Community Capers (2)

We just can’t go anywhere without something funny or bizarre happening…

Back in July, when we did community orientation we met a fantastic old guy who is the Chairman of a Village Health Committee – he has commandeered an old building in the village and it is now used as a sort of health centre. We were impressed by his drive and enthusiasm for helping his community and when he asked if we could help him try and improve the place we agreed.

So, we organised that we’d go back this week with the community health team from the hospital when they did their monthly Under 5 and Family Planning clinic. We were told to be ready at 9 so after hiding out in our offices after worship we went and waited by the car. Of course, again, we waited and waited for things to get organised but amusement this time was provided by an enormous Chameleon that wandered by, hesitanting sticking his feet out, testing the ground, then moving on an inch. He made it all the way across the path, into the grass and up the tree, his beady eyes doing rapid 360s to check I wasn’t getting to close.
Sister Whatsit then hopped in the car and we were ready to leave but I hadn’t got further than starting the engine when the driver of the other truck came over to tell us we had a flat tyre – oh bugger, bugger! Hadn’t noticed it ourselves but then I was so busy having continuing issues with locking the house (the key never works for me) that I didn’t look at the tyres. Anyway, quick as a flash they decided to change it for us – and suddenly there was quite a crowd! The anaesthetist who happened to be passing showed us who to extricate the jack, someone else whipped on a pair of spare tracky bums over his smart trousers and wriggled himself underneath Baby Beasts undercarriage to position it. 10 mins later, all was done, the wheel was popped in the back of the truck and we whipped off to Makwasa to deposit it at the tyre fixing shack. They squirted some air in the other tyres for us and then we set off…marvellous!

The road wasn’t too bad at all considering all the rain recently and we arrived much sooner than I expected – lots of ladies with babies were waiting outside like last time. We greeted Mr Bonya and the Lady secretary from the Committee too and then embarrassingly for us, presented the buckets, bowls, cups and soap he asked us for with great ceremony. For such a small donation it was far too big a thank you and we just wanted to hide. Everyone was so smiley and friendly and it was so good to see their nice healthy little ones, podgy wrinkles showing underneath their odd assortment of clothes. We weighed lots of babies underneath a tree outside and I had two lovely but grubby cuddles.

All done, we set back off for home, stopping at our guard Mark’s place as he’d turned up at the clinic – we had no idea he lived round there so it was nice to see and know that the help will benefit him and his village. We had no idea either than he has 6 children – he only looks about 12 himself and we discovered that his previous guarding experience actually consists of being a Banana Watchman – not quite the references you’d expect but he’s pretty good and we like him.

We collected our fixed tyre – nail puncture - but all mended with Bostick! Good, good.