Me and some of the nurses and Dr Karl Le Roux in Out Patients saying farewell.
I'll definitely miss them all - but not the 3am phone calls "Dr, I have this patient...."
Kim x
Wednesday, 13 January 2010
New Year - Long Exposure
Kimmy here: this was my New Years creation. I bought a load of sparklers and dished them out before midnight to everybody I could see. At midnight we set the camera on 15sec long exposure and everyone waved them about like mad. Here is the result. Arty no? If you look carefully you can see the awesome moonlit beach in the background-cosmic
the children continued
if you do not think that this is the cutest child in the world then you are entitled to that opinion. unfortunately you are also entitled to my fist punching you in your face. so think about it.
frypan sticks arse in air at high speed
these are roger and karen on the day that we left. thanks to roger for the cable ties etc. when you go above 100km/hr, frypan sticks his bottom in the air and keeps it there. what unbridled joy.
Gunshot and Frypan
these are my names for the gifts that the pre-school mothers gave me and kim. it is not that i am not grateful. i am touched by the thought and gesture.
Tuesday, 12 January 2010
Kimmy's Comments - Kimmy end blog
We’re on a road trip now and i’m no longer at the hospital which feels hectic. After having such a purpose and belonging for so long I feel a bit out on a limb now. I know they’re struggling at the hospital too with many drs off sick and it makes me want to go running back to help and makes me feel guilty for being on holiday. Such a strange experience having a year like this. I feel like a different doctor, i think i am still the same person, just a bit more hardened to the harshness of the world. I found leaving SO emotional, saying goodbye to these amazing friends was heartbreaking. Especially Liz and Mo who were my girlies. Hopefully we’ll see them at the wedding. Felt I got a good time to say bye to Karen and Roger as they kindly hosted us for our last few days. They rock.
My last three months were on female ward which was much harder going that Paeds. Basically the Paeds nurses are great and my new ward was somewhat apathetic. It was like trying to squeeze blood from a stone getting any banter or enthusiasm from some of them. I even resorted to complimenting one nurse on her shiny white teeth one morning in the hope it would cheer her into a good ward round. I immediately felt dirty and arse kissing, and it didn’t help the ward round flow anyway. I did manage to chirp them up with some home made buns (they call them cookies here in SA, so wrong). The ward was hard going, the theme being HIV +ve with gastro, in denial of status and not yet on ARV medication followed by grim death. Or the other theme was ‘sick person who i’d like to do further investigations on but we have a shitty referral hospital so can;t get them so they die’. A bit bleak.
Also had some great moments though, a few Paeds kiddies who I’d looked after on Paeds I saw in out patients and they looked great and my heart filled to bursting. That was brilliant.
Towards the end of December the oncalls were harsh and miserable. Had one horrible evening where I was up ALL night and had to deal with an awful case where a whole family’s rondavel was struck by lightnening (common). Most of them were fine but the 7 yr old girl must have been hit the worst because she was dead on arrival. It was awful having to announce this to the family. It was 2 days before Christmas.
My body has sort of physically collapsed after the mentalness of the year. Both me and pete are in bed with our final gift from the hospital...one last does of diarrhoea and vomiting. Misery. We were meant to climb a big hill today, that had to be cancelled (there is always a silver lining to every distater since i am not a mad hiker!). Maybe I’ll shed a few pre wedding pounds too?
Baboon in the bathroom
We had been chilling out for a little while when Kim said, “Baboon!”. There really is no way to dress the story up. The baboon left the bathroom by the very small window that it had entered through. Having said that, it was surprisingly large and it left big, dirty paw prints on the toilet seat and kitchen floor. I don’t think that he got anything.
I think Kwa-Zulu Natal is a bit more like the Africa that we had expected. Goats are nice, but nothing beats a cheeky monkey. And that there is a threat of snake bites also seems more appropriate. That is not to do the Eastern Cape down, but the wildlife there is not that wild. We are no on our guard and windows will be left closed most of the time.
It is very odd not to be in Zithulele. I am feeling a bit purposeless now. I get the odd Jabulani call on my mobile, which is cool because that is what I know. The new team have grabbed it by the scruff and I am confident that they will do well. They already have 19 pre-school kids on the register. Letting go is proving to be tricky.
The hospital has had an outbreak of measles which pretty much did for Sally le Roux who was in a right state when we left. Jo, the new doctor also fell ill, the combination of which really hit a new team. Kim is feeling for the few who are holding the fort, but it sounds like they are on the mend now and things can get back on track.
On Religion
When Kim and I decided to come to Zithulele and realized that there was a strong Christian element there, some friends from the UK suggested that we might be coming home with tambourines. We laughed. We have left now and do not have any comedy musical instruments, but we do have a new bible and a different perspective.
I suppose to sum it up I would say that this year has challenged my pre(mis)-conceptions about devout Christians. The UK is so secular now and it is by far the norm to be scornful and/or suspicious of organised religion. South Africa is more old fashioned and has more pockets of strong faith and, beyond that, a wider reach of more liberal Christianity. Zithulele itself started as a mission clinic of the Dutch Reform Church back in the 1950s and was taken over by government in the 70s.
The two couples who really took the hospital by the reins a few years ago did so out of a sense of ‘calling’. That is, they felt they were carrying out God’s work by coming to Zithulele and making the hospital better. They also started the Jabulani Foundation which I have been working for for the last year-odd.
I don’t dig Christianity on a personal level. I am agnostic until I see enough evidence that He, She or It exists.
I felt that I had to know the nature of religion’s place in the Foundation to put my mind at rest, but I was a bit nervous to broach the subject, so I did it subtly by asking “What is religion’s place in the Foundation?”. I felt awkward but I needed to hear the answer because I didn’t want to, and still would not want to, work for an organization that exists to spread a certain religious doctrine. Ben (Director of the Foundation) answered me, explaining that the founders were driven by a strong Christian belief, but that the Foundation was not there to be a church spreading the word. No probs there then, so I stayed.
I haven’t really been friends with strongly religious people, of any faith, before, so it was new territory for me. From what I have seen here, Christianity really brings people together and makes them put time aside to appreciate things like family and friends and good stuff, as well as thinking about sad things. Good, I think, to have something formal to help you to give some reflection to life. The nicest thing was that no-one tried to force it on me or pushed it in my face. We had some deep conversations with Roger and Karen from time to time, but there was never that awful urging or patronizing pitying that can so often be the case, or the fear at least.
And now it is nearly a year later and I am impressed with them (the long termers at Zithulele) and their unwavering motivation to do very good things. It is extremely hard to do what they are doing. I have touched on it for less than a year and I found it hard and often dispiriting. To do so for the long term takes another kind of motivation and the Christianity thing works for these guys.
Don’t get me wrong, I have seen others here doing similar great things driven by other things. I think it is just good to have some reason, Christianity or no. I did a quick tally of people at the hospital and rated them for awesomeness (Kim included). The robust finding was that religion was not a factor. There are also people there working their arses off with different beliefs.
The bible came from two very close friends and because it did, I appreciate the gesture. We have joked all year about them trying to convert us, largely when we are weak and hungover. I don’t think that is how it works though. I just think that they reckon it is a good read and they wanted to share it. I gave Roger ‘Nudge’, for the same reason (although I never thought that would bring them over to the dark side either).
So I am going to try to be a bit less knee-jerky when it comes to Christians. And for my part, I recommend ‘The God Delusion’ by Richard Dawkins (he rings my scientific bell, despite being just a touch inflammatory).
The Children!
It is all about them.
Now we are on the road. We have left Zithulele and are on the road trip of destiny. I didn’t write anything for a few weeks because I was super busy but lots of cool things have happened so I am gonna try to catch up.
The Pre-school graduation was in the middle of December. Carlos (the cameraman who is shooting promo films for Jabulani and the hospital) had to leave it at lunch time, but he got a good lot of footage before that. The kids were really cute in their smart clothes and with new hairdos. The parents had organised the whole thing and financed it (Jabulani, ie me, is not in the business of spending donations on parties) to the tune of R125 each. I had to bite my tongue a bit over the fact that they had reserved so much energy and money for this event, compared to the everyday stuff like nutrition and so on. Parties and events are big here. On the other hand, I think it is awesome to mark transitions and we do not do it well enough in Scotland (Donald Ewing was right).
Carlos caught some lovely singing and parading and cuteness. Sod’s Law did come into effect though, with a series of very cool things happening in the hours after his departure. Thandeka was up front at one end of the line of cute children and she was about to start a skit that they had practiced. “My name is Teacher, my name is Teacher, my name is teacher, what is your name?”, she began. But before the first kid could pick up, a teenage boy burst out of nowhere with a mixture of school uniform and traditional dress. He got right into Thandeka’s face and started to shout at her with a sharpened paint brush pointing in her face. I got my hackles right up and started to get ready to get up and hit him in his face. My mind was racing with imaginings of the dodgey Lima guy Jackie having been slighted into not speaking at our ceremony having instigated a tribal curse thing against Jabulani and the pre-school. The crowd were silent and Thandeka’s face was ashen.
My gut was churning as it went on and I felt vulnerable and foreign. But I could see her face changing and I started to perceive a change in the audience too. Woopin and a hollerin, probably describes it best. They were enjoying the young lad and Thandeka’s eyes welled up with tears. It went on for a bit longer and then he stoated out. It was only after the ceremony when I was able to ask for an explanation. He was a poet, brought in to honour Thandeka and to praise her efforts teaching the pre-school children and the community in general.
Poet or no, pointy stick or without, I reckon I could have had him. And that will go on record.
Following that Dr Taryn Gaunt (Jabulani person) spoke and she was fantastic. She started by asking the kids what they wanted to do when they grew up. Then she went on to give a long spiel about how if they try to do that, people will probably say they can’t. She went so far down this line that I was starting to feel disheartened, but at the last minute she pulled it back and explained that you have to follow your dreams and ignore discouragement to make them happen. Inspiring stuff, in that setting, and the crowd went wild too.
Bad things and Good things
Today (December the somethingth, really) I cried for the first time since I was 9. Karen (our next door neighbour)’s sister in law died in a car crash and her husband and little girl were in the car with her unable to help. This is the latest in a very long list of awful things that have happened to people that Kim and I care about and it is doing my head in. No need to go into details but good people seem to be having a very difficult time of it this year, while we are in South Africa, and I feel powerless and removed. It made me want to be at home with friends and family who I am missing a lot. It made me think a lot about what I am doing here and the future and all sorts. I thought and thought all around in a circle and then it was still shit so I gave up. It just seems to be nice people who suffer the most. I don’t know any arseholes with cancer.
Pete’s abdo workout
First you must go to Lesotho and sign up for a horse trek. You must be out of practice with horses but game to try it and it is essential that you are given a horse called Bettina. Riding Bettina you will be moved around subtly (and not so subtly at times) and have to use your core muscles to stay upright. Your horse, Bettina, should have an unhealthy scorn for your weakness and should add to the workout by trotting now and then. She should give you a good wobbling around whilst farting. The farting provokes an involuntary stomach tightening.
When you arrive at the village after 5 hours of horse, you must get off and go for a lie-down. This is to prepare for the next phase. Vomitting and diarrhea give an excellent comprehensive workout of the core muscles and help you to lose that unnecessary dinner that you just ate. Be sure and make as much noise as possible, not unlike the kiai is to karate.
Weak lemon drink is optional and only about two of you will get that joke.
When you are at your lowest ebb, you should lie down and experience massive stomach cramps owing to loss of fluids and salts. Feel the burn.
After a night of comprehensive discomfort, you must get back onto Bettina. Begging Bettina to be gentle is optional and entirely unhelpful. You should ride for 5 hours, gradually losing what little grip you had on equestrian discipline. This will maximize your abdo-jiggling and your core will be tested to the fullest.
Community meetings
I’ve been going to some community meetings recently (this is an old post from Nov or Dec). It’s cool that Jabulani has been invited as it gives us a way in to the local politics (a myriad of relationships and history which buckles the mind) and an idea of what people’s needs and wants are. If one cannot succeed in development without community engagement and buy-in (and I suspect that you can’t), then they are really important.
The last three I have gone to have been held with the main purpose of electing committees to have other meetings. The issues at hand are: no hospital ambulance, hospital hired a cleaner from Mthatha when the locals feel that one of them could have done it, the placement of the clinic.
These meetings are going to provide us with a way in: somewhere to introduce ideas for developing the area and for locals to bring ideas to us too. So far, thankfully, I have not been targeted and asked for all the answers. I thought, arrogantly, that I would be, but they are happy to let me sit and listen to my translator, Vusi, rattle off what is said.
There is always prayer and some very formal language thanking people for coming and setting out the agenda. There is no paper involved, which makes the annunciating of the agenda more important.
Having attended a good handful of community meetings now, I can see that there is another side. These meetings are long. Long and tiring. To turn up without water and muesli bars is utterly foolish. I feel strongly that attending them is the right thing, but that does not automatically mean that they are a good laugh.
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