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!