First we would like to apologize for our lack of posting the past couple of weeks. They have been very chaotic with packing and the end of the program paper/ project. For a quick recap of our last weekend we went to Cape Town. We began our Saturday by going to Robben Island, and seeing the way the political prisoners lived during the apartheid government. Our tour of the jail was given by an ex-prisoner. This was really interesting because we got to hear his story and what it was like to live on Robben Island first-hand. He went through all of the different techniques that were used to dehumanize the prisoners, including faking letters of divorce from their wives. The boat ride to the island was very rough; we would go up and down and all around….sort of like a roller-coaster. Once we got back to the dock we decided to go shopping in the local market called “Green Market Square”. One of the street venders tried to get me to buy a pashmina. She kept telling me that she would give it to me for 100 rand (13$). I did not really want to buy this pashmina from her, but I love bargaining with them and seeing how low I can get the people to sell me things. I proceeded to tell her that I only had 100 rand left. Her response to this was, “good spend it on the pashmina.” The entire time, she kept taking a step closer to me until she was really close to my face. Finally, I told her that I still had to pay for taxi home. Immediately, she ran backwards and said, “ohh I see ok never mind.” Later while we were shopping, a fellow American College student at CTU, Cape Town University, informed us about another market that was less expensive. Martha, Erika and I decided to check out The African Women’s Market. It was a bit less expensive in some areas but it did have other things. They had a jeweler who would hand-make sterling silver pieces. This is the place that Martha and I bought our Africa necklaces and custom rings that say “Nkosi Sikeleli iAfrica” which are the first three words of the South African National anthem and mean “God Bless Africa” in Xhosa. On Sunday of this weekend we decided not to hike up table mountain but instead go to Desmond Tutu’s Church, Saint George’s Cathedral. This service was very interesting because it was conducted in three different languages: English, Afrikaans, and Xhosa. It was really cool to be a part of a service where no matter your language you were able to participate and understand what was going on. Those were basically the highlights from our weekend in Cape Town.
When we got back to Robertson we began to frantically prepare for out departure to the States. As a part of CCS intern program, we had to complete a project. After being in Africa for a couple of weeks, Martha and I came to the realization that one of the main problems in the health care of the people is their lack of education on the parents’ part. The children learn these things in school but the parents do not make them do these things at home. So as our project, we created three lesson plans that will be used by the farm social worker. She will go to the farms and have programs to teach the farm workers how to better conduct their household to promote a healthy life style. These lesson plans were created in such a way that focused on how the parents could set a good example to help their children. The program is divided into three lessons each having their own activity to make the parents use the new information that they learned during the lesson. The lessons are designed to be around 30 minutes long thus not to take too much time away from the work day. The first lesson focuses on the importance of personal hygiene. It goes over the basics on germs and the ways that germs are spread. Then the lesson covers the ways that germs can be killed, thus covering personal cleanliness. Lastly, lesson one covers the things that are necessary for a bath, proper hand washing, brushing your teeth, etc. Lesson two covers the broad topic of basic medical care. This included subtopics such as wound care, burn care, and basic illnesses. Under each of these, we talk about the ways to prevent infection and when they should seek medical help. The third and final lesson focused on parent-child relationships. This covers the topics that a parent should discuss with their child: schoolwork, hygiene and healthcare. It also focuses on how the parents should be involved in their child’s life in school and in their social lives. There are whole portions of this lesson that are dedicated to teaching the parents how to talk to their children about drugs, alcohol, and sex. These are important topics that should definitely be discussed with each child because we saw a lot of problems with these topics: rape, FAS, AIDS/HIV, and children having children. The largest percentage of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome in the world is in South Africa, and thus, the consequences of drinking while pregnant need to be told the young children. Also the ways go about having safe sex must be discussed with the children, because of the prevalence of HIV transmission in this country. Lastly the addiction to drugs such as alcohol and tic (meth) are major issues for this community and the consequences of using these drugs needs to be taught to the children by their parent and not just by teachers. For each lesson we created activities for the parents to apply the knowledge that they had learned during the lesson.
These lesson plans were given to the social worker who works on the farm as well as the people from FAS facts. FasFacts is an organization that is committed to spreading the awareness of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. On my second to last day at placement at the clinic I had the opportunity to see sit in and learn about the research that is going on in South Africa regarding Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. This was very informative to learn the different physical features that are caused by FAS as well as learn about the behavioral traits of this syndrome.
On my last day at placement I was working with the physical therapist when the girls in the clinic began to move tables around and being really weird….Then they locked all of the doors to the clinic and took me to the wound dressing room. To my surprise they had prepared a surprise going away party for me!! It meant so much to me to know that they were going to miss me as much as I miss them. We had non-alcoholic champagne and traditional African food. They could not get over how weird it was for us to not have a braai, or as we call a cook-out, but that would be hard to do in the clinic. Then they told me that they had posted messages all around the town saying the clinic was going to be closed during lunch. That definitely made me cry!!!
After I got picked up the last day, we went to get Erika from the Creche and while waiting for her to get in the taxi, we started playing every South African’s favorite song: “Baby” by Justin Beiber. It makes me laugh to see two and three year olds who cannot speak English singing every word and dancing to this song. Martha and I would like to make a plea to you all: when we cry during “Baby,” please don’t laugh; we are just remembering the kids in South Africa and how much we miss them!!
Love,
Mary Emily and Martha
No comments:
Post a Comment