I'll be home tomorrow! I am really sad about it though but partly looking forward to it because I have missed everybody so much. Anyways, I cannot wait to see everyone again! Amanda is already on her way home. I had such an awesome time with her (I just hope that she can say the same). It is good to be able to experience South Africa with someone - I wish more people came! But Amanda and I agreed that we are coming back so everyone is welcome to join us! Can't wait to see you guys!

Amanda is coming today! Countdown in T-7 hours. I am going to take a nap to be ready for her because I am exhausted. I hope she has fun - I am really nervous that I am not going to show her a good time but I really do hope that she has fun. It is kind of sad that everybody is leaving today but I am so excited that Amanda is getting here. Basically, I will be incommunicado for two weeks though because I will not have access to internet. My plane departs on the 9th of May so I will be home on the 10th. Amanda and I are going to take South Africa by storm! :) And then...my trip will come to an end. I cannot wait to see everybody!

My time in Cape Town is coming to a quick end. I cannot believe that it has been 3.5 months now. I look back on my previous entries and cannot believe how unhappy I was at first, just because I was nervous. I am in love with this country, I am in love with the people, I am in love with this place! It is amazing and it makes me sad to think that my time here is coming to an end. Where did the time go? I feel like I have been gone for maybe a month but not almost four. Part of me is ready to go home - I miss everybody so much but I know that once I go home, get back into the groove, I will miss Cape Town and I will be longing to return. All of the friends that I made this semester are leaving on Sunday. I still have to pack but I cannot bring myself to do it. Each day is a rush to buy things we didn't get before or to go places that we never got a chance to go to and it just makes me sad. The suitcases are coming out, the tears have started and the goodbyes have been occurring all week. This is the part that I hate - saying goodbye. How can I possibly say goodbye to this gorgeous country? I know that I have a couple more weeks because Amanda gets here on Sunday (which I am completely psyched about) but I really do think I am going to be sobbing on the plane. Can everybody I love just move here so I don't have to say goodbye to Africa? Sure it has its' crazies, psychotic killer bugs and its crime but where is this not present? Everybody should come here at least once in their life time - it is worth the flight.

So to recap what I have been doing since I haven't posted. I have been living life - trying to still find a roommate for John Hopkins next year, still trying to find a job for the summer which is a hassle when overseas. I am trying to spend as much time as possible with my friends here. I have finished, as much as I could have, my project at my internship for Dr. Rode. My study wound up including 105 patients (which means I looked at over 200 case files) and the only conclusion I could draw was that flame burns have a higher susceptibility to VAP whereas hot water burns had a higher susceptibility to nosocomial pneumonia. Obviously flame burns led to more inhalational burns which contributed to the VAP as well. When I showed Dr. Rode my results and everything I did, he was really pleased and said that he did not expect this much work out of me. If he didn't expect this work, I really don't know what he expected I was doing these past few months. My paper for this is not written, only the introduction and methods so I am going to correspond with Dr. Rode over the summer in order to finalize the paper and hopefully get it published in the South African Medical Journal.

I went downtown by myself, which is a first. Got on the minibus by myself (even after all of these muggings have happened lately), found my way to St. George's mall and Green market Square, by myself (which is not hard), and found Amanda and my hotel so I know how to orient myself. It is kind of fun, relaxing and liberating, being able to be that comfortable with this area in order to head downtown by myself using transportation that some locals are afraid to use. Yesterday I had an interesting encounter. I went to the beach with some friends and this man comes up to us. I was on my stomach reading a book but I could tell he was right behind me due to his shadow. He says "hi guys" and keeps saying this until I respond since everybody else is ignoring him, hoping he will go away. Now I thought he was one of the workers that go around the beaches selling cold drinks and ice cream. I was confused as to why I did not hear him say "GRANADILLA LOLLIE! COKE LIGHT! ICE COLD WATER FROM ICELAND!". Then and there I should have assumed that he was not one of those people selling things. Once I said hello, he walked around my towel and crouched in front of me. I looked in his face, saw the missing teeth and the dirty clothes and thought to myself "oh crap - what did I get myself into". It was obvious that he was homeless and was going to beg for money and food. He gave me this sheet of paper that was from an outpatient clinic explaining that he was coughing up blood in his sputum. The man explained this to me as well and I immediately thought TB. He mentioned that he had TB in the past and was on medication for it but can no longer afford the medication. Immediately, I thought of the fact that he was going to generate an MDR-TB which could spread to other people and that would be bad. Eventually, this man got to the crux of his story and said that he had no money for medication or food. I feel uncomfortable giving homeless/beggars money because you do not know what they are going to do with it. I went through my bag and found an apple and gave it to him. The man said thank you, looked at me like I should give him money and I explained that I had no money (a little white lie) but I did have an apple to give him. He looked like he put the apple in his bag and walked away. I turned to talk to my friend and realized that he had thrown the apple in the sand. How ungrateful! It was obvious that he was just looking for money and to do what with, I don't know. It is clear that he was not looking for food and it frustrates me that you give people the benefit of the doubt and they do this. That makes me not want to try to help others. Overall - I was astonished that it happened and I was a little angry. But, that is the only 'exciting' incident that has happened thus far since I last posted.

Amanda is coming in three days!! Soo excited and I cannot wait to show her South Africa. We are going to have a blast! I will be home in three weeks!

So the roommate situation at JHSPH kind of fell through. The girl that I was going to room with found somebody else that she met during visitors week which I obviously could not attend. I am going to contact the other girls that contacted me about roommate situations to see if they have found a roommate yet. Hopefully I will find one or I will just live by myself for a year which is fine - it will just be lonely.

Tonight I am the only one in the house. Everybody else went to an Akon concert. Boo...I do not like Akon and don't feel the need to spend $25 on tickets to see him, seeing as I will make up for that with other concerts I actually want to go to. Since everybody is gone, I rented a movie and plan on vegging out on the couch. The little house is going to Long Street but I really don't feel like going out tonight. I went out on Thursday night and it was fun but more than once in a weekend is a little much for me.

Amanda comes in two weeks! I am so excited!

Today I hung out with Mia and her coworker Lindy, plus her two kids Portia and the little boy whose name I cannot spell. They were so cute! Portia is not Lindy's biological child - Portia is HIV positive and her mother died of AIDS. Lindy used to go and help her Portia's mother (they were homeless) and when Portia's mom died and Portia was in the hospital, Lindy took her in. That woman is so nice and amazing. Taking in a child when you know that they have HIV is amazing, especially since that makes life so much more complicated and expensive. Portia is such a beautiful little girl though - I wanted to take her home. So Mia and I treated them to lunch and bought them presents at Cavendish mall. They were so thankful and had a good time. I am going to miss meeting amazing people like this and I am going to miss Mia, the one person on this trip that understands me.

More pictures from spring break

It was very windy on the game drive

Our couples picture - drinking our bottle of J.C. Le Roux

Ben, Mia and I at the revolving restaurant in Durban

Itchy baboon

Me on a horse in the Drakensburg Mountains

Word of advice: when in South Africa, never get bit by a bug on a Friday, have it swell on a Saturday and decide to go to the doctor in the afternoon, because doctors are closed. And when you decide that, because your eye is almost swollen shut, you really should go to the doctor on a Sunday - once again, every place is closed. The hospital does not make appointments, only during the week, and you have to go triage instead. Yeah - I will wait until tomorrow, I am not going to triage where they have more important patients to deal with than somebody with a swollen eye. All I need is some anti-histamine and antibiotics. Oh and even if I went to the hospital, there is no guarantee that I would get my prescription filled because all of the pharmacies are closed! Moral of the story: don't get sick on a weekend when in South Africa.

So the swelling of my eye due to the bloody bug has increased, not decreased. I called the doctor today but they were closed. I really do not think it is anything important. Compared to this morning the swelling has gone down but my eye was halfway swollen shut (if that makes sense) when I went to leave in the morning. If the swelling has increased when I wake up tomorrow I will bring a book and sit in the ER of Groote Schuur hospitals, just because I don't want to get cellulitis and have my eye swollen shut and have it be all hard and red. It is itchy...:( I look like I got punched in the face. Stupid bug. But do not worry - it will be fine and if it gets worse tomorrow, I will get some antibiotics. I still can't believe the bug latched itself to my face and bit me. Bloody beetle...

Anyways, today we went to an HIV/AIDS orphanage in Khayelitsha with Leon-Lee - a friend of Jung and Michelle's from TAC (Treatment Action Campaign - an NGO that work to educate people about HIV/AIDS). These kids ranged from 1.5 to 14 years old and according to the worker, all of them are HIV+ and all are orphans. Some were abandoned by one or more parents that could no longer care for them because of their HIV status, some had one or both parents die from AIDS. It was really sad. Every month they go to Red Cross to refill the children's ARV prescriptions. It is so sad that these children are already on ARVs. I understand that they do not want the kids to get AIDS but ARVs are pretty toxic and they have really bad side effects. Some people delay taking ARVs until their CD4 count is at a certain point because the of the side effects and the fact that the sooner you start taking the medication, the quicker the virus will become resistant to it. I wanted to cry but in reality, these kids have a good life, compared to other AIDS orphans. They live in the nicest houses I have seen in Khayelitsha. They all have food and a bed (although there may be two to three kids to twin bed). All of them go to school or to krish (day care) and they have somebody to look after them. Apparently, they are all up for adoption and if they are not adopted, will eventually go into foster care. Unfortunately though, because of their HIV status, there is little hope that they will get adopted. Who wants a child that has HIV and has to take ARV's every day? It is so sad but once again, these children were so happy. First of all, they were really excited that we were there. I got attached to them all so quickly. Vuyani was a young boy who had a birth defect - his left ear was not formed fully (it was more inside his head) and his face was crooked (that is the only way I could think of saying it). He walked with a little bit of a limp and it seemed as if he was mentally handicapped. Vuyani also had these polyps all over his face - there is a virus that causes that but I am not sure, if in his case, these polyps were from a virus or if it meant that he had a very advanced HIV status. He was so cute though! I picked him up and spun him in circles, we taught them Duck Duck Goose and played catch with them. I almost cried when I left - we spent at least three hours with them and they were all so sad that we were leaving. This is what I came here to do though - make a difference. These kids won't remember us but at least, for one day, we could give them joy. Hopefully, although we don't have too much time left, we can go back again.

I only have three more weeks left of my program, then an extra two weeks in South Africa with Amanda. How crazy is that?!