June 15: Don’t need the gym when you don’t have a car

Acacia was booked solid for yesterday night because of a wedding party staying here so we had to vacate for a night. The other group of students went to Kruger and my roommate and I got reservations at another lodge in Thohoyandou. Lacking transportation, we left our suitcases in the laundry room of Acacia and walked down to Vhueni Village Lodge, maybe 4 kilometers away.

The lodge is set up like a village with round huts in the traditional style of the Venda, though made of brick instead of mud. It was a cool thought to stay in a round hut, but it doesn’t seem like round is very space-efficient. The curtain rods, the fridge, and the bed were all made for a flat wall and left a lot of empty space between the wall and the furniture. The bathroom was also pretty cramped and we had to walk through the shower to get to the toilet. Real round huts probably have less furniture and no internal plumbing and make the space work a lot better.

Since we had to leave Acacia by 10, we were at Vhueni by 11 and had a full day with nothing to do. Vhueni is even further out of town than Acacia is, so the only place within walking distance was a small shopping complex. We walked there for lunch, figuring we’d order from a pizza place that offered delivery for dinner. I was quite excited to find a chicken place that claimed to have vegetarian options but they actually didn’t. Instead I ate chips (fries) covered in hot peri-peri sauce. The more I eat of it, the more desensitized my tongue gets. They had some simple salads, but I’m hesitant to eat raw vegetables unless I know they’ve been thoroughly scrubbed/peeled in filtered water. While we were eating I looked out to see a man standing on the sidewalk with a huge semi-automatic gun and several more men wearing gun-proof vests. I was wondering if there was some sort of conflict the news wasn’t reporting, but they turned out to be guarding an armoured truck that was collecting money. There were some riots at a lecture given by the president in Limpopo last week and tear gas was thrown out, so I wasn’t jumping too far to think that something crazy was happening.

We spent the rest of the day watching whatever we could find on the four channels at the lodge (different channels than the four we get at Acacia). Around 6:30 we decided to order food, so I called the pizza place that delivers in Thohoyandou and they told me they don’t deliver, though he might have meant they couldn’t deliver at that time. We tried to call Nando’s because we saw that they deliver too, but they weren’t listed on the national Nando’s site and all phone numbers we could find were wrong. No other restaurants in town deliver and it was too dark to walk anywhere. I was almost resigned to eating a granola bar for dinner when the man at the front desk said that he had a microwave. We’d brought a package of veggie burgers, some bread, and a bottle of ranch dressing with us so we could keep them cold overnight, which was the perfect combination for a good dinner. We were able to use a microwave for the first time in a month, toast the bread, and borrow some plates from the lodge and made ourselves some ranch veggie burgers. Quite good.

I had a horrible night’s sleep, though. We retired around 10 due to lack of things to do and watch, but people outside were playing music, talking, laughing, and driving past our window until well after midnight. The rectangular door didn’t fit well into the round house, so there was a sizeable gap between it and the door frame allowing wind to shake the whole door all night long. Then the maintenance guys in the village started working around 6 to lay a brick wall right outside. It would have been a great place if it had been slightly quieter.

We checked out around 9 this morning and walked back to Acacia. It took about 40 minutes, so it was way too early to check back into Acacia. The two cleaning ladies had their hands full cleaning up after the rowdy wedding party that left bottles, cans, and chairs everywhere. To pass the time, we walked up to the markets. Sunday is church day and there was basically nobody around the markets, unfortunately. It was nice being able to walk without having to navigate through crowds, but there were also no stands open for business. We ate cheese pies for breakfast (an acquisition from the British?) and took a tour of every open store within two square kilometers. The stores always have manikins wearing comfortable-looking coloured pants outside so I went in search of those, but there were none. I was able to find a school uniform sweater in my size. The different schools have the same style uniforms in different colours, most of which are various Hogwarts house colours, so there are sweaters, pants, vests, track suits, socks, ties, and scarves in Gryffindor colours everywhere and much cheaper than getting official Hogwarts stuff. All the ones I’ve found until today were sized for a child and I looked in several stores before I found one even close to my size. The rest of the market venture was uneventful. We definitely walked 15+kilometers this weekend.

We were able to check back into the park around 12:45 and I studied for the MCAT for most of the afternoon. There was a group of guys sitting amongst a minefield of empty beer bottles that kept yelling “Baby! Baby!” at us when they saw us. They vacated and left a full bag of charcoal just sitting on the grass with all of their trash. I borrowed a braai-full from the bag and we decided to try making potatoes, carrots, and onions on the braai. I successfully got the grill going by guessing at how to do it and we were just over halfway done when the whole braai collapsed because of excessive rusting, spilling glowing coals and potatoes all over the ground. We scooped the coals back into the pan and dusted off the potatoes and I had to improvise finishing the carrots and onions. It didn’t turn out as well as I’d hoped it would and we definitely can’t use our braai again. Just as well, though, because it’s pretty tedious cooking on a braai and it’s needless since we’re not making any meat. Also, I feel bad adding to the constant smoky haze in the area due to bush fires, trash fires, and warmth fires.

I need to clarify something about the breastfeeding I mentioned in my last post. Those mothers at the discussion were breastfeeding, yes, but a huge problem in the area and the aspect of the MAL-ED project that my advisors are most interested in is that mothers don’t breastfeed correctly if they start at all. The WHO standards say that a baby should be exclusively breastfed for six months. This means no other substances ingested, including water. After this period of time, breastfeeding should continue with other foods until two years. No mothers in the area breastfeed exclusively for six months, and in fact regularly introduce solid food as early as three or four months. Several researchers and clinics are involved in figuring out why (a huge reason we had that meeting with the mothers) and changing it. The babies at the discussion were being breastfed to keep them quiet, but were also given juice, soda, and cookies in the time we were with them.

Part of the value of the MAL-ED project is identifying area-specific deficits in health education. Breastfeeding long enough is one of those. My project has more to do with things the mother can’t control, but it also will hopefully shed light on some of the intergenerational factors that affect the growth of a child and might explain predisposition towards several developmental problems.

It’s hard to believe that I only have one full week and a few days left before I go back home. I’ll be quite glad to get back to many conveniences that I never thought twice about before. Like microwaves and places that say they deliver food and actually deliver food and clean air.