Page 65 - Msingi Afrika Magazine Issue 16

Health & Healing

need it most.

With the Covid-19 crisis, a crisis that
has no cure, a crisis where every-
body is talking about vaccination,
without realizing that indeed diseas-
es are eliminated by treating them,
not perpetual vaccination. We are
celebrating the reality that indeed we
have medicinal plants of Afrika that
can cure any ailment: be it Ebola, be
it Covid-19, be it HIV/AIDS, be it
incurable TB. We are lucky to still Herbal medicine market in Nigeria
have the remnants of the medicinal
plants in natural forests and we are occurred, because we ate right, we them when they are stored, and oth-
also lucky, as we celebrate this year’s drank our medicinal teas, herbal teas er chemicals are added to mitigate
Afrikan Traditional Medicine Day, and ate medicinal food when and against their perishability. All those
because we still have people like me as the need arises, the way the wild chemicals, once they are eaten in our
who have been practicing for the last animals do in the forest today. As we food, they end up in our blood-
50 years, who were able to inherit talk here and now, we have a whole stream, in our livers, in our kidneys,
some of the very original knowledge range of diversity of wild animals in our brains and it’s not surpris-
that has enhanced our survival on in the Aberdares, in Mt. Kenya in ing that we have a whole range of
this continent. We are celebrating the background. These animals have diseases that never existed four, five
the fact that we have not only the been there for millennia without a decades ago, which are emanating
resource, which is very diverse, but vet, without hospitals, without vac- from constant intake of poisons
we have also a lot of indigenous cinations. How come they survive in our food, in our water, in the
knowledge that goes with Afrikan in an area where we are unable to contaminated air in urban settings.
traditional medicine.
survive? They survive, because they And even as we do what it takes to
have maintained their instincts, they survive the Covid-19, we must start
However, even as we celebrate Af- have enhanced their way of life in accepting the reality that we have
rikan Traditional Medicine Day, we respect to coexisting with the reality hit the limit of the toxicity that our
must demand that our government and coexisting with nature. environment can take. The limit is
establishes an inventory of Afrikan such that unless we start detoxifying
indigenous knowledge, the stock of My appeal, as we celebrate the our environment by avoiding usage
the knowledge within the Afrikan Afrikan Traditional Medicine Day of toxic fertilizer, toxic pesticides,
traditional knowledge spectrum and, on the 31st August, this year, is that toxic chemicals in our water, unless
in particular, Afrikan indigenous we get as close to nature as possible. we stop polluting our air, sooner or
medical resources: be they plant, be As you are all aware, urbanization later, the environment in our urban
they minerals, be they animals. That has terribly dehumanized us, in that, setting, like in Nairobi, will be unin-
which we have used for millennia, when we are confined to Nairobi, habitable. And indeed, our newspa-
when we didn’t have the convention- Mombasa, Nakuru, Kisumu and the per clearly indicated that unless we
al medicine the way we know it to- rest of the areas, the setup is such reverse what is going on in Nairobi,
day. The realization that conditions that you eat what is available there, Nairobi will not be habitable in an-
like Ebola, conditions like Covid-19, regardless of its purity, regardless other 4 to 5 decades from now.
conditions like incurable TB, quite of its balanced nature in terms of
a number of emerging diseases nutrition, regardless of its purity in So, we are appealing to our people,
have no cure. In addition, we have respect to lack of toxicity. The foods with or without Covid-19, with or
many emerging non-communicable we are eating in Nairobi are coming without Ebola, with or without
diseases like diabetes, hypertension, from commercial plantations where HIV/AIDS, I think it’s a high time
arthritis, epilepsy, a lot of which poisonous chemicals are used day in we start a campaign of urban to
have no cure, globally. However, we and day out to kill pests, to enhance rural migration, where we lower
have lived with them or we lived in the growth of the crops, to protect the density of population in urban
an environment where they never

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