Throes Of Bad Roads, Neglect

pregnant women and nursing mothers all became casualties.

Thirty- year- old Elohor Siakpere is one of the prominent women in Esaba. She is the woman leader and the village hairdresser. On July 19, 2015, her labour pains began; it was her fifth child. “The labour pains started in the night and in the morning we entered the canoe and went to Warri,” Elohor said.

She was lucky to have made the journey on the river, but her luck ran out in Ukperhren.

“I got on a motorcycle that would take me to Warri, but because the road was bad, we kept falling off the motorcycle. It was a painful experience for a woman in labour to enter a canoe and also fall off the motorbike many times, it was like I was going to die,” she said.

Elohor survived her ordeal. But more bad news awaited her. In the hospital, doctors said she had lost the baby and an operation was conducted to evacuate the fetus. Since then, the picture of the child she couldn’t have has remained, haunting and driving her mad.

Elohor was lucky to be alive. In August 2015, pregnant Mrs. Dora Oritsheju, a resident of Otutuama, was not that lucky. She died with her baby, again in the canoe, on her way to the hospital. The death of Mrs. Onojirhayie Waka was most painful.

On September 29, 2015, while leaving her house, she slumped; neighbours rushed to her aid and an herbalist was sent for. After one hour of battling for her life, she died, right in the hands of the herbalist.

The people bemoan the lack of health care in Esaba and other communities.

According to Darah, since the hospital was shut down, over 50 children have been born in all the communities. The process involves dragging the woman in labour to the canoe and taking her to the general hospital in Warri over the river and unmotorable roads. “Many of them give birth in the canoe; some of the children die. In all, we have lost about five children because they could not access healthcare on time. The clinic here saved our lives; we plead that the government should send us a nurse fast before we all die,” he pleaded.

Elohor said the greatest problem facing the women is the road which made pregnancy less enjoyable and labour a deadly affair.” That is our problem,” she started in a low voice. “We don’t have antenatal and from the beginning to the end of pregnancy, it is problems. The only problem is the road, it prevents workers from coming here and also the residents from accessing the rest of the world,” she said.

The situation has forced the people to reorder their lives; husbands are afraid of going into their wives for fear of endangering their lives if they become pregnant. Fear rules the community as a small injury may prove fatal.

“Since the nurse died, we have made adjustments to child bearing, we are afraid to even make love, we are afraid of any injury,” Madaki said.

But the herbalists have profited from the absence of government healthcare, with disastrous consequences for the people. In Esaba, shrines dedicated to gods abound everywhere. “Since the nurse died, many people have been patronising the herbalists either for health care or for child bearing,” a resident said.

One of those likely to patronise traditional birth attendants is Etete Patience.

The 40- year- old is in the last trimester of her ninth pregnancy.

The delivery date is not looking too good as she would have to be transported in a dugout canoe to the Otujere. “I am not looking forward to that day,” she said.

She has a good reason, her house is far from the riverside and the peril of the journey to Otujere may put her life and that of the baby in jeopardy. That was how Elohor lost her baby and almost her life. “I want to give birth here, in my house,” Etete said, a frown playing on her face, it was a firm decision to patronise the village herbalist despite its dangers; she would rather face that uncertainty than a grueling journey on the river.

If Education Is Expensive, Try Ignorance

THE people of Esaba did not take education for granted; the Emoghwe Primary School was established in 1957 and for many years remained a mud school building. Today, the school is roofed and plastered and modestly kept clean. There are over 200 children in the school and facilities are beginning to be overstretched.

There is no secondary school in the five communities of Owahwa; the closest secondary school is Adadja Secondary School in Emadadja. Though only about 10 kilometres away, Emadadja is not for the faint- hearted as students would cross the river and traverse a difficult and almost impossible mud ridden road to school.

It was 3: 00pm and activities were high at the Esaba riverbank. On the river, one could see some canoes being paddled by school children rowing gently towards the shore. In one of them, Samson Ogheneremo, Benson Ayorome and Otor Christabel talked excitedly. They are Senior Secondary three students of Adadja Secondary school.

Directly across the river, about 20 students had just wadded through the muddy road, their legs were kneel deep in mud and on getting to the river as if on cue, they all jumped into the water and began to wash their feet.

“This is the way we go every day; we would trek the muddy road and when we get to Ukperhren, we wash our feet and on coming back we do the same. It is a difficult journey but we have to go to school, if the road is good, it would make it easier,” one of the students named Benjamin said.

For majority of the students who could not afford the fare for the canoe, they simply wait for the community raft which can contain at least 10 people at a time. It is operated free of charge by the community. To pull the raft, a rope has been tied at both ends of the river; the rider would pull at the rope, slowly drawing the raft to its intended destination. As long as the rope remains intact, all lives would be saved, but if the rope snaps, one’s survival would depend on his swimming skills.

“We are used to living like this,” Christabel said. She is a rugged woman who wears low cut hair and unafraid to speak her mind. “We can never drown on the raft because it is strong and all of us can swim,” she said. Now preparing for her West Africa Senior School Certificate ( WASSC) examination, Christabel and her friends have little time for rigorous study; neither do they hope to come out of the examination in flying colours.

But despite the hard and impossible conditions under which the people live, they cling tenaciously to their culture and ways of life. The women in addition to farming are experts bamboo cane weavers.

One could see by the bank of the river, their expert hands cutting the bamboo, which would then be made into fish trap and other utensils. In the evenings, they gather at the various beer joints to drink away the day’s sorrow and fashion out a solution to the myriad of problems confronting them. If a general assembly is to be called in the community town hall, a flute, made from cow horn known locally as the Ogbon is blown by one of the youths. The ogbon resembles the horn used in the Middle East.

It is heard in every corner of the community and a signal that something important is about to be discussed. Communities like Esaba, located in the oil rich Delta State, are a habitual reminder of the enormous work needed to be done by the government of Nigeria to meet the Sustainable Development Goals ( SDGS). At least more than half of the 17 goals are lacking in Esaba and other communities.

In spite of the government, the community has devised a self- sufficient way of coping with every situation through direct labour and taxes. “That is how we have been living; we tax ourselves and live as a community. But how much can poor fishermen do by themselves, that is why we need the government,” Darah said.

In the air, the smell of death pervades the community. No one is sure where the death knell would sound. Etete looked out of the corner of her eyes and gave a weary smile. Any moment, she would fall into labour and if that happens in the night, she already knows what to do. “I will stay here in my house and give birth,” she repeated, with a fervent obstinacy.