Wednesday 16th April - Owerri

Wednesday the 16th of April
It is exactly one month today that I will be travelling to Owerri Airport to start my journey back to my house in England. Ironically today I was to drive out to Owerri Airport to see Cecil off because he is going back to the UK for three weeks. Friday was the driver again, same as the three trips made to collect me and my missing luggage last month. It will also be Friday that drops me off on my way home.

I was not just going to Owerri Airport to see Cecil off but because it joined up nicely with the plans of CPP (Community Psychiatric Programme). I got told I would be following Grace to go and sell psychiatric drugs. When we arrived at our destination I followed her. It turned out to be a meeting about educating people in the local community about mental illness and to raise awareness with the elders, Chiefs and Ezes. The whole meeting was conducted in Igbo from start to finish, so I only learned the topic after 4 hours of discussion when the meeting finally came to a close. It was a hot day and I was frustrated not being able to understand anything that was said. One man got up and said “Oh we have an English visitor hello, good day, sorry you have not been able to follow anything. I speak English very well but if I speak in English to my elders and to the Eze then it would be very rude and mean that I have forgotten myself as a Nigerian. I suggest you start learning Igbo or get a translator.” I guess that told me. I felt it was slightly unfair as I am only here for two months but he has got a point that English people are very bad at learning languages. I have decided it’s because we can get away with it because English is understood in so many places that we rarely feel the pain of not being able to communicate.

Once we were moving away from the meeting I began asking Grace questions. She told me that when the village people started standing up and asking questions they were talking about disabled and mentally ill children. One woman even admitted to keeping her daughter in chains because she did not know how else to handle her. One of the men giving speeches was a psychiatric doctor so promised to see her daughter after the meeting and said it was not good to keep her in chains and she should bring her daughter to his clinic and he will help teach her how to manage the child. Hearing things like this really brakes my heart about the lack of funding for the Human Rights section of Amaudo.