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 South Africa may not appear to be the first place in need of Student volunteers. I chose it because its tumultuous history and recent democracy fascinate and inspire me. I wanted to be doing something worthwhile, to learn about a different culture, and possibly to learn something about myself.
I was volunteering with SPW on their Health Education programme. programme in a pre-selected rural community in the poor but beautiful Transkei. SPW appealed because it reaches right to the heart of the main crisis in South Africa at the moment – the HIV pandemic. The idea was that as I and my colleagues as young adults could act as ‘peer educators’ reaching the sector of the population most susceptible to HIV, 18-25 year olds, and talk to them about the benefits of safer sex and HIV/AIDS prevention. When you hear how the AIDS pandemic is hitting South Africa you realise that they really are in need - 1 in 3 people are infected already and the number is still rising.
Nothing can prepare you for the challenge of living a way of life totally alien to your own. I will never forget arriving in my community, the name of which I couldn’t even pronounce, in Xhosa - ‘Mqwangqweni’. My ‘house’ was an old tavern comprising one broken bed, a paraffin stove, and a picture of Jesus. I remember feeling my stomach sink at the sight of my new home, which I was to share with my local partner, Fundiswa, who I was to live and work with for the next 9 months. The washing bucket also took a little getting used to. As we had no water container of our own we had to fetch water from our ‘Mama’s’ house – which at a 15 minute walk away was not far in terms of African standards. However, with a 20 litre bucket of water in one’s hand it does seem quite a trek. The women were a greatly entertained, and a little concerned at the sight of me struggling with my pail. Constantly gesturing for me to carry it on my head, they couldn’t understand that my neck muscles were not made of iron like theirs – strengthened from fetching water from as young as the age of 8.
Coming from multicultural London it was strange for me to consider myself different to black people. But that is how I was perceived and so I grew to accept it. And I was different in terms of background, values and culture – all which were indeed represented by my skin colour.
I survived by throwing myself into the challenge of helping the community. By actually living in the same conditions as them I realised I could observe and assess the problems and potentially do something to alleviate them.
Attracting the local youth to our workshops on life-skills, sexual health, and HIV/AIDS proved difficult. Like most young people, they wanted to be entertained rather than lectured to. So rather than saying we were going to have a workshop, we would say “Come to a singing practise.” If there’s one thing the Xhosas like to do, it’s sing, and dance. When we performed a workshop instead they often enjoyed them. We would use non-formal education techniques like games, group work or debates, and choose topics like ‘self-awareness’ or ‘becoming sexually active’.
Talking to them about becoming sexually active was also a revelation to me. I discovered children as young as ten have started having sex, usually girls. My sister is eleven! I was shocked by this discovery, even though I had been warned about it. One common attitude is that when a girl starts to menstruate it means she is ready to have sex.
One memory that stands out for me is Piliswa. A young woman of 25 who told me she was HIV positive with a broad smile on her face, holding the hand of her little girl, aged 5 (who is HIV negative). At first I was worried that her eagerness to tell me was because she expected me to help her, but then I realised that I already had. Just to be able to confide in someone without fearing gossip, abuse and ostracisation was a huge relief to her. We became friends.
I was overawed by Piliswa. Every month she makes sure she goes to Umtata, the local town, and gets her ARVs. She eats and lives healthily. She finds happiness in important things; her friends, her sister, her child. She helped me to see the positive side of HIV/AIDS. I have also seen some devastating effects of the disease. I met a Dutch doctor who worked at the local hospital. She wanted to take me around the TB ward and I agreed, never having seen someone suffering full blown AIDS. We passed through room after room of emaciated, wheezing patients.
 “Most of them have HIV but we don’t have ARVs here to treat them.” Milja explained.
We entered the childrens’ ward where there were 3 patients with TB. One was at least a healthy weight, though with noticeably swollen glands. He stared up at me hostilely, making me feel like the intruder that I was. Another boy was aged 3 and looked the wrong colour. “Can you see how pale he is?” asked Milja “he is probably very anaemic”.
The child couldn’t smile, his breaths came short and fast, his huge eyes gazed helplessly out of his expressionless face.
“He needs an HIV test” Milja told the nurse. “Although it is very clear to me already”, she spoke aside to me. Speechless, I could only nod. I felt paralysed, like I shouldn’t be there but couldn’t walk away. Like in a dream – it didn’t seem real.
Lying in the third cot was a tiny baby who looked newborn. “He is 8 months” said the nurse “he weighs 4 kilos.”
I spoke for the first time, “can I hold him?”
“Yes, do!” Milja was eager for me to feel how light he was.
It was like holding air, the only weight came from his clothes.
What have I gained from my 9 months in Mqwangqweni? The honour of living with the Xhosas, of being adopted as one of their own rather than the total stranger that I was, of being friends with someone like Piliswa, of knowing that now I can live pretty much anywhere and adapt to the situation, and of gaining a deeper perspective of what really matters – being healthy and content with life. Would I recommend this to somebody else? If you want to challenge yourself to do things that you never thought you could, certainly.
Provided by alice clarfelt (United Kingdom)
Provided by Eamonn Connaughton (United Kingdom)
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