It has been over a year since I posted on here. There are multiple reasons for this, but the primary cause for the last nine months has been an essential inability to get decent internet access. I'm now living in Swaziland and every day experience something beyond blog-worthy; I finally went into battle with blogspot this evening determined to succeed and, gosh darn it, I've emerged victorious. Welcome back to my rants! I think throwing some of my anger at the world on here will help to moderate the building up frustrations I have.
And heck, maybe somebody will learn something by reading this witterage... Stranger things have happened.
I actually wrote the following nearly two months ago for no reason other than I suddenly felt the need to document the experience. And I'm too tired this evening to come up with anything creative or entertaining, so this will have to do. An insight into the real South Africa that isn't being seen on your television screens as you peer into the country hosting the World Cup.
(As an aside, the picture is totally disconnected to the story below. They're the African Penguins at Boulders Beach in Cape Town. Awesome little creatures.)
I decided that the day shift had slightly more amenable hours – 7am to 7pm seemed somehow more feasible than a twelve hour shift in the cold and dark. I hadn't quite factored in the 5am start, allowing time to get across Johannesburg in the morning and check all necessary kit was in stock before the day started. (Notably, all necessary kit wasn't in stock, and indeed it never is. The paramedics are hopelessly underfunded and the supplies system is unnecessarily complex; it is often the case that the guys working will buy the required gear themselves. It saves time and frustration.)
At 0701, the first call of the day comes through: the radio crackles into life and gives the briefest of details. A female at such and such an address. We're in Hillbrow, one of the most notorious districts of any city in the world: once where upper class European immigrants vied to have an apartment, and now a place teeming with drug dealers, prostitutes, rapists and murderers. White visitors to the city are ill-advised to step foot into the area, and the only reason I would remain relatively safe was by merit of the fact I with the two paramedics; they're respected in the community. Most of the time.
The address is logged into a SatNav and we speed off from the station – the new Audi performs well as we screech around corners and leap through red lights. When arriving at the destination, I cautiously emerge from the car, keeping close to the two guys: the neighbourhood is full of watching eyes, crumbling houses, broken barbed wire fences, and flea-ridden, mangy dogs. We push through a fence and go round the back of the house to see a 20-something black woman, probably from Zimbabwe, lying on the ground. She's surrounded by worried looking relatives who we usher into the house so the paramedics can do their job: in this case, that is merely confirming that yes, she has died. Her three week old baby cries in the arms of his young aunt. They establish that death was not caused by a drug overdose, hear that she'd had a few breathing difficulties since giving birth, and recommend that the family call a funeral parlour.
There will be no post mortem, no autopsy. There aren't the resources, and nobody really cares. Life moves on rapidly in this part of the world. A guy comes in from next door and asks if we can bob by and see his wife – she's been feeling sick for the past few days and he figures that while there's a medical man around he should take advantage of the fact. We traipse into a small and dark room that stinks of stale sweat and food rotting on plates in the sink; the examination is brief and perfunctory, merely informing the woman that she is quite probably pregnant. She groans and rolls her eyes. I guess that another child to add to her extensive brood wasn't exactly planned.
Just as we're pulling away, a van with 'Flair Funerals' written on the side turns up. The dead woman barely fits in the back and is slotted in without care or delicacy; her sister climbs in alongside and they set off. Meanwhile, the rest of the family has arrived – all dressed in black, they've just come from another funeral.
I have some free time for the images to sink in as we head off to a local garage where the two guys get themselves strong coffee and settle onto the plastic stools. They tell me about some of the things they've seen and experienced, the Johannesburg paramedics known and respected throughout the medical world as being very much on the front lines. If you need someone who knows about stabbings and multiple gunshot wounds, about brutal slayings and horrific traffic accidents, ask these guys. They see it all. Daily. A shift without a few dead guys, violently killed, is a rarity.
We're called to an RTA – a Road Traffic Accident – shortly after the rain starts. One of the combis, the local taxis, has crashed into a wall and two women are complaining that their shins hurt. This is the kind of call the paramedics really hate: the women are clearly fine, they possibly have a few bruises, but protocol demands that they stay until the ambulance they are requesting has arrived. Waiting for the ambulance means other calls will go unanswered, and there isn't anybody else to respond to them. There is one car per district. The car for Hillbrow is parked up on a side-street, the paramedics sucking in cigarettes and exchanging jokes to pass the time. We're stuck there for nearly 90 minutes waiting for the ambulance, by which time we've missed countless calls. The guys aren't exactly subtle and don't bother to hide their frustration.
While waiting for the next call they take me down to the local market, the one where the witch doctors sell their wares. In some parts of Africa, up to 95% of people will use witch doctors in preference to western medicine; they're a huge part of life out here. They're identified by the white beads in their hair, and I see two looking into the back of a hearse that has pulled up. The potions they make often incorporate human body parts, and these two are buying direct from the funeral parlour – in broad daylight.
And then I'm rushed to the scene of another incident: a guy was trying to cut through cable with a simple saw, desperate to acquire the copper inside. Unfortunately, he chose a main power cable. Beyond a high fence topped with razor wire we can see him sitting there in a daze – barely alive. 50,000 volts have shot through him and his skin is hanging off in shreds. The worst part is, we can't get at him. The security guard is there but he gets locked into the site for the day to ensure he stays and does his job, and we are forced to wait for the company owners to arrive and let us in, the paramedics beside themselves with rage at the situation. Eventually they're allowed access and head towards the burn victim, and I figure it is wise to hang back at the car. Hang back with the gathering crowd who are jeering and pointing and taking photos with their mobile phones.
When the ambulance arrives, the man has essentially been mummified with wet bandages, a drip has been inserted and oxygen administered. One of the paramedics rides with him to the hospital because they don't trust the ambulance staff to actually take care of him on the thirty minute journey. He has 95% coverage of third degree burns to his body, and a pretty low chance of survival. A black guy has been turned white in a split second.
I'm getting a mere glimpse into the lives of these Hillbrow paramedics, and I'm not sure I can hack the rest of the day. They do it day in, day out, for months on end, and they're paid next to nothing for what they do despite working in one of the most dangerous cities in the world and in the most violent communities. Most of them are divorced or in disastrous sham marriages, with strings of broken relationships. Turning off emotions is essential in this job, and it is hard to turn those on again once you head back home; priorities are somewhat altered when you see dismembered bodies and the bloody results of brutal killings as par for the course.
At one point in the afternoon, a guy who is high as a kite on 'ganja' (the local term for a particularly strong type of marijuana) deliberately jumps into the side of our car. The way the two guys leap out to pursue him, I'm convinced they're going to beat the living daylights out of him: a broken wing mirror equates to a car that cannot be driven, and a car that cannot be driven means they're sitting around twiddling their thumbs while it is fixed – and while people die. Fixing a car out here can take months. I know. Mine was smashed into a wall by a mechanic who was driving it, and five weeks later I still don't have so much as a courtesy car and some stranger doesn't have a wall to his lounge.
The police eventually arrive but don't bother to leave their vehicle; they survey the scene, listening vaguely to both sides of the story. At some point the man we apparently 'drove into' makes note of the fact he's not actually being watched and slinks off around a corner, unobserved. No chase is given – not by the police, the two paramedics head after him but he's lost in the maze of buildings within moments. Nothing is done. And heaven only knows what is happening to the person we were on call to.
A man comes up to us and says he can cut us a new wing mirror, and since we have to hang around for an official Accident Investigator to appear we say go on, give it a shot. Fifty Rand if you can do it. He takes an old, blunt scalpel from a plastic bag, a bathroom mirror, and a sheet of newspaper. Slowly but surely, he cuts us a new mirror; he pops into a hardware shop to buy glue and sticks it on, his hands full of splinters of glass by this point. We give him a hundred because we're so impressed by his ingenuity, and are extremely grateful for making the car legal once more.
A brief visit to Hillbrow Police Station to report the incident is enough to illustrate to me why the crime levels are so high in this area: the police simply don't care. Half the time, it seems, they don't even enter the buildings where crimes have taken place because they're too scared. There is no law here. The underworld, the corrupt, they are in charge and rule by fear.
By the end of the day I am physically and emotionally drained. But I'm lucky: I get to wash my clothes, have a shower, leave behind the grime and the smells of Hillbrow, and wake up the next morning knowing I never need to go back there again if I don't want.
No comments:
Post a Comment