The Secret Life of African Bees

3/13/12

Every house in Kwanokuthula has at least one, if not two clocks on the wall. And yet, in all the time I’ve spent here I haven’t found a single one set to the correct time. Here they call the phenomena where everyone shows up late “African time.” Perhaps if they could just get their clocks set straight I wouldn’t have to wait an hour every morning before Margaret shows up. This would have really bothered me if South Africa had been one our first core countries, but after India no degree of lateness fazes me.

Although, perhaps Margaret’s tardiness cannot entirely be blamed on a culture of incorrect clocks. She just has one of those personalities. It takes us forever to get to a patient’s house because we have to stop and gossip with every single person we pass on the street. Seriously, if I spoke Xhosa I can’t even imagine how much town gossip I’d be privy to.

Yesterday we spent and exorbitant amount of time in a non-patient’s house, and it became very “Secret Life of Bees.” You know, young white me getting advice from a bunch of middle-aged African women. Margaret and her friend were telling me all about how their generation of women was taught that you were not complete without a husband and children. No one taught them about safe sex. And they got pregnant at nineteen and were taking care of others before they ever had a chance to learn to take care of themselves. “Make your money, get your education, take care of yourself,” they told me, “and then if you must you can get married and have children.” Both of the friends lamented their money struggles, their lack of washing machines, the inattention of their husbands, and the fact that by the time their children grew up they’d be too old to get a proper education and good job. “I always tell my daughter,” Margaret said, “if you must have a boyfriend, use condoms. Men they will get you pregnant, and then they will leave you. And if they do marry you, they will lose interest in a few months.” Both women agreed that they wished they’d never gotten married.

Between this lecture, all the movies I’ve watched about Ugandan women getting AIDs from their cheating husbands, reading about men spending their children’s food money on alcohol, and all my experiences in India, this trip is really turning me off to men. I don’t think beforehand I would have seriously considered Margaret’s advice as I’m doing now. I’ve spoken with the other female students, and they all agree that they’ve become distrustful and resentful towards men. “ Are boys in America like this?” asked one of my friends. None of us can remember. All we know is that we’re sick of being catcalled and watching women we love be disempowered.

On a less depressing note, their conviction that their daughters should delay marriage and children to focus on their schooling gives me hope. It reminds me of Elena in Ecuador, who was so set on her daughters going to college that she faced the anger of the town to send them to a better primary school outside of the community. It also reminds me of my Indian homestay sister Chatena, who was the first woman in her family to be getting her BS. So many people now seem to understand the importance of education. That gives me hope for the world. But as TBB has taught me to incessantly question my every thought and feeling, I must remember that I have no way to make a comparison to past generations. Is it not possible that women have had these ideas for years, but failed to properly impress them upon the next generation? Margaret’s mother may have raised her to be a wife, but she certainly wasn’t pleased when she got pregnant at nineteen. Will the daughters of Kwanokuthula listen to their mothers? Will Elena’s children leave everything they know to attend college? Will they even have the money for college? Will Chatena quit her job/education once she gets married in a couple years? I have no way of knowing, and that makes me a little less hopeful.

Love,

Katherine

If it’s Good in Intent And it’s Just a Little Bent Does it Matter?

3/9/12

What do you think?

To Hell With Good Intentions

By Ivan Illich

http://www.swaraj.org/illich_hell.htm

            As we passed this speech around the room each reading aloud a paragraph, slowly all expressions turned to what I can only describe as dazed. I wasn’t angry with the author; I wasn’t converted. At first I was simply numb to protect myself from the existential crisis that I feared would come upon further reflection.

            I have to admit, it fazed me. I’m finding it incredibly difficult to organize my thoughts on this matter. I have far to many of them coming at me much too quickly.

I embarked on this trip truly believing I’d be doing good. I don’t pretend to still believe this. Seriously, who have I helped on this trip? Ecuador: I replanted trees for farmers who had destroyed them in the first place, and would probably (one of them already did while we were there) destroy them again. China: I “helped” privileged Chinese students learn English so that they could score well on exams and become even more privileged. India: I begged and pleaded to go to work every day, to pick 50 cents worth of cotton for farmers who were simply indulging a silly girl. South Africa: I “assist” caretakers who are perfectly capable of doing their work themselves. And if I think of all the plane fare spent on this trip and what it could have done if it had simply been donated…sometimes my resolution truly wavers. But then I remember that the purpose of this trip is “service learning,” and I feel much better.

During orientation I was introduced to the idea of service learning versus actual community service. I wrote a blog post on it, and I thought I understood, but I didn’t. In fact, I spent the first two core countries frustrated by this “service learning” where it didn’t seem like I was doing any good for anyone. Then I arrived in India. I was there to study sustainable agriculture. However, all I could focus on were the injustices towards women.  

A year ago I didn’t know if I could be truly passionate about anything besides theatre, and I had absolutely no clue what I was going to do with my life. Now I do. I wouldn’t call it a desire so much as a need to return to India. I can’t see what I saw and do nothing about it. I need to return to India and work for a women’s or human rights NGO of some sort. I was born with so much extra anger and passion, and I finally know where I can productively channel it.  So there is no doubt in my mind that this year was not wasted.  It was the best-used year of my life. I don’t pretend that it wasn’t selfish, it was. I don’t pretend that I  “sacrificed” to help others. And I am not ridiculously proud of myself.

 But if I can follow the career path that this trip inspired me to follow, I can make it up to the world. I truly believe I can.  Because although Illich was correct in saying that you can’t do any good in a month, I believe that he’s wrong in saying you can’t do any good abroad period. I can start studying Hindi (or Gujarati or whatever) in college, I can spend years instead of months in India, and I can learn to understand the culture enough to help.

How can Illich say that Americans can’t do good abroad? Look at Paul Farmer! Look at all he’s done for the Haitians! I assure you, if I were at all talented in the sciences I’d be chasing his example right now. However, I am not, but I will find other ways to help.  

I’ll admit, Illich hit pretty close to the home with the whole “living in a hut and eating tortillas” thing, and yes in four core countries I didn’t speak one of the languages. But I am skeptical towards his assertion that I have done “willy-nilly” damage.  Throughout the trip we have been studying “bad” development, and I hope that I have sense enough that I’d realize if I were participating in it. To convince me on this point, Illich would have to provide further and more specific examples.  As for getting into politics instead, if there’s one thing I’ve learned this year, it’s that politicians cannot be trusted to take care of the world by themselves. (Perhaps refer to USAID blog.)

Sarah brought up an interesting point that when we get home we’re going to have to really check our egos, because people are going to think we’re “soooo cooool” for doing this program. I know this program was right for me because if I could never tell anyone about what I did this year, I’d still do it again 100 percent.

Love,

Katherine

P.S. I know that some adults will be shaking their heads saying, “silly little girl will change her mind a thousand times before she really decides what she wants to do.” Maybe that’s true. But at least I have direction now where I had none before. 

Blood Pressure Battles

3/6/12

“Oh, you’re here now,” said the security guard as I was walking up the steps to our seminar room. “Yes…yes I am,” I responded in confusion. “You were in Kwanokuthula this morning,” he explained. “Oh, yes I’m in Kwanokuthula every morning.” The same exact thing happened three days later with a waiter outside of the Pilates studio. I never realized that we stood out in the townships. No one stares, gawks, or takes pictures of us like in India and China. I figured they were just used to seeing white people. Perhaps we make more of an impression than I thought. I guess they just have better manners (by American standards) here than in China and India.

I spent the morning fighting with the blood pressure machine. It’s absolutely ridiculous! It will take my blood pressure, it will take Margaret’s blood pressure, but heaven forbid you should put it on an actual patient, and it flips out. We’re guessing that it will only take healthy blood pressures. Now if it refuses to take a patient’s blood pressure we just have to infer that it’s too high. It’s incredibly frustrating. Funny how my frustrations have changed since last year. My battles with the high school computers seem so distant compared to my more recent technology struggles.

It was a strange day. I realized that all of the children of the Crech call me “Mama.” I know that it’s just a Xhosa sign of respect for your elders, but it’s still weird for me being called “Mama” at only eighteen. Then I found out that Margaret’s been fibbing to the township about me. Half the men think I have a large older brother in town, and half of them just flat out think I’m married. Margaret never told me this until I got proposed to two and a half times today. What’s half a proposal you ask? Well it goes a little something like this: (to Margaret) “I want to marry your daughter, but if I can’t have her I’ll take that one (“that one” being me) instead.” You can imagine how flattered “that one” was. It was almost as flattering as, “I neeeed a white woman.”

As we were walking up a hill that also serves as a dump, Margaret pointed out a broken, dirty, faded red plastic, seemingly useless, turtle shaped kiddy pool.  “On my way back I’m going to take that,” she told me, “and then I’m going to clean it and fill it with sand for the children.” I was impressed by her resourcefulness, but depressed by the necessity of it. These children deserve better than a decrepit sandbox that’s going to split in half the moment somebody plays the tiniest bit too rough.

I suppose it’s fair to wonder why a sandbox is of any great importance, but for me it’s about what the sandbox represents.  If not for the breakfast and lunch provided at the Crech, many of the children would rarely receive three meals a day. For only 100 Rand ($14) a month, the Crech provides each child with two meals a day, potty training, English lessons, a safe place to play, and the invaluable experience of interaction with other children. Donors provide 750 Rand ($107) a month for food, but it’s a struggle to feed 25 kids nutritiously with so little. As Margaret would call it, the school is pretty much a “shack behind the house.” Currently, she is raising funds to build a six-room brick preschool next to the church. With more room she could hire more teachers, and more students could enroll and benefit.

In each core country, TBB has us complete a media project. For my South African media project I am going to make a donations website for the Crech and the non-profit nursing home that Margaret wants to start. Margaret was extremely excited when I told her, and I’m very happy to have a project where I feel like I’m actually doing something. I just hope I can make the site look official enough to not seem like a scam. Did you know that you can purchase a .org on GoDaddy.com? And most of all I hope that we can raise enough money to really make a difference.  It’s nice to be able to productively channel my passion. In India I was so frustrated because I was so passionate about women’s rights, but felt so helpless in my situation. This is much better for my emotional stability.

Love,

Katherine

P.S. I will post the link here when the website is complete. 

Group 3B

4/3/12

       There’s a part of my sense of humor, let’s call it the American Dreamz factor, that most people do not understand or find at all funny. Last Friday we had a teambuilding/introductory workshop with all of the students and their caretakers. Of course the adults had us do that thing they think is fun, where each team (of one student and his/her caregiver) has to give themselves a name. “Let’s be Group 3, or Group D,” said Margaret. And that’s when I knew. We became Group 3B. Perhaps Margaret and I were the only ones in the room to whose sense of humor this appealed, but I didn’t care. I love her. Oh, and when the caretakers were introducing themselves and their students to the room, she introduced me as her daughter.  Possibly not as flattering as Ben’s caretaker introducing him as “sexy,” but still.

       I’ve finished my first week of work, and Margaret and I are beginning to develop a routine. She greets me every morning with,  “I’m tiiired toooday.” Then we set off to start visiting patients. I greet them with, “Moh-low Mama (or Dada depending.)” Sometimes they offer me tea. With the ones I know well I respond that it’s 40 degrees (Celsius) outside.  My favorite is visiting Simon, because he has the most adorable six-month-old granddaughter. The second time I visited I was admiring her, and her mother handed her to me, saying in baby talk, “I want to know you.” When I left, Simon told me to come back to check on his baby. I guess baby kissing is a pretty good way to get the patients to trust you. Now I get to hold her every time I go over there, while Margaret makes her usual half-hour of small talk. They have the most fun trying to get me to say the Xhosa version of goo goo ga ga. It’s sort of like “Niza, Niza, Niza, Niza, Niza,” but with a click instead of an “I.” My mouth doesn’t work that way. I can’t click that fast.

       After we visit a few patients, we go door to door looking for new ones. Currently Margaret doesn’t have enough patients.  She thinks that perhaps it’s because the Xhosa people are extremely neighborly. We found a stroke victim (new patient #4!) whose neighbors have been doing all her laundry and bringing her food.  Perhaps Kwanokuthula has a patient shortage (which is by no means a bad thing) because it’s almost entirely Xhosa, and they take care of one another. I doubt if I had a stroke the neighbors would be doing anything, especially my laundry.
       While we make our way through the streets, Margaret harasses me about sunscreen, and introduces me to people as her daughter’s twin. Her daughter is also 18. At least an hour before quitting time, we inevitably end up at her non-profit crech (preschool.) Sometimes we spend more time at the preschool than caretaking, and I feel more like a teacher than nurse. I don’t mind though, I just want to help in any way I can. And I just love the children. I end every workday completely covered in snot, and completely happy. I have never met such affectionate children in my life. Never before have I wished I had seven laps, and twelve arms. Usually I just end up getting dog piled. I don’t want to make assumptions; perhaps they’re not getting enough affection at home, but perhaps their culture just raises them to be more affectionate. Either way, I am happy to provide an endless supply of hugs.
       After a while their teacher makes them sit in a circle and listen to me read. They can’t understand a word of it, but it’s supposed to help them learn English. Really I have no idea if this technique works. I’m not even reading picture books, but books with words like “physiology.” I don’t know. My favorite part of English time is when they’re told to jump up and down and scream, “I…AM…JUMPING!”
Seriously these kids are so amazing. They’re only three-years-old but they all have completely different personalities. There’s the boy who pretends to be obnoxious with the truly obnoxious boy, but really he just wants to fall asleep on my lap. There’s the girl who plays teachers pet, and cries whenever I give anyone else my attention. The fiercely independent girl, one of my favorites, refuses to be a part of any of the child mob scenes. And then there’s the boy who won’t fight for attention, but is always calm, cool, and in the background waiting patiently. Oh my, I guess I shouldn’t bore you by describing them all.
       I really like it in Kwanokuthula. It’s going to sound weird, but I’m worried that I shouldn’t. It may not be as dangerous as the township ironically named “New Horizons,” or the less ironically named “Craags,” but every time I get home from work, my homestay mother asks me about how I deal with that “rubbish bin.” Okay she’s slightly racist (as her ten-year-old son would say,) but she sort of has a point. It’s a town of shacks and tiny government built homes literally covered in rubbish. Is it bad that I’ve become immune to shacks? Does my desensitization mean I’m no longer the bleeding heart I used to pride myself on being? Or could it be a good thing? If I’m not overwhelmed by pity, could it be I am better able to see the shack occupants as human? Does that put me in a better position to help? Or does that put me in a cold and indifferent place where I don’t understand their need for help? Have I been in too many happy shacks to understand how many unhappy ones exist? Have I loved to many shack dwellers to understand that that so many are suffering? I have to say; I’m a little disturbed by myself.
       Would that be a weird note to end on, and then sign off “Love, Katherine?”

You’re on CTTV Camera

2/25/12

            I was a bit nervous when Kelsey and I first arrived at our homestay. A huge fence topped with electrified wire covered the house. On the door was a sign that said, “Smile, CTTV camera is watching you.” At the time we didn’t even know about the guard dog or alarm system, but this was intimidating enough.

            Once I met my homestay family, I realized that the sign was not likely to have come from their imaginations, probably just the security company’s. I also learned that South Africa has such a high crime rate that this amount of security is the norm.

            The house is amazing. Once you walk through the gate, you enter a beautiful rectangular courtyard with a small swimming pool. My hostfamily lives in the home on the right side of the courtyard, Kelsey and I live in the middle, and my family keeps boarders on the left.

            I am living in the lap of luxury. We have our own bathroom! With a bath! We each have our own bed with a bedside table between us, and drawers where we can put away our clothes. After India it’s so wonderful to have a place that’s truly my own space. I can be comfortable in my own room, and not worry about being watched and judged all the time.

            My hostfamily is white and speaks English, which is kind of weird for me. My hostfather Garrith is a soft-spoken boat captain/driftwood artist/surf instructor. His wife Susie is a British retired model, who now works selling Garrith’s driftwood art. She’s sweet, and calls everybody “lovey.” She’s also a born again Christian who smokes, drinks, has a belly-button ring, and a son older than her marriage. Our first night we were sitting at the bar drinking juice and playing darts, when Susie said, “I think it’s time to break the news, we’re born again Christians.” I was pretty shocked, but she promised not to “thump us with the bible.” Her passionate rants about Jesus can get boring, and her speeches on Jews being left on earth a little bit incredibly offensive, but she was very accepting when she learned that I was Jewish. Some people wonder how I hold my tongue, when I was so completely infuriated in India by the whole women’s rights thing. I think that I get less fiery about my people going to hell because Garrith’s visibly embarrassed and tells Susie to keep eating, and because…well she’s just a wack-a-doodle. Susie and Garrith’s son Thomas is a very sweet ten-year-old. He chats nonstop, invites Kelsey and me to the beach, and loves to help us when we’re confused.

            The boarders on the other side are constantly in and out of the main house, and feel like a second homestay family. It’s just a small family, consisting of a single mother named Sarah, and her five-year-old daughter Olivia. Sarah’s really cool (a nice break from Susie,) and Olivia’s freakin adorable. She wants to play with us 24/7, and was ecstatic when she found out “the girls” were “sleeping over.”

            Olivia’s obsessed with Thomas, and for a ten-year-old boy he’s extremely nice to her. She’s absolutely stunning, and you can tell he’s going to be quite handsome. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if they re-enacted the movie Clueless in ten or so years.

            Along with a chocolate lab, a hamster named Squeaks, and an orange cat, I have quite a comfortable little family here. Cereal for breakfast, PB&J for lunch, Brie (South African delicious BBQ) for dinner, it’s not so different from the US. My homestay mother actually said, “We don’t know how much you eat yet.” You have no idea how wonderful it was to hear that after being force-fed for so long. And when I was sick, they prayed for to Jesus for me, but left me the hell alone. Well…except for Olivia finding me on the bathroom floor and running to tell her mother I was dead. Today was Saturday, and Garrith took us to the beach to go canoeing and sailing. I think I’m really going to like it here. 

Kwanokuthula

2/23/12

Today was my first day at work in the township of Kwanokuthula. The township is almost entirely Xhosa. My caretaker, Margaret is also Xhosa, but she can speak English AND Afrikaans as well. Margaret is amazing. When she’s done seeing ten patients a day and earning less than a cleaner, she’s running a non-profit crech (preschool) out of her house, trying to get funding to open a nursing home, and raising two children. Plus she has awesome Whoopi Goldberg dreads. Although her English is excellent, I sometimes have trouble understanding her because she speaks so low. And by “low” I do not mean quietly, but in an octave I could never dream of reaching. But I absolutely love it when she speaks Xhosa. It’s so interesting to hear the different types of clicks. I don’t think my mouth even moves that way. She’s already started teaching me basic greetings. Now I can add Xhosa to my odd list of languages (that I really can’t speak to save my life.) Along with Gujarati, Safiki, and Mandarin (with a heavy Kunming accent) it’s getting to be quite a long list.

Margaret’s cool at the same time as being very affectionate and motherly. A ridiculous white person (not me of course) might hope she would play the August (of The Secret Lives of Bees) role in my life. God I’ve only known her for four hours. Actually three hours and ten minutes because she showed up 50 minutes late. Not a great first impression, but shit happens in her line of work.

When she finally picked me up, we drove to a patient named Simon’s house, and brought him back to the clinic. The clinic is amazing. It’s huge, brightly painted, and immaculate. It’s much nicer than the dinky little one-room ones in the other townships I’ve seen. However nice it was though, I was not prepared to spend two hours waiting there. Margaret said our days aren’t usually going to be like this, but if that’s not true I’m going to become the most patient person on the face of the planet. Except for the caretakers of course. And hopefully I’ll become immune to that clinic smell. You know, mostly sterile but with something salty, sweet, and sinister lurking beneath it? I don’t really want to know what that something sinister is.

When we finally left the clinic we started visiting patients. Our first patient wasn’t home, and our second was entertaining. This bothered me at first. Margaret works so hard to provide people with home care, and they can’t even bother to be home for it? Then I remembered that Margaret runs seriously late. Her patients shouldn’t have to be on house arrest waiting for her. But the patient whose blood pressure she just had to take, who sent her away because she had guests? I don’t know…

I didn’t get to see many patients or much work today. Hopefully Monday will be better. From what it seems. Margaret’s patients’ diagnoses range from hypertension to TB, asthma to AIDs. We’ve been told to just assume that everyone we meet has AIDS. That’s such a different way of thinking from in the States. I can’t quite wrap my head around it.

And TB just freaks me out. There are signs all over the clinic giving warnings about the symptoms of TB. Doors have “keep this open: Fresh Air Fights TB,” written on them. And several times today I followed Margaret into the Infectious Diseases ward. Well it is romantic to die of consumption. Regardless, as soon as I got back to town I invested in some vitamin pills and Purel.

I think I’m going to like it here. I think it’s so cute that the Xhosa people (and now I too) address all their elders as “mama” or “dada.” Margaret says it’s a sign or respect. And everyone on the street seemed so friendly. When I told my hostmother I was going to Kwanokuthula she gasped, but at least in the daylight it didn’t seem so scary. Then again, you’re always safest when traveling with a native.