Presence

Are you ready for a novel and to see a variety of emotions? I’ll briefly begin with Wednesday. We did some home visits. All 16+ of us would pile into these tiny houses and listen to the stories of people who are victims of HIV, poverty, and apartheid. Many people, including myself, struggled with a feeling of intrusion and lack of privacy. In one situation, we went into a hostile that was the size of 2 queen sized beds. I felt like I was going to a zoo and occasionally asking people questions. These people were literally on exhibit for us. These feelings were contradictory with the messages that we got from people in Gugs because they told us that our presence and ears were extremely valued by the people we met. This was a really hard struggle for me to put on the South African lens and leave behind my cultural norms.

Now Thursday. We did hospice visits and this was by far the most challenging day for me all week for numerous reasons. The first house we went to was actually a shack and there was an HIV positive woman that was bed ridden. She proceeded to tell us that she is tired of white tourists coming into her home, taking pictures of her, and making promises that they don’t follow through with. This instilled the thoughts that I had on Wednesday. This woman couldn’t move her body and her eyes were bulging out of her face like a Holocaust victim. I couldn’t be mad at this woman because of her condition so instead I placed my frustration on Aaron. I was hoping he’d be outside of the shack and that I’d be able to just scream at him. I didn’t know what to do with that experience and I didn’t understand at that time how it benefited my learning experiences. Why would this woman allow us to come into her house if she didn’t feel comfortable with us being there? I now have many perspectives on why this woman may have said the things she did. She could have just been having a horrible day and misplaced her anger on us like I wanted to misplace my anger on Aaron. She also could have just wanted to share her perspective with us to give us another view of what happens in the townships. I now understand that this woman probably didn’t mean to personally attack us or make us feel bad but rather she wanted to vent to us and inform us about her situation. Anger also came from this situation because I got really mad at all the Americans that have every travelled to areas like Guguletu and have made false promises to the people of these places. This is the one thing that we shouldn’t do as global citizens because we are only creating a bad reputation for ourselves.

After this experience we didn’t want to go to the next location but the nurses talked us into it. The next person we visited was HIV positive, lived alone in a shack, and had horrible pressure sores and a colostomy bag. We walked into his shack and I noticed empty bottles of liquor in the corner which raised an alarm about the fact that alcohol counteracts the antiretroviral medication that he’s taking. So basically he’s contributing to his deteriorating health condition but I can’t blame him because I would drink my life away if that were me. The care givers and the man proceeded to unwrap bandages on his leg and butt. He took the bandages off and I saw the worst bed sores I’ve ever seen. There were areas on his butt that were just missing skin and it looked like he had horrible burns. I couldn’t ask him any questions or continue any further because the smell was horrible.

I left that man’s home unbelievably upset with the healthcare system in South Africa. Did I mention that these people are only checked on and changed every other day? I’ve been working with people with mental and physical disabilities for about three years and I can’t even imagine checking on them every other day. These people deserve and need constant care, whether it’s from a family member or nurse. It also upset me because I thought Guguletu had a great sense of community but if so many people are unemployed why aren’t they using their time to care for their community members (as harsh as that may sound). I didn’t find out until our last day that volunteering doesn’t really exist in their community because people are always expecting something in return for their time spent doing something. I guess this makes sense considering the fact that many families don’t have food to feed their children.

As I write this I realize I'm leaving a lot of things out and that the things I got really upset about were just immediate reactions, like Aaron had warned us about. I still have very strong feelings about the things I saw and when I re-read the things I wrote from these two days I still get really upset about these circumstances but I now accept that everything we saw was not to make us feel bad. It wasn’t to make us feel guilty. It wasn’t to make us feel shame or pity for those people that so graciously shared their stories with us. This has been the hardest and most challenging week of my entire life, but it was an eye opening experience that has helped me grow. I pray for these people and I’m much more grateful for the lifestyle that I have. I now accept that I am here to learn and not to change everyone’s lives and the political structure of South Africa. There will always be things out of my control that will bother me and this week has helped me accept this. 

Thanks for blogging,

Brittany