Privilege.

I think I should admit, for those of you who don’t know or suspect, that I knowingly use my white privilege (and foreign privilege) to hike free rides in this country.  The white folks that stop would probably never stop for a person of color.  The black folks who stop would probably expect me to at least pay a little were it not for my white/American/volunteer status.  Do I feel guilty about this? Of course I do.  I’m taking advantage of privileges I did not earn.  Privileges that I was simply born in to.  But then I look at my watch, realize I’ve been standing on the side of the road for three hours with no hope of any public transport (combis) leaving soon, and flag down the car driven by the Afrikaaner/German/Portuguese/Foreign/White couple.

Ever since I started hitch hiking in this country I’ve thought about how blatant that privilege is  and that I am using it knowingly.

Yesterday, it felt as though someone gave me a big slap in the face. I’ve taken courses, spent hours studying and contemplating injustices in this world, both to do with race and other minorities, and I don’t think that information was really sealed until walking into the public hospital in Katima Mulilo. And all the while I’ve been thinking about how guilty I feel while hitch hiking. Ridiculous.

Health care is not something I generally have to think about.  I’ve only had to deal with minor health problems throughout my life. I’ve never had to worry about whether or not I could be treated by competent doctors.  Health insurance.  That helps.  But then something happens.  You start to realize just what it means when you see the inability of others to be treated by well trained doctors in clean facilities.  Our world has come so far in medicine and yet the treatment, the facilities, the doctors that are so easily sought after by some are simply unreachable by the majority of the world.  We have the technology, the power, to treat the sick and alleviate pain and yet all of that is given to a privileged few…and I am one of those few.

A dear friend of mine is in the hospital.  I hadn’t seen her for three months, and our reunion took place in ward 5 of Katima Mulilo’s hospital.  I walk in to a room of 20 beds.  Each one a metal frame and thin foam mattress.   Posters in Silozi reminding patients about sleeping under mosquito nets are torn and taped on the walls.  There are chips in the concrete and dirty fans hanging from the ceiling. A cockroach runs by on the floor and it’s been two hours since the patient in the next bed over left and the nurses still haven’t removed the soiled bed.  Patients have to be sure to protect their wounds from the flies that have let themselves in.  A single toilet and shower for these patients. My friend was promised they would change her bandage today, but seeing that it was already after 5pm it’s doubtful that it will happen. Maybe tomorrow.  Not only that, she told me the doctor who performed the surgery did not do it well.  Cut something he wasn’t supposed to cut which has made the bleeding worse and perhaps is contributing to a longer stay.  All of this and it was only a few weeks ago that I experienced a hospital in Windhoek for a weekend.  Was treated by doctors who weren’t overloaded with patients.  Received timely treatment and was constantly assured my needs would be tended to promptly. A private bathroom. Cockroaches? Not a chance.  Because being me, being white and American and of a comfortable monetary background, I somehow deserve this.  I somehow deserve the guarantee that my pain is more legitimate, more important, more painful, and so I should get the beds that are controlled by a remote, that have nurse call buttons attached to them, and beds that have their sheets changed every day whether or not they are soiled.

And for everyone else who does not fit into this deserving category as I do….you’ll just have to wait.