Summer Back to School-Guns on Board

School starts next week in South Africa so the Mountain residents and town businesses are abuzz with parents anxiously buying school uniforms and supplies. The taxi to Vryheid filled up in a hurry at 6am today with shoppers getting their kids ready for school, just like September back to school at home. The children have been on summer vacation for two months with Christmas being a double whammy of holiday and freedom from school. The boarding students add a dynamic to the mountain top that we enjoy as they sing every night at 9 pm on their return to their dorms from study hall. They always have a cool greeting hanging around on the dirt road. The 60 boys in the boarding school are chaperoned by only one adult and have no soccer team or other activities to keep them busy. The Hospital had hoped that the Bond’s would organize a team and coach the boys but volunteering as a Ref for the AYSO league in Palos Verdes does not qualify one for coaching 17 year olds looking for blood. The kids here play soccer with a vengeance and are very skilled but need a coach to learn strategy. If anyone out there has a calling…..

The taxi ride started tamely enough, even though the mist of Mountain High enshrouded our home. One kilometer down the dirt road a small antelope (one of the small boks- reebok, springbok, bleesbok) sprang across the meadow. This was the first game that we have seen so close to home. Mr. Zulu, the driver got a big grin on his face and confidently pulled out a gun from the side of the car while driving through the mist. He then waved the gun at the antelope and we joked that it looked like a braai (barbeque) tonight. Fortunately he put the gun away and returned to driving the taxi down the mountain. We were almost incredulous seeing the ease that he produced the weapon while driving but safety issues in this Country probably require taxi drivers, bus drivers and truckers to be prepared to defend themselves and protect their cargos. There is an edge to South Africa that detracts from the enjoyment. The citizens are a strange combination of courtesy and kindness mixed with fear, suspicion and vigilance. We are constantly being warned not to picnic next to the roads, to hide our cash all over our bodies and carry a “dummy wallet” for muggers, stay inside at night, and avoid looking like a tourist. At the same time the locals are amazingly generous and trusting. A motel owner offered her car to us to drive to a local restaurant so that we wouldn’t have to walk at night. (we declined-Peace Corps does not allow driving when not on leave). When I thought I had missed the bus to Richards Bay because of delays at the beauty shop, the owner offered to drive me to the next stop to meet the bus. Eight Peace Corps members have been mugged out of our group of 80, but we have never even felt uncomfortable or endangered in any way. So it is hard to generalize but we are grateful we have two years to come to an understanding of South Africa.

Our front row seats in the taxi next to Mr. Zulu are a mixed blessing in spite of being more spacious (only 3 passengers can ride in the front row, the other rows are limited only by one’s imagination and aggressiveness). The middle front seat passenger is required to collect the taxi fare from all passengers and make change. The first step is to count the total number of passengers and multiply by the 22 Rand fare. This is the easy part. Then the money starts coming forward, change made for those R100 bills and the change passed back to the passengers. Mr. Zulu does not participate in this process-he is only interested in the final sun meeting his target. This process is full of room for errors and misunderstandings. The 50 cent coin looks like the 5 cent coin. Sometimes there is no change available and the passengers have to juggle around to make the fares come out right. The taxi does not deliver the passengers until the total is right-today 16 passengers (and 2 infants) = R352. I secretly hoped that we would be reassigned seats as the job requires too many skills for newcomers but today I looked around to the back of the taxi after all the change had been made and one woman announced that “Finished”, a good sign that no one was shortchanged. Today Mr. Zulu did not ask Brendon to fill out lotto numbers. I guess our luck is up or he got tired of losing the last four months with the Bond’s picks. Maybe our luck will come during the police traffic stops and his taxi is not put out of commission. Today the windshield wipers were working so we appreciate improvements, even in small doses. The government is trying to phase out the old unsafe taxis but there is resistance due to added costs for the owner.

The work at the Hospital was brightened this week by the arrival of 14 nursing students doing a monthly rotation in the TB wards. They live in rondavals on the hospital grounds without TV, cinemas, shopping, fast food or boyfriends. Their arrival brought an expansion of the Jabule Sewing group as they were solicited by some of the bedridden patients to obtain sewing and yarn materials from my stash to pass the hours in bed. Two of the nursing students asked for yarns and fabric to make hats for themselves. I felt badly turning them down but told them that membership in the elite Jabule group required a diagnosis of TB or AIDS. This week was also successful in getting a few men to sew booties and small coin bags out of python printed fabric purchased for R5 a meter ($.75). The interest in the coin bags started when the patient that finally received his welfare grant needed a place to put his money and conned a female patient into sewing a drawstring bag that he proudly wore around his neck containing his riches. Some of the other men wanted bags do so they were willing to sew for themselves in spite of their own stigma about men sewing. Wire and pliers were also offered for crafts but no takers this week. A chaplain student attempted to determine some meaningful activity for the men and discovered that they would enjoy learning how to repair shoes and carve wood so maybe these activities can be developed.

The good news is that the patient that received his welfare grant last week (with the python drawstring bag for bounty) was discharged on Wednesday and left the hospital to live with his children in a nearby town. He was feeling higher than a kite on Tuesday night when he started to imagine his new life outside of the hospital after being a patient for 1 ½ years and wearing dull blue pajamas 24 hours a day. He smiled broadly as he announced that maybe he would go to JoBurg and do some strong work. There are success stories at Mountain High!