I dreamed of getting the fuck out of Africa

If you mentioned South Africa to me, in any context, and perhaps even in passing, I would smile awkwardly and change the subject. This is because South Africa cost me the following:

• approximately $6,000
• a month of sleep
• 4kg
• a pantload of bad karma

When I was twenty-one and full of goodwill and energy, I applied to go overseas and perform 6 months of volunteer work. “Sure,” I lied during my phone interview, “I love kids!” And then, “Oh yeah, small towns are awesome!” Lord only knows why I decided to get myself into this, but (similar to my decision to go to uni) I was bored and it seemed like a good idea at the time.

And so, at the crack of 2008, I flew to South Africa, where I attended a 2-day orientation program in Johannesburg. The gist of this seemed to be, “do not take drugs, do not stop at red traffic lights, do not use ATMs, do use condoms but do not have sex with your students, and if you catch malaria you shall lose a spectacular amount of weight.” Armed with this knowledge, I was then sent to the north-east coast, and driven to a leetle village which shall remain nameless.

“Here you will be a boarding house mistress,” Francois, the teacher I was to share a house with, informed me, “And you will teach cricket and swimming at the school.”

“I’m not really into sports,” I explained, lighting a cigarette.

“Just take grade one,” he said, as he climbed into his ute and drove off.

I sat on an upturned bucket on the driveway and glared at my volunteer partner, Zoe. She came from a small town in Victoria, had too many freckles, and required prompting to do absolutely anything. I hated her, but we played cards sometimes and I was interested in the fact that she had recently had breast-reduction surgery. “What did they do with the extra boob-matter?” I would ask, but because she was boring, she would just shrug. On the upside, she followed most of my instructions without question. “Fetch my washing and take it to the boarding house,” I would say, and she would disappear inside to collect the sweaty T-shirts and dirty underpants from my bedroom floor.

Our house was small, hot, and not air-conditioned. I was provided with a fan to keep the mosquitoes away at night, but scheduled power-cuts throughout the district meant that we were without electricity for roughly 2-hours, three times a day. We did not have a working television or cooking facilities, and the internet was a distant memory. We also ran out of water several times. I was dying for a pedicure.

Our “meals” were cooked for us at the boys’ boarding house. And while we were treated to the odd piece of fruit or vegebetalia, our staples were frankfurts, meat pies, fried chicken strips, and oven chips. Not having the palate nor the metabolism of a fifteen year old boy, more often than not, I drank a glass of cordial, ate a piece of bread, then left the table to sit on my bucket and smoke.

Our days were spent at the school, where we began each day helping the first, second and third graders read. These kids were either total show ponies or complete morons. I tried to shame them into learning (“You are in the third grade and you cannot even read, Monte, how will you ever bust out of this miserable village?”) but they had no respect for my volunteer authority.

Once the day’s reading had finished, I was supposed to help out with art or computer classes. I didn’t like art or computers, so I re-organised my timetable so that it appeared I was fully booked. I then walked back to the house, sat on the bucket, and smoked until lunch time.

In the afternoons, I almost always had to take PE. When I was rostered to teach soccer or cricket, I would put the students in a line and instruct them to kick or throw a ball to each other while I worked on my tan. My swimming lessons were unfortunately more involved, as I was required to be in the water at the same time as the children. There they climbed on top of me and dragged me underneath the surface. I then pushed them away and swam to the edge. They chased me around the pool, and I suppose that in some way, they did get a bit of swimming practice. As long as none of them drowned, I felt I was doing my job.

After school finished, I was either required to supervise homework at the girl’s boarding house or amuse myself in some way. I spent my spare hours playing the piano in the school’s empty hall or walking aimlessly around the village. But most of the time, I sat on the bucket and smoked.

There were, of course, some pleasant little pockets in all of this. The students were generally polite and well-behaved, appealing kids. They called me “Ma’am” and wished me good morning when they saw me around the school. When I was alone at the house, the matric boys would come over from the boarding house and we would sit together on the driveway and smoke cigarettes and look at the stars, while they put together very convincing arguments on why I should buy beer for them. I was also getting the best tan of my life.

However, a few weeks of this routine began to take its toll. I was awfully homesick, losing weight and suffering from terrible insomnia. The villagers were gossiping about me, because I was young and female, and half the boy boarders claimed to have slept with me. I was bored as fuck and Zoe was about as entertaining as a fence post. I called my airline on the sly and quietly enquired as to how long it would take to get a flight back to Sydney. “Four to six weeks,” the plane lady told me. I hung up, sat on the bucket, lit a cigarette, and decided to go home. The only problem was working out how to extract myself from my volunteer duties.

I began to weigh up my options. How could I leave and cause offence to the least amount of people? And more importantly, how could I get out ASAP?

In the end, I lied.

I called my father early one morning in February to wish him a happy birthday.

“How are you doing?” he politely inquired.
“Oh you know, I’m just- BAAAAHHHHHHH URRGGHHH!”
“Oh. Well. Um, hang in there, sweetheart.”

And so, using the tears so instantly produced by hearing my father’s voice, I walked into the kitchen and when Zoe asked what had happened, I told her that my mother had developed breast cancer and was scheduled for surgery in a week’s time.

Over the next three days, before I climbed onboard a jam-packed flight that I was able to join after being granted compassionate priority, many of the students and teachers shared their personal stories about cancer with me. The school’s art teacher, in particular, took me under her wing, as her husband had been battling various types of cancer for years and was on his last legs. Most of the students, staff and boarders approached me privately to offer their condolences, love and prayers. Francois sat with me on the bucket and smoked, then took my hand and placed it on his crotch. Zoe cried and asked me not to leave. I smiled sadly and nodded.

A week later, as I sat in my parents’ sunny backyard in Sydney, sifting through the assortment of “Get Well” cards the South African children had made for my mother, I related this story to my friend Mark. He listened quietly, took a long pull on his beer, and squinted at the sky. “You’re going straight to hell,” he told me, and I figure he’s probably right.