Sunday, June 12, 2016

Louis Trichardt, Limpopo


It has been a completely different change of pace in Louis Trichardt, Limpopo. We have to drive 3 KM on a very bumpy dirt road to get to the Madi a Thava mountain lodge. The owners started the lodge many years ago with a focus on art culture. None of the workers had education beyond a high school level and many didn’t even have a high school diploma. They taught the workers and trained them to help with the high unemployment rates. They still have to provide transportation for the workers in the mornings. The wifi here is pretty close to non-existent, we have set times for different groups of people to connect back home. The lodge is beautiful. Each room has its own décor filled with authentic artwork. There is a lot more wildlife at the lodge. We saw monkeys running behind my room, a leopard behind my professor’s room and all sorts of small animals and insects. On the second day we took a hike a Baobob tree estimates to be over 1000 years old! The baobob is a very rare but useful plant, it is known to be Africa’s super fruit. The bark heals the same way our skin does. The powder produced from the fruit has very high nutrient content and the extracted oil is useful for cosmetic use. The factory gave jobs to many in the area and was a very time consuming process, but an interesting one. The powder is easily extracted of the root and sifted and then bottled. The oil however must be extracted through squeezing and filtering several times to produce the oil. Just to go into the factory it looked like we were heading into surgery, scrubs on our shoes, full lab coat, hair net, mask and we had to scrub up before they put the gloves on.
            The following day we went to a HIV/Clinic that was very bizarre. They didn’t seem to really like Americans and seemed to be hiding a lot from us. They only let us in a small office until they wanted to take our picture did they allow us to go into the conference room. The book I signed into for visitors said 2004! I also found 5 boxes that were labeled “lost follow-ups”. I did however not realize that caffeine and alcohol should be kept to a minimum since they are diuretics. We then went to center for underprivileged children and orphans with HIV/AIDS. The kids were so well behaved and so happy to have some more attention. They had multiple traditional performances with singing and dancing and music from their teachers. Each child danced with their own style when individually, but well structured as a whole group. It was great to see a sense of confidence and individuality in these children especially given their circumstances. Kudos to their teachers. The teachers were so passionate in helping these children and it was great to see that they have already started to set these kids up for success. Though I wish I could say the same about some of the other places we’ve been. The children then showed us how well educated they are with counting, the alphabet, skits, different songs and such. They were all so cute I couldn’t help but smile the entire way through. After that we talked to the teenagers, which was very interesting. They talked about how they formed a support group but funding has been an issue to get them transport together. These teens were very brave to stand up and advocate for HIV/AIDS and share their story. “HIV/AIDS is not a moral condition.” Fortunately, they haven’t had a lot of negative stigma or people say mean things to them. However, one did talk to us about how a teacher she had was misinforming about HIV/AIDS and she took over the lesson. The teacher told the students you “can’t swim in a pool with someone with HIV or share clothes with them.” This is a bit scary that this is the kind of education that is enhances negative stigma where the opposite should be occurring.

It was also shocking to hear our tour guides from the lodge share their cultural beliefs of how HIV is acquired. One told us that if you have sex too soon after an abortion, you get infected with HIV. He also didn’t think it was possible to use protection because it cause it would create an argument with his wife, since she would ask if he was seeing other people and she would leave him. I was just in awe with the logic of that, what if you end up transmitting HIV/AIDS to her, wouldn’t you think she would leave then when she knows you cheated? He said she would have thought it was her fault because of the explanation he was taught from his Tsonga culture. It just made me sad to realize that part of their culture was misinforming them in a patriarchal favor. He didn’t think it was then possible to keep everyone happy. We tried to explain to him that if cares about his wife and thinks she would leave him, he should consider staying faithful or to be honest that he is with multiple partners and to use protection. If you really care, how would you feel to know you gave her HIV/AIDS? I think it was interesting to watch him go to the health education classes with us and watch him learn and really understand the contradictions his culture has given him. For example some say HIV doesn’t exist in Tsonga culture, yet they have traditional healers that have plants that cure HIV/AIDS. When we went to the healer he even added that you can’t go to the clinic with the herbal remedies because the plant is that strong. It is definitely a balance, I think herbal remedies should be given more of a chance before big pharma comes in, but disease like HIV/AIDS are not going to be treatable with a plant and it is just horrible to think of the effects of doing such. I was however happy to see that some of the people traditionally follow the songomas natural healing but still go to HIV/AIDS clinics for treatment. I wonder what they must feel being torn between 2 different cultures of medicine.
We also went to TVEP (Thohoyandou victim empowerment program) where there is a full support team for domestic violence, child abuse, rape, assault, LGBTQI, gender based violence etc. They have medical checks, group and individual therapy, legal and justice support, financial support, daycares, social workers, etc. They had so many posters to bring awareness to several topics. One stood out to me  “He beat her 132 times and she only go flower once” with a picture of a casket. At the bottom it said “Women of Africa won’t be beaten, stop domestic violence today, do not tolerate it.” There was also a group to stop HIV/AIDS discrimination. We saw a video that had one of the teens we met at the school previously and it was awesome to see her in an even more inspirational light. Their messages were so powerful.
We got to really dive into the culture by walking around the market to see traditional shops, grocery stores, clothing, music, artwork, etc. We walked through the market to see lots of hair shops with what Musa (our tour guide) says the women get plastic hair (weave). There were these huge buckets full of spiced termites, crickets and other insects. Have to admit I tried a termite and it was actually not that bad, crunchy and salty. We went to a traditional fabric store to see the patterns that they typically wear, just so colorful. Going to the grocery store was an experience. They should the big bags of mealie meal to make paap, as well as the cow heads, stomachs, intestines, kidneys and pig heads. It was just a culture experience to me, comparing the difference between my culture and theirs, though majority of the group felt uncomfortable. They felt we were mocking their culture. It was interesting to hear my group feel like we were caged in a zoo being stared at when I just saw it as curiosity. I then reflected on the rest of the trip wondering if when we were looking at culture if we made people feel like they were on display as well. I remember being at the Cape of Good Hope and these Indian women asking to take pictures of us, with us and if we wanted pictures of them. At the time we were all pretty creeped out, but now that I think about it they probably never saw American women before. We took pictures of women in their traditional clothing and culture several times in South Africa. Outside of the grocery store I had to separate away from the frustration of my classmates and I’m glad I did because I had a great conversation with a local man. He asked me what I’m doing here and if I’ve been here before. I told him we were studying abroad and specifically at the market to look at culture. He said he would do the same if he were visiting the U.S. He wanted to know more about the U.S and even Africa. He thought we traveled all around Africa and was curious of the comparisons, even to Cape Town he didn’t know. He said they don’t typically see white people, let alone from America, this day will be remembered and talked about for a while. It just makes me feel so privileged to living in a country known to be a “melting pot” where seeing people from different backgrounds be so different but so similar on a regular basis. We continued to visit various artists with different paintings, wood sculptures and pottery. We saw musical performances and traditional dances. We were able to see the process of making the pottery, beadwork and traditional clothing, which was very cool to see. Even when they played music the instruments were all authentic. Some were made with wooden pieces, drums were made from animal skin stretched over wood and some just played on dishes. It was just so cool to watch music be stripped down so simply and bring such happiness. After a long day of frustration and uncomfortable situations our professor/friend hosted a great academic session. We took blankets and looked under the stars, and she told us to “meditate on today, this trip has been an emotional roller coaster, but think of how that fits into the world.  Think about the future, to start to apply what we’ve been learning and how it fits into this world. I remember looking up thinking about the day that was so frustrating and realizing how small I actually am. The frustration that consumed me felt like I was trapped, but in the scheme of the universe, does that really mean anything. I’m such a miniscule piece of the universe and what should consume us is what is around us, the big picture of things. The people we meet, the stories they told, of the struggles, the successes. To think about how such minuscule things can consume us. Right before finals week I remember feeling so consumed in my studies, working and trip planning, housing, jobs and the stress consumed me and shrunk me into a box.  My hope was running short and my frustration was running high. Yet, being here in South Africa has made me feel so refreshed, I feel like I’m in a constant state of bliss each night I go to bed. Even though we’ve seen some of the more ugly sides of the world, extreme poverty, disease, violence, we’ve seen people living among that that are the happiest I’ve ever seen. “Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you respond to it.” The world is our, it’s our choice what we want to do with it. If these children can be so happy with such little, why can’t I do the same when I’ve been blessed with so much. Just like I’ve seen some of the ugliest things, I’ve seen some of the most incredible things over my travels that most don’t get to see over a lifetime. I remember looking up at the sky thinking the most incredible thing I’ve seen is lying right above me and how come now I’m just now appreciating it? I have the night sky every night, thousands of miles from home, on good days and bad ones, it is always here; to ground me to the big picture of what really matters. My life is such a small piece of the world, I don’t want that to consume me, I want to be able to be consumed with connections of the people I’ve met, the places I’ve been and the lessons I’ve learned along the way.  How lucky am I to have met the kind of people that have given me such perspective. As Dr. Seuss said “ To the world you may be one person’ but to one person you may be the world.”
What a feeling it is to be connected.










No comments:

Post a Comment