A Case of Mistaken Identity



Today is the penultimate day in Munsieville. The health and safety team presented games and materials for the forthcoming Tshepo festival. These games consisted of ‘Pass the paraffin’, Spot the hazard’ and ‘Stop, drop and roll’. This is a game developed around a rap devised by our own Bob Dillin. Here it is…..’’Don’t run, scream and burn…..just stop, drop and roll….’. This is based on the key evacuation message from the Paraffin Safety Association but with cool moves!

The team also visited 13 creche facilities to evaluate the health and safety improvements from last year's visit whilst delivering face painting materials. This created great excitement among the children as face painting is loved by all in the community.

Those following our blog will have read about the humanitarian mission to provide a bed for a lovely lady whose name is Happiness. This was delivered today by Bob and Robert and was greeted by much warm grateful emotion. This was expressed by Happiness as the best Christmas present ever!

One light hearted event which occurred recently was a case of mistaken identity. This was a result of mixing up the names of the various volunteers here in Munsieville. Tidimalo and Buitomelo whose names sound similar when spoken quickly (especially Bob), resulted in the wrong person being collected for a meeting. Poor Tidimalo was unexpectedly collected by Bob and Arif instead of Buitomelo and both were left quite perplexed although were too polite to make a fuss. Bob did apologise and all is forgiven!  

On Wednesday the health team visited The Hope Centre, run by the USA branch of Project Hope, which covers the two communities of townships of Zandspruit and Cosmo City which includes both formal and informal structures.  The clinic, which opened fully three months ago, runs weight, blood sugar and blood pressure screening from a gazebo which is moved to a different area three times a week.  Those with signs of diabetes or hypertension are then referred to the clinic. The clinic is very organised and covers a catchment area of 200,000 people.  There are plans to expand the work to cover retinopathy screening and also for teams of local student nurses to gain experience by screening in the inhabitant’s homes.

In the afternoon the health team visited the Hands of Compassion health clinic in the countryside which is ran by one of the nurses who worked at the Munsieville clinic last year.  She was full of energy, enthusiasm and ideas and she enjoyed the benefits of having more space for the patients including segregated areas to reduce the spread of infection between patients.

The evening, we all enjoyed visiting the Lesedi Cultural Experience. This involved the opportunity to buy local crafts and then be taken by a ‘tribal warrior’ around Zulu, Basotho, Pedi and Xhosa mock villages.  As well as leaning some words and expressions from the local languages we were treated to a fantastic display of dancing and we joined in, before enjoying a meal of crocodile and ostrich casseroles!

Nicola and Duncan