March 12th

Sawubona Umndemi Wami Nabangane Hi My family and friends,

Started writing this the 12th of March and now it’s the 15th. Gives you an idea how busy things are getting over here. Emails unfortunately will be getting more scarce…academics are gearing up and I’ll be leaving for the bush on the 31st of March until April 27 ish (but basically May 1 because I am giving myself 3 days to write a 40 page paper to maximize my time researching and just for the hell of it, I suppose). I hate using the phase “into the bush” because I’m sure you’re all picturing various stereotypes of rural backwards Africans from our Eurocentric history, but really, its true. I’m heading to Manguzi, South Africa for the month of April to do my ISP (independent study project) with an NGO called Tholulwazi Uzivikele. You can look both up through Google. Please do, it will provide a great procrastination tool and give you info on what I’m doing. I was hoping to be there by myself, to escape the madness of my group of 22 girls, some of whom I question why they are on this trip and not abroad in Europe-if you want to party, don’t come to a program that includes long drop toilets and more than 2 days away from Facebook access. (this is a slight exaggeration but not by much. Ish..these girls. I have so little time, I’ll save the ranting for the US) However, it looks like someone from the Reconciliation SIT program in Durban is joining me. I’ll be staying with a family, no running water or electricity so I’ll get lots of penmanship practice in-the result of this month is a 40ish page paper due May 1. What I want to be doing, and one can never really know, is profession hanging out as the anthropologists call it with home-based care givers. Lots of active participation and observation to study the personhood in medicine. Pretty much care ethics, which in my opinion should govern medicine and perhaps life hands down. Also, these caregivers, all women mostly, are burdened in ways that I don’t really have time to type/don’t fully know because I haven’t been there but have been living in rural and urban SA for 7 weeks now, before they become caregivers. There are very few outlets for emotional stress relief. I would like to study this stress and how caregiving in destitute areas where 30% of the child population are AIDS orphan and 60% of the adults are unemployed, to share a few depressing stats affects the quality of care and the health of the caregivers themselves. Hopefully I won’t be so rambling for the assignment but its 5:31 am and I need to make breakfast for Mama soon and I have been sleeping about 6 hours/night and everything is starting to build up in the way the Center for Global Initiatives warns you about. I’m surprising her with French toast, my maple syrup and fruit salad. Hope it goes well!

Stop: OMG!! Angelique is getting married! That’s insane! I can’t stop thinking about it! I’m so surprised and happy for her! Please have her email me or send me her address so I can girl-gossip with her! Also, super duper congrats on her dance team and my music ears are attuned to TX for Matt. Give everyone my best.

So…last week was spent in Amatikulu, a rural area about an hour south. Funny as it sounds, its like Cape Cod with cows and Zulus. Its loaded with sugarcane (I nawed about 2 feets worth that my host sister chopped down for me), sandy soil, animal husbandry, the Indian Ocean, the most beautiful-almost full moon I've ever seen, a Communist chief whose approval we needed to stay there (stop-erase the cowskins and smoke pipes or whatever ‘native’ thing you pictured. It’s the 21st century ya know-he dresses in Western clothes and is lucky enough to be employed in the sugarcane fields-unemployment and malnutrition, TB, AIDS, and diabetes are rampant), plenty of fathers trying to marry off their sons to us (a common day occurrence I'm totally used to as long as the guys aren't creepsters, which they usually aren’t), beading AIDS ribbons with gogos (grandmas), learning about rural high school education and its relationship with the community health workers we stayed with, visiting a sangoma who is also an inyanga and playing soccer with ten yr olds that will be better than I ever could aspire to me. It’s a bit embarrassing but mostly hilarious. A sangoma is a traditional diviner who is blessed with a connection to her/his ancestors to know how to heal people. An inyanga is also blessed by the ancestors with the power to actually heal, dispenses muthi (traditional medicine) This man, Mr. Nthenga is also a Zionist priest. Zionist Christianity is a combo of Christianity and African religions. Look it up on Google, it will enlighten and give your mind a spin (fun new expression I’ve picked up from my brothers). Such good energy in the room when we talked to him though it was a bit awkward 22 girls, our driver/saver of every day Thula translating and Mr. Nthenga in a school classroom.

Some funny moments:
Ever seen a chicken run-its especially hilarious after they get surprised by a fly throw-in in soccer. Also, what’s black and white and refereeing your match…a cow! And where are they penned up…outside your house in a kraal in the middle of the homestead. Epidemiologically very interesting. And what happens when your house is made of mud and your brother sends the ball flying…it crumbles. Shit to the max!

Before Amatikulu, we spent the weekend in a backpackers and I visited the oldest botanical gardens in Africa. Tell Grandma there were amazing orchids and I was an idiot and forget my camera. Had lots of me time at the beach and wandering around this huge gum and swamp fig trees. Also a rainbow tree. Go joke-its bark is literally multicolored and its endangered because everyone is so fascinated. Obviously.

After Amatikulu (Thursday to now) Went to Wiggins Secondary School again on Friday with GoLD. Look up GoLD peer education online please so you have a background for the stuff I tell. Time is running out….g2g cook while she’ll still asleep. Its hard hear to sleep past 6 because of the minibus taxis (yes, public transportation is 15 passenger vans. Anyone can own one and start a route in theory, but watch out because there is def. Territory-last year’s war flared up two weeks ago in Chesterville-the part of Cato Manor next to me, but no one was seriously hurt.) oh and the chickens…anyways. Helped run the session this time. Super awesome. Asked 3 girls for interviews afterwards and damnit. I can’t deal with 30 minutes of their stories, how can they deal with all this shit? Emotional, physical abuse, neglect, fighting with mom for love from dad, child-headed households, friends pressuring them to get pregnant for the social grant the government gives, dancing with poverty and no money for school fees, etc etc. And how does that impact your health….don’t have to be a genius. Its been a hard weekend for that reason and because the stream of conversation continued with Lloyd. His life is no easier-its rare to find a teen not emotionally abused. I very sadly am not exaggerating that every kid I’ve met here and live with has been or is emotionally abused. There is also a lot of physical abuse. A story in that vein-my friend Emma lives up the street from me here. Her neighbors include two little ones, about 3 or 4 each. The uncle of them has a temper and decided to take it out on them with the butt of his gun. One of them was butted in the head and has a small melon there and the other was flung across the cement in front of their house. This happened in the afternoon, with people all around (its impossible to escape from anyone here-overcrowded doesn’t really start to describe it). These are the kinds of things my friends and I vent about and share stories about: how’s got one about pot today (most nights I can practically get secondhand high; the smell starts wafting around 4 in the afternoon)? It’s overwhelming and scary and contrasts so abruptly from life at home.

I chaperoned Lloyd and Kelelo’s “date” with Lloyd’s 4 yr old sister in tow. That wasn’t a walk in the park. Teenage boys are teenage boys-arcade games, shopping cart races down aisles, crying baby, and the dates stood them up because they were left with their younger sisters. Common story here-young kids taking care of younger kids while parents work. Imagine David dealing with a toddler on a dinner date with Emily.

There’s a taste. Remind me about New Beginnings Church.

Please write back in kind- I miss you all dearly and want full reports on your lives. I have lots of time available during lectures to read your emails-most are incredibly boring. On the whole, I’ve been really disappointed with my schooling. I spent from 8-4 in the same seat with 30 minute breaks between 2 hour lectures and an hour for lunch. The lectures, while the topics are incredibly interesting, are presented in slideshow fashion with no discussion at all. I banked on SIT facilitating debates to grapple with the challenging questions the lectures present. So far the only outlet for such discussions has been lunch breaks and my journal.

Anyways…learning a lot outside 18 Alton Rd (the converted house where I go to school).

Salani kahle (Stay well. Said as a goodbye when you are the person leaving and the other is staying) Sala as it sounds nee ga (as in goo goo gaa gaa) hle. This part is tricky. It’s in between talking with a retainer and a sh sound. The ni signifies the plural. Sala is the verb to stay. Kahle means good, well, etc.

Ngiyanithanda kakhulu! Gee-ya-nee-tanda ka-koo-loo
I-present tense marker-you all-love a lot