Life is dull at night for the people of Nongoma. There is only one restaurant, excluding Chicken Licken, and that happens to be at the Nongoma Lodge. No bars, no karaoke, no clubs, no bingo hall, not even tetris - plain old nothing. Yet random gunshots, muggings, rapes, and assaults pepper the darkness. Just last week in rural Nongoma two patients arrived with gunshots in the buttocks and chest, several appeared with head trauma from blunt objects and knifings, and sisters quietly emerged from sexually assault. Thus if you leave your room at night, expect to run fast. I anticipated this type of violence in Durban and Joburg, but not in small town South Africa. Yet this is an accepted fact of life for many here.
As for me, I live in the hospital during the day; I live in the flat during the night. And there’s nothing in between. Blogging my life, reading about HIV/AIDS, and fixing Dr. Hla Tun’s laptops keeps the night short and sweet. Once the Nongoma doctors and I roamed the night because the electricity zapped out and without the electric oven to cook, we returned to the Nongoma Lodge for a devouring of rather salty calamari and moist chips (fries).
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