Day 57, The Zulu people have a reputation as being a warrior race and a fearless people, with kings such as Shaka Zulu and proud tales of old battles. Until today I had thought there was only one thing they were afraid of, but now I have found there are two.
The first is dogs. They do not like dogs, the bigger they are, the further they stand. On several occasions, whilst walking with my friend and his gentle Alsatian, I have noticed that Zulu people will actively walk on the other side of the road. I have seen genuine fear in a group of teenagers’ faces as she trundles along in her light beacon collar. It does amuse me as she is such a non threatening dog and very much a part of our social setup. However from a local perspective they have grown up with dogs being either wild, rabid creatures that can maim and kill or a reminder of apartheid South Africa when they were a genuine symbol of oppression and fear.
The weather in Mseleni has been changeable of late and today’s storm showers revealed that the Zulu fear of canines is only surpassed by their fear of lightning. During the collective ward round in the morning the skies had started to grey and the rain had begun to fall. As we heard the deep rumble of thunder you could feel the uneasiness amongst the nursing staff. When the lightning begun the patients seemed agitated, particularly the ones by the window. The conversation briefly turned to discussions about people being struck by lightning before we parted to our various wards.
About 20 minutes later a nurse approached me and said, “Doctor, there is an emergency in OPD!” I duly rushed there to find the department rammed full of school kids, about 100 teenagers all in uniform. They ranged from the merely wailing and limping to the ones thrashing about on the gurneys. The tiny cubicles, usually uncomfortable with three were rammed with half a dozen groaning adolescents.
The initial objective was to turf out the time wasters or “debride” them as one of my colleagues put it. I scanned through the ones with no marks and full mobility and duly showed them the door and they slinked away quietly. Not entirely sure of what I was meant to be looking out for I wrote on the hands of anyone I wasn’t sure about and moved them to one side. I spent more than just a few seconds with the ones with burn marks on their clothing.
There was one kid who was causing a commotion on trolley and appeared delirious without any real obvious sign of injury. The preacher that was stood around and praying loudly in Zulu for everyone to hear did not help the situation much. The mass hysteria that prevailed was both mind boggling and comical but was only partly propagated by their innate fear of lightning. The rest was just simply juvenile behaviour as I did spy a few of the boys taking extra care in comforting the obviously terribly distressed girls.
Hopefully the next thunderstorm will be in the school holidays.
Oh... there I was expecting Hysteria by Muse... you dissapoint me.
ReplyDeleteYou know I aim to disappoint you. Of course if I went down the hysteria theme it would've been Def Leppard
ReplyDelete