GET THE MESSAGE?

The last half of April and the month of May have been have been busy for me. I reported last time that I had received approval for a grant for repeats of the “GET THE MESSAGE” HIV education workshop for parents and adult caregivers that I developed and put on last year. I have since managed to have the course outline (Facilitators’ Handbook) and the course handout translated into Sepedi, which was one of the conditions of the grant award. Unfortunately I have been slowed by a death in the family of one of my principle local resources and lining up facilitators and a venue for the next workshop will have to wait until after the first of June. Sadly, this is not an unusual reason for delay here in South Africa.

In early May the volunteers held a weekend conference in Polokwane that was attended by a little over half of the 53 volunteers stationed in Limpopo Province. This was not a Peace Corps sponsored conference though it was sanctioned and some assistance was provided vis-à-vis the cost of the venue. The conference was held to address common issues from the local perspective and collaterally afforded a good chance to socialize. We rallied at the Polokwane Game Reserve, a favorite venue, which afforded good facilities and the opportunity to go on game walks. It was great to see Rhinos, Zebra, Giraffe, Kudus, Impala and Nyala, the last a large antelope. It is more exciting to see these animals on foot than in the relative safety of a safari wagon. Everything looks so much bigger and faster, especially the Rhinos. At the conference, I facilitated 3 sessions – Writing VAST grant applications, gardening in Limpopo’s semi-arid regions and one on volunteer safety issues. I also managed to get food poisoning, so was miserable for the last night there and had a harrowing 4 hours of taxi rides back to my site. I made it to work Monday, but was at half speed for a couple of days.

My Ngo continues to struggle with its government financing. The funding for the last quarter of 2011-2012 was received, but on the last business day of the financial year. As might be expected, it largely went for incurred but unpaid expenses. Though in October 2011 we submitted a proposal for funding for the current financial year which started April 1, we have not received a response. In mid-May our Manager was called in to the district DOH office for a meeting. We were informed that they were still reviewing the proposals and could not tell us when they might be able to respond. Worse, we were told that the Department’s expectation was that the payment that was received at the end of March would be used to fund operations through the end of June. In effect they were extending the financial year by 3 months, but giving notice not before the end of the financial year so that some plans could be developed (though I don’t know what since the money had long since been committed), but a month and a half afterwards when there was little left to plan with. As is so often the case, the big guys are balancing the budget (and mitigating their own mismanagement and incompetence) on the backs of the poorest and least able to mount an effective response. It amazes me that the Community Health Workers just keep on seeing their patients in the face of such ill treatment – Another cultural difference.

Despite the difficulties, the organization was able to hold a successful Annual General Meeting, and with the considerable efforts and skill of the carers, to feed almost a hundred people on about $85. I was asked to give a report on my first year with the NGO. Though I am not yet able to give such a long and complex presentation in Sepedi, I talked for a considerable time and from the several follow up questions that were asked it was clear that some of the message got through. Just as I can understand more Sepedi than I am comfortable speaking, the audience’s comprehension evidently exceeds their verbal skills.

Before I close, I want to say a few words about the HIV pandemic here in South Africa. After all, it is the reason I am here. There has been great controversy here about a painting (The Spear) displayed in a well-known gallery that depicts the President posed like Lenin in a typical Russian propaganda poster of the early 20th century with hand outstretched leading the masses to the promised glories of communism, but with a penis and testicles prominently displayed at the crotch. The President, of course, married his sixth wife a couple of months ago and now has four concurrent wives. He was prosecuted for rape a couple of years ago and acquitted, I understand, on an argument of consensual sex, based in part on the message communicated by the manner in which the alleged victim was dressed. It is rumored that he has a great number of children, not all with his current or former wives. The political statement carried by the Lenin reference is at least plausible in light of the partnership of the majority party with the Communist Party and the largest federation of Trade Unions and the direction some elements seem to be, or want to be, heading.
At about the time that this controversy arose, the National Department of Health here was reported to be heartened by the progress being made against HIV as indicated by the fact that they were reaching 80% of eligible HIV positive people with ART. (Though prevalence in the country has not gone down to any significant degree.) Digging deeper into the statement, however, the person speaking for the Health Department noted:
“Mbengashe says it is of great concern that there are fewer men who access treatment.
“Women come forward and they do respond to all our messages. But our biggest challenge is men. And one of the things, moving forward, is to find ways of finding men and actually bringing them forward so that they can actually get help.”
It is now generally accepted that one of the greatest cultural inhibitors to making real progress against the HIV pandemic in South Africa is the practice of having multiple concurrent sex partners. This problem is exacerbated by the effect of part of the HIV prevention slogan that has been around for years here “ABC” – “Abstinence, Being Faithful, and Condom use.” It is often believed by women that if they are faithful in marriage they are protected from HIV infection, and don’t have to insist on condom use, when in fact it is necessary that both partners begin the relationship HIV negative and stay that way throughout before the “being faithful” element has any real effect. That men are refusing to be tested for HIV infection further conceals the need for condom use and also reduces the effectiveness of the National ART push as a way of mitigating the rate of infection. (Recent studies have shown that a person on ART is less likely to spread the virus to others. Though not prevention, it would help significantly reduce incidence if you could identify and treat a large enough portion of HIV positive people.) Obviously, it is knowledge not existence of HIV positive status that triggers ART.

The debate as to whether The Spear is a violation of a right to privacy or a permissible political and social satirical expression will be played out in the Courts and in the Press here for quite some time. From the stand point of people who are concerned about the HIV pandemic, we can hope that the debate motivates both discussion and action on the role men in South Africa and elsewhere must play in the war against this horrible disease. From what the Department of Health is saying, it seems that thus far, in the main, women have been carrying the spear in that battle and that it is high time for men to join them.

A REFRESHING CHANGE OF SCENERY

It was a pleasure to meet and work with the new Peace Corps country Director and Head of training for South Africa at the Mid Service Training held in Pretoria the week of March 25th. They seem to have the right focus for the challenges faced by the volunteers here and the most effective way for Peace Corps to help improve the health and education of the communities in need. The program changes that are being discussed, with input from volunteers in the villages, will make service at this post much more attractive to prospective volunteers by providing clearer, more pointed, focus and better and more in depth training for the more limited scope of the effort. I hope these changes are ultimately adopted and implemented even though that will not happen until my time here is over.

As it happened the weather in Pretoria was perfect and I hardly noticed the absence of air conditioning. My fellow volunteers and I had great fun sharing our experiences, just partying. Two of the volunteers organized a trivia contest (hardly trivia, more like the old GE College Bowl) which has become tradition when our group gets together. It was especially fun this time as the teams included some locals who added depth of knowledge especially on the questions about Africa. The backpackers we stayed at made the event more interesting by putting up some great prizes for the first and second finishers. We have never had prizes before, just bragging rights. The team is hampered finished second by half a point. People want me on their team because they think I will know the old fogey stuff. They forget that people of age have started losing their memories and that many things from the ‘40s and ‘70s were seen through a “fog” or beer goggles then.

My medical exam went very well and my cholesterol level and blood pressure are better that OK. Teeth are fine with no work required, just a cleaning. I got my knees checked and X-rayed. I read the report and looked at the film as I walked it back to the office. Basically they said my knees look old, a little older than they should, but pretty much what could be expected for someone who spent many years in competitive and recreational athletics. I will get a follow up appointment with an orthopedist to see if there is anything not shown by the X-ray that explains why I have pain in the left knee more than the right. That will happen late next month.

My trip to Eastern Mpumalanga for the Longtom Half marathon was uneventful, but fascinating in that I saw so much diversity along the way. I am used to the West Texas/Arizona look of the area where my village is located and the slightly more verdant hilliness of Pretoria and the metropolitan sprawl of Jo’burg. I was not expecting to see Kansas, which is what the area east of Jo’burg looks like to me replete with corn and wheat fields, or the shift to the pine plantations of the South Eastern U.S. as I transitioned from the High Veldt to the Low Veldt as I approached Nelspruit, or the Southern California coastal region/Hawaiian look of the Low Veldt with its extensive Mango, Avocado, Citrus and Banana plantations. Amazing diversity, if largely man made. The area I passed through is underlain by one of the largest coal deposits in the world. The mines are largely open pit and I have no information about what reclamation plans exist, if any, but the South Africans have mitigated the adverse effects somewhat by placing large electric generation plants right next to the mines so that the coal does not have to be transported long distances. I don’t know if this is an intentional environmental mitigation or a response to the lack of transportation infrastructure, but it is much easier to deal with a single fixed pollution source than thousands of oil eating hydrocarbon belching trucks and trains.

When we arrived in Nelspruit, the capital of Mpumalanga Province, the seven of us that had traveled by bus were transported to Sabie by the owner of the backpackers thanks to the efforts of one of our number, and spared the hike to the Nelspruit taxi rank. Many of the other participants came all the way from Pretoria in long distance taxis. I have a standing rule that I travel by bus with an on board toilet if the trip is long and the fare is close to the same. I leave the endurance contests to the young. The backpacker in Sabie was full with about 60 PCVs staying there. It was rustic, but afforded good gathering places and reasonably comfortable beds and a large and well equipped kitchen. It rained hard a couple of time during the stay, to the great discomfort of those who elected to stay in tents, but there were enough couches in the common rooms to afford them some relief as their tents flooded.

Sabie is a tourist friendly town with many backpackers, guest lodges and B&Bs. It also has a lot of restaurants, many of which are very good and reasonably priced even for someone on a Peace Corps budget. I ate at two, a Greek Restaurant (twice) and one specializing in game dishes. Both were excellent. At the game restaurant I had some Springbok (a type of antelope) Carpaccio that was one of the most delicious dishes I have ever eaten. The Greek restaurant had very tasty food and portions that were welcome by this hungry traveler. Their homemade humus with home baked pita was very tasty and the fresh local trout really hit the spot the evening after completing the half marathon. Sabie is a big trout fishing area with hundreds of fast moving mountain streams.

We had to get up very early on March 31 to get the busses to the start of the half marathon. The people running the ultra-marathon (55K) started in downtown Sabie after the busses left with us slackers. Three or four PCVs ran the Ultra. It is considered one of the hardest anywhere with almost a mile of elevation change as it goes over Longtom Pass. The pass, gets its name from the long barreled cannon that were installed in the pass during the Boer Wars. Some have been preserved and the race passes them along the way. The Half Marathon starts at the top of the pass so it is mainly downhill, though there are many uphill segments. While the weather in Sabie was cool but sunny, at the top of the pass it was cold, with mist driven by a strong wind. That didn’t change until we were about two-thirds through the race when it cleared a little. The finish was in the sunshine and warm. I walked the entire race as fast as I thought prudent and still had some left for the last few kilometers. We tended to support each other’s efforts and I finished with a fellow PCV with whom I had been vying throughout the race. Though 7 years my senior, she is an avid walker and had lead until the last 6K where youth allowed me to catch up. We both finished the 21.2 K in 3 hours and 10 minutes, and under our targets. It was great fun.
I hung out in Sabie for two days after the race. It was amusing to see the difficulty that most of the race participants had walking, me to. I had expected the tight muscles, but the wet conditions had added chaffing in undesirable places to the misery. I did some hiking down into the canyon of the Sabie River which was a painful effort both down and up. After that experiment I nixed my plans to do more.
I left Sabie early on the morning of the 3rd of April, taking the Combi taxi to Hazyview about 45 k east on the edge of Kruger National Park, near the Numbi Gate. I stayed at a backpackers there that offered one day safaris into the park at a reasonable price. I upgraded my room from the dorm to a single with a double bed ($20 vs. $15) for the added privacy after being in crowded dorms since I left my site on the 25th of March. I still had to hike down the hill for my showers and to use the toilet, but the solitude was a pleasure. The owners of the backpackers also provide and evening meal as an additional cost option. I took it even though it was pricey by PCV standards and it was basically eating dinner with the family, good food and seconds allowed. I also took the option of being driven at the end of my stay to the bus depot in Nelspruit, about an hour away, for the trip back to Pretoria. If I do the trip again I will pass on that. There is Combi taxi service from Hazyview to Nelspruit that would have gotten me there in plenty of time at a fraction of the cost. I still worry too much about making travel connections. To add injury to insult, the bus was two hours late.

The safari into Kruger Park was wonderful even though I didn’t see any cats. The Big Five are the lion, leopard, elephant, rhino and water buffalo. I saw all three of the non-felines, two at very close range, within 30 feet of the open safari truck I was in. Seeing these animals on their own turf with no bars or fences is a whole different experience and worth every nickel. I was especially gratified to see the rhino, at the rate they are being poached for the Asian folk “medicine” market they may not be around long, certainly not where the public can view them in their natural state. South Africa is taking strong measures to combat the poaching, including removing the horns and instituting a shoot first and ask questions after policy for rangers encountering poachers. The military is now being brought into the enforcement arena. Notwithstanding these efforts, the news this morning reported 171 rhinos lost this year already.

I am back at my site now and, as I had hoped, have just been informed the grant I had applied for three repeats of my HIV workshop for parents and adults caring for the children of others has been approved. I now have to get the materials translated into Sepedi, which should improve the reach and sustainability of the effort, get my team of facilitators back together, and start on the logistics of presenting the program in a new village. I am shooting for the end of May or early June, and one every three to four months thereafter until the money is gone.

TIME FOR A BREAK

I have been back in my village now for two and a half months with only a couple of quick trips to the shopping town for relief. My shopping trips usually start at about 8:00 Saturday morning when, after my bucket bath and grabbing a quick breakfast and my shoulder bag, I hike the kilometer or so to the taxi rank (depot) and wait for a taxi to fill going “toropong” – to town. Saturday mornings are pretty good and the wait is usually not more than 20 to 30 minutes. If I got to the rank a bit earlier it would be a shorter wait, but, Hey! It’s Saturday and I don’t need to get to town before the stores open anyway. It will take between one and two hours to travel the 55 kilometers to town depending on any number of conditions.

There are three principal shopping centers in town, each surrounding a grocery store, Pick N Pay, Checkers, and Shoprite. This scene can be found in almost every large town and small city I have been to here. Spaar is another retail grocer but seems to be second tier and usually not so much an anchor as the big three. In my shopping town, each store has a distinct racial flavor, though none is exclusive to any particular race. PnP seems to draw the most Whites, both English and Afrikaner, and is located at the White end of town. (Please remember that White, Black or African, Coloured and Asian are accepted descriptors here and entirely “PC”) Checkers is more African but with a strong White showing and I think has the best food. Shoprite is predominantly African and located in a part of the town that is strongly African. The taxi rank for the taxi coming from my village is next to Shoprite. There are two major and several minor ranks in town each serving taxis bound to or arriving from different destinations. There is no guide to the taxi system, you just have to ask. Often you find that there is no regular taxi that goes near where you want to go and then you have to try to find a driver who is willing to negotiate to take you. This is often quite expensive if you are alone or just a couple of people.

I usually start by walking the back way to the bank, avoiding the area where I was assaulted and my pocket got picked back in October. I then head for PnP because that is the only store that carries the box wine I like and it is near the video rental place that sells the outgoing DVDs at good prices. I usually allow myself one a month. Even though the prices are good, my budget is very small. I also may stop by the big liquor store in town, the only one that sells Bourbon. I then head for Checkers where I usually do my major shopping, all the things I cannot get in the village. Whatever I buy has to fit in my shoulder bag. In a pinch I will take one additional grocery bag, but this is rare. I will have to wrestle these bags through narrow crowded streets and onto a minivan that is crammed with people and all their stuff, ride with it on my lap for an hour or two and then haul it a kilometer to my house when I get back to the village. It is just not worth trying to transport more.

After I have finished my shopping it is usually about Noonish and I head for a sports bar that serves a decent hamburger and cold draft beer. I will often meet up there with one or two of the other PCV’s that share the same shopping town. We eat and have a beer or two and speak to each other in unbroken English for an hour or two, often about subjects that are beyond our local language abilities and beyond the English abilities of the villagers. This hour or two is really the only break there is from life in rural Africa. It is not always enough, but by 2 pm or so I have to head back to the taxi rank to get one of the last taxis back to my village.

It is hard to believe but I am now well past the half-way point in my 27 month tour of duty here in South Africa. March 25 marks one year at my assigned site and less than a year to go. The time has flown by. I have been at my village without reprieve for a long time since I got back from Christmas leave, the longest uninterrupted stretch since I got here, and I am ready for a break. Luckily, it is time for our Peace Corps Mid Service Training – “MST” in PC lingo. I have no Idea what we are going to get trained for, but I am sure glad to have the opportunity to spend the better part of a week with my fellow SA23 Volunteers. These trainings are usually held in a nice hotel resort in the Pretoria area, but we have been caught in the back wash of Congress’s failure to fund Peace Corps to expected levels. So our group will have the training at the Peace Corps offices and will be put up at a backpacker’s (hostel). We are not thrilled to get less than what is customarily afforded other Volunteers and this is not the first short end we have received, but we are a flexible and resilient lot. I was particularly looking forward to air conditioning after sweating day and night for almost three months, but I can cope. It is cooling a bit now anyway. It is also probably better for my health not to be tempted by the customary three buffet meals and two teas a day.

One of the main functions of MST is our mid service medical and dental examinations. I am doing fairly well, but will try to get my knee looked at as it has not been right since I twisted it at In Service Training “IST” last June. As I have been training to walk in the “Long Tom” charity half marathon on March 31, and religiously doing my morning exercises, I am physically in as good shape as I have been in the last 5 years. I have been walking or hiking for at least an hour as fast as I can almost every day, with long walks of 18 to 24 kilometers on Sundays, usually staring a dawn to beat the intense heat. I may not set any records on the 31st, but I am sure to finish, unless eaten by a lion. My knee hurts with all this work but it is controllable with anti-inflammatory pain killers as long as I don’t pivot on it. If that happens, I can be pretty lame for a week or two.

The Long Tom event follows directly after MST. I will take the bus from Pretoria to Nelspruit which is on the eastern side of the country in Mpumalanga province next to Kruger National Park. I will taxi to Sabie where the marathon will be held. I have then arranged to stay in that area about a week to relax and recover and to take a one day safari into the park to try to see the “Big Five” or as many as I can. I am then going back to Pretoria for a day or two before heading back to the village. By that time I hope to hear that my application, more properly reapplication, for funding for my HIV workshop has been approved so that I can get about doing what I came here to do, moving forward in the fight against HIV/AIDS. After two weeks of R&R, I should be reenergized for the considerable effort that project requires.

I will let you know how MST and my Leave go.

Here also are a couple of photos from my walk abouts in the local bush.

How Hot Is It?

It was never my intention to use this blog just to complain about the weather, so I won’t. You get the essence from the title.

Life has been mostly uneventful since my return from Christmas break. I have been busy doing more at my assigned organization than I had expected. The Financial Officer, one of only three staff members who oversee 46 Community Health Workers in 23 villages, has not yet returned to work after her December 16 auto accident. I have had to pick up part of her work and give greater assistance to the Coordinator who as she has tried to pick up the rest. We have been battling to keep morale up and the doors open in light of the financial consequences of the financial failure (or ethical failure) of the Limpopo Provincial government, our only source of funding.

Perhaps some of you saw the front page article in the N.Y. Times a week or so ago about the corruption in government here and especially in Limpopo Province. Our CHWs have been working without pay since November and the staff was last paid in December. Most have kept on working despite not being paid and having to pay transportation costs and other job expenses out of whatever source of funds they can find. Even though no funds come out of the government they still insist that the work get done and the stacks of reports get filed and refilled again and again because they lose them, lacking any form of filing system as they do. It gets pretty depressing pretty quickly.

That said, things may be on the mend, at least as far as getting the money out that is long overdue under the contracts we have with the Department of Health. We have now received the overdue pay for the CHWs, though nothing yet for the staff. The disorganization at the department is no better, if anything it has taken a turn for the worse. We are still hoping for some relief on that score as well as the National Administrators who have taken over the department get deeper into their jobs and see what a real mess the management systems are.

The problems are very real and, I am told, very African – as in the continent – stemming from the culture of corruption that pervades at all levels from the highest offices of government to the day to day lives of individuals. It is every man or woman for his or her self, take every opportunity that presents itself and don’t sweat the consequences because there are none, at least on an individual basis. Society suffers at the expense of a few who get very rich or just a little richer. Some try to make the point that this is really a failure of competence, that money doesn’t get to where it needs to because the administrators don’t know their jobs. But the administrators have those jobs because they know the right people, are related to the right people, are in the right party or fought beside the right people, not because they have the know-how for the work. They are in those positions because the system and the people in it are broadly corrupt. There is little concept of the “public servant” where a sense of loyalty is felt to the public and the object of the effort is the public good. Some have offered the suggestion that problem is really a lack of education – because they are not trained to do the jobs and education is not available for people to become competent, obtaining them by corrupt means is the only avenue to a “better life”. The argument goes on that the failure of the education system for the majority reaches back to colonial times or to the oppression of Apartheid. This may be a correct statement in isolation, but I don’t believe it explains the corruption – these jobs were not jobs that were rejected by competent people, they were never offered to competent people and weren’t filled by any form of competition to the most competent people – they were handed out to friends, family and comrades, the cadres as they say here. The lack of education and educational opportunities certainly does not justify the corruption.

The system of corruption that pervades the government is not unique to it. It is a system that is part of the everyday life the people. Jobs here are not usually offered based on qualifications to do the job but on relationships. Your buy things from people within your own circle of friends or family, and if you are buying things with someone else’s money, you look for the seller who offers you personally the best “premiums.” This of course is not unique to this continent, but it is more pervasive and reaches down farther here than I have seen elsewhere, albeit with limited experience.

I was struck by an article I saw a couple of months ago about the Financial Management Act, the principle anti – corruption statute that has been on the books here since the mid 1990’s. The article reported, in the midst of the great tumult about corruption in government and in government contracting that no one has ever been “prosecuted” under the statute. Not “convicted” – “prosecuted.” When there is an investigation here that turns up substantial evidence against an official, the sternest consequence I have seen since I have been here is that the official is suspended on full pay indefinitely!

Well, enough of this. Let’s talk about the weather. It is really hot and there is no escape from the heat.

Here are some weather pictures for you.

“Winter” Holidays

This gallery contains 41 photos.

My HIV workshop wrapped up the day before Thanksgiving. I did not celebrate that day but got everything in the office wrapped up so that I could head off to Polokwane for the Holiday celebration with about 40 fellow Americans … Continue reading →

Teed Up and Ready to Go

I ended October with a very pleasant Halloween break with fellow PCVs in Tzaneen, in southern Limpopo Province. Those of you that have been following will remember that I was in Tzaneen early in the year for our workshop with the Supervisors from our designated organizations. We were put up that time by Peace Corps in a lovely hillside resort with three meals a day and all the fixings. This time, since we were on our own dime, the venue was a Satvik Backpackers a lovely remote venue about 10 minutes by taxi outside of the down town area. It is a pretty bare bones place, so we brought in all of our food and libations when we came in from the town. There were about 9 of us at the Backpackers and a few more who came in on Saturday night for the Halloween Braai. Costumes were required and most people came as members of the Peace Corps training team form PST. I was the head of training, Victor Baker in negative or as a Zombie if you prefer. Actually my choice of character was an excuse to spend more than I should have on a leather South African bush hat that I have wanted since I saw Victor first wear his.

My earlier visit to the area had not brought me into town, and I was delighted to find a modern and fairly sophisticated small city with many well stocked shops in a clean and bustling down town area. It is situated in a valley along the lake formed by the Tzaneen Dam which supplies water for the extensive agricultural operations in the area. The hills around are used for tree farms that supply lumber and poles used for various purposes. It is a very green environment and a far cry from the dusty rough and tumble of Mokopane, my shopping town. I must admit to a fair ration of envy for the volunteers who have Tzaneen as their shopping town and a great deal for the one who actually lives there in an apartment on a hill – modern amenities included. The weather was tolerable though a bit hot and humid, but storms at night cleaned the air and the company was enjoyable as ever. Though I made it a longish weekend by taking part of Friday off, I was back in Bakenberg on Sunday with time to wash my cloths and get ready for the month ahead.

November was to be consumed by efforts to get the curtain up on the project I started planning in July, a workshop for parents and adult care givers on HIV. The first order of business was to compile and analyze the survey forms generated in the door to door survey. We visited almost 200 households and collected almost 140 completed forms. As my intent in the survey was to try to judge the true extent of existing knowledge about HIV (and TB), the surveyors were asked to press the interviewees and were given permission to record the responses in Sepedi so as to not loose information in the effort to translate into English while the interview was under way. Good theory, but it generated a huge job for me as I struggled to translate the results of about half of the survey forms. I expanded my Sepedi vocabulary by a list three pages long single spaced, but got it done and a 7 page report written by November 9. I took the results to the head of the Clinic who had required the survey as a condition to assigning a nurse to co-facilitate the workshop. I have doubts if she ever read it though this may be forgiven as she is overburdened by the promotion of her second in command to another clinic. She finally assigned a nurse on the 10th but advised that the workshop would have to be on November 23 and that I could have the nurse, Rebecca, for one short planning meeting on the 16th. She said that she would have Rebecca call me to confirm a time for the meeting so I could coordinate with Emelda. So much for a jointly developed lesson plan and close coordination as outlined in the proposal I had given the Clinic head in August – apparently also unread.

Fortunately, I had started a rough out of a course outline in October –very bare bones and intended as a general roadmap to guide my discussions with the professionals that would be facilitators at the workshop. It now became a detailed lesson plan after all-nighter research and typing sessions. Come late Friday I had not heard from Rebecca so I took a complete copy of the documentation for the project to the clinic to give Rebecca a head start on our Wednesday meeting. True to form, her role as assigned facilitator was news to her, but she is a very gracious and accommodating person and did confirm our meeting for the 16th, gave me a time when she was available and accepted the information package.

Come Wednesday it remained unread, but we were able to have a lively discussion and hopefully she will have the plan down by the 23rd. I was able to ascertain that she would not do the condom demonstration that is an important part of the effort. “Culturally we don’t talk about those types of things to adults” was the rational, but the clinic is to supply a wooden penis model and condoms so that I can do the demonstration. Seems as a white person I am not constrained by cultural taboos. [I have my own backup supplies and at least the male condom demonstration will happen.] They will also provide some female condoms for display but will not demonstrate them (they use a toilet tissue roll as a model when demonstrating to patients–ingenious) but will not demonstrate and object to my doing so because, white or African, the gender taboos apply. I am starting to get a better feel for why this country is having such a hard time reducing its prevalence numbers, but I am looking for a woman who will demonstrate and I still have hope.

Aside from course content, I have been running to get the logistics taken care of. Organizing the venue, seating, refreshments, course handouts, evaluation forms and invitations – the latter in two languages and handed out door to door to about 250 households. Thankfully I have had wonderful support from the staff and carers at BHCBC. If it all comes together on Wednesday, I will have compressed the 5 weeks of planning and implementation envisioned in the original plan (as shown on my first Gantt chart) to about 2 weeks. I would say that the 5 is the far better and more realistic number. Through all this I have been engaged in my usual duties (though they have received short shrift), attended a pre-school graduation, attended a children’s’ birthday party and have planned my Christmas leave. I will hold this blog for 3 days to report how things went, at least briefly as I have a weekend in Polokwane to celebrate Thanksgiving with friends planned for next weekend.

The GET THE MESSAGE work shop went well, though it wasn’t really the program that I had outlined and which I thought had been agreed to and was somewhat less well attended than I had planned for. My lesson plan was structure to give the audience basic building blocks of information at the outset to enable them to better grasp some of the more complex information later in the presentation and to be able to recognize high risk scenarios that were not covered directly in the program. My nurse facilitator had apparently not appreciated the concept – I actually think that she had still not studied the course outline in any depth – and jumped right into HIV sexual transmission and prevention before explaining the mechanics of transmission and the theory of prevention. This also did damage to my effort to desexualize the disease so as to make it more likely to engender open communication in a culture where anything associated with sex is taboo to discuss. She did provide that information later, and the audience seemed to understand the link to the information provided earlier, but I think that it would have been better the other way around and would have given the recipients a more useful understanding in that it would have given them tools to determine the risk associated with any type of behavior with which they might be faced. Next time I do the workshop I will insist on more preparation time so that the theory of learning will be clear and understood.

The condom demonstrations went very well. I found a person, Violet, who is the facilitator for the local HIV Support Group, who agreed to demonstrate the female condom. The whole audience was riveted and it was clear that any taboo that may exist was not an impediment to their learning information that they had clearly wanted and which had not been previously provided. There were many questions. Due to the gender inequality that is endemic to the society which is often violently enforced without real risk of consequence to the man, women have a very difficult time protecting themselves by “negotiating” male condom use, even if they supply the condom and take responsibility to put it on. Having the option to bypass the need for any male cooperation was of great interest. This broke the ice for my demonstration of male condom use and the social worker who previously had shied way from involvement, stepped right up to help translate and explain. The whole topic was approached as “this is what you need to teach your children” rather than something that we were telling the middle aged people to do for themselves, which worked well to divert the taboo. The whole message got through to judge from the questions.

The part of the workshop about parent – child communication went far off script as well, but the essence – trust building, showing respect for the person and the question, and knowing or getting the answer or directing the youth to a source of accurate information and guidance – came through. Again, it is clear that I will need more time with the facilitators in the preparation stage next time.

Based on the completed evaluation forms (49 were turned in by the audience of 51) the program was a rousing success and one participant told me that I must give the workshop in her village soon using the same team of presenters. As I had planned for up to 100 participants, there was plenty of food and soft drinks. This had been a concern of mine as at a recent event put on by the Department of Health the food had run short and there had been a near riot and several of the local people who were helping on a volunteer basis had been threatened. While the first session of GET THE MESSAGE was the learning experience it was expected to be, I think it was a success and that many “got the message” despite all my concerns.

Sorry I’m Late, I’ve Been Busy

I try my best to update this missive every ten days to two weeks as I find that timing usually provides the right amount of material – enough to write home about but not so much as to make the effort a chore. This last three weeks, however has been so packed with commitments that I have had no time to sit down and type this out, and the longer I have waited the more daunting the task has become. In recent years I have adopted the philosophy (my apologies to Rhett for miss-using the word) that the best way to solve a problem is to address it promptly and to completion. So here we go.

My last post was on September 11. On the twelfth I departed my site for training provided by Peace Corps/PEPFAR that was in two tracks. One track was in Life Skills Training which is principally focused on training people to train Junior High and High school students in techniques to safely navigate the HIV infected waters of youth and young adulthood in the era of the AIDS pandemic. The second track was in Perma-Gardening which provides techniques for sustainable family and community gardening of vitamin rich foods which are by and large absent from the local diet and necessary to improve the health of a population whose current life expectancy is only 49 years and declining due to an upsurge in diet related hypertension and diabetes. The gardens can also provide IGAs (Income Generating Activities) for the NPOs with which most of us work. I was invited to ask two people from my organization to participate, one for each track, and I was to choose a track for myself. I invited one of the carers from one of the small villages to attend the Life Skills track. She is a dedicated young woman and accomplished public speaker who already leads a group of the girls in the village in a traditional dance and song club. She also has better English than most and I felt would learn the material and actually put it to use. I also knew that she had never been to one of the Peace Corps/PEPFAR sponsored events, which are generally held at nice (though not exorbitant) resort type venues with all meals provided, and would have a great time. As much work as she does she more than deserved the perk. The other spot was taken by my supervisor, though I had lobbied hard to have it go to the Chairperson of the Board of Directors who is a member of the Pensioners’ Association that is officed in the same old school as my organization and which has a gardening activity which I felt could benefit from the Perma-Garden training. My manager however made it clear that he was going even though he has been the one to go to all the other trainings and has no apparent use for gardening.

As at the time to book transportation to the workshop funding for the organization’s activities, though approved, had not yet been received, I paid for bus tickets for the three of us out of my meager stipend against reimbursement during the training which was to be received by the 17th. I bought the tickets on line (the busses often get fully booked in advance) and picked them up when I got to the bus station with my carer. My manager was to meet us there as he travels from a different village. About 10 minutes before the scheduled departure there was no appearance by my manager so I called him to make sure he was on his way. When I reached him he told me he had decided not to go. There was apparently no thought that this was information I might like to know. The bus company does not give refunds, only credit for future travel, but I was lucky in that a young woman who had to be in Pretoria had failed to book a ticket and was still there when I realized I had an extra. The clerk was nice enough to put us together and I was able to sell the ticket at face value. I was, and still am more than a little upset that the training opportunity was wasted, as I know the chairperson wanted to go. The board has brought the matter to the manager’s attention, for which I am glad. Unfortunately, I doubt that Peace Corps/PEPFAR was as lucky as I as far as recouping their financial commitment is concerned.
The training was at the RoodeVallei Country Lodge resort in the Northeastern outskirts of Pretoria. It is a lovely place with great rooms and beautiful grounds overlooking the river and the adjacent game reserve. There are more birds of different species than I have ever seen in one place outside an aviary and the food was very good. If they could find a decent bartender, my praise would be unqualified. This seems to be a common problem in SA. We are still looking for an ordinary gin or vodka Martini, having given up entirely on anything more sophisticated or fashionable. There is money to be made here for a barkeep who knows his or her stuff.

The trainings were very good as well, much better than some that we have had, and everyone was enthusiastic and enjoyed themselves. My counterpart informed me that she was enjoying herself so much that she did not want to leave when that day came, and I was very happy when she came into the office a week later with a letter of appreciation from her village High School where she had already started a Life Skills program for grades 8 – 12. She will be starting another at a neighboring school as well. In the end, it seems that Peace Corps/PEPFAR’s money was well spent. It was wonderful to get together with most of the SA23 gang and we had a lot of afterhours fun including a “wedding” in honor of the 2nd Anniversary of a couple in the group (with yours truly officiating) and a rousing trivial contest which my team did not win only because of a tactical error in not going for double or nothing which resulted from my lack of confidence in my (correct) answer naming the capital of Ghana. As it was, anyone who wanted to could participate in the grand prize – shaving the head of one of the female volunteers who is in a particularly hot site and who has recognized that long hair and bucket bathes are incompatible.

We returned to site on the Saturday the 17th. I got back to my house at about 4 in the afternoon. I had promised one of the carers that I would attend a service of the Exodus Apostolic Church, of which she is a member, that evening at her home. The service was to start at 10pm and run continuously, more or less, until sometime Sunday afternoon or evening. I was prepared to make the half hour walk to her house where the service was to take place at about 9:30, but my host family would not hear of it as the route leads past at least two “taverns” which by 9:30 on a Saturday night can be pretty rough and tumble. They insisted that it would not be safe for me to be walking alone through the village at that time and urged me to get there before sundown and just hang out until the service started. I ultimately agreed to do that, not so much because I feared the human element, but because with all the goats giving birth we have had packs of dogs coming out of the remote areas to try to feed on the kids. The fights between our 4 yard dogs – you may recall Bobby, Blackie (formerly Black Dog), White Dog and Big Head) and these marauders have been brutally fierce of late and wake me up every couple of nights. I got to “Daisy’s” house just as the sun was setting and found that a large group of her family had already arrived. The cow had been slaughtered and the cooking that would go on for the next 20+ hours had started. I was “treated” to supper of a plate of pap (maize meal porridge) and some of the “good meat”, tripe and intestine, served cold and flavored with ash. Yum Yum! I ate what I could, favoring the pap.
My early arrival turned out to be a benefit as Daisy’s grown children who are educated and speak English well were there from out of town. They were able to tell me a little about the event. I also met one of the 5 or so “pastors” that would be presiding over the service who filled in additional details. Seems that Daisy’s husband has been “troubled” of late, the nature of the trouble being undisclosed and unimportant, and the church had been called upon to gather in aid of the family by beseeching God to cure the troubled soul. The Exodus Apostolic Church is a local branch of a small, very African, church that apparently is based in Zimbabwe; at least that is where the pastor I talked to was from. Pastors from other Apostolic Churches in the area were in attendance to assist, and the members of the church and much of the family were there to add voice to the prayers and songs, beat drums and blow whistles. The service itself is conducted in a large tent and started at about 11pm when the members of the church marched down the streets drumming and singing and into the yard.

The pastors and honored male guests sit at a folding table/dais at the front and the women and children sit facing them. The pastors all carry bibles and most are dressed in old lab coats that serve as their robes. Most have vestments comprised of thick ropes hung around their necks and they carry scepters or staffs, some of which appeared to be old curtain rods with the finial left on one end. Others were well worn tree branches with knobby handles, were to me more impressive and may well have been knobkerries left over from the fight against Apartheid. The preaching and praying is very loud, in an angry tone and with points emphasized by slapping the scepter on the table. Holy water is sprinkled on the gathered with the frayed end of the rope vestment. From time to time a few lines of scripture are read and song breaks out spontaneously, the children and some of the adults getting up and dancing in a circle in a whirling fashion on the dusty dirt floor between the dais and the congregation. Drums appear and the entire celebration is accompanied by the rhythmic blowing of police whistles. The dancers often whirl themselves to the limits of balance and beyond. When the dust gets too bad, the here-to-for Holy water becomes a practical dust suppressant.

As I was an honored guest, I sat at the dais between the chairperson of my organization and one of the Pastors. That is, except when require to turn and kneel in the dirt to pray, which was often. I wanted to take pictures but when I enquired prior to the service had been asked not to. After about an hour and a half of this and after each pastor had had his turn, the honored guests who were not pastors were asked to say a few words. For an African, a few words may be a speech of anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour. Thankfully my chairperson went before me and after his ‘few words” gave me an introduction in Sepedi that was well beyond my capabilities. I greeted all those present in Sepedi and explained that I would speak in my native tongue. I then misquoted but accurately paraphrased Psalm 100 (Make a joyful noise unto the Lord all ye lands etc.) told all present what a joyful praising I saw there that night, wished them all success in the healing , wished all of them well, thanked them in Sepedi and sat down. I got a loud vote of appreciation, all of the pastors gleefully shook my hand and slapped my back and one of them expressed his wonder at how, unlike Africans, Americans can clearly and concisely make their point without a lot of unnecessary embellishment. You would have thought I had just delivered the Gettysburg Address. The service then continued as before in good old African fashion.

Thankfully, at about 1 or 1:30 my Chairperson, who had to leave for another event, was able to spirit me out of the tent and provide a ride home to get some rest. I only had to promise Daisy to return early the next morning to continue with the saving. As I left I could hear that the service was getting louder and louder with less preaching and more drumming, singing and dancing. When I returned at about 6 am the next morning, I could hear that the service still going on as I approached, but by the time I got there they had taken a break for some breakfast. Again, this was meat and pap, but this time it was muscle meat (my “good meat”). You must understand that the Africans must have learned how to cook from the British, or maybe it was the other way ‘round, and the cow is merely chopped into fist size pieces, bones and all, and boiled in a giant black pot over a wood fire with a little salt for flavor. Nada mas. Somewhat bland would be high praise. Instead of tea or coffee, all the men were drinking beer or home brew which is made from sorghum and is about the consistency of watery pea soup. This batch was almost a week old, considered well aged and received high praise. My host’s brother insisted that I drink with him and I had a pretty mellow buzz going by about 8am after three coffee cups full. I hung out talking and drinking home brew with the men until about 11am when the formal service was about to begin again in earnest. I was able to excuse myself at that point and returned home to go back to bed. I was amazed that I had no hangover when I awoke later in the day.

As I had been in Pretoria for a week it was my plan to wash my clothes on Sunday after I got up but there had been on water for a few days and there was none to spare that afternoon. I contented myself with laying out the plans for my garden in a plot graciously granted to me next to my “house”. I also began to collect the organic debris that I would be burying once I “double dug the “soil” to knee depth. The hard labor would start Monday after work. There are two things that I must find that will be crucial to the success of my effort, fencing to keep the chickens out as they will eat anything whether it be seeds or full grown plants, and a source of water. I am not sure that my grey water alone will be enough to sustain the effort once the rainy season is over. I am trying to time things so as to take full advantage of the season that generally includes the months of November, December and January. If I can get my hands on a couple of 55 gallon drums and can convince my home stay mom to give up the wood ash from her cooking fire, I might be able to set up a purification system and get the entire household to pitch in their bathwater. That might just be enough though the trees that now receive that water may suffer some.

The week of the 19th started in ordinary fashion for weeks following one of my Pretoria excursions, which is with mounds of typing and preparation for the days ahead. I have seen only minor success in my efforts to instill a sense of foresight and forethought so that the work is done well and with minimal surprises. Just as an example, our 46 carers were to turn in their monthly reports on the 22nd. When they do, they take new forms for the next month. These are 4 page forms and we do not have a copier with an operating feeder, so the pages have to be copied, collated and stapled by hand. They also take with them a form on which they record each patient visit and the activities undertaken. One form per patient times approximately 300 patients. Before I got there a staff member (of which there are only two that participate) would walk to the copier with each carer as she turned in her report and copy off the required forms in the midst of the staff sitting down with each carer to check that the forms were completed properly. This made the form turn in a whole day affair with carers sitting around waiting to get their forms. I have convinced the staff that it is much better to make the copies in the down time in the week before the carers come with their forms. All have agreed that this is far superior, but I am still the only one who will make the copies, and I am not yet convinced that if I don’t they won’t revert to the old system. One of my tasks on Monday was to start making the copies after typing the minutes from a Board meeting and a meeting between the board and the carers that had happened in my absence. Minutes have to be in English to meet the DOH mandate and the meeting notes that I get have to be”rectified”into that language by me. It will sometimes take hours to figure out what the notes mean and to give them a fair translation, that is without just making stuff up.

Tuesday was a day in the field for me accompanying the Coordinator in the assessment of carers in one of the remote villages, “Pudiakgopa”, which is about 10K from the office up a dirt road on the side of a mountain. This is another village that has no rational reason for being as there is no nearby commercial or agricultural employment. As I was told by my coordinator “it’s just a place for people to stay”. Though the views are lovely and the lots would be worth a fortune in the States, the village is one of the rougher spots socially and has very high HIV/AIDS and TB rates. Most of the Patients we visited suffer from both. The carers do DOTS (Direct Observation of Treatment) that is, they have to go to the patient’s home every day and watch them take their medication and go with them for their scheduled checkups at the clinic. Our assessment of the carers involves going with them as they make their rounds, observing that they do everything correctly, ascertaining that they know what to look for to spot problems that might arise like side effects of medications and contraindicated activities, like consuming alcohol while taking TB treatment, and then having a conference with the carer at the end of the day where we point out the shortcomings. We also query the patients about the carer’s regularity, attitude and punctuality. It took most of the day to finish half the patients of two carers. When I got back to the office it was much the same as the day before and I also had to start preparations for a Base Line Health Survey that the head of primary care at the clinic had asked that I do before she would assign a nurse to present at the workshop on HIV/AIDS that is my current Peace Corps project. This entailed designing, typing, printing and collating the two page questionnaire, recruiting 10 caress and some social workers from the local department of Social Development Office, mapping the survey area and assigning territories for each of the door to door questioners and a form for logging missed houses to be re-covered later and a work sheet for compiling the data once collected. I also had to work on one of the substantive tools for the workshop, a question and answer exposition of factual information about HIV and its prevention and treatment. Just another day at the office and no real rush since I had all week once the copies were made – right? Well hell no!

On Wednesday went I got to the office in my usual jeans and T shirt ready to hunker down on my project and getting ready for the end of month form flurry and got a funny look from the financial officer. “I think you better go home and change” was the message. “Change for what?” “Well the MEC (Member of the Executive Committee) is coming of course, and the Alzheimer’s Day event at the Stadium.” When she saw the quisling look on my face it dawned on her that no one had bothered to tell me about the visit or the event or that I was to be personally introduced to the dignitaries and have VIP status at the event. It was a sprint to the house to throw on the good suit and best tie, but I made it just as the Audis and BMWs with Gauteng plates bumped down the dirt road to our office. It all turned out fine and I met the dignitaries and sat in the VIP tent and ate better than average pap and nama at the Traditional Authority Hall. But, I didn’t make much headway on the office work I had planned to do. I was also approached by my favorite nurse from the clinic, and the one I was hoping would teach at my workshop, with good news that she had been promoted and would be leaving to take a high position at a clinic in a not so nearby community. Great for her, not so for me.

Thursday was madhouse form day and Friday we had a major meeting for the carers to go over ever mandated DOH changes of procedure. I was able to get enough volunteers for the survey, but the carers were just plain worn out by then and I decide to defer the English lesson that I had prepared for a later date. I like those to be fun and participatory and that was just not in us that day. I finally got a chance to wash clothes Friday afternoon but was late and had to leave them on the line until Saturday. They still weren’t dry in the morning when I had to make a quick run to town to do grocery shopping from which I returned at about 2pm. I got my clothes in and worked some on my gardening, hoping that I would be able to make a deal with the guy across the street Sunday morning to dig 5 or 6 wheelbarrow loads of manure from his kraal where he keeps about 10 head of cattle at night.

Sunday morning at about 8am I got a knock on my door. This was very unusual, and fortunately I was up and about. It was the youngest daughter – the “last born” as they say here – of my Home Stay family. “May I ask you a favor?” Thinking she needed to borrow something or play a video on my computer, which has happened before, I said I would be glad to help. “Would you paint the house? My wedding is next Saturday and my father said he would paint it but he hasn’t been able to. We can start now now.” (“Now” is used many ways in South Africa and can mean anything from never to immediately. “Now now” is commonly used to mean immediately.) We started painting about 30 minutes later and along with the bride to be and different brothers; I kept it up after work throughout the whole of the next week, working inside and out and mostly about 10 to 12 ft. up on a ladder since I was the only one around that was comfortable with the high work. By Friday, despite needing a second coat in spots, things were looking pretty good.

During the days, work was pretty typical except that we started the door to door survey Thursday morning, working throughout the day and until about noon on Friday. I worked alongside my social worker friend, Emelda, who will be teaching the parent – child communication portion of my workshop and is a great help to me. I went with her because she has a fear of dogs, of which there are many, and of some of the people in the village that she has had run-ins with professionally, since she investigates abuse reports as part of her job. It was great for me because I was able to listen while she conducted the interviews in Sepedi and look over her shoulder as she wrote the answers in English. She is also a very accomplished questioner and took to heart my request to the surveyors to press until the subjects ran out of answers. I think the Emelda will soon be leaving for greener pastures because she is too good for her job and not content within its boundaries. I hope she is around here at least until I leave as she is a great resource to have.

The wedding on Saturday was a traditional African wedding not the “white“ wedding described in my last post. This is an event where the family of the groom delivers the labola or bride price to the family of the bride and the bride is delivered into the family of her husband. The bride price is delivered in bits and pieces and the process of delivery slowly occurs. The bride appears shrouded in a heavy blanket which is removed bit by bit and the labola is paid. Under the blanket she is made up and dressed in her finest cloths, the prize inside the wrapper. Her fitness is judged by the parents, aunts and uncles of the groom and her parents, aunts and uncles are present to assure that she is fairly judged. If all goes well, the bride leaves her parent’s home to live with the groom and his family forever, returning to the home of her parents only as a visitor. It is both a joyous and solemn occasion.
As the wedding guests start arriving at 10 or 10:30, I left for a necessary trip to town on an early taxi that would get me there as the stores were opening at 9 so that I could get back by 11 or 11:30 at the very latest (based on my experience in this country, if something is supposed to start at 10 it will actually start 45 minutes to 90 minutes late). I had to go into town to buy a box of copy paper (5 reams) for my project some sandals as the heat was killing my feet wearing closed shoes and some groceries and libations. I also had agreed to pick up 5 dozen eggs to feed the guests who were staying at the house for the big event, which goes on for a day or two after the bride leaves. I was running pretty much on schedule when I became a victim of crime. I had the box of Paper in my left hand, carrying it by the plastic strap and my canvas duffel in my right hand carrying it by the handles, not over my shoulder. It was quite heavy and contained 4 bottles of liquid (2 glass and 2 plastic), my groceries and new shoes in their box.

At a point approximately 1 and 2/3 blocks before the Meat Spot a store where I was to buy the eggs, I was walking through heavy sidewalk traffic toward the center of the sidewalk slightly more toward the curb, when a thin African man, possibly 50 years old, in wrinkled white pants and shirt and wearing a white hat, brushed the box of paper with his left leg as he passed by me. It was no more a jostle than was typical trying to walk down those walks on a busy Saturday. I thought nothing of it, but a heavy set man standing to my right along the curb caught my eye and pointed behind me. I stopped and turned my head and saw the man who had brushed me leaning over holding his knee (the right or rather wrong one as I recall) and looking at me. I turned around and took a step toward him to see if there was any problem. He moved toward me showing no sign injury and extended his right hand as if wanting to shake mine. I slipped the strap of my bag up onto my forearm and reached to shake his hand as best I could. You never put your bags down on a crowded side walk as they have a good chance of not being there when you go to get them. He took my hand and started speaking in Afrikaans, which I do not understand. I used what little I have to try to tell him I did not speak Afrikaans. Still holding my hand, he became quite agitated and belligerent and then let go of my hand. He put his left hand on my right arm and back and started to throw his right knee into my groin and abdomen. I don’t know if it was because he was so thin or because he was just trying to demonstrate his moves to me, but the “blows” were of no real effect except to irritate me. He kept on yelling in Afrikaans and kneeing and I kept up trying to let him know “Nee Afrikaans pratt”. As he was doing his kneeing, I felt my wallet leave my right rear pocket and finally realized the set up. By this time I had dropped the box and my bag to the ground at my feet. I grabber the thin man by the shirt front and lifted and started yelling at him as loud as I could to give my wallet back. I saw him do something with the hand that had been behind my back. I thought he may have put something in his pocket so as I held him with my left hand I started trying unsuccessfully to search his pockets with my right and continued to yell at him to give my wallet back. As I was doing so, a large forearm crossed in front of me and deposited a black object in my shirt pocket that I soon recognized as my wallet. I grabbed it with my right hand and saw that it was my wallet and appeared to still have its meager contents. I let go of the thin man and he was gone. I did not see the heavy set man after I turned to look at the thin man. I did not see the person attached to the large forearm that put my wallet in my shirt pocket. The incident took only a minute or so. As I was unhurt and had all my property and was late to get back, I did not call the police and simply proceeded to the Meat Spot, purchased 60 eggs and crossed to the taxi rank. I arrived back in Bakenberg just about noon. The wallet that was taken is a semi dummy wallet. I have no usable bank or credit cards in it and usually do not carry more than 200 Rand ($25) in it. I had about 170 Rand ($20) in it at the time of the incident.

I was a little later than I had hoped getting back to the wedding. I missed the slaughter of the goat, but was in on the cooking and tasted all the “good parts” that were offered to me. The liver, which I actually did want to try, was reported as stolen by the dogs when the cook turned his back for a moment ala the turkey in Christmas Story, but I had a very pleasant time and was glad when they broke out the beer at about 4. I sure needed a drink but didn’t want to step on the rituals of the day. The party went on until early the next morning through some pretty spectacular thunder storms, and when I woke up about 9 the next morning it was still raining and the power was out. I decided that there really was no good reason to get up, so stayed in bed until late in the afternoon when the power finally came back on. Monday will start another week in Africa. Never a dull moment!