Tuesday, June 02, 2009
The vaccine
The chief’s lieutenant stripped the child at his bareback. There arose, in the foggy dusk of his mind, thoughts of how a swelling crowd would gather in his support, and of how policemen would comb the place like ants in the name of law and order, and maybe the worst would really come to the worst and the police would use their batons and the barrels of the guns, but if that happened at all, if that happened, oh God have mercy, stones would have to rain at the law enforcers.
Nothing succeeded, Che Jalasi believed, unless there were men and women prepared to go out and fight and sacrifice. He was ready to fight for his child to walk again. He was ready to sacrifice for the mobility of his child. He had already sacrificed a lot. When his wife tried to vaccinate the child behind his back, he chased her and since then he had been living all alone with no intention of reconciling with the wife.
The spectacled doctor, a stethoscope hanging around his neck had talked to him as he was watching his face and saw how anger had tightened it and how veins had arisen up on his neck.
“The legs have been severely deformed. This child has been affected by polio. You must have not immunized him.”
His eyes protruded. “It is not your polio. Somebody has bewitched my child. Of all the children born in our village who have not been immunized, why only my child has to suffer polio. I know who has done this. I swear, I will beat him until my child walks again.”
The doctor was wrong. Something at the back of his mind was telling him who had bewitched his child. He would tear him to pieces. He had caught the snake by the tail and it had to bite.
“Poor moth,” he said by himself as he was hurrying home. “He thought he could fly over fire and not get singed.”
He could not accept that his child be vaccinated in accordance with the immunization campaign that the government was carrying out in the country. The people of Inkosi Mtepuwa were opposed to the vaccination. The Inkosi had told his people that the immunization campaign was a plot by the government to make their children impotent.
“We are labeled as rebels,” he addressed a gathering of his people. “This government wants to suppress our future generation. These vaccines are destined to kill the maleness of all the male children. As long as I, Inkosi Mtepuwa the first, am alive, none of my people will allow their children to be killed silently by the government.”
The gathering clapped hands. They loved their Inkosi. He had always been behind them, protesting against the government for failing to bring development into his area. Just some few years past he advised his people not to cast ballots to choose a parliamentarian for the area following the sudden demise of another.
“Why should we vote for people who do not help us? Why should it be our right to vote when it does not benefit us? Why should our people queue on long lines all just to send somebody into a house full of disagreements and foul language?”
His people believed him. Che Jalasi, the chief’s loyal lieutenant, was the eyes and ears of the chief. He was the architect behind several meetings held in the village reminding people that it was a suicide taking their children to the health centre for immunization.
“Our chief doesn’t say things he does not know. When he was working in South Africa, the apartheid government planned to poison the piped water that was meant for the blacks community so that all blacks perish. Is there any difference with this government that wants to kill the reproduction power of our children? This is a silent holocaust.”
Che Jalasi was even at the forefront of a group of protesters who run to the health centre, panga knives and spears in hands. He knocked the health assistant’s door open, grabbed him by the neck and get him seated on the veranda of the health centre.
“No more vaccinations in our community.”
The health assistant trembled at the panga knife that was held close to his neck, the very key that with only a single strike could open the iron gate of death.
“Do you hear me?”
“I…I...I am …” A slap rung thunders in his left ear as he scampered down. Words could no longer come to his lips.
Che Jalasi pinned down the health assistant on the neck . “The government is paying you to betray your people. You believe in their lies. During the days I was born nobody was vaccinated. Our people have grown up healthy without vaccinations. Since when have vaccinations become of great part of our people?”
As his meaty legs kept pushing him home, he rubbed dust out of his eyes. If only the health assistant could dream, he had to escape from the Mtepuwa kingdom. His life was mourning for the kid stripped at the back. He thought of the crippled legs. He would have loved to see his child growing up as athletic as he was, marshalling his young boys from the bully children of the adjacent villages, rise to one of the feared bodyguards either for the current chief or any other to follow. It was a pride to be a Chief’s lieutenant in Mtepuwa Kingdom.
One thing could not be erased from his mind. The health assistant at the health clinic home had bewitched his child so that all lies about the importance of vaccination appear to be true. What a coward, Che Jalasi thought, if the healthman was man enough he should have gathered courage to face him face to face, a knobkerrie by a knobkerrie, spear by a spear, and wrestle till the last man stands.
He stormed into his home village singing anti-immunization songs. People heard him, a cluster gathered and sped direct to the health assistant’s home.
“My son should walk. You can’t bewitch my son…,” he was perspiring.
The health assistant stood still, immersed in the sea of the eyes of the angering villagers. They had machetes, torn branches of trees, axes, stones and whatever weapon they could use to vent their wrath on the bewitching health man. He had seen the crowd demolishing his house and the clinic, setting everything ablaze.
Police vehicles screeched to a stop as baton wielding officers jumped out. Che Jalasi stood in front of the crowd as if he was an impenetratable barricade. They pointed guns at him and defiantly held a panga knife and spear in a combat stance.
“You are obstructing justice…” a pot-bellied police officer said.
“We are denying the power of the justice that wants to kill our children. We are defending the justice that will make our generations live.”
The police charged at him. He took one step back then swayed an axe over one policeman. It stuck on his thigh. Stones flew at the police as they let guns speak the language of law and order. Che Jalasi was shot in the right leg and arrested alongside Inkosi Mtepuwa the first and thirty other protesters.
In the prison he could not remember how long he had been fighting the bedbugs and fleas and the lice and the other tiny things that gave him sleepless nights. Two weeks must have passed as the wound on his thigh was rotting, stinking and giving out pus. From a distance his ears listened to the news bulletin on the winding-powered radio.
“We will fight back for our kingdom,” he said by himself.
The Minister of Local Government had just announced that Inkosi Mtepuwa the first had been dethroned by command of government for denying his people access to vaccines. The Ministry of health had also confirmed that 65 children were at risk of suffering polio in the Mtepuwa kingdom. The government had therefore demanded that immunization be carried out in the kingdom with immediate effect.
“Spare my child,” tears rolled down his cheeks. “Spare my child …” He fainted.
Nothing succeeded, Che Jalasi believed, unless there were men and women prepared to go out and fight and sacrifice. He was ready to fight for his child to walk again. He was ready to sacrifice for the mobility of his child. He had already sacrificed a lot. When his wife tried to vaccinate the child behind his back, he chased her and since then he had been living all alone with no intention of reconciling with the wife.
The spectacled doctor, a stethoscope hanging around his neck had talked to him as he was watching his face and saw how anger had tightened it and how veins had arisen up on his neck.
“The legs have been severely deformed. This child has been affected by polio. You must have not immunized him.”
His eyes protruded. “It is not your polio. Somebody has bewitched my child. Of all the children born in our village who have not been immunized, why only my child has to suffer polio. I know who has done this. I swear, I will beat him until my child walks again.”
The doctor was wrong. Something at the back of his mind was telling him who had bewitched his child. He would tear him to pieces. He had caught the snake by the tail and it had to bite.
“Poor moth,” he said by himself as he was hurrying home. “He thought he could fly over fire and not get singed.”
He could not accept that his child be vaccinated in accordance with the immunization campaign that the government was carrying out in the country. The people of Inkosi Mtepuwa were opposed to the vaccination. The Inkosi had told his people that the immunization campaign was a plot by the government to make their children impotent.
“We are labeled as rebels,” he addressed a gathering of his people. “This government wants to suppress our future generation. These vaccines are destined to kill the maleness of all the male children. As long as I, Inkosi Mtepuwa the first, am alive, none of my people will allow their children to be killed silently by the government.”
The gathering clapped hands. They loved their Inkosi. He had always been behind them, protesting against the government for failing to bring development into his area. Just some few years past he advised his people not to cast ballots to choose a parliamentarian for the area following the sudden demise of another.
“Why should we vote for people who do not help us? Why should it be our right to vote when it does not benefit us? Why should our people queue on long lines all just to send somebody into a house full of disagreements and foul language?”
His people believed him. Che Jalasi, the chief’s loyal lieutenant, was the eyes and ears of the chief. He was the architect behind several meetings held in the village reminding people that it was a suicide taking their children to the health centre for immunization.
“Our chief doesn’t say things he does not know. When he was working in South Africa, the apartheid government planned to poison the piped water that was meant for the blacks community so that all blacks perish. Is there any difference with this government that wants to kill the reproduction power of our children? This is a silent holocaust.”
Che Jalasi was even at the forefront of a group of protesters who run to the health centre, panga knives and spears in hands. He knocked the health assistant’s door open, grabbed him by the neck and get him seated on the veranda of the health centre.
“No more vaccinations in our community.”
The health assistant trembled at the panga knife that was held close to his neck, the very key that with only a single strike could open the iron gate of death.
“Do you hear me?”
“I…I...I am …” A slap rung thunders in his left ear as he scampered down. Words could no longer come to his lips.
Che Jalasi pinned down the health assistant on the neck . “The government is paying you to betray your people. You believe in their lies. During the days I was born nobody was vaccinated. Our people have grown up healthy without vaccinations. Since when have vaccinations become of great part of our people?”
As his meaty legs kept pushing him home, he rubbed dust out of his eyes. If only the health assistant could dream, he had to escape from the Mtepuwa kingdom. His life was mourning for the kid stripped at the back. He thought of the crippled legs. He would have loved to see his child growing up as athletic as he was, marshalling his young boys from the bully children of the adjacent villages, rise to one of the feared bodyguards either for the current chief or any other to follow. It was a pride to be a Chief’s lieutenant in Mtepuwa Kingdom.
One thing could not be erased from his mind. The health assistant at the health clinic home had bewitched his child so that all lies about the importance of vaccination appear to be true. What a coward, Che Jalasi thought, if the healthman was man enough he should have gathered courage to face him face to face, a knobkerrie by a knobkerrie, spear by a spear, and wrestle till the last man stands.
He stormed into his home village singing anti-immunization songs. People heard him, a cluster gathered and sped direct to the health assistant’s home.
“My son should walk. You can’t bewitch my son…,” he was perspiring.
The health assistant stood still, immersed in the sea of the eyes of the angering villagers. They had machetes, torn branches of trees, axes, stones and whatever weapon they could use to vent their wrath on the bewitching health man. He had seen the crowd demolishing his house and the clinic, setting everything ablaze.
Police vehicles screeched to a stop as baton wielding officers jumped out. Che Jalasi stood in front of the crowd as if he was an impenetratable barricade. They pointed guns at him and defiantly held a panga knife and spear in a combat stance.
“You are obstructing justice…” a pot-bellied police officer said.
“We are denying the power of the justice that wants to kill our children. We are defending the justice that will make our generations live.”
The police charged at him. He took one step back then swayed an axe over one policeman. It stuck on his thigh. Stones flew at the police as they let guns speak the language of law and order. Che Jalasi was shot in the right leg and arrested alongside Inkosi Mtepuwa the first and thirty other protesters.
In the prison he could not remember how long he had been fighting the bedbugs and fleas and the lice and the other tiny things that gave him sleepless nights. Two weeks must have passed as the wound on his thigh was rotting, stinking and giving out pus. From a distance his ears listened to the news bulletin on the winding-powered radio.
“We will fight back for our kingdom,” he said by himself.
The Minister of Local Government had just announced that Inkosi Mtepuwa the first had been dethroned by command of government for denying his people access to vaccines. The Ministry of health had also confirmed that 65 children were at risk of suffering polio in the Mtepuwa kingdom. The government had therefore demanded that immunization be carried out in the kingdom with immediate effect.
“Spare my child,” tears rolled down his cheeks. “Spare my child …” He fainted.
