In Zimbabwe, the joke if you do or say something 'crazy' is that you are going to be sent to Ingutsheni, the 'nut house' but I find it a very sad place. The history I have read about it is mixed. It was set to be the showpiece of the Empire at one time. Nowhere, not even Australia, had the sort of facilities and doctors that they had. Nowadays, people collect food to take to the patients there and the facilities are extremely limited. I really wonder what sort of medical advice and treatment is actually administered.
Trying to find information about the past is difficult. Not many people want to talk about their time there. Someone knows someone who spent some time there or worked there, but details are not forthcoming.
Three years ago, we had an American professor come to stay. He and his son and daughter-in-law arrived very late one wet, windy night. There was a definite tension between him and his son whose mouth was set in a firm, determined line. The daughter-in-law didn't say a word and walked around with her arms wrapped around herself, as though at any moment a lion was likely to jump through the window.
He told me that he used to live in Zimbabwe in the 1970s. His daughter was born with various mental and physical disabilities so he and his wife put her in a home. When she was seven, they moved back to America and they left her here and occasionally visited. Around the year 2000, the home contacted them and said that, due to lack of funds, they were going to close and the children would be rehomed in Ingutsheni. They come out once to see if she was all right and three years later, she died.
He was very honest; he said he was impressed with both the children's home and Ingutsheni and that he and his wife felt they had done the best thing for her by leaving her here and not taking her to America.
I wonder what his wife would have said.
He told me that he used to live in Zimbabwe in the 1970s. His daughter was born with various mental and physical disabilities so he and his wife put her in a home. When she was seven, they moved back to America and they left her here and occasionally visited. Around the year 2000, the home contacted them and said that, due to lack of funds, they were going to close and the children would be rehomed in Ingutsheni. They come out once to see if she was all right and three years later, she died.
He was very honest; he said he was impressed with both the children's home and Ingutsheni and that he and his wife felt they had done the best thing for her by leaving her here and not taking her to America.
I wonder what his wife would have said.
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