Andrew's closing reflections

I think it’s going to be hard going back home (even though I’m not flying home for another month).  It’s going to be hard to explain to people what I’ve seen here because it’s unlike anyplace in the world.  

These are only a few things of what I’m going to miss:

• ·      Waking up to table mountain every day
• ·      Having the amazing group of co-educators and professors to be inspired by, learn from, and always bounce ideas off of to help me become a better person
• ·      Always feeling challenged about our ways back home
• ·      Seeing people with so little giving so much—it strikes me somewhere deep down in my heart
• ·      Seeing how generations of people are recovering and transforming from very trying years

Andrew (in green) with some of his co-educators

Over the past few months I’ve had the opportunity to spend time with Professor Rode in the burns unit.  He has been a great inspiration to me.  The most important thing that I learned from him is that I need to back up what I preach.  He told me that there are a few professors who have been touting the need to give patients (mostly the poor black and colored people) access to quality health care, predominantly in the form of the National Health Insurance.  However, when he asked them to come to Khayelitsha to work with him at the clinic he goes to, they always made up some type of excuse.  I want to be involved in health policy to make sure that people can get the best care and Prof set the best example for me because I know that I will never let myself not take real action—I must be “in the trenches”—with whatever I do.  Another one of Prof Rode’s greatest pieces of advice is that I have to be happy with the life decisions I make and make the best of it and don’t plan too far ahead in the future.  He told me this when I asked him how I really want to live in back here in Cape Town for a longer time (at least about a year) and I told him how the next time I can come back is most likely after medical school, but by that time I will be too much in debt and I’ll probably have a family that I’ll have to worry about.   What he said struck home because I can’t plan my life so far in advance that I’m too worried about it…I just have to live and decide what I want to do and then deal with the what life brings (in terms of financial and family situations).

Andrew's view on South African politics

From the 1950s to the early 1990s, the National Party introduced the oppressive system of apartheid.  Fast-forwarding to the 1994 election, blacks, many “colours,” and many non-white voted for the ANC, or at least just not the NP.  The ANC attempted to give blacks what they deserved—housing, healthcare, dignity, etc.  However, after Mandela’s term, the ANC leadership has been marked by corruption and inefficiency.

The Democratic Alliance (DA) is the post-apartheid mainly white party, with a few old members of the NP.  Even though they are white, they are starting to gain credibility (especially among coloureds) in the Western Cape because they are efficient at providing resources to the poor, given the circumstances.  The problem that the DA in the Western Cape faces is that there are many Xhosa people from the Eastern Cape that have to move to the Western Cape (mainly the townships of Cape Town) because the ANC government in the Eastern Cape is corrupt and cannot provide adequate housing and healthcare.   Besides its inefficiencies, the ANC has some pretty controversial politicians, including its president, Jacob Zuma who was accused of rape and corruption.  So who, white, black, or colored, would vote for someone like that; or a corrupt and inefficient party?

I asked a Xhosa person this question at a braai this weekend and what he said finally shed some light: Even if we are to vote for a corrupt person (ANC) who only cares about making his friends and family wealthy, at least we know who he is; it’s not surprising.  But if we vote for a white person, who knows what can happen.

Andrew learns more about traditional healers

I thought Thursday’s class with Dr. Mthobeli Guma, a traditional healer with a doctorate in public health, was very interesting.  Before I came here I did a project on traditional healers of South Africa.  The big questions I had before I came here were 1) what exactly do they do to “heal” someone and how does it work? 2) how is traditional healing different within South Africa and other African countries? 3) the status of integration into main stream medicine (because there was supposed to be a council set up by the end of 2012 to accredit healers).

I still need to have my first question answered, which I hope to do when I meet Dr. Guma at his house.  I learned that much of the healing is similar, but the variation has to do with who trained you and what your “ancestors” you speak with when giving a treatment suggest.  For my third question, I learned that Dr. Guma is part of that group trying to set up a council but it’s still a work in progress.

One interesting fact that I learned was that male circumcision in the Xhosa community became mainstream in response to the growing HIV / AIDS epidemic, a public health issue.  Dr. Guma said (and I would assume other Xhosa people think this also) that circumcision helps prevent the spread of HIV / AIDS to a man’s wife / girlfriend when which means that the lineage of someone (an important part of African tradition?) will have a better chance of surviving.

Andrew's reflections on Soweto and Sharpeville

Earlier in the semester, when I first learned about these two places in class, I didn’t think they were much more than places where some violent riots had occurred.  But visiting the sites was extremely powerful and made me feel lots of confusion and anger.

In 1976 in Southwestern Township, Soweto, students started to peacefully march in protest of the Bantu Education system, which forced native speakers to take their classes in Afrikaans. As they were marching, the Afrikaaner policemen started to open fire on the students, killing and injuring many.  The Hector Pieterson museum, in memory of Hector Pieterson, a 13 year old boy who was defenselessly killed, told the story in detail, but I am still left with a bunch of questions.  The first is that I don’t know how people could just kill innocent children—they must have had some other reason besides that they were black and protesting apartheid…I don’t know how those policemen could live with themselves after what they did.  Also, I find it interesting that (classified) coloured people, especially the majority in the Western Cape, were supporting the blacks protesting Afrikaans because for coloureds, their first language is Afrikaans.  But from what I was explained, the forced requirement to learn in Afrikaans was simply a metaphor for oppression during apartheid.

On March 21st, 1960 in Sharpeville, a township outside of Johannesburg, 69 people (as young as 12 years old) were killed and 180 were injured after they protested the local polices station for having to carry their passbooks.  This day is now celebrated nationally as Human Rights Day.  Seeing the police station and the cemetery gave me yet another reminder of the inhuman suffering people endured under apartheid.  Why couldn’t the police, who rightfully were afraid of the masses of people burning a piece of paper, use rubber bullets—why did they have to use armored tanks? No one would think that the police would try to wipe everyone out—even the protesters who were told by a black policeman that they would be killed by the white policemen didn’t think the police were capable of doing something like this.

Just like many human injustices have happened around the world, we can never forget what happened and we need to understand why it happened so that this can never happen again.

Andrew's thoughts on Curl Up and Dye

When we went to Johannesburg we saw Curl Up and Dye, a play that was very riveting and relevant to our discussions in class.  In its original production, it was an instant success because of its lines that drew upon the common racial stereotypes in a funny manner.  However, the new production has not gained the popularity that it once did.  This is because the predominantly white audience now has to think about what they’ve done.  We were able to speak to the playwright and actors after the play (which was an amazing experience), and the biggest change was that the main character was a colored person, not a white person as in the original production.  I believe that this, along with line placement changes, makes the audience think things like, “Did we really sound as preposterous as it seems now.”  Instead of making a white audience feel at ease, it makes it feel sad, confused, angered, etc.  I think this is important because it shows the challenges of coming to terms with the past and I think it is important to never forget what has happened.

To me what made the performance so powerful was the black nurse who pleadingly questioned the black custodian to demand better working conditions and treatment as a human being.  This inspired the black custodian to emotionally demand better conditions which, in doing so, made the (supposed to be white, but acted by a colored person) shop owner feel distraught.  I could tell that the actresses who played the two black characters didn’t have to really act—they’ve also experienced the hardship too.

Besides being a vehicle of reflection on South Africans apartheid history, it highlighted the hardships that women have to suffer—one turns to prostitution and one cannot tell anyone how her husband beats her.