Page 33 - Msingi Afrika Magazine Issue 2

ISSUE TWO | SEPT/OCT

spirituality is the other one, where people as long as I live. It is my This is compromising the dignity
we are godly. We all know that we right to pass on the heritage - that and integrity of traditional
are created by a bigger force than was passed on to me - to others, medicine. 96% of the people who
us, Who gives us the rain, Who sustainably. In such a way that it are practicing are quacks. Hardly
gives us the soil, Who gives us the will help those who come after us, 3-4% are healing, because of
plants, Who gives us the animals, the way it should. I picked a little lack of support, lack of regulation,
Who wants us to coexist with them bit from my grandmother, maybe lack of legislative protocol that
the way they are, such that even due to the interest, the genes, the promotes and regulates. Were it
mosquitoes we don’t want them passion, but I have refined and not for my passion, I would be a
exterminated. They are part of the developed it considerably. I am manager somewhere, because
ecosystem. They were created by in the process of doing what I’m I can do many other things, I
the same force that created us, for calling Practitioner’s Comparative would be a lecturer or a teacher
a purpose, and they play a role. Encyclopedia of Medicines of the anywhere because this line is
You exterminate mosquitoes, you World; I’ve been doing that for terribly stigmatized and it has too
create an imbalance and you will the last 39 years now, comparing many challenges, such that even
probably get a worse crisis than common medicinal plants of the my children are not interested in
Malaria. world, comparing their usage in it at all. They argue, they know
I didn’t want to be a traditional different ecological set-up. Finding I’m educated, they know I’m
healer; my intention was not to be out how use Bidens pilosa, that is very passionate, they know I’m
a traditional healer. Having been stinging nettle in India, how they aggressive, yet I have suffered
in the colonial era and having use it in China. Is it the same way more than anybody else they
suffered, I lost my father in it, I we use it here? know. If I can’t survive it, they can’t
was beaten in it, I took part in it to The need for this came because survive it because they have not
whatever extent, having seen the a lot of our indigenous medicinal gone through the challenges and
struggle we went through to get plants are being overused. The that worries me. The other day
our independence - I was thinking resource we use as herbal medicine in a TV interview, I told them I
our indigenous knowledge was is the same resource that charcoal worry about both the resource and
a resource we could not afford burners use to get their charcoal. the knowledge. We are losing it
to forego, and it was dying. My It’s the same resource that the wholesale, to people who know and
intention was to look for ways saw-millers split into timber and value the resource more than we
and means of rejuvenating it, of sell as timber and off-cuts. It’s the do, who can access it secretly and
polishing it and integrating it with very same resource that people literally take away whatever they
whatever we need to borrow, when cut to build traditional shelters, can. Like the prostate medicine
we need to borrow. So that we can including bomas (shelters) for in conventional medicine is from
also share knowledge with others, cattle in Maasai and Somaliland Prunus Africana, it’s from a plant
like others have contributed within and all these other areas. The here and a lot of it was cut in the
human civilization. I’m 74, and multi-purpose usage of the Rift Valley, exported to Europe en
at my age I’m very concerned resource makes it very threatened masse and refined. These are the
that I haven’t had the impact that and the fact that while the building drugs we buy. Prunus makes very
I wanted because my thinking sector has been regulated and good timber too, so it’s becoming
and my concern hasn’t been streamlined, energy sector has a very scarce.
addressed to date. The Traditional component and experts; traditional Take the concern of microbial
Medicine Bill has been lying in medicine has nobody looking at resistance to antibiotics, which is
Parliament for 20 years while it, we don’t have a bill. Without a global concern - in Europe and
parliamentarians are passing a bill you’re not defined. It’s the America they are very scared and
other bills, especially those which bill that defines what traditional are using trillions of dollars on
are related to their welfare, within medicine is, who traditional research for alternative antibiotics
a week. A week! The traditional healers are, how they get in, how because conventional antibiotics
medicine bill was adulterated and they should conduct themselves are not curing pneumonia,
it was cannibalized, they came out and how they should be supported gonorrhea, syphilis and so on.
with a little provision in the Medical technologically, financially and This is happening because we
and Poisons Board, just a skeleton legally. Without that anybody can have been exposed to antibiotics
which doesn’t help us with our be a traditional healer. If you came indiscriminately for too long.
interest. with someone and I showed him
Our interest is: as Kenyan and one plant tomorrow, and I told Please continue this interview on
traditional healer, I have a right to him it does Malaria, he can be a page 74.
serve the people. It is my right to traditional healer and he can open
contribute to the well-being of my a clinic anywhere.

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