Africa Time; Time is different here…..apparently.

Okay. Africa Time. It’s a foreign concept that often leaves me baffled, even after being here for 8 months. Mainly because they have several versions of “now” in this country; “Now now”, “just now”, “now”, and “I’ll be there now”. Obviously….?

This made our first few weeks a living nightmare, turning up early, late and everything in between!  We eventually went to seek some true South African help on this pressing issue. So…
Now now à is roughly in the next 5 mins, generally means you are literally on your way.
Just now à well, this is tricky, supposedly it can mean anything from 5 mins to over half an hour. I guess in UK we’d say “soon” or “in a while.” This caught Cara and I out big time on our first day!

Now à is generally in between “now now” and “just now”

I’ll be there now à …..we still don’t know….or maybe it’s just South African time keeping on that one ;)

African Time; “now’s” aside as, to be honest, it really doesn’t even look like a real word any more… is generally of a very slow pace, even just walking we’ve found we have stopped storming ahead pace wise and have slotted nicely into the local’s slow meander, so apologies in advance if this annoys you when I’m home, I’ve also started picking up on the “now’s” so it may also be best to ask me for specific times for at least a few months. The excuse if anyone is late, although, if you’re within an hour of the specified start time you’re kind of okay, is “TIA”…or This Is Africa.

There we go, it is officially NOT my fault if I am still running on Africa Time for my first few months back home. 

March; droughts and all things fun.

On a work front March was awesome! Monique arrived, our new Pharmacist. This meant we got two working days back to fill in the gaps of the ARV system and gain as much hospital experience as possible. I sometimes forget this is also my work experience year. I figured; if I can get a grip of the basics in such a rural hospital as Zithulele, I shouldn’t struggle too greatly at home. Oh I just realised, you guys can’t read minds, and probably have no clue what I’m talking about (unless you’re mam & dad) in February I got and Unconditional offer to study Nursing at Stirling University!

I was working with Becky in OPD the other week and I was taking blood, and I helped with abdominal drains and dressings, all the fun things! I guess I owe Becky great thanks for being so trusting. I’ve also been doing a bit of counselling with the patients, an incredible Peer Educator. It’s actually so insightful to be a part of that side of the process, and good to use as motivation when the admin work piles up. One patient at the end of a session said “thank you, I’m no longer scared of HIV. I’m ready to take it on!” and that, in a nutshell is what it’s all about here. That phrase, for me, defines my year.

March was also “the month of the drought”. I’ll explain… so in Transkei; Summer (winter back home) is the rainy season, and the summer rain in theory, fills up our water tanks to last us through winter (summer back home) or the dry season as it is here. However, we had incredibly scarce rain over the summer months, which already caused a concerned expression on a few people’s faces, and then….the pump that brings us water from the dam inevitably broke. As with most things in this part of the word there was a huge song and dance about getting in fixed, something about the guy who fixed it last time wasn’t paid by the government blah, blah, blah. That’s one thing I won’t miss about SA, the faff caused to fix something simple. God Bless the people at the hospital, as far as I could see everything in their power was done to try and fix the problem, it’s unfortunately the people higher up that like to cause such a fuss. Okay, rant over.  Ultimately, we had no water for over 2 weeks, the hospital included, and causing easily solved illnesses to progress into life threatening problems; dehydration in to renal failure being the prime example. The effect wasn’t just on people’s medical health, we had no water to wash dishes, have showers, and flush toilets…it causes early staged insanity. It did, however make us understand the value water has in our lives and how grateful we are to have grown up with running water. 15+ litres of water to flush a toilet, crazy hey? The ‘being able to shower’ hasn’t quite worn off yet, still appreciating every last second of the fresh and clean feeling.

March also brought us our (slightly delayed) PT staff visit. Unfortunately our Desk Officer went down with some weird jungle illness/fever thing in Guyana on another visit, and was on doctor’s orders not to fly, so we were visited by our Assistant DO, Heloise and our in-country rep, Ian. It was lovely to see some faces from home bearing gifts of MINI EGGS…*please send all food donations to PO box 702, Mqanduli, 5080 Eastern Cape, South Africa* ;) ;). The visit was fairly brief due to circumstances we won’t go into at other projects, but we’ve been promised more quality PT time on debrief!

Ciao for now! x

FEBRUARY; Half Way!

So, so sorry for the lack of blogging going on recently, so a brief update on life over the last 2 months, truth is, they’ve flown so quickly, it’s as if I blinked and 2 months of my life went with it!

Well, February, still incredibly hectic at work, but there was a lot of fun students and volunteers around at the time so a fair amount of much needed R&R was endorsed. We ventured on a trip to the beautiful (shark-infested) waters of Port St John’s. Wowwweee it’s pretty! We drove up to this airstrip to apparently see the “most beautiful sunset in South Africa” and we got so distracted by the almost Amazonian river and jungle below us, we actually completely missed the sunset!

As most of you know, if not I’m sure I made you aware of it in the build-up, it was my birthday in February too, I was well and truly spoiled rotten!! Parcels from home, with lots of goodies, the most beautiful memory box from my ‘hubby’ Cara, I can’t wait to get it properly started at home, it’s one of those things you know you’ll pull out for the grandkids in 50+ years to come! The Zithulelean’s all contributed for me to get an amazing hair cut in East London, which just felt heavenly after roughing it for so long, split ends; no more! With my birthday being on 16^th Feb, it felt only natural to combine it with Valentines, and we had a mass Valentines dinner at White Clay in Coffee Bay; “table for 28 please” I don’t think they’ve ever has so much service here in the Wild Coast.

 So, East London….Tom, Becky and of course Miles (I’m sure I’ll have mentioned these guys previously but if not, they are 2 English doctors and their incredibly cute 2yr old son) took Cara and I to the CITY for my birthday. Ah, it was bliss! Although we were in Cape Town for Christmas and New Year’s there wasn’t really a ‘city vibe’ as most shops were shut due to public holidays etc. So like a bunch of eager beavers we pranced around Vincent Mall shopping like crazy people. I got some nice new clothes and perfume and then it was HAIRCUT TIME!! All in all a lovely birthday, celebrated with awesome people. One I doubt I will forget, needless to say though, I am looking forward to celebrating the big 20 at home J
March will be with you soon….