Mindshift - Epilepsy South Africa

Four weeks ago I started doing community service at a centre for people with epilepsy in conjunction with other mental or physical disabilities. It is run by an amazing organisation called Epilepsy South Africa. They are a truely caring organisation doing wonders for many people.

First a little about the centre:
The centre where I worked caters for 81 patients that stay on the premises permanently and if you include the patients that come in for a "daycare" programme, they care for at least 120 patients on a daily basis. The patients that stay on the premises (or the residents) get three healthy meals a day. Their medication is regulated so that they are very healthy. There is a team to cater to mental stimulation for patients without the mental capabilities to care for themselves. Each capable patient is given a chore to do: whether it is working in the kitchen, the washroom or the garden. These chores give tremendous sense of self-worth to the patients and they do their chores with pride.

One of the caretakers with Neelsie

Some of the patients that work in the Washing Room

Babsie who works in the Kitchens

My first day was heel, to be honest. I was ready for sick or frail people, but was completely unprepared for what followed. Rather healthy individuals, but with the mental abilities of five or six year olds. Being called uncle by a man twice your age was a major shock. I also tried, at first to confer in meaningful conversations with some of the patients, which proved nearly impossible, due to their lack of attention and their absolute forgetfulness. By the end of the day I was worn out and had barely done anything but babble meaningless to a few of them. I felt shattered.

Tannie Sophie, 81

The oldest resident, Tannie Kitty, 83

Fortunately I adjusted. By the middle of the week I had learned more about each patient and was able to discern how to treat them and also how they expected me to treat them. The biggest mind shift I had to make was to start referring to the patients as "The Children". It might sound demeaning to someone on the outside of this situation, but that is what they became, your children. And I learned to love these people. Or perhaps, they taught me how to love them?

The people that work here really need to be commended each of them is a fantastic person who does a lot for these people.

Alice a caretaker

Nellian, one of the workers and very close to most of the patients.

Elise is the woman in charge of the kitchen. The residents bake biscuits on a weekly basis.

Ms. Koeks, the resident nurse, caring for the patients.

Rikkie is the socialworker for the centre.

Tannith

 Each patient has a story:

Neelsie is a "Waterhead" or scientifically known as severe Hydrocephalus. He is in his early forties. His mother has taken care of him for all his life. He was not supposed to live past 18, but his mother was adamant that he would live. Now she herself is no longer capable of caring for herself and definitely can't care for him. He receives wonderful care and love. He calls me uncle and asked about my car and children.

Neelsie

Next is a patient called Pieter Malan. Pieter has Down's Syndrome. He was locked in the house, in a retirement facility, of his retired parents and not allowed outside. He talks to himself a lot and is very lovable. He laughed a lot when we showed him the photo of himself and couldn't believe that there was another version of him right there.

Pieter Malan

Now I'll tell you about Martin. Martin didn't speak. His parents abused him, since he had no way of asking for help. They also forced him to look after cars on the weekends and beat him if he had not come home with enough money. Martin was reluctant to be photographed, but reluctantly, and with a giggle, agreed to be photographed only if myself and my co-worker (student) Megan were photographed with him. He is the sweetest young man.

Martin and Megan

Another sweet young man is Wouter. I cannot with certainty say what is wrong with Wouter. I simply got to know him as the little man who also referred to me as uncle. His most obvious characteristic was his shyness, hiding behind a car whenever you looked his way, but smiling shyly when caught out. He wore his hat specifically to hide behind.

Wouter

Among all the other patients there are also four schizophrenics. Probably the strangest was Mariaan. She is from another planet and adamantly insists that she receives messages from this planet by radio. She also has an invisible husband Mac. Fortunately for me, once she heard I was planning on studying medecine she reassured me that Mac was willing to cover my tuition for medschool. Generous non-existent fellow isn't he?

Mariaan

Finally the two residents who have crept into my heart the deepest are Stella and Whitey. These two com from an orphanage and have no-one else but the people at the centre. They are happy and are given a family here.

Stella

Whitey

These people are amazing and have made such a difference in my life. I don't think I will ever forget them.

Peace

The Christmas "Cheer"

For those of you who actually follow this blog, you will know that this is my second Christmas I'm Blogging. It's like my second Birthday in the blogsphere :)  And for those of you who don't regularly read it, now you know too.

Last Christmas I explained all the traditions our family follows around Christmas, I was caught up in the wonderful feeling of Christmas, with prospects of family holidays and gifts under the tree and a wonderful meal ahead. I could barely wait to spend New Year's with my friend, following our tradition of sitting on the roof and watching the fireworks. It was wonderful.

Call it disillusionment or cynicism, this Christmas is looking a little different. My brother is heading off to Germany for a holiday. My parents don't have money for that and to go away now, so we're staying home. My friend is far away, enjoying New Years with old friends of his. The dinner will be a normal braai (barbecue) and the presents are minimal at best, no-one had money to give anything big with my brother going away.

At this point I must point out that I am extremely fortunate. I have a large house to live in during this Christmas time, I have food to enjoy and even though the presents are small, there are presents.

But all this sop and self-pity is not why I am posting. Right now, Christmas is leaving a rather unsavory taste in my mouth. The prospect of being home a lot has glued me to the couch, either reading or watching television. And don't I just feel the warmth of Christmas Commercialism?

Pumped full of Christmas related movies that are on loop on most television channels. Wonderful scenes of white perfection and a few logs on the fire, advertising a succulent Christmas roast (that I for some reason am never able to make just as perfectly). Every shop has an offer saying just how much you will save on "Christmas Necessities", without which your family will be very sad this Christmas.

I personally am content with the warm, summery Christmas I have here. I have a swimming pool to enjoy in this heat of Christmas. I love the Christmas tree we have. A branch from a tree in our garden. And I look forward to the minimalistic presents that my family bought me, because they bought me things with love in their hearts and minds, focusing their energy on what I love. What more could I ask for?

So dream on for that "White Christmas" with its Christmas tree "among the trees most lovely". I will lie down in the sun on the lawn and look up to a blue sky with my family by my side.

Enjoy your Christmas peeps.
Peace :)

December 16

I'm back after a wonderful three week sabattical! And I'm right back to the serious stuff.



Here in South Africa, December 16 (today), has a major historical significance, where each culture has their own connotations or ideas around it. It is a holiday that has evolved in our country's history and is itself rich in various emotions. I'll start from the very beginning of this day's complicated history.

It all started with a bunch of colonialists, who were tired of living under British rule in The Cape (or Cape Town for you outlanders :P). So these "Afrikaners", or "Trekkers" as they are also known, packed up their stuff and left, exploring up into the north of the strange and wild land (South Africa). This is what is known as "Die Groot Trek" literally meaning the big exodus (the big "movement"). The first settlers to leave The Cape, left in 1833. This continued up (North) into the mainland, but also West towards the other coast of South Africa.

The Great Trek

Many companies of travelers would break off to form their own tiny settlements (one of which is the Pretoria we know today!). But for others the urge of discovery (and the determination to never again be ruled by the British) that they kept on their North-Western course.

At this stage the local Zulu tribes (yes, call them blacks, or natives, or whatever, either way they were here first and they won't let you forget it) were rather angered by the presence of these "Trekkers", I personally would be a little pissed off myself if someone just showed up and built cities on my land, so they retaliated  fighting for their land. This fighting happened on and off until a Trekker named Piet Retief, decided it was time to send an envoy to the Zulu king, Dingaan. He himself accompanied this envoy. The Trekker envoy was received with exceptional hospitality and dancing. Everything went well and a peace agreement was signed. But Dingaan was not about to let his people be ruled by "The White Man" and betrayed Retief's trust, forcing him and his men off a cliff to their deaths. There were no survivors.

Piet Retief

Dingaan and his warriors

The legendary agreement

Following these deaths, raiding parties were sent out that plundered and attacked small Trekker communities, slaughtering them in revenge of other tribes killed by the Trekkers. With Retief gone there was no definite leader to gather or organise the Trekkers who fell before the ferocious onslaught, with countless men, women and children losing their lives. It was so much devastation that hey begged for someone from Transvaal (Pretoria) to come save them. This man was Andries Pretorius.

He gathered the remaining Trekkers for a final stand at a river. They pulled their oxwagon together in a crescent with their backs to the Buffalo River. They were about 470 men and women against an estimated 10'000-15'000 Zulu warriors (granted the Trekkers had guns, but those odds still don't seem exactly fair do they?). Miraculously the Trekkers won with minimal losses against impossible odds. The fighting was so bad thought that it is said that the river ran with blood. the battle was named Blood River for this reason. They declared it as an act of God in having saved them and swore to make this day a Sabbath, a holy day until the end of time.

This was the battle to break the Zulu armies that eventually led to the death and dethronement of King Dingaan and the slavery of the Zulus - and thus can hold a rather negative connotation for this culture. That is also where the original name of the Holiday came from. Dingaan Day, the day that broke Dingaan.

But the Trekkers themselves were uncomfortable with this statement, perhaps a manifest of guilt concerning their treatment of the natives and changed the name to "Gelofte Dag" or "Day of Promise" remembering their promise to God that they honour the day and build a church for him (that church still stands in Petermaritzburg).

Unfortunately this name became another symbol for Black Oppression during Apartheid, with politicians saying that God protected them and gave them the upper-hand over the natives for a reason and that he would continue to do o as it is his will. Naturally this symbol of oppression could not remain so and had to be changed, but how? When Apartheid ended the Government renamed the day Reconciliation Day. This name remembers the losses of both sides leading to the Battle of Blood River and also the wrongs committed during Apartheid and leading to people's Reconciliation.

No matter what your ethnicity or relation to this story, it holds a certain amount of pain for most people (even  "Outsiders"). We can argue about who is to blame for these happenings until the end of time. Or we can listen to the true message behind this day. We can accept our own pain and the pain of others and become a single stronger nation.

Peace out.