I am interning at a place called Tafelsig Clinic. It is a health clinic in a small building in a poor community. Ninety-nine percent of the patients are (classified) coloured and speak Afrikaans. Over five-hundred patients on average are seen per day, over ten-thousand patients per month coming to get treated and all for no cost at all. This as you can imagine can take a toll on nurses or (South African way of saying things) sisters, doctors, and volunteers that come to work in such a stressful environment. To them, I have got the impression that it can many times feel as though they are living in a bona fide nightmare. To me, it an honour to work in such an amazing place. I can, will, and have already learned so many things. Things that I would never be able to see in the States.
At times I feel so uncomfortable being the only white person in all of the clinic, the only person who does not understand Afrikaans, and the only person that has not lived amongst a community as they do. It is so overwhelming. I love it. I find it refreshing.
Today, on my birthday (23 Feb) , an overcast day, I went to work to find that the gates were closed. Curiously cars not there. No patients outside. The police pace outside. The nurses were standing in a circle as a gust of wind ferociously whined blowing dust and sand into the air. It was almost as if nature was weeping for what I had heard next. Someone had broken into the clinic the night before. Computers stolen and the place destroyed. “You can try to come back tomorrow they said.” I came home. Wow. Someone had broken in and destroyed a place that was giving free services in a community that whoever the perpetrator was probably came from. How could they do this and why? They took from a place that was already low on funds, a place that served the community, a place that now over five-hundred people will be turned down help today, people who truly need help. I can’t explain the anger that ran through my body first starting as a slow drip and then suddenly feeling like an over flowing sink. I feel sick.
Everyone keeps telling me that I am so lucky I got a day off on my birthday but I don’t feel that way…
I miss everything about being there. I miss the people I work with, the adorable kids that I see, the things that I should be learning. I miss sitting at the tea table eavesdropping on all of the nurse’s conversations. This is how I learn their culture, learn their country, learn their lives. I miss learning…did I say that already?
I should try to think of this in a positive light. In one way I am learning about the community and the way people live. I am learning about the daily issues. I just wish it wasn’t so negative. I wish it didn’t make me so angry.
I know that there are things here that are left unsaid, but I honestly can not think of anything else at the moment. I would like to change the subject and talk about the fact that my computer has been broken for the past 3ish weeks. There were things that I had left out of my previous blog entry that I would like to re-address:
Wow, I feel like I have learned more in six weeks than I have all last semester at UConn. Sorry UConn, but it really is true that something just can’t be taught in a classroom. In the past two weeks I have seen the most beautiful scenery I have every seen before in my life, I have seen poverty, I have seen pride and joy that I have never seen before. Some of these things that I have seen here in Cape Town I already worry that I cannot describe them to other people and the pictures don’t even do them justice.
As everyone else on this blog knows, I love to take pictures! So as I look through my 2000 photos, I will try to explain the best experiences of my life in a way that you can understand the indebtedness I feel to be here and to all the people that I will be surrounded by for the next 60 some odd days of my life for being such great people and for adding to my knowledge. I already know that everyone I have met will be my friend for life when I get back to the US.
I feel like I have the world in my hands right now. I am experiencing things that some people will never able to in their life. Seeing a completely different culture has completely changed the way I view things. The air seems so much fresher, my eyesight has slightly increased, and my knowledge is growing every one-hundredth of a second that I am here. I miss everyone at home so much and everything bagels toasted with cream cheese, but I am sorry I wouldn’t trade anything for this experience. I love South Africa.
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