Hmm..how to describe today? Where do I begin? Should I start with the hospital visit or how about the death of one of the students in my program? Maybe I should talk about the spider that crawled down my body as I was writing this. Hmmm..what a day and it is only 1:00. Where to begin?
First, apologies for not posting anything really of value in the last two months. Nida, my best friend and partner in crime, came to visit me in South Africa and we have been very busy getting up to no good. She left this week and there is an odd sadness now that I am attempting to deal with. I guess you just don’t realize how much you miss having people that understand you and your culture around until they come bless you with their presence and then have to return to where they came from. Nevertheless, I am incredible grateful that she was able to come and I truly welcome anyone from back home who wants to come and share even a day of this experience with me.
Today I went to the hospital with one of my students who should remain nameless. It was supposed to be a routine appointment that had been made for months. We arrive 15 minutes early and she and I go to the therapist that we need to see and ask her if she can start with the appointment while I go and get the file. The therapist denies our request and sends us over to admissions. We go to admissions and explain that we just need them to create a file for my student. They say that we can talk once we get in line in the waiting room. We go into the waiting room, which by this point is meagerly accommodating the 100 people that are already present in this 15 by 40 feet room. We buy some sodas first so that we do not dehydrate sitting the in sauna known as the “out patient department waiting center”…what kind of center this it is supposed to be is beyond me..maybe it is the center of hell…who knows. Twenty minutes go by of staring at the floor and me being stared at by almost everyone in the room because I am, as always, the only white person in that waiting room. I start asking myself stupid questions like, “Why does this room smell like eggs and vanilla yogurt?” and the classic “I wonder if I would get medical attention any sooner if I stuck this straw into my eye?” Unfortunately, I am afraid the answer to that last one is probably no because almost no one would notice. So we sit and we sit and we sit. Finally, after an hour and a half, an office worker comes out to collect these small blue cards from people. Of course my student does not have one because she is a new patient. The lady tells me in am in the wrong line, this from the exact same lady that told me that I was supposed to be in this line in the first place. So after a two hour battle, my student and I give up. We have missed her appointment and still have no blue card or file to show for it. All I have to show to the whole thing is a bit of chicken grease on my pants from the gogo that was sitting next to me. She must have split a little on me as she pulled the chicken drumstick from the deep recesses of her purse and proceeded to gnaw the entire thing, including the bone, with her two teeth. Oh how I love chicken.
As our school khumbi driver drove me home, I realized that despite the ridiculous slowness, administration is almost always slow and that this really isn’t that different from home. Yes, had we stayed we would have waited for at least three hours before we saw our intended therapist. Nevertheless, the bureaucracy is the same and I felt like this place was similar to home. Then I found out that one of the students who was supposed to be in my lifeskills program, which is starting in two weeks, died this weekend. Was this student sick? Was it an accident? I don’t know yet. But I do know that our school loses on average 3-4 students a year and I am bitterly reminded that I am not home. Three to four students a year is absolutely unacceptable to me. In my entire school career, there might have been a total of 10 students who died, this including my time in college as well. Yet this number will be easily reached by the time I leave this place in less than two years now. Morose experiences like this are all too common here and remind me to be cognizant of the reasons why I am here in the first place. My gogo (grandmother) here in South Africa died two weeks ago, a student in my program died today, and I work with people everyday with both feet in the grave almost up to their knees and I yet I do not cry. Why? Am I not sad? Am I not affected by this? Or am I adapting to the way to being here in this First World- Third World country? Am I similar to so many South Africans who just have to accept the deaths of the friends in family members almost immediately because they are sure to attend the funeral of a difference friend or family member the very next week? How do people cope with this? Perhaps they cope exactly the way that I am. Maybe the accept death too readily or perhaps not at all. Who knows…I don’t.
So this is a part of life here in South Africa. Frustrating administrative experiences in almost all government departments, the ever present loom of the death, and spiders the size of oranges that crawl on you as you type. But things are good here as well. I walk outside and I feel the sun on my face and the wind in my hair as Kwa-Zulu prepares for summer. And a nice lady sees me and remembers me asking for donations for my school for the lifeskills and crafts project I am starting, and she gives me eight completely full bags of material for sewing and beading projects because she has a daughter who is mentally disabled and she wants to help me help my students. I have 6 rand (less and one USD) in my Peace Corps bank account until Wednesday when we get paid and I am okay with that because I have some food in my room and if I did not I know that there are multiple people in this town who just want to support me and would feed me in a heartbeat if I mentioned my lack of funds. In fact, I only eat dinner four nights a week at the most at home because others like to feed me so often. I am in awe of the generosity and how far “ubuntu” (“I am because you are”) really carries people here. South Africa is hard, cruel, and so dark sometimes that you cannot see if you are coming or going, but it is so much more alive and striking than I could have ever imagined it. I really am blessed to be here and I can only hope to continue to have this opportunity for as long as the season permits.
Oh and PS, the grant that I spent forever and a day writing was fully approved…just waiting for the check! Booya!...yeah that’s right…I am bringing it back.
