UNAM Open Access Journal University of Namibia
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An assessment of the prevalence and treatment outcomes of multiple antibiotic prescribing vis-`a-vis the appropriateness of antibiotic prescriptions in the empirical treatment of infections: across-sectional study from Lesotho
Get PDFPurpose: The study had the objective of evaluating the prevalence and effectiveness of healthcare providers use of multiple antibiotics in the empiric treatment of infections. Methods: Three hundred and seven (307) antibiotic prescriptions from inpatient departments of five selected hospitals in Lesotho were assessed for their appropriateness. Antibiotic treatment success rates among patient groups and subgroups treated with antibiotic prescription categories considered appropriate and in appropriate and with specific numbers of antibiotics were determined. Correlations or associations of numbers of antibiotics per prescription and relevant variables were determined and used to evaluate the effects of multiple antibiotic prescribing on treatment outcomes. Results: Single antibiotics were almost prescribed for clinical conditions where prescribes had not absolutely identified bacteria pathogens as aetiologies of treated infections. Greater numbers of prescribed antibiotics were associated with inappropriate use of the agents in the empiric treatment of infections. Appropriateness rather than numbers of prescribed antibiotics correlated positively with treatment outcomes. Conclusion: no categorical relationship appears to exist between the number of antibiotics prescribed and treatment outcome. Prescribing higher numbers of antibiotics did not produce higher favorable treatment outcomes as compared with prescribing antibiotics appropriately
Exploring the problems of second language learners’ English pronunciation: A contrastive analysis of English and Oshiwambo (Oshikwanyama)
Get PDFEnglish is the official language of Namibia. The majority of Namibians have to learn English as a second language because their mother tongue is either one of the Namibian indigenous languages or a different foreign language. Learning English has been a challenge to many learners and several studies attribute the high failure rate in Namibia to poor proficiency in English. In particular, contrastive analysis studies attribute some of the second language learners’ learning difficulties to their first language influence on the target language, English. This study, also a contrastive analysis, focuses on the difficulties which the native speakers of Oshiwambo encounter in learning to speak English, with particular reference to the Ovakwanyama. The study attempts to identify common errors which Oshikwanyama speakers would make in English and establishes the grounds for such errors. Finally, the study makes suggestion for the intervention strategies to remedy the situation
Epistolary role in East African literary works on HIV/AIDS
Get PDFIn East Africa, an epistle as a base for literary analysis is not common. It appears, scholars who have analysed works of fiction or drama relating to HIV/AIDS scourge, have not considered letters inserted in those works as worth examining. Yet, letters inserted in such creative writings as a style to expound different themes are often encountered. Written artistic works on HIV/AIDS in both Kiswahili and English languages have employed this style to illustrate the HIV/AIDS crisis, as lived by characters in their fictional world. Following Wolf Schmid’s theory on narratology, supplemented with Rosenmeyer’s analytical framework (2003) the article uses an epistolary analysis as a technique for identifying themes in a literary work. The argument developed throughout this article is that epistles should be taken as a point of departure in identifying and examining different voices in the narratives on HIV/AIDS on one hand, and in understanding the psycho-social challenges which fictional characters face in their creative or imaginative world. Through this theory the epistles are juxtaposed to the Kiswahili idiom: barua ni nusu ya kuonana (literally translates as “a letter is seeing each other partially”). It would appear that the reader sees fictional characters in HIV/AIDS creative works from a certain perspective as focalized by the letters. The voices which the readers hear from these characters are all directed the letters used. Following this theory it appears that the themes related to HIV/AIDS are related to or influenced by the inserted epistles
The satirical portrayal of Africa’s development issues: Examples from Kiswahili short stories
Get PDFThe 20th and now 21st centuries have witnessed the outpour of satirical works that are purported to be portraying and discussing Africa’s development problems. Certainly this is the case in East Africa where, for example, cartooning, comedy shows and oral and written literary satires are flourishing. While this paper uses Kiswahili literary satire to make some theoretical deliberations on what satire is, it also discusses the place of two popular Eurocentric satirical traditions propounded by Horatio and Juvenal. Several questions are raised and an attempt has been made to answer them regarding the satirical mode and its place in examining issues that affect the people of Africa: What is the nature of African/Kiswahili literary satire? Can we formulate our own theories regarding African satire that aid in portraying and discussing Africa’s development? Why has satire become a dominant artistic mode in the portrayal of Africa’s development path? Of what practical use are wit/humour, irony, and sarcasm – the main ingredients of satire, in exposing and discrediting vice and folly in Africa? In short, using examples from Kiswahili short stories, the paper examines the relevance or, indeed, irrelevance of satirical mode and traditions to Africa’s development and the discourse of such development in deliberating on the future of Africa
Zi-feiti-wuieyn: fashion and beaty in Kom history in Cameroon as understood through photographs
Get PDFFor a very long time, African history has suffered from Eurocentric biases so much so that the history and civilisation of this continent was understood as European activities. Historians of Africa paid scant attention to fashion and beauty of its people which could be partially known in the social science as sexuality. This is likely because it was considered an exclusive domain of anthropology and perhaps psychology. This situation has dramatically changed since the 1990s as trans-disciplinary studies have been encouraged. On the other hand, historians and social scientists of Africa have little interaction with visual images which can be used as alternative sources of historical phenomena. Photographs as one of the visual sources can be used to understand fashion and beauty in Africa, taking Kom in the Northwest of Cameroon as a case study. On the basis of this, I intend to look at pictures and how these made and remade the body at different times in the history of Kom as a form of leisure and fun. My interest is to showcase indigenous under-standing of this type of leisure which the Kom people engage with. What type of indigenous materials was used for their fashion and beauty? From the photographs, how can one understand the socio-cultural basis of sexuality? How can one read meaning into the various forms of body adornment, putting on of various objects such as ear rings and bangles to beautify the body, tattooing, scarification, and different hair styles at different periods of Kom history? I further wish to compare sexual representation in the photographs of Christians and non-Christians, educated and uneducated, members of royalty and commoners, and how this was shaped by ideology or social status. I collected these photographs from private archives in Cameroon and Europe during field work for my PhD thesis between 2008 and 2011
The study of literature as a resource for second language acquisition
Get PDFThis paper emanates from an earlier study, which examined the views of Namibian Grade 11 and 12 teachers of English as a Second Language (ESL) on the use of English literature in ESL classrooms. The aim of the paper is to present the rationale and conceptualisation underlying the significance of the use of literature to improve general language proficiency levels of students. The study is based on the Learner Centred approach which is related to the communicative theory to learning and teaching. The implication of the paper is that literature should be taught conscientiously by language educators to enhance learner proficiency in language classrooms. The benefits of literature in an ESL classroom are multidimensional; which include, among others; attainment of pragmatic (social language use) skills, grammar and vocabulary expansion, extensive reading motivation, intercultural awareness, language skills and critical thinking skills. This was also supported by the findings of the study in which a significant number of the respondents agreed that the study of literature had an important role to play in language acquisition
A revolutionary character, a dispensable rebel? Edgar Tekere's political point-scoring autobiography of a Zimbabwean nationalist movement
Get PDFIn Zimbabwe, autobiographies, particularly political ones, are sites of contestations, compositions, decompositions and recompositions of national narratives. In their obsession with the self, they always centre the narrating subjectivity whilst at the same time decentering and recentering others. This means that in this literary gamesmanship, certain political personalities are displaced, peripherised, and debunked in this historical re-imagination. Tekere in his autobiography, A Life time of Struggle (2007), seeks to impose his political credentials and legitimacy in the national script in the face of what he sees and stigmatises as opportunism by many politicians, and how these politicians were catapulted into positions of power by default. To dramatise this, his autobiography employs binary tropes that mark him out as iconic and a quintessence of virtue as opposed to the insipid, dour, corrupt and wishy-washy others. In this paper we argue that Tekere’s autobiographical act, coming as it does after he has been pushed outside the ruling circles, is meant to portray him as the personification of revolutionary incorruptibility which both the colonial and postcolonial regimes felt threatened by. This autobiography is, therefore, a conscious and deliberate act of inscribing the self into the Zimbabwean historico-literary landscape. It presents an alternative frame to the hegemonic master-discourses of the fetishised, Mugabe-centred patriotic history on and about Zimbabwe
Heritage as a motivation for Kiswahili language learning at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa
Get PDFThis article explores the role of heritage as a motivation for learning Kiswahili as a foreign language at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa. Since publication of the works of Gardner and Lambert on language motivation in the 1970s, this aspect has dominated the area of second and foreign language learning. While initial studies on language learning motivation were focused on major western languages, such as English and French in Canada, in recent years the focus has shifted towards what in the United States are called less commonly taught languages (LCTLs). Within the context of the US, the LCTLs are generally defined as the low-enrolment and infrequently taught languages and most cited examples are, Chinese, Japanese, and Russian, and in recent years indigenous African languages such as Kiswahili, Amharic, Hausa, Igbo, Akan, IsiZulu, and IsiXhosa. Arabic is also included on the list. The research emphasis has particularly been on the language educators’ attempt to establish students’ reasons for engaging in learning these languages. It has been well documented that heritage is one of the main reasons students choose to learn the LCTLs in America. Nevertheless, there is lack of information on motivating factors for African students learning other African languages within African universities. This problem might be attributed to the absence of the African language programmes taught in universities of other African countries where the languages are not native. It is only in recent years that Kiswahili has started to be taught in universities of other non- Kiswahili speaking countries, such as at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa, University of Namibia in Namibia, and the University of Zimbabwe, in Zimbabwe. Using the action research approach, the present study shares research findings on the role of heritage as a learning motivation among students studying Kiswahili as a foreign language at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa
In the eyes of the male beholder: Language use as male inscription of the female body in film, Literature, and Facebook
Get PDFThis paper examines the concept of the inscription of the female body, and the way language used by men for such inscription shows distinct difference on women compared to that used on men. Using different film clips, literary pieces, and Facebook walls, the paper looks at the social inscription of the female body and argues that such state of affairs has made the constitution of the body of woman in the media, so plastic that through language use it can be molded the way the director, writer, and the Facebook friends (read male friends) deem fit, and it is turned into a text written upon it and from which it is not discernible as a social being but just an article. Indeed, “popular” inscription of the female body in the media in general and in Tollywood films, Swahili literary pieces, and “friendly’ exchanges and comments on Facebook walls in particular, impose literal, figurative and interpretative outlook that sells the films and literary works, as it amplifies female body inscription while condemning such a body to lust and ridicule
Soil radioactivity levels and associated hazards in selected towns in uranium-rich western Namibia
Get PDFSoil samples from three major towns and a holiday settlement in uranium-rich western Namibia have been analysed using a HPGe detector for radioactivity due to 238U, 232Th and 40K. The average activity concentrations of the radionuclides in the towns and settlement vary from a low of 18.6 ± 4.6 to a high of 69.6 ± 26.3 Bq kg−1 for 238U, 23.8 ± 8.4 to 91.1 ± 41.0 Bq kg−1 for 232Th and 460.3 ± 76.2 to 959.5 ± 194.7 Bq kg−1 for 40K. In order to evaluate the associated health hazard, the concentrations were used to calculate the mean annual effective dose, radium equivalent activity (Raeq) and external hazard index (Hex) for the towns and settlement. The values of 0.11 mSv, 195.3 Bq kg−1 and 0.53 obtained respectively for the mean annual effective dose, Raeq and Hex are, however, below their permissible limits thus implying that radiation hazard is negligible