Beach Day

What’s the first thing you remember about playing in water? Maybe it is a fond recollection of running through a sprinkler with your brother or sister on a hot summer’s day or learning to water-ski on a lake. Water has always been such a huge part of my life. At every stage I have such vivid memories of summers being occupied by water activities, good friends and family.

I can instantly recall a hot Delaware summer when I was three or four where I learned to swim underwater by diving for quarters my Grampie had thrown into the pool- a high incentive when you got to keep what you found. Or splashing in the waves in Maine with my brother Colin and cousins Benny, Kayla, Kristina and Sarah when I was nine. I remember spending endless summer days after drivers ed on the boat with Heather and Tara perfecting our waterskiing, learning to master knee boarding and talking about our crushes. Or making my way to G’s boat no matter what time of day (5am!?) just to take a nap. Water has always played a huge importance in my life. I really can’t envision what my youth would have been without it.

That brings me to South Africa. The property we live on is stunning. Our stone cottage is quaintly set amid a few other stone structures, entangled in a maze of native South Africa flowers. Our pool is in the lower left part of our property adjacent to our amphitheatre (yes, amphitheatre…this place is outstanding). The pool overlooks the most breathtaking view I have ever seen; the valley of 1000 hills, on a clear day the Indian Ocean and always the homes of my patients and friends. The exact spot where my struggle with water begins.

After every long sweaty day at work in the hot South African heat or after every run I am tempted to wash away my stress in our pool or venture to the beach in Durban. Both I have done and both I will continue to do; however both cause me anxiety. The pool which we quickly fill with water from the hose when it starts to get low, sits two feet away from the cliff to the valley.

The distinction between the haves and the have nots has never been so unmistakably evident in my life.

When I heard my boss talking about how in the past former volunteers arranged a day to take patients from the Respite Center to the beach I was immediately interested. As per usual arranging a day and time to go proved to be tricky- South Africa runs on its own schedule. Mary-Kate and I planned to go three days in a row and were faced with bad weather, no transportation and abnormally busy work days. There were many countless exclamations of “TIA” (this is Africa) coupled with a shoulder shrug and eye rolls; a common expression in our household when things take a bit longer than anticipated.

Eventually we were able to gather 8 of our pajama clad patients and pile them into cars. I had the privilege of driving what they so fondly refer to as the Bucky which is no more than a overly kind name for the most impossible to drive truck with a covered back I have ever seen. Patric a patient sat up in the front with me and four others sat on egg crates in the back…another TIA moment. I prayed the whole way that the horrendous clutch wouldn’t cause us to lurch forward sending my patients flying or the breaks wouldn’t suddenly give out.



As we were driving to the beach I was talking with Patric a man in his mid thirties. I asked him if he was excited for a beach day and he shyly admitted that he had never been really played in water let alone been to the beach before. He said had heard stories of children having fun in water when it was hot, but was never able to make the half an hour trip to the Indian Ocean. I sighed realizing that in our rush to get out the door we had forgot to bring a change of clothes and towels, but assumed the patients would stick their toes in at most.

When we arrived at the beach I watched the patients run to the water and then into the water. Patric held back tentatively. Step by step he approached the ocean. He looked down at the water and up at me. With a nod of reassurance I gave him the go ahead. He rolled up his pants and stepped knee high into the water. Soon after he coaxed me in, clothes and all. Patric in his soaking wet clothes was the vision of youth.




I don’t think Mary-Kate or I have ever seen a smile so big and genuine. Moments later he was running in the waves, splashing, laying down on the shore and letting the wave’s crash over him.

I know that that although my past opportunities present a challenge for living a simple life here it is not something to feel guilty about, at least I am recognizing the injustice. It was such a joyful feeling hearing hours of laughter emerge from patients whose lives had been on the line just weeks earlier. Sandcastles and visions of sand Mary-Kates were made, Polony (a nasty hot pink version of our very own nasty bologna) sandwiches and ice cream cones were eaten, barriers broken, dreams accomplished, friendships formed and illness forgotten – even if just for an afternoon.

A story without the words

It has been weeks since I have had the urge to sit down and write a blog. It hasn’t been due to lack of excitement, emotion or experience in our lives, but rather an intentional avoidance. One due to frustration and annoyance – writers block of some sorts

It is so hard to find a way convey what happens here. I spend time typing paragraphs upon paragraphs only to spend a second deleting them before they are finished. It is so difficult to transmit emotions, events and perspectives and even harder to paint that portrait with dignity and accuracy.

My words, however elongated and eloquently strung together or short and sweet can not fully describe the elation in a patients face when they hear they are well enough to go home. Or the fear and shame in the eyes of an ill middle aged woman as it takes myself and three others desperately grasping an edge of the blanket she is coddled in to carry her up a hill to our car, knowing this will be the last time she is at home.

I don’t have the words to accurately relay the feelings of peace and security that surround me each morning as I sit around the breakfast table with my roommates preparing for another day. Or the feeling of relief I am flooded with when I hear that an HIV test comes back NEGATIVE juxtaposed by the blanket of misery that envelopes me when I hear that one word, POSITIVE, which changes a life forever.

Words won’t let you smell the smells I’m bombarded with everyday upon entering the Respite Center or see lines of worry in the faces of my newfound friends. They won’t let you feel the sweat dripping down our backs as I struggle to move a patient or the warmth I am filled with when I witness a patient hug another patient.

Minutes after I write them, my words become part of someone else’s story; one that I was blessed to observe.

A story without the words is just a collection of foreign memories; memories without a name are just faces of the past. So I suppose that’s the point. My struggle with writing is internal, something to be conscious of, but to not be bound by. My words give the experience a name; the stories a face.

Love another one

I was surprised when Lindiwe asked me to wash her own face during her routine bed bath. Typically patients who can not make it through a shower are bathed in their beds – head to toe by myself or one of the Home Based Care workers. As I handed Lindiwe her washcloth I was silently thankful for her newfound strength, a sign perhaps that she would be on the upswing.

Her bath was finished, her hair braided. A slow morning at the Respite so I sat with her telling her about the upcoming weekend. Beccas brother Sam was in town – Any suggestions of things he should see or do? She fiddled with my hair, her conversation jumping between places Sam should visit and talking about how “white” my hair was (in texture not color yet, thankfully)

She paused.

She took one deep breath and she asked me to help her lay down saying she wasn’t feeling well. As she neared the pillow her eyes rolled into the back of her head. Her body grasping for air, her breaths shallow.

I just sat there frozen watching as the supervisor called the home based care trainees over to take their turn at poking and prodding her. Feeling her feet to see if they were getting colder. Lifting up her arm only to abruptly let it go and see if she has the energy to let it down slowly on her own or if it would just drop to the bed. I looked around me and I realized that there were 14 people standing and staring at her. She went from being my main source of conversation that morning to the first death the new HBC workers were going to witness.

No words of consolation were being spoken. No prayers were being offered. No hands gently touching her, helping her on her way. The sound was that of shuffling bodies shifting to get a better view. Eyes fixated on her bed like those of passer-by’s during a highway accident,.

I looked down to see my hand wrapped around Lindiwe’s. I don’t remember initiating hand holding, all I knew was that she should not feel alone.

As seven am turned to eight, eight to nine, and nine to ten the HBC workers interest in the dying process peaked and tedium overtook; one by one they each slipped under the curtain and found a seemingly more appealing patient to observe.

I snapped back into reality started quietly singing “Amazing Grace” over and over while simultaneously counting the seconds between her breaths.

2 seconds. 3 seconds. 3 seconds. 6 seconds. 8 seconds. 14 seconds. 14 seconds. 14 seconds. 22 seconds. 29 seconds. 47 seconds.

Lindiwe, age 40 passed away. She left behind three children. She was the first death I have witnessed on my own since arriving in South Africa. I am a mix of emotions. I ached knowing that this was the reality of life here, but at the same time I felt like I did my job well.

Life in South Africa is delicate balancing act, one that I am only beginning to see let alone understand. Death is such a part of life here that when it happens people pause, pay their respects and move on. I struggle with not letting my emotions and my traditional ways of dealing with death put me in a choke hold.

Baba Benjies knack for rearranging words was brought to my attention by a previous volunteer, Mary. Just as she remembers from her time in South Africa, I often hear Benjie mutter some mix up of a common phrase. Instead of saying "love one another" he often says "love another one". I think South Africa and Lindiwe's death will teach me a thing or two about just being in the moment and saving the figuring out of what it all means for another day. Lindiwe's death was very sad, but I know that my job here is to love. And love another one I will.

iPhasika elijabulayo ~ Happy Easter from across the world

Wishing all my family and friends a very happy Easter. I miss you all an unhealthy amount, but I am blessed to be spending my Easter Sunday at the Zulu Mass with the three girls, Sineads parents and sisters, then we are all off to lunch with the priests and the sisters followed by delivering homemade cookies and chocolates to the patients at the Respite and Hillcrest Hospital and visiting friends in the valley.
iPhasika elijabulayo

All my love always