Week One--New Experiences!

As I write this blog post, it has been over a week since I left Canada, and I can’t figure out where the time has gone (other than the fact that I lost 7 hours on the way here)! Living in South Africa is absolutely incredible. It feels like every minute I’m experiencing something new and am continually fascinated with everything around me. Yet expressing all of that is a challenge in itself. To give you a bit of a glimpse into my life, I’ll start by introducing a few topics:

My Surroundings:
In many ways, what it looks like around here is much of what my stereotypical image of Africa was. Everywhere you look are grasslands, with the odd shrub, tree or cactus. Though I have been surprised by the amount of elevation. There are lots of rolling mountains, yet you are still able to see for a long distance so it’s the perfect balance between prairies and hills. Animals (mainly sheep and cows, with the odd pig, horse or goat) are always seen wandering around. Dogs are everywhere, and in the morning I am woken up by lots of barking, as well as giant birds that make an obnoxious noise, kind of the equivalent sound to a crow. Apparently there are game parks nearby that have zebras, and an elephant reserve a bit to the south, so I hope to get to those during my time here. There are houses all over the place—either small square or circular dwellings made of bricks coated with plaster or cow dung, and painted either yellow, green, pink, or turquoise. Rural homes are normally found in clusters (with limited road access) and even the towns and cities seem quite spread apart and divided into distinct areas. I haven’t had a chance to go to any of the stores yet, but from what I see you can buy most of what is available in North America here. There are restaurants, gas stations, grocery and clothing stores. What’s different is the number of street vendors with carts of miscellaneous items, and most commonly fruit, vegetables, or live chickens. I am astounded by the amount of walking people do here—people are always all over the streets or way down the road far from any kind of civilization. Taxi vans are also very common, and they have main meeting areas around the city that are regions of chaos with people hopping in and out and vehicles swerving around. This even happens out on the highway, so you need to watch out for all the speed bumps that may suddenly sneak up on you.

My Home:
I live on the property of Bedford Orthotropic Hospital, about 10km outside of town in a house that I share with Sarah, another Itipini volunteer. We are currently the only Itipini volunteers, though in October an Itipini volunteer from last year, Jesse, will be returning to Bedford for another year and will live next door to us. The other houses here are where doctors and other healthcare professionals live, both short and long term. I have yet to figure our very much about Bedford, but I’m told that it is one of 3 public hospitals of Mthatha and each small building is a different type of ward, but Bedford deals exclusively with orthopedic patients. I hope to be able to get more involved in the Bedford community in the near future. I enjoy having my own room, and it is a pretty standard house, though I have noticed that the walls to the outside are extremely thin (letting in both cold and noise), hot and cold water come out of separate taps, and we have no shower, so I’ll be taking lots of baths. So long as the water comes back on, as at the moment the taps are dry. Another thing that is different for me is that we have a housekeeper! Her name is Hilda and she is employed by African Medical Mission to clean the homes of volunteers. It is so weird to come home once a week to a bed that’s perfectly made, clean laundry and a spotless bathroom. It makes me feel like I can’t leave my room in the messy state that it usually is in at home because I don’t want Hilda to have to pick up after me! Maybe it’s good incentive for me to change my bad habits…I feel quite safe around here as there are not that many people around and we are surrounded by a brick wall with barbed wire and a gated entrance. Though that kind of security is the norm almost everywhere you go, including public buildings and private residences. And the effectiveness of the gate is questionable…there’s basically a big pole a foot off the ground that is connected to a lever that the security guard raises when you pull up with a car. From what I’ve observed, very little discretion is used in letting cars in, so it appears that they just want to appear important by raising a lowering the bar all day long.

The Food:
On my second day in Mthatha, I went grocery shopping. The store Sarah took me took was quite comparable to one you’d find in Canada. An exciting feature of the store is that they have a bread slicer! After you go through the checkout, there is a scary machine with moving knives that you send your bread through and it comes out perfectly cut. Seriously, the best thing since sliced bread! They have a lot of imported food so I can basically buy anything that I would at home. But it did feel a bit overwhelming since all the brand names and labels are different and prices are in Rand, which prevented me from being the cheap shopper I usually am because I couldn’t tell what was a good deal and what was a rip-off. Though when I looked over my receipt afterwards, it appears that most things are priced a bit lower than they are in Canada. I hope to be able to go shopping at some more local grocers in the future, especially for things like fruit and vegetables. Right now pineapple is super cheap (5 Rand (about 75 cents) for a small whole pineapple!) so it’s exciting that fruit prices go down as fruit is in season here, while they go up in Canada as fruit is being imported from far away. So far my biggest disappointment in regards to food is that the milk has a very different flavour. Either the cows here are eating something funny (Napoleon Dynamite anyone??) or it is the pasteurization process. I’m thinking it’s the latter, because I noticed that it is advertised as “ultra pasteurized” and I remember from chemistry that the extremely high temperatures used in that process to kill bacteria change the milk proteins, thus changing the taste. (sorry for that brief science lesson!) I thought I was avoiding that kind of milk my buying the refrigerated stuff instead of the cartons on the shelf, but apparently not. But at least I know it’s safe to drink!
This weekend I had the chance to try some local Xhosa food. So far I’m not all that impressed. A typical meal would include things like rice, mealimeal (ground corn), potatoes, cabbage, carrots, pumpkin, beef, chicken, or mutton. The meat is covered in fat and you go at it with your hands. Things that I’ve been served and have had a hard time getting down is tea with way too much milk and sugar, and what I think was part of a sheep’s heart (most definitely some kind of organ tissue). It looked way too much like what I’ve worked with in the anatomy lab!

The Weather:
Right now it is spring. I keep on trying to wrap my head around the fact that it will start getting warmer, not colder, and that winter is not right around the corner! We’ve had a couple of cool days, probably comparable to fall in Manitoba right now, but on Sunday it was over 30 degrees and I got a bit of a feel for the heat. I love getting to wear my sandals everyday and not having to put up with claustrophobic socks and shoes! It is extremely dry and dusty, so I’m looking forward to the rain to make things green, but dreading the muddy dirt roads that will result.

The Language:
This is by far the most difficult part of my experience so far. The language spoken here in the Eastern Cape is Xhosa (don’t forget that the X is a click!). Most people working in town know some English, and most signs are also in English, which is helpful, but there is still the reality that day-to-day conversations happen in Xhosa. It is frustrating and disappointing to me that I can not communicate with the people I meet in Itipini. I would love to be able to build relationships with them, never mind just being able to answer or ask a simple question. And at this point learning enough of this language to get by seems like an impossible feat. I’ve been here a week and have enough fingers to count the number of Xhosa words I know, but I’m happy that I can usually distinguish between the 3 different clicks (X, C, Q), though I can’t get my tongue to make the Q sound (kind of like a cork popping out of a bottle). It’s so overwhelming that I don’t even know where to begin in trying to learn more, and I get discouraged by realizing that bits and pieces of vocabulary aren’t going to get me very far, yet are the basis of learning more, and knowing that I’m not here long enough to go much beyond the basics that hardly seem of use at all. So I’ll study and I’ll try, but I’m not very confident in my abilities.

My Work:
The thing that brought me to Mthatha, SA is the Itipini Community Clinic. For my CMU practicum I wanted to gain experience in the medical field, and decided to take the opportunity to have an international experience at the same time. Through a series of connections with CMU and MC Canada, I was introduced to Jenny McConnachie and Itipini. Jenny is a nurse, who along with her husband Chris, initiated the organization African Medical Mission, which runs programs at Bedford Orthopedic Hospital and Itipini. As a mentioned in my first post, Itipini is the name for a community within the city of Mthatha, and was previously a garbage dump. Now, houses constructed from various debris line the hill and the bank of the Mthatha River and hundreds of people have made this place their home. Africa Medical Mission has set up what a community project, which consists of food distribution, a pre-school, an after-school program, and a medical clinic. The clinic is where I’ve been spending my time so far. We arrive around 9:00 AM, and everyone gathers for a time of prayer before anything begins. Even though I don’t understand the words, I love this part of the day. When I was told that we would go to pray, my Mennonite trained mind envisioned gathering together and speaking a few words. But here we sing, and it is incredible! From my observations, it seems to be a unifying time for young and old to gather together and take time to focus their attention on God. I find it inspiring to see people take the time to start their day in prayer as a gathered body of believers. I think there is much to be learned from the people in Itipini taking the time to dedicate the coming day to God. After prayer the kids go to preschool, mothers of babies line up for food, and the clinic doors open. In the clinic, Jenny and Dorothy are the nurses who see patients, and Sarah and I help out with various tasks. So far I have spent most of my time recording client information from cards into a book, and pulling out medical cards from the files as patients come in—a more difficult job than it may sound to be! None of the names are familiar to me, and the letter combinations and sounds are very different from English (ie. multiple consonants in a row with a mixture of clicks). Add to this the fact that some people speak very quietly or unclearly, or do not know how to spell their name. I probably end up asking each person their name at least 3 times, and still end up making lots of mistakes. I have also gone on some errands to the hospital and neighboring clinic with Sarah, and will eventually be able to do these on my own (when I learn how to drive and where to go!). As I was worried about before coming, my work here does not feel that useful. I know that it is helpful to Jenny that I do the small tasks that I can, but it seems that in the grand scheme of things I’m not doing that much. And it’s a bit frustrating that I want to learn about medicine, yet I hardly have an opportunity to do so. I realize that this desire to gain medical exposure is a selfish motive of mine and I know that I should be willing to help in any capacity that I can, but it’s hard to be joyful in doing paperwork where I don’t feel like there’s much to learn. Some of what goes on in the clinic is first aide, distribution of TB meds and HIV vitamins, collection of blood and sputum to send to the lab for HIV and TB testing, family planning, and treatment of general illnesses and pain. The clinic closes at 1:00 pm, after which Jenny and Dorothy see patients that were already in line, and we clean up and leave between 2:00 and 3:00. It seems like a short day, and in some ways it is, but in other ways it is long enough to be there at one time. It’s nice to have the chance to do a few errands in town and still get home before dark (the sun sets by 6:00pm).

My Social Life:
It’s great that I have a roommate who is so welcoming and willing to spend time with me. It sounds like she’s willing to do a bit of traveling with me around the area, so that would be great to have a companion. Anna and Joe Sawatzky are the Mennonite Mission Network workers (American version of MC Canada Witness) living in Mthatha and have already been gracious hosts to me. It is great to have people who know about the area and are willing to include me in their lives here. On Tuesday nights there is a Bible study, which is a gathering of the Mennonites in the area as well as any African Medical Mission volunteers who want to be involved, and Wednesday evenings Jenny hosts the volunteers at her house for supper, so I’m looking forward to these opportunities. Other than that, evening are pretty free and will be a chance to go grocery shopping, use the internet in town, journal, read, relax, and go to bed early (to start off with I was getting to sleep by 10 and attributed it to jet lag, but I’m starting to enjoy the routine and may stick with it as I always have loved my sleep!).

I’ll stop here for now. I hope that this has helped catch you up on some of my experience so far. Now that I’ve been able to set the stage with the everyday basics of my life, I hope to be able to share with you many stories that I have along the way. I will also try to post some pictures soon. So far I have had a positive experience, but I am starting to realize the things that will be short-term challenges (learning to drive and navigate) as well as long-term challenges (learning Xhosa, finding my niche at work, and missing people back home). Please continue to pray for me, as I continue to pray that you are all well back home in Canada, whether it be in school, work, or church, and hope to hear from you soon.

(p.s. If the time frame I speak of ever seems confusing it is because I write up these posts from my house, then go online in town later in the week to post them)