On Paradise, Powercuts and Poverty.

South Africa is blessed with beautiful places. Just driving through the rural areas around King is stunning enough, but then there are places like Hogsback: A little hippie escape in the mountains, with the most beautiful eco hostel i have seen so far. It was my first weekend in South Africa when we spontaneously took off to one and a half days of relaxation, eating delicious food at the Butterfly Bistro, enjoying a horseback-ride and a small hike, sleeping in the coolest dorm ever, being woken up by a kitten chasing my feet under the blanket and cuddling with two cute (and a little annoying) puppies who kept us from reading, sleeping or eating by constantly chewing on everything they could get between their teeth (like books, blankets, shoes, t-shirts…). But who could be mad at something as sweet as this?

And there is Hamburg - pretty much the opposite to its german counterpart: a small, quiet village on the Sunshine Coast where absolutely nothing exciting is happening. But the view you get after conquering a few kilometers of unpaved dirt road is incredible. And while there is no place to eat out and only one of the two hostels in the travel-guide actually exists (while the other one is only taking down reservations over the phone), it is a very relaxing place to enjoy some beachtime and drink a beer while watching the sunset (and do some shopping at a half-vacated art gallery).


Though South Africa is a beautiful country, on a structural level it is deeply messed up. While Apartheid was a morally pretty fucked-up, racist time, some say at least the economic situation was better during this time and most people were better off then - at least in the Eastern Cape. While I have not enough knowledge to judge this statement, I can say that now (over 20 years later), there is unfortunately still a lot of separation and poverty. And the big south african electric power company - Eskom - who was exporting a majority of its produced electricity into various other countries a few decades back, is by now not even able to supply its own country with enough electricity. (Talk about mismanagement here.) Although I imagined load shedding to be worse and more frequent, it is still annoying and anything but helpful for economic development. While some companies like big supermarkets and fast food chains have generators, enabling them to keep their businesses running during blackouts, a lot of small businesses are cut off and not able to take payments during this time…

Apart from that, complaining about blackouts on a personal level seems spoilt when you look at the living situation of most families in rural areas and townships. Two hours per day without electricity is easy to cope with when you can actually afford having electricity in general. Having a horrible shower without warm water most of the time is easy to cope with when you actually have a shower with running water and even a flushing toilet in your house (and not a drop toilet in your backyard). Freezing inside your house without heating is easy to cope with when you can afford blankets and warm socks. Having a leaking roof during heavy rain is easy to cope with when you actually have a dry house 364 days a year. Having to drive 45 minutes to East London to buy good bread or find a decent place to eat out is easy to cope with when you actually can afford to buy enough food or even eat out. A lot of people here cannot. They don’t have a job or a proper house, they struggle with money, with health, death and HIV, rape, violence, hunger and lack of perspective. They don’t have running water and their children are running outside barefoot, playing with empty PET bottles instead of fancy toys. And still their smile is happier and blither than anything I’ve ever seen. (So how can I even vindicate one single sorrow and doubt I ever had compared to this?) Well, it’s all about perspective. And gratitude.

But hey - congrats to South Africa for not calling themselves a developing country anymore and refusing to give people volunteer visas. I can definitely see a lot of improvement and decent living conditions for the whole population and no need for any help. (Irony off.)

The Day Nick moved out

Sometimes, enough is enough. Not paying rent, trying to steal my ice tea... Everything can be forgiven. But when he tried to hold hands with me I just knew we had to go separate ways. He now lives on the sidewalk. Sorry Nick, I'd like to keep our relationship platonic. Don't come back. Don't make things complicated.

A typical Thursday Morning.

00:15 - I wake up because I hear heavy rain pouring on the roof and the wind knocking on my windows. Half asleep I save my laptop, phone and everything that’s lying next to my mattress and put it in my suitcase. Last night when it was raining heavily, water was coming through my roof and was just running down the wall next to the socket I charge all my stuff.

00:20 - I fall back into comatose sleep, dreaming weird stuff. Like every night.

07:23 - My alarm is ringing, trying to wake me. After two snooze-episodes, I actually realize what’s going on and drag myself to the bathroom. When you’re living with your colleagues, who have to leave the house at the same time as you, every opportunity of an unoccupied bathroom has to be seized.

07:50 - I’m crawling back into bed with a cup of coffee, trying to wake up slowly (and escaping the cold of the room under my warm blanket) while watching an episode of friends.

08:40 - My colleagues are already gone in one of the two cars that are parked inside our gate every day. I am leaving the house in a rush, swearing at the lock we use for our gate - as every morning. Locks tend to be always jammed when you’re in a rush. Or carrying several heavy bags. Or in the middle of the night when you just want to fall into your bed instantly. Or when it’s raining, like today.

08:43 - I am finally on my way to work, accidentally hitting a deep pothole and feeling pity for our poor rental. I am overtaking several cars, swearing. Why is nobody able to drive in this country? If they’d go any slower, they’d go backwards.

08:46 - I arrive at the office, looking forward to a relaxed morning and my writing afternoon. During our morning meeting we realize that we are short on drivers and I have to go into field. I am annoyed. Possibly because I was too lazy to eat breakfast this morning and a lack of food doesn’t do any good for my mood. Possibly because it’s raining and I don’t have a jacket with me, nor proper shoes to be outside for more than 2 minutes.

09:15 - I speak to my team about two possible referrals from the last days. Two Teens seem to be having a high suicide risk. I am glad that it’s not a rape case.

09:30 - Grumpy because of a lack of breakfast I rush home again, grabbing a rainjacket, some leftover food from yesterday’s dinner and putting on proper shoes. Now I am ready to face a rainy day in field.

09:45 - I am at the office again, trying to coordinate my team. Everyone is pissed because it’s raining, one of our team members didn’t show up, we haven’t recruited a community guide (for safety and navigation) yet for the township we (or actually they) are going in today and generally everything’s chaotic.  As every morning. Having a small office jammed with 45 people every morning is prone to being chaotic, but you’re still annoyed every time.

10:00 - My team is ready to go, still lacking one member. I send them off anyway with one of our drivers and rush to another group who’s waiting for me to be their additional driver as we only have three big cars who can fit a whole team and only three hired drivers, but four teams. So we bring out the fourth team with two small cars and two Fieldwork Coordinators (FWC) as drivers.

10:10 - I am finally sitting in a car with half of someone else’s team, waiting for the other half to go in front and guiding the way.

10:15 - We’re still waiting.

10:20 - The other half of the team is rushing by, just through a yellow traffic light, not to be seen again.

10:21 - We’re calling them. They’re at the petrol station. We decide to go first and find our way. Another car with a project manager (PM) and a community guide trainer should be following us but it’s not coming. So we are waiting. again.

10:25 - We are finally on our way, with the other car following us.

10:40 - Arrival in the township, waiting for the community guide. And the other half of the team. I decide to finally go for some breakfast, indulging half a grilled cheese sandwich, some fries and two fried mushrooms. All leftovers from yesterday’s team dinner at a restaurant. All cold. All tasting like crap. But it helps to boost my bloodsugar just enough to take my grumpyness away.

10:50 - The other half of the team is finally here and ready to go pick up the community guide. We follow them and so is the other car with the project manager and the community guide trainer. What a weird parade. People in the township are looking at us, quite irritated.

10:55 - We are at the community guide’s house. Waiting. Two Research Assistants (RAs) are going off to do an interview. I have no idea what’s happening. No one actually has. Apparently, the community guide is not showing up, so we are turning around and trying to pick up another one. The car with the Project manager is staying behind. We lose the car in front of us as the two RAs are coming back from the planned interview because no one seems to be at the house. Now we are 6 people in a car with 5 seats, trying to find the other car again.

11:05 - We are united again, driving to the second community guide who is actually there, dropping two RAs off on our way so we are finally having enough proper seats again for all the people in the car.

11:10 - We are stopping outside a house to drop 2 RAs for an interview.

11:11 - They are coming back. The Teen they wanted to interview ran away and is not to be found. Just after threatening his mother to stab her. Because he wants all the grant money for himself. I’m not even surprised anymore.

11:12 - We are trying two other houses for interviews, but as it’s the beginning of June, everyone seems to be in town to buy food from the grant money they always receive in the beginning of the month.

11:30 - We are waiting for the other car again.

11:45 - Finally everyone is in one place. All three cars. So the community guide trainer can train our picked up community guide in finding programme participants for us. We are waiting again. In the meantime, I chat with one of our RAs about beer, whiskey, rock music and claustrophobia and sending a gps link to another pair of FWCs who are about to join us, respectively take the second shift in field as me and the other FWC-driver are actually supposed to have our writing afternoon off.

12:00 - Everyone actually arrived. We swap cars and drivers and I am finally off to the office, surprised that I can leave this early and very happy to leave the field chaos behind.

12:30 - I am finally home, switching into sweatpants. I call my team to check if everything’s going alright with them.

12:40 - I start writing this blogpost, sipping coffee and freezing in our living room without heating, running into my bedroom from time to time to check if there is water coming through the roof as it started to rain heavily again.

I wish I could say this was a typical day, but it wasn’t. Not only because it was just half a day (which I can enjoy maximum once a week, if at all) but because there are no normal days here. Everything is madness. And chaos. But at least not boring at all - well, apart from the hours spent waiting somewhere in a car.

Office Chaos

Downpour.

On days like these it is hard not to think about fathers who rape their 5-year-old daughters, or beat the shit out of their children. Or children living in shacks, not having enough to eat. Or drunk men walking from door to door in poverty-stricken villages, claiming to collect money for retired grannies - while I am pretty sure they will spend every single rand they selflessly collected on booze.
On days like these it is hard to see a reason in our existence, or our work, or anything really. On days like these my mind is as gray as the sky above my head. And I feel bad for feeling bad because I am blessed as fuck whereas others are soaking out there. Literally and metaphorically. And - to be honest - I could do more to make things better. I could do a lot more.

But on days with sunshine, I just care less. Things slip from my mind and while working it is easy to be distracted. It is easy to be distracted while driving through a beautiful scenery. It is easy not to think about death and HIV and violence and hunger. At least for a while. But it shouldn’t be. It fucking should not. How can I enjoy going out, having brunch, spending a shitload of money on tofu and chocolate and all the unnecessary things I feel like I am needing. How much ignorance is necessary to prevent oneself from becoming insane in this place?