Attack of the Killer Swedes (btw I just made up the killer part)

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Shish!!! What a day! Well I’ve not had much sleep over the last few days, but I was awoken by my alarm at 6am, so I must have been sleeping! I sprang out of bed - clearly the sleep had done me good! I felt much brighter and full of energy, although my throat hurt more than before and it was much harder to swallow - clearly the tonsillitis has not yet gone. I showered and ate my breakfast, then had to leave at 7:30am. Grant and Shelly are away for a few days, which means I’m looking after the animals (more on that later!) and also I had to pick up some food for for Ethembeni. Every Thursday, the care workers from the Ethembeni hospice, along with volunteers from Howick Community Church, go out for the home visits. Each care worker is allocated a number of patients and it is their job to look after all the needs of their patients. So every week, the teams go out, taking food parcels and sometimes clothes and blankets etc. They chat with the patients, see how they’re doing, tend to their medical needs and also their spiritual needs, they read from the Bible and pray together. This is one of the reasons why I love Ethembeni, it doesn’t just give handouts, only acknowledging physical needs, it takes into account the spiritual, social, mental and emotional needs of the community. I think it’s so exciting to see the difference a project like Ethembeni can make in the lives of individuals and therefore go on to impact whole neighbourhoods.
Grant had already put some of the food to be taken in the freezer in the garage. It was a logistical nightmare as I was a bit short of space, so I was balancing boxes of food all over the place, trying to get back out of the garage! Well I eventually managed to load the car and set off to find a lady called Inga-Maj. Grant had given me directions to her house, and it seemed to be quite complicated, so I assumed it would take me at least 15 minutes to find it, but I was there in 5! I pushed the button on the intercom and the gate immediately opened, which surprised me given I was very early. Inga-Maj was aready striding out of the house towards the garage. She is a lovely Swedish lady, who had been to pick up the food from the Spar for me. Every Wednesday and Thursday, the Spar donates it’s waste food to Ethembeni - that is the food which runs out on that day, mostly bread and pies etc. Someone then picks it up and freezes it ready for the food parcels on Thursdays. I was a bit unsure as to whether to drive in or not as the garage was on the other side of what appeared to be their lawn. I wasn’t sure whether it was just their yard or not, but the grass seemed to be immaculate! Well, I decided they must drive across it to put their cars in the garage so I drove in and parked up. I’m not sure exactly how many times Inga-Maj asked me how I was, but it seemed to be quite a few, and it being so early in the morning, I could think of no better response than “I’m very well thank you, how are you?”. I think this was the sum total of our conversation! So, we loaded up the car, and said goodbye. I then prayed that Patsy wouldn’t give me any trouble given that I may well have parked right in the middle of their wet lawn! She didn’t, until I was on the other side of their gate, where she stopped. I waited a while and then started her up again, we got a few hundred metres down the road and she stopped again. This continued for a while, and as soon as I got her properly going, I realised I had gone past the turning. Not wanting to slow down to turn around, as this is when we have problems, I kept going, hoping I could find my way out of the maze. I eventually did and got to Ethembeni before 8:15am. I unloaded all the boxes, keeping a close eye on my car, so no-one stole any food, and put the boxes outside the front door of Ethembeni as there weren’t any staff visible. I jumped back in my car, ready to go to the Family Centre, when Kathryn, the Ethembeni nurse, pulled up behind me. Kathryn is such a lovely, caring person, she really is amazing! I jumped back out of the car again to have a chat to her, which was nice as it’s a little while since I last saw her, she also gave me the number for the doctor’s I went to last time I was here, so I quickly called up and booked an appointment for lunch time - my only free time, which is quite rare! Normally my days are very flexible, I usually only have one or two things that have to be done at a specific time, like meetings etc, but the there are other days where it is extremely structured! I quickly whizzed back to the Family Centre, where I found Linda & Nombulelo. We quickly chatted about the day & then it was time to go back to Ethembeni! Nombulelo is the new social worker, so for the next few weeks she will just be learning the ropes really, so it’s a very busy time for her, getting stuck in to all the different aspects of Ethembeni. The social workers also help the families that the home-based carers visit, so Nombulelo was going to go out with a team, to see what happens. Sometimes I feel quite bad because there are so many care workers at the hospice & I’m terrible with names, so I can only remember a few, which is quite bad because they all know me! I find it quite hard though as I don’t spend very much time at the hospice, I usually just pop in and out, but even that isn’t very often. It was lovely to see the care workers again though, they’re such a friendly, lively bunch, they always put a smile on my face :D It’s funny how they all treat me like I’m their daughter, even though they barely know me, they really show me that they love and accept me. I chatted for a while with Nombulelo, got to know her story a little bit. She lives in Maritzburg, which means that to get to work by 8am, she has to leave before 6am & get 5 taxies! Taxies out here are quite different to back home, rather than it being a car that you jump into & then tell the driver where you want to go, it is more like a minibus & you ask the driver where it is going & then wait for the taxi to fill up. Then you close your eyes, hold on tight and pray. We were talking about how beautiful Mpophomeni is - it really is, with green hills all around and the stunning Midmar Dam visible from practically everywhere! I can’t believe the difference since I was here in July, it seems to have sprung into life! Nombulelo was saying that she would like to stay in Mpophomeni so she didn’t have to travel so far, I told her I wanted to stay in Mpophomeni too! Well, the meeting soon got under way and the Howick High School minibus pulled up outside the gates. Out tumbled 13 Swedish students, a few Swedish teachers and the Headteacher of Howick High! There seemed to be so many of them, they just went on forever! I think it was actually a bit of a shock for me to see so many white people all at once, what with the volunteers from Howick Community Church, who were in the meeting and all these students, it was very overwhelming! We had to wait around for a while as there was another car on its way too, but it had evidently got a bit lost in the maze that is Mpophomeni. Eventually though it turned up & I was introduced to Josefin. Josefin is a Swedish engineer, who will be here until December or January, she’s not sure yet! She will also be volunteering at the Family Centre, and working the same hours as me as I will be giving her a lift! She seems to be really lovely, which is such a relief! Linda was busy showing the group the hospice and explaining what Ethembeni is all about and I thought Josefin would be quite interested in this, but she was actually had an endless supply of questions, which were fired in my direction. I was surprised that I could answer so many of her questions, clearly I have learned more here than I thought! I’m glad she is the kind of person that asks a lot of questions though, it makes life much easier! Often, one of the most difficult parts of my role is liasing with the child care workers, who stay rather silent and even if you ask them if they understand something, they will say yes, whether they do or not. Actually, even if you ask them a question that doesn’t have a yes/no answer, they sometimes still answer yes! I think quite a lot is lost in translation! So, whilst Linda was talking, devotions had started outside, which is always quite amazing to be a part of. African worship really is quite incredible, and this was the first time the students had heard Zulu songs, so many of them were turning around to have a look at what was happening. After a mini tour of the hospice, which is actually really just 1 room as we couldn’t go into the patients’ rooms, and lots of picture taking, we headed off to the Family Centre. I quickly ran in to warn Samke and Phindi, the two ECD teachers, that we were about to be invaded by the Swedish, and found all the kids eating their snack (hotdogs, yummy!). We held off the invasion until they had finished eating, so as not to put them off their food! When nearly 20 new white people descended on the Family Centre, the silence was audible. All the kids just sat on the floor staring, and all the Swedish people stood just inside the door, also staring! I remembered my first ever visit to the Centre and how much there is to take in, how different it was from anything I’d ever seen before. From the grey walls and carpet tiles all curling up and stacks of chairs that look like they’re going to tumble onto a kid’s head to all the wide eyed, extremely sweet little children. The silence didn’t last long, the teachers started asking questions, and soon the students made themselves at home. They have all come over for 10 days as part of an exchange program with Howick High, who will be sending some of it’s students over to Sweden next year. I thought it was funny to see that the 9 or 10 girls were all sitting down on the floor, interacting with the children, playing games and singing songs, whilst all the guys were sitting on chairs, watching, taking pictures and chatting to each other! Linda also gave them a quick tour of the Family Centre & explained a bit about what we do. One of the students said they had brought gifts for the children, so we split them all up so each child got a cuddly toy and some pencils. They were also given Swedish candy, which most of them liked, the others who didn’t, decided I needed it smeared all over me, lovely!
As soon as they left, I scooted off to the doctors, where I waited a while in the waiting room (funnily enough). I quite like waiting rooms, how it can be all hustle and bustle in the officey part, then dead silent in the seating part. At one point, 2 men walked in. One had his arm all bandaged up and a plastic bag on it and was holding it up in an attempt to stop the blood flow. It wasn’t working. He got rushed through to a Doctor’s room, who we had all seen walk the other way several minutes earlier. After a minute or two, the receptionist realised and went to find him. Through all this, no one said a word, we all just watched. Then, after quite a few minutes of silence, by which point my mind had wandered to some other completely random topic, an old lady stated quite loudly; “looks like he chopped his hand off”. All the other ladies looked at her and nodded their heads solemnly before going back to stare at their patch of wall. I’m not entirely sure why I am writing about this, it just really struck me how different it was sitting in the waiting room of a private doctor’s surgery, where I’ve only ever seen white people, with the exception of 1 lady who looked like a cleaner, compared to the clinic in Mpophomeni, where you can barely move for people crammed in and the atmosphere is so completely different. It’s almost like at this surgery, people see their visit as a bit of a nuisance, they don’t like the inconvenience of waiting around etc. But in the few times I’ve been to the clinic, there is always a sense of fear and dread. Their world is so far removed from mine. I don’t feel 100% so I book an appointment at the doctors without thinking twice. For many of them, they are at death’s door, so they come to the clinic, which may mean facing icy rain and chilling wind, to sit in a freezing cold waiting room, where they may stay for hours, just to see a nurse.
So I eventually got called through to the doctor’s room, which was covered with God stuff! You know what I mean - like plaques with Bible verses and prayers etc on them. I was absolutely amazed, it was like being in Wesley Owen with an examination bed! The doctor came in and chatted for ages about England & what I was doing here, then went on to talk about Grant & Rouen (the Chair of Governors for Ethembeni). He was very repetitive, and asked me the same question several times over, like: “so you’re here from England?”, I think he was confused by my accent, thinking I was American - what an insult! Then he decided I was from somewhere “obscure - Yorkshire?”. Well, I somehow got through all that and butted in to tell him what was wrong, when he seemed to remember he was a doctor and started doing a full medical examination. He determined that I have tonsillitis & bronchitis, which he reckons were caused by allergies. I was a bit confussled, so he explained that the reason I always seem to have a cold is because of allergies, like having year round hayfever, and sometimes the cold gets a bit worse and develops into things like tonsillitis and bronchitis. I think he confused me even more because he said “hey?” at the end of every sentence and sometimes in the middle too, just for good measure. I wasn’t quite sure whether each “hey?” was actually a question or not and if so, how should I answer? I smiled and nodded my way through, while he prescribed some antibiotics for the tonsillitis, medicine for the bronchitis & some anti-allergy stuff too. I was quite relieved to leave, it certainly was hard work trying to hold a conversation! I nearly forgot to pay the lady, the consultation itself was over R200, I certainly hope he’s right - I don’t have the money to go back again! Well, I went to the pharmacy to pick up the medication & I’m sure the lady in there was trying to finish me off! The medication cost over R400, so in total my one trip to the doctors cost me nearly R700 and left me thinking next time I might take my chances at the clinic!
Whilst in the car park, Linda phoned to see if I could pick up some peanut butter, jam and loo roll from Howick Community Church as I was just around the corner, which I did. I met John again. John is a fantastic fatherly sort of man. I think he does all the admin stuff at the church, but doesn’t know how to use a computer, he’s quite old skool! I love seeing him because he reminds me so much, both in looks and manner, of John Burton Snr - if I ever get homesick, I’ll know to go to HCC and see John, rather than seeing John at MCC!
Anyway, I quickly popped back to Merrivale to stick some washing on, I have learnt to make the most of the weather! I also fed the chickens, just in case I was too tired later on. In my cottage, Shelly put a sign up saying “no chickens, however menacing” and for weeks I have laughed at her, saying “how on earth can a chicken be menacing?”. I soon learnt. They had somehow escaped into the veggie patch and when they saw me coming with food, they started pecking at my feet, presumably so I would drop the food & flee. I persisted though and very slowly and timidly got to their run to chuck their food in the feeder and cautiously lift up the middle bit to let the food out. I had to be lightening quick at this point because bare flesh was exposed at chicken pecking height, it was quite a stressful time. It didn’t get better with the water bucket either, trying to put the lid on, flip it over and put it down on the floor without getting pecked proved to be quite a challenge but I persevered and eventually succeeded.
I then went back to work, gobbled down some lunch and hung out with the kids for a few minutes before the holiday club meeting. Honestly, it was like pulling teeth. In fact, every holiday club meeting so far has been like that. Linda chaired the first one, but said she was only doing it for that one, but then no one else came forward so she kept going and I think all the Zulu people are quite intimidated by Linda & I. I think we do things quite differently to the way they would, so the meetings tend to consist of Linda asking questions, a long pause, then me answering them. Both of us hate it being like this, we really want their input, we want them to get involved and to take ownership, but they just sit there in silence, giving no clue as to whether they even understand what we are talking about. I think Zulu culture is much more spontaneous, they don’t really do planning, they just show up on the day and see what happens, whereas Linda and I are both pretty organised. We like to plan things, to know what could go wrong & how to prevent that. So for the others, they are probably wondering why Linda is asking all these questions. I think I will probably learn more about culture from these meetings than I will from the holiday club itself, despite it’s theme being culture!
After work, I popped in to see Zwe. Well actually, I drove up to his house to see the view of the dam on such a beautiful, clear day. I imagined it would be spectacular and I wasn’t disappointed. I thought it would be rude not to pop in and say hi, and I ended up staying for quite some time, chatting with the whole family and watching the sun set. On nights like this, I really wish I had a decent camera to adequately convey the beauty of this place, it really is magical. Unfortunately, my camera was quite rubbish to start with and has since been subjected to much abuse so it doesn’t really work too well. You’ll just have to trust me when I say it was stunning.

So that was my day in a nutshell :P I’m looking forward to a quieter one tomorrow!

Over n out

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