Life in Douglas Drift

Our Creche (preschool) classroom at the community center




The clinic building at the community center. Its not quite the Alex.


A little orphan girl going to Creche (preschool). She follows me everyday waiting for me to wave to her!



My little cottage, which I have to myself until theend of the month. Very cozy!


A view of the back yard at Douglas Drift, after the rain...this is pretty often!



SO I made it safely to Underberg. I am comfortable in my own little cottage at Douglas Drift! Sadly, I will be getting a roomie. The house is quite nice, we even have a TV! Too bad the shows are about 3 years old... It is also too bad that South Africa is running out of power. We have had powerouts every single day since I have arrived to Underberg....well at least they are getting better at scheduling them!

I have spent the last week getting to know the village of Ndawana and trying to understand how health care works here. Well...that is a whole other story.
We also have a Creche class, which is really preschool, and a grade R, which is kindergarten. The kids are so cute, and I am pretty sure most of them have never seen a white person before. So they stare and wave. None of them speak english, but they are mostly to scared/shy to speak anyway. But they are sooo cute!

Today was an interesting day. I played with the kids in the morning, than set off down a horrible dirt road to get to the next village over called mangeni for a meeting. On this road, you must cross 2 rivers and a stream, and are on the edge of a cliff for a big proportion of the ride. This village has nothing but a few home based care workers. Most people are too poor for a vehicle and walk miles to get food and health care. They also have no buses or taxis that will come. Occassionally there is a mobile clinic, but they dont come if it is too hot or raining, which basically means the whole summer. Anyway, we had our meeting with the home based care workers. As each worker gave their report, I noticed that they all start similarly..."I have this patient, he is very very sick..."

After the meeting we decided that we had to take one fellow, a 24 year old man, to underberg, where he could get in an ambulance to go to the hospital. They had called the ambulance the previous day, but it was not able to come out to get him...it was broken. The man was carried out of his house by 3 people. I actually wondered if he was dead, he looked that ill. In canada, this man would have been in ICU or a hospice. In Africa, he is cared for in his home, while they wait weeks for test results. So we loaded this barely conscious man into the back of our pickup truck. We drive the horrible road back to Ndawana, making a 'quick' stop to pick up a live chicken, so one of our home based care worker can eat tonight. This chicken is sitting on her lap right beside me in a plastic bag. Yes, we still have a dying man in the back of the truck. Anyway, finally we made it back to underberg, about 50 km away from the village and dropped this poor man at the clinic. The ambulance was not there, as it had answered another call.
Health care is not quite the same here...