Support Group Volunteering...

So besides the Ubuntu Crisis Center, (where i just spent my Saturday) we are supposed be volunteering through this place called The Kwa-Zulu Natal Christian Council. We were assigned people to shadow called patient advocates, but i have called my assigned patient advocate many times with any luck in setting up a time to meet as well as every other person in my class we have all come up dead ended, except for my friend Michelle.

Michelle has had great success and goes with her Patient Advocate once a week to a township called Buffer and some neighboring areas to visit AIDS patients. I had really wanted to see what it was like so i tagged along. We took two different kombi/taxis to the township and then got a dropped off at corner where we were supposed to meet Sandile (the patient advocate). I had absolutely no idea what to expect. This was the most impoverished area i had been to since i been here and we were just standing there with no where to go. Then we see her walking down the street.

I found out Sandile is a "community worker" barely employed by the government, and i think and HIV or AIDS patient herself. She spends her days walking around the township checking in on people on her list and talking to them, making sure they are ok, taking their medicine and asking them how they are feeling.

So the three of us start off up this big hill through the townships knocking on what seems to us to be random people's doors, we go inside, sit down and just show them that someone cares that they are ok. We ask them how are they feeling (a lot of this is down in Zulu by Sandile) and ask them if they are taking their medicine, and make sure they take it at the same time every day. We ask them if they have a "treatment buddy" or someone they can talk to about what they are going through with, and if they have TB (which many of them do) and if they are on medication for that. Also, making sure they know when their next doctor's appointment is.

We went into about ten houses, asking these same types of questions. Many of the houses were governmental housing, brick squares filled with beds. It was hard to tell how many people lived in each because we went during the day, when most people were not home. Some houses had chickens and mice inside. All over the streets were goats, chickens, cows, and dogs. It was quite the experience. There were no street names and a lot of the addresses were written down on her sheet like "third from red brick" or "2 up from stream". This was definitely a different kind of place. Some houses had absolutely no food in them, others people were eating and there were many children.

It was quite the experience and when we got back into the taxi to go home i felt almost surreal. it was weird because i felt awful for them and really sad about what i had just seen, but realized that this is just a life of people i have never seen before and that although it is nice to visit them i can't solve all of their problems. I guess all we can do is let them know that we will come back and check in on them again, and although it really does seem like i did nothing, it is all i can do.