Sunday 20 July 2008

Be The Change

I'm still feeling pretty average but I wanted to share this with you all:

BE THE CHANGE YOU WANT TO SEE IN THE WORLD

Some bloke called Ghandi

Sunday 13 July 2008

TYPHOID FEVER

The delay in posting has been due to the aforementioned 'fever.' I apologise :)

After 6 months on the (dirt) road; 5 communities, successes, stresses, sadness and learnings, Score on the Move came to an end. For me, it was rather a stilted conclusion to a crazy 6 months; I was sleeping. To be more accurate, I could not actually move out of bed. Something hit me hard, and however much I wanted to; physically I was broken. And so the story goes:
The last community Tiyani were participating in the local Cup of Heroes competition. The Cup of Heroes is one of SCORES three program areas; under which many projects (eg. Score on the Move) take place. The idea is communities hold their own local tournaments in un14 and un16 soccer and netball. The winning teams or best individuals qualify for Regional event, where the community play other communities that are nearby ('nearby' denotes a 300k radius.), the winners progress to the national tournament. A large part of it is 'Scoring for Social Change,' so the teams receive points for doing community based activity and cultural components. As the Score on the Move team were in the community it was a great opportunity to work with the community volunteers to create a day to remember. So we did. We canvassed, fund-raised and my team organised the netball competition. Should have been a great day, unfortunately I lasted 5 minutes, hitched a lift home and slept for the day, and the night. The following day, in traditional stress filled panic style our combi was still in the garage for repairs and so we had only a few hours to get to the Kruger. I was fading in and out of semi consciousness on the front seat; clearly adding no value to proceedings. Our tardiness meant I had no time to see a doctor before we motored on into the Kruger; past elephants, springbok and giraffes. Bad idea. The next morning we motored out of the Kruger; past elephants, springbok and giraffes, me still rolling around in the front seat. The doctor was good, he gave me time and attention and most importantly an injection in my bum. I'm not sure what it was for, but for a blissful hour afterwards I felt good. He also asked the important question: 'any other symptons?' I replied 'I'm not sure if it's relevant but for the past 2 weeks I've wanted to kill people.' On reflection, the injection was probably a sedative. Suffice to say, I did not see any more animals, in fact I did not get further than a guest house at the Kruger gate, where I stayed in bed for 3 days. Things should have been looking up, the group travelled to Pretoria for 'End of Service.' The illness travelled with me. Still lacking a diagnosis I was sure it would pass. How wrong could I be.
Typhoid Fever.
That's right, the 'old school' disease around for centuries; caught by contact with human poop. Nice. Actually, not at all nice. Hideous, de habilitating, exhausting, potential holiday wrecking and still in the system. I don't want to bore you all, and I know I cannot get the sympathy I crave being here, and 'you' all being elsewhere but it's highly unpleasant and I'm hoping things improve soon.
Save the 'shit' jokes, I think I've heard them all... :)