Welcome to my Office

My rural office

One of the best things about my job is that I work in some pretty interesting areas. If we are walking along the road and meet someone we introduce ourselves and ask if they would like to test. If they say, “yes,” and the only thing around to perch on is a rock – that’s where I set up shop! You will often find us on the road under an umbrella testing those who pass by, or testing out of the box of the truck trying to reach men and women walking to work. I have tried to put together a couple photos of my ever changing “office”.



My team on our way to a village: Lindiswa, Nomakhaya, and Babalwa

 

Babalwa and I were trying to get into the gate that the goats on the right decided to block.

This day was particularly unbearably hot and we sought shelter to test this man in the corn rows for some shade. 

Here I was able to find a “quiet” area to test at the taxi rank. At one point I turned around and had a line-up of six people to get tested and people arguing over who had to go first so that they wouldn’t miss their taxi. In this picture I had a line-up of two people, the lady in yellow and the other wearing purple. The shopping cart belongs to the man I’m testing – his job is to deliver groceries for the vendors on the roadside.  

 This is a view of the taxi rank behind where I am working in the previous picture. I am standing at the barrel talking to the man in the orange vest and one of the counsellors I was working with, in blue, is talking to the woman with the yellow hat.

I love working in the Taxi rank because it is so dynamic! People often work Mon-Sat so there is no time for them to get to the clinic to test – which is where we come in. We try and find them, coming/going to work, or if allowed, we test them while working. Testing this guy while working meant that I was testing him behind the fruit and vegetable stand that he works at while work carried on around us. 

The people working at the vegetable stand yell out, "tester, tester" when they see me around and gather people for me to test. If you say that you're a 'tester' everyone knows exactly what you're talking about - HIV.

This was my second time testing this man at the vegetable stand. We don't understand eachother very well, but we get along great.