God left Africa a long time ago...

On Saturday the 26th of April I went to the Seapoint pool with ProDivers to do my confined water dives. Unfortunately right before the last four skills I got trouble with my ears again (similar to Turkey) so I just finished the endurance and got out of the water. I had lunch at Sofia’s (best tapas restaurant) and went home. After a long hot shower to warm up again I fell asleep and really didn’t wake up anymore so I had a nice long night of sleep. The girls were out in Hout Bay so it was actually quite nice this way. On Sunday morning I went to the market in Greenpoint and bought a lot of souvenirs and stuff. In the evening I went our for a quick dinner at Spur with Mel and Uriah and after that spent the evening writing on my thesis.
On Monday we had a public holiday and I was supposed to quickly finish my confined water dive skills and then go out to the ocean to do my first open water dive. Unfortunately it was too windy so all the boat dives were cancelled. Tuesday and Wednesday were busy working days because on Thursday another public holiday would start. I left on Thursday morning with Melanie for a four day drive along the west coast. We stopped at Langebaan but found it was too windy there and we couldn’t find a nice beach. We drove on to Saldanha and in Tabaksbaai we found a beach… with a lot of parked cars with scary people in them so we decided not to get ourselves in trouble and drive on to St. Helenabaai. There we found Shelley Point, a sort of holiday resort thing like Center Parcs in Holland but then a hundred times more beautiful. There was one lodge, called the Oystercatcher Lodge. The owner invited us in to have a look (fabulous!) and told us they had been waiting for hours already for two people to show up. If at five they still wouldn’t be there and still wouldn’t have phoned back, the room would be ours. And we were so lucky that this happened! Shelley Point has a really nice beach on the bay and we spent the Friday there sleeping and reading and even tanning a little bit. Our room was right on the sea.. anyway you should just look at the pictures.
When in the afternoon we started to get hungry we went out to find a place to lunch and eventually ended up in some sort of local pub where we got invited by local Afrikaners to a braai in the evening. They seemed trustworthy and so we had a very nice evening full of laughter. They wanted to take us fourwheeldriving in the sanddunes of Lamberts Baai the next day but due to all kinds of circumstances we decided to head for the dunes at Yzerfontein. Unfortunately our driver wasn’t feeling too well (could have something to do with tequila) so he promised us to take us the next Saturday (Yzerfontein is not too far from Cape Town). And so it happened that on Saturday early in the afternoon we were already back in our city. Mel and I decided to do some shopping at the Waterfront and I wanted to have lunch at Primi to see if a guy that Caro and I had met earlier really was the manager there. And so we had a really nice lunch and walked around a bit in the shops. Then we went back to Primi for a cup of coffee before heading home.
We had agreed to go out for dinner with the four of us (Melanie, Uriah, Niezaam and me) so we could have an easy couples night. Then when Uriah didn’t show up without calling the trouble started. Mel went with us to Beleza where later on Uriah came in, followed by his friends… The evening was quite ruined for me by then and I didn’t want to stay with the group of friends so Niezaam and me left and went to Joburg, a little club on Long Street where I have some friends. Niezaam got drunk so I took him home and drove back to Bantry Bay on my own. On Sunday I wrote a bit on my thesis, cleaned the house because it would be on view again, and then took some articles to read at Primi. Spent a few hours there drinking free hot chocolate before Reme (the manager) got us some food to take away and we went to his house in the Gardens. What a nice place this guy has, unbelievable! After eating our food I picked up my laptop at home and wrote some more… a very nice evening to get some work done but still be with friends. Then another working week went by; I am really starting to realise more and more as I walk into the hospital every morning how much I am going to miss the place and the kids.

In this working week I watched the movie Tears from the Sun. This movie takes place in Africa and can be placed on one line with The last king of Scotland and Blood Diamond. Although these movies don’t take place in the country South Africa, there are a lot of people from neighbouring countries here. People from Angola, Congo, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Mozambique and so on. As you might have heard or seen on the news (I got a message from a friend from Holland asking if I can please look after myself because of all the things going on in Johannesburg right now) there are a lot of xenophobia murders going on right now, especially in the townships of Johannesburg. We read the most horrifying stuff in the newspapers everyday. People who nail the legs of a man on a wooden stick and then set him on fire, for instance.

On Friday morning I woke up with a heavy headache (no hangover: I went to bed at nine in the evening on Thursday) and it was bad enough for me to stay at home. Wise decision, because later on my stomach also decided to go crazy on me and I spent the day and the evening in bed and on the couch. Saturday same story, although during the day it got a little bit better. Melanie went to the hairdresser in the week and she got an allergic reaction to the hairdye so she also was at home for the weekend. On Saturday evening we decided to visit Sexpo, which was quite small compared to similar events in Holland. We had a lot of fun, especially at the oral workshop haha! It was good to be out of the house for a bit. After this we went to bed early again and on Sunday I hung around the apartment. By the end of the weekend I was luckily feeling much better again.

Another week of work: I am really starting to bond with all the girls on the ward now and can’t see myself leaving this place. Some of them invite me to their home for when they get discharged and I have to explain to them I won’t be there anymore by then. In this hospital you are not just a physio therapist: you are also a nurse, a social worker, a friend and a big sister. On Monday I went with Jeanine to Guguletu, one of the townships in Cape Town. She organises a sports project there for children. Unfortunately it looked like it was going to rain so the children didn’t show up, but we did have a walk around Barcelona, a particular part of Guguletu. I didn’t take any pictures but it is undescribable how I felt when walking there. You have to imagine a shack made of whatever was there: wood, metal plates and so on. They do have one plug per shack so there is a little bit of electricity. They have little gas or oil cookers most of the time (which causes fires all the time), one tap per street so you see people carrying huge buckets of water on their heads all the time. One or two beds in the shack, where most of the time more than five or six people live together on maybe four square meters. The shacks are all built next to each other, if not to say almost on top of each other. There are only dirt roads, and you basically walk on garbage all the time. Thousands and thousands of people live in these townships without everything that you and me find to be so normal, like a huge amount of clothes, blankets, warm water in the house, electricity for all our electrical stuff and so on. If you get caught by the rain and get home soking wet, you might be cold for the whole week because you don’t have any other dry, warm clothes and you can’t take a hot shower to warm up: you don’t even have water in the house, let alone warm water. Anyway, to fit the contrast of this city:
On Tuesday I go out for dinner at Beluga, a restaurant I really wanted to see before I leave. One of the fine dining restaurants in Cape Town. Not particularly special compared to the fine dining restaurants in Holland, but still very nice. And the waiter had the Vin Diesel voice… Oi!

Friday evening we went to Bamboo, where some people got into a way too serious discussion (again) which basically ruined my evening (going out is for fun, right?). Still, it wasn’t too bad. On Saturday I finally went diving again, this time in the ocean! It was very cold, after the second dive I couldn’t even feel my feet anymore, it is really hard to walk when you can’t feel your feet! All went well, after the diving I took a shower and a nap and we headed for dinner at Bravo with Henk and Jelle and for Hemisphere afterwards. This is one of the best and most famous clubs in Cape Town, on the 31st floor of the ABSA bank building. Obviously this club has a spectaculair view over the city… it also has the best bartenders and bribable doormen at the VIP section. The first time that I really, really got a little bit drunk because I felt it was ‘safe’ to do so. We all did by the way and we had a lot of fun at this amazing place. On Sunday went diving again, saw some amazing colours on the rocks with all the starfish, clamps, anenemies and so on. Not too many fish though, but the water was a lot warmer than the day before, as was the overall temperature outside. This meant a way more comfortable dive than on Saturday. Now I only still have to write the exam and then I will have finished my first PADI open water course and will be certified to dive to 18 meters in open water, yeah!

On Monday we decided to have a spontaneous braai which turned out very good. On Tuesday I was supposed to go to an African drumming lesson but it started thunderstorming and raining so it was cancelled. On Wednesday I wrote some more on my thesis and made the first design of the information flyer about tuberculosis. Today I wrote some more and we might go out for a bit tonight. Tomorrow we will leave with a six to eight people group to Hermanus where we can stay in the house of a collegue of mine. We will try to spot some whales from the shore as boat trips are not permitted yet (too early in season) and we will go shark cage diving if the weather allows it.

Now why do I call this story ‘God left Africa a long time ago’ ? The quotation is from Tears from the Sun. I feel like a lot of barbarian things are still going on in this country and even more on this continent. The xenophobia murders are a good example. But every day I walk into something that I just can not get my head around. Every evening that we go out, we will be asked for money or food by children from the age of six to grandmothers with their daughter’s baby on their arm… At two, three, four or five o clock at night! Have a look around in a township (please go as a guest or as a friend, but definitely NOT as a tourist!!!) and you will know exactly what I mean. We had a look at Tembaletu special school in Guguletu on Wednesday, and the conditions are heartbreaking compared to ‘modern countries’. And we are talking about over 200 children with special needs here… And that is just one school.
You hear from the sisters in the hospital that you should never give the begging child at the traffic light money: he will buy glue to sniff in stead of the food he needs. You have to accept the fact that the parents can not come and visit their children every day or even every week, simply because they don’t have the money to come to the hospital all the time (a taxi costs 5 rand, which is approximately 50 eurocents… you do the maths here). A lot of children don’t have parents because sadly enough what you see on tv is true: HIV/AIDS as well as cancer, stroke and a lot of other diseases take many, many young lives. It is commonly believed that the government would rather let very young HIV/AIDS sufferers die than give them the treatment they need because it is much cheaper and easier. I once heard a story (no names) of a surgeon in another hospital who accidentely broke an old man’s leg when replacing his hip.. But what you don’t tell, they will never get to know, right? Can you imagine this happening to you in Holland? The next president, Zuma, believes it is his right as a man to rape any girl or woman that he sees walking on the street in a short(?) skirt. He will be elected to be president of this nation next year. The president today, Mbeki, believes that HIV/AIDS is the disease of the poor and therefore caused by rich countries (like us). And of course it isn’t spread by having unsafe sex and why should you need any expensive medicine if beetroot and garlic will also do the trick?

And even though I know I can’t change all of this on my own, nor can we change it with the whole world (we’ve been trying forever already, right?), it makes me very, very angry to hear from my mother that she and my best friend Kijn have been the only ones so far to donate huge amounts of money on the account for the hospital. Just over 400 euro from just two people, and my brother trying to arrange something with his boss, Richard Branson… And then to know the houses that my family lives in (huge and brand new), and the amount of money going into partying and alcohol from my friends and collegue-students. The promises that the money raised by this and that Tiësto performance will go straight to the hospital... so very much unfulfilled. And nobody can even miss one euro to support a child that really needs that walking frame at home and to show me that you care? UN-BE-LIE-VA-BLE. And not in a positive way . I know that I am just as well spending a lot of money on myself all the time but at least I show these kids that I am trying to do my part for them. The cliché is true: experiences like these are life changing and I doubt that I will ever forget what I have seen, heard, and felt here. I will for the rest of my life never be able to leave someone in need on his own. Especially if it is a child… I guess I should rather give the souvenirs I bought to the kids in the hospital than bring them back to Holland, because right now for me it’s a big question if they will even be appreciated back home.

So far for the preach.. this is the last story written from South-Africa, one more will be posted when I am back in THE FLAT COUNTRY (yawn…).