siyabonga: thank you

Many thanks to all for the words of support, and offers to send cameras; with such a long journey, I am afraid of when/if it might arrive, and if it would arrive in one piece! And Gwen, your words of comfort went a long way. Pat, I reformatted everything, reset everything, and the cam has been more on than off; let's hope it will take some photos of the traditional healers' conference coming up. We're planning a quick trip to Pietermaritzburg, so I will buy another camera there...From now on, I will try to be more like my tech-wise friend Fusco and buy the latest model and ebay it as soon as a newer one comes out, to cut my losses! I wish I could write all of you, but internet is limited; if we come across a wireless joint sometime during our travels, I will go correspondence-crazy, I promise...

Friday went significantly better than the last posting, with some eye opening testimonials from the Home Based Carers (HBCs), unpaid holy women who travel many kilometers on foot to care for the sick in their homes. She presented us with a sweet-smelling grass basket, because Zulu tradition dictates that a gift must be given when a new baby arrives, as it is our first time here. Vusi is an incredibly eloquent translator and excellent driver who saves our lives on a daily basis; he is a pastor and musician, which adds to his sensitivity in these hard to bear situations. Phumzile is essential as always, and we will be sad to see this heroine leave at the end of June to attend a community development course in Canada; but also informative to hear the grassroots solutions being implemented around the world...I wish all governments were humble enough to admit the wrongdoings and try out each other's successful programs in health care, education, waste management, etc...

The CD4 counts of the patients arrived, with a shock: our healthiest-seeming patient had a count of 20. You can never tell with HIV; so the HBC will accompany her to the clinic tomorrow morning, so that she can start ARV training asap. Our intervention has been a big dilemma in our minds; we met a doctor from the north during a hike (pictured...wow), who was supportive but also questioned the sustainability of it; once we, and our car, leave, will the patients be able to continue getting timely refills on the pills, or go off of them and risk becoming drug-resistant and not be able to continue? The best that we can do is continue to provide taxi fare to the HBCs and keep in contact from afar. This film, which began on the narrower premise of observing the ARVs effects on the patient's body, now encompasses the myriad social obstacles that prevent people from getting the care that's there. We can't waste time and energy fretting over the things we can't control, but do the best we can with what we can offer now, and with what we hope that the film can do.

rain

Yesterday, izolo, wednesday, lwesithathu, was disastrous and infuriating.

It began with jitters, maybe from eating my breakfast too fast, or from not sleeping well the night before, or from starting at 5am to be on time for the doctor appointment at 9:30, to be on time to get the patients' blood mailed out to do the CD4 count, to see if any of them qualify for ARV treatment. 200 or lower is needed: once we found out how long and convoluted the process of getting ARVs is after you qualify makes that number ridiculous: you would be long dead, and flat out broke from the transportation costs and difficulty just getting to the adherence classes, which go on for weeks, and which many patients can't get to once. So we're reassessing the budget and time frame, wondering what we could possibly accomplish with these obstacles...we must stick to the promises we have made to the patients and their families, but there will be no knowing whether the patient will be able to even get, let alone continue treatment.

Of course, we didn't know any of this when the day started out, raining, but that was ok since we were filming in a taxi to show how the difficulty of getting around is the main reason that a person cannot adhere to the medication. Tiny kids cover enormous distances alone every morning and afternoon for school. They wave and shout 'abelungu!' (white people!) When the roads are smooth, cars go fast over the hills and curves, and there is no room for pedestrians. We went to a private doctor, who kindly allowed us to film in his practice and invited us to dinner (the health department here does not allow it, after being shown in a bad light by other programs).

After the CD4 count, it was off to the hospital, 40 minutes away, where after a few hours of waiting, our 3 very sick patients were refused; we were told to bring them to another clinic, 40 minutes away, where they would be transported by ambulance to that same nospital. Senseless, but we did it, and only one was admitted into the ambulance; then we were told that if she wasn't admitted to the hospital for whatever reason, she would be dropped on the side of the road in the middle of the night in town, at least an hour from her home in the mountains. Another patient was left in the rain, and died the next day when this happened. Suddenly health care sounded much more frightening than home care.

Reasonably, we took the patients home, back to where we started 12 hours before. This morning, we took one, a mother of many worried children, to the clinic, and were told that 3 weeks of classes were necessary even to be considered for ARV treatment, which could take 5 months. I can't believe how the AIDS counselors and clinic staff can stick to this impossible protocol when they live in the same community. It has to change, or the entire culture will not survive.

The clouds lay in heavy blankets around the mountains this morning after yesterday's rains, mist in the valleys making each hilltop its own golden island in a smoky sea. We drove above and below them, swimming in invisibility, silhouettes of women and children disappearing into the thick air. I would have liked to have filmed it, but we were running late for the clinic appointment. And I'm sorry not to have pictures to post, as my digital camera finally died, after our passionate affair of the past four years. Sometimes it decides to work, but mostly flashes 'no memory stick': any sony users out there with advice? Love to you all; you shine like the stars you are from this distance

contact info for the next few weeks...

...I think at least until mid-June...

Anthony's B+B
Carol Irish
PO Box 448
Bergville 3350
KwaZulu Natal
South Africa

we have internet!

Millions of things slip past your eyes all the time, when you're concentrating on just one thing, or being 'free-headed' as my old landlord Kenny says. I skimmed over faces in NYC, scanning for familiar ones. Consistency is nice, soft, and suffocating; tasting something new records the moment in your head, and it must be the best feeling in the world to realize that as it happens; trimming the vines that routine wraps around your eyes while they are closed to the complications that click and buzz and spark out- and inside of your head. Most of the time I'm floating, feeling secured by the love that is there, but not anchored by it, in a steady state, entertained here and there by replays of the best memories. I met a woman from Lesotho at an AIDS meeting in NYC, who said, "Thank you for leaving your beautiful life to do this." Beautiful and unruffled, but guilt sticks to the back of the cheap price tags and the trash I put out there in its various forms: the cost of this convenience and all of those rabbit holes to what is so horrible it must be hidden past what is immediate and before me now; I can feel the sadness starting from what I was only imagining before—

Last night we could see lightning from 20 miles away, flashing pink on the black clouds last night, while driving home from visiting new friends in the Drakensburg ('dragon lands' to settlers, and Ukhahlamba, 'barrier of spears' through Zulu eyes) mountains, beautiful pale blue and looming over golden grass fields and rough-edged acacias, a UNESCO World Heritage site. Phumzile, our incredibly hard working friend and co producer, has taken us everywhere to try everything, and know everyone. The past few computerless days:

Wednesday: arrived from Durban with Vusi, our very kind driver-translator-Zulu teacher-in-one; excellent home-cooked meal by Carol, the owner of the B+B, with an eye-opening discussion with workers from Broadreach and an engineer who are also staying here. As well as 2 big dogs, 2 very small siamese cats, and an African Grey parrot, who doesn't speak but whistles now and then.
Thursday: The new best breakfast ever eaten (insert everything good you can imagine here. And we'll be here for a few more weeks...!) Phumzile had meetings and the schedule worked out, set to begin filming on Monday(!). Met with the director of Worldvision, and her great two dogs (one looks like our old Malamute, Kooska), cat, and house, the second area we'll be staying in. Drove up to the hut of a traditional healer, held hands with his lovely little baby, and fished for familiar words to try and understand the conversation he was having with Phum—Cat, you would be so interested in her work, integrating traditional medicine with western, for a wider acceptance of both methods—and were offered coconut biscuits and Sprite. Watched the pink lightning that no camera is fit to capture, yet...

Friday: Phum brought us to an ARV support group meeting, where she moderated a discussion with the home based carers and their patients on local beliefs about sexual behavior and HIV transmission; over just the past few days the depth and intricacies of the problem have been revealing itself not little by little, but in huge gaping crevices that might make the film about twelve hours longer...this meeting might have been the heaviest realization of this; it's especially important to indicate that protection is still needed while on ARVs. I knew that it was hiding somewhere in a dark corner of my mind, the thought that extending life through ARVs could lead to more infections; but that had been far outweighed by the benefits of raising a child, living out a life. One person has died every day that we've been here.

On the beautiful side of life, everyone we've met has been warm and supportive. We've been fed enormous plates of chicken with rice and sweet boiled bread, mashed yams, and a sour corn porridge. I love how the huts rise up from the ground of their color, and have no dark corners, because they are round. No vinyl siding to distract from the main beauty here, which are these MOUNTAINS...

It's all become very real, and happening very fast...

One night of deep horizontal sleep after 2 1/2 days of vertical sleep is a beautiful thing; strange how keeping so still on the plane can make you feel like you've run a marathon. Last night we had dinner at Sarah's favorite Indian restaurant with Cazie, a daughter of one of the doctors here who is interested in interning on the film. She's super bright and energetic, so it was a shame that my head was still in zombie mode. She's also fluent in Zulu and a number of other languages, and can show us some great hikes + views up in the Drakensburg mountains. I ate a dosa that was the length of my torso, so I was expecting great dreams with the combination of potatoes (wicked dreams: try it sometime), sleeplessness, and malaria pills, but I woke up with no memory and numb arms...to a breakfast of mango juice, bananas with yogurt and coffee. It's much warmer than we expected, and the air is kind and barely there, + filled with birdsongs.

We pick up the car at 2, and it's 2 hours to Bergville...

through time zones + ozones

I see many of my new york friends about as often as I see my foreign ones; uncrossing train lines + the busy-ness of everyone makes big gatherings rare, which made saturday night at barbés all the better; no real goodbyes, just genuine support and love from our friends, you mahhvelous people...

Sunday went smoothly, early at the airport and no extra weight charges(!), along with the eerie politeness of the gorgeously dressed Singapore Airlines staff. The seats were bright purple and they gave you matching socks and a wee tube of toothpaste. After a singapore sling, stroganoff and an ice cream bar, and there were about seven million international movies to chose from: heavenly. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid was even playing, and I gazed lovingly at the young Paul Newman, so grateful that he had put us in this place. A German man complimented my lederhosen, and asked if we could switch. But they were a gift from Sarah, who was sitting beside me, so I declined.

Then came a day long layover at the Frankfurt Airport, where I have great memories of the best breakfast of my life at an airport hotel, when stranded in a snowstorm once with three girls from Italy. This time, we met two guys from Romania and Macedonia en route to film a UNESCO festival in the Philippines, also shooting on a Canon XL1, (we have the XL2, but we're too classy to brag about that sort of thing...). They're also shooting *and* editing the whole thing in two weeks, so go to Romania if you want something NOW. So Thing With No Name has its first spot in the film festival of a mountainous Macedonian town!

And now, at 2:20 pm Tuesday, we've finally taken our socks off to cool our feet in the balmy Durban air...birds are cooing in the garden outside of the little apartment we have for the night, and it's so nice to feel the outside again...

the birds in the bbq

Stayed up till five last night, fitting and refitting, tightening, rolling, padding the breakables and praying they pass the carry-on commandments. Then I awoke to the loveliest Saturday, endured the post office, and ate some empanadas by the lake with Andrew, where we witnessed a Canadian goose attack a family of four in a paddle boat. The baby mourning doves that hatched under the barbecue on our fire escape learned to fly this morning, all the way to the biggest tree in the backyard...though we fly tomorrow, we arrive Tuesday; the day of May 15th, 2006 will never exist for us, said Sarah. Leaving on Mother's day, and erasing my parents' anniversary...not the best daughter to my incredible parents this year; but we all gotta fly sometime...

three days to takeoff...

Greetings to our friends, supporters, investors of time, services, love, and finances...

The beach could be a block away tonight, with this moist air. The apartment is bare, the equipment has been obtained (after months of research and dreaming...and budgeting...), I'm down to five long skirts and minimizing to fit more more more for this little camera friend that will cling to my hand every waking hour. I'm looking forward to the muscles that will grow, in hands and eyes and neuron-speed, as the new environment takes definition.

Still unreal, and completely relieving that this is happening; it couldn't have without you.