Clive and I are introduced to one of the big churches. They have a convention of American doctors visiting for a couple of days, and we are to meet them, and then the head of the church in KZN. We drive towards Pietermaritzberg ; the same route that we took when we went to the Drakensberg. It is the first, and only, grey day of our trip. There is a slight haze - pollution. South Africa burns coal, has many mines. People aren’t very aware of the environment. I am rather shocked by the cars - everyone, every white person, that is, seems to have one, and to use them for every journey. No-one walks, unless they are out for a Walk. And people drive, drunk. I don’t much like the idea of driving here myself. I like walking, and I like my bicycle. I see very few bikes. My mind is always working, and it seems to me that the difficulty of transport really needs to be addressed to make South Africa an easier place. I wonder about electric bikes - wonder about importing them into the country - could they help the gap between rich and poor - an affordable way of carrying tools and getting places faster than the taxis (which are not taxis as I know them at all, but crammed minibuses, with fixed routes).?. Lots of roads are not at all safe for cycles, and where would one leave safely such a valuable item? Nevertheless, I see possibilities. Perhaps I shall bring one with me next time what response I get.
We reach Richmond, a town near to the Church’s encampment. Richmond is something else. It is a black town. Not a shanty town, or township. A real town, without a single white person. We wait at the petrol station for quite a long time. This is our rendez-vous with the pastor. It looks like the wild west, but with lots of people. Shops with their goods out on the pavement, a higgledy piggle of ramshackle buildings and goods. The building even look similar to the wild west - same single storey scale. I can hear the music, but if Clint Eastwood were to walk into town, he would bump into a lot of bodies. Hard to make an impressive entrance when you have to forge a path through a sea of humanity.. I have been in many places where there has been no one of my skin colour, but this is different, and as I write this, I realise why. It is because South Africa is not a black country : it is a country of black, white, “coloured” and Indian peoples. Being in this all black environment, which is perfectly unthreatening, feels like being a voyeur, transported into an alien environment, and it feels to me, “wrong”. I want a mixture of people - don’t like this separation. I would like to be able to record this ton - but I have left my camera behind.
After a long wait, and several calls in which the pastor tells us that he is two minutes away, he arrives. We have been informed of his mode of transport - a 1.8 l Mercedes - new ; £35,000 in South Africa. He has shiny expensive shoes. I don’t like it. Many judgments. How can someone who is so close to people with so little, drive around in something so ostentatious? I am remembering a trip to the very poor interior of Spain, in the mid 70s, and visiting church sacristies stuffed with ugly silver, and then witnessing tiny old people marvel at images of the Virgin, and being thoroughly disgusted with the Church. It is not the same here. Clearly, the churches do a huge amount, and they help communities hang together, as well as dispensing help in many forms. Nevertheless, I do not like the merc, or the shoes.
The American church / medical team has descended on this place in bright yellow T shirts and happy smiles.An hour after they arrive, there was a queue of 250 people. They have been dealing with all sorts of conditions, but primarily, it seems, the more mundane, chronic conditions which might not get seen to in a country of such need. One thousand pairs of reading glasses. Things we take for granted.
The American team has done a huge amount, in one day. I am sure that many people have cone away helped. And it has been done with enthusiasm and efficiency. Everyone here is a volunteer an has paid their own costs. We meet the Harvard professor who heads the team. There is something surreal about diving through dust tracks, in the middle of no-where, and meeting such an illustrious academic, just like that, Normally, if I wanted to meet a Harvard professor in the course of my work, I would have to work very hard at it. And lots is happening here in Africa that would not be possible elsewhere.
Doctors in Africa - there are not many. South Africa has about 1 /15th of the doctors we have in the UK. We have doctors for of population. South Africa has… And doctors are not well paid, compared with other professionals paid by the state. Most of the doctors we meet spend part of the year working in Europe or elsewhere to supplement their incomes. That, amongst the doctors who are most committed to Africa, to their people. They need to, to survive.
He American team is truly impressive - but surely, this is not the way to do health care? Or continuity, no relationship... Doesn’t Africa need something different? It does not seem to me that imposing a western style model will work - it doesn’t work in the west, because it is too expensive - how can it possibly work her?
HIV medication is quite complex. The drugs work in different ways - with HHAART, as introduced around Three different mechanisms are used to interrupt the processes of the virus - protease inhibitors, integrate inhibitor. There are many different combinations of drugs that can be used to attack the virus in this way. Over time, the virus mutates, and it is quite likely that the patient‘s medication will have to be changed to remain effective. That requires supervision, and that can be hard to get. But the biggest bar to people sticking with their mediation may well be stigma - people do not want to admit to having this disease, even to themselves.
We leave the doctors to rush off to their next rendezvous. Mixed feelings, an it is clear that the church has real power to deliver health care, which could be very useful to help get the HIVEX treatment out to those who need it most.
We travel back towards Durban to visit the pastor who is in charge of the medical programme of the church in KZN; He is a busy man. He can see the potential for the Church to be involved. It certainly has the infrastructure It runs big health programmes, considering health holistically - nutrition, exercise, water. I feel more confident in the Church’s ability to deliver health care in Africa than the hospitals. And for an evangelical church, having people in a group environment, available to listen, and in the process of receiving a gift, a somewhat mysterious treatment, has its attractions. We can see that the pastor is attracted by the thought of the new sonlds which might come to his church if it was able to offer HIVEX treatments. He is not sure that the Church has the money, and we say that, if they want this, we will find a way. His church is part of an international network, and there is money in other countries, if not here. Although, to jugde from the Mercedes and BMW, there is some. How many treatments would a new BMW Pay for?
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