Peace Corps medical really surprised me on this one- they got the word from Washington that I could get a new pair of running shoes and a bike, and they FOLLOWED THROUGH without me prodding at all. I haven’t been the most pleased with the medical care I have received here in South Africa, well, not exactly the care but the communication, availability, and level of responsiveness to my problems and queries. We currently only have one PCMO who is responsible for the medical care of all 150-ish volunteers in country so I do have to give him mad props for following through on my case and communicating with me throughout. I am thrilled to have received the attention I needed on this matter and have no complaints. I did, however, have quite the day of dealing with bureaucracy- something that has caused me (and many a volunteer) a great deal of frustration in my time here. It’s just something we deal with, but to give people who haven’t been to South Africa, or haven’t dealt with Peace Corps, an understanding of what it’s like, I want to share my experiences. I’m not complaining, I just want to document the way things work here.
Tuesday: The PCMO and I go shoe shopping at a mall. Just the two of us. Again, mad props to him for putting up with that and probably looking like my sugar daddy in the process. After purchasing a pair of running shoes we were supposed to pick out a bike that would then be purchased on another date because funds were not available that day. I come into the office at 9:30 am. Because of meeting and I don’t know what other snafoos, the money to purchase the shoes does not become available until 1:30 pm. After hours of waiting, the PCMO and I go to the mall. After the shoe purchase however, we only have time to go look at one store for bikes because I have to get home and the PCMO has to go to a meeting. The bikes are less than satisfactory so I agree to come back another morning to look at some other places.
Thursday: I am told to come into the office at 10 am to get an early start on bikes so that we can get back to my village on the same day. Late Wednesday I’m told to come in at 11 am instead. I arrive at the office at 11 and tell the receptionist I’m supposed to meet the PCMO. She tells me he’s not in today. She gets him on the phone and he explains he had to go to Nelspruit last minute so I’ll be going with a driver instead. The receptionist agrees to arrange a driver. After about an hour a driver is arranged. He has a wad of cash to go buy a bike but at the last minute another driver pulls out an old volunteer’s bike that had been left at the office. It’s in good condition, fits me, and comes with a helmet, lock, tool kit, and water bottle holder already attached. I’m very thrilled at this easy solution since I’d rather reuse a perfectly good bike than get a new one for the short period of time I have left. We still need to get the tires realigned though so we take it to a bike shop. We pay for the tune up, purchase a pump and are told that the bike should be ready in about 30 minutes. Since the driver needs to pick up another volunteer from an appointment we ask that they call us when the bike is done. The driver drops me off at the office and says he’ll fetch me when they call. I wait. And wait. And wait. In the meantime, the driver had told me he wasn’t the one who was going to drive me back to site when the bike is ready and I suspect that arrangements have not been made. I try to find the receptionist to put in a request for a driver. Nobody explained to her that I needed a driver to get the bike back to site. She says she’ll arrange it though. Still no word from the other driver on the bike though. I wait another hour, and then go to check on the transport request progress. The receptionist hasn’t done it yet. She hands me a slip to get an admin officer to sign. He signs it and finds a driver who can leave right away. The problem is the bike is still at the shop and I haven’t seen any sign of the other driver. The other driver comes and says he hasn’t heard anything but it must be done so we can go fetch the bike. The admin officer wisely decides the most efficient thing to do is have the 2nd driver, who will drive me back to site, go with me to get the bike. I go to get my stuff and meet the first driver and a 3rd driver who are ready to go. I assume they talked to driver number 2 about an arrangement. On the drive to the shop they ask me how long I’m staying in Pretoria…I suspect they didn’t talk to driver number 2. I’m right. Oh well, just a little bit more time wasted. We get to the shop, only to find that nobody told anybody that my bike needed to be worked on. It’s been sitting neglected in the back. At this point it’s almost 3 and we’re in a hurry. They fix it up while we’re waiting and we drive the bike back to the office. By the time we get back, driver number 2 is missing because he had another errand. I wait another half hour until he gets back. We drive across town to meet driver number 4 who we switch vehicles with. Then, finally we’re off to my village. On the drive back I apologize to driver number 2 for making him work late, since we don’t get to my village until 5:30. He just responds with “oh no we must take care of our volunteers. I must make sure you are ok”. What a sweet man!! A messy day, but a happy ending.
Okay, that was long. Thinking back on it, it doesn’t seem like it was really that bad. I was getting stressed out for sure, but that’s pretty much just how everything at Peace Corps/in this country goes. Mass disorganization, lack of communication, and many last minute changes of plans, but things almost always end up working out in the end.
