A South African Volunteer Experience

In 2006, I was invited by the International Scholar Laureate Society to attend a delegation on medicine in South Africa for 3 weeks, where we would spend half the time learning and half the time volunteering. While the group I was traveling with was composed of all medical students, I however, was a medical student myself except the medicine I was studying at the time was Traditional Chinese Medicine. Thus, my interest on this trip was uniquely geared towards Traditional South African Medicine, rather than what influence Western Medicine had/has on South African culture.

The delegation on medicine started with lectures educating us on South Africa’s medical system and the current health problems the country is facing. These were the frightening facts we learned at the time: of the 44 million people inhabiting South Africa 6 million of those have been diagnosed with AIDS (the largest group of people in the world), 57% of those infected are female, and by the year 2010 2 million children will have been orphaned due to the virus. Also, South Africa possesses the highest rate of violence against women in any country not involved in war and 50% of the population has TB.

We spent quite some time volunteering at the Valley Trust Rural Medical Center, which also had a school attached to it. When we first arrived we met with the head nurse to discuss rural health care issues. Because of the shortage of doctors in South Africa, most nurses have to act as doctors, while still only getting paid a nurse’s salary. That particular nurse saw 300-400 patients a day.  I cannot imagine a more emotionally draining job. She lamented that at her clinic they actually have enough medication to give to the patients, but that no one will take it, because then the other people in their community will know that they are sick. The saddest story was that of the milk formula that spoils with time due to the lack of mothers that will accept it. Instead of risking the chance of people in the community finding out that they have AIDS, they would rather breast feed their infants and risk the chance of infecting them with AIDS.

The rest of my time in South Africa was as equally informative and heartbreaking. It was life changing to see a country posses such a dichotomy of extreme ugliness mixed with extreme beauty. On one hand the nation was being destroyed by disease and death and on the other hand the nation was filled with gorgeous scenery and some of the nicest people on this planet.

I thought a lot about my time in the Rainbow Nation on my way back to the States. I had heard a quote by the ex-President of the country, Thabo Mbeki, that really resonated with me. He said, “I am like a cosmic wanderer, driven by the winds to land where they will.” The winds took me to Africa and now I could not get her out of my mind. Is it possible that the reason why she touched me this deeply is that she is the birthplace of humankind and so she in my DNA and I am forever connected to her or is it because I am a healer and I was touched by all the illness I witnessed? As I walked along Africa’s earth, I walked along my roots — Mother Africa. I will surely miss her, but I know that I will return many, many times.