As I sit here trying to conceptualize leaving the place I have called home for the past semester I am lost, and found, and lost again. There is no manual of course. It must come sharply like the harsh ripping off of a bandaid from tender and healing skin. How do you say goodbye to the place that bound you and waited patiently as the wounds underneath began to heal over slowly and freely. And as you sit and think of how you have to part with the very thing that you felt held you together your mind pleads, “Stop! Please- just a few more days, weeks, months. I am not ready.” The Mother Land, being the heart and soul of the world, knows that this is not true. You are ready. She knows that the separation must come so that you can return to the place that is truly home, and bring pieces of Her with you.
The truth is you will never feel ready to leave Her. You will sit and ponder for weeks and months, and years, and decades how one place is capable of moving your soul so immensely. And as happy as you feel basking in the endless beauty that belongs to Her, you will feel a simultaneous pull at the pit of your soul for the despair and pain that belong to Her too. A seemingly irreconcilable juxtaposition of blissful traditional cultures and cultures lost in a battle for selfhood stripped away by imposing nations. And at the very moment you begin to feel lost and pitiful and full of heartache, you remember lines from poets like Olena Kalytiak Davis who bring you back to reality with words like, ““Please don’t misunderstand: We still suffer, but we are happy.” You smile and sigh because it is true that, through all the apparent misery, you have met the happiest people in your entire life. The dilapidated shanty-towns seem the happiest of them all. To an untrained and unfamiliar eye these may seem like the most desperate communities. Do not forget: The nurturing Mother Land knows how to soothe Her kin.They have found beauty and life in each other rather than the material things that consume the rest of the free world.
When you leave Her you leave the sticky-sweet layer of warmth found only in places where the sun comes out to greet the people so intimately. Drenched in sunlight that warms you to your very soul.
And the beat, beat, beat of Afro-fusion music that energizes and uplifts as you sway away in a rhythmic trance. You will never be as amazed at the looseness and ease with which people dance and personify the beat that you were only capable of hearing.
Once you’re gone your tongue will ache for the spicy-sweet mingling flavors of curry and cardamom that set off fireworks on the tip of your taste buds. You’ll swear you saw God in that curry, that samosa, that plate of pap and saap.
You will miss the loving and welcoming waves from the neighborhood children, mothers, and fathers as you drive to and from work. “Teacher!, Teacher!, Teacher!”(pronounced tee-chah, tee-chah, tee-chah). You have never felt so welcomed home in a place you weren’t even born in.
As you watch your last African sunsets that paint the sky with colors unlike any you’ve ever seen you will hear the faint hymn of Nkosi Sikele Africa, the national anthem. Tears will swell in your eyes as you listen to a song that resonates with grace and humility.
Nkosi sikelel’ iAfrika
Maluphakanyisw’ uphondo lwayo,
Yizwa imithandazo yethu,
Nkosi sikelela, thina lusapho lwayo
God Bless us, Africa
May her glory be lifted high
Hear our prayers
God Bless us, your children
God bless us, Africa; God bless us, Africa; God bless us, Africa
And as you sit and ponder how you say goodbye to the Mother Land, the heart of us all, dear Africa, you realize you don’t. You come back for more, and more, and more until the Mother Land has become just as much a part of you as you are of Her. You say your sweet “Hello” to Africa again and again.
Sorry to bombard the blog with two seemingly negative posts after such a long period away but I’m writing what has stood out in the past couple of weeks and I want to be honest about the entirety of the experience. Of course, the week has had its bright moments and there has been a lot of laughter, but there has also been a lot of emotional weight that has seemed to hover a bit over everything.
I think the veterans in the program are reaching a point where the routine has started to feel a bit like clockwork. This is paired with the unsettling reality that in a few short weeks everything that we’ve known here will continue on without us as we make our return back home. It’s an odd feeling conceptualizing the end of the program, but one that has seemed to be on everyone’s mind as of late. A lot of us seem to be struggling with what to physically do with our experience once we return home and how to reconcile it with “reality” and our old routines.
Baby after baby has been leaving the hospital to the extent that I once would be watching anywhere from 15-20 kids in the play area while I now average 9 or 10. I think the weight of this has been heavier than I initially thought. I know that it’s a good thing for them to be rehabilitated but it’s almost as if the relationship you have with an individual kid is there one day and can be gone the next without any trace left behind. Their cots are cleaned and a new baby will be sitting there in a couple of days who is in equal need to attention and love. I suppose it might feel easier, or a least less unsettling, if there was some sort of closure before they left. Most of the time their guardians will come at night or over the weekend though. Essentially it feels a bit like you’re continually pouring all of your affection and care into the kids while simultaneously being expected to pick up and move on with little to no notice once they leave the hospital. That has been very difficult for me. I guess I’m the type of person who makes strong attachments once they’ve been formed and letting them go while continuing on as normal has been a challenge that I didn’t really foresee.
Unfortunately we also have recently said goodbye to one of the staff members who we were closest to due to circumstances that were unforeseen and a bit muddied. We also were not given any proper closure and we’re still not sure we’ll be able to say a proper goodbye before we go back home. It’s odd because for a program that is geared so much towards human connection we have faced some difficulties in enabling productive staff-volunteer relations due to administrative rules and such that want to prevent close attachments. For me though, the staff has played a pivotal role in making my experience as wonderful as it has been. I guess I just wish we could have said goodbye, is all ( if you ever happen to read this which i highly doubt we miss you so much, you have no idea).
All in all I’ve been in and out of a weird funk that seems fueled by untapped emotions and difficulty in processing the experience thus-far. I don’t want it to seem like life has been miserable because it hasn’t. We have had plenty of wonderful moments the past couple of weeks including painting banners and posters in preparation for the 16 days of activism against domestic violence. There has just been a weight of late that I can’t quite figure out entirely. I guess everything in life has its highs and lows and maybe this is just a necessary part of the experience. Hope everyone has a good week.
Trees in South Africa
If I had known what was to come from walking through the double wooden doors of the hospital that morning, perhaps I would have avoided placement altogether or at least spent the day in one of the other wards. The weeks have been simultaneously getting easier and more emotionally exhaustive. 5 of the babies have gone home since I’ve been there and they all happened to be ones I was particularly fond of. All bitter reminders that I work in a hospital and not a daycare. I am forced to settle for not knowing what happens to them as soon as they pass through those same double doors and out into the sunlight of the real world. I am not privy to most of their surnames. I have no knowledge of what happens to them after their brief stints at Sarah Fox. It is largely a bittersweet feeling that mingles elation for their reunion with society and deep heartache for missing the rest of their lives. Sometimes it happens while I’m in the room and other times I will come back from a weekend or evening and one of their cots will be empty and prepared to be filled with another little one in need of medical attention and refuge. Either way I never feel like I find real closure.
As soon as I stepped into the ward that morning I knew it was going to be a arduous day. One of the little toddlers, Qude, was wrapped up in clothes I had never seen before with women I had never seen before and was being placed in his stroller to depart. My heart dropped as I prepared to let another one waltz out of my life almost as if he had never been there at all. This was, of course, far from reality as their imprint on my life will always be more tangible and memorable than any distant memory they have of me or their stay at Sarah Fox. I tried to lean down and give him a hug but the women around him didn’t understand my affection towards him and were being fairly unwelcoming. They had seen many months and many faces of different volunteers who came and went. I settled for giving small waves and secret peek-a-boos from across the room. And then he was gone. The day went on.
When the nursing staff called me to the back of the room I assumed it was to get one of the younger infants who need held rather than playing in the pen, however, they were all arranged in a small semi-circle around the cots. Buru, a nursing student who I’ve grown particularly close to, told me that today they were doing rounds and I had been invited to join the circle. A wave of distress surged through me as I though about what was about to happen. On the one hand, I was glad to have reached such a level of trust with the nursing staff who are notoriously hard to get acclimated with so my refusal would have felt inappropriate. On the other, I knew from the beginning that I had no desire to know what any of the kids had individually so as to avoid seeing the illness when I interacted with them as opposed to the child. I didn’t see any other option rather than giving a small half-smile and taking my place behind the lump of frazzled and under-appreciated women.
The monotonous tone of the head nurse in charge of orating the rounds was riddled with a mixture of a dry acquaintance with the procedure and an obvious desire to get on with the process so as to continue work. The routine began with a short repetition of the same four points for each of the 28 cots and thus 28 children.
name, date of birth, illness, social status
name, date of birth, illness, social status
We began with cot number 4.
“Name: Yibanathi
date of birth: can’t recollect
illness: HIV
status: Can’t return home. Parents can’t afford the cost of medical treatment. Working on placement with the social worker.”
My heart immediately dropped. I didn’t want to continue but to everyone else this was the usual and thus they appeared remarkably un-phased. We continued on.
“Emilhe, Lubabalo, Charmane.”
“And this one, also HIV.”
“TB”
“TB”
“And this one, also HIV.”
“burn victim”
“drug abuse”
“alcohol abuse”
“And this one, also HIV.”
“abandoned”
“malnourished”
“And this one, also HIV.”
“can’t return home, can’t return home, can’t return home”
It went on and on for 28 cribs and I found myself bracing internally for each child as we approached them. A small part of me started wishing and praying in my head, “not him, not him, not her, not her”, but with each cot came another painstaking blow. It was relentless. Buru seemed to notice the tears building as I shifted from foot to foot and imagined being anywhere else but in this semicircle and she grabbed my hand and gave it a squeeze.
“This is all too common for us, my dear. It should never stop being painful.”
We glanced in each other’s eyes and continued the routine.
“And this one, also HIV.”
The town above the water-Adventures in Bo Kaap.
A vibrant and mixed community that has remained diverse and strong throughout the struggles of apartheid. The houses in this township are colored various hues of the rainbow. One theory of the painting is centered about the word Ubuntu, a South African philosophy that feeds off of the idea that “I am what I am because of who we all are.” When painting their houses, families would pass their leftover paint to their neighbors so that no one would would be left behind. And so a unique shade was created for each house.
“And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.”
Views from Table Mountain
Muizenberg Beach!
