My Day

I wake up around 0630 with the sun already beating in through the windows and wish that God would turn out the lights for another half an hour until my clock tells me to get up. I have a bowl of granola and sip a mocha while sitting on my front step soaking up the sun. I head to ‘the field’ with the nurse I live with. My work field is based in the second largest township in South Africa, Mdantsane.  Mdantsane has a population of  ~175,000. The houses range from tin sheeting ‘shacks’, as they’re called here, to nice homes with bricked drive ways and indoor plumbing. My team gathers at a central meeting place and start going door to door talking to people about HIV and testing those who wish to be tested.

I work within a team of six people, two nurses and four counsellors. We educate on HIV, TB and STI’s, test people for HIV and refer people to clinics if needed for further treatment. My first day on the job testing people I was so surprised by the lancets that we use here! In Canada it’s a nice spring loaded, plastic enclosed object that discreetly pricks your finger for blood – nothing scary on the outside. Here, well, it’s not discreet, it’s a sharp stainless steel object that we jab into your finger to make you bleed. When they showed it to me on day one I actually shrank back, like woah - what are you doing with the weapon! Now, I don’t think twice about it - it gets the job done. I prick their finger, get a drop of blood, place it into the HIV test kit, and 5-10 minutes later we have their result. So far no one that I have tested has been positive and every time I test someone I say a little prayer hoping that I never see two lines. One line = negative, two lines = positive.

We never know how the day is going to go, my last day we stopped on the street as a group of about 20 men were trying to corral a bull. I simply stated, “look at all the men and the bull.” The women I work with said, “yeah, it’s tradition, probably for a feast tomorrow.” “They’re going to kill it? Right there!?” I naively question. Yup, they sure were – right there in a front yard on a residential street - and there is absolutely nothing unusual about it! I watched them get the bull into a lying position by lassoing it, and once that action was done... I got scared of what was to come for the poor bull and ran into a house and started work. I am half wide-eyed tourist, half volunteer nurse. Luckily for us once the men were finished getting the bull set up they were keen to test.