The last few weeks

Here is an update about what I've been up to since returning from my safari vacay.  Basically, it's been work like normal at the care centre and hanging out with all the usual suspects on the weekends.  But a few special things have happened recently, so let's talk about them now.

Voting Day:

South Africa held its fourth general election on May 7.  I sure picked a good news year to be in South Africa... a general election, the Oskar Pistorius trial, Mandela's death, all that happened while I was here!  Election day in SA is a little different from election day in the US.  It's actually a public holiday here.  Yay!  Perhaps that explains the higher voter turn out (77% in the Overstrand municipality)?  In South Africa, voters vote for a party rather than a candidate.  The head of the winning party becomes the president. Parties do have to announce who their head is before the election, so yes, you do know who you're actually voting for.  Presidents are elected by straight popular vote and serve a five year term.  There are lots of political parties in South Africa.  I counted at least 15.  (Random question:  What exactly is the purpose of an electoral college?  I was trying to explain our election process in America, and I know HOW the electoral college works, but I could not come up with a single reason WHY we have one.  Could some political science major please explain this to me?   Thanks!)

I tagged along with two of my friends when they went to vote.  Dewald voted at the municipal building in Hermanus.  Besides for the fact that political parties are allowed to set up promotional tables right beside the polling place, the atmosphere here wasn't that different from the last time I voted at Main Street Station in Richmond.  Lots of white people queued quietly outside the building.  Once inside, an official from the Independent Electoral Commission checked the voters' IDs and gave them a paper ballot that was ripped out of a big pad.  Voters go behind a little screen, tick off their ballots and place them in a cardboard box.  Actually, Dewald let me put his ballot in the box for him.  So yes, I cast a vote in South Africa!  I guess this also explains why it took three days to get the election results.  Someone had to count all those paper ballots in all those boxes by hand!  I don't think I would want that job.

I also went with Hananja to vote.  Hananja is registered at her permanent home address in Cape Town, but in South Africa you can vote at any polling station as long as it is in the same province where you are registered.  Hananja chose to go to Zwelihle, the black township outside of Hermanus, just because we thought it might be a more interesting experience.  The atmosphere here was a little different.  Adults and kids alike were just hanging out in the street by the town hall, watching the goings-on.  In Zwelihle, instead of an all-white crowd, we were the only two white people in sight.  But no one seemed to care.  In fact, the guy working at Democratic Alliance table was quite happy to see us there, and he ushered us straight into the hall.  I thought it was a little funny that, first of all, the DA had a presence at all in the township, and also that this guy saw a white person and assumed that since she was white, she was obviously voting DA.  But anyway, it was nice to feel so welcomed even in a place where we stood out.  Another difference between Zwelihle and Hermanus was that there were armed police guards outside the polling place in Zwelihle.  They must have just been a precaution, because everyone was quite in order, and once inside the hall, the process was exactly the same as in town.  Again, isn't it interesting that, in South Africa, it's just assumed that the township will require an armed patrol in order to vote, but the wealthy white area is obviously fine?  Like I've said, sometimes I really don't understand this country at all.

So yes, that was election day.  I spent the rest of my day off helping Hananja shop for some new winter clothes and going to a braai that night.  I like this whole day off to vote thing.  Let's do that next year in the US!  Who is with me?

Just FYI, in case like me you don't follow the news at all, the election results were just as expected.  The ANC won the presidency and all but one of the provinces, so Jacob Zuma was reelected.  The DA held the Western Cape.  And the EFF is now the third party nationally.  I've heard some people express misgivings about the EFF's gains.  But it was a fair election that went off with almost no incidents, so there you go.

The DA table outside of the polling place in Hermanus

The queue to vote in Hermanus

ANC, EFF, and DA tables in Zwelhile

The police outside the polling place in Zwelhile

Some ANC supporters in Zwel

Wheelchairs everywhere:

 I got to see some wheelchair basketball a few weeks ago.  The Hawston team was having a training day, where they were practicing and running drills against a more experienced team from Worcester, and one of the most experienced wheelchair basketball coaches was there on site to give them some pointers.  A lot of the players on the Hawston team are patients I've seen before, either in the centre or as home care patients.  It was so fun to see these guys play!  They were pretty impressive... those chairs fly up and down the court, and the nets are at the same height as usual, so imagine trying to shoot from a chair and not being able to jump to grab a rebound and stuff.  It must be very difficult.  I can rarely make a basket myself, and I have four working limbs (although admittedly no hand eye coordination or athletic ability in general).

The next weekend, I saw a bunch of these guys again.  Hermanus's annual Wheels and Runners race is put on by the Whalers, the club I run with.  So of course I had to participate.  There were lots of categories (21 km for sport wheelchairs only, 10km for wheelchairs of any type and for runners, 5 km for wheelchairs and runners, 7 km for electric wheelchairs, and 1.3 km for non-sport wheelchairs only).  I ran the 10 km, and it was actually really cool to be running right alongside the wheelchairs.  I think this race is totally awesome.  It really gives the runners a sense of gratitude for the ability we have to actually BE runners.  I think a lot of people forget how blessed we are every day.  Like I will think, 'Ugh I HAVE to go for a run now' or 'I'm really not up to running today, but I SHOULD run, so I'll just go struggle through', but really I should be saying to myself, 'How great is it that I GET TO run today?' (Side note: Shout out to Dewald and Rod for running with me!  Well, ahead of me.  You two are fast.)

Wheelchair basketball action!

Some  members of the community enjoying the basketball

The scrimmage was fast-paced, and the guys were really good!

Clinic and hospital visits:  

Martin and I decided that it is silly how we work with all the local clinics, sharing patients, sharing files, sharing services, but we never actually meet our colleagues outside of Hawston.  Ditto with the doctors at the Hermanus Hospital.  So I've been rectifying that.  I took a little field trip to the hospital last week and to several of the local clinics, just to meet in person some of the people we speak to on the phone and also to remind them of our services and answer any questions they have about the care centre.  It was fun to put faces to names and also just to see what types of facilities are available in the wider Overstrand area.

I think I mentioned in my last post that I spent a morning at the Hawston clinic during the weekly prenatal visits.  That was totally awesome!  I learned a lot about how prenatal care is handled here.  When a woman finds out she's pregnant, she makes an appointment at the clinic, and a nursing sister sees her.  The sister does an initial evaluation that focuses on finding any risk factors, like previous miscarriages or stillbirths, high blood pressure, diabetes, drug use, etc.  If it's a normal low-risk pregnancy, then all the prenatal visits can be done at the local clinic by the nursing sister.  So that means that if you're normal, you might NEVER see a doctor during your pregnancy.  Wow.  That is different.  But really, the type of questions the sister was asking the patient, the screenings she did, the focus of her physical exam, it's all the stuff I would have done to one of my patients in the US.  So it's nice to know that even if the details are different, nursing really is the same everywhere.

An exam room at the Zwelihle clinic

The waiting room at Zwelihle

Now I'm in my last week of work in the Care Centre.  The timing is actually really good.  Martin had exams last week and this week, so he is able to take some time off to study while I can still be in charge and the centre won't be left nurse-less.  Then next week I'm off to Cape Town for a few days in the office before I go up to Lesotho.  I'm both excited and sad about making this transition, but more on that later.  For now I am going to enjoy my last few days in Hawston!