Always Coming Home

First of all, I have a joke to share. It begins as follows:

“So, a lawyer, a missionary, and a grad student spend the night in an airport coffee shop…”

I leave the punch line to your own ingenuity and/or imagination.

Second of all, I have recently gained some key insights into the day to day functioning of the OR Tambo airport in Johannesburg. I will now share that information with you in more or less chronological order of importance:

1. There are two stores that sell wine by the bottle, however the cheaper place stops selling at 8pm, so if you find yourself in need of 3 people’s worth of cheap red wine and coke some evening…plan ahead.

2. Nobody cares if you crack open your very own bottle of wine in the middle of the food court. If you ask nicely, you can even get a nearby bartender to lend you a corkscrew.

3. The people at the food court in charge of the comfortable orange chairs will start trying to take them away from you around 11pm or so. However, whoever it is that is in charge of the less comfortable but still perfectly serviceable blue picnic tables could give a damn.

4. The people at Mugg and Bean will not only let you sleep on their booth benches, not only let you build a little table fort to as minimize exposure, and not only pour rum into pretty much anything you ask them to…they will also send some trainee to “the shop” (?) at 11:30 in order to organize you some banana toffee waffles at midnight.

5. I’m pretty sure the airport heater gets turned off at night.

6. Airport staffers enjoy doing whatever it is they do on a night shift while listening to a mix tape of what appears to be house music overlaying gospel overlaying …screaming babies?

7. The Mugg and Bean waiter will let you know when the boss is coming with a cheery “Kusile!” and “Good morning!” at 4:45am sharp.

…only 15 hours (or is it 39?) to go.

Jesus loves MARPs

Right now, I'm sitting in my hotel room just across from the OR Tambo airport. I wasn't planning to spend the evening in a hotel room, but it turns out that sometimes flying standby has just as many drawbacks as perks. There's only one flight a day from Jo'burg to Atlanta. I'll try again tonight -- wish me luck.

There's something about the empty neutral space of a hotel room that I secretly like. They always feel like a transitional space to me. Liminal (I like that word). I like the way a faceless conglomerate tries to anticipate what an individual person would want. I like owning a flat screen TV and a whole fake-fancy studio apartment of my own for a night. I like the liminal ownership of the situation.

I could have made it on the first try had I left Saturday, but instead we had an amazing going away party that night. There was this moment, at the end of the evening, when one of our guests looked at another, and declared that they were going to stand together and advocate for themselves. That they would refuse to be ignored and would work together to make sure they were seen and heard. I have never witnessed history before, and I think Saturday night I did. Just there, in my living room. Over cupcakes I had spent the morning baking. I had goosebumps. That moment alone was worth 10,000 missed flights and 10,000 neutral hotel rooms. It was powerful.

Of course, I would also like getting on an airplane back to America tonight. My favorite part of travelling, every single time, is when the customs person in Atlanta flips through my passport, looks up, and says "welcome home." I like being welcomed home.

Margaret Mead

Last week, I took some time from my crucial schedule of life saving meetings and interminable office time spent under life sucking florescent lights to get an up close look at the HIV health systems in the country.  Not on purpose, entirely, I didn't plan it, but a friend asked for a favor and I wanted to do something that felt tangible.

My friend had told me about a separate friend of hers who is very ill.  This friend needed to get a refill on her ARVs, but the refill had to be done at a clinic that was far away, and the woman was too sick to get them herself.  My friend had already filled the prescription once on her behalf, but had been told by the clinic staff that next time the actual patient would need to fill her own prescription.  I offered to give the woman a lift to the clinic.  For some reason I thought this would be no big deal.  The friend stays in the town where I work, and the clinic is in the town where I live.  I'd just give everybody a ride on my way out of town, right?

I don't know why I still think things work this way.  I should know better by now.

Thursday afternoon my friend came and met me at my office.  We went to the woman's home.  She was extremely weak, it took three family members helped her get into my car.  I would have been able to pull up closer, but somebody had parked their truck in the driveway leading up to the woman's house and was busy washing it one 2 liter soda bottle at a time, so I just had to stop my car in traffic, throw my hazards on, and really regret that I couldn't park any closer.  

When we arrived at the clinic my friend and I helped the lady out of the car and into the waiting room.  The clinic was well lit, well ventilated, and not too busy.  There probably are some hellish visions of overcrowded, over stressed HIV hospital facilities out there, but this wasn't it.  There were only a few people in line ahead of us.  One woman was dropped off at the door, escorted in by a husband, and cut the whole line, but that was the most egregious part of the process.  After about 20-30 minutes, our friend was taken in to see the nurse.  My friend had asked me to stay and ask the nurse if her friend could be transferred to a clinic in Mbabane, much closer to where they stay.  She felt that the nurses would be more likely to listen to me than to her or her friend.  I agreed, because as distasteful as the fact is -- she was probably right.  

We went inside, and the nurses looked at the woman's refill book and refilled her ARVs.  When I asked if she could be transferred to the clinic that was much closer to the woman's house, the nurses explained that only doctors could transfer patients, and the doctor would not be in until the next day, so the woman should come back again then.  I strongly considered pointing out all of the USAID signs all over the place and dropping a good old, "my tax dollars pay your bla bla bla" but while there's a time and place for vaguely jerk like American assertiveness, there's never a time for stupid.  The nurse and I went back and forth for a few minutes.  I was taking huge, grievous, gargantuan advantage of my accent and my skin color and my wealth, and we both knew it.  But on the other hand...if all that privilege can be useful to somebody, shouldn't it?  Or does taking advantage of those things somehow reinforce some...thing that is a big part of the problem with the system in the first place?  I don't know.  But my friend had asked me to do it, so I did.

 It was very clear that the woman needed to see a doctor immediately, but getting to the clinic had already been a huge effort for her, going back there again on the next day just wasn't an option.  I come from this perspective, and this place, where I think that if you just walk into a health care facility everything will be fine.  Because thats how it was when I was a kid.  When you're sick, you find somebody to make you better.  Walk through the right door and somebody will fix you up.  I'm not stupid, I know how untrue that is in Africa, and America, and pretty much everywhere else too, but some part of me in the back of my head just kept mumbling that now that she was here, and in front of not one but two nurses...shouldn't everything be ok?  Couldn't they fix this somehow?  And the rest of me thought, no...of course not.  And what did I expect them to do about it anyways?

Finally, after a prolonged telephone conversation with the government doctor in the right clinic (during which the phrase "You get here at nine ish??!!  I'm not waiting around for whenever nine-ish happens," might have occurred, and forever cemented the public health nurse's love for me) it was agreed that we would take the woman to the VCT clinic near her house immediately to see a doctor, that the visiting doctor (who was planning to show up the next day at nineish) would sign her over to the closer clinic in absentia the next day, and I would bring the file up there myself once he (presumably he) had done that.  Complicated.

After we agreed on this, we brought the friend back to my car, and drove her back to the city.  The VCT clinic where we were going is actually two separate buildings on the government hospital compound.  One is for testing, and one is for ART patients.  Imagine what this means if you are going to get your medication.  Just by walking towards that door, the door where only HIV+ patients go in, you have to announce to everybody one of the most private, intimate facts about yourself.  When you walk through that door, you tell everyone around you that there is a virus living inside you that the King just called a terrorist.  And you have to do it to pick up the medication that helps you survive.  Some people -- a lot of people -- aren't completely sure that that bargain is worthwhile to them.

We took the woman inside, and the first person we saw took one look at her and at the three of us it took to get her the 15 feet from the parking lot to the clinic, and directed her to the emergency room.  This is literally a room for emergency patients with the word "sick" written on red construction paper and taped to the door with medical tape.  Its just that, the room for emergency patients.  I find something about this darkly funny.  We were met by a very nice British (I think) doctor, and didn't have to wait terribly long before being seen by one doctor, and another one.  While we sat and waited for the doctors to examine her, my friend told me about how she would go from house to house in their community, visiting people who were sick with HIV, encouraging others to test, and generally trying to offer all of the support she can.  Not because anybody asks her to, certainly not because anybody pays her to, but just because she feels she needs to.  I told her that I think God will bless her for that, and that if anybody deserves to go straight to heaven, it is her.  I said it partially because I think it was something she needed to hear, and partially because that I meant it.  I meant it in translation, if that makes sense, but I really meant it.  She is one of those astounding, quiet people who will never win an award, never meet the president, never be celebrated by international news media or maybe even told thank you by more than the few people who think of it, but who keeps doing something phenomenal and selfless and important anyways.  Because its right, and because...she wants to.  What do you say in the face of that, besides, "God will bless you."  

Finally, after around 45 minutes from the time we got there, our friend was wheeled out of the emergency room and admitted to the hospital.  

We followed the attendant to the hospital, and were told to meet her in a particular ward, while my friend checked her in.  The most visible item on window to the reception office is a sign in English and siSwati.  The sign explains that corpses will only be released to family members who have fully payed their hospital and mortuary fees, and have the receipt to prove it.

 We found our friend in a bed next to a window and spent some time talking with her until the ward nurse came over.  The nurse was wearing a face mask and was extremely warm and cheerful.  As we left, I smiled and told the nurse that this woman was my friend and extremely important to me, so could she please make sure to take extra good care of her?  The nurse laughed and told me that she couldn't because that would be unfair -- she had to take extremely good care of everybody.  Finally we agreed that she should take extra good care of everyone there so that our friend could get extra good care too.   I knew exactly what I was doing, I was taking advantage of a crap system again.  I was making a point of showing that I was behind this woman and that I cared, even if we only knew one another for the space of an afternoon.  It kind of makes me feel a little bit...sick to know that this is a thing I would even try.  At least in Swaziland I was taking advantage of wealth, and not race.  Like exploiting class divisions is somehow better than exploiting race divisions.  I don't know.

We left, and the the friend said goodbye.  I keep meaning to go back and visit her, and I keep...not.  Mostly, I think I don't want to go and be told that she's gone.

Nothing in the process was particularly egregious in terms of health care accessibility or services.  Supplies were never too short, we never had to wait an inordinately long time, nobody was particularly rude.  But I think at least some of the last two points had to do with the fact that I was there with these two women at every step of the process as a sort of silent (only once not so silent) advocate.  All in all it was about 4.5 hours from the time we left the offices to the time we left the friend at the hospital.  Getting all of those things done in just one day -- or any of them at all -- without access to private transportation would have been impossible.  

Maria and I had a long conversation afterwards, about health and human rights, and social justice, and whats fair and whats right and why we're in this field in the first place.  She pointed out that at no point was there a failure of human rights, and thats true.  But justice?  Is that story just?  Is it right?  We were not playing on a level field there.  The deck was stacked.  Insert other game metaphor here.  

I know, I'm a slacker

I think I was much better at making blog posts when I was a PCV than now when I'm actually working.  (Sorry mom)  Why is this?  I think in Peace Corps I just inherently had better/funnier stories.  I think also, now that I'm working-working, its a little bit less appropriate for me to (gently) poke fun at what I do every day, since most of that takes place in fairly legitimate offices.  Plus, while my job is FANTASTIC, and I love just about every second of it, its really not a good one to discuss in a public forum.  Feel free to email me in private if you're really that curious about what I do.

Oh, also, the blog stuffexpataidworkerslike.com does a WAY better job of summarizing my daily life than I ever could.  So I leave a lot of it to them.

As of today, I have 29 days left in my favorite tiny mountain kingdom.  I have mixed feelings about this.  On the one hand, it will be nice to be back in the states.  I miss my family and friends.  At Erin and Roy's wedding I realized just how much I miss a lot of really wonderful people who I went to school with and how much I want to do a better job of staying in touch with them.  I miss the variety of America, and some days I miss being invisible.  But... (sorry again mom, there's a "but")  I've been emailing back and forth with a friend of mine who did her own stint away from the US for a while.  She said, "aren't you excited to move back to America for good?!"  And I thought..."Wait?  For good?  Who said anything about for good?  I'm moving back to America for now."  I felt the reverberations of a distant, mini panic attack.  I've lived in southern Africa on and off for over three years now.  I've been a college graduate (an "adult" if you will) for six years.  I'm just as good at being a grown-up here as I am at being a grown-up in America.  Maybe better.  I love what I do here.  I love the variety and the absurdity and the slight-to-major challenge that comes with getting just about anything done here.  I like it here.

Three vivid memories, or memories of phrases, stick with me from my very first week in Peace Corps, my first week in South Africa.  I remember sitting on the bus leaving the Jo'burg airport, trying not to start crying hysterically, and thinking over and over, "I'm 10,000 miles from everyone I love and everyone who loves me."  Over and over again.  I couldn't get that sentence to leave my head.  And then, we got to our first training site, and we spent a week listening to bull roarers and singing coming from an Ndebele initiation school in the hills behind us, and I wrote my parents a letter.  I told them, "I'm falling in love with this place, and I never expected that to happen."  Which is corny and kind of cliché, but was also true.  And I remember sitting in my freezing rondavale, with the other PCVs who would really soon become the people whom I loved and the people who loved me.  I re-read Stardust, the illustrated version, and I hit the part where Tristran Thorn gets ready to walk across the wall and into Faerie, and "he knew if he turned back now, nobody would think any less of him" and he went anyways.  It was the perfect sentence in the perfect paragraph in the perfect time.  About walking into the unknown but knowing it was right.

And here I am now, four years later.  I'm still 10,000 miles away from so many people whom I love, but now I love being in this place too.  I have people who I care about here, too.  I love walking into the unknown every day.

I'm looking forward to new challenges in America, and being with so close to so many people who matter to me.  But I also am already planning how to come back here again just as quick as I can.  So in 29 short days, I'm coming back to America.

For now.

Everything is always 80%. But I don't care!

"I'd love the eggs benedict please.  Oh -- and fruit!  Do you have any fruit I could have on the side?"

"We have hashbrowns."

"Um...fruit?"

"Hashbrowns are potato."

"I think I'll just have the eggs benedict."

Durban

I've got my computer open... free wifi is running... the coffee doesn't suck...

This might be one of the top 10 best days ever.

Just call me Safey McSaferson.

This is happening.

And this.

But...I'm fine.  I promise.  I've also checked in with friends at the University, and they're okay too.

I plan to spend my evening eating margarita cupcakes and playing trivial pursuit in my (safe, safe) house.  This is a fascinating historical moment to experience, however I don't think this blog is an appropriate place to explore that moment.  If you happen to be interested, feel free to email me.

It's Official

Not an idiot.  Nor dump.  Whatever dump is.

Pitstop

I'm back from Sabie now, and sitting in "my" office at the Ministry of Health.  (The door is still labeled with nothing but STI[!] in big red letters, and I am still 12 and that still makes me laugh).

Yesterday I came back from Sabie via Steenbok, which is in absolutely no way the shortest possible route, but I wanted to stop in and say hello.  When I got there, the family was away at the clinic, so I spent some time hanging out with a group of kids/youth/young adults who were on their way to a soccer match in Naas.  About 35 of men and women were milling around the bus stop by the house, chatting one another up, and implying that they were all about to fit themselves into two pick-up trucks and then race down the pot hole littered road to town.  I said there was no way they'd ever fit everybody.  I was totally wrong.  If you have never seen 35 more or less grown adults hop into the back of a couple of pick-up trucks and drive off to the next town, swerving around pot holes, blowing vuvuzelas, and cheering at every other car the see.  Well.  I recommend the site to you.

It was late-ish when I got into Steenbok, because I'd been coming down from Sabie that afternoon.  Going to Steenbok added an extra 2.5 hours to my drive home, but I think it was worthwhile.  One of the really nice things about working out here in Swaziland is the chance to see my host family again.  When I left in 2008 I promised I'd try and come back, sure, but I don't think any of us believed that it would ever happen.  I think we all assumed that our intersection would be more of a brief and singular one than something we'd have the chance to take up again.  I feel genuinely lucky that I have a home I can go and visit in SA.  No matter how awkward those home visits still are, or how out of the way that home is.  Lucky, lucky, lucky me to have a place that had such a profound impact on my life only a two podcast drive away.

Final Score

You all: $640.  The fifth highest amount raised for the whole event!

Me (/my butt): Ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow.

Half Marathon Update

Wow. Thank you thank you to those of you who have raises over $500 for KLM so far!  It is an amazing amount of money that really is going to make a huge difference to a kid in Mpumalanga.  For those of you who are still considering donating, and may have a few dollars to spare (an unexpected tax return or other recent lucky break perhaps?), the race isn't until the 26th so there is still plenty of time to share! Five dollars is an awesome contribution -- $10 is amazing. Or might I suggest...$13.10?

Photographic update with me looking sweaty as hell to follow on Monday morning.

Photo Essay

Last month we went to one of the royal kraals for the beginning of marula season.  Translation:  we hung out in one of the king's palaces/cattle pens while all the gogos rolled up with the first of the season's marula beer.  Marula is the stuff amarula is made out of.  Marula beer does not taste like amarula.  People come from all over the country in their traditional get up and hang out in a cattle pen drinking home brew beer out of old oil canisters until the king shows up, commands them to sing and dance, and then tells them to get drunk.  

It is strangely reminiscent of a renaissance faire.

Casey was the star of the show.  Everybody wanted to hand him drinks out of old oil drums.  We were commanded to take this photo.

Eventually, the gogos all paraded from the palace to the show ground.  We were also commanded to take pictures of that.  So we did.

Beer and grilled meat in a crowded dirt lot -- somehow this felt like a lot of my college experience.

After that weekend, we decided that we needed to spend more of our weekends having fun.  So we went to Kosi Bay, which is a world heritage site on the Indian Ocean, just a teensy bit south of the Mozambique border.  It was about 6 hours from Mbabane, and at a certain point the road stops being paved and starts being...kind of just a lot of potholes.  Punctuated by cows.  But then its fine, because it turns into sand.

But the sand turns into a view that looks like this.  Kosi Bay is a series of lakes leading up to an ocean. Those little fences in the water are fish traps.  The tide comes in, the fish get trapped, and then people can just go and scoop them up.  Its genius.  And it looks really awesome.

     So beautiful.  This is one of the lakes with beautiful green mountain and neat fishing traps.

It takes a 45 minute drive in a 4x4 to get to the beach proper.  My little car was not going to do that, but we had the chance to bump on down there in an old school land rover and hung out for hours.  We had to wade through a series of tide pools holding our picnic supplies above the water line.  It was kind of like Oregon trail...but in a beautiful series of Indian Ocean inlets.  And nobody's oxen drowned. 

Then we braai'ed (barbecued) and toasted s'mores.  I'd like to point out that I built that fire.  Go me.

Bye Kosi Bay!  Go little Rav4 Go!

[Eish!]

I plan on being tired

At the end of March, I am planning to run a half marathon.

Wait...sorry thats not right.  Let me fix that sentence.

At the end of March, I am planning to run walk an entirely downhill half marathon over the course of four hours.

Much more accurate.

The Longtom half marathon is something that Peace Corps South Africa has been doing for about five years now.  Its up in Sabie, which is beautiful, and I'm really excited that I'll be in this part of the world at the right time to participate.  Also about the idea of even attempting my first organized athletic...thingy that isn't yoga.

The other really great thing about the Longtom is that it is a fundraiser for the KLM organization, which was set up by some PCVs from SA11 (I was SA15.  I've just heard the un-holy rumor that they're now up to SA23.)  KLM pays a complete 5 year scholarship for one rural Mpumalanga student a year to attend a fantastic private secondary school.  Most of the kids are from the areas where my friends and I lived in Peace Corps, and it really is a life changing thing.  The Longtom organizers ask that everybody who participates fundraise at least $100.  So as you can see...I am now passing that information along to all 3 of you who read this.

Here is the information from this year's organizers:

Each year the Longtom Marathon Fundraiser provides two-thirds of the cost of the five year education for one learner at Uplands College. KLM relies heavily on the funds raised through the Longtom Marathon Fundraiser and needs the continuing support of PCVs to carry on their important work. Volunteers participating in the marathon are expected to fundraise a minimum of US$100 for the KLM foundation, but don't worry, that can be spread out over 4, 10 or even 20 donations.  Each $5 donation helps out! Although $100 is the minimum requirement we expect that many of you will go above and beyond that. To encourage you to do so, the Longtom Committee has also identified target fundraising goals which are:

·        $100 - base

·        $250 - bronze

·        $500 - silver

·        $750 - gold  

Here's how you can donate:

1.     Go to the KLM foundation website http://www.klm-foundation.org  

2.      Click on the Donate photo in the upper left corner.

3.      This opens up a secure https connection for people to donate.

4.      In the Longtom Marathon field put "Rebecca Fielding-Miller" so they know the donation was made in my name.  (In fact, feel free to put "Rebecca Fielding-Miller, MSPH")

$5 would be fantastic, $25 would be even better.  I never do this, but this is one of those times where I can honestly vouch for the organization.  I know this area, I know these kids, and I know that going to Uplands College really will change a kid's life.  Plus...13.1 miles.  Thats really far!  Even if it is all downhill.

www.klm-foundation.org

At some point during that sojourn

Somebody in Johannesburg managed to get ahold of my credit card information and steal about $3500.  God knows how, as you can clearly see from the timeline that I had 0 extra minutes for the purchase of anything.

This may mark my official retirement from public transport in Africa.

I'm Not Leaving

     The first thing I need to say is that I now work in an office that sits behind a door which is clearly (and sparsely) labeled "STI" in big red letters.  There are also numerous posters and pamphlets on how to recognize syphilis (hint: your downstairs is in an advanced stage of "OMG...what is that?") and what to do if you have TB. (Take your meds.  Everyday.  Try to avoid coughing on friendly neighborhood peace corps volunteers whose only mistake was to share a kombi with you on one fateful day...)

     The above visual markers are a sign that I have begun my transition from random grad student researcher to person-with-actual-job-dom.  I think I like this state, I've never experienced it before.  For one thing, it comes with a salary which I find awfully novel and exciting.  For another it kind of makes me feel like all those late night hyperventilations over biostats and car trips to Trader Joes whose sole purpose was to memorize/procrastinate on memorizing all the different classes of ARVs might actually have paid off.  Who knew?

     I will be enjoying this salaried state of existence for another 6 months here in good old Swaziland.  (Sorry mom.  At least its not the DRC!)  After that...more grad school.  I decided that what I really, really want out of life is a PhD.  And to spend 3-4 more years being broke and living in a classroom/committee setting.  But it turns out I really like research, and if I want to keep doing research, then I'd better get a degree that says I'm good at it.  Besides...how awesome does Dr. Fielding-Miller sound?  Pretty good, right?

Brief Sojourn to America

I am in the US for all of six days for some grad school considerations and family time.  To get here, I decided to take public transport from Mbabane to the Jo'burg airport since a) I had meetings in the morning and the nice van left at 7am, and b) it is cheap and so am I.  I also thought it would be entertaining to keep track of what the process entailed, so I kept notes.  Which I will now present to you.

10:30am, Monday: Meeting starts, 90 minutes late
11:45am -- Meeting ends.  My ride ditches me and sends me with a different lady to go to an atm for needed cash.
12:00 -- I find the different lady who is to drive me to the atm for cash.  We find said atm.  She takes me back to the meeting hall instead of the taxi rank.
12:15pm -- random toothless man we wave down on the side of the road drives me to the taxi rank.  The previous kombi (minibus) left 10 minutes previous.  I am promised we will leave by 2.
2:20pm.  Switch kombis, but still at the taxi rank.
2:30 -- Kombi leaves Mbabane.  I am told I will switch again at the border.
2:45pm -- Arrive at the border.  Stamping and queuing.
3:00pm -- Get in new kombi.  Forced to airless back.
3:15pm -- Leave for Jo'burg
6:20pm -- Forced to switch kombis again at large mall in Jo'burg.  I lose my shit with the driver.
6:30pm -- Switch kombis again in the middle of freeway.  Old man loses his shit in a mixture of zulu and sotho because I am white.
6:45pm -- kicked out of kombi to travel last half mile on foot.  Begin sobbing.  Almost run over.
7:05pm -- South African Airlines begins trying to figure out what the hell a buddy pass is.
8:20pm -- Flight leaves.  I am in business class.  Success!!

If you have ever wanted to visit Africa...

Delta is currently having a pretty good sale.  $990 round trip from DC or NY to Jo'burg or Capetown.  Now is the time, people!!