The Mandela Burger

Unbeknownst to me in my Soweto Toilet induced stupor, Kemi spent all last night throwing up her delicious deluxe dual Mandela burgers. So this morning, after setting her up with one of our new buckets and some nasty black currant oral rehydration solution, I joined Corine on a journey to a township an hour outside the city. There is a government building there that was never put into use, so a local group obtained permission to open a new AIDS hospice on the grounds. The nearest clinic is 30 km away and the nearest hospital over 50 km (125 miles). They estimate their potential catchment area at over 20,000 people. Corine predicts it will quickly become a de facto “casualty,” delivering babies and handling stab wounds on weekend nights.

We spent hours organizing a medicine cabinet overflowing with donated expired everything, from mouthwash to skin creams, olive oil, ginkgo biloba, aloe, various elixirs and “African blood cleanser,” in bottles that appeared to be from the 1950s and vials without ingredients or expiration dates. There was one bottle of Zyrtec from 2005, many vitamins and supplements, and no antibiotics. We also found a WWII-era Ambu bag in a leather case that was pretty cool.

We traveled out with Pastor Leonard, a small old man whose grandson, Joy, died at age 13 at Sparrow last year. He is going to manage the dry food stores at the hospice and live there full-time. He was supposed to move in this weekend, in anticipation of the first patients arriving Monday, but right before we left him something flooded everything. So now it will be another week, or two or three, before the official opening.

On the highway, there were beautiful hills and fields on either side, occasionally blanketed with herds of scrawny cows in every color. Women sold mangoes and peaches at intersections, sitting under umbrellas for shade. School children in uniform marched up and down trying to hitchhike (thumbs down here) when the thunderclouds approached, or racing each other to invisible homes. There is a wildflower called cosmos, little pink, white, and purple flowers, delicate yet hardy. They are a sign of fall’s approach, because they are in full bloom in winter.

Inbetween the open fields, neighborhoods would suddenly crop up on either side of the highway. On one side, however, would be essentially a shantytown -- corrugated metal of a diversity of bright colors, dirt gardens, women washing and children running around. Directly across the road would stand large Spanish-style homes with red or green tile roofs and stucco walls. The same dichotomy was repeated multiple times. I am told the shacks are likely filled with unwelcome Zimbabwean refugees fleeing Robert Mugabe. I don’t know which side sprang up first, whether there was a collective resource like water nearby, or whether all the intervening land is owned or marked for farming or herding or mining.

The township around the hospice is slightly more developed, with a cell phone shack and the same tin houses everywhere. Rocks hold roofs down. Outhouses are spray painted with 4-digit addresses. The red dirt roads are labeled with incongruous names like “Casablanca Street.” The gardens were impressive, with a plethora of burgeoning fruit trees, fancy flowers, high fat mealie (corn) and other vegetables. Babies were strapped to backs and waved happily if they were old enough.



We stopped for lunch with all the workers on the way home. If you’ve been wondering, McDonald’s is exactly the same in the outreaches of Joburg as anywhere in the States, with the following exceptions: a grilled chicken foldover (pita) on the value menu, perhaps because of the proximity to a Muslim area; fries being “chips”; the prices in rand; and the presence of a very large blue Insect-o-cutor overhanging the dining area. I saw bugs but no zapping.