Secrets of a Pepto Bismol casa.

Secrets of a Pepto Bismal Casa explores the journey of a young, Mexican American girl named Martha in Laredo, Texas, in 1990. The novel is set in first person point-of-view and is split into two threads--what occurs in 1990, the past, and what occurs in the present, some forty years later. Martha is abandoned by her mother in Laredo with her grandmother, who doesn't speak English and who Martha does not know. Abuela, Martha's grandmother, is a curandera, a Mexican folk healer whose position in the community is that of physical curer, spiritual guide, and secret-keeper of her patients. However, Martha discovers that these are not the only secrets being kept. Many secrets are being protected by her family, all of which seem to center of her mother's escape from Laredo eighteen years earlier and the reason for her mother's current disappearance

The right to legal capacity in Kenya

The report highlights the voices of people with mental disabilities themselves for the first time, outlining the need for substantial legal and social reform, and provides comprehensive recommendations to bring Kenya in line with international law, and specifically right to legal capacity guaranteed by Article 12 of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD)

Spatialising Illustration

As an illustrator I reflect on human behaviour and the psychological effects of space through drawing. I use people I have met and whose lives intrigue me. Taking a woman I know, I observe and draw. ‘She sat at the table in the sparse kitchen. It had belonged to her grandmother, and her mother before her.’ (Regan, 2012) This quote is taken from the illustrated book I have created ‘The Set,' it is significant in introducing what I discovered about space. Space is not physical and universal. It is personal and formed in the mind. ‘The Set’ explores a woman and the spaces she inhabits. I visualise and try to make sense of this by drawing

Through the Cracks

This collection of five short stories and two essays shows women, at various stages in their lives, dealing with darkness. Each female protagonist, including myself in the essays, is confronted with difficult truths about the world around them. In the short stories, the darkness includes a supernatural element that is often, but not always, horrifying. “Inanition” looks at what happens when a woman, who identified as wife and mother for most of her adult life, no longer has a husband or child to care for. A pregnant, newly clean drug addict is the main character in “In the Trap”. When she finds an item that grants wishes, Angela has to decide if she will wish away her problems, to the detriment of people she loves. Two of the stories, “Sap” and “Crisis Ghost,” are about sisters. While the sisters in “Sap” find themselves ensnared in a dangerous situation on their sixteenth birthday, “Crisis Ghost” highlights the strange and difficult time a new mother has asking her sister for help when the ghost of their own mother appears. Finally, “Through the Cracks” is a disturbing tale about a woman who takes children from their mothers. The two essays, “Cry,Baby” and “Failure to Thrive,” examine Kastelein’s experiences with dark topics. “Cry, Baby” attempts to unearth the complex feelings that arose when the author’s celebrity teen-crush was accused of domestic violence. Kastelein’s daughter was born around the same time that her grandmother began to show symptoms of dementia. “Failure to Thrive” shows the parallels between the growth of her toddler and the descent of her grandmother as well as the disturbing realization that she, too, may someday forget everything about her life

Seeking (and Finding) Ulysses: Some Positive Ageing Narratives in Recent Fiction and Film

The process of ageing is all too often seen as something to be avoided, feared or even, sadly, ridiculed. We are all familiar with literary and film narratives which portray older persons as either curmudgeons or crones, or personify them as being ugly or ill (Up, Grumpy Old Men, Snow White‟s stepmother in disguise, Red Riding Hood‟s grandmother) – images which often translate to real-life assumptions about older people, and ageist attitudes which are not conducive to individuals ageing well. Commentators within the field of Social Gerontology have noted with concern the dominance of such negative stereotypes, linking them to poor outcomes for real-life older persons. Yet, instinct suggests that we are right to fear such prospects for our own ageing, and this raises the question: „With what can we replace these age-old models of decline and decay?‟ A partial answer to this question can be found in a recent abundance of positive literary and filmic portrayals of older persons leading triumphant, vibrant and adventurous lives. Via a brief survey of some texts and films drawn from the recent past, which includes Joanne Harris‟ novel Chocolat, Helen Simonson‟s Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand, and the films Skyfall and The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, this thesis examines some positive fictional portrayals of ageing in the light of contemporary research within the social sciences. Taking as its inspiration the poem „Ulysses‟ by Alfred Lord Tennyson, this thesis is intended to be neither exhaustive nor definitive, and has as its primary motivation the purpose of highlighting key attitudinal and practicable qualities demonstrated within these fictional contexts that are applicable to ageing well in the real world, as indicated within the relevant scholarship

The Cowl - v.78 - n.16 - Feb 27, 2014

The Cowl - student newspaper of Providence College. Volume 78 - No. 16 - February 27, 2014. 28 pages

Strategies to facilitate self-management of HIV by female adolescents living with HIV in Eswatini

Abstract: Human Immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection presents both medical and social effects on infected individuals and their families. Literature has indicated that the HIV-related mortality rate has significantly declined in age groups such as the paediatric and adult population, but such effect has not been observed among adolescents. HIV management in the adolescent age group is posing significant challenges. To enable sustainable models of care, it is important to understand what it is like for female adolescents to live with HIV and what can facilitate their management of HIV infection and promote their quality of life. The purpose of this study was to gain an understanding of the experiences of female adolescents living with HIV and their grandmothers and to develop a conceptual framework and nursing strategies to be used as a framework of reference to facilitate the self-management of HIV by female adolescents living with HIV and their grandmothers who care for them in Eswatini. A qualitative, exploratory, descriptive, and contextual research design was used. The study was conducted in three phases. Phase one utilised a multiple case study approach to explore and describe the experiences of female adolescents living with HIV and their grandmothers who cared for them in rural Manzini region. The purposive sample consisted of female adolescents aged 18 to 21 years who were living with HIV and their grandmothers who cared for them. Data was collected through individual in-depth interviews. Data analysis was conducted thematically using Giorgi’s method. Trustworthiness was ensured by following Guba’s (1985) model of trustworthiness for qualitative research. The criteria for trustworthiness that was applied in this study were truth value, applicability, consistency, and neutrality. Ethical considerations were observed to ensure the protection of participants. The following four themes were identified from the data: (1) experienced the quest to survive, (2) experienced support system, (3) experienced psychological effects; and (4) experienced extended duty of caregiving role by grandmother. Categories for each theme were identified. vii Phase two of the study involved the development of a conceptual framework for the facilitation of self-management of HIV by female adolescents living with HIV based on the findings of the field study. The conceptual framework is based on a facilitation relationship between the community health nurse, the female adolescent and the grandmother. The phases of the facilitation procedure are relationship phase, working phase and the termination phase Phase three of the study focused on developing and describing the strategies for the facilitation of self-management of HIV by female adolescents living with HIV and their grandmothers who care for them. Three strategies were developed based on the conceptual framework. Strategy 1 is facilitating the building of trusting relationships between the community health nurse, female adolescent living with HIV and the grandmother. Strategy 2 is facilitating the working phase and strategy 3 is facilitating the termination phase. Each of the strategies has objectives and action plans.D.Cur. (Nursing

Portrait of a California Mystic

This book is about Helen van Löben Sels, an automatic writer born in the late nineteenth century, who was my great-grandmother. It explores a part of her life during which her writing was inspired by a spiritual or subconscious agency rather than by her conscious intention. I describe her childhood as an East Coast publisher’s daughter, and her career as a California ranch wife and mother to discern what might have precipitated her mediumship. By exploring cardboard boxes filled with her papers, family memoirs and other sources, I found that an inherited propensity to write, the difficulty of being heard in her female role, loneliness, and a sudden illness all probably combined to produce what some mystical teachers refer to as “purification by fire,” preparing her for the sensitivity required to channel entities. After examining how she continued to follow her calling despite its unorthodoxy, the book concludes with an appendix of brief passages she channeled through automatic writing. Automatic writing is a controversial topic, and Helen’s claims divided her family. However, there is a hot market these days for what are now called “channeled” books, and I intend for this biography to add to the cultural conversation. So that readers might draw their own conclusions about her life, spiritual development, and writing in context, I have concentrated on rebuilding the world around her, providing a slice of early twentieth-century California life