South African fights for his life in Haifa

PAULA SLIER

It was Friday night, 21 February, when, during a heavy downpour, Juan celebrated his first anniversary as a volunteer on Kibbutz Bar’am in northern Israel. He and his friends were clowning around when he fell off some apple crates, hitting his head. His parents, Traci and Jacques, still don’t understand exactly what happened.

“We were having coffee when we got the phone call,” his visibly distraught mother recalls. “Within four hours, we’d left our farm (45km outside Pietermaritzburg) and were at the airport. Both of us thought Israel was a desert, and I remember saying I needed to cover my head and shoulders. I was worried that I didn’t have stockings with me.”

We meet on a hot afternoon at a coffee shop outside the hospital. Juan’s parents have just come back from visiting him. They’d planned a big family celebration this weekend where he would meet his cousins, aunts, and uncles. Instead they’re sitting with me.

“He was more responsive when we saw him today,” Traci says, “because he’s on the machine and doesn’t have to concentrate on breathing. He can concentrate on other things. But we got a hell of a shock when we first saw him. He has pipes, monitors, drips, a neck brace, things on his leg.”

Doctors are optimistic that Juan will be able to walk again, but only after a long period of rehabilitation. The big question at the moment is the state of his brain. He’s recovering from brain and back surgery after suffering a broken rib, two burst lungs, and a broken collar bone.

It’s a case of déjà vu (been there before) for Juan’s parents. He spent his first birthday in hospital undergoing a major kidney operation.

“He was a fighter from a young age,” says Jacques, who has to return to South Africa imminently to look after his vegetable farm that he left at a moment’s notice.

“We have to be strong. It’s not easy, but we have good support. We read the Bible, and believe that Juan’s progress is because of religion. In the beginning, the doctor told us that if he survived, he might wake up in a few months or a year. He’s responding now the way they thought he’d do only after a few months. It’s a miracle. The people from the kibbutz have also embraced us like family.”

When not at the hospital, the Van Niekerks have spent time visiting Kibbutz Bar’am and meeting the many friends the 19-year-old made during his gap year.

“His friends are traumatised,” says Traci.

“He has made friends from all over the world, and he’d been making plans to visit a girl in Spain. His friends told us he was also planning to be a lifesaver in Hawaii. They said he was someone that whenever a new person came to the kibbutz, he’d immediately make them feel welcome. He’d spend his days loading boxes of apples onto a conveyor belt. He’d get up early, drink coffee, and play music. They told us he’d spend all day in the apple factory singing and happy.”

Juan was planning to return to South Africa to do a trade before enrolling in university next year. It was at a braai at a friend’s house that someone who’d just come back from a kibbutz first mentioned it as an option. Within a week he’d organised everything.

“We didn’t know anything about Israel. My husband’s a farmer, we live in a farming community, and many people have gone to kibbutzim from South African farms. Juan liked the idea because it meant he got to travel and meet people from all over the world. He used to go to church, but he knew nothing about Israel before he came here. He researched a lot, it was an adventure for him. It was the first time he was on a plane.”

In their last telephone conversation, Juan told his mom he’d be sad to come home and meet only South Africans.

“He said he was calling to say hi, and that he was working on the kibbutz while he spoke to me. He said I mustn’t forget to come to the airport with biltong to fetch him. He never once phoned to say he wanted to come home. He stayed for the longest time he could.”

The Kibbutz Program Center (KPC) represents about 250 kibbutzim throughout Israel. Volunteers, aged 18-30 spend anywhere from two months to one year on a kibbutz living and working with Israeli youngsters as well as other kibbutz volunteers from around the world.

Annilie Laine Marstro, Kibbutz Bar’am’s “volunteer mom”, has been a G-dsend to the family.

“I’m in contact with them all the time,” she tells me when all of us meet in Haifa. “I visit the hospital every day with Traci and Jacques, and translate everything the doctor says. For now, the KPC and Kibbutz Bar’am are paying his hospital fees, but the question is what will happen afterwards. No-one knows.”

This is what keeps the Van Niekerks awake at night – in addition to everything else.

“We are panicking about what will happen when the insurance runs out,” says Jacques. “If possible, we prefer him to stay in Israel because we don’t know what’s available at home. If he has to go home, he’ll have to go to some hospital until he can start rehabilitation. It’s not easy to accept money, but this is our biggest obstacle. We just need a magic wand.”

If you can be a part of that magic wand, please donate money to https://backabuddy.co.za/champion/project/juan-van-niekerk