Making the Most of Khayelitsha

Days 2-3

Breathing in the chaos. Something I love to do. That is why I’m here. I crave the different days, different moments, out of the ordinary type days each day. Khayelitsha. Sigh.

For the past few days it has been a great success in reconnecting with everyone and being able to talk to everyone as I get to observe their wonderful talents. African Leadership has been particularly blessed with extremely capable locals to reach out to their own people. We are merely there for support. It’s terrific.

The time I spent in Khayelitsha was made up of me visiting two local clinics. I was there to talk to clinicians and to observe how the clinics conducted themselves. I found in just a short time that the lines are extremely long for the Xhosas and each clinic specializes in something different aside from a few staples like maternal care, pediatric services, HIV/AIDS and TB treatment and counseling, and some pharma distribution. One of the most astonishing pieces to all of this is that the clinic is their area of emergency response. There are only a handful of trained doctors on site and very few nurses. At the second clinic we visited, the head of the organization said proudly, “Our informational manager has just told us that last month we saw 22,000 patients at our clinic. That’s around ___ a day”. Astonishing. I was flabbergasted hearing these appalling numbers.

Get this—the clinic does not even necessarily respond to all of the needs because there are so few doctors. Did you notice I have not once mentioned emergency/trauma services? This is precisely because only certain clinics in certain areas respond to this specific need. All gunshot wounds, stabbings, car accidents, etc. have to be dealt with at the clinic specific to these needs—and get this, they do not necessarily do any on site response if they cannot there, yet every (Xhosa) person has to be referred by the clinic in order to be allowed into a hospital. These hospitals are far out of Khayelitsha and extremely hard to get to. If there ever was an emergency, you would first have to go to the clinic, wait for the proper referral and then go to the hospital. This is exactly what the locals explained to me.

Even in my prior visit here, one of Beauty’s (a close friend whose family I stayed with in the shanties) sisters came down with terrible pains in her chest and stomach. She knew she was a few weeks/months pregnant and had to see a doctor to ensure she did not have any complications. The ambulance was called around 12am and did not call back to say it would be arriving until 6:30am the next morning. Thankfully her symptoms had calmed by then. Yet, waiting some 6hours + some is a regular occurrence. The drivers of the ambulances themselves do not see it as an emergency—just another thing they have to do as a job. There is no sense of urgency, whatsoever.

The doctors that are on staff are spread much too thin. Some of the people that do come into the clinic are treating some things that can be treated at home, (minor burns, infected cuts, etc.). If they had the knowledge of treating some of these illnesses before having to wait in ridiculously long lines with a number of exposures to other ailments, they would be able to take care of themselves. However, there is no concept of this so far. They are only educated once the mistake has been made. There is no mechanism to reach out to the greater populations. It is only those who have made the mistakes—like properly caring for a child, preventing from TB and HIV. There promising pieces of this are the relationships that are building with local schools to get kids immunized and educated about the potential health risks. The problem is, it must surpass education and theory and be taken into practice.

Sorry. I can go on for days about all of my ideas and thoughts about the health side of this situation and how inangering it is for me and for everyone. The hundreds of sick people in the waiting room watched as I was easily talking to the head of the office simply because of ‘research’, yet they were sitting waiting to be talked to by any official. Sad but true. The apartheid still, very much exists. I’ll go into that in a bit…

The rest of the day was comprised of helping build a fence for the new auto mechanic shop that is being built right in the heart of Khayelitsha in Litsha Park, where the train station and main taxi stop is. This ministry is one that will create a sustainable income for African Leadership future pastors, students and programs, as well as provide a method of job training and opportunity for community members—not to mention a lot of cars are going to get fixed in the process. It looks so promising :)

I ate some KFC with Nosipho and Beauty while we talked about the rest of the world and what countries we would like to visit. We chatted about clothes and boys. Conversations are the same in any country of the world. All of the same concerns…. Hahaha.

I finished the day creating an unofficial timetable of what I would like to see while in my 10 days in Mozambique. I will be flying out on Sunday and will stay almost the remainder of my trip there, until the 17^th. I hear there are many different things about Mozambique that I need to be aware of—starting by the extremities of rich and poor. Apparently the poverty there is much, much greater than in South Africa—which is easily understandable given the wealth of even the poorest of the poor in Khayelitsha. The signs of development are quite apparent, even in the shanties. Yet, in Mozambique, the poverty affects the nutrition and access to food, shelter and other essentials. The HIV/AIDS rates are astounding. Also, as it gets warmer, the risk of malaria increases. Pastor Ohm informed me it is much more expensive in Mozambique than in South Africa. I couldn’t understand how that would be given the extreme differences in needs. He basically said that because the extremities of rich and poor are so great, the rich can afford more expensive things, because there is nothing else, but in the poorer areas, everything is much cheaper, but nothing we could purchase. The verbal description is disturbing, but I know that being there will clear things up.

Being that I’m so blessedly connected to the western world via my ridiculous cell phone (I refuse to frivolously endorse my phone company or services), I received an . email regarding the problems HIV/AIDS programs in Mozambique face because of the U.S.’s involvement in funding 70% of HIV/AIDS programs in the country on their own (limited) terms. This article will prep me in platforming a potential HIV prevention curriculum based on what has greatly funded, but limited capacity programs that have been developed in the past.

We watched the Dark Knight tonight. My second time. The movie never ceases to disappoint and was a whopping $8.00 including popcorn and candy. Take that, America.

Tomorrow – I’ll let you know what happens. I need to get to bed sooner than 1a. Still not a reality…ugh. College, here I come.