The first day of kindergarten was postponed and, instead, I went with the farm manager to Windhoek, the capital. A family of four from the staff rode in the back of the truck. This was the family of Anna, the little girl I have been playing with and trying to teach English. Anna’s parents were taking her to the doctor because of her ongoing cough, which is not getting better and which she has now passed to her baby sister. We dropped the four of them—mother, father, preschooler, and toddler—alongside the road, near a shanty town, and continued into the city to do the shopping for the farm. As we drove on, I saw a woman with a club foot, hobbling down the street on crutches.
Here I feel somehow connected with the time of my grandparents in the southern U.S. Black Namibians, which I think are about 90% of the population, are everywhere: walking or sitting along the streets, waiting tables, cooking food, working cash registers, assisting in stores, driving taxis, gardening, doing manual labor… But you walk into an office and suddenly it’s all white Namibians. At our farm, the white mechanic and the white office manager eat at the table with the guests; none of the black staff do. And, from what I have seen, there seems to be no shame or embarrassment in this; it’s accepted as natural.
The feeling of superiority and inevitability I sense from time to time from white Namibians is something my grandparents would have agreed with. But, coming from modern-day U.S., my perspective is from the other side of reform, so I know more is possible. I certainly have a new respect for all the progressive people and ideas that changed life in America over the last three generations.
And I think what this kindergarten really needs is a black volunteer, who can be a role model for these kids in a way that I cannot be.
When we picked Anna and her family up again on the way back—we had about three square feet left in the back of the truck—I heard some bad news. The medical clinic was closed today, and the only doctor her father could find was too expensive. So Anna was not treated and is still coughing.
Hang in there. It sounds depressing, but think of the good you will be doing for the kids. Even if it is just a white person that treats them the way they should be treated.
ReplyDeleteThe phenomenon where "the medical center is closed today" (without warning) is actually quite common in countries as poor as Namibia. Sometimes this is the result of misguided or poorly planned aid projects, where someone funds the construction of a clinic but not its operating costs. More often, it is because health workers are forced to take care of other things that in developed countries would not be their responsibility. For example, in most parts of Mozambique, it is clinicians' responsibility to pick up vaccines from the provincial capital, a system that can take them out of the clinic for days, often taking the ambulance with them.
ReplyDeleteVillageReach is a charity involved in improving health care system logistics, which has to be among the least sexy possible aid projects. And yet, in my opinion, it has among the best, or perhaps even the best, evidence of impact of any charity worldwide.
If Western countries want to help solve these problems, they will need to redirect aid dollars from sexy or intuitive projects like water or shoes and toward hard-to-explain ones with demonstrated impact. I am hopeful, of course, but don't hold your breath.
Cheers,
--Ian