Real Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind?

I should admit straight away, I really did not like the film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. I found it loooonnng , sleep-inducing and utterly confusing. But... I did find the concept of being able to erase someone or painful memories from your mind really appealing! Like life imitating art, scientists have actually been able to make erasing specific memories possible in rats. Other science types have gone further and been able to do the same thing in humans using chemical-free behaviour therapy.

At first I thought it was a great idea but now I'm alot more skeptical. Aren't memories good for our learning and development? Don't bad experiences, bad people, bad relationships create danger signals in our head and help us avoid making the same mistakes twice? What memories would you earmark for deletion?

World AIDS Day 2009

Some have observed that there is growing global indifference when it comes to the fight against HIV/AIDS even though the epidemic continues to rage on. As part of World AIDS Day 2009, I just wanted to highlight some figures from the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV (UNAIDS) to reflect on how the HIV/AIDS epidemic has impacted on our world:

• Since the beginning of the epidemic, almost 60 million people have been infected with HIV and 25 million people have died of HIV-related causes.

• In 2008, some 33.4 million [31.1 million-35.8 million] people living with HIV,
• 2.7 million[2.4 million-3.0 million] new infections and
• 2 million [1.7 million-2.4 million] AIDS-related deaths.

• In 2008, around 430 000 [240 000-610 000] children were born with HIV, bringing to 2.1 million [1.2 million-2.9 million] the total number of children under 15 living with HIV.

• Young people account for around 40% of all new adult (15+) HIV infections worldwide.

• Sub-Saharan Africa is the region most affected and is home to 67% of all people living with HIV worldwide and 91% of all new infections among children.

• In sub-Saharan Africa the epidemic has orphaned more than 14 million children

Sobering facts and harsh realities. 


Also in the news about HIV/AIDS in Africa:

• South Africa's Jacob Zuma praised for new AIDS approach
  

• South African army fights HIV stigma by allowing HIV positive South African soldiers to be  to be deployed overseas if they pass a battery of fitness tests.
  

• Uganda proposes death penalty for HIV positive gays. 

• Women and girls remain the worst affected by HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa, accounting for 60 percent of the overall HIV infections.
  

Progression and regression in the fight against HIV on the continent?

Return of the Prodigal Gardener

We had an unexpected visitor one Saturday morning a few months ago. After a mysterious 3-month absence our gardener nonchalantly strolled into the yard with a big metal cross around his neck. The whole household was excited to see him and we welcomed him with breakfast. Of course the big question on my mind was "Where the @#$@#$ has he been?" It later emerged that he has been staying in a prayer camp in the Akwapim mountains casting out his demons... literally. Although our gardener seems like a quiet, polite young man apparently he has been wrought with 'spiritual' problems for a while. 

Prayer camps offering 'treatment' for mental health issues are not a new thing in Ghana. Around May this year, the BBC's West Africa correspondent Will Ross did a documentary on the phenomenon in Ghana. What he found was  sad, appalling and down-right embarrassing. He visited a prayer camp where mentally-ill individuals were chained for hours. According to the BBC report:

"With only four practising psychiatrists in the country and a stigma attached to mental illness, doctors say the only way to cope with the workload is to work with the Church-run camps."

Ironically, there are most probably more Ghanaian psychiatrists in just one zip-code in Manhattan than there are in the whole of Ghana! A snippet of Will Ross's documentary can be seen here:

Scene from the BBC Documentary on Prayer Camps in Ghana 

BTW; Where is BBC reporter Will Ross these days? It appears he has relocated to Nairobi  but someone forget to tell us!

Oddly-enough, my family and I are no strangers to gardeners with mental health issues. Back in Southern Africa, we had a  gardener who never showed up for work one day. Days turned into weeks which eventually turned into years. One sunny day 2 years later, our gardener returned wearing the green uniform of a  mental institution close to our house proclaiming  loudly that he had come "to reap what he had sown". While my big sister and I stood perplexed, he headed straight for the garden and got to work!  Being the immature 10 year old, I immediately took off and left home leaving my 17 year old sister to deal with the erratically behaving gardener down in the garden.  Luckily she made a couple of calls and he was picked up by some nice people who took him back to the mental institution from where he had made a dramatic escape that morning. Understandably, it took my sister sometime to forgive me for that one!

 

Flash-forward to Ghana; Our gardener now lives at the prayer camp full-time. He is 'receiving treatment' and comes down to pay us a visit once every month. Personally, he does not strike me as having any mental problems at all but has been convinced by others that he does. I bet he tends the prayer camp gardens pretty darn well....hmmmm.