. Prayer houses chain and beat mentally ill people and they try and starve evil spirits from them. Nothing constructive happens in prayer houses, in fact quite a lot of residents we picked up from the streets to bring to Amaudo had escaped from the prayer houses.

In the afternoon I went to Ward Round again. Now I have been her for a while I was able to know which resident they were talking about. Sunday is a boy who likes to sniff things. He tried to enter my house to find bread the other day, I asked him to leave and later found him sniffing my washing. Behold is the middle-aged man who believes he is a soldier from the civil war. He likes to march and salutes people he likes/ respects by flapping his arms up one after the other. The doctor is worried about his delusions about being a soldier and insisting he is 21. It shows he has very little insight into real life but he is a nice man and very sociable to a younger resident called Chinyere. They always walk around the compound in step enjoying each other’s company and they always eat in dining together and sit close at chapel. I hope his increased medication does not make him too tired to enjoy Chinyere. Catherine my ‘daughter’ was also in the group. I was glad to be able to discuss her case and raise some concerns, Catherine is an ex-resident who has been home and was doing very well, unfortunately for whatever reason she disappeared and was found back on the streets again.

Concerns about Catherine:
- She is restless and always walk around the compound all day and all night
- She is stubborn and refuses to take her bath and wash her clothes
- She always likes to wear her clothes back to front and inside out and gets changed into a different outfit more than an English man drinks tea
- She has hurt her foot and the wound is looking sore & starting to swell
- She has a large stomach which is possibly a fibroid so is being put forward for an ultrasound when she is feeling more stable
- She knows I like her too much to be cross at her so has started snatching from me even if I have given her some for herself e.g. Slices of bread or drinks of juice
- I found her naked outside my house this morning scratching all over her body quite distressed

Nurse said she has seen to wound and will make sure it is dressed twice a day, the only problem is Catherine walks so much the bandage comes off and because she does not like to wear her flip flops sand can get in the wound. Martha too has been bathing the cut. As for the itching they feel it is probably a case of bed bugs so they will go to the market and get some insect killer and treat her bed. I feel if it is bed bugs this may be why she does not like to sleep in her house so this will help the problem of restlessness. It is also quite hot at the moment so I have been lying down on the concrete benches outside. I feel much happier about Catherine now I know all her problems are being taken care of.

The doctor came to see me in the early evening. He called me ‘Onyeocha’ and told me I had too many bites all over my arms and face and small facial wounds. He wanted to know if I was taking care of them. I told him that the bites were freckles made from the same melanin his own skin is coloured with and that the wounds were not paining me because they are only spots. My face is red because this country is uncomfortably hot and that I found him to be a very rude man.

The doctor came to dining in his boxer shorts. It made me laugh.