Ngxongwane Goes to Durban: Day 1

Weeks of treating difficult adult patients made me more cynical about the process of medicine. I am conditioned to not believe the patient’s history or memory. As a health provider, I fight the urge to assume that a patient is malingering (i.e. faking sickness for money or other benefits).

On the other hand, the children of Ngxongwane School run with eagerness to discover and share. Children have little use to malinger (unless coaxed by their parents). Instead they laugh hysterically, run energetically, and smile genuinely even in the face of sickness or the loss of their parents to HIV/AIDS. Children fight to enjoy life. Thus, after visiting Ngxongwane Primary School (Grades R-7), I felt refreshed. When the educators invited me to join the children on their annual educational fieldtrip to Durban, I smiled genuinely and packed my bags.

I jumped out of bed from a sleepless night to meet a busload of 80 children and 11 educators at 6am. The bus thumped from Zulu techno beats and the singing children. I greeted them with a shock wave of photos which brought more excitement to the bus. Even the educators stood in the narrow walkway of the bus to freely sing and dance. Each new passenger shook the bus with enthusiasm. For many of the children, they have never been to Durban before or even outside the district of Nongoma. By far, this trip marked the biggest trip of their life. I was elated to partake in their awesome joy of discovery.

Then it rained food for three days, particularly deep fried chicken and loaves, loaves, and loaves of bread. The educators must have been spent hours frying chicken because it took hours to eat all the fried chicken. After chowing on chicken legs and breast cuts, my neighboring passenger took his swig of juice from a plastic cup and then passed me the cup refilled with juice. With a small budget, the plastic cups were religiously conserved. Sometimes the cups became sticky and greasy from our hands that did not encounter any utensils for three days. Still, the plastic cup brought me thirst quenching heaven because by then I usually would have devoured four to six slices of bread. At ~2 rands (~30 US cents) per loaf, bread is the staple food for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Plus bread is cheaper than rice and without any preparation time.

With the raining food came the raining gospel songs. Usually one person would lead the song and others would follow the a cappella seamlessly. The infectious music made me clap my hands and tip tap my feet uncontrollably. The bus became entertainment on wheels.

The Gateway Mall became the first real stop for the wheel of entertainment. The children swiftly walked into the arcade center of the mall, facing the bright lights of McDonalds. The educators split the children into two tour groups and we began to walk the halls of the mall. Not allowed to purchase anything, the store windows stood like aquarium windows for the children. Escalators rode like roller coasters; elevators lifted like rocket ships; and water fountains danced like a circus act. As the crowd of children moved like an amoeba through the mall, people glanced with smiling curiosity. For me, the best moment in the mall came when two little white sisters shared laughter with the mass of black children. For the children, the sense of discovery between the two cultures overwhelmed stereotypes.

A long the way we visited the stuffed animals at the Natural Science Museum and the stories of Apartheid at the Muhle History Museum. Each stop increased the enthusiasm of the students while decreased the energy of the educators. As a running joke, I offered the panacea injection (Voltaren, Nonsteroidal Anti-inflammatory Drug) to the educators which brought wild laughter each time. To put this into perspective, nearly all Benedictine patients that come in with ambiguous pain or aches want an injection, believing it would take all the pains away.

The highlight for some of the teachers was visiting the South African Broadcasting (SABC) radio station where one of their students now DJs. The teachers were proud and the students were inspired to see one of their own break the Nongoma stereotype of rural uneducated thugs.

After sharing cups and eating with my bare hands, I thought I was gritting the South African life. But the grit was only beginning. The educators had booked a hotel three months in advance. Unfortunately when we arrived the hotel did not have the appropriate accommodation or size to house ~90 people for the school’s budget. The educators had to choose between sleeping in the bus and finding another option at 10pm at night for ~90 people.

They picked the latter option and we drove to a random building in the city centre of Durban. For two nights, the bill only totaled 1400 rand (~$220). The price matched the accommodations. The males and females were separated into two large auditoriums. Bundles of one inch crusty foam mats blanketed the crusty floor. After a meal of fried chicken, tuna sandwiches, and shot of whiskey, I went to the boys’ room and shared the floor next to the two other male educators. Only by 1am did the boys finally loss their energy and slept the night away. As usual the whiskey knocked me out until the kid next to me began to steal my sacred sleeping space. His head nudged into my bubble, forcing me to wrap myself into the fetal position. Concurrently by 3am my bladder wanted my personal attention, but my brain was unwilling to let my body to trample across the little children covered floor to reach the foulest bathroom in this hemisphere.

Toilet seats and stall doors don’t exist in this restroom. The urine soaked stench filled the room and down the halls, sticking to your nose hairs. The concrete floor bubbled up creepy wetness. Rust lined the walls and faucets.

So I decided to hold that bladder till the morning wake up call at 4:30am.