My mother died at 49 years of age and her mother passed away at 45 years of age. However, my grandmother’s elder sister, whom I affectionately call my
My supergrandma while in Boston
supergrandma, is 86.5 years old and is quite the consummate rock star. She recently came to Boston from Uganda for a 3-month visit and she has taken to the US like a tilapia to water.
A retired teacher from the days when spanking insubordinate children was both expected and encouraged, she has an impeccable memory and her attention to detail is astonishing. Vibrant, as obdurate as a mule and Christian to the bone, she is a veritable cornucopia of wisdom and a treasure trove of historical delights. Save for the heart pacemaker that was inserted in 2005 in Uganda, she has Rock of Gibraltar-like strength and makes 86.5 years look like the new 57. Move over Oprah.
Over the course of the last two months, I have variously been presented with the conundrum that one of my Harvard professors, Prof Michael Reich, used to pose to us: How do you explain to your grandmother what public health is?
My supergrandma is of the opinion that, as a medical doctor and a supposedly distinguished son of the African soil, I should be engaged in gainful employment in the boondocks of Uganda saving the lives of our indigent citizens. She has told me perturbing stories of repeated drug shortages in her village Budhabangula and quacks who masquerade as doctors and swindle off unsuspecting village women. She tells tales of women who have died during childbirth because they have shunned poorly-staffed, ill-equipped and inconveniently located rural health centers. My own mother, she says, lost my newborn elder sister at birth due to a confluence of avoidable disasters. My three brothers and I are stunned at this sensational piece of news as this is the first time we have heard of the existence of a female sibling. Indeed, a recent report by the Uganda Bureau of Statistics backed up my erudite supergrandma’s criticisms of Uganda’s health system:
Although the report does not point out the reasons, it shows that deliveries at health facilities decreased from 34 % in 2009 to 32% in 2010.Health minister Christine Ondoa declined to comment. But the ministry’s spokesperson, Rukia Nakamatte, attributed the problem to shortage of health workers, especially in rural areas.
“Women in rural areas prefer local birth attendants because they think they will not be attended to in health centers. Others do not like the way they are told to lie while giving birth,” Nakamatte said. Information from the ministry and from World Health Organization shows that 16 women die every day in Uganda while giving birth. The country is also a long way from achieving the Millennium Development Goal of reducing maternal death by three quarters and improving access to reproductive health services by 2015.
Fluent in English, Lusoga and Luganda and now learning Swahili from me, my supergrandma is not familiar with oft-bandied terms like ‘brain drain’ and ‘money remittances from Ugandans in the diaspora’ but she has seen, first-hand, the impact made by professionals who emigrate from Africa to developed countries. Many of her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren are resident in Europe and North America and occasionally send her presents and monetary gifts that help her manage her daily existence through Uganda’s labyrinthine social system. Wary of fake or counterfeit drugs that are sold to unsuspecting Ugandans by a well-oiled cabal of Svengalis, my cousin Richard imports some of my supergrandma’s cardiac drugs from the UK for her.
Seated in the back seat of a mini-van on our most recent road trip to New Jersey via New York, my supergrandma had choice words for Uganda’s wobbly education system. Likening it to an insidious cancer that has been clawing at Uganda’s social fabric, she feels that the education system is in crutches, if not in need of CPR. She feels that Makerere University, East Africa oldest university and once touted as the ‘Harvard of Africa’, needs an urgent facelift and a heart transplant. She has had a finger on the pulse of Uganda’s education system for quite a while: She is a seasoned educationist and was once the headmistress of Buckley High School in Iganga, Eastern Uganda and has served as a noted councilor to the Kyabazinga (traditional king) of Busoga. Her sentiments are in tandem with those voiced by Richard Kavuma, a renowned Ugandan journalist, who took the liberty to clang away, hammer and tongs, at Africa’s institutions of higher learning in a recent article in the UK’s The Guardian:
Uganda’s Makerere reflects the crisis facing many African universities – how to fund higher education amid rising demand for places and concerns about falling academic standards.
Seeing how my cousin Dennis and Rachel’s wedding this past weekend was classy, intimate and poignant, my supergrandma wants to play a more active role in the next set of nuptials and chauffeur me during my wedding. With her white stunna shades, white gloves and a razor-sharp tongue and intellect, she would make an ideal limo driver through Boston’s road rage or Kampala’s boda-boda motorcycle-infested streets. Her only regret so far is that she is not on Facebook. Widowed in her mid-thirties and after only ten years of marriage, she had four kids to take care of on her own. Neither Bill Gates nor Steve Jobs were born by then.
My supergrandma loves tea but I’m not sure she understands what the Tea Party is. Also, ever since we visited the John F. Kennedy Presidential Museum and Library a while back, she is adamant that I arrange a meeting between her and President Obama. Apparently, she painstakingly hand-wove a special seating mat for him and brought it here from Uganda. I have earnestly launched a series of Twitter and Facebook onslaughts on the White House citadel, el presidente and his Press Secretary Jay Carney and hopefully they will relent pretty soon and have her over. A state dinner would be nice.
My supergrandma asked me what she should speak to Obama about apart from profusely blessing him and his family. I remembered that Kenya’s Daily Nation recently reported that the US Congress might cut off $1.2 billion budgeted for Kenya’s portion of the Global Health Initiative monies. That would be a wonderful conversation-starter. Maybe she can also ask him to explain what public health is.
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