There are so many things that I want to write, and I have only been at site for about a week. I want to write about AIDS…and what that means here, but it is tied to so many aspects of culture that I dont know where to begin.
Here’s my shot at it:
As I have mentioned, the HIV rate here is somewhere between 21-25%. I was originally under the impression that SA was like Uganda…free condoms, a few billboards, a few radio stations catering to safe sex etc. Theres the AIDS prevention scheme. That is NOT the case. One can find HIV awareness posters everywhere. Johns Hopkins and USAID co-fund a primetime drama (called Soul City…its blatantly educational, but interesting to watch). Everyone walks around with red ribbon pins. Red ribbons are painted on the bonnets (hoods) of government vehicles. Commercials regarding safe sex play all the time. One can find a free condom anywhere; clinics, police stations, home base care workers have them…anywhere. Everyone knows how to protect themselves…but the rate is still rising…What the hell?
Here are some reasons. They are just my opinion based on my meager experience in country:
Age
There is a cultural phenomenon here that plays a huge part in the HIV crisis. It is this idea that one can still be a child well into adulthood. Yes it exists in America, but let me explain a little further: females cant be “women” until they bear children. This means that there is a general rush to have babies so you can be seen as an adult. I dont mean rush as in theres a line of girls standing outside so and so’s door…But I have NOT met one female who is 20 years old and doesn’t have a child. AT LEAST one. How am I supposed to offer advice/ be an educator when I cant say oh yes, I have had a child, I am a “woman” like you…How can you tell women AND men to wear a condom when procreation is seen as important culturally?
Gender inferiority
I knew very well the types of gender issues that I might encounter here. But it bothers me so much more than I thought it would. I watch these amazingly strong women who do everything; they are the breadwinners, they cook, clean, care for their children and children of dead relatives. They get grants for children (government provided), and also government provided housing for the poor. They farm, they fix their houses. They are masters in every sense. Yet they “need” a man. Despite the aforementioned educational programs, they are so desperate to keep a man, that they have sex without a condom in order to “keep” him. (Even though they well know he probably has 2-3 other girlfriends he’s sleeping with sans a condom). I can identify with the “its nice to have someone to rely on” aspect of this. We all want to be loved, dont we? But I know women who sit and sob because their husband is living with another woman, and would rather die than deal with the lack of a male figure. Even though the male in this situation is a serious dirtbag. Serious. Dirtbag. I want to shake these women and say honey! You do NOT need a man! You already do everything yourselves!
Unemployment/ Lobola
Unemployment is a big problem; something like 20%. Thats bad, but its not the worst in the world. Add into this the Apartheid system. My village is a couple thousand people. There are several other villages clustered nearby. The reason I refer to these areas as villages and not towns is this: It’s like I live in the suburbs. A whole lot of houses close together, small plots, with cows and goats and chickens running around all crazy like. The major differentiating feature is that there are no services. No grocery stores,no retail, nothing. No place for employment. The closest place to access services such as a grocery store is 98KM (60 miles) away. Round trip the price is R70 (US$7). The average home base care worker in South Africa makes (if shes getting paid at all mind you) R500 (US$50)/ month. When you are supporting several children plus an occasionally present boyfriend/ husband, plus your sister and her children, and maybe your mom…that R70 never seemed so important.
Add in to this the idea of lobola, or bride price (this connects with age, above). When a couple decides to get married, negotiations between the two families occur and the mans family must pay Lobola. Lobola can be looked at in several ways. I choose to look at it in a “thank you for raising this girl so nicely!” but is in general paying the females family for x years of care. Thereafter the female joins the mans family. But with the unemployment rate being what it is, most young men cannot afford lobola because they are not working. With the AIDS epidemic most middle aged wage earners are dead. There is no money to acquire a wife and legitimize your children.
The Post Apartheid System/ Migration for work
This system that I mentioned above was created under Apartheid. The white ruling classes wanted to make the black dependent for labor/ services/ everything. They made it so that blacks would have to travel for work and be away from their families for extended periods. It was felt that this would make workers compliant. If they behaved, they could go home. Realistically, this created a high demand for sex workers, and continues to be a major factor in the epidemic. This is why places like my village have nothing. The white elites wanted it that way.
HBC workers not getting tested
I have had probably three or four HIV tests in my life. The most recent was in January, just two weeks prior to my departure. I knew I didn’t have the virus…but I felt compelled to check…I didn’t want to be a hypocrite telling others to test when I hadn’t gone specifically for a test recently. I think it’s important to be able to say that Yea, I know its scary, but I did it too. I dont know for sure, but I dont know if the caregivers at my site are setting this example. I have only been here for a week, so I plan on figuring out whats going on in this capacity and trying to change that. Because if the community knows you’re too afraid to test what kind of example are you?
Why know my status? I’ll die anyway.
Getting people to test is a big problem. Most women test if they’re pregnant (although not all will actually come back for their results) and most men won’t test until they are already sick. I think a portion of this problem is the mentality of so what if its 1 year or 10, this place sucks, I dont care if I die. Its such a defeated notion…I have heard this concept spoken of before, but for me its so hard to wrap my head around, because its so foreign to me. The idea of rolling over and dying? Oh no! I would never go that easy. You had better believe I am contacting my government officials! And the media! And whomever else will listen! I am not going down without a fight!
The problem of ARVs in my village
I think this also factors in to the above. ARVs (antiretroviral drugs. These are NOT a cure, they merely prolong life. They make AIDS a chronic rather than fatal disease when taken appropriately.) are available…in fact it is legally mandated that the government must provide ARVs. However, the government has decided that the only people who are capable of handing out such drugs are nurses. Which are only found at hospitals. Hospitals, unlike clinics, are only found in larger “metropolitan” areas (read: towns, not villages). The nearest hospital is about R80 round trip…and is the opposite cardinal direction from the shopping town. The government could have allowed clinic staff to disperse such treatment, and there tends to be a clinic everywhere around here. They are small basic affairs that disperse medicines, but for some reason the government decided they would be unable to deal with ARVs. True, ARVs are often a complicated combination of pills, and patients need many different types and occasinally switch between types of drugs.
But people from my village cannot access the drugs. They go on the drugs for a few months then go off…creating drug resistant strains of HIV, which is a whole different problem that will face Africa soon.
I have generally decided that I want this issue to the first one that I tackle. Unlike the social/ cultural issues raised above, I actually feel like I might be able to make headway on this. Current ideas I have are:
Create an intake form for the patient, which will be given to the hospital upon the first visit, stating that after x months the medicine should be transferred to one of the closer (more accessible) clinics.
Create some sort of transportation voucher for HIV+ patients for their travel, which can be reimbursed by…somebody?!? I will look into grants for such a purpose, as well as the SA government, since they are legally mandated to provide the drugs, and they are not doing so for the residents in this village.
Create an agreement with the hospital that the patient can pick up several months at a time.
Find funding so that appropriate staff at my local clinic can be trained in supplying ARV medications.
I’ve got some other ideas cookin right now, so we shall see what happens. If you notice, many points start with the word “create.” When I say that I want this to be my first project, it could realistically be my only project.
I have a lot of ideas swirling right now…There is a lot of stuff that I need to research first; I want to see what a lot of the big-time NGO’s have to say, like Doctors without Borders, Amnesty, Human Rights Watch, etc. I want to know the stats for SA…but especially my village. I want to know concrete numbers (I know my dad just fell out of his chair reading that). If no such numbers exist, I need to create a survey, translate it to Zulu, and get knockin on some doors! I feel impatient! So many things to do!
Here are some stories from site:
I have told my host mother that I am from Chicago. She knows I am from America. But when I say Chicago, that is not what she hears. She hears Chi-Congo. So she introduces me as such. People now think I am from the Congo. Ugh. I am getting a world map from a friend this weekend, and hope to have this mess cleared up soon…
I have “adopted” a small boy who lives in one of the surrounding houses. I don’t know his name, but he is about 5 years old and I feed him (hence why he loves me). Every time he sees me he just screams at the top of his lungs JABULILE!!! He doesnt know any English and my Zulu is really only useful in certain situations. (Ngivoluntiya umhlangano iziphakati…I volunteer with organizations of the community.) So he chatters on in zulu and I chatter back in english and we just kinda sit and look at each other. Its adorable.
I also “adopted” a neighborhood dog. I have decided to call him Thunzi (Shadow). This dog also loves me because I feed him. But the dog, unlike the small boy, follows me to work! He even sits around and waits for me. Hence why I call him shadow! The other day he followed me to work where we were unpacking food boxes for orphans in the village and all of the caregivers were outside and they just kept saying over and over again how much the dog loved me…I didn’t explain to them that its because 1) I feed him and 2) I don’t kick/ beat/ throw stones at him. The dog is very friendly (hence why I like him), but no one else will even pet him. I am trying to talk to him only in Zulu, which is good because I am good at making commands. My 12 y/o host sister asked me two days ago if dogs talked in America. I almost fainted. When I was walking home from work I stopped to talk to a woman and Thunzi went off to sniff another dog. When I left the woman to continue home I let Thunzi stay until I was a few paces away and then I called him in Zulu. But the woman with whom I had been speaking still wanted to know if I spoke Dog. Ugh. I called him in clear as day ZULU!!
So now not only am I the white girl who speaks Zulu, I am the white girl who speaks Zulu and has a dog following her that actually listens. I should just break out a flute of sorts and go skipping down the road with the dog and the boy following!!!
About once a week or so I venture out onto the tar road. Typically I go on a Saturday to a store to buy eggs (in bulk; 18 at a time!! Mmm, protein!!) and I buy fresh vegetables at a different store. The adventure there and back (at least a half hour walk each way) isn’t so bad, but I hate actually being out on the tar road. But I have to mentally prepare myself for it every week due to the boys. I get whistled at, cat called, offers to help me to wherever I am going, etc. Its not that this is unusual, it happens all the time in America. But in America I know when a male is being flirtatious, funny, an asshole, or just trying to be nice. Here I have no idea. I consistently hear “I want to know you better.” I just tell people that im busy, and dont stop walking. I think what frustrates me the most is that I have to avert my eyes. In America I stand up and walk with my head up. If you yell some bs at me you can bet that I will give you a dirty look. But here I walk with my eyes on the ground when I spot a group of males approaching. I don’t stop paying attention, but I sure as hell do not make eye contact.
Well this week I went to the tar road on a Thursday. I thought maybe it would be “quieter,” what with it being a workday (haha! As if anyone works!). I decided I wanted to see how long it actually took to walk to the post office. Well when I hit the tar road it was like a circus…school kids, gogos with boxes on their heads, campaigners, everyone was out. And there were hundreds of men. I got more proposals, more “let me accompany you”’s…I even got a “please, come to my home” after I firmly said no, “i will pay you.” I’m pretty sure it was my first proposition, but I sure as hell didn’t stop or slow down long enough to find out.
After about an 60-75 minutes of my American pace I finally made it to the post office. I took a taxi home.
Is it bad that after 3 weeks I want to write off half the population that I am supposed to “help?”
Other than that, I am great! My organization is fantastic, and I am doing well. I have started to visit schools so that the kids and teachers know me. All in all, I am loving it!
