Well, tomorrow we are off to Durban and then we begin our lovely twenty six day holiday. We are very much looking forward to Cape Town, Namibia and Kruger.
However, we feel great sadness leaving Ingwavuma which has been our home for nearly a year. The beauty of this place never ceases to amaze me. The Lebombo mountains, the magical sunsets (and sunrises if I am up in time), Fancy Stitch, the children playing, the cows and dogs surviving in the road and the hustle and bustle of life here. I will miss greeting everyone with ‘Sawabona’ or ‘Yebo’ and I will miss the laughter.
The past four weeks have been my busiest as a doctor. I have been on-call ten times in four weeks. There have been many sleepless nights but my highlight came on one of my on-calls. I was working a few weekends ago when a child was handed to me in my arms from one of the ambulance men. I was alone in the resuscitation room. I looked down to see a blue baby gasping. His mum was crying in the background. Both she and I knew he was going to die very soon.
I immediately took his clothes off to find non-stop diarrhoea. His Mum admitted to giving an enema a few hours earlier. I told the ambulance crew to stay with me and began to resuscitate him with oxygen and fluids. My heart always beats a bit quicker with the prospect of securing intravenous access on these four month frought babies. The child was shocked so his veins in his arms and feet would be hard to find. Often, it takes me seven or eight attempts before I get the cannula into the vein. IV fluids is the only thing that may save the baby. I did not have the time for several attempts. Amazingly (and very luckily), I was successful on my first attempt. I took some blood to send it for basic tests. We secured the drip with cardboard, bandage and tape. I asked one of the ambulance women to stand on a chair and squeeze the fluids into the vein. We drew up the necessary antibiotics and gave them to the child. He had survived the first ten minutes in hospital, there was hope.
The bloods came back thirty minutes later and they were dreadful. He had severe metabolic acidosis and his potassium was dangerously low. I gave him IV potassium. He survived for first hour and I sent him to the ward. The next morning, I went to see if he had survived the night. He had. Eight days after coming in – Wonderboy (his Mum named him appropriately) went home. I took a photo of him and me. He looked so well – unrecognisable to how he arrived. The Mum told me she would never give an enema again – I hope she does not.
I have so enjoyed my work here – the wards (Paediatrics, Isolation, Male and Female), the variety of our outpatient department and the clinics have been my favourite. Today at lunchtime, the staff on female ward are throwing me a ‘surprise’ farewell party – such a nice touch especially as many of them have so little. We will sing and dance and laugh. They have also invited Henry.
On Tuesday after my on-call, we had Sophie and her daughter over for one last lunch together. Sophie is our cleaner, handwasher of clothes and so much more. She is my Zulu mum here and I love her to bits. Henry and I decided to give her everything that cannot fit into our backpack. So, she received over half of our clothes, most of our shoes, our bedding and kitchen stuff. She and her daughter are thrilled. Yesterday, whilst I was busy on my ward, Sophie popped her head in and pointed to her feet. I looked down to see my very old shoes on her feet and a big smile on her face. She was thrilled. Sophie is an incredible woman. She has had a tough life but has never complained. She has raised four children who are all doing well. I will miss her very much.
Tonight we are having a farewell braai and we are looking forward to having all our friends around. This is what I will miss most about this place – the amazing friends we have made. Nat, Ty, Bee, Bird, Sarah, Bjorn, Kath, Emma, Donne, Toni, Marge, Megs, Ruth, Simon, Smah, Swifty, Bridget, Janet, Andries, Bernard, Pheobe, Daniel, Maryna, Holger, Sam - thank you for your friendship, kindness and generosity. We will miss you!
Thursday, 30 June 2011
Friday, 24 June 2011
Leaving the mountain of the leopard
My last day at Ntabayengwe should have been a time of sadness. And it was. I will greatly miss the teachers and the grade 7 students. I know many of those that I taught this year will go next year to the nearest high school. There, the most able will rot. Many of the girls will become pregnant. Many of the boys will drop out. Much talent will never be fulfilled.
However, I have faith that at least one or two will overcome the obstacles. They will pass their matriculation (equivalent of A-level) and will get better paid jobs in the local community – as a nurse, teacher or policeman.
This helped me to overcome any feelings of despair.
Further cheer was provided by my parting gift to the school. As you know I have been in correspondence with a regional newspaper about the school’s water shortage. Thanks to pressure exerted by the Zululand Fever, a team arrived earlier in the week to investigate the problem. They identified the cause as being a broken pipe running under the playing field. Yesterday, they returned to fix the problem.
Today, I arrived to find children drinking from the tap and filling buckets for the classroom. So the school now has functioning electricity and tap water. And it only took one year!
However, I have faith that at least one or two will overcome the obstacles. They will pass their matriculation (equivalent of A-level) and will get better paid jobs in the local community – as a nurse, teacher or policeman.
This helped me to overcome any feelings of despair.
Further cheer was provided by my parting gift to the school. As you know I have been in correspondence with a regional newspaper about the school’s water shortage. Thanks to pressure exerted by the Zululand Fever, a team arrived earlier in the week to investigate the problem. They identified the cause as being a broken pipe running under the playing field. Yesterday, they returned to fix the problem.
Today, I arrived to find children drinking from the tap and filling buckets for the classroom. So the school now has functioning electricity and tap water. And it only took one year!
Thursday, 23 June 2011
School chicken
With my last day at Ntabayengwe tomorrow, our South African adventure feels near its conclusion.
The school has provided me with much more than a year’s worth of interest and reward. And it has provided me with so many amusing moments. Yesterday I had another to add to the list.
Walking across the school I noticed a chicken being kicked by some of the children. It was surrounded and squawking. It looked greatly in need of help. I immediately ran to intervene on behalf of the bird.
One of the older boys saw me coming and, like the best turncoat, suddenly started protecting the chicken and fighting off his peers. When this failed, he dived on the chicken, putting his body in the way of the feet. As I reached the action, the boy scrambled to his feet with chicken tucked under his arm – like a rugby ball.
I demanded to know why the chicken had been attacked.
The answer was simple. It had been trying to eat the vegetables planted in the school plot. Thus a kick was the least it deserved.
Still feeling sorry for the chicken, I mandated its release. I began to explain that this would require the boy walking the bird out of the school gate to put it on the other side of the big perimeter fencing. However I didn’t finish my sentence. Instead I watched an alternative approach.
With his back to the fence, the boy with the chicken in his arms, suddenly launched it as high as he could skywards. Up, up, up, went the chicken. Higher and higher and higher. Until it was at least 35 feet in the air. And then the descent began.
The stunned chicken was clearly as surprised at me. For the first half of its downward journey it seemed paralysed by shock. But as the ground approached rapidly, it opened its wings and brought itself gently to earth on the other side of the fence.
The boys left the scene – disappointed not to have taught the chicken a more memorable lesson.
The school has provided me with much more than a year’s worth of interest and reward. And it has provided me with so many amusing moments. Yesterday I had another to add to the list.
Walking across the school I noticed a chicken being kicked by some of the children. It was surrounded and squawking. It looked greatly in need of help. I immediately ran to intervene on behalf of the bird.
One of the older boys saw me coming and, like the best turncoat, suddenly started protecting the chicken and fighting off his peers. When this failed, he dived on the chicken, putting his body in the way of the feet. As I reached the action, the boy scrambled to his feet with chicken tucked under his arm – like a rugby ball.
I demanded to know why the chicken had been attacked.
The answer was simple. It had been trying to eat the vegetables planted in the school plot. Thus a kick was the least it deserved.
Still feeling sorry for the chicken, I mandated its release. I began to explain that this would require the boy walking the bird out of the school gate to put it on the other side of the big perimeter fencing. However I didn’t finish my sentence. Instead I watched an alternative approach.
With his back to the fence, the boy with the chicken in his arms, suddenly launched it as high as he could skywards. Up, up, up, went the chicken. Higher and higher and higher. Until it was at least 35 feet in the air. And then the descent began.
The stunned chicken was clearly as surprised at me. For the first half of its downward journey it seemed paralysed by shock. But as the ground approached rapidly, it opened its wings and brought itself gently to earth on the other side of the fence.
The boys left the scene – disappointed not to have taught the chicken a more memorable lesson.
Sunday, 12 June 2011
Press campaign
I have mentioned in previous blogs about the problems we have at Ntabayengwe getting water. I discussed the problem with the incumbent local councillor in the hope that he might be able to sort out the situation. Unfortunately he has just lost his seat.
So now I have written to the local paper 'Zululand Fever' in the hope that they might take some interest. They have run recent stories on similar themes. I will let you know if they respond to my email, copied below.
'I'm writing in response to the article I read in Zululand Fever on June 3 2011 entitled 'School given 'filthy' toilets'. I am a secondary school teacher from the UK and have a volunteer teacher for the year at Ntabayengwe Primary School, teaching grade 7. The article about the school toilets at Umfolozi Primary School reasonated loudly given my experiences. At Ntabayengwe, we have school toilets built by a local NGO. These are often in a disgusting state. Nonetheless, they are not my primary concern. Instead, my great preoccupation is with our water supply. We have been without tap water since before Christmas. As a result we depend on water from jojos. This often runs out. We then rely on a water pump situated about 100 metres outside the school. This usually has water, but has run dry. When out of water here, I bring water down in containers from my jojo at the hospital.
Being without water in the tap and in our jojo results in appalling sanitary conditions for the children. We have no toilet paper in the toilets. And the children eat with their hands for their meal at 10.00. It also means that they must last through the school day without drinking any water. It is well recognised that being hydrated is an important factor in learning. For this reason, most children in the UK bring water bottles with them to lessons.
I would be very grateful if you were able to investigate why it is not possible to fix the tap at our school so that we have our own supply of fresh water. In addition, I am sure that we are not the only school in our area to be regularly without water. For this reason, I think it would be very helpful for you to press the munipality to set up a telephone line for schools to use to report a problem with their water supply.
Having spent a year teaching at Ntabayengwe, I am due to leave at the end of this month. It would be of huge comfort to me to know that I will leave the school with the water supply functioning again.'
So now I have written to the local paper 'Zululand Fever' in the hope that they might take some interest. They have run recent stories on similar themes. I will let you know if they respond to my email, copied below.
'I'm writing in response to the article I read in Zululand Fever on June 3 2011 entitled 'School given 'filthy' toilets'. I am a secondary school teacher from the UK and have a volunteer teacher for the year at Ntabayengwe Primary School, teaching grade 7. The article about the school toilets at Umfolozi Primary School reasonated loudly given my experiences. At Ntabayengwe, we have school toilets built by a local NGO. These are often in a disgusting state. Nonetheless, they are not my primary concern. Instead, my great preoccupation is with our water supply. We have been without tap water since before Christmas. As a result we depend on water from jojos. This often runs out. We then rely on a water pump situated about 100 metres outside the school. This usually has water, but has run dry. When out of water here, I bring water down in containers from my jojo at the hospital.
Being without water in the tap and in our jojo results in appalling sanitary conditions for the children. We have no toilet paper in the toilets. And the children eat with their hands for their meal at 10.00. It also means that they must last through the school day without drinking any water. It is well recognised that being hydrated is an important factor in learning. For this reason, most children in the UK bring water bottles with them to lessons.
I would be very grateful if you were able to investigate why it is not possible to fix the tap at our school so that we have our own supply of fresh water. In addition, I am sure that we are not the only school in our area to be regularly without water. For this reason, I think it would be very helpful for you to press the munipality to set up a telephone line for schools to use to report a problem with their water supply.
Having spent a year teaching at Ntabayengwe, I am due to leave at the end of this month. It would be of huge comfort to me to know that I will leave the school with the water supply functioning again.'
Lesser spotted buggeralls and the ubiquitous pod mahogany
We have just returned from a glorious two week holiday with Mary’s parents-in-law. In 14 days we visited Tembe Elephant Park, Kosi Bay, Kruger Park, the battlefields and the Drakensbergs. Having visited and written about most of these locations already, I’m not going to spend any time describing each one. Instead, I have a list of moments from the holiday:
Eating leaf for aphrodisiac – The power of a game ranger to make tourists do stupid things is immense. It is a trusting relationship. They decide where it is safe to get out the vehicle. They decide when an animal – or more precisely an elephant – is posing a threat to the vehicle. And they can even decide what bits of the bush to feed to their guests. In Tembe, we all showed ourselves happy to munch away on leaves supposedly used by local healers as aphrodisiacs. Well, either our guide picked the wrong tree or Zulu bodies behave very differently. For the rest of the evening, I had intense stomach cramps followed by running stomach. Needless to say Aphrodite (or Mary) wasn’t on my mind as I lent over the toilet seat.
Into the jaws of the lion – Some camps in wildlife parks are electrified. Others are not. Those which are often create a superficial sense of safety. Tembe’s camp is electrified. But the biggest elephant in the park knows how to trip the circuit without shocking himself. He did this during our first night and spent an hour of it terrorizing mum and dad’s tent. Those camps without electric fences are obviously open to all. These camps, especially if private, usually have lots of safety precautions about when and where guests are allowed to walk. All of these are fine if you have a sense of direction that allows you to navigate yourself from the bar to your room. But dad fell foul of the ‘toddler’ danger by heading off out of the camp in search of his room. Fortunately, he was saved by his watchful companions.
Can we go home now – Africa isn’t usually associated with cold. And rightly so. We have been hot for about 9 months of the time we have been in SA. However, early mornings and evenings in winter are not warm. They are even colder when doing game drives. We seemed to experience particularly cold nights for our evening game drives in Kruger. The result was that we ended up dressing like Eskimos – only allowing our eyes and nose to be visible. We also seemed to have particularly bad luck for two of the nights spotting animals. Thus we spent many hours driving round the bush, in pitch black, seeing only the Lesser Spotted Buggerall. We consoled ourselves with the comfort that at least we were providing some amusement for the animals.
More trees please – Most people visiting Kruger Park have greatest interested in seeing ‘the big 5’ and friends. As a result, the guides are attuned to finding them. They consider success or failure to be based on their ability to deliver. Unfortunately, some are less good when having to adjust their focus. In other words, they were not prepared for Roger Toulson. Daunted by the need to demonstrate some knowledge of flora and fauna, the less good guides hit upon a strategy – ‘it’s a pod mahogany’. In a devastating blow to the biodiversity of the park, all of the trees suddenly became one species.
Chemistry – What some of our game guides lacked in knowledge, they made up for in their wonderfully ill-judged remarks. One revealed that he had an only sister who was studying law. Poor thing, he commented, ‘Who would want to spend their life stuck with the head in legal books?’
Dangerous walks – We had a couple of stunning days walking in the Drakensbergs Mountains. The views were magnificent and the colours incredible. However, there was one small safety risk. State licensed arson. Winter is the burning season. Understandably, this is done to prevent devastating summer fires. All well and good. Except if your route happens to take you through the middle of a blaze. Our walk on the first day did just that. Arriving by the flames, we were greeted by some very friendly locals walking round with paraffin sprays on their backs. They cheerfully encouraged us to walk through the fire and carry on yomping. Being wimpish, and concerned by the swirling wind, we decided against.
Eating leaf for aphrodisiac – The power of a game ranger to make tourists do stupid things is immense. It is a trusting relationship. They decide where it is safe to get out the vehicle. They decide when an animal – or more precisely an elephant – is posing a threat to the vehicle. And they can even decide what bits of the bush to feed to their guests. In Tembe, we all showed ourselves happy to munch away on leaves supposedly used by local healers as aphrodisiacs. Well, either our guide picked the wrong tree or Zulu bodies behave very differently. For the rest of the evening, I had intense stomach cramps followed by running stomach. Needless to say Aphrodite (or Mary) wasn’t on my mind as I lent over the toilet seat.
Into the jaws of the lion – Some camps in wildlife parks are electrified. Others are not. Those which are often create a superficial sense of safety. Tembe’s camp is electrified. But the biggest elephant in the park knows how to trip the circuit without shocking himself. He did this during our first night and spent an hour of it terrorizing mum and dad’s tent. Those camps without electric fences are obviously open to all. These camps, especially if private, usually have lots of safety precautions about when and where guests are allowed to walk. All of these are fine if you have a sense of direction that allows you to navigate yourself from the bar to your room. But dad fell foul of the ‘toddler’ danger by heading off out of the camp in search of his room. Fortunately, he was saved by his watchful companions.
Can we go home now – Africa isn’t usually associated with cold. And rightly so. We have been hot for about 9 months of the time we have been in SA. However, early mornings and evenings in winter are not warm. They are even colder when doing game drives. We seemed to experience particularly cold nights for our evening game drives in Kruger. The result was that we ended up dressing like Eskimos – only allowing our eyes and nose to be visible. We also seemed to have particularly bad luck for two of the nights spotting animals. Thus we spent many hours driving round the bush, in pitch black, seeing only the Lesser Spotted Buggerall. We consoled ourselves with the comfort that at least we were providing some amusement for the animals.
More trees please – Most people visiting Kruger Park have greatest interested in seeing ‘the big 5’ and friends. As a result, the guides are attuned to finding them. They consider success or failure to be based on their ability to deliver. Unfortunately, some are less good when having to adjust their focus. In other words, they were not prepared for Roger Toulson. Daunted by the need to demonstrate some knowledge of flora and fauna, the less good guides hit upon a strategy – ‘it’s a pod mahogany’. In a devastating blow to the biodiversity of the park, all of the trees suddenly became one species.
Chemistry – What some of our game guides lacked in knowledge, they made up for in their wonderfully ill-judged remarks. One revealed that he had an only sister who was studying law. Poor thing, he commented, ‘Who would want to spend their life stuck with the head in legal books?’
Dangerous walks – We had a couple of stunning days walking in the Drakensbergs Mountains. The views were magnificent and the colours incredible. However, there was one small safety risk. State licensed arson. Winter is the burning season. Understandably, this is done to prevent devastating summer fires. All well and good. Except if your route happens to take you through the middle of a blaze. Our walk on the first day did just that. Arriving by the flames, we were greeted by some very friendly locals walking round with paraffin sprays on their backs. They cheerfully encouraged us to walk through the fire and carry on yomping. Being wimpish, and concerned by the swirling wind, we decided against.
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