[PDF] MEMORIES WE LOST ANALYSIS FOR KCSE CANDIDATES

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Lidudumalingani Mqombothi 

Focus

·      Challenges faced by the sick (mentally ill) and their families.

·      Caring/Showing compassion and love for the sick in our midst.

Key events

·       Running out to the fields in the middle of the night (P 10)

·       The head injury (P 11)

·       The hot porridge (P 12)

·       The incident in class (P 13)

·       Games in the rain (P 14)

·       The ritual (P 14)

·       Father’s departure (P 15)

·       Milking the goat (P 15)

·       The escape (P 17)

“Memories we Lost” is a story about the challenges of caring for a mentally challenged patient in the midst  of ignorance and superstition. The story is told through the eyes of the patient’s sister. The story highlights the sleepless nights, the injuries, and disruption of education, the needless medication, the brutal “healing procedures” and rituals, among other issues surrounding schizophrenia. 

Synopsis 

The twelve year old narrator gives us insights of living with a patient struggling with schizophrenia-a mental disorder without cure. We should accept challenges and offer compassion and care for the patient

The story is set in South Africa where the villagers wallow in ignorance. They refer to the illness as “the thing”. It appears and disappears like ghosts. The narrator prays to God and ancestors to help her sister.

Schizophrenia impairs the speech and memory of the patient.

One day the patient runs away from home. All the villagers wake up in the middle of the night to help look for her. They organize disoriented search parties that comb the murky village in search for her. After a long unfruitful search, they return feeling defeated. The narrator’s mother does not return until she finds her daughter.

“She would scream at intervals as is to taunt me” (pg 11)

At other times, she would inflict injury on herself. She bangs her head against a wall until she bleeds. The narrator wishes she would inflict injury on herself. The narrator wishes she would stop this thing with horns, spikes and oversized head. She imagines the pain of knowing a monster is coming for you but you can’t run. The patient bangs her head until she cracks the old mud wall and leaves blood on it. A ‘sangoma’ (traditional healer) is called to cleanse the spot.

In November it was worse. It causes the patient to drop out of school and disrupts the narrator’s education. One day at school the patient smashes a window using a desk and breaks a chair against a wall. She also screams bringing learning activities to a standstill. The sight of her sister calms her down.

She is forced to drop out of school. Her sister feigns illness in order to skip school and be with her. She stays at home until her sick sister begs her to go to school.

Since people are ignorant about schizophrenia. The patient is given tons of needless medication, taken to sangomas and churches for impotent healing and prayers.

The patient stays away from school for very long time that her sister who is three years younger than her catches up with her and goes two classes above.

Luckily her sister learns some facts about her condition- schizophrenia; a mental illness that has no cure. Since she cares for her sister, she insists that she deserves to feel something. The first step she takes is dumping the medicine and asking her sister to only pretend to take it.

The medication and other ignorant ‘remedies’ combined with the illness and has resulted to loss of speech. The patient is forced to use gestures and insert a few words while trying to communicate with her sister. She realizes that her sister needs love and compassion.

“I need no words”

Without the needless medication the patient could feel again. They even play in the rain; they began forming new childhood memories, filling the void left by the ones that had been wiped out. They laugh and jump but this worries their guileless mother.

The patient is subjected to many rituals that bear no fruit. Church sermons sangomas promise healing in a matter of time but these miracles have proven elusive. They even offer the ancestors sacrifice in terms of tobacco meat and matches which are only stolen by thieves. They stab a goat for blood and meat the villagers curse “the thing” and refer to it as the devils work and demons. They don’t ,however, care about the sick girl.

The girl’s father also had schizophrenia. He disappeared from home on a horse. His condition was kept a secret. The mystery surrounding this condition has made it difficult to control.

One morning, the narrator eavesdrops and overhears her mother telling her uncle that she (together with Smellyfoot) were making plans to take her sister to a Sangoma called Nkunzi who uses callous means to “cure" demon possessed people like her sister. He would make fire from cow dung and wood and ties a patient section of zinc roofing then would potentially kill the patient. The caring girl couldn’t allow this to happen to her sister.

That evening they run away from home. She tells her they are going to see a sick aunt. They go past a village (maybe philoni) and walk all night until they come to a hospital.

Surely such a patient only needs love, compassion and professional care by a doctor. 

Moral Value

We ought to care and love for the sick among us. 

Main issues in Memories we Lost

·        Problems/trials/obstacles of schizophrenia (mental illness)

·        Love, hope and care for the patient make life more bearable

 

Challenges experienced by schizophrenic patients

a)    Loss of speech

·        The first thing this thing took from us was speech; unfamiliar language, trembling words, relaying unthinkable revelations from the gods (p10)

·        Screaming words I did not understand, talking our own language, she only nodded and shook her head (p13)

·        She & I began to communicate again, we invented our own language, she had stopped talking, simply gestured to each other, inserted a few words here and there, connected by laughing, crying, holding hands (p14)

 

b)    Loss of memory, consciousness, reality

·        And then it took our memories; the memories faded one after the other until our past was a blur (p10)

·        she had transformed into someone else, she was not here, when she gained consciousness she was shocked and devastated,  she began to recognise herself (p12)

 

c)     Running away from home

·         Screaming and running away from home, waking my mother and me, abducting the entire village, men, women and children (p10)

·        searched for hours, mother searched all night, returned the next day (p11)

·        The medications and rituals did not work, my mother said, my sister needed to go see Nkuzi, Nkuzi was a sangoma, baked people like my sister, tie demon-possessed person and placed them on a fire (p17)

·        I could not allow this to happen to my sister, after sunrise we left together, we were going to see a sick aunt (p17)

·        We had no idea where we were going to sleep, eat live; won’t return home, until mother dies, we were running away from home, the real story would destroy her, she had a mental disorder, walked all night – morning was close, could see modern buildings – hospital 

 

d)    Injury

·         My sister banged her head against the wall until she bled (p11)

·        always hoped that I could stop it (desperation), hitting the back of her head against the wall, tried to grab her, to make her stop, cracked the wall open with her head, left blood on the wall (p12)

·        She threw hot porridge on me; abducted her, she flung the pot across the room, my chest was not that fortunate, the pain was unbearable, she was shocked & devastated when she regained consciousness, told her I had poured hot water on myself by mistake, she would never forgive herself (p12)

 

e)     Education is interrupted

·        It followed her to school & she had to drop out (p12);

·        she was so strong, out of control, flung a desk, smashed a window, broke a chair against a wall, screaming words I did not understand, eyes turned red, entire body was shaking, I could see this thing leave, could see my sister returning, missed so much school over the years, I caught up with her, went two grades above her (p13)

·        I went truant from school; every morning I threw up, convinced my mother I was sick, she asked a schoolmate to tell the class teacher I was sick, I want to be in the same class as you; mother, the teachers, the principal will never allow it, yes they will, spent a week doing sketches; she could sketch me, another me, more happy, less torn, existing elsewhere, she begged & begged me to go to school, my week of absence had gone unreported, this bothered neither my class teacher or me (p13)

 

f)      The treatment

·        My mother took my sister to more sangomas, more churches, gave her more bottles of medication, became unresponsive, only nodded & shook her head, the teacher told us about schizophrenia, this is what my sister had, medication she had been taking would never help her, it was destroying her (p13)

·        there was no cure, my sister deserved to feel something, got rid of her arsenal of medication, this is going to be our secret, we dug holes and buried the roots (p13)

·        Get rid of the medication drink, take an empty sip, throw it out the back window, poured her medication, took an empty sip, it was our game (p14)

·         she began to recognise herself, we began to communicate again, we invented our own language, she had stopped talking, we began to love each other again, we connected again;  staring into the landscape, mountains, horizons, laughing, crying, holding hands (p14)

·        We jumped in the rain, my sister returned, she jumped, she laughed, we began to form new childhood memories, we lay on the wet ground, felt free (p14)

·        The medications and rituals did not work, my mother said (p17)

 

g)     The rituals

·        Village gathered outside our house, yet another ritual meant to cure my sister, been through many rituals & church sermons, nothing changed, sangomas and pastors promised that she would be healed within days, sangomas healing worked, tobacco, matches, meat left out for ancestors wasn’t there in the morning, they believed ancestors had healed her, this came again, the sacrifices had been stolen by thieves, women chatter and sing, men come in silence, children run around playing, everyone moved in a chaotic choreography (p14)

·        women gossiping about my sister, emotionless, tears rolled down our cheeks, goat stabbed in the stomach to summon ancestors, we came out of the house, hugged tightly, wiped tears, holding hands, fingers intertwined (p15)

·         villagers shouted insults at the thing, elders called it the devil's work & demons, none of them knew my sister, non of them cared (pg 15)

·         The medications and rituals did not work, my mother said (p17)

 

h)    Ignorance

·        Led to more suffering

·        There was never a forewarning that this thing was coming, came out of nowhere as ghosts, mumbled 2 short prayers; to God and ancestors, every time this thing took her she returned altered, unrecognisable,  two people were trapped inside her (p10)

·        with horns, spikes, an oversized head – how I imagined it looked, a monster, a sangoma came and cleansed the spot (p12)

·        My mother took my sister to more sangomas, more churches, gave her more bottles of medication, became unresponsive, only nodded & shook her head, the teacher told us about schizophrenia, this is what my sister had, medication she had been taking would never help her, it was destroying her, there was no cure (p13)

·        She had been through all rituals, church sermons, sangomas, pastors, nothing changed (p14)

·        villagers shouted insults at the 'thing’, it remained unknown to them, elders called it the devil's work & demons, none of them knew my sister, none of them cared (pg 15)

·        The medications and rituals did not work, my mother said, my sister needed to go see Nkuzi, Nkuzi was a sangoma, baked people like my sister, tie demon-possessed person and placed them on a fire (p17)

 

i)       Father disappeared, family separation

·        Mother torn defeated, why God gave this thing to my sister and my father, father disappeared, it was a buried secret, left one day on a horse, never came back, it has been 20 years (p15)

·         mother replaced our father and us with Smellyfoot (p17)

 

j)       Nkuzi-sangoma

·        “baking” people like my sister, Fire from cow dung and firewood, Tie down demon-possessed person to zinc roofing, placed on fire, no one lived after that, I couldn’t let this happen to my sister, ran away from home

Ignorance results is suffering

The sick girl suffers more because of the people’s lack of knowledge rather than her condition. The incomprehension about schizophrenia makes the patient suffer since the perceived remedies only compound her situation.

 

“This thing”

·       The patient's sister calls the disease “this thing”

·       It came out of nowhere like ghosts do

·       Her primitive solution is mumbling two short prayers to God and the ancestors (Pg10)

·       She hopes she could see the thing, with a view of stopping it

·       She deems it a monster with horns, spikes and an oversized head (Pg12)

·       Villagers shout insults at the “thing” – it remains  unknown to them

·       Elders erroneously refer to it as the devil’s work and demons

 

Sangomas and Pastors

·       The people put too much faith in sangomas and pastors

·       A sangoma comes to cleanse the blood-stained spot where the patient had bludgeoned her head (Pg12)

·       The girl is taken to more sangomas and more churches (Pg13)

·       Sangomas and pastors promise she would be healed within days (Pg14)

 

Medication

·       Apart from the visits to the sangomas and pastors, the patient is given many bottles of medication

·       This impuissant remedy makes her unresponsive

·       Her sister learns that she has schizophrenia – a condition without a cure

·       The medication would never help her – it is destroying her

·       Gets rid of the medication (Pg13)

·       She begins to recognise herself. The girls begin to communicate again (Pg14)

·       The medication does not work (Pg 17)

 

Rituals

·       Conduct rituals supposedly to cure the girl

·       She has been through all rituals and church sermons but nothing had changes

·       Sangomas and pastors promise she would be healed within days

·       The elders once triumphantly hail sangoma's healing – the meat, tobacco and matches left out for the ancestors was not there in the morning. We later learn they were stolen by thieves when the thing returns

·       The rituals involve men, women and children (Pg14)

·       Women stand gossiping about the girl

·       The patient’s face becomes emotionless

·       The girl's mother tells a visiting uncle that the medication and rituals do not work (Pg17)

 

Nkunzi

·       Mother plans to take the patient to Nkunzi, a sangoma from remote village, famous for “baking” people like the sick girl – claiming to cure them

·       He tied the demon-possessed person to a zinc roofing and placed it on a fire made from cow dung and wood

·       Claimed to be baking demons the demons – the patient would recover from the burns after a week

·       This callous procedure is potentially fatal (Pg17)

·       “I could not allow this to happen to my sister”

·       They run away from home

MEMORIES WE LOST SAMPLE KCSE ESSAYS

Write a composition on the challenges experienced by the sick girl and those close to her, citing illustrations from Lidudumalingani Mqombothi's 'Memories we Lost' (20 Marks)

read full essay on memories we lost 

Write a composition entitled: Caring for the sick in our societies basing your illustrations on Lidudumalingani Mqombothi's "Memories we Lost".  (20 Marks)

People with mental illness need love and compassion. Write an essay in support of this statement basing your illustration on Memories we Lost. 

Memories we Lost Analysis 

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