Afrikaburn!!!

This weekend will be spent in the Tankwa Karoo as part of a gift economy and burning man festival, we will be fighting against the Shell frackers on the side, at the inevitably indescribable Afrikaburn Festival!

http://www.afrikaburn.com

SAfm Radio!

Just a quick note to let you know I have been asked to be interviewed on a women's radio show called OTHERWISE on SAfm. On Tuesday the 12th April at somepoint during the 1-2pm (South African time) show they will interview me about my research at HPCA on gender sensitivity in palliative care. If you want to know more about my research feel free to tune in! It should also be available streamed live at: http://encryptant.antfarm.co.za/fifa/default.aspx?id=9&AspxAutoDetectCookieSupport=1 (apparently it won't work without Window's Media Player).


More about the show I'll be on:
http://www.safm.co.za/portal/site/safm/template.PAGE/menuitem.3eb6259e2ce7b63c6b0eb550a24daeb9/?javax.portlet.tpst=c7d077175852f260f0448955a24daeb9&javax.portlet.prp_c7d077175852f260f0448955a24daeb9_viewID=content&javax.portlet.prp_c7d077175852f260f0448955a24daeb9_docName=Otherwise&javax.portlet.prp_c7d077175852f260f0448955a24daeb9_folderPath=%2Fv7%2FSAFM%2FPrograms%2F&beanID=1810488935&viewID=content&javax.portlet.begCacheTok=com.vignette.cachetoken&javax.portlet.endCacheTok=com.vignette.cachetoken

National Identity

There are so many things I want to share about my time in South Africa. This has been a learning experience in so many ways, beyond the palliative care immersion and the research skills I have gained.

Throughout my life I have approached the question, “Where are you from?” with caution. When you ask me this seemingly innocuous question, I will size you up, try to figure out what answer you’re looking for, whether you’re making small talk, or actually want to know my story. I am constantly re-presenting and reshaping my answer, to suit those around me and my own identity.

In the different places I have lived, I have been struck by the different reasons one is assigned a national identity. In Tanzania, I could establish my legitimacy through language. Assumed a tourist, I would feel the affirmation and recognition as a Tanzanian only when I spoke Kiswahili. In Senegal, a great deal of emphasis was placed on place of birth. When I talked about my home in Tanzania it was only when I mentioned I was born in Kenya, they would stop, step back, and say, “Toi, tu es une vraie Africaine”. You are a true African, a phrase of legitimacy and validation that was denied my friend who had spent her childhood in Uganda, but who had had the misfortune of being born outside the African continent.

 In the different countries in Africa that I have lived in, I embrace my African-ness, the aspects of my life and upbringing that make me similar to those around me. Although I constantly criticize others for the term African, lumping together a vast and diverse continent, I find myself longing for the recognition as being from these places that echo of home.

In South Africa I cannot convey myself through language fluency, and birth is not assigned the same importance as it is in Senegal. I even encountered one individual who was adamant that, “Because of your ancestors, you can never be African, if I move to Japan and my children are born there, they will not be Japanese!” I listened patiently as he denied my identity and then asked him, “My brother, if I am not from Tanzania, where am I from?” Truly I am an amalgamation of all the places I have lived, completely adopting each, but never fully of any.

In South Africa I have encountered a new definition of the term African, used to other and lump the traditional, isiXhosa, Zulu and countless other backgrounds, avoiding the term black. What is so striking to me is that this term is used only as the other: where I am trying furiously to be affirmed in my identity as an African, I hear white South Africans use the term to describe all the things they are not.

Along with embracing my African-ness I am personally embracing my US passport for the first time. Of all the places I have lived this is the first time in my life I have ever been told I have an American accent. Only occasionally, but more than anywhere else I’ve spoken. I am forced to respond to the assumption that I am from the US.

I am also assigned the task (by the Fulbright) of being an ambassador for the US, to foster and facilitate “mutual understanding between the people of the United States and other countries”. Not because of, but in cooperation with such a task, I have not corrected people when they assume that I am from the US, for the first time in my life. Rather, I look at it as an opportunity to represent myself, yes, as an American, and to show that the experience of someone from the US can be one who has lived most of her life in Africa.

Rather than deny an American accent or American-ness in potentially awkward or US-critical situations, I claim my US identity anew and offer them a new understanding of an American that can hopefully represent myself in a positive light in mutual-understanding-establishing interactions.

I am constantly coming to terms with how to represent my identity to others, however, I am consistently confident in my personal identity: the people, places, and pasts that have made my national identity this complex combination of countries and cultures.

I try to be careful with the term American, however, it is often the term used by those here to describe people from the US, and was the term of my childhood, and that is why I have used it in these thoughts.

More recent update

Again, I'm utilizing emails sent to others to update those of you who might be checking this blog even though we haven't had personal email correspondence for a while.

This is a letter from today to former professors at St. Olaf:

24th March, 2011

I hope everything is well on the hill. I can't believe its been almost a year since the class of '10 graduated and dispersed around the world. I think the seniors must have had 100 days march recently, I hope they're really enjoying and taking advantage of their last months at St. Olaf.

Life in Cape Town has been exciting and stimulating and full of beautiful spaces and people. It is truly an amazing place to live, if you ever get the chance to visit, definitely take advantage of it. it is particularly interesting from a sociological and anthropological perspective. I have been attending the University of Cape Town Social Anthropology weekly seminars and have really enjoyed the academic, sociological lens that provides when looking at my surroundings here. It is an amazing department - last week the seminar was visiting professors from University of Chicago Jean and John Comaroff, who spoke about policing the post-colony, and the patterns of crime in the post-apartheid state. I am constantly struck by how recently the constitution was changed and how much has happened since.

I am currently looking for future positions (for after the Fulbright) - hopefully in an entry level position working with survivors of sexual and domestic abuse (following my extended work with SARN). On a related note - this morning I attended the Western Cape on Violence Against Women's general meeting where the topic was sex trafficking and sex workers. It was such an amazing experience to be in a room full of those working for women's human rights, representatives from the SA government and police force, and a number of sex workers as well, all in what was intended as an open forum and platform for discussion surrounding the issues faced by sex workers and to address sex trafficking. It was particularly important to me to see those that are usually marginalized in society (the sex workers) given a voice and a space to express their concerns.

I am doing well with my research, the questionnaire has been distributed and I have about a 50% response rate, which I am hoping will improve after I make follow up phone calls tomorrow. I am in the process of planning my interviews and travel plans as I will be conducting follow-up interviews around the country, this is truly the exciting part of research, when I get to connect with people and hear their stories. I am beginning data entry and preliminary analysis as well - less exciting personally, but potentially very interesting results to come!

I hope things are starting to warm up in the Northern hemisphere - the weather is just starting to cool down here after a wonderful summer. I can hardly believe I have been here over 6 months, the next 3 will surely be a whirlwind with the most intense parts of my research as well as write-up. This has been such a wonderful experience, with a very steep learning curve!

In peace,
Sarah

Letter from September

This is a letter I wrote to someone close to me telling them about my time in South Africa, back in September. He said I should share it with more people, so although delayed, here you are:

September 9^th 2010,

            When you say yes to every opportunity that presents itself, you experience new things every day.

           

Today I:

           

Learnt the three clicks of the isiXhosa language.

            Had lunch at Ronnie’s sex shop - a shady pub on R62, South Africa’s version of Route 66.

            Helped with actual application of palliative care.

           

And it’s just after lunchtime.

           

I want to tell you about all these things that I see and especially all these people I have met. 

It may seem deceptively simple to say that one thing I want to do, daily, is make people smile (That’s why I smile often – it tends to be mirrored). When I can do nothing else, when I have no language, and no offer-able skills, I can connect on a united level through a smile.

This morning I shadowed Alida and her trainee, Margaret on their home-based care visits and met patients Charl, Ella, Maria, and Ashler*. At Charl’s house I had an entire conversation with a knee-high child at knee-level, in which we did not understand one of each other’s words. With Ella, the communication was much easier. We talked about how money is short and how she will never move into an old age home. This woman had a smile that spread slowly, hesitantly, across her face, stopping at every emotion along the way between mild interest and a beaming smile. Every time she started to smile I wasn’t entirely sure she was headed towards a smile. But every time, she was.

Maria, did not smile. But she made Alida and Margaret laugh like no other, humourizing her fear of needles as a diabetic and her refusal to have her toes amputated, even though they’ve lost all circulation.

And where I was most reminded of the connection possible through a smile was in Ashler’s room. Shrouded in bright pink – sheets, curtains, pillows – Ashler was the first patient to (literally) reach out her hand to me. Her one good hand that is not paralyzed by her recent stroke. This was where I was practically useful in palliative care. I helped to bedwash Ashler and physically helped to lift her in and out of bed. Through the possibly demeaning, embarrassing experience of being bathed entirely by three other women (including myself) I made an effort to maintain eye contact and to reassure and communicate with my eyes and my smile. After washing, lotioning and moisturizing Ashler's bedsores, I did not want to leave this woman. I wanted to sit and listen to all she could tell me, all day. But my ride arrived and after taking her hand, thanking her, and a smile, I left.

Palliative care is not just for dying people. This is what I’m learning: palliative care is an approach and an effort to improve the quality of life and provide dignity in death. I embrace this idea through the holistic approach, but I am only starting to actually understand what it means to walk into a home that could be broken by disease, but has been upheld by restoring someone who might be very sick, to their home.

I’m not always sure how I ended up in palliative care, but I’m glad I did. It seems the people I can learn to work with and hope to connect with and support are those in need of palliative support and those healing from sexual assault. Kind of complete opposites, and yet not. I have so much to learn, but imagine my attraction comes in trying to restore wholeness, not necessarily health or life, but support and a holistic approach. This applies in both fields. (I want to figure this out more and articulate it better – but really it’s all about relationships)

I’m learning so much, I have so much to learn. Do you think I could even take in this much information per week all 10 months I’m here? Think how much I would have learnt by June.

It’s interesting creating a community here. It’s beautiful the way connections are made; independent and self sufficient, I’m making decisions about who I want to become. I’m most definitely in the process of becoming someone. Not sure I’ll ever arrive at someone, but loving connecting along the way.

Love,

            Sarah

*Names may be changed for privacy. 

Visit to Lentegeur

Last week I had the pleasure of speaking to hospice patients for the first time. Although I have been visiting numerous hospices over the past few months I have not been able to work with patients until I had received full ethical approval.

Last Thursday I had the fortune to speak with a cancer patient based at Lentegeur in Mitchell’s Plain. I was not interviewing him, rather, I just wanted to hear some of his story, and he was glad to share. 

He told me of his times working as a seaman around the world, of where he lived before the Group Areas Act, and where he lives now. He told me about his family and shared his guava flavored sweets with me. We spoke of music and although he says he usually lacks the energy to sing, he sang for me. His favourite singer is Elvis.

We also spoke about God, and he was adamant that “God is always there”, and was encouraged to be supported in this view by the staff around him. For me, it made it all the more evident how the spiritual aspect of palliative care is essential. I have seen its importance among the staff, where nurses and caregivers alike live out their faith in practice, through service in palliative care. This was the first time for me to see, firsthand, the importance of spiritual care from the perspective of a patient.

I'm BACK

To make up for the lack of posts over the last two months I have decided to insert brief excerpts from emails I have sent out to try and share what my life in Cape Town is like:

Random lists about life outside of work I send my sisters:

(26th October 2010)

1. My room smells like lavendar because I have dried lavender in a pot (made out of a purse) on the wall and in my closet - this is from the Lavender Festival I went to and performed at.
2. I am getting really good on crutches, fast - slow, side to side. I got it down. 
3. At my house we drink mainly spring water.
4. I only need one shoe these days, all my right shoes are lined up by my door. 
5. My new favourite snack in the world is this: take a date, take out the pip, stick in a brazil nut, and add a little almond butter on top. 

(12th November 2011)

1. I can buy 6 grapefruit, a lemon, a box of cherry tomatoes, and a bag of carrots for R23 (thats like 3 dollars). 
2. I'm growing butternut squash in my garden - they're doing FABULOUS.
3. I cooked beets that I harvested out of my garden.
   
4. I make sushi - its my new go to lunch. 

Strange how most of this seems to revolve around food.