Transkei Popsicles

When I was a freshman/first year at Dartmouth, I had the good luck of a) being surrounded from day one by extraordinary people who have stuck by me (yes, shout out to judge 1*); b) having a wonderful UGA (an upperclassmen who looks after the freshman floor), Ellen. At the end of every week we had a floor meeting and Ellen would conform and use the popular ice breaker at Dartmouth of asking for our highs and lows of the week. Except Ellen called them Popsicles and Poopsicles, which I love. Hence the title. I thought I would give some brief Popsicles (and one poopsicle) of the remainder of our trip to the Eastern Cape.

1. I am a failure by Xhosa women standards.

Reason number one: I cannot carry anything on my head.

Reason number two: I have not yet proved to be fertile.

On Wednesday, after our hike, we drove to Zithulele. Zithulele was originally a mission hospital but is now a government run rural hospital. A few doctors took an interest in the rural medicine and stayed long term, producing one of the best rural hospitals in South Africa. My cousin Laura started out as a physio therapist there and – after she’d left – Mark moved there with Kate who is a doctor. This trip was prompted by them moving back to Australia and wanted to visit one last time before their babies arrive**.

Back to my popsicle: on Thursday morning, I was incredibly eager to get out and start the second hike promised to me. So – despite the rain (oops) – Mark begrudgingly lead me and Jo on a beautiful hike through rolling green hills down to the coast; our final destination was a natural landmark called Hole in the Wall***. On the way there, we ran into some Xhosa women carrying there shopping back to their homes. To Mark’s great amusement, they handed us some of their bundles so Jo and I could try walking with them. Now these bundles aren’t just a bucket, or a bunch of bananas, or a book (when I was little I thought if I tried walking while balancing a book on my head I would turn into a princess). I am talking like a whole cardboard tray of box milk, huge amounts of food, large bulky packages. I put the milk on my head and couldn’t remove my hand that was balancing it there, never mind taking a step. It was also so heavy! And my neck was aching within seconds. For these women however, this action is second nature and they thought it was hilarious that I couldn’t do one simple task. Their next question was to ask Jo and I if we were married and where were our children???? A lot of Xhosa women have one child very early to prove that they can and will then wait 10 years or until they find their husband/partner to have more. My uterus has not proved itself yet and they were unimpressed.

As much as I love being the butt of everyone’s jokes, we continued on our way. Hole in the Wall is a rock formation a little out to sea – and is quite literally just a hole in a rock wall. But it looks cool, guys.

We took some pictures.

Although I have successfully blocked the main feature of the hole in the above shot. Sorry everyone.

2. In a race between Mark and a chicken, the chicken will win.

On Friday, after a morning tour of the hospital which boasts an incredible maternity ward - where Kate worked - we made our way to Bulungula, a backpackers/campsite about a four hour hike from Zithulele.

Bulungula is a popular destinations among doctors who work in surrounding rural hospitals as well as anyone travelling up the coast of the Eastern Cape (a popular hiking route). We stayed in safari tents, and lounged around having had a fairly hectic four days.

Saturday afternoon, we were siting in the lounge area playing Settlers as one does and this rooster walked in (walked? strutted?) and found the little cardboard-y bits of the game a little too interesting for Mark's taste. He shooed it away which worked the first time. Five minutes later, he came back (the rooster, not Mark) - not to be deterred from his goal this time. Mark shooed him away again but the rooster had his beady eyes on the little bits of the game and Mark was having none of it. Mark got up and started to chase the rooster round the room, trying to get it out the door. The rooster stubbornly just ran round and round, followed by a flailing 6 foot man. I was in stitches and wished that I filmed it.

3. Back to my roots: a quick tour round East London.

We left Bulungula early on Sunday - it had been raining for almost five days straight and there was some worry about the state of the roads. The roads out of Bulungula are dirt tracks so if you add rain you get much wallowing in the mud. The poor car rental guy was shocked when we returned the card to him looking like this:

As I mentioned previously, my mom grew up in East London. Before he died, my grandfather (as a way of insurance) bought a small farm in South Africa. After his death, my grandmother moved the family from Nairobi to this farm in East London. My mom was 4 years old when she moved here. Although the farm doesn't exist anymore, we went to the area that used to house the farm which is now (surprise surprise) a residential area. The main road running through the suburb still bears the same name as the farm. So, naturally, it was picture time.

This might be the best picture ever taken of me****.

4. A Poopsicle - or thoughts on a deeper level.

When in Zithulele, I asked Mark what the biggest challenge was of living there. As part of the medical community, they are housed in a gated area with houses that aren't glorious by typical western standards but are pretty luxurious when compared to their immediate surroundings: they have running water, electricity, a bathroom. His answer to my question was living with the inequality that constantly bombards you every time you walk out the door. Yes, you are working in and with the community, you are saving babies, you are helping but at the end of the day you get to take a nice hot shower while the woman who spent the day cleaning your house has a 5k walk back to her mud hut where she has to then walk 2k to get water to cook for her five children that night.

The Xhosa people have a strong sense of culture and there is a lovely feeling to the community there - and some of them (if you are high up in the hierarchy) live on beautiful farms. But the majority of this population lives in extreme poverty. Their reality is that they have to walk 2 days to get to a hospital, they still don't get a great education, and job prospects in South Africa are bleak. If you're lucky your husband is away nine months of the year working in a mine in terrible conditions, only to come back for a brief holiday over Christmas. You can only imagine the effects on family life as well as the AIDS epidemic.

On our hike to Hole in the Wall, we stopped to play football/soccer with some kids (ages 6 to 13 I would guess). Their football was made up of a few plastic bags stuffed into a bigger plastic bag. It was fun, albeit a little challneging. After our short game, I got to continue onto my hike with my brand new hiking shoes, that probably cost more than their parents make in...months. It's hard to live with and very challenging to be directly confronted with this kind of inequatliy - especially since I am partly from this country. How lucky was I to be born into my family? This is a reality for so many people around the world and although there is a slightly upward trend, a lot of them won't see true change in their life times. It gave me a lot to think about and I am far away from drawing any conclusions.

The biggest challenge for me is that when I move back to London (and here I am complaining about high rents and the fact that my room might be small), I want to act. I want to be involved in the theatre. What is this doing for the rest of the world? Should I be working for one of these education NGOs that function out of Zithulele instead? UNHCR is constantly understaffed - would I be of better use there? These are questions that have been floating around my mind since my UWC days but they've been brought to the forefront in the last couple of weeks and it's still something I am struggling with.

Before I wrote this last point, I turned to discuss it with my mom because I knew it would be imperfect and I wasn’t completely sure what I wanted to say. I also got a little depressed about the whole situation and I find discussing things with my mom tends to help. She told me of this troupe in Joburg called Johannesburg Awakening Minds (check out their facebook page!) which is comprised of 13 homeless people and they recently put on a production of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. I will come back to this subject I'm sure - but even in poverty, people turn to art of all kinds. And there's something to be said for that and I take comfort that yes, I want to perform in London - but my passion for theatre doesn't need to stop there, it can extend furhter and help people outside of my immediate, very priveleged sphere. I have no idea how I am going to do that. But I'm thinking about it and - not to be cheesy - where there's a will, there's a way.

On our arrival back in Joburg on Sunday evening, we had a quick turn around. It was a mad dash to get our clothes in and out of the washing and drying machine, write up a blog post, eat, pack and maybe sleep.

Our 10 day Safari started on December 7th and those blogs will be coming at you soon!

Off to enjoy a day in Cape Town xx

*Only if you’re subscribed to my blog, if you aren’t than you are merely ordinary (and have dreadful taste, clearly).

**According to Mark, having children means you can no longer travel anywhere. He's under the impression he won't get to see the outside of his house for the next 15 years. Granted though, you probably wouldn't want to travel to the deep Eastern Cape with a small child BUT I do think he's overreacting a tad.

***Not of the ATM persuasion.

****If you didn't note the sarcasm, I'm not sure we can be friends.

#EasternCape #theatre #SouthAfrica #Thoughts