As rain batters the streets of Kayamandi, a township near Stellenbosch in the South African winelands, 66-year-old Judith Maqhashu stands in line in a restaurant with two dozen women, waiting for nurses to measure their blood sugar levels. Tuna sandwiches, bottles of apple juice and pamphlets in the IsiXhosa language have been laid out to welcome members of the Ikhaya diabetes support group.
Maqhashu has been diabetic for five years. Soon after retiring, in 2018, she was taken to hospital with a persistent fever. “In the ambulance, they told me my blood sugar was very high,” she remembers.
