First Week at The Dream Centre!

Hi everyone (ha I don't know who that actually refers to, I have a feeling that it might just be me, oh well!)


We've been here exactly a week now, and I've found it really hard but also really fun. There are one hundred and twenty patients here in total and it's strange because some of them seem fine, walking around normally, eating by themselves, playing football, with no signs of being ill but then a lot of them are in a really really bad state. 


We have a bingo night for the patients every Wednesday (they love it, about sixty of them came and played last week, although I don't think they were too impressed with my bingo calling skills, I think my South London accent caused a few problems in their understanding!). I took one of the patients in a wheelchair back to her room, she can't talk but she can totally understand what we are saying and puts her thumbs up if she likes what we're doing or screams (very loudly!) if she doesn't like it, but she also wets herself a lot and I had to try and get her back into bed. She was so heavy and her wheelchair was covered in urine, I've never seen anyone that couldn't control themsleves like that before and I found it hard to see. 

Another very shocking part of what AIDs does is to reduce the patients to a literally skeletal state. One patient called Nompomelelo has huge eyes and is very skinny, although not so much that I would be too shocked to see her, but she showed me her ID card picture from six years ago and I cannot describe how unrecognisable she was, she used to have a nice, round face and I honestly thought it was a different person, it really highlighted how AIDs totally and utterly wastes the body away, it was horrible.

We have a film night every Thursday night and we go around all the wards collecting patients (everyone loves action/comedy, Eddie Murphy and Jackie Chan seem to be the favourites, but they are sick of Rush Hour!). Jingyi and I went into one room to collect a few patients and one woman said she wanted to come but she had a blanket totally covering her so we thought it'd be fine but as soon as the blanket came off it was the most awful thing I've ever seen, she had absolutely no fat on her, her pelvis looked huge and when we tried to get her into the wheelchair it was really difficult because she had no fat that we could hold on to. I can't see any way that she will survive, she's just too sick. She came down and watched abit of the film but had to go back up soon afterwards because she had a nose bleed and was very tired just from sitting up. We've learnt that if someone is that ill that it's not always a good idea to take them out of bed. I think it's all about learning here. We've learnt to wear gloves when lifting some patients into bed (after having a few difficulties with incontinent patients!) and not to give all the patients lots of crisps and sugary drinks (after a patient vomited all over the reception floor on the film night).

However, there are lots of really good things about being here. All the patients, however ill, are pleased to see the volunteers and make jokes and try to teach us zulu (mainly to no avail! There are too many clicks!). One patient called Eric laughed hysterically and decided he would teach me how to dance in a zulu style after I demonstrated my interpretation of how English people dance (meaning a lot of flailing of arms and uncoordination!). On Friday I went with one of the patients, called S'bisiso, to the Welfare Office and sorted out his Disability Grant. It's the most bureaucratic system, it took hours, but eventually it got sorted out and he'll get R960 (about 60pounds, which seems like nothing) but he was so so happy, I said he should buy his children presents but he said he only wants to buy them tea and milk so they're not spoilt, and he was so happy to have the money, that it was really lovely to see). There is also one white English patient called Edward who is really friendly, although I regretfully had to inform him that he was under a misconception that Millwall are a decent team and that they are actually now completely rubbish! (apparently they were good in the seventies but I'm sure that can't be true! I thought they'd always been rubbish!)

We do a lot of different activities in the garden during the day (it's winter here but still about 26 degrees and really sunny!) and the patients seem to like that, and we give them juice and cake and they definitely like that! So even though it's definitely hard seeing a lot of the patients so ill and unable to do things on their own, there are also many lovely aspects.

It's also fun being with other volunteers and having them there to talk to about our experiences, we watch films together, drink lots of wine (especially after difficult days!) and go for dinner together or cook in the kitchen (well, Jingyi cooks for me while I systematically destroy the kitchen. I nearly burnt the plastic table cloth off by putting a hot pan on it and the tap exploded off and water went everywhere when I tried to turn it on, I shouldn't be allowed to touch anything!) We went to the beach in Durban for the whole weekend, which was really relaxing although I got sunburnt (as always!) and on Saturday night we went to a club called Club54 ("affectionately" referred to by locals as Club "Dirty Whore", suffice to say we most probably will not be returning!)

Anyway my hands are tired now, bye xXx 

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