Mtwalume

It’s been a busy three weeks, but I’m finally back in Durban and gearing up for my Independent Study paper that’s due this time next week… yikes! All in all it’s probably going to be 30-40 pages long. Just as a refresher (it’s been a while), I spent the last three weeks in Mtwalume, a rural village an hour south of Durban where I volunteered teaching at a primary school and also a few days at an HIV clinic. I lived with a family that consisted of a Mom, a Gogo (granny), an uncle, and 8 kids. Yep, 8. Plus myself and Hilary, another student in my program. It was a full house to say the least. Not to mention that we also had no running water, and had to perfect the art of bucket-bathing and using a long-drop toilet. Let me tell you, running water is a beautiful thing and we ALL take it for granted. We would wake up every morning and meet up with Sipho, the little boy who lived up the road who would walk us to and from school every day. We’d spend our days at the schools and then afternoons at the clinic or talking to community members for our projects. It was a pretty awesome experience, and our family took the best care of us. Here are some of the highlight lessons I learned over the course of the last three weeks, which I figured would be entertaining and worth sharing….

1. How Little Water You Actually Need to Adequately Clean Yourself:

So I can officially call myself a professional bucket-bather. While this is not my preferred method of bathing, I feel confident that I can now bathe under just about any circumstances. Here is my official routine in case any of you ever find yourself in a drought or water-short circumstance.
1. Fill up a bucket or basin about 2 inches high with water… that’s right- only 2 inches.
2. Take a small cup and fill it with the water (you will save this for later.)
3. Wash your face off with the clean water
4. Get on your hands and knees and dunk your head into the bucket, getting your hair completely wet. You probably want to put something under your knees though, since the floor is made out of cow dung!! ☺
5. Shampoo hair sparingly and dunk your head back in the bucket to rinse
6. Step in the bucket and use a washcloth and a bar of soap to wash your body and rinse, then dry off with towel
7. Remember that cup full of water? You are now going to use that to brush your teeth.
8. Spit out the toothpaste into the bucket you just bathed in.
9. Dump the bucket outside…. And you’re clean!

2. You Can Eat ALL Parts of a Chicken:

For all you chicken lovers out there, good news! You can eat pretty much eat all the different parts of a chicken. Since I’ve been here, I’ve been forced to eat chicken necks and chicken feet, neither of which I’d ever recommend to anyone. One day Hilary and I were doing the dishes and my little 11 year old brother Abongwe casually walked in from outside with a tray soaked in blood and feathers, which he then proceeded to leave on the counter for us to clean for him. Hilary and I both looked at each other before calling Abongwe back into the room. “Abongwe, what’s that?” I asked him. He just smiled and said “chicken.” “Abongwe, did you just kill the chicken?” I then asked. He looked at me, smiled, and then looked down at the ground and said “Yes,” then walked away. It was classic.




3. Zulu’s are Deathly Afraid of Lighting

I had heard that Zulu people generally hated thunderstorms but I never realized the full effect until being out there, where storms were pretty common. Every time it stormed, our Gogo (Granny) would cover all the mirrors in the house in order to prevent the lightning from coming into the house, which apparently is a usual custom in Zulu culture. I thought it was interesting.

4. You Can Indeed Get Pulled Over By the Police While Running

Twice, actually. Hilary and I were running on the side of the main road our first week here and proceeded to be pulled over by the police two separate times. The first time I think they were legitimately concerned for our safety, and also curious as to who we were, but the second time I think they were just trying to pick us up, insisting that we take their numbers “just incase”. I actually felt more threatened by the police than by any other members of the community, which was kind of unsettling.

5. The Failures and Downfalls of the Education System Here

Teaching at Bangbizo primary was both a very rewarding and very frustrating experience for me. There is a definite lack of education in both the students and the teachers. I was given my own classes to teach without any teacher supervision (which was pretty scary at first). It was really amazing to see just how far behind these students are compared to students in America. Granted, this school is in a very rural area and this education can not be generalized for all of South Africa (many parents, including my homestay family, send their children to private school, and the differences are remarkable between those children and the children at my school). The first lesson I taught was how to plot points on a chart for grade seven math students. I couldn’t help but think back to my grade 7 math experience at home, where I was already doing pre-algebra. The reason I had to teach this lesson in the first place was because the teacher didn’t understand the material herself, which was really sad in itself. It’s also pretty horrifying how little is actually learned in a given day. I didn’t once hear an actual “lesson” from a teacher to the students, come to think of it. They mostly just gave the students busy work. Sometimes the teachers simply would not show up, leaving a class completely unattended and unsupervised for an entire day. If I hadn’t been there to entertain the class and teach them random English lessons, the would have just sat in the classroom for the entire day doing nothing. It scares me to think of what’s going to happen when we leave. It definitely has made me appreciate the education I’ve been given.



6. How Difficult the English Language Really is to Learn

I figured that teaching English would be a piece of cake, but I quickly learned how hard English really is to both learn and teach. With French, Spanish, and even Zulu, there are patterns and the conjugations which are pretty standard, with only a few exceptions. In English, there is no logic and pretty much everything has an exception. Trying to teach present and past tense to a class of 4th graders was a disaster because every verb we chose had a different past tense form and I we were confusing the students more than teaching them. I give a lot of credit to primary school English teachers, and I feel fortunate enough to have learned English as my first language because it’s definitely hard to learn. The students did improve their English a lot in the 3 weeks we were there though, mostly in attempts to communicate with us.



7. The Influence of HIV on a Rural Village

The part of this experience that was directly related to my research project about HIV came with volunteering at the local HIV clinic. I spent a day doing intakes with a doctor who prescribed ARV’s to a new batch of patients bi-weekly. There are hundreds of patients on the wait list, and the doctor only does an intake of 10 patients once every 2 weeks. So basically, people are dying because they can’t get the medication they need soon enough. The doctor had an incredible amount of paperwork to do, and I was able to help her with it. She would talk to the patients and then give me the information to fill in including the patient’s weight, age, ID, CD4 count, the TB status, what stage of HIV the patient was in (most were stage 4, the final stage), and some other observations. We literally saw patient after patient for six hours straight (most of them were either getting ARV’s, applying for welfare grants, or switching to different ARV’s because they were experiencing side effects). It was a very hard and emotionally draining day. There were girls younger than me coming in. The youngest girl we saw was only 15 and had never had a sexual encounter in her life. It’s so sad.



8. The Spirit of Ubuntu… Once Again

I wanted to copy down the description of Ubuntu I found in a grade 5 life-orientation book:
Ubuntu- “We need each other to become wholesome individuals.”

I really got an amazing sense of ubuntu from this three-week experience. Hilary and I were the ONLY abalungus (white people) living in this village, and the only ones who ever had. It was definitely interesting to see how people reacted to us, but for the most part everyone was incredibly welcoming and accepting, (and in some cases, over-friendly.) I learned some good tricks actually… such as moving my ring over to my left hand so it looked more like an engagement ring. If you tell someone you have a boyfriend they don’t care, but the minute you say you’re engaged they for some reason back off real fast, most of the time with hands in the air. I was actually proposed to as well and offered 12 cows for the lobola, (which is like a dowry). From what I’ve been told, 12 cows is pretty much unheard of, but I had to say no.

But in all seriousness, these three weeks taught me a whole new side of the meaning of Ubuntu. Mandela described ubuntu as “A traveler though a country would stop at a village and he didn’t have to ask for food or for water. Once he stops the people give him food, entertain him.” We were travelers through this village and our family opened their arms to us wholeheartedly, and gave up their beds to accommodate us. People saw us walk to and from school each day with their own children and quickly learned that we were “good.” Once we were in a minibus taxi on our way to the clinic and the driver didn’t want to accept our fare just because we were “visitors and we were here helping people,” and for that he was thankful. Minibus drivers are also known to be some of the skeeziest people around, so coming from him that says a LOT. I hope to return to this village again some day in the future, although I’m sure not much will have changed.

Durban to Mtwalume

Hey everyone!

Sorry it’s been so long since my last post. The past few weeks have been incredibly busy as I’m preparing for my Independent Study project (which I’m leaving for today) and having final papers due in all my other classes. This has literally been the first free moment I’ve gotten to sit down and write in a while. Living in Durban has been really great (especially considering I’ve been living in an apartment overlooking the Indian ocean). I’d wake up in the mornings and frequently see dolphins and whales looking out while eating breakfast…it was pretty awesome!



So I’ve been living in Durban, and have been going back occasionally to visit my family in Cato Manor for dinner or to cook them dinner (I actually was just there tonight). It’s always great to go back and walk up my street to be bombarded by little kids piling up on me. It’s also really great to see my family and I genuinely miss living with them. I’ll be able to go back one more time when I come back from my Independent Study to say my real goodbyes, and that’s going to be really hard for everybody. Other than going back to see my family occasionally, I had a 30-page paper due this week, so that kept me plenty busy. Two of my very good friends from Richmond (one that I lived with last year, and one that I’ll be living with this coming semester) came to visit me this past weekend from Capetown, where they’re currently studying abroad too. It was a great weekend and things are always fun when Richmonders unite again.

I had a really amazing experience last weekend, when I got to have an intimate conversation with some HIV positive women. One of our advisors at my school used to run a support group through her church, so I asked her if there might be a way I’d be able to sit in on the support group (which would be helpful for me in gathering information for my research project). She suggested that rather than going to a support group, that she’d volunteer to have some of the women over to her house where they’d feel more comfortable disclosing their stories to me and to each other. So on Sunday I went over to Sandra’s house and was greeted by six perfectly healthy looking HIV positive women and a huge Indian feast that Sandra had prepared for everyone. I had expected to be there for maybe an hour and a half tops, but ended up staying for six hours. What I thought was going to be more a question and answer type of discussion (with me asking the questions and them responding) turned into a real HIV support group where the women interacted with each other and were talking themselves though their hardships. They conducted the entire 4-hour long discussion in English for my sake, and I got a lot of really valuable information. As time passed the women also were getting much more comfortable with explaining things to me as if they legitimately wanted me to understand their situations and about life in South Africa when you are HIV positive. One thing that I found really disturbing was learning about the social welfare program here, and how people are abusing it. If you are HIV positive and have a CD4 count of 350 or below, you can apply for a food grant since technically you are living with a disability. To apply for this grant, you need to show results of a positive HIV test, a CD4 count test, and a letter from your HIV counselor. What’s happening now though, is that nurses have started selling these medical records to people that are not HIV positive or don’t have a CD4 count below 350, so they can get the grant themselves. Two of the six women that I spoke with were currently waiting to get their grant because their medical records had been stolen and sold. Isn’t that terrible? Overall though, it was one of the most interesting and rewarding experiences I’ve had since I’ve been in South Africa, and I plan on including each of their stories in my final project.

As far as my Independent Study project goes, I will be studying HIV testing methods in South Africa, and arguing that the current system of testing needs to be adjusted. The current method in South Africa is voluntary counselor testing (VCT) in which an individual must take it upon his or herself to go for an HIV test, which can be very difficult for people because of the stigma associated with getting tested or the fear of knowing their results. Some antenatal clinics have started moving toward a different approach called “opt-out,” where women who attend prenatal clinics are just being tested for HIV along with all of the other mandatory tests they receive, so they can prevent the transmission of HIV from mother to child. This approach makes HIV testing routine, and the individual has the option to opt-out and not have a test done. The theory (which has plenty of supporting evidence) is that when testing is more routine, more people will get tested, be conscious of their status, and will be able to get on the medications they need to lower their viral loads that much faster. Botswana implemented mandatory HIV testing in 2004 so that whenever an individual goes to a clinic or hospital, they automatically receive an HIV test, and since then have been able to better control their HIV epidemic. I’m arguing that South Africa should adopt this method as well. Every single one of the HIV positive women I spoke with really stressed the hardships they faced when deciding to go get a test, and the courage they had to build up in order to do so. A lot of them needed multiple tries to finally go get their test. If mandatory testing is implemented here, it would erase that notion of fear and the stigma of getting tested.

So what will I actually be doing? Today I’m leaving for a rural village called Mtwalume (I was there a few weeks ago if you recall). I will be living with the same family I stayed with before, who have a beautiful house, about 6 or 7 kids, and no running water. So the next three weeks I will be frequenting the long drop toilet and plenty of bucket baths! I will be teaching English at a primary school called the Bangibizo school and possibly one other school in a more rural area that my home-stay mother is associated with. The school is comprised of 50% orphans (most of whom were orphaned by AIDS). I’m also hoping to get into a local VCT clinic and to meet with some community health workers to gather more information for my project. I won’t be able to blog again until I return, so wish me luck, I’ll be back in 3 weeks!

"Beyond the mountains, there are more mountains"

So it’s been a long and jam-packed week, and I’m going to try to relive it to you as accurately as I can remember it. We visited two rural villages and then spent the weekend hiking and camping in the mountains of the Drakensburg National Park.



Wamu Village: The first part of the week was spent in Wamu, a rural village about an hour northeast of Durban. We did home-stays and lived with community health workers (CHW’s), who are individuals chosen by community members to provide basic health and medical care to their community. They are trained by the government and health clinics and have a marked route of patients within their community that they are responsible to stop in each day to check up on and assure they are taking their medication properly. They’re also responsible for implementing DOTS, (Directly Observed Therapy), which is the WHO-recommended strategy for controlling TB. Basically, community health workers directly observe the TB patients taking their medications and must sign off on it to assure adherence so that drug resistance doesn’t develop into MDRTB (multi-drug resistant TB) or XDRTB (Extremely-drug resistant TB).

I got to go around with my CHW Mama on her rounds from house to house, which was an awesome experience for me. We visited patients suffering from TB, HIV, severe arthritis, hypertension, and diabetes (the diabetic woman had necrosis from diabetes and lost a leg and had a gaping hole on the bottom of her other foot). It was really cool to see healthcare on the community level like that.



As far as the home-stay itself, it was definitely an experience. There were +/- 7 kids living in the house with our mama, only two of which were actually hers. Her sister and brother-in-law both passed away so she inherited their kids and some others too. All I know is, there were 9 people sleeping in a very small room at night (in beds and on the floor). My partner and I shared a bed in the room and also had a small child sleeping between us (who liked to punch in her sleep). The long drop toilet was also the worst I’ve come across in SA so far. It was pretty rough. It was hard living, but definitely an awesome experience.

Mtwalume Village: Mtwalume is only about 45 minutes south of Durban and is a little coastal village near the beach. We visited the Bangibizo Primary School, which alone impressed me more than any other school, NGO or hospital I’ve visited so far. The difference was that the teachers legitimately cared about their students (and weren’t just trying to get them to pass their matriculate exams). They admitted that 50% of the students are orphans (mostly due to HIV) and a lot of times the teachers must take money out of their own pockets to assure they all have food and clean, mended uniforms. They grow vegetables in a huge garden outside and stress the importance of good nutrition for the students. They give many of them to the orphans to take home and give them seeds so they can grow their own veggies too. They also are very involved in recycling and each year they clean the beach and make things out of the trash the collect. The school receives almost no funding from the government, yet they are a success and have the majority of their students passing their matriculate exams each year. I think a lot can be learned from them.



I really fell in love with Mtwalume. The people were warmer, I loved my home-stay family, the school, and the whole area (it’s also a plus to be near the beach). I’m trying to re-work my Independent Study so that I can live with my family I had there (my mama was begging me to come back and live with them) and so that I can help out certain days by teaching English at the Bangibizo School while also focusing on an aspect of HIV and healthcare while there too. I’m still working out the logistics, so hopefully I can make this happen. At the end of the trip we visited a beading workshop where we worked with HIV positive women and learned the art of African beading. We made HIV ribbon pins out of beads, and mine turned out pretty good if I do say so myself :)



After leaving Mtwalume, we went to a rural TB hospital. We all had to wear facemasks since TB is highly contagious and airborne, but we were able to talk to the hospital administration and ask questions, get a tour of the hospital, and also go in and talk to some of the patients. Most patients have to stay at the hospital for 6 months before they can be released, and it’s very hard to get to the hospital so most patients don’t see their families for a very long time. TB has kind of been overshadowed by HIV as a public health issue in South Africa, but remains a HUGE problem here (and is most of the time complicated by HIV). HIV positive patients are more likely to contract TB since their immune systems are suppressed.

Then the weekend came. We went hiking and camping in the Drakensburg Mountains and it was absolutely beautiful. I wasn’t really anticipating how difficult of a hike it would be, and when I say I went hiking, I mean I literally climbed a mountain. It was hard but it was definitely worth it to get to the top. All together it was about an 8 hour “hike.” We saw lots of baboons, impala, jackals, and interesting bugs along the way too.



We came back to Durban on Sunday and I ended my 9-day streak of not showering ☺. At least I jumped in a river on the hike… that counts as a shower! I’ll be living in Durban for the next 2 and a half weeks before I start my Independent Study project (hopefully in Mtwalume)! I’ll keep you all posted.

By the way, the title of this post is a quote that comes from Tracy Kidder’s “Mountains Beyond Mountains,” which is about Dr. Paul Farmer and his work to provide healthcare to rural areas in South America and Haiti. It stands as a metaphor: “beyond mountains there are more mountains.” Dr. Farmer discovered that beyond one issue lays another, larger issue and that every step forward he’d take, he’d have to take two backwards. I thought it fit this post well, being that I was able to see this observation first hand in the rural areas, and also because I spent the weekend in the mountains.

Lessons From Cato Manor

So it’s been 5 weeks of living with the Mthembu family in the township outside of Durban called Cato Manor. I’ve learned more in these past 5 weeks than I ever thought possible, and I can honestly say this has been one of the best experiences of my life. I never imagined that I’d feel such a close bond and that I’d actually become part of this family structure in only 5 weeks. I wanted to share some of the lessons I’ve learned from my family and from Cato Manor in the past month and a half.

1. You Don’t mess with Big Mama: This might be the most important rule I learned in my stay. Everyone in Cato calls my home-stay mom “Mama-Kulu,” which I recently learned means “Big Mama.” She has a heart of gold but is very strict with her daughters, which is why she eloquently puts it, “none of them have babies yet.” Trust me, you don’t want to mess with her. Two days ago, I woke up to the sound of her screaming outside. We all woke up and rushed out to see what the commotion was about, and found her beating up our next-door neighbor (who’s a 22 year old guy). She was screaming at him and continually slapping him as hard as she could. Apparently the day before he had called my 3-year old sister a “svebeh” (meaning bitch in Zulu) and actually threw rocks at her. Well Big Mama found out about that and she was NOT happy. She taught that guy a lesson and he will never set foot on our property again.

2. Saturdays are for Funerals: Literally every Saturday there is at least one funeral taking place. Saturdays are for funerals, and Sundays are for church. That’s weekend life here. I’ve never been surrounded by so much death anywhere in my life. I constantly hear about neighbors and friends who are dying for various reasons (some of HIV, some from accidents, some from violence, etc.) Memorial services are big parties celebrating the life of the deceased rather than spent crying and mourning like in most other parts of the world. Death is just a way of life here, and they say you have to learn to just laugh or else you’ll cry. It’s really weird watching TV because at least one commercial in every “commercial break” includes an advertisement for funeral services and discount funerals with cheery music in the background. One commercial is even sponsored by the Kaiser Chiefs (the big pro soccer team here) and it’s called the “Kaiser Chief Family Funeral Package.” It’s really strange at first, but you eventually get used to it.

3. Life in the “Ghetto?”: According to most people living in South Africa, Cato Manor is considered a big-time ghetto. It’s technically considered government housing, and there are some pretty bad areas called “Skwatta Kamps,” (which are developments of aluminum shacks and definitely not areas I’d be walking through at night), but Cato doesn’t at all feel like a “ghetto” to me. It honestly feels like home. A few weeks ago SIT put us up in a hostel for a weekend and there was a group of local Afrikaners staying there as well. When they asked us where we lived and we told them Cato Manor, they didn’t believe us. They said, “You CAN’T live there. It’s not safe for young American girls.” I guess I just wasn’t expecting this kind of response because everyone in Cato is so friendly and warm to us, and I think of it as home. We had to describe areas surrounding where we lived for them to finally believe us and they were absolutely shocked. They said we have an advantage that we’re foreign because they’d be beaten up if they ever stepped foot in Cato Manor. It’s good to know that us being here is so well received by the residents of Cato and that the people here respect us and what we’re doing. I feel like I’ve been truly immersed in the culture and it’s a great feeling.



4. Colorblindness: I had a really strange experience a few days back that kind of took my by surprise. My little sister Khansieyle (age 3) is very touchy-feely and loves to curl up next to me on the couch. When I sat down she came running up to me, plopped herself right next to me and grabbed my hand to hold while we watched TV. For some reason I looked down and realized a huge difference in the color of our skin, which I think I’ve sort of forgotten about since I’ve been living here. When I’m conversing or hanging out with the family I don’t think of myself as some white girl living in their house, but just as one of the family. It’s when I look down at myself holding Khansieyle’s hand or look at myself in a picture with the family, I realize how much I stick out and how white I really am. Not that I’ve been considering myself African, I just haven’t been thinking about race in any way and I’ve really been colorblind here. It sounds funny, but those little things like looking at a picture and looking at our hands really had an impact on me.

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5. Ubuntu: This is the best philosophy I’ve ever known and by far the most valuable thing South Africa has taught me so far. Ubuntu is a way of life and a humanist state of being according to Zulu culture. When translated, it means “I am what I am because of what we all are.” It’s very hard to understand the concept at first and before coming to Cato and living with my family I knew what it was but never truly understood it. It’s hard for me to describe so I’m going to give you explanations by some well known figures in South Africa:

Archbishop Desmond Tutu: “Ubuntu - the essence of being human. Ubuntu speaks particularly about the fact that you can't exist as a human being in isolation. It speaks about our interconnectedness. You can't be human all by yourself. We think of ourselves far too frequently as just individuals, separated from one another, whereas you are connected and what you do affects the whole world. When you do well, it spreads out; it is for the whole of humanity.”

Nelson Mandela: “A traveler through a country would stop at a village and he didn't have to ask for food or for water. Once he stops, the people give him food, entertain him. That is one aspect of Ubuntu but it will have various aspects. Ubuntu does not mean that people should not enrich themselves. The question therefore is: Are you going to do so in order to enable the community around you to be able to improve?”

The past five weeks have really taught me to understand the meaning of Ubuntu. It had different meanings to different people, and the best way I can personally define it is, “I am who I am because of others.” My experiences and accounts with other people have had a profound influence on my life and have shaped me into who I am now.
So those are the five biggest things I’ve taken away from my stay in Cato Manor. It’s going to be really hard saying good-bye to my family on Monday morning, but I’ve gained so much from this experience that I’ll always be able to look back on this and be grateful to them. I’ll also be living in Durban for my independent study so I’ll have opportunities to go back and visit from time to time. Next week we have 2 rural homestays in two different locations and then we will be spending the following weekend hiking and camping in the Drakensburg Mountains, which look absolutely beautiful. I’ll be sure to blog again when I return.

Rural Impendle

So yesterday we got back from our rural homestays in Impendle, which is about a 2-hour drive from Durban, near Petermaritzburg. It’s a rural community and most of the homes do not have any running water. As soon as we arrived, we went to the local secondary school and got to do something which I thought was really interesting. Rather than observing the students as they are in a class, we got to actually take a Zulu/English language class in which the students were practicing their English and we were practicing our Zulu. We sat at desks and each had our own partners who were students at the school, and as we were getting a brush up lesson in Zulu, (and they’d help us out when we needed it), they were also brushing up on their English. We had to write responses to questions posed to us in Zulu and they had to do the same in English. It was a really cool way to learn and also to get to know the students better.

I think one of the biggest things I learned on this trip was not to associate the rural areas exclusively with poverty. I wouldn’t consider the family I stayed with to be poor, despite the fact that they had some limited resources (like running water) because of the location they lived in. We stayed in pairs for the two nights and my partner and I had our own round hut with two double beds in it. There were about 5 different homes on the property including one main house which had a TV and entertainment set, a washer and dryer, a full kitchen and every member of the family had their own bedroom. This family was definitely better off than my family in Cato Manor, even though they lived in a very rural area. The only asset that made me really feel “rural” was the long drop toilet we had to use, and even that wasn’t so bad because they treat all the waste with chemicals. The family spoke next to no English, which forced me to really use my Zulu skills (which are actually a lot better than I thought). Our family was very sweet and consisted of a mom, Phumzile, and I think her daughter Thandi (who I’m pretty sure is my age), and then Thandi’s 11 year old daughter Pamela, and a 10 year old girl Luyanda (whose parents are both dead but she is somehow related to the family too). We also had a crazy drunken grandma (or gogo as they call it). She started ranting off to us and the only thing we could understand in the conversation was "phuza utshwala" (meaning drink beer). The family dynamic was very confusing and definitely shaped by teenage pregnancy (which is very prevalent in rural communities) and HIV. There was a small family cemetery in the backyard. The people in Impendle were so warm and generous though, and it was a great stay.



The highlight of the trip for me was our visit to see a Sangoma, or a traditional Zulu healer. Basically, one goes to a Sangoma if they are sick, having some sort of problem, or if they believe that there has been a hex put on them by a witch doctor (which are also very prevalent in the area). We went to learn how Sangomas function with the people and the community as alternative healthcare providers. Not just anyone can be a Sangoma- you must be “called by the ancestors,” which includes an extended period of time when one gets sick almost to the point of death. Our Sangoma said she was sick for 5 years straight as her “calling.” Then you have to train to become an official Sangoma. The most interesting part to me is that the actual “Sangoma Certificate” is awarded to a Sangoma upon completion of the training course and is given by the Department of Health of South Africa, and also by the CDC and UNAIDS. At first it caught me by surprise… like why is the US funding Zulu traditional healer training courses but if you think about it, it makes a lot of sense. They are trained to send potential HIV positive patients to get tested, rather than giving them muthi (medicine) on their own without knowing their status. They are also trained to wear gloves for certain procedures. It’s a good idea to educate Sangomas about safe and sanitary healthcare practices, since so many people use them as their first sources of medical attention in rural areas.




The Sangoma could not dance for us since that’s a more involved procedure, but she was able to contact the ancestors while we were there. I’ll be honest, at first I really didn’t buy into the whole Sangoma thing at all, even though I kind of wanted to. But then she started praying and talking to the ancestors and all of a sudden this really weird gurgled man’s voice came out of her, and it definitely wasn’t her voice. It was kind of like a scene from an exorcism and despite what I may or may not believe, it freaked me out.

We actually had a little incident happen yesterday at Impendle, and one of our friends had her camera stolen by who we think was one of her family members. It happened when she wasn’t home but the door was locked to the room so someone needed a key to get in. This morning, they took her to the Sangoma to learn “the truth” about what really happened. The Sangoma called our friend’s ancestors for her. Apparently, she knows that it’s no longer in the house and that a family member stole it. She knows exactly where it is, but she can’t tell us who took it or where it is currently as to not incriminate anyone, because that’s beyond her limitations as a Sangoma. She said if it was still in the house she would go and get it, but since it’s not she can’t. We’ll see what happens, but our driver S’du is pretty confident that she’ll pull through and will be able to get it for us.

It’s really good to be back home in Cato, and I actually really missed it and I think my family actually missed me too. It’s going to be hard to say good-bye in a couple weeks, but I’m trying not to think about it yet. Other than that, we have a short week because it’s Heritage Day on Friday, and SIT is organizing a trip to the beach with our families for the day. So we will all meet up at the beach and braai (barbeque) on the beach, which my family has been looking forward to for weeks. Happy Heritage Day everyone!

Busy Week

This week we had a very atypical schedule, which meant more field study type classes. Tuesday we split up and went to visit different hospitals. My experience there was actually not very good, and I think a lot of that had to do with the level of disorganization. They were basically under the impression that we were there to volunteer, not to tour the hospital and learn about public health. So we spent most of the day in the pediatric ward playing with the little kids, most of which were HIV positive or extremely malnourished (and by malnourished I mean literally skin and bones). Even though I didn’t learn as much about the hospital itself, I did learn a lot about these kids and the poor conditions of the pediatric ward. I was really surprised that they just let parents walk right in and out of the ward, even though most of the kids were HIV positive with CD4 counts below 350 and are many times more susceptible to any kind of infection. One little boy that was there couldn’t get himself out of bed, while all the other kids were coloring and playing. It’s sad to know that he’s probably near the end of his battle, and that he himself didn’t have any control over his HIV positive status.

Wednesday we toured different NGOs (Non-Government Organizations), and my group went to an organization called “OneVoice.” Basically, they go into local schools and educate grade 8 students about prevention of HIV and AIDS, and they do it in a way that is interactive and fun for the students as opposed to just learning about it in a health class. They are funded by PEPFAR (The US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief), which (as with most other organizations funded by the US), is going to run out very soon. I was really impressed with their organization though and I learned a lot about how the NGO is run, which I hope will be useful to me when I someday (hopefully) fulfill my lifelong dream of starting my own NGO.

Yesterday we went to tour different schools in the area, and my school was Clareville Elementary. The school serves some local kids, but is mainly a school for refugee students from Rwanda and Congo, whose families came to South Africa to give their kids a better education and escape violence. The school prides itself on the success of the refugee students, most of which come to SA without knowing any English or Zulu. After observing some classrooms it was obvious that the refugee students were answering more questions and definitely wanted to learn more than the local students. It was really interesting though and I’m glad we went.

Next week we will be going on an excursion to a rural area called Impendle and staying in pairs for two nights in homes without any electricity or running water. We’ll be touring a rural hospital and going to see a Sangoma (a Zulu witch doctor), which should be really interesting. I probably won’t have any more internet from this point until next Wednesday, so I’ll fill you all in on how it goes next week. Other than that, things are good, I just had my Zulu final today and I'm having a movie night with my sister Nelo tonight. Thanks for reading!

Officially Feels like Africa!

This weekend it finally hit me that I am officially in Africa. On Saturday morning we drove about three hours from Durban to see the traditional Zulu Reed Dance. I mentioned a little bit about it in my last post, but basically it’s a ritual done every September in which Zulu girls are tested for their purity as virgins and then must present reeds to the Zulu King, dance for him, and hope that he might choose one of them as a new wife (in addition to his many other wives).When I was told a group of virgins would be presenting reeds to the king, I had no idea just how many girls my family was actually talking about- I just assumed 15 or 20. To my surprise, our van pulled up and was met by over 50 thousand topless girls, extravagantly dressed in nothing but beads, all carrying giant reeds to the king. Having a western/American mindset, I couldn’t help it at first to think that this entire ritual was somewhat oppressive to women and even though I brought my camera, I wasn’t really sure how a group of white people taking pictures of a bunch of topless teenage girls was going to go over. I quickly began to see that these girls didn’t feel oppressed in any way, and most of them had been looking forward to this day for their entire lives and had prepared extensive dances to perform for the king. It was an honor for them. As soon as I took my camera out I was immediately SWARMED by girls all begging me to take their picture and for them to take pictures with me. It was a really awesome experience.

To get from the reed dance to St. Lucia, where our hostel was located, we had to drive through a wild game reserve. None of us were really expecting to see much other than a few gazelles (or Springboks as they call them here). Literally within 10 seconds of being within the reserve, a GIANT elephant crossed the road right in front of our car. It was crazy. Driving a little further, we saw zebras, springboks, wildebeest, water buffalo, a warthog, and rhinos (which are apparently one of the rarest animals to see in Africa). It was amazing! This was no safari, just our group in our van driving through the reserve. We spent the night in St. Lucia and the next day went to a river basin to see hippos. This weekend was definitely a true African experience.