Tuesday: A Typical Day?

I had a busy day today, with what I hope will become a typical schedule:

1. Worked 4 hours at the clinic. It was a short day because of another appointment, but I worked hard enough for 6 hours. Tuesday is Blood Pressure Day, as is Thursday. We see lots of people for refills, plus a few acute conditions. More on this in a later posting.

2. I met with Mandla Majola at Treatment Action Campaign. TAC is an HIV/AIDS advocacy and activist group throughout South Africa, but very heavily active in Cape Town. They've been around since 1998, so they have experienced the rapid rise in HIV/AIDS first-hand. Mandla works at the office in Khayelitsha, a township of about 650,000 people (in an area about the size of Edina). Khayelitsha suffers from high unemployment, extreme poverty, and limited access to basic needs (water, sanitation). However, over 42,000 people come to Khayelitsha every year because it's better than where that are now. Many of these people come from the Eastern Cape, the province directly to the east of Cape Town's province (the Western Cape). Much of the EC is rural, with high unemployment (up to 80%), poor or no access to medical care, and even worse living conditions than the informal settlements (shacks).

TAC runs several programs, including condom distribution, door-to-door HIV/AIDS education, and public demonstrations against government HIV policy. They do all of this with only two full-time staff members and a league of volunteers. Mandla laid out some items where they need support, and one of them struck me. TAC wants to paint 4 murals throughout Khayelitsha portraying pictures with HIV/AIDS prevention messages. They will also include names and phone numbers for HIV support lines and medical clinics. The total cost for all 4 murals is R10,000 or about $1,400. I'd like to raise that money and get these murals done. If you'd like to help me make that happen, send me an e-mail and I'll tell you how.

I'll be spending more time with Mandla and his team and I'll tell you all about it right here. Stay tuned.

3. I spent an hour visiting shacks with Sisi Yvonne and Nomokwamse. Nomokwamse helps out at JL Zwane as an unpaid worker. She lives with her husband in a shack, I think in Nyanga, one of the older settlements around Cape Town (it was one of the first settlements set up in the 1950s to house Cape Town's Black labor). She has two kids, a girl aged 11 and a boy aged 7. Because of her financial situation, her children live with her sister in the Eastern Cape. She sees them 2-3 times a year, if she can afford transportation. Her daughter's birthday was today and they will most likely talk for a few minutes by cell phone. Interestingly, Nomokwanse considers herself very fortunate because she has a place to live, "my eyes, hands, and feet," and some income from her husband's temp job driving a truck for the sugar company. She has a strong faith and believes God will provide as he sees fit.

The shacks we visited were those of a 63-year-old man and a young woman with two little kids (2 years and 4 months). Both of these people allowed the Bethel students and me to visit them last week and see how they live. Yvonne and I gave them some clothes (pants and shorts for the man, baby jumpers for the young woman). They were very appreciative, thanking us many times over. (I asked Yvonne what mothers living in the shacks use for diapers, knowing how expensive they are. She said some use cloth, and some use just plastic shopping bags, like Cub's or Byerly's. Think about that the next time you're asked "paper or plastic.")

4. Yvonne and I met quickly with Nomasone about her new place. She found a new plot in Barcelona. No, not Spain, but a very poor informal settlement near Guguletu. One of JL Zwane's youth program leaders is lining up a truck and some labor to disassemble the used shack I mentioned previously and move it to the new site. Because of the long holiday weekend this week, everything will probably happen next week. More on this as it happens. One additional good thing, Nomasone joined the HIV/AIDS support group so she'll start to connect with others who have been in her situation.

5. I talked briefly to Sophe about Sam, the 5-year-old boy that was having problems with his HIV medications. The doctors have apparently found some spots on his lung, what sounds more like lumps than spots. He's going in for an operation in July. I'm trying to find out more about this and will let you know if I do.

6. Lastly, I seem to have been put in charge of an empowerment/skills building program for 8 girls. They're about 12 or 13 and are starting to think about what they want to do after high school. The group is a bit daunting, since I don't speak Xhosa (they speak English, but not 46-year-old American male English from the looks I get) and I wasn't a girl so I don't have their experiences to work from. Luckily, Yvonne is there and a new 19-year-old woman is joining the group (I've forgotten her name now). She was great, asking why girls chose the professions they did and what inspires them. She is doing advertising, so she has a good perspective on having a dream career and working for it. The group will be selling chips and drinks at a pageant on Saturday, and will be using the proceeds to serve breakfast to a group of kids on Sunday, these kids being heads of households (orphans who stayed in their homes and are raising siblings). It should be a very interesting experience, to say the least.

So, I'm tired and off to bed. More shack visits tomorrow, along with more Bethel student stuff before they leave on Friday. As always, comments are appreciated.

Totseins (goodbye) for now.