The Relationship Blog

The Relation Ship!
By I.Ronica

Hello World! You can tell this is my first ever blog! Bear with me!
The other day, I sat (or was I standing? Hmmmm, I digress!) thinking to myself, this entire world is based on relationships! Within the animal and human world, the flora and fauna, even among the animate and inanimate objects! The wind is in a relationship with the sand! It determines how fast and how far the sand will blow! My mind is boggled at the vast array of relationships that exist!
(Note: I ponder on stuff…a lot! Even when I don’t really want to…)
This got me wondering about how the world revolves around relationships. These relationships fall into two distinct categories (in my opinion). They are either symbiotic (mutually beneficial) or parasitic. Then I thought further, what category do I fall under in all the relationships I am involved in? As a son/daughter, brother/sister, friend, student, husband/wife, father/mother, business partner, mentor?
The more I thought about it, the more I realized that we are not as equipped as we should be to make a success of our relationships. (Divorce rates, estranged siblings, business fraud, global warming! etc)
I don’t claim to be an expert and I freely state that the opinions expressed here are just that, opinions!
And so we begin.
Here’s to a symbiotic relationship, where I get to express my opinions and you (hopefully) benefit from it in someway even I could not have imagined when I put pen to paper (more like fingers to keyboard!)

I. Ronica

The Relation Ship
As a parent coming from a background where one learnt how to be nimble in order to avoid the inevitable trouncing that accompanied a misdemeanor, I was determined to find (and practice) all the alternatives to smacks and smackdowns! It was hard! Extremely hard! Especially when your child is gazing back at you, as if waiting for you to blink first. I must confess, I lost the battle a few times (okay, so it was more than a few times) but I am here to tell you that the war can still be won! I knew I had won the war when one day, I told my child in the most menacing voice “You are going to smell it today”. To which he replied “Smell what?” I was shocked into silence. He was truly puzzled “Mummy, what am I going to smell?” he persisted in asking. I just shook my head, laughed, and told him, “Nothing!” I am sure he thought I’d gone round the bend because I smiled so widely, my mouth hurt. That was the phrase that would send my little heart beating because it presaged a beating. Yet it failed to raise a flutter in my sons’ chest. And, boy was I glad.

I am not an advocate of no smacks whatsoever. That, in my opinion, is making a rod to beat your back with in old age but you should consider the size of your child and the severity of their crime before smacking them. Above all, smacking should be the very last resort as this represents a loss of control on your part as the parent.

Let us rewind a little. What do you, as a parent, do to discipline your child?

First of all, you train your child. It sounds so simple but it is one of the hardest things to do in today’s world full of deadlines and distractions. A lot of people only train their children when they are smacking them. “Is that what you were meant to do? Can’t you see how dangerous that is? Why did you hit your sister?” Folks, this “training” is after the fact. They should have been told repeatedly till it sunk into their souls, the right thing to do BEFORE they did the wrong thing. This is the hard part of parenting that reaps untold benefits. The repetition. Repeat! Repeat! Repeat! That is the way children learn. Even at school, you repeat your times tables till it is written on your heart! If you don’t teach your child the right way to behave, why do you think you can smack them for not doing the right thing? This only breeds resentment and rebellion and guess what? There comes a stage when they grow bigger than you as well as stronger. So what kind of smacking are you going to give them? Then, the government will “smack” them for you!

I leave you for now with a few tips.

Establish ground rules: These can be discussed and agreed with your children if they are five years old and above otherwise just tell them what the rules are.
Establish consequences of breaking said rules: Consequences should be:
1)What the child does not like
2)Something that can be given as soon as possible (do not delay and always follow through)
3)Something you are comfortable with
4)Something you can use anywhere (I have seen countless children throw an unholy temper tantrum in an environment they are confident their parents will be so embarrassed by their display that they will acquiesce to anything to get them to stop. You should therefore have a consequence that you are not embarrassed to use anywhere!)

Now comes the hard part. Repeating those rules and consequences till it sinks in. Giving them a period of grace within which they learn these rules of acceptable behavior. Finally, sticking to the rules and following through with the consequences. A lot of parents just don’t follow through.
I have to stop here for now but watch this space for more tips!
I will also be touching on a subject close to my heart – name calling. Names are so powerful. This is why when we choose the names of our children we ponder their meanings carefully. Why then, after taking so much care in naming them, do we then proceed to call them horrible, soul killing names like stupid, idiot, and fool?

I. Ronica

The trickle down effect

By Dolapo Babalola, MD

I thought I was off to a great start on this particular Monday morning, but little did I know what was before me. I actually wasn’t doing too badly at first. I left home for record time–my children were settled in the car and I had successfully dropped them off at their various schools.

It was now time for me to make my morning commute calls when I felt the fresh breeze against my scalp, at that moment I thought little or nothing of it. I was done with one or two of my calls when suddenly I looked up at the mirror on the driver’s side sunvisor and to my amazement, I noticed that I left my hair at home.

My hair, you would question, but yeah, I wasn’t wearing my spare hair, the one that saves me in times of emergency. This is the one hair that holds me, until I can finally find time to get my real hair done. The irony of this was that I was barely ten miles away from work, and in a few minutes my first patient will be placed in the examining room.

I was speechless! For the next few minutes it felt like time stood still. I wondered “Do I drive almost 40 minutes back home or do I proceed to work looking unprofessional and explaining to everyone why I am in such a state?” I had to get off the next exit to deliberate for a few minutes, and then I decided to return home after calling the charge nurse to inform her of an unforeseen emergency. Yes, I considered my unprepared hair an emergency (if you know what I mean), even in spite of my full schedule on the first work-day of the week.

As soon as I got home, I located my spare hair (fancy wig:-)) and off the door I went. To say the least, the rest of the day went bananas’. All together I was scheduled to start seeing patients at 8.15am, but I didn’t get to work until about 9.30am. I tried on several levels to try to catch up, but it was totally impossible. All my patients choose this perfect day to all show up for their appointments. Mercy here, people!

This is when I thought of the “trickle-down effect.” If I had only picked up my fancy wig from the sitting room when I saw it and didn’t procrastinate to do it later, maybe, just maybe I wouldn’t be in the predicament that I was in. A day filled with confusion, failure to keep deadlines, quick in and out of patients’ rooms and of course missing my chit-chat time with my patients and work staff. For the most part, I am generally an organized and proactive person, but I guess this day got the best of me. I was only so glad to see the day end and I vowed never to let this happen again.

A day like mine might sound familiar to you on one level or another. I figured that as the year, 2010 comes to an end, what are the steps we can take to becoming effective in everything we do in the New Year, 2011? Time is a precious commodity and it equates to money. What we make of our time can either make us or break us in the future. Remember the popular saying, which goes thus; “time is money and money is time.” The interesting thing is that once that time is spent and gone, unfortunately you can’t get it back. Imagine, children growing right before our eyes, if we do not invest core values in their lives at their tender age, when will it happen? Can you fathom spending a minimum of $80,000 annually for tuition and unfortunately you wasted that whole year learning nothing. You can always make the money back, but not the time, experience or knowledge.

The “trickle-down effect” is rooted from proper time allocation, which if well-grounded and on the right path leads to a happier, wonderful life, and more time in the day for other relevant activities. I don’t know about you, but I would like to think that we all want to manage our time well, so we can be successful in every facet of our lives.

Come to think of it, proper time management actually can put you ahead of the most brilliant people in the community. You just need to know how to play the cards right and that’s where the acquired knowledge comes in.

I researched a few things that might just enable us to work in a productive and efficient manner in the coming year, 2011. Believe me when I say, this is for me as much as it is for you. These are steps we could adapt to our spiritual work, family time, careers, obligations, etc. So please, take this journey with me as we evaluate how to efficiently manage our time into five main categories;

Set goals:

1. These goals are what you are trying to accomplish both as short time and long time in the different facets of life. Examples are; setting goals for two weeks from now to five years from now.
2. Write down your “To Do List.” This certainly goes a long way; write it down in groups so it doesn’t become overwhelming. An illustration is a child told to go and clean his messy room. He says “I can’t, it’s too messy, and I don’t know where to start?” The Dad tells him to first start with laying the bed, which he does successfully. Then he is told to pick up the toys, which he does and you know the rest. Little by little, we can get things done if we prioritize.
3. Stephen Covey 4-quadrant “To do list” in the figure below is a helpful tool towards prioritizing appropriately and moving closer towards your goals and aspirations. Please, participate in this exercise and see what you would discover. Great time management means being effective as well as efficient. Managing time effectively, and achieving the things that you want to achieve, means spending your time on things that are important and not just urgent. Let’s discuss the distinction:
Important activities have an outcome that leads to the achievement of your goals.
Urgent activities demand immediate attention, and are often associated with the achievement of someone else’s goals.

How to avoid wasting time:

Be organized! Avoid the clutters! See it fit to own the essentials such as a speaker phone, Bluetooth or earpiece, paper-recycling bin, notepads, post-its notes, and address stampers.
Have you heard of the 80/20 rule? I bet you have. Well, the key thing to understand is that a very small number of things in your life that are going to contribute the vast majority of the value. If you’re a salesperson, 80 percent of the revenue is going to come from 20 percent of your clients. This is the same way that it is said to train up a child in the way they should go and they wouldn’t depart from it. Or imagine; forgoing your quiet time in the morning to rush out unarmed for the day ahead. Let’s make use of our 20%, which will end up empowering our 80%.
“Experience is the best teacher,” failure to gather experience is costly and time-wasting. Whatever will make you productive or efficient, learn, inquire, ask, or read about it. Experience comes with time and it’s really valuable, and there are no shortcuts to getting it.
My favorite quote: “Failing to plan is planning to fail”. Planning starts from the beginning of the day, it exists for next week, even next month. I have heard people say “But it makes life boring or locked in.” Really, it doesn’t make you locked in, you just have a plan to use as basis to start and modify as the changes come along.
Doesn’t anyone detest interruptions as I do? This is usually my downfall, my whole day gets threw off by this. Research shows that interruption takes typically 6-9 minutes, but then there’s a 4-5 minute recovery to get your head back into what you’re doing. Its cost can be infinity. A few ways to reduce both the frequency and the length of these interruptions are to inform others of no interruption moments, turn off all phones and electronic gadgets (if you cannot ignore it).

How to delegate to people:

Delegation can be hard, trust me I know especially if you are a type A personality, wanting things to be perfectly done, etc. But I realize that nobody operates individually anymore and you can accomplish a lot more when you have help. A few helpful tips to getting to perform this role well;
The first thing is if you’re going to delegate to someone, grant them authority with responsibility. You give them the whole package; time, resources and support. This is especially seen in the home, when the wives ask either the children or husband to assist with house chores but end up complaining when things are not done their way. This is a “No No.” Imagine, next time, they would prefer for you to perform all the duties on your own and this eventually leads to burn-out.
Don’t treat delegating work as a dumping. “I don’t have time to do this, you take care of it.” Treat well, with dignity and respect and it would make this whole a happier place (a place of division of labor).

Procrastination:

As the saying goes; “Procrastination is the thief of time.” Why do we procrastinate? Some, for the simple reason that the task might just go away, or they figure they could be more effective under pressure or maybe you’re just not comfortable with the task. The key balance here is to understand that doing things at the last minute is really expensive. It’s just much more expensive than doing it just before the last minute, for obvious reasons. I discovered some helpful solutions to procrastinating
Discover the reason for procrastinating in the first place. Is there some emotional feeling behind it? Work it out and proceed with the task at hand.
Make up a fake deadline and act like it’s real. This is cool because these deadlines would push you to finishing your task without the pressure that accompanies real deadlines.

Stress:

Stress is a normal physiological response of the body to situations or stimulus which are perceived as ‘dangerous’ to the body. Stress can affect anyone and everyone at some point of time in their life. When it occurs frequently it affects health – both physical and mental. A few well known and obvious entities can prevent us from being in a frequent state of stress. To start with, we need to believe in a Higher being and for me, that is the Almighty God (whom I highly recommend), others are maintaining healthy eating habits, ensuring a minimal of eight hour sleep and of course exercise, the good old exercise, which can be in multiple forms. Without these four main cores activities, everything can fall apart including remaining productive and efficient through the cause of the day and of course the year–which relates back to my initial illustration of my new found phenomenon “The Trickle-Down Effect”

Ask yourself this question, do you want to be effective versus being efficient or maybe a little bit of both in the New Year, 2011? The goal is that as we practice a few of the above pointers, it would stir us all in the right direction in all aspects of our lives. So I wish you a Happy New Year and Make it a Time-Wisely spent 2011!!!

Dolapo Babalola is a debut author of a Christian Inspirational Book titled “My God: Even in the Last Minute” released September 2010. She is the oldest of four children, born in Lagos, Nigeria in the mid-1970s to Dr. and Mrs. Adeoshun. Babalola is also a practicing family physician in clinical and academic medicine at Morehouse, in the Department of Family Medicine, Atlanta, Georgia. A graduate of University of Guyana Medical School, she completed residency training in Family Medicine at Morehouse Family Medicine Residency Program. Though a debut author of a Christian Inspirational Book, she has participated in several professional activities as research projects, presented at conferences, published in peer-reviewed journals and is a manuscript reviewer for the Journal of the National Medical Association. She is blissfully married with two amazing daughters. Dolapo is adventurous and loves to challenge herself. She enjoys spending time with family, dancing, writing, listening to music, and being inspired to reach higher grounds. Dolapo can be reached via her website: www.mygelm.com blog: http://mygelm.wordpress.com email: mygelm@gmail.com

Lessons from the pool party!

So last summer, I went to a pool party for a friend’s daughter. There were a lot of attendees from my church (which is incidentally a Nigerian church) and I was slightly self conscious about wearing a bathing suit in public, but since my daughter had been looking forward to the party and harassed me all week about it, I knew I couldn’t cancel and she also determined that I was going to get into the pool play area with her since she was a little bit afraid; Her words, my fault for not starting swimming lessons earlier. Anyway so again I was in this get out of my comfort zone situation. I dug out my bathing suit and put in on Saturday. I had to man up and make it work. I looked at myself in the mirror and I cringed at first. Then I talked myself into it…two arms, two legs, nothing broken, nothing missing…oh jare…thank God. But I found a nice thigh length cover up and my Jackie O sunglasses and off we went. And you know what, I had a good time, now of course, ever watching…here is what I learnt.

Get into the water!
You know, we as women have such issues with our bodies. No matter how big or small, there is always a perceived flaw that we hate about ourselves. However this cannot stop us from living our lives. Our bodies our designed to serve us, not the other way around. I for one have many flaws and some people have even felt the need to apprise me of some of my flaws, since I guess they figure I don’t have eyes and cannot see…but these days I am growing up and I laugh. I was telling my sister when I came back, that you know, I am becoming a grown up, because truly as I waded around that pool, thunder thighs and all, I could care less, what was more important to me was sharing this wonderful experience with my little one, who was splashing around confidently, well once she put a life jacket on.

Have Life Jacket, will travel.
This leads me to my next observation. A few of the kids around my daughters age and younger were a little scared. But there was this one kid who just blew my mind. He was about 3 as well and he had his life jacket on and while the mums were navigating getting their little ones just to wade around in the shallow area, this boy took off into the deeper area and floated with the machine generated current. As my daughter and I swum through that area, I heard the life guard asking him, having grabbed him as he was about to float past, if he could swim. The little boy replied, No, but I have my life jacket! I laughed and I had an epiphany. That is how we should be in life. We have a life jacket! God is our life jacket and so what sense does it make wearing a big ole life jacket and still wading around in the shallow end. Go into the deep and go somewhere and be somebody. All those little kids had the same thing this little boy had, but he was the only one that recognized the power of what he had. And he stayed afloat and had the time of his life.

Don’t be afraid to be undignified
There were a few people who looked at the pool longingly, wishing they had brought their swimming suits and while these women undoubtedly had a good time, hanging and talking with each other, think how much more special this time could have been, over a shared experience of splashing around and trying not to get your weave wet…I’m just saying. You can only live while you are alive and these experiences will not wait for you. Pastor Helen, I call her the funky pastor, ah, she no send at all…she was there with her swimming suit sans cover up and speedo cap for her hair and she got down with it. She had no concern for how she may have looked, her own was to have a good time. She totally rocks and on Sunday, she was at church same as always, looking dignified. There is a time for dignified modesty and there is a time to let loose. Let loose y’all! Nigerian women are especially guilty of this. Vive la fete! Long live the party…Life is not always serious…enjoy the party because one day, you may not be able to.

Anyways as always, be well…be blessed.

As for me…I might pull out that bathing suit a couple more times this coming summer…!

Want to lose weight and get healthy?

Make your goals a reality this year!

It’s a new day! EwellAfrica wants to encourage you to transform your life and make your dreams a reality this year.
We all have things we want to do this year, ideas we want to explore, to do lists we want to work through; we start out the year making great resolutions about how we are going to lose weight, rearrange our priorities, maximize our talents and more. However what often happens is that we start out strong but lose steam somewhere along the way. Here at EwellAfrica, we have discovered some tips to help you accomplish your goals and we plan to share them with you as the year progresses.

The first tip is: Get an accountability partner.

What is an accountability partner? An accountability partner is someone who helps you stay on track with the goals that you have set for yourself. The relationship can be two way, where you both check each other or one way where they only check you.
The idea is not a new one; it is one that has been utilized in various industries and organizations. Many religious leaders use this model to help them stay focused on their beliefs and not stray into temptation, business people use this so they don’t get off track or lose momentum as they deal with day to day issues. It is also an effective tool in managing one’s health.

Many Africans, like ourselves tend to act as if life is something that happens to us, as if we have no say in the matter whatsoever. Now this is true in cases of car accidents or cancer or other tragedies that have robbed many of long life, but we do have a responsibility to do all we can do for ourselves. When we ride in a car, we may not be able to control the other drivers but we can drive safely within the speed limit and put on our seat belts. Likewise, we may not be able to prevent cancer in its entirety but we can be empowered with information about carcinogens and be mindful about what we put in and on our bodies. We may not even be able to stave off diabetes or high blood pressure but we can reduce our risk factors for the disease. An accountability partner helps us keep focused on our responsibilities and our goals.

How does it work?
1. Schedule a regular meeting time with your partner or partners, you can have more than one, in fact some people do it as a group and encourage one another, almost like a support group. When you meet the first time, discuss your goals and create an action plan to make it happen.
2. Discuss the way that you would like him or her to be your coach. Are you a tough love kind of person? Does someone being harsh with you get you going or shut you down? Are you someone who needs gentle encouragement with lots of positive reinforcement? What is your partner’s style of communication?
3. Commit to meeting at a certain frequency and commit to allowing yourself to submit to their authority over a certain period.

How does one choose an accountability partner?
You really can’t just pick anyone to be your accountability partner, for the process to work, the person has to be someone who can help keep you on track and so that person has to have a combination of a number of factors.

1. Influence: You need to choose someone who has some influence over your behavior. Someone whose opinion matters to you. If you choose someone who is too afraid to tell you the truth, clearly it will be a waste of time and if you choose someone who when they tell you the truth, you will ignore their pleas then it is also a useless exercise. Find someone who when they talk, you actually listen and whose opinion you truly value.
2. Ability: Choose someone who has an understanding of the goals that you are trying to achieve. Telling someone who has no concept of healthy eating that your goal is to eat healthier this year and that you want them to hold you accountable won’t really hold water, because when you tell them that you over indulged in ice cream and have fallen off the wagon, they will say “no problem, next time call me when you are headed to Ice cream factory”. Choose someone who knows where you are trying to go and understands how to get there.
3. Ready: Choose someone who is ready to be your partner. Someone who has the time to devote to you and the energy that it will require. You may have a friend who has influence over you and knowledge about your situation but she is in the middle of starting a new business. While she has the above two factors, she simply doesn’t have your time at this point in her life. Just as someone who just had a life changing event, like a new baby or change in marital status is not ready either.

Utilize these three factors as a guide to choosing your accountability partner and work with them in the appropriate manner and you will find that you are well on your way to achieving your goals! Bon Voyage!

This year, Rewrite your story!

Chimamanda Adichie has a wonderful speech she gave on TED about the danger of a single story, it has been referenced several times because it makes such a wonderful point about how Africa is viewed by the world at large. I was thinking about that talk this morning as I thought about life…actually.

The other day I shared an interesting article with a dear friend and she got stuck on a phrase about that had touched a raw nerve with her. She stopped reading after that and totally missed the message. I kept saying did you read this part or did you see that but she had already checked out. I started thinking about how we sometimes get stuck.

When I think about my life, I often think about it as a grand epic…and that’s not just because I am a bit of a drama queen, I think everyone’s life is supposed to be a grand epic, whether you are destined to be an Oscar winning actress or a school janitor. Our stories are comprised of experiences that are both positive and negative, characters that are both heroes and villains, situations that are both pleasant and bitterly uncomfortable, and yes even more…

Definitely we all have disappointing and painful experiences, I myself have found myself in frustrating situations; there were those that could have described my whole student life as being broke or in the red. I recall my 84 camry that I drove with pride though there were times that it could barely drive and in the summer I had the option of using the a/c or accelerating. I once had to leave it locked with the engine running because if I turned it off, it wouldn’t start again, this was my story…but those years were also filled with amazing times with friends, drinking cheap wine out of paper cups, times when lunch was eating all the samples at the food court at the mall and my camry was not just a car, it was the Batmobile and could save up to 8 people from trudging in the bitter Boston winters. Even my car had more than one story.

And now that chapter has ended with the turn of a page and those days are a fading memory. If we define ourselves by one aspect of our lives, we miss all the peripheral stories and risk becoming one dimensional characters, never fully evolving, never fully understanding the fullness of our own existences.

Sometimes we get stuck defining ourselves by our failures. One of the men I respect the most now is a man who if he told you the atrocities of his youth, you would sit aghast, yet his life is an inspiration now to all he meets. He owns the fact that his past is part of the tale of his life but he doesn’t get mired in the shame of his mistakes and failures. He owned them and became better and turned the page. There are those of us who allow the shame of our past to distract us from the matter at hand, which is simply turning the page and being better, our mistakes, failures and deficiencies shouldn’t define us. Like a woman who spends her life lamenting the fact that she is yet to get married or that she married the wrong man, she will miss out of the fact that she is alive and breathing and that every moment provides a new opportunity to create a new story, as a matter of fact the story is already unfolding all around us, like a stage being set, all we have to do is plug in and be present… read our lines “again! With feeling!”

And if we get lost in our successes, we will become has beens before we know what hits us…I read an interview with Adaobi Nwaubani who I will forever be grateful for reminding me how hilarious our speech patterns are…and she was asked if she felt pressure to write another book and she said “my whole life is not about my writing”. What more is there to say?

Life is more than just the sum of its parts. More than the fact that you are not where you want to be right now, more than the fact that you made some really bad choices that will affect your future, more than the fact that your thighs rub together, more than the fact that your collarbone sticks out, more than the fact that you were heralded last night for some act of heroism, more than the fact that you were awarded the MacArthur genius grant. Life is more.

So live. Gosh darn it. And stop letting one chapter of your life stop you from being who you are really meant to be. Stop letting one villain turn you into a victim. Stop letting one success make you into a one hit wonder.

Your life is meant to be an epic, don’t turn it into a novella.

Deliver us from ignorance.

By Adaobi Oniwinde

I feel compelled to share the following profound experience in the hope that this experience will be shared and maybe even save a few lives–if not from death, from ignorance.

Friday, January 16th: Approximately 8:30 AM–Lagos, Nigeria

I’m running late to work because my 4 month old decides he wants to play and my nursing schedule gets thrown off. I call my trusted nanny whose sole job is taking care of Tobi to come and get him so I can leave for work. No answer. I call her again, no answer. In utter frustration, I make my way to my daughters’ room to look for her. No sign of her. I call her again and she answers in a muffled voice, “Ma I’m here.” Where? I ask. “In Kemi’s room,” she muffles, sounding drunk or high.

Furious now, I yell, “You are NOT in Kemi’s room. I AM!” I make my way downstairs with the baby and there she was. She had a deep, fleshy gash on her forehead, scratches on her arms, clinging to my Christmas tree reindeer (yes, my Christmas tree was still up in mid January!). More horrifying is that there was blood on my walls and vomit at the base of the stairs. My nanny was cold and staring at me extremely calm. She was oblivious to the fact that she was bleeding. I also notice that her movements were jerky, and she seemed confused.

Scared, I go back upstairs to put Tobi down and away from any potential drama! I immediately go back to attend to the nanny. By this time my second nanny has arrived at the bloody scene and screaming. She takes a look at the injured nanny and is yelling at her, asking her what she has done to herself. My injured nanny is still conscious but non-responsive. Then came the bombshell–this is a spiritual attack! My second nanny– I’m confusing myself with nanny 1 and nanny 2. This is not fiction–Bunmi and Kachi are their names. Kachi declares, hand on head, “Aunty this is spiritual attack!” My entire staff of drivers, gateman and nanny are scared at this point and have declared Bunmi a freak, possessed and evil using various names in local tongues I will not attempt to spell.

I take her outside and very calmly tell her that I am not angry, but am very afraid and need to know what happened to her. Again, very calmly, “nothing ma.” I ask her why she is bleeding. Her response? “Where ma?” I tell her to touch her forehead and look at her arms and all she says is “Nothing ma.” At this point I ask her if she understands what I’m asking her and she says yes. Progress–she can communicate. I tell her to go and take a bath and instruct Kachi to stay with her.

In the meantime, I am making frantic phone calls –to my sibblings, her family and doctors I knew. I see blood and a fleshy wound and I’m thinking–medical attention. I also call everyone I can on her phone and can’t reach anybody. I finally reach her brother and ask him if she is sick or has any illnesses I need to know about and if such a thing has occurred before. Of course the answer is, “No ma.” Luckily, I instruct her brother to inform the parents that something has happened and that I am taking Bunmi to the hospital…

Bunmi takes a shower and comes back to my view. Meanwhile paranoid drama is playing out on my compound. Ogbanje! Spiritual attack! She is possessed! Ekwe-nsu! Hew! Tufiakwa! And no one will go near her. I calmly try to reach her again and ask her if is she hungry, “No ma.” Are you hurt? “No ma.” Silly me–did you wound yourself? You dey fight with somebody? “No ma.” At this point I am crying and just want her away from my home. Then came my Eureka moment. In a whisper, she says, “I just know I fall down ma.”

In a second, it all came together. I remember a loud thud while I was nursing Tobi and I remember thinking, “Oh Gawwd! What have these jokers broken now?!” But I thought nothing of it. It all made sense to my educated non-spiritual attack believing self. I wanted to hug her! Bunmi fell face down about 10 steps and hit her head on a stone floor and passed out! The poor girl had a concussion and must have come out of it when I was yelling her name. I cried out of guilt. This poor girl was obviously in pain and confused and there she was being condemned by people standing over her. Everything made sense now. Like an investigator, I put all the evidence together–the cracked stone at the base of the stairs. The loud thump. The bloody finger marks on the walls that led to a guest bedroom. She had obviously been wandering in her confusion. The vomit. The muffled response that sounded like she had stuffed her mouth with food. The foaming around her mouth (to be explained later).

It all made sense and I felt so bad. My guilt turned to anger and then fear. Anger, that someone’s child lived in my house and could have died as a result of a lack of compassion from the same people who care for my children. Fear at our collective ignorance as a people and our instinct to always turn to the para-normal to explain what we don’t immediately understand. The girl had a concussion, people! There was no spiritual attack whatever the heck that means!

Half relieved, I call an unclce who runs a hospital. I brief him and he confirmed my theory. She had to get to a hospital right away for observation. Scans had to be done to rule out any internal bleeding or injuries as a result of the fall. Meanwhile, in my frantic search for an explanation, I had called everyone in her address book looking for parents. “Broda Femi “was the only one I could reach who understood English. He was later instructed by their mother to get her out of my house and bring her home. Fine with me. Thank you Lord, I didn’t have to tell her she couldn’t work here anymore–the fall was still not explained and I was just freaked out by the whole thing.

Bunmi comes out to a waiting car with bags packed. I tell her family she will leave quite alright, but not from my house–from a hospital after she had been seen and discharged to a family member. My Nigerian peeps understand this very well! Before they say….

Mind you, it is now about 11 and not a day in which working from home is an option. I have to send Bunmi to the hospital and I have to get Tobi to my sister’s as Kachi couldn’t handle 4 kids alone, plus school runs–the baby being in the car without me was not an option anyway! So one driver takes Bunmi to the hospital with strict instructions not to leave her until Broda Femi arrives and they call me to confirm.

I sit in the car finally en route to Freeman House and the mind games began. What if she had been carrying the baby? That player was soon banished from my thoughts (and I now understand how people use the mind to erase ugliness!) Then there was what if she died? What if I wasn’t there? What if she had been left to suffer or worse still the warriors against spiritual attacks caused her more harm? Or killed her.

There was no spiritual attack!

Finally get to work and settle in to work around 1 PM (NOT!). Told the story to a few colleagues, who jumped the gun with the “spiritual attack” theory! Educated people o! Then came the phone call from the hospital. She had to be admitted and observed for a minimun of 48 hours. Worse still, I had to put down a whopping deposit of N XX, XXX before she was seen. Two things were wrong with that–A) Can we respect life first? and B) I had never spent that much on medical for myself or my kids!!! So I call uncle. He explains that they need to do scans, tests, observe her for two days, the works! The good news was that I would ONLY have to pay the deposit and cost of drugs for the whole treatment! My head said, “you’re effing kidding me right?” But my mouth misunderstood the message and I heard my self say, “Thank you sooo much uncle.”

THEN, came the real shocker (did I say that already?). Bunmi has Epilepsy and had suffered two major seizures in the space of about 4 hours. The foaming of the mouth, the shaking (which thank God I didn’t witness). The collapsing and confusion after she came out of the fit! There was no spiritual attack!

Bunmi was discharged on Sunday night with strict instructions from the doctor, translated by Broda Femi, (she understood English, but this extra insurance) to take her drugs and that this is not a shameful thing. Turns out there’s even a word for the condition in Yoruba. The family of course denied any knowledge of such a thing or Bunmi having it. I could actually believe that ( I hear you all screaming “come on!!”) because in the three months she worked for me, it had never happened to the best of my knowledge. Its possible that she had a mild case (as my eight year old always says, “Bunmi is so clumsy!”) I’m willing to believe it was a mild case aggravated by the fall.

There was NO spiritual attack!

My nanny/aunty relationship with Bunmi ended on Sunday night after hanging up with her mother (and Broda Femi as translator). She’s a great kid–has genuine love for Tobi (less patience for the older ones, but they did like her and even begged to go to the hospital) but her job was solely the baby and I couldn’t keep her trusting she would never skip a pill or not carry the baby she had grown to love (I think!). Most importantly, I don’t want to ever have 3 nannies again (been there and no fun feeding my family of 6 and 3 women each of whom eats more than my husband and I put together!)

Monday morning en route to work and the “what if “games begin again. What if she had been carrying him when this thing happened–I actually completed the thought and this time there was no banishing the player. She wouldn’t leave. I cried and then called my sister and brother who admitted they thought it but couldn’t say it. Everyone had the same scary thought but wouldn’t even utter it, understandably.

There was NO spiritual attack. But there was an attack–a severe, brutal and potentially fatal attack. It was an Epilectic seizure. Not fatal for the most part, if controlled by medication. Yet this girl could have died. She could have been left there to bleed to death while everyone took cover from satan! Worse still, the warriors against spiritual attacks could have waged a just war and killed her to protect madam’s family!

How sad. How very sad. I now find myself praying that God not only deliver us from evil, but deliver us from ignorance.

Hmm maybe we should add that line to the Catholic “Prayer for Nigeria in Distress!”

Epilepsy is a common chronic neurological disorder characterized by recurrent unprovoked seizures.[1][2] These seizures are transient signs and/or symptoms of abnormal, excessive or synchronous neuronal activity in the brain.[3] About 50 million people worldwide have epilepsy, with almost 90% of these people being in developing countries.[4] Epilepsy is more likely to occur in young children, or people over the age of 65 years; however, it can occur at any time.[5] As a consequence of brain surgery, epileptic seizures may occur in recovering patients.

Fast Education
Culled from wikipedia
“Epilepsy is usually controlled, but cannot be cured with medication, although surgery may be considered in difficult cases. However, over 30% of people with epilepsy do not have seizure control even with the best available medications.[6][7] Not all epilepsy syndromes are lifelong – some forms are confined to particular stages of childhood. Epilepsy should not be understood as a single disorder, but rather as syndromic with vastly divergent symptoms but all involving episodic abnormal electrical activity in the brain.”