Thank God it is Easter

Once again it has been a while. It is weird, but it is hectic here. Even though i often feel as though i am not achieving a great deal, I still find myself exhausted and with little time at the end of the day. Currently the blog and other communication is suffering, as is my education in isiXhosa, the local language. It is a shame as there is a lot to write about and it always helps me to get my head round it.

We are away now for the Easter break and both well ready for it. I am surprised at how knackered and stressed I am and almost feel worse because I see Kim facing her own serious challenges at the hospital and coping. She has had a really hard few weeks with lots of getting called out at night and the weekends, but she cracks on with it. Meanwhile I have been tetchier than ever before in my life and having real ups and downs on a daily basis. I think i took the whole culture shock thing for granted, though i have experienced it before. And working as a volunteer is a weird beast indeed. Lots of feeling that i am not doing enough or working smart enough (just like starting any job), mixed with the occasional thought that i am not getting paid, so bugger it. Resenting the fact that I have little support or guidance, whilst enjoying the freedom and challenge of that. There is also the dynamic of working with others who are being paid and are not working as hard as you. Easy to get annoyed about that. But this will all sort itself out. Easy to say now over a beer, but i have found it hard going this last week or two.

Hopefully kim will come on and speak for herself, because i couldn’t do justice to her experience. Some of it i hear about and some of it i have seen, but i don’t think i can really empathise. They are up against it in the hospital and each has to look after their self and others. Her mate Liz has been incredible and they really look after each other. Liz went off to Cape Town today looking utterly exhausted.

The Preschool is coming on. I am not going to talk too much about it because i have been obsessed with it and i need a break. We have 6 kids enrolled and a renovated building. Tuesday will be busy as it is on Wednesday that we open. We negotiated with road construction workers to get them to dig a long-drop toilet hole for the kids, which was a great success. So all is coming on, in stages. All the time I am wondering how sustainable this all is as I am not here for long and we have no-one set up to take over when I go. There is time to sort that out.

So we are here in Bushmans with Karen and Roger, who just got engaged. Roger and me are setting up a support group called ‘emasculitis united’ as we are both unpaid and entirely supported by our girlfriends. Karen is a physio at the hospital. Sometimes we go and pick up (relatively) heavy things. We dug a hole yesterday and it felt good (although I have some awful blisters on my baby soft hands). We would talk about cars if I knew anything about cars. Roger and I are content that we are are helping the poor in our own special way and making that difference. We also drink beer.

There are 5 others here. All lovely and good craic. Tom, the medical student has agreed to do a 3 hour run with me tomorrow, which is awesome. My training has been pretty crap of late. Been letting it slide big time. We played speed Scrabble tonight and had some beer. That was all after a swimming race across a river and some sprinting through knee deep water (tiring). Now looking forward to a sleep. This is feeling good and comfortable.

IsiXhosa has three clicks in it. A big mental block for a new speaker. You have to try to make a click or a tut or a tsk whilst adding on the rest of the word. To add insult to injury, the word for the language has a bloody click in it. isiXhosa is pronounced with a click sort of like the sound you make for horsey clicking at the side of your back teeth. Apparently the hardest thing to say is “I am sorry. but I only speak a little isiXhosa”. It sounds like “click-bang-whrr-boing-dingdong-shala-lala-click-smash” or similar. Ironic, no?

Kimmy Comments

I am tired. But it is Easter long w/e so I must forget work and enjoy the freedom of four days away from the hospital. It is hard to describe why it is so exhausting but I’ll try...firstly there aren’t enough doctors so we are running around like headless chickens most of the time. Also I too am trying to master Xhosa and so communication with patients is hard. Also the nurses are not exactly efficient...this is a lethal combo (literally at times). I have seen many people die, kids through to adults...it seems to be shelved in my emotion box somewhere in my brain and I just carry on. Funerals are a big thing here. They have to slaughter a cow in honour of the dead ancestor and if the cow doesn’t squeal good when it is slaughtered then they have to kill another one as the squeal is the important bit calling to the ancestors in respect. If the slaughter doesn’t go well then they get bothered by bad spirits. The flaw in this tradition is that we’re talking about big families with v little money and then when someone dies (as they inevitable do from HIV/TB) they have to slaughter a cow and they may only have one, so there it goes. And they have to share it with the entire community, even if they didn’t know the deceased. This may be an extra reason why they scream and wail beating their fists on the floor when you tell them their family member has ‘passed’. It is quite disturbing to see. Maybe they should rethink the tradition and just slaughter a mouse, or one of those pesky street dogs...there are loads of them, though i don’t think they’d taste too good.

Today we hunted Easter eggs in the garden. My ideal activity, firstly since it is a competition and everyone who knows me knows i am highly competitive, secondly because it involved chocolate sweeties, and thirdly the association with bunnies....I love bunnies!

Locals have funny names. They like to mix the traditional with the new... the old names usually start with No******* eg Nosilike or Nothambe, but the newer names are things like Noparrafin, colgate, NoOmo, cellphone, and the best one I heard.... ‘fullydilated’ (this family was obviously influenced a lot by the doctor delivering the baby! They really are moving with the times. When I was up in Zanzibar people had equally funny names like Michael Jackson, James Dean and Madonna. Crazy hey!

Last week we crossed the cultural barrier by finally plucking up the guts to give a lift to someone at the side of the road. It was a wee school boy, about 12 y o – he spoke great English. It felt good to give him a ride down the big hill. Obviously i won’t be offering lifts to blokes, but old ladies I think is okay.

We are making a firepit. There is a big grassy area by the accommodation begging for something to be put there. We managed to grab some massive logs from a giant tree that was pulled down by the people who are modifying the road from our hosp all the way to the big N2 (1 ½ hr drive). We now have 4 nice big logs which we’ve placed in a circle and we are digging a wide shallow hole in the middle. This has a drainage area at one side and we plan to line the hole with cement then it si perfect for having big fires for us to sit round. I brought a candle out the other night and we all sat round the candle on these logs getting excited about our new entertainment venue and imagining the big fire that will burn in the middle soon. Quite sad what gets you excited out here.

Although I’ve talked about the negatives of the stress at the hospital, there are many positives. We finally feel we are living in a community. Within our hosp accom there is a nice little community. Everyone invites each other to dinner most nights, we do Frisbee, Pilates, Braais, girly movies and building firepits. It’s a great thing compared to London where you hardly knew your neighbour. Also i spend more time outdoors, and weekends off are fun and active. I don’t take things for granted, and a piece of chocolate tastes so much better out here when you really need a boost. I am addicted to fizzy pop though-my teeth will suffer! we have a car which is cool, juts need to improve my driving skills now! I don’t have to sit on the London underground trying not to accidentally make eye contact with anyone for fear of offending them. I think me and Pete just laugh more out here, and I hate to admit it but Pete is Mr hilarious...his sarcasm seems to go down a treat, everyone LOVES him. He seems himself out here. I think London was wearing us both down.

I like feeling like I’m ‘surviving’ and using my initiative to solve problems or being resourceful like turning an empty plastic bottle in to our toothbrush holder, or an old box in to a magazine rack. Granted, our flat looks like a bluepeter studio with all this home made stuff, but I get a sense of achievement every time I used one of my homemade tools. Pete manages to hold his tongue and not slag off my creations too much. But I will say something like “isn’t this cutlery drainer I’ve made really useful” and he’ll quickly reply “I was just thinking that” and my heart will soar with pride “really pete” and he’ll reply “No , only kidding” – he thinks he’s SO funny that one!