Not one blow, but many. It was the day on which Nona Najeema Ajeesh, heavy with her third child, came back with the report indicating that her second son was having a snau amaruwa (neurological problem) that her husband assaulted her for the last time and left their humble home forever.
That day is seared into her memory. March 28, 2008 was the day an EEG (an electroencephalogram, a test that measures and records, through special sensors attached to the head, the electrical activity of the brain) was done after which she heard that her little boy was having myoclonic epilepsy, a condition that needs long-term treatment.
But for 37-year-old Najeema, that has become the most difficult thing to manage, because let alone finding money for the bus fare to go to the hospital clinic once a month, there is not even a cent in their humble home down Jumma Masjid Road, Maligawatte on some days to keep starvation outside the door. They are totally dependent on the handouts of family and friends, which some days are not forthcoming.
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| Nona Najeema Ajeesh |
Although life had been a struggle for Najeema, the tougher times came after her husband deserted her and the two children, a daughter who was 12 and the second boy who was three, last year. “I was expecting our third baby when he left. Since then he calls once in a way but scolds us in filth. He doesn’t send us any money,” she weeps. Her husband is a sergeant in the Air Force currently serving in Kantalai and she suspects that he has “another family” in Anuradhapura.
Even when she went into the Castle Street Hospital for Women to have the third baby, another son, now suckling at her breast, it was only her daughter, who has become the strength of the family, who came to comfort her after labour.
The girl too has not been free of illness, having undergone surgery for hernia twice. But she soldiers on with a smile on her face, going to school whenever possible which is about twice a week, for lack of uniforms, pens, pencils, books and such stuff that children from affluent families take for granted. “Most days we starve. My daughter goes to school on an empty stomach,” says Najeema, hastily adding that whenever her husband calls and shouts obscenities at them, it is she who tells him not to do so. They find it difficult to pay their “light and water bills” and Najeema says she shows her son’s medical records when the officials come to cut off the supplies, pleading for time to get a loan.
Some people and organizations, this desperate family has turned to, have helped in little ways, while others have turned both a blind eye and a deaf ear………….“may be because we are not traditional Muslims, we are Malays and some of my relatives wear jeans,” says Najeema.
What of alimony for her children? Najeema has to seek justice and payment from the “Kali court” (the Muslim Quazi court) and this needy woman asks how she can hire a lawyer to fight her case.
Now Najeema is desperate because her sick son not only needs many hospital visits but also nutrition. They realized something was wrong when he didn’t talk and couldn’t walk. He also jerks (gessenawa) when he sleeps. “But how can I feed him when we eat one meal a day sometimes and none on another day,” she sighs, adding that she cannot go to work because she has a babe-in-arms whom she is breastfeeding.
Medical sources, when contacted by The Sunday Times, said that myoclonic epilepsy, is a type of epilepsy, and the little boy is prone to daily seizures. He needs long-term treatment. At present he is being given the first-line of medication which is dispensed from the hospital but when he needs the second-line of medication, the mother will have to buy it from outside. Najeema has pleaded with the doctors not to increase the dosage of some of the medications even under the first-line of treatment as it enhances the appetite of her son and she simply cannot feed him more than what she is giving him now.
Amidst all these vicissitudes Najeema is determined. While pleading for help from people, she says her sole purpose in life is to pull her son out of this ailment and see all three children grow up.
Najeema, however, reaches the depths of despair, when sometimes she hears her daughter telling her estranged husband that her only wish is for “something” which the whole family can take to end “this miserable existence”. |
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