Strike Season

Wow, it has been a long time since I have written. Most every time I go to write I think: where to start? Then, I feel overwhelmed by how much there is to write -- and the tremendous task of putting into words all I am experiencing/learning/doing -- so I don't write at all.

ANYway- the main drama at the moment in South Africa is the ongoing strike which has crippled most of the country for the past week. A basic overview: the public servant unions (which includes nurses, teachers, social workers, police, cleaners) have declared an indefinite strike in response to the government refusing to give them a 8.4% pay increase plus significant increased housing allowance. Several public hospitals have virtually shut down, with patients being blocked from entering the hospital (we went a pregnant woman in an ambulance last week to the hospital and the ambulance returned her an hour later, saying they were refused entrance), and staff being threatened if they do work. A doctor told me yesterday that she was actually chased up into her office by protestors and the police had to intervene!

So this means that kids are not going to school, if they attend public school, and today several of my co-workers received text messages to fetch their children from private schools because the strikers were infringing on private school campuses. It also means that patients are delivering babies at home, HIV patients are being denied treatment at some hospitals, and as for my expired visa -- I have no chance of getting it now that home affairs is also on strike.

In other news, Ari leaves in a week, and as his time draws to a close we are busy running around and seeing all the things we didn't manage to see in 5 months. I have decided to go away to a HIV clinic out in the very rural area for a week with an American friend (who went to UCSB, interestingly enough), right after Ari leaves, which I think will break up the sadness of his absence.

I started the 'Healthy Sexuality' (read: sex ed + sexual violence prevention) programme at a local township school about a month ago, complete with the usual South African complications, only to have it canceled the following three weeks due to the all-encompassing Strike. But one of these days we will go back, and then I will have stories to tell of my new career as a sexual educator.