Rivers of tears

We have had the pleasure of spending some time over the festive period with Zulu families. On Boxing Day we visited the house of Sophie, our cleaner. She had many of her family staying. This included cousins, nieces and nephews.

Family life is very different in Zululand. Far greater importance is placed on the wider family unit – cousins, aunts, uncles. In fact, these words don’t really exist in Zulu. Cousins are brothers or sisters. Aunts and uncles become second parents. From an outsiders perspective this can be difficult. Mary and I often find ourselves spending time trying to identify the core family unit of a patient/child. But we are beginning to realise that it is a pointless exercise. Clearly a cousin is a brother or sister if named and treated accordingly.

This closeness of the wider family unit is extremely special. It seems to defy geography. Increasingly, Zulus are living across SA. Of course the main driving factor for dispersal is the search for work. Ingwavuma grew up as a mining town. There are no mines in Ingwavuma itself. But men were driven to mines in the surrounding areas. Now these have closed. And little work remains outside of the schools and hospitals. Some families are unwilling to uproot. The result is either that the males do not work or that they leave the family for long periods of time.

The regular absence of men is one of the underlying causes of the spread of HIV. Though this hideous disease has many dire consequences it does seem to keep the wider family glued together when living far apart. Funerals of close family members happen with sickening regularity.* Afterwards the bereaved are scooped up and looked after by the wider family.

All of the above provides a long prelude to the main point of today’s ramblings – that Zulu must be a very poetic language. (I am learning it slowly. But at a very basic level. I am a long way off tackling a work of literature.) My assumption is based on the English spoken by educated Zulus. Sophie’s family are terrific. The adults have fought very hard to ensure the children are well educated. And their sentences are packed with similes, metaphors and analogies. Some of these are great. My favourite was said by one big sister to her little sister. Little sister had spent most of the day crying and running to her dad. Finally, after the umpteenth occurrence – older sister turned to us and said (with a serious face) ‘Don’t worry. She is fine. She has a river where she gets the tears.’ Not for the first time I burst out laughing.


* Indeed, such is their frequency that death becomes big business. All the banks compete to sell funeral plans (insurance to cover costs of a big send-off) to their customers.

Experiences of a Skunk

On Monday evening, I went for my first run since the half marathon. I went running with our cleaner Sophie’s daughter (age 14) and cousin (age 11). We only ran for 5 kms leaving me with energy unspent. This made me keen to join to join Nat (friend and fellow doctor) for exercise on Tuesday morning. (Our exercise routine involves me heading over to her house just after six and lifting weights, playing with fitness balls and running up and down a few stairs. We chat most of the time and it is great fun.)

My exercise meant that I was in need of a shower. (Indeed I had not managed to wash since the previous weekend.) On Tuesday morning after my exercise I stepped into the shower and turned on the taps. Little trickle. Then nothing. Not a drop. And out I got. With an empty jojo I was unable even to fill up a basin. Instead, I had to settle for using emergency cleansing wipes (a parting gift from Eimear). And then went to work to work 29 hrs in a row - great!. With my equally unwashed husband. Suddenly the double virtue of the ceiling fan became apparent. Not only would it keep us cool during the night but it would help to freshen the air. We put it on the third and fastest setting. And then kept our noses over our respective sides of the bed.

Having no water in the home is obviously unpleasant. But having no water at work is potentially extremely disastrous. It is impossible to conceive of a UK hospital operating without water. Here, we must continue to try to function, albeit operating an even more reduced service. For example, no water means no x-rays – as the machines that we use depend on water for development of the images. At a more basic level, it means the toilets cease to function. This, in a hospital caring for 250 very sick patients. To add to the unpleasantness, the Tuesday and Wednesday were days of 40 degrees heat.

Despite the dire situation, somehow, life seems to continue to function as normal. Nobody seems to have responsibility for sorting out the situation – there is no atmosphere of emergency. What makes the situation even more frustrating is that there is no shortage of water in the dam at the moment. We are in the rainy season. The problem is mechanical.

Fortunately, the water returned to us relatively quickly - by Wednesday. We were hugely grateful, not least because periods of two weeks without water usually happen at least once a year. Suffice to say that this year I won’t have to think too hard about my wish for 2011!

Press the red button

After an avalanche of requests, our blog is now going interactive. Now you all have a chance to help us solve our water problem. Let me explain.

In theory we should have no water problems at all. About 90kms from Ingwavuma, at Jozini, there is a giant lake/reservoir. And there is the infrastructure to pump this to us. But not a drop reaches us. There are various rumours that offer explanation. One is political – that the municipality want to shut down Ingwavuma. They want the population to move to Bhambanana (20 km closer to Jozini; but uglier than Medusa and horribly hot because not on the mountain).

An alternative explanation exists. This is that the municipality owes millions of Rand to the local electricity company. As a result they are unwilling to supply the electricity required to operate the pumps at Jozini. Being more swayed by cock-up over conspiracy, I think this is the more plausible.

This leaves us with two sources of water. The first comes out of our taps in our house. H20 for the hospital, and ipso facto (only bit of Latin I now know, other than agricola, so must be used) our house, is pumped up from the nearby Pongola river. This has two big drawbacks. Firstly, it is not very clean. This is because communities live upstream and likely contaminate it with… I’ll stop there. Anyway, we use tap water for washing and cooking. And, when desperate, we also drink it. After boiling it. Though it still tastes disgusting.

The second drawback is that occasionally, the water pumped is very muddy. This is usually a prelude to losing water for a couple of days. Despite being the rainy season, we are currently out of tap water.

And so we arrive at our second source of water – our jojo. Each of the properties at the hospital has a 50 litre container. These are about 12ft high and green. They collect water off the roof and store it in the tank. Giving us a very reliable source of ‘fresh’ drinking water.

Worry not. I have not forgotten about my promise of interactivity. I am getting there. Be patient.

Our house was painted two weeks ago. Unfortunately, the workmen decided to paint number 130 in the rainy season (it rains most days at the moment). They didn’t mention to us about their plan. And they didn’t discuss the wisdom of painting the roof. Furthermore, they didn’t remember to disconnect the pipe leading to the drinking water.

Well, the inevitable happened – 50 litres of water mixed with paint toxins.

The good news is that I have now emptied the jojo. The bad news is that the emptying process revealed that the bottom is covered in about 4-5 inches of mud with lots of dead insects and other ‘organic matter’. So the issue is what to do next.

‘Clean it’, I hear you shouting. ‘How?’ I shout back. One option is for me to try and get inside the jojo. Let’s call this the Roger Toulson/Sir Thomas More option (i.e. only to be contemplated by the lunatic martyr). It has a man hole cover at the top. But lowering myself down the twelve feet would be very hard. It would then take sometime to try and scoop the mud out and wash the bottom and sides. It is very hot. And the air is smelly.

Option two is to try and get a brush. But no long brush exists. So I will need to try and design something to do the job. Not easy. And highly likely to result in things falling into the jojo. So I foresee options two and one merging.

Option three is to try and find someone else to do the job. But now I find myself becoming a bit Gandhilike. Am I really happy with somebody else cleaning our latrine/ disgusting jojo?

Option four is to let the rain fill the tank again and resume drinking.

So now you get to offer advice. What should be done?

Mirror time

A mood of reflection has come upon me. And so below, is a top 10 list (not in order) of some of the small things that contribute to our enjoyment of living in Africa.

1. The double handed wave as a greeting
2. Regular monkey sightings on the roads
3. Umbrellas to shade from the sun
4. Woolly hats even when +40 degrees
5. Babies being carried on mother’s backs tied up in a towel
6. Slogans that adorn the local taxis – often uplifting, but sometimes cautionary, such as ‘Trust nobody’
7. The freedom to pick the nose without fear of social embarrassment
8. The celebration of fatness as a sign of good health e.g. ‘Oh sister you are looking lovely and fat today’
9. The regular use of ‘yes’ to answer ‘either…or’ questions
10. ‘High fives’ between ladies when one of them has told a particularly funny joke.

Fast and Furryous

Saturday we engaged in a completely different Safari experience. To explain, you must know that Hluhluwe-Imfolozi Park consists of two interconnected parks – hence the double barrel name. Having spent much more time in Hluhluwe, we decided to visit the Imfolozi side this weekend. There, the terrain is slightly flatter and the bush is less dense. This is meant to make it easier to spot cats.

Unfortunately, we arrived later than planned at the park. Getting through the gate at 1700, we had to exit by 1900 or face a fine. We calculated this allowed us one hour smoking out animals on the Imfolozi side. We would then make the journey across to our accommodation (just outside the park on the Hluhluwe side). The guide at the gate told us that our plan was entirely feasible.

But she was wrong. Only after turning for Hluhluwe did we calculate the distance versus the speed limit – 40km/h. At 1830, we still had 30 kms to travel. And so we had a dilemma. Pay a fine or go faster. For any Kwa-Zulu Natal wildlife inspectors reading the blog, please stop now.

For we did not opt to pay the fine. Instead, we drove at slightly faster than 40 km/h. Not a lot faster. But the light was fading fast. And lots of the nocturnal wildlife began to seek out the warmth of the tarmac.

The consequence was a truly exhilarating experience. As I raced up and down and round and round the windy bumpy roads, Mary navigated. While also pointing out the animals whizzing past on right and left. (Read the following very fast to recreate the experience.) ‘Take the road to the left, zebra, impala with baby, rhino lying down, 5 km to the, lots of impala, watch out one on the road, well missed, think of how many dung beetles we are killing, whoa look a hyena.’ This continued for half an hour.

Fortunately, dung beetles were our only likely road kill (though they themselves are quite a fragile species; in fact there are 350 species of dung beetle; and I like them very much; so hopefully most managed to take evasive action). Our nearest misses on the road were two impala. Not the most precious of the parks wildlife. Indeed the wildlife management of the park sometimes have to cull the population to keep a sustainable population. However, I’m not sure they do this by driving round fast at night in Ford Fiestas.

Thankfully, the ultimate conundrum did not present itself. Again we saw no leopard. So we didn’t have to stop the car to take any photos. This meant we reached the gate at 1910. Using all our Zulu charm we escaped without a fine.

Our Sunday driving was less eventful. We did though finally manage to see the elusive black rhino. They are in great threat of extinction (low thousands in population) and hard to see because they like to hang out in the deeper undergrowth. Our mother and baby were very shy and quickly disappeared. Hopefully they found a good hiding spot.

Stab wound to the chest

I am sorry that I have not written a blog in ages – so much has happened since I last wrote – but Henry has done a very good job at keeping you updated of our going ons!

It was five weeks ago today that I won the Ingwavuma Women’s half marathon. (And the enormity of the achievement is beginning to sink in. It has been a whirlwind of media engagements and award ceremonies. I have been nominated as the local newspaper’s woman of the year.) Regretfully, I am still missing one toe nail. So, I have not run since. It is without doubt the hardest physical challenge I have ever undertaken! (Not counting my double gold weight lifting medals from the Moscow Olympics.)

A week later, were on our amazing holiday with Eimear. We managed to pack in lots into our two weeks and a bit time together including game parks, turtle tracking, hiking in the Drakensberg mountains and pony trekking in Lesotho. It was really amazing!

I then came back to 12 days on the trot – 7 of the 12 days involved me being on-call. There is something very comforting to me about being able to work as a doctor at Mosvold. It is ridiculously busy (especially the past week as we are down 4 doctors who are on holiday) but very humbling. There are so many moments at work when I laugh and think I should definitely write a blog about this – the snake bites (not so keen when the family hands me the puff adder in a spar bag – luckily it was dead), the many fractures involved when the umkhulu (grandfather) is chasing a goat or the newborn babies handed to me under a massive blanket. Then there are the sad moments – too many rape victims and too many young people dying of HIV and/or TB. Lastly, there are the scary moments. This happened to me on-call last Sunday. I had just got home for supper (Henry Oliver had once again rustled up a scrummy meal – using only organic ingredients) and was finishing up when I received a phone call from OPD to say that a patient had been brought in with a stab wound. Fortunately we don’t get many of these in Ingwavuma. And we get almost no gun shot wound victims as the people are too poor to purchase firearms. Anyway, it was my first case and I ran to the hospital. Once there – in a sweat – I quickly assessed my patient and saw a hole in his left chest. I sealed it with a finger. (Help! Did I remember to remove this? Too late now!) I then got some gauze. I was excited and terrified but the nurses continued at their slow and steady pace. The man was talking to me and after an x-ray which revealed a haemoperitoneum (blood in the chest), I inserted a chest drain and sent him to male ward. He went home a few days later.

With a weekend off, we are down at Hluhluwe-iMfolozi Game Park in search of cats. Henry will write on Monday with details.

Being incredibly tired, I have just fallen asleep before finishing this blog. But it is ok. I can trust my husband to post it on our site without making any infantile additions. Night everyone.

Adieu, Adieu

On Thursday (the penultimate day of term) we had a farewell function for our grade 7s. They are all moving onto high school. The event was also used to welcome new grade 1 students (4-5 year olds). All parents were invited.

In anticipation of the event each of the top 3 grades were expected to use the final week to prepare a musical/ dance performance to entertain the parents. I decided to work with grades 6 and 7 on putting together a ‘concert’. Living out a long held dream, I became choir master.

Flicking through my ipod for songs to perform, I settled on starting with some Sound of Music. Initially the children were subjected to learning three songs – ‘Doe, ray, me’, ‘Raindrops on roses’ and ‘Climb every mountain’. They got the hang of the first two. And we worked up actions to go with each. ‘Climb every mountain’ proved beyond us – perhaps because the choir master was unable to demonstrate how to hit the high notes. As a result it was cut.

Trying out some pop music, the children took to ‘Let it be’. So we added it to our repertoire. We then worked on two Zulu songs that I had heard performed by the Drakensberg Choir – ‘Shosholoza’ and ‘Umkhoti’.

Delighted with our efforts, I went to tell the Principal about our readiness. ‘You have made excellent choices for the traditional songs’, he told me. ‘The parents will enjoy them. Umkhoti is a lovely song. It is about family celebrations at a wedding. The family are singing about their delight that the new wife will be able to do all their washing, cooking and cleaning.’ ‘Wonderful’, I replied.


The excitement of the children on Thursday morning was very obvious. Indeed it could be measured in hair length, as most of the girls had added long braids. Both grade 1s and grade 7s were dressed in academic robes (these are passed round all the schools in the area). The 3-4 year olds looked ‘omuhle kakooloo’ (very sweet).

The event itself was terrific, if very long – 4 hours! Though I understood very little, I was entertained throughout. One cause of great amusement was the loud speaker system. It was far too loud. A long sermon by the local priest was particularly deafening and many in the audience looked in visible pain.

The performances by the different grades were very impressive. However, many were curtailed mid flow by the two senior female teachers. Acting like x-factor judges they would shout ‘enough, enough’ in Zulu and usher the performers out the tent.

Our ‘set’ was not interrupted. But I’m not sure the locals were that impressed by Frauline Maria. Polite applause accompanied our exit from the stage.

After the event I was invited for supper with the elders. Worried about my ability to stretch my Zulu, I sat down with trepidation. Fortunately, I was more than able to contribute to the silence. I filled gaps between mouthfuls with lots of inane grinning. Then I was able to excuse myself for photos with the grade 7s.

And so the school year finishes tomorrow. We start again in January. Tomorrow I shall try to post family Christmas presents. Then I’m off to try and fix the car.

Mary is on call this weekend. I’ll let you know where we decide to go next weekend.

the three amigos

Four days on ponies. Average duration of ride to be seven hours. Three nights in village huts with no water or electricity. A bring your own food requirement. One rider suffering from a slipped disk. A second rider very nervous about her very weak shoulders. The last of the trio recovering from flu. None with any horseriding experience. Large Lesothan mountains to scale. No turning back policy insisted upon by the Lodge.

Guiding for the adventure would be the very short-tempered Pelan. His fuse would be blown by any small mistake from a rider. (He regarded horses as being identical to bikes. In other words, they behave rationally at all times. Axiomatically, the rider should be blamed for any horse intransigence.)

Given all of the above, what could possibly go wrong? Well much obviously could have gone ‘Lesotho mountains up’. But not much did. Instead, we were able to enjoy our characterful horses and our majestic surroundings.

Each of the riders quickly bonded with their horses. Eimear on Esanu, Mary on Baafor and Henry on Strike. And each immediately adopted their own horse behaviour management policy. These differing approaches were to be stuck to steadfastly.

Eimear put all her faith in a ‘loving’ technique. All of Esanu’s foibles were embraced. None needed correcting. Esanu’s favourite trick was taking the route less travelled. Eimear explained this away as ‘Esanu knows best’. (I’m convinced that these would her been her first words had Esanu ever unseated her. Thankfully, he never succeeded.)

Mary adopted a ‘reasoning’ strategy. She did not try to hide Baafor’s shortcomings – such as disobedience. Instead she would try to coax him into recognising the error of his ways. ‘Oh Baafor. Please don’t do that. Ok Baafor enough. Fine, this is the last time I’m telling you.’ And so it continued. Her efforts to communicate with Baafor were made significantly more difficult by Pelan’s attempts to shout repeatedly at her with instructions on what she should be doing, ‘Go left. You are meant to be left. Take the left path. We are going left. Not right. Up. Not down. Not through the tree.’

Lastly, Henry adopted the carrot and stick approach. With the carrot substituted by kind words. And how well the (aptly named) Strike responded. Any visual sight of the stick and Strike immediately charged forward. The girls disapproved of my style both on animalitarian grounds and also because the threat of stick for Strike acted as equal encouragement to their horses to move quickly.

While the horses kept us thoroughly amused for our whole journey, we also managed to notice the mountain scenery. For good reason is Lesotho known as ‘Little Switzerland’. The peaks enveloped us as we travelled from hut to hut. In winter they are snowcapped. In summer they are green and blue. All year round they are decorated with many waterfalls.

Each night was spent with a local tribe. With almost no signs that life had changed since 100,000 BC, we felt transported. After cooking (no small challenge) we would spend the rest of daylight hours mingling with the community and watching the animals. We were ‘in bed’ in our hut by 8.00 – in time for the local donkey to sing us to sleep.

By the end of our 4 days we all felt very sad to be leaving the horses and the mountains. As we rode closer to the main lodge the occasional satellite dish told us we were re-entering the modern world.