Dreaming of the city
Working in rural KZN is most certainly a life altering experience. Ingwavuma is almost on the Swaziland border and about an hour’s drive from the Mozambique border in Kosi Bay. Everywhere you look all you see is green, in different shapes, sizes and shades. Looking out of the window I can count at least 8 trees which surround the house that I live in on the hospital property, nevermind the shrubs and bushes. It’s all beautiful in an untamed sort of way. But the most beautiful thing here is the sky: there are no tall buildings, so the expanse of sky that’s visible is amazing. And you just need to look to the sky to know a little bit about what type of day it will be. On cold days the sky is a steely grey. On warm days it might be a light blue hue covered by lots of little white clouds. A blazing hot day has a blazingly blue sky that’s so bright it hurts the eye to look at.
My only problem is the distance of the nearest town and getting there.
Living in Worcester I complained about having to drive an hour and 15 minutes to get to Cape Town, now I drive 4 hours and 15 minutes to get to Durban!! And that’s good time! It could be more depending on the state of the roads. Things that slow you down:
1. Rain
2. Long distance trucks (most are very long)
3. Potholes, but these are more or less constant and they’re so numerous, only a drunk person would drive in a straight line on these roads!
4. Cows and other animals that decide to wander into the road
5. Unroadworthy vehicles unable to drive at a speed exceeding 40kph
6. Overloaded vehicles with the back almost scraping the tar and the exhaust pipe chugging out smoke as black as night
Now there are other options. If you don’t want to go to Durban, the next best place to do some shopping is Richard’s Bay, which is almost three hours’ drive. Personally I’d rather drive the extra distance to Durban.
Then there’s Maputo which is in Mozambique, but that’s not exactly the place to go and do your monthly shopping unless you’re planning on surviving solely on seafood.
The nearest place you might be able to call a town is Jozini and that’s about 1 hour’s drive away. In Jozini you will find a BP petrol station, my preferred petrol station, a Spar that is a good size and there is even something of a main road which runs through the town. Along this road you have your normal variety of spaza shops and Shisa Nyama venues (place to buy and braai your meat, less than hygeinic). Of course in the middle of town you also have to find your normal variety of livestock. The most commonly found are cows and goats, with a few donkeys here and there, and some starving rabid dogs.
Ingwavuma has a place it calls town, it begins about 500m from the hospital gate. It consists of a Spar which sometimes doesn’t have bread, a Snip store, a Pep, a few other little stores including a hardware store and a furniture store. Most of these are rented by illegal Chinese immigrants from crooked (a) South African/s out to make a quick buck from people who can’t complain about being exploited, because they can’t risk being deported. There’s also an Engen which has 3 pumps and at most 2 attendants.
A little further along the road, up the next hill you find the police station and the post office side by side. Each manned by only one person at a time. You will also find the social services department which is busiest on a Tuesday when the doctor comes to visit, to approve or disapprove applications for Disability Grants.
A little further along is a building with intricate decorations on the outside, I assume it’s the world famous Fancy Stitch. This is where local women make African bead accessories. The place is run by a white woman, who markets it as a project which is empowering rural African women. First world clients place orders, happy that they’re doing their bit for Africa. The white woman is paid in dollars, but the Black ladies are paid in rands. Just enough to support their extensive families and remain poor. But is this wrong? Where would they work if Fancy Stitch didn’t employ them?
So in rural South Africa little has changed. The majority of the population still inhabits the poorest and smallest portion of the country’s land. The schools are still dishing out an education that helps children become unskilled labourers. Men are still migrant workers who bring back money every now and then, and more often than not they leave behind HIV as an extra something for their wives.
Once they’ve been chewed up by the big city, they’re spat out back to their rural towns with a variety of diseases ranging from occupational lung diseases to AIDS.
Everyone is still in denial that HIV even exists and it’s not spoken about. Even though more than 85% of patients seen at or admitted to the hospital are HIV positive. There is still a strong belief that Zulu meds can cure HIV, even though Zulus drinking the meds are dying from HIV all the time!
I don’t know what the answer to these problems is. If I were in control I would spend all my money and energy on education.
I know it’s harsh, but we shouldn’t waste our limited resources on those who have passed their expiry date already. It may make me a bad doctor, but I do believe that you should deal with the consequences of your actions. And if that means dying from AIDS related illnesses because you are in denial about your HIV status or you are non-compliant on your ARVs, then there isn’t much I can do to help you.
But the innocent children who are born into this life without having asked for it, these are the ones who should be given the best that can be given. I think this may be the only answer to ending the vicious cycle of poverty and illness amongst the largest portion of South Africa’s population.
For now, I’ll just toil on in this little place that feels like its on the edge of the earth. All the while dreaming about being in the city, where it’s easier to forget that places like this even exist.
