Adventures in South Africa

2008-05-09T05:20:00.001-07:00

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!

2008-04-27T04:01:00.000-07:00

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!

2008-04-24T12:58:00.000-07:00

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!

2008-04-12T11:34:00.000-07:00

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

2008-04-06T10:12:00.000-07:00

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

2008-04-06T02:07:00.000-07:00

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.

2008-04-05T11:22:00.000-07:00

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?!

2008-04-04T12:01:00.000-07:00

Sunset in Drakensburg

Horses

Drakensburg mountains

Storm coming in.

3/28/07

Today was amazing, like every day on this spring break has been. I woke up this morning very well rested. At 10 AM we left for horseback riding and arrived at this really cute farm. There was 10 of us in total, I believe, and we were initially separated into people who have ridden before and those who had not. I had ridden before, once, but in a tiny space with someone holding the rope and the horse was walking, not in a gallop or canter. Yet, even though I had done that once, I was placed into the group that had ridden before. Basically they did that so that the people who had never ridden before got the horses that were more tame (or so we thought). I rode Christmas - a beautiful brown horse. I tried to pet him but he was turned around backwards in his little pen thing and I was afraid of scaring him. When he finally turned around, I went to pet him and he ran away! My horse did not like me and tried to bite me. I got a little scared, just because he would not let me get near him but once I mounted him, everything was fine.

I pretty much got a really quick lesson a horse, given to me by Mia and not by our guides and we were off. Basically, a guide went up front and all of the other horses followed while a guide was in back to keep an eye on the less experienced people. Obviously Mia, Katie and Lara went up front because they had ridden before. Christmas, along with all of the horses, were not the most well behaved and was very temperamental. He kept eating while we were walking (we went through big fields in the valley, with gorgeous views of mountains on all sides). I kept having to pull his head up. To my surprise though, we had not been going long when the guide started to gallop - hence the rest of our horses started to gallop. I did not know the proper technique one needs to adopt in order to gallop so the first time, I was just bouncing up and down really fast. It was very uncomfortable and I could not understand for the life of me why somebody would want to ride a horse when it felt like this. Finally, I realized that you had to adopt a motion that was congruent with the horse's movements. Basically, you use your thighs to lift you up and you raise yourself up and down in motion with the horse in order to make it a less bumpy and fluid ride. Once I caught onto that, galloping was fun. I did get a tension headache eventually because it was still rather bumpy (and the exercising of picking myself up and down really hurt my knees). It was absolutely crazy though - here I was, a complete beginner on a horse, out on a horse on my own (as in nobody was leading it by a rope) and I was galloping. This would never happen in the states! First of all, it would cost so much money to do (unlike our situation) and you would have to have taken lessons for at least a year! I was astounded but it was so much fun! Oh and these trails were by no means easy. My horse was tripping and sliding up the hills. Frequently he decided that he wanted to pass the horse in front of me and would break into a canter. The first time I was so confused and was like "Oh crap...what is going on? Where are you going?" Also my horse liked to make his own paths through bushes and other random things that scratched me. And my horse was very stubborn. At times, he almost bit my ankles because I needed him to stop eating grass and to pick up his head. It was quite frustrating.

We took a break so that the horses could rest and eat. I took in the scenery. This is when I pulled out my camera to take pictures. Mia has pictures of me on the horse because her camera was smaller and could clip to my belt whereas mine was bulky, and with the galloping horse, would have left me with a huge bruise due to the camera.

On our way back, we galloped most of the way and Lara's horse decided it did not want to walk through a stream but jumped over it instead. After that, we made sure to make our horses walk through the stream rather than jump because not all of us would have handled that incident as gracefully as Lara did. A storm was coming in and you could hear the thunder in the distance and see the lightning. I think it might have spooked Christmas, my horse, a little bit because all of a sudden, he got out of line and cantered like someone just slapped him on the butt. Eventually I got him to slow down but I was scared for a little bit since I did not know what on earth he was doing. Overall, it was a very satisfying experience. I would love to take lessons at home, because I loved the riding so much, but I would be frustrated by how expensive the lessons are and by how slow I would be allowed to progress on the horse when I have ridden, galloped and cantered by myself on one in South Africa. Things are so different here - this is only one of many examples.

We made it back just in time because when we got back to the hotel, it started to rain. The rest of the day was spent around the chalets, watching various movies on t.v. and resulted in me finishing Jane Eyre, which was fantastic, by the way. Later that night, before writing this and going to bed, I turned my phone on to see that I missed a call from Mom. She left me a message saying that she got my official John Hopkins acceptance letter and that they were offering me full tuition, full dental, full medical and a $26850 stipend. I was ecstatic! I was leaning more towards John Hopkins anyways but this cemented my decision. How on earth could I not accept it? I called Mom back and she said she would kick my butt if I did not accept the offer. I AM GOING TO JOHN HOPKINS!! I cannot believe it! My dream - holy crap!! I am a little, scratch that, VERY scared but very excited at the same time.

Anyways, I went to go up and tell everybody else (we were having a dance party going on at the main house since it was our last night). When I walked out of my chalet (it was nighttime), I saw something moving and when it moved into the light, it was a bloody babboon! Scared the crap out of me, that is for sure! I told Mia - she got really excited and wanted to buy me a drink, as did Marita since both of them knew how stressed out I was about the decision that I had to make. All in all though - it was an awesome vacation and I loved it. We have to leave by 5:30 tomorrow morning in order to be in Durban to catch our 11 AM flight back to Cape Town. I am going to miss this relaxation but I am looking forward to being home (meaning Cape Town - we have just begun to notice that Cape Town is now home to us). I cannot wait to come back to the Drakensburg mountains - they were my favorite part of the trip. I cannot wait for Amanda to come!!

So that is the end of the trip - our drive home was uneventful and arriving home was fairly uneventful as well. I have now gone back to work (but very sick because I have a respiratory cold) and besides being bit by an absolutely awful bug, I am doing well! I have officially accepted John Hopkins and once I get a $600 admission fee waived, I can fill out the paperwork. Once that is done and finalized, I am going to reject Uconn and UMD. I hope people will visit me in Baltimore next year!

More Spring Break news

2008-04-04T10:59:00.001-07:00

Baboon chilling on the side of the road

Waterfall

Jung, Mia and I swimming in the ridiculously cold pool in our underwear. And yes, I got made fun of for my matching underwear skills or actually lack thereof

At the lookout

I realize it is taking me forever to post these - sorry! I will be posting pictures on photobucket at some point, I promise! Anyways, for today (posting for the actual 4th of April), the only significant event today was getting bit on the face by a bloody huge bug. I was walking back from the train station and Checkers and a bug flew into my face, attached to my right eyebrow and bit me. I have never been bit so hard in my entire life. I screamed, people looked at me weird, my friend Sarah looked at me weird and I swatted the bug away. Another bug came after Sarah and the one that bit me came after me again. We ran away but these were the largest bugs I have ever seen! They were huge and black so not a bee but I am thinking more along the lines of a beetle from the way it felt when it was on my face. So anyways, my face, right above my eye were it bit me, was throbbing for a good 20 minutes until I took tylenol. I still have a headache and my face is swollen. :( Hopefully I don't get cellulitis - that would be very upsetting.

To continue on with last weeks adventures on our Spring Break!

3/27/05

Our first full day in Drakensburg! It was amazing - we went on this long 4 hour hike (not really a hike but a nice walk). Our guide was so knowledgable and pointed out San rock art (which was really cool but it took me a while to realize where on the rock the art actually was since the painting was so faded) and he pointed out various forms of plants and different animals. Shortly, we came to this great waterfall and a nice pool that we could go swimming in. I was brave enough to take off my shoes and walk around the river, with my camera, taking pictures of the waterfall and other people that wanted me to take their picture in front of the waterfall. I did slip a couple times but not to the extent where my camera got wet (thank god). The water was frigid, by the way. I looked over to the pool and saw that some of my colleagues stripped down to their underwear and were swimming. They dunked their head under the water, came up screaming because it was so cold and then headed for the rocks to dry off in the sun. After exploring around the waterfall for a while with Mia and desperately trying not to slip and get my camera wet, I went back to where everybody was sitting. I decided, spur of the moment, to strip down and went swimming in my underwear like everybody else. Lets just say that they had every right to scream when they got in the water - it was soo cold! Then I decided I was going to chill underneath the waterfall and realized that a lot of water falling on your head kind of gives you a headache, never mind the fact that it is freezing cold water. Our guide brought mugs and gave us tea and biscuits, which was a great snack. Eventually we all got dressed again and headed up the mountain further to the lookout point.

The lookout point was gorgeous. You could see all around and all around us, there were waterfalls in the distance. I cannot wait to go to the Drakensburg mountains again with Amanda. We are going to do a lot of hiking because it is GORGEOUS! I could have hiked all day but unfortunately, most of the people I am with do not have the same appreciation of nature and do no thave the stamina to do a lot of hiking. Did parents just not take their children hiking when they were little? It seems as if some of the people I was with NEVER did this and I can't remember a summer where we did not go hiking when I was little. But besides that and all of the complaining, once I tuned all of that out, I was able to fully enjoy the scenery.

After the lookout, we hiked up to another waterfall. This water was clean enough for us to drink and some people went behind the waterfall into this cave to fill their water bottle. The rest of the hike was pretty uneventful. It was fairly flat and the scenery was gorgeous. We essentially hiked halfway up the side of one mountain and then continued around its side and went back down. Along the way we saw some wild antelope and a gigantic lizard - oh and a gigantic spider. I tried to take a picture of it for Aunt Ann since I realize she loves them so much but I did not get a chance to, sadly.

Once we finished our hike (which most people complained about - that really irked me) we went back to the hotel for lunch and to hang out. I was excited to go back and read my book. I was reading Jane Eyre for the first time and realized that it was really good. Mia and I chilled by the pool, reading our books. A huge thunderstorm came in during the afternoon and we sat on our porch and watched the lightning. I must say that South Africa has the most amazing thunderstorms. There are no flashes of lightning - every single time you can see a single bolt of lightning. Today, the thunder was so loud that it was shaking the little chalet. I loved it! It was just such a relaxing day. I could not have asked for me: a nice morning hike, chilling outside, reading a book in the afternoon and then watching a thunderstorm in the afternoon. At night we had another buffet dinner and I headed to bed early because I was tired. Several people made appointments for massages tomorrow but I really did not feel like it. Instead, I am going horseback riding tomorrow morning! I'm really excited!

Oh yeah and I forgot to metion that on my way to and from the hike, I saw a crapload of baboons. Just a whole caravan of them chilling out on the side of the road. Thought of you guys - and no I did not get eaten by them.

Leaving Durban and Heading to Drakkensburg Mountains!

2008-04-02T01:34:00.001-07:00

Scenery on the drive to the hotel

more scenery

Mountains!

View from the main house of the hotel

Those little buildings are our chalets - this was the general property of the hotel

3/26

We left Durban this morning. Marita scheduled a talk with some lady about being a South African, something, at the hotel for two hours this morning. I really did not want to go because I would have rather spent that time exploring Durban a little more before we left but we did not have a choice. Fortunately for me, I was sick along with several other people and needed to get medicine from the pharmacy. Christine also had pink eye and needed to see a doctor in order to get medicine so we headed out with Ben to run our errands while everybody else had to sit through the talk. Apparently it was pretty good but whatever - I got medication (that I am still using) for Mia and I that allowed us to sleep. That is all that matters.

Upon leaving Durban, we had a 4 hour drive to the Drakkensburg Mountains where we were staying at the Mount Aux Sources Hotel. The drive was gorgeous. I tried to stay awake for most of it because I wanted to see as much of the country as possible and that obviously cannot be accomplished with your eyes closed. All of a sudden we were out of Durban and in this gorgeous mountaineous area. It did not look like anything you think you would see in South Africa, besides the Zulu huts. It looked like I was in North Carolina or England. I kept thinking that I saw scenery from the new Pride and Prejudice when we were driving by. It was absolutely gorgeous!

After a long hall, we arrived at our hotel and I must say that it was absolutely amazing! We stayed in these chalets - three people to a chalet when you could actually fit 6. I roomed with Sarah and Mia (we were the sick house). And this hotel was just in such a remote location where mountains were all around. There were no restaurants, pharmacies, nothing, to be found within a 30 minute drive - just mountains. The dinner we had at the restaurant was buffet style and man was it amazing. Oh and we had this great pool available to us and a human chess set where you actually move the chess pieces around the board (they were fairly large and very young children were playing chess, accurately I might add). A thunderstorm rolled in and the lightning was so amazing! I wish I could have caught it with my camera. Tonight we are just relaxing. Tomorrow morning we are going for a nice hike! I cannot wait!

Indian Market and Valley of 1000 Hills

2008-04-02T01:03:00.000-07:00

Sun setting over water in Durban. This was literally right outside of our hotel

Festival of Chariots - they were chucking apples

View from my hotel room

The next morning walking along the beach

Valley of 1000 Hills

Since I am home sick from work today, I figured I would continue to post updates concerning my trip!

3/25/08

I forgot to mention last night, when we were about to go to eat at Castros, I saw this big commotion on the street from my hotel window. I went down, to wait for everybody else and to see what it was. For everybody that does not know, Durban is an Indian city - a very Indian city. Sabrina, who is Indian, said that while she was in Durban, she kept thinking she was actually in India - yes there are that many Indians in Durban. Anyways, the commotion was an Indian parade celebrating the Festival of Chariots. All of these Indians were walking ahead of this float thing and pulling it. On the float was some creepy old looking guys but they were throwing things. Now I was thinking of American parades where they throw candy for the kids but no, that was not the case here. Instead of throwing candy, they threw apples. Yes apples, I think Granny Smith if you want to be exact. I cannot tell you how many times I almost got pelted with bloody apples. I think it was good luck or something or would give you good health because all of the Indians were trying to catch them. The apples that weren't caught (all of them being thrown with such force) exploded upon hitting the ground. I was afraid I was going to get a concussion if I got hit in the head with apples! It was a very violent yet beautiful and strange parade. I got offered an apple by many Indians that had the good fortune of catching many (and hopefully avoiding those that were heading for their head). Upon giving me an apple they would say "god bless" or something along those lines in their Hindu I think...not sure what language but I knew what it meant thanks to Dimpi, Roh and Bend it like Beckham! :) I was proud of myself for that and said it back to them. It was just an amazing experience. You go to South Africa and get caught up in the middle of an Indian parade raining apples.

So today was the explore Durban day but we didn't really explore Durban like we would Cape Town. All of us started off the day going to the Indian Market where I bought many things. I bought two more paintings, many necklaces, many baskets, many masks and other presents for people. Almost everything was a present and I have most people figured out and done! :) So proud of myself for that. Oh and I was absolutely astonished by how cheap everything was in Durban! A wire bowl (yes the coveted telephone wire bowls) were R30 which is less than $4. You pay $70 in the States. My banana leaf pictures were R10 which is a little over $1. Ridiculous huh? I had so much fun and spent so much money, but got a lot of things for my money so I was happy with that.

After the Indian Market several people went to the beach for the day but I decided that I could go to the beach whenever. Yes it is the Indian ocean but I had swam in it before and realized how warm + salty it was. Instead, I went with a group of people to the continents largest mosque and learned about Islam, which was interesting. It was really sad that upon learning that we were Americans, our guide had to say that Islam in no way supports terrorists. Also, it was interesting to see that the women are not allowed to pray in the same vicinity as the men. Instead, they have a separate prayer room upstairs and the reason for this is that Islam does not want men and women touching shoulders while praying because it may distract them from their sole purpose in being there: to pray. Somebody asked something about women and our guide in turn says that under Islam, women are treated very well and then went on to give examples about how in the Koran, it tells a man how to treat his wife, what to do to discipline her etc. I was wondering how on earth Islam treats women well when they are still treated as property but I did not dare ask that question.

After the mosque, we journeyed to the Valley of 1000 Hills, a region outside of Durban that is supposed to literally be 1000 hills. Marita (our professor) was under the impression that it was a tourist Zulu village but for the life of us we could not get her to understand that the entire region was called the Valley of 1000 Hills and it contained Zulu villages, that it was not, as she believed, a single village. Anyways, we went there and the view was gorgeous. I was a little cranky because I was tired and had not eaten lunch but I did enjoy the view. There was also a couple shops that we went into and I found myself some beaded sandles (like the ones that Chesney got - I tried to find some in your size Mom but they did not have any). Overall, it was a pretty good day.

We ate dinner that night at the Rotating Roma Restaurant, one of 37 or 31 (there were conflicting signs) revolving restaurants in the world. It was kind of strange going into an Indian city and having Italian but it was good, nonetheless. Obviously I got ravioli because I have not had good ravioli since I have gotten here. Mia and I once again shared a bottle of J.C. Le Roux Le Domaine since I am in love with it and have our pictures sipping our "champagne". The food was good - unfortunately it took forever and a half to eat dinner which is something to be expected when you go out to eat in South Africa. Eating is an event in itself - there is no such thing as a quick stop.

After the restaurant, I decided to go for a late night and go to the casino with a couple of people. I had never gambled before and only put in R20 into the slots, just for fun. Lets just say that I came out with an extra R96. I was proud of myself! :)

Water Safari and Durban

2008-04-01T07:23:00.000-07:00

Lazy crocodile in the sun

Hippo!!

The estuary

many many hippos

cute hippo sleeping

3/24:

We got up early again this morning to check out of the Sand Forest Lodge and to head to St. Lucia Estuary where we had to catch the boat at 10AM or else it would leave without us. This was pretty much a safari but of water creatures. I stupidly sat on the top of the boat and thus got burnt but was able to see all around the beautiful estuary. Once our 2 hour long tour started, we immediately saw several crocodiles, some bathing in the sun on the sand while others creepily swimming with only their eyes above the water (reminded me of the croc in Peter Pan). All I could think about was that I need to see and take lots of pictures of hippos for Ari. Lets just say I got my wish. We saw hundreds of hippos. Literally. They were everywhere! It is hard to imagine that they are such dangerous animals because they are just so cute and lazy! All of them were just standing in the water, walking around, sunbathing. I wish Ari could have seen them first hand. One minute you are looking at just water and the next minute, right where you looked, a hippo emerged - one that was previously submerged in the water. We were also able to see some monkeys by the shore and a couple birds. As with the game drive, it was really exciting to see the animals but then it became "oh wow..look...there is yet another hippo" or "yet another crocodile". It is sad how fast you become used to the animals and then, you are no longer excited by them.

After our St. Lucia Estuary tour, we left to drive back to Durban where we are going to stay for the next couple of days. We are staying at the Blue Waters Hotel which is right on the beach. By the way, this hotel is GORGEOUS! It is so nice! Our room has a balcony that overlooks Durban and part of the beach. I got to watch the sun set from my little balcony. We went to dinner at Castros (I think that is what it was called) and I had a steak fillet. It was the most amazing steak I have ever had in my entire life. I shoveled that thing (all 350g) into my mouth in a manner of minutes. Then I practically attacked the waiter for trying to take away my mashed potatoes (the first time I have had those since I have been here and they were sinfully good). I also had a bottle of J.C. Le Roux Le Domaine with my meal (sharing with Mia of course). That is the only wine I like...but it is more like champagne. Actually it is champagne except it cannot be called champagne because it is not from a certain vineyard in France. Anyways, the dinner was amazing. Some people went to the casino afterwards but I was exhausted and headed back to the room. Tomorrow, we are going to the Indian market = Cailin is going to spending money on gifts!

Pictures from Safari

2008-04-01T07:05:00.000-07:00

A lone giraffe

Rhino with the biggest and pointiest horn I have ever seen!

Zebra running down the road

Vervet monkey watching us from a tree

Me in very close proximity to Momma and baby zebra

Easter in Omfolozi Hluhluwe Game Reserve

2008-03-31T12:03:00.000-07:00

3/23/08

Happy Easter! I am exhausted but it was by far the best Easter ever! We had to wake up at 4:45 AM to be ready to leave at 5:30. All of us piled into these trucks and left for the game reserve that was ~30 minutes away. The game drive was 6 hours long through this huge reserve. There was a bunch of roads, dirt and semipaved, that were interconnected and we went on whatever one the driver thought animals would be on. For the things we saw: warthogs, tons of zebras, tons of giraffes, rhinos (black and white), water buffalo (all I could think of was 'everybody's got a water buffallo, yours is fat but mine is slow. Where they get them I don't know but everybody's got a water bufallooooooo'), impalas, a cheetah (really far away), vultures, antelope and wildebeast. oh and a vervet monkey! Plus some baboons in a tree. No lions, hippos or elephants today. :( Hopefully we will be seeing hippos tomorrow on our St. Lucia estuary tour. At first, seeing all of the animals was really exciting but after our millionth zebra and giraffe, it wasn't as exciting anymore. Both the zebra and giraffe came really close to us. When we stopped for breakfast, there was a zebra family, running around and I could almost touch the zebra (John did and they ran away scared). Often, we got stuck behind zebra, buffalo or a giraffe that was walking down the road. I do have to say that I love zebras and giraffes now though. Giraffes are so majestic and peaceful. Our driver explained to us that zebra and giraffe are usually seen together because the zebra use giraffe as protection. Since giraffes are so tall and can see farther, they can notice an approaching predator and will warn the other giraffes. This is also a warning to the zebra. I thought that the learned relationship was really interesting. We got caught in another downpour while driving around the game reserve but within an hour, it was blue skies again. The weather changes so quickly here, it is unbelievable! Anyways, I have tons of pictures of animals, particularly giraffes for Ari. Hope she enjoys them! No polar bears yet :)

Beginning of Spring Break: Game Reserve!

2008-03-31T11:33:00.000-07:00

View of the Cape when flying to Durban

At the Sand Forest Lodge - the sun was going down. This field is where a ton of animals were

Some sort of antelope

And a zebra right behind my hotel!!

And the hotel - that was actually the eating area and bar. Where we slept was behind it.

I am copying the entries from my journal - sorry it has taken so long for me to do this, I have been really sick...:(

3/22/08:

So I am on the plane to Durban for the start of our spring break! I am so ready for a week of relaxation where I can just take in the scenery of South Africa and forget about all of my responsibilities. Good news, I also got into John Hopkins! I actually never thought that I would and now that I did, it is not an easy decision, or as easy as I thought it would be. I built up UMD so much and built down JHSPH so that I would not be upset about going to UMD. Now though I am torn. Yesterday I wanted to go to UMD, today I am leaning towards JHSPH. Who knows what I will feel tomorrow? A big problem is that I am doubting myself and my own capabilities. Honestly, I am terrified of going to JHSPH because I am afraid that I am not good enough. Mom is right though, I am turning my anxiety towards the fear of the unknown into a lack of confidence in myself. If I wasn't qualified, I would not have been selected I guess. I know that I have until April 15th to make a decision but I was never good at waiting. I just want someone to tell me what to do and where to go. Everybody has been so supportive of me and my fears. They are always willing to talk it over with me. I am being a brat though because I got into two amazing PhD programs, more than some people can say, and I am complaining about my decision. What if I can't do it though?

night of 3/22/08:

So we traveled all day today. It took about 4 hours to get to the game reserve from the Durban airport but we took an hour lunch at Steers at a gas station (really crappy food - don't ever go there!) This part of SA is what you would think Africa looks like, at least more so than Cape Town. It was rolling hills of grass with Zulu huts, rows of planted trees with a dirt lane in the middle, leading off into never never land. Men and women were walking alongside the highway, the women carrying baskets on top of their heads. Mia and I were listning to my iPod as we drove by houses the were falling down, rural shacks with naked children playing in the dirt, no electricity. Coincidentally, the song that came on was "Waiting on the World To Change". I could totally relate to those words as we were driving by extreme poverty, the people who are forgotten.

Anyways, the lodge is amazing! We are staying at the Sand Forest Lodge and we saw a giraffe, actually several, on the way here and right outside our little house is a huge field with some type of antelope, wildebeast and a zebra. Sarah, Amanda and I almost got run over by a stampede. I got such good pictures! They were so close that it was unreal! After that, a huge thunderstorm rolled in. We got soaked by downpouring rain and it felt like stereotypical Africa - a storm running in and within 20 minutes, completely gone. If you watched the field, when the lightning would strike, you could see the animals standing there - it was kind of creepy. Currently I am in a house with Joelle, Ruth, Steph, Abby and Mia (who I am sharing a bed with and consequently have gotten sick from). Yay for interhouse correlation! Tomorrow is game drive at 5:30!!

2008-03-21T20:57:00.001-07:00

Leaving on my trip and I will be incommunicado for a week. See you next week with lots of adventures to tell about!

Explaining The Awesomeness of Yesterday

2008-03-20T06:10:00.000-07:00

So....yesterday - an amazing day and very eventful.

It started out at work (like all Wednesday do) and I was following up on a couple of patients that I had seen in the ICU a month earlier. They were on ventilators and had pneumonia so I was taking down their information. Today, I did a follow up on them in the burns ward. One of the boys that I saw intially was very close to dying - they were not sure if he would last the rest of the week. He was on a high frequency oscillating ventilator and when you are on this type of ventilator, you know that their condition is bad. Because of the frequency of the ventilator and his condition, it blew his body up and he looked at least twice his size. I saw him yesterday - he was a happy, healthy 18 month old baby. All he needs is one more graft and he should be all set. Need I tell you how amazed I was? I did not even recognize the child! The mother had to go somewhere and basically asked me to watch him. I sat there, for an hour, holding this child that, a month ago, was on the brink of dying. Obviously the child was a little bit scared of me because I was a brand new face and his mother had disappeared but I could not help believing that I was holding a miracle. It was not the treatment that saved him - the doctors withdrew treatment. Dr. Rhode told his mother that his name should be changed from Lorenzo to miracle man. It was such an amazing experience though, to see not one but both boys so healthy, smiling and laughing.

After I met with those two kids and went over their files to determine how they contracted pneumonia, I heard music playing outside. the Friends of the Children's Hospital raised money and put on a parade that went around the hospital for the little kids. It was a parade for easter so there was a guy dressed up in a bunny suit, lots of clowns, a horse drawn carriage, a little VW Bug carring people all dressed up and waving. There was also a contest to see who could make the funniest/ most creative hat. The children got their faces painted and had an easter egg hunt outside, along with one of those huge blow up things to play on. It was so touching, especially because most of these kids have never even seen a balloon...they have never even seen a lot of the stuff that they got that day. Dogs came in on leashes to see kids in the oncology ward. To see their smiling faces and look of surprise was priceless.

I had to leave work at around 3:00 so that I could be home for 3:30 in order to have an interview with Pfizer. I actually have two interviews with Pfizer (one of which I am waiting for right now). The one that I had yesterday was with a pharcokinetics groups and I would be designing a protocol to use RNAi to study, in a more indepth manner, what the drug actually does to the body. Not really sure the details or how it would work but I love RNAi so I thought that it would be cool.

Oh, to interrupt my train of though, I just had my interview with Joe from Pfizer. It turns out that it is the Joe that I used to take blood from all the time during my first internship with Pfizer when I worked with Paul. I was so excited that it was him! I loved him! Basically, with this job, I would be looking at heat shock proteins, specifically heat shock protein 90 I think and how it affects the lining of arterial walls in terms of obesity. So once more I would be on an obesity project but they are trying to purchase this brand new really cool technology for me to use. I am soo excited! I will find out next Monday whether I have the job or not. Joe said that the other candidates are really good so I am not sure...I think he said that my enthusiasm about the project would make his decision easier but the phone was kind of staticky so he could have said harder. I don't know but I am really excited! He said that Paul told him that he has to hire me. I said that I would totally understand if he didn't because there are much more qualified people out there but he stated that I bring enthusiasm, work ethic, passion etc. to the table. And he likes that I always want a lot to do and am always looking for more work to do. So, hopefully I got the job!

Anyways, back to yesterday, I had an interview with University of Maryland right after my interview with Pfizer. Last time I updated, UMD was saying that I would be put on the waiting list until I could have an in person interview with them and that although my credentials are very good, the committee was concerned about my GRE scores. I emailed Jeff (the graduate director), saying that it would be impossible to have an in person interview because I am not getting home until the beginning of May and that I need to make a decision regarding other schools prior to April 15th. Also, I explained my GRE scores to him, especially the fact that my SAT scores were only an 1110 and that score was not indicative, in any way, of my performance in college. Thus, if we are using that train of logic, my GRE scores will not be indicative, in any way, of my performance in graduate school. I also made the argument that the GRE tests your ability to take a test whereas I feel that I bring a lot of other aspects to the table such as my motivation, work ethic and passion. All of those combined make me who I am and I feel that there is much more to graduate school than your testing ability. So, after ranting and raving to my friends about how stupid the GRE's are and how stupid UMD is, I get an email saying that Jeff would be willing to have a Skype video interview with me on Wednesday at 4:30 my time (10:30 at home). I was really nervous yesterday and was all ready to be grilled during the interview, in order to show that my GRE scores really aren't indicative of my knowledge. The interview was not really even an interview. It was Jeff trying to sell the University of Maryland to me. Apparently they are in a brand new science building (a definite plus), told me all about the program and explained that he felt that the stipend was one of the highest (which it isn't since UConn would pay me $4000 more, to live in a cheaper area, I might add). Throughout the 'interview', Jeff kept hinting at giving me an offer but I did not really believe him. He never once asked me a scientific question, just what my interests were. I felt like I needed to ask questions so I thought of some random questions to show that I was interested. Then, at the end of the interview, he said that he really hopes that I do well in whatever I do but really wants me to choose UMD and I will be getting an offer from him shortly. I got the offer in about 1.5 hours. So, I am really excited because now I have options! I will probably choose UMD but the only thing holding me back is that at UConn, I would be closer to family and being in South Africa right now has really showed me how close I am to my family and how much I miss them. That is the only downside to going to UMD. Besides that, I need to do some research on what Uconn is working on to see if there are multiple projects I am interested in. I will go to the school that is doing the coolest research.

So all in all, it comes down to the fact that if I did not email UMD and fight them about the GRE's, I never would have gotten an interview and I never would have been accepted. That kind of makes me mad in a way but also makes me proud of myself. So, that is what has happened in the past couple of days. I am on a personal high right now and could easily jump up and down, screaming in a very high tone but I will save everybody the agony of hearing me go into an octave that only dogs can hear. Miss you all!

2008-03-19T07:54:00.001-07:00

I GOT INTO UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND!! It is not official but he said that they are going to be sending me an offer. OMG!! I will explain more later and how I actually was able to get an interview. I have to get ready to go to Shocko. Oh and I might potentially be working with RNAi this summer at Pfizer (that is if they want to accept me). One more interview to go! (tomorrow at 3:30 with more Pfizer people). I AM SO EXCITED!

Spring Break Itinerary

2008-03-15T13:37:00.000-07:00

This is my itinerary for our spring break starting the following week. Sooo excited!!!

March 22
Depart from Cape Town International Airport at 8am
Themba will pick us up at Durban Airport for transport to Sand Forest Lodge
Dinner, settle into rooms, etc…

March 23
6-hour morning game drive through Omfolozi Hluhluwe Game Reserve
Visit traditional village/homestead in the afternoon

March 24
Ferry boat tour through St. Lucia Estuary and Wetland
Depart for Durban in the late afternoon
Check into Blue Waters Hotel on Durban beachfront, dinner/dancing at jazz club

March 25 & March 26 spend days in Durban
Meet with Narissa Ramdhani (time and place depending on her availability)
Spend time on the beach,
Ushaka Marine World (if some students are interested)
Possible visit the Old Courthouse/Gandhi Memorial, Indian Market

Depart for Drakensburg Mountains
Settle into Mont-Aux Sources Hotel, dinner, etc…

March 27
Drakensburg experience- hiking, craft markets, etc…

March 28
More of the Drakensburg Mountains, Blood River Tour (if some students are interested)

March 29
Depart for Durban in the morning for 11am flight
Return to Cape Town in the early afternoon

Update on Graduate Schools

2008-03-13T12:43:00.001-07:00

I just wanted to update everybody on my status with graduate schools. I found out today that I did not get into Columbia, which I was not surprised by seeing as I was never even asked for an interview. Using that logic I am guessing I did not get into Emory or Georgetown. I did get into Uconn PhD program in Biomedical sciences. That is exciting - at least I have somewhere to go to next year, although it is far from ideal. Today I emailed University of Maryland to determine when I would hear from them. The lady I emailed, who originally emailed me a while back asking for an interview, stated that if I had not heard from the program director that meant I was no longer considered for the program but that she thought my application was very good (like that is any consolation to me now). I am a little angry because they stated that they wanted an interview with me but when I asked for a phone interview, they said that the program director would contact me if I needed one. So does this mean that because I am in South Africa I am not being considered? Do they realize that I am in South Africa solely for an internship? I am broadening my cultural and research horizons, is that not important? I am pretty disappointed right now because it looks as if I am going to UConn next year. People say that you should not go to the same place for graduate school that you went to for undergraduate. Plus I really want to get out of UConn, even though I would not be at Storrs but at the Health Center campus. I know that with John Hopkins, I am 'on hold' and will find out at the end of this month/beginning of April but I highly doubt that I will be getting in there. It is the number one school of public health. Why would they want me if University of Maryland, Columbia, NIH, Emory and Georgetown do not want me? I could always take a year off but to do what? I do not regret coming to South Africa because I have had the most amazing time here and this experience has changed my life but I really wish that it, along with my bloody GRE scores, did not put me at such a disadvantage.

Bungee Jumping and Zip Line Canopy Tour Pictures

2008-03-11T09:18:00.000-07:00

After the jump (these are out of order but you can see the tears in my eyes)

Canopy tour! Ziplining my way over some gorgeous waterfalls

The bungee jumping crew, minus Noelle since she did not jump.

The zip lining crew!

The bridge that I jumped off of. Crazy I know.

Before the jump, getting my legs tied up like a mummy. I was laughing from nervousness

Being carried to the edge of the bridge. This is where I started to cry.

And off I go (you can tell I am already screaming)

Long way down

Pictures from Plettenburg Bay Trip

2008-03-11T08:53:00.001-07:00

On the beach during our Robberg Peninsula hike. At this point we wish we brought bathing suits so that we could swim. :(

On the sand dunes looking down onto the seals

Seals - there were hundreds of them. If you couldn't see them you could most definitely hear them

Our home sweet home for several days: Starling backpackers

Feeding Harry a treat after a nice ride

Swimming in the Indian Ocean - very warm by the way

Our mode of transportation. This is us before we said goodbye.

Playing the drums

Jung and I riding Harry the elephant :)

Robberg Peninsula. That little patch of sand is where we hiked to but we did a big loop.

Warning: a long post

2008-03-10T11:06:00.000-07:00

I really do not understand why I was so anxious about this trip that we took over the weekend. It was amazing. Warning: this will be a long post.

What was supposed to have happened this weekend:
1) get on bus at 6:45 and arrive in Plettenburg Bay at 3:30 AM. Get picked up by Starling Backpackers
2) go to Nature’s Valley (via cab)
3) Hiking
4) Beach days
5) Total relaxation

What actually happened this weekend:
1) got on bus at ~ 6:45. Broke down ~ 2:30 and arrived at around 4:30 A.M.
2) went hiking at Robberg Peninsula
3) went to Knysna Elephant Sanctuary where I rode an elephant
4) Two hour long canopy tours consisting of 6 zip lines over waterfalls
5) Bunjee jumping off of the world’s highest bunjee jump. A 7 second free fall
6) Beach
7) We never made it to Nature’s Valley

Now time to explain the strange course of events that made up one of the most exciting weekends ever! The whole premise of this vacation was to go to Nature’s Valley, a secluded beach area. To this day, we still don’t know what Nature’s Valley actually is. Anyways, after an entire day of several people trying to figure out how we would get to Nature’s Valley, which is a point along the Garden Route, we decided that the best course of action would be to take an Intercape bus from Cape Town to Plettenburg Bay, a town right next to Nature’s Valley. There, we would stay at a hostel, which wound up being Starling Backpackers, and then take taxis to and from Nature’s Valley. Eventually, after much planning and rearranging Marita’s class, again, which I felt horrible about, we arranged for taxis to meet us at UCT right after we finished in order to rush us downtown so we could catch the bus. I was anxious about sleeping on the bus, since it was an overnight ride, but Mia was great, gave me some melatonin and made sure that I slept which I did. I passed out, so much so that I did not realize that we had broken down on the side of the highway. In my defense, we had been stopping at various stops along the way to pick people up and drop them off so my unconscious state probably thought that it was another stop, a long one. Mia apparently had to poke, prod and yell at me in order to wake me up to tell me we had to get off the bus. I was so confused. We were in the middle of nowhere. Unbeknownst to me, another bus was coming to take everybody that was going to Plettenburg’s Bay. We wound up sitting on the side of the road for a good 30 minutes (the broken down bus was still there). It was fairly amusing. Starlight backpackers picked us up and drove us there to a place that was more of a farm bed and breakfast. I packed my stuff into my single room, assembled my fan (yes I disassembled a fan to bring it with me to sleep) and once again, passed out but this time on a comfortable bed and not a bus seat with people snoring behind me.
The next morning, I realized how amazing our location was. It was serene – absolutely gorgeous. We were on a farm, a place that was originally a mental institution but they bought it and turned it into a backpackers lodge. Vicky and Matthew, the owners, made us breakfast which consisted of mueli (granola with yoghurt in our language) and fruit, a little breakfast (two eggs, bacon, toast and a fried tomato) or a large breakfast (little breakfast + mueli and fruit). After eating breakfast, Vicky and Matthew proceeded to tell us various things that we could do that was in the area. We wound up splitting into two groups, one wanted to do the canopy tours which is essentially a zip line through the forest but this one took you past several waterfalls while the other group that I was a part of wanted to do some hiking. The plan was that we would hike and then come back in time to ride horses through a local game reserve (which I was very excited about).
Robberg Peninsula was gorgeous, that is all that I can say. There were three routes you could take: 45 minute, 2 hour or 4 hour hike. Obviously the longer the hike, the more that you see but we did not have time for the 4 hour hike so we resorted to the 2 hour hike. Our driver, Tyrrone, told us to be on the lookout for dolphins, whales and sharks – you can see them while walking around the peninsula. Unfortunately, we did not see any of those but we saw a ton of seals. Before we saw them, we could hear them. There was at least several hundred seals in the water or sunbathing on the rocks. There was not a good path to get down closer to them but it was cool to watch them all the same. Eventually the path led us to steep sand dunes (which are really fun to run down) and then to a secluded beach with maybe two people on it. I wish I had worn by bathing suit because I would have gone in the water. There we found a washed up puffer fish, which I proceeded to play with because I am a little kid. The water was so blue, the sand was so soft – everything was gorgeous. I wish we could have spent more time there but unfortunately, we had to get back in order to go to the game reserve.
After the end of the hike, we planned on calling Tyrrone to come and get us but he was already there (just a hint at how great these people were). He had some bad news though: the game reserve overbooked and there were no horses left for us to ride. We headed back to the lodge in order to determine what else to do. The alternative given to us was just as amazing: go to Knysna Elephant Sanctuary and ride the elephants throughout the park. Obviously we said that would be amazing. Tyrrone took us to The Lookout, a really good restaurant that he works at, in order to eat. Most people got fried calamari or calamari steaks. I opted for the fish and chips but it was soo good, some of the best that I have had. Apparently, the Lookout used to overlook the best beach in all of Plettenburg Bay but due to heavy rain, it was flooded several months ago, to the point that most of the parking lot is under water. There is no hope of it going down and that is too bad because it might start to affect the infrastructure of the restaurant. Some people have doubts on whether or not it will survive, due to the intense flooding.
Tyrrone picked us up and we drove to Knysna. The drive itself was almost as much fun. He had an open jeep – the weather was so nice that we climbed into the back and just looked at the scenery as we sped through the streets of Plettenburg, the wind whipping through our hair. Plettenburg is one beautiful town. Just the scenery, atmosphere and basically everything, reminded me of Nantucket. Knysna was amazing as well; just the fact that we were getting a chance to ride on elephants was exciting enough. According to the video that we watched, Knysna elephants are going extinct. There were hundreds of them at the Knysna forest at one point but hunters and poachers dwindled their population down to three. In 1994, the sanctuary was started and two elephants, Harry and Sally (for when Harry Met Sally) were the start of the sanctuary. Now, thanks to Harry and Sally, there are 10 Knysna elephants and these are the only ones in the world. The sanctuary is an open piece of property (there are fences so that elephants don’t wander into people’s back yards) that is a part of the Knysna forest. We had 4 elephants waiting for us. Jung and I wound up riding the biggest of them all, Harry. Unfortunately, it was not like Aladdin where you have a little hut thing on top of the elephant that you sit on. You are sitting on a blanket, on top of the elephant. Lets just say this would never become my favored mode of transportation. It was uncomfortable, especially since I was the farthest back. First of all, you need to stay in the center of its back, which is really hard. I kept slipping to the left and elephants are very high up, especially Harry. It was a really interesting experience though and elephants are such gentle creatures, except of course when their baby is being threatened (there was a mother and a baby – she was very protective of the baby). I sung Baby Elephant Walk in my head. It was like a train of elephants since there was four in a row (which also reminded me of the marching elephants in Jungle Book). As we were walking through this field, we got to see the other elephants that are part of the sanctuary, out in their environment. It was such a cool experience. I have an “official” picture but no scanner so you guys will have to make do with the pictures Mia took of us since my camera ran out of batteries.
That night kids from local townships came to the Starling for a camp. Vicky and Matthew are such amazing people. They allow these kids, who have to deal with being raped, abused, being exposed to violence etc. to come to their place, as part of the Born In Africa program. The kids are loud, naughty, what little boys usually are but they are actually allowed to be boys. At home, they grow up too fast due to everything that they are exposed to. We played a game of soccer with them and had our dinner, which was lamb, potatoe salad and something else. The lamb was pretty good but I had to keep telling myself it was a cow. After that, they took us on a “pub crawl” which is the South African term for bar hopping. The pubs had such a different, better atmosphere than the ones in Cape Town. It was a lot of fun.
The next morning we awoke to rain – downpouring rain. Since it was muddy, we could not ride the horses through the game park because the horses could slip in the mud. We needed to come up with a different game plan. Unfortunately, most things in Plettenburg Bay are outdoors so when it rains, you are really limited for options . The other group went to go and ride the elephants and we went to do the canopy tour. It was a lot of fun and even Noelle, who is scared of heights, was able to do it. There is a whole system of breaks and you can pause in the middle of the zip line to look at the scenery. It was such a blast. After that ordeal, Katie and Alyssa wanted to go bungee jumping, which the other group was doing as well. We drove out there and it turned out that Sarah and Lauren, the only people who were going to go originally in the other group, were joined by Christine, Jeff and Alex. From our group, Mia, Katie, and Alyssa signed up to bungee jump. John from the other group decided to go with them and Noelle, Jung and I walked out to watch them. Well I think the euphoria of jumping off of a bridge was a little too much for me. You know the saying “if all of your friends jumped off a bridge, would you?” Well apparently I would because I did. Free fall of 7 seconds. My throat hurt all night because I screamed so loud and so hard. Right before I jumped I was wondering what I was getting myself into. I don’t even like the Tower of Terror yet I am jumping off of a freaking bridge! So yeah…it was lekker though (that means really cool in Afrikaans). I still cannot believe that I did it but I have a video and pictures to prove that I did. The video is pretty funny. I am all excited right until they put me on the edge and I say “I can’t do this” and then they push me off. So I am psycho…pretty crazy.
We had a traditional African dinner that night which was an ox tail stew. I cannot remember the actual name of it or anything like that but it was essentially an ox tail stew. It was good! The ox tail tasted like roast beef. I did not want to leave last night though. That place was so much fun and soo cool. I was so relaxed while I was there. Before we left I played drums with some of the guys, we went for a joy ride in the car. I would love to go back there. If Amanda and I had more time, I would take her there to stay. The people there are just amazing. I am so glad that I forced myself to go on this trip. Thank you to everybody for telling me to go even though I was so anxious about it. I have such good memories and do not regret a single second of it.

2008-03-05T13:04:00.000-08:00

Heading to Nature's Valley for the weekend. Kind of excited but kind of nervous. This will be my first stay in a hostel, an overnight bus trip...all of the above. Lets just hope that I actually sleep :/

2008-03-02T10:40:00.000-08:00

Pictures from Two Oceans Aquarium from last weekend. Look! I found Buddy in South Africa! :)

I found Nemo!!! Apparently Nemo got frisky and made lots of little nemos.

Madiba and I. We make a really cute couple if I may say so :)

Dun dun dun dun....JAWS! Just for you Amanda! :)

So those are the end of the pictures that I feel like putting up. More are on my picture website, now onto this past weekend. This weekend past by quite uneventfully. I did not go out at all because I am exhausted and bored of the club scene. Instead, I stayed home at night and watched some movies.

On Friday, I went to Rondebosch center with Sarah to do some shopping. We went into Vertigo (my new favorite store) and I did not buy anything, even though there was a sale! I was proud of my self control. Then later, I took a MBT (mini bus taxi - they sound much more legit when you say MBT) to Observatory to meet Mia. We had fun, tried on some dresses. I tried on this gorgeous dress that I thought looked really good on me but it was the type of dress that you can only wear to a club. Since I do not go clubbing, I saw no point in spending money on it (it was not cheap at all) if I am going to use it once or twice. We went to Obs cafe for tea (big thing around here) and dinner. My dinner was a blueberry muffin and a delicious slice of chocolate cake. The waiter was really confused when he was asked to bring an Italian Job (a really good burger according to Mia) and a piece of cake. Whatever, I was happy with my selection.

Saturday was a little confusing and disappointing. I was supposed to go to Khayelitsha and start my soccer lessons with the girls but the vans did not show up on time to pick us up. We were supposed to be picked up at 10:30 because some people had tickets to a soccer game for 3:30 and needed to be back early. I was very dismayed that people did not tell me about the soccer game when I told everybody about the rugby game that I was invited to but that is another story. Anyways, the vans did not arrive at the house until 12:30 which was too late for anybody to go. I still would have gone but it would have only been me paying for the entire car, which I cannot afford to do. I was really disappointed and I am sure the kids were too. I understand that things run on Africa time, but 2 hours late is late even for African time! So, after that disappointment, I decided to go to the soccer game, if I could get tickets. Some people walked to Checkers to try and get them there but they were sold out. There were tickets at the actual stadium but we called and you had to buy tickets at a different stadium then where the game was being played it. It was confusing so I decided it was more of a hassle to try to do all of that. I will go to another game with Alyssa since she did not get to go either and shares a love for soccer. I wound up wasting a day and went running because I was pissed. After the run I jumped in the pool with all of my clothes on. The pool was so disgusting, I could get a UTI from jumping in there but it was fun. The boys bought inflatable pool toys, like a basketball hoop, and we were running in and dunking. It was crazy but fun.

Today, I went to Clifton Beach again. Soo gorgeous. I have a slight sunburn even though I once again lathered many many times. I found a Little Mermaid rock where I can pose like her. All I need now is a wave to come crashing at just the right minute and bam...I offically am a Little Mermaid freak (moreso than I am now). Oh! I got Amanda's postcards from Belgium! The Atomium structure was my favorite postcard and people are beginning to realize just how much of a science geek I actually am. And Dad's package came in. It came into a post office that is far away so I am going to get them to transfer is to the Rondebosch post office that is down the road. Why it is in Cavendish...I have no idea. The postal system here makes no sense to me.

I am very excited for next weekend. I still have my doubts about it but I think it will be fun. A bunch of us are leaving Thursday night on a bus to go to Plettenburg Bay (we will arrive at 3:30 in the morning). We are going to stay in a hostel and right next to Plettenburg Bay is Nature's Valley, a very secluded area where in order to get to the beach, you have to hike there. I am excited about it because it is supposed to be gorgeous. Since the beachs are hard to get to, they are empty even though they are gorgeous. The mountains are supposed to be gorgeous as well. Also, the worlds tallest bungee jumping is in the area. Don't worry, I am not bungee jumping - I would be psycho if I did that but I will watch everybody else doing that. We are then leaving Sunday night at 10:45 and will arrive in Cape Town at 6:45 in the morning. Hopefully I will be able to sleep the entire bus ride so that I can just go to work right after I arrive back in town. It will be nice to get out of the city because we are slowly running out of things to do. I want to plan a trip to Outdshoorn, the place where I can ride ostriches and see the Cango Caves. Also, there are a lot more nature reserves that I would love to go to. It is just so hard with so many people. All of them want to do everything but when it is such a large group, it is so hard to get things planned and get them done since we have to take everybody into account. And if you only want a select few people to go, it hurts other peoples feelings if you don't invite them. So basically, it is freaking hard to plan things around here. I always feel bad if certain people are not included but hey, it is not my job to make sure everybody has a good time right? Anyways, I love and miss you all!!

2008-02-26T07:21:00.000-08:00

Clifton Beach # 4 (the other ones are separated by jetties). #1 and #2 is supposed to be for models and narcissists (or so the guidebook says), #3 is a gay beach supposedly and #4 is the family beach

Lions Head in the backgroun - that is what I climbed last thursday night

The water is freezing cold. If you are able to zoom in on my face, I probably have a fairly shocked expression because I had just dunked myself in the water

Mia, Christine, me and Jung (who refused to face the camera), all sunbathing.

Just to make everybody jealous, I am now going to explain all about my gorgeous day at the Clifton beach on Sunday! First of all, beautiful weather (still sporting a burn though - I lathered up twice too!), no wind whatsoever. The sand was by far the softest sand I have ever felt and the water was the coldest water I have ever felt (colder than Maine in the winter I feel). I was brave enough to run in it and dive into the water (which you kind of have to do because it was so hot). Oh and the backdrop for the beach: mountains. Here are some pictures for your enjoyment :)

2008-02-24T07:00:00.001-08:00

I have only enough time for a quick update since I was so busy this weekend that I have not gotten a lot of the research I need to get done in order to write a paper for Thursday. Whoops! Anyways, good news! Saturday (as in yesterday), I went shopping for food with Mia. We came back around 4 P.M. and I checked my email. I got an email from the lady from UConn Health Center who was supposed to be interviewing me by phone for the PhD program I applied to. She never got back t0 me on what time she wanted to call but in this email, she said she would try calling in 1.5 to 2 hours from the time she sent that email. By the time I got home, read the email, figured out how long ago she had sent the email, I realize she was going to call in 30 minutes to 1 hour. Lets just say that I was completely freaking out because I was not prepared (although there is not much that needs to be prepared, that I know of, for an interview like this). Everybody at the house was great, especially Mia. They gave me a sponge to squeeze to relieve stress, kicked everybody out of the dining room and told nobody to disturb me and set me up with some calming tea. Anyways, the interview went amazingly! All in all, the lady, Lynn Puddington, loved me. We are pretty much the same type of person, total science geeks who get really excited over things that other people do not care about. She said that a problem in most interviews is you do not get a sense of maturity, motivation or passion from the interviewee but that was not the case with me. Lynn said that she would highly recommend me for this program and her only concern was that the program may not be a good fit for me, personally. I explained my research interests and in doing that, convinced her that this would be a great program for me. She is confidant that I would excel in the PhD program since I was so motivated and since several researchers matched my interests exactly. Lynn mentioned that she really wished she could have met me in person and we agreed to have lunch when I get back, just to talk. She was a really great person to talk to, to interview me and it was just so great. So I am very relieved because I am highly confidant that I will get into the program and that means that I at least have a fallback for next year. I will actually have somewhere to go for next year which is a HUGE weight off of my shoulders.

Oh and today, I went to Clifton beach - it was amazing but the water was colder than the water in Maine (yes that is possible).

Hike up Lions Head

2008-02-22T08:35:00.000-08:00

So this week was fairly good. I made a lot of progress on my project at work, to me at least. Finally I know what I am looking for in these case files although it is quite depressing when I come across one where the child died. Thursday classes were good but once again we are getting even more work than before. That is quite annoying especially because we are here to see the country and instead, we are stuck inside writing essays. Boo.

Thursday night was a full moon. Tim told us about how he hiked up Lions Head. It is a mountain in the mountain range with Table mountain. From the top of this mountain you can see the sun setting and moon rising at the same time. Since it was a full moon we decided to go that night. It was gorgeous. The hike was awesome. There was a part where the trail split in two. One was most definitely longer and round about and the other went up a really high rock and you needed to use chains in order to get up the rock. I went up that way and it was pretty fun. Once we got to the top, the view was amazing. The pictures will be posted shortly. We could see all of Cape Town, the view was amazing especially with the clouds that were rolling over Table Mountain. The moon was gorgeous, especially when Cape Town was lit up. The camera does not do it justice what so ever and unfortunately, it was really hard to take pictures at night so they aren't all that great. Anyways, it was amazing. The only problem was hiking down in the dark. We were stupid and did not bring flashlights; we were not exactly prepared for the hike since it was a spur of the moment decision. Fortunately, the moon was bright enough for us to see, and the lights of Cape Town also helped. I did trip several times and it was not reassuring that there was nothing separating me from the path and the cliff. but I survived!

We were supposed to go kayaking today but it was too windy. Instead, I went to the V&A Waterfront and went to the Two Oceans Aquarium. It isn't that great, compared to the Mystic and New England aquarium. But it was still fun.

The latest

2008-02-19T12:41:00.000-08:00

So I feel like I did not do the rugby game justice, which I know I haven't. I have been so busy lately that I really do not have time to do this (considering I have gotten 0 work done for school tonight). Anyways, the game was amazing. People here are NUTS about rugby. Junktrap, you would love it. All day long, there were cars driving by with huge flags of their team hanging out the window. Everybody would yell at us as we were walking by and mild fights occurred between cars that were supporting the opposing teams. Basically it was the Vodacom Bulls vs. the Vodacom Stormers. Yes..Vodacom owns everything. If you ever want to take over South Africa, just take over Vodacom and you are all set. I had no idea who to root for so I asked the Swiss twins and their South African friends who told me the Stormers were better. Cape Town is pretty much 50:50 on that issue though. Anyways, it was such a huge game. The game was completely sold out and when we were walking there, I knew we were getting closer when the slow rumbling was getting louder. I have never seen so many people in my life! It is huge! Our seats were pretty amazing too. They were not bleeder seats and I could easily see the numbers on the back of the rugby shirts. I heard something about the number on the back of their shirt denotes their position but I am not sure about that one. So I was voting for the Stormers. I did not know what was going on but I was obsessed by the lineout or whatever Junktrap called it: when the team lifts their player into the air (actually by their legs and not their shorts - probably to prevent the wedgie from occurring Amanda) in order to catch the ball. I think after watching this game though, I get the gist of the game. You kick off like football, the other team runs and everybody tackles that person. BUT, it is tricky, the ball is not out of play. There is a huge pig pile (which is about 50% of the game) where the ball gets strategically moved to the outside and thrown to a player of their team. That player takes the ball and runs all of two feet before the pig pile has moved on top of him. If the team is good, they will the throw the ball behind them (cannot throw ahead of them) right before they are tackled and will form sort of like a diagonal line. There are field goals (if they are even called that) and they are worth 3 points. There are also goals a.k.a a tri. I have no idea how much that is worth because neither team scored one. Oh and all people that play this sport have a death wish. They get hit so hard and have no padding! I am surprised that hospitals aren't filled with old rugby players that have brain damage. Junktrap - I hope that New London rugby is not as violent as this rugby - it is nuts! Oh and the other cool part is that even if the buzzer sounds for the half or game to be over, the game isn't over until the ball is out of bounds. Until then, it is still in play. All in all, the Stormers were leading for the first half and the Bulls came back the second half and whooped the Stormers butt. :( It was a close game though! So exciting! In the end, the Stormers were about to score a tri, the buzzer sounded but the ball was still in play. They were right on the line but alas, the ball went out of play. :( Anyways, I have tons of videos, some really good ones and I tried sending you one Basura but it was taking too long. I will devote a day to just that at some point though. The internet might time out before the video is attached but I will try my hardest to get it to you because I have to admit, it is a pretty awesome video. Anyways...that was the game. It was awesome.

On Sunday night, I went to Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens for a concert (this is where Michael Buble was playing at the beginning of December and where the Parlotones played but I missed them). We had a picnic there and explored. Mom, you would drive me nuts in a place like this because there is so much and it is soo gorgeous! You would spend probably 10 hours just taking pictures and it takes 3 hours to tour the entire place. Everywhere you look, there is the mountains. And the backdrop of the concert is the mountains. We saw the Rudimentals and they are a ska band. I did not really enjoy the music but other people did. I was enjoying the scenery. Pictures of that will be up later because they are still on my computer. It is late and I want to go to bed.

Oh and on another note, I forgot to mention that Thursday we found out that Matt, our RA, was quitting. He can't handle us or something like that. It is a lot of drama. He moved out yesterday and we have a new RA, Ben, who lived in this house a couple years ago with the UNC program. He is great and is everything we needed Matt to be. Ben knows the area, knows what to do in certain situations and just wants us to have fun but be safe. So...there has been less drama! :) That is always good!

Pictures from Valentine's Day, the Braai in honor of Dr. O, concert at Armchair in Obs. and Rugby game!

2008-02-16T23:37:00.000-08:00

Babalwa and I at the Brai. She taught me how to do this South African dance. I tried to upload the video of it but it takes too long.

Rugby game! Stormers vs. Bulls. I was rooting for the Stormers (who are in dark blue) because I was told that they were the better team. Unfortunately, they lost in a really close game. This is a picture of the crazy part of the game when they throw in the ball and each team lifts somebody up in the air to catch it. I was obsessed with this part.

My new dress that I wore for Valentine's Day

Alyssa, my roomie Amanda and I at the UWC Valentine's Day Dance

Sarah, Renee and I at the Armchair Lounge in Observatory for the Hot Water/Freshly Ground concert. Hot Water opened. They were amazing and crazy at the same time. So entertaining though! Freshly Ground is apparently a very famous South African band. They were playing at this tiny spot because the Armchair Lounge was where their band took off. Basically, I got to be two feet from them (literally) due to their nostalgia. They were also awesome. Both of these bands were better in concert than on CD but I still suggest looking them up on ITunes, if they are even there. They are great! I have all of their cds (we each bought a different one and took turns copying them onto our computers - yes we are bad) so if anybody is interested in listening to them, hit me up when I get back!

Valentines Day Extravaganza

2008-02-15T07:40:00.000-08:00

So, as I stated before, I would explain all about my wonderful valentines day. We had class, as normal but we convinced Marita to let us out early in order to get ready for a Valentines Day Dance at UWC (University of Western Cape). Lara and Katy intern there so they were able to find out about the dance. I got to wear my new dress which was exciting, especially since I am in love with it.

When we got there (via minibus taxi of course) it was a little ackward because this is a 99% black campus and we were the only white people there. Nevermind the fact that it was a group of 20 of us. Plus, although the flier said to be there at 5:30 for a sit down dinner, we arrived at 6:00 and nothing was ready. Also nobody was there except for us. So we sat down, talked, killed some time. Unfortunately it was pretty chilly and I was stupid not to bring a sweater. The set up was absolutely gorgeous though! Uconn would never throw something like this (even if you take out the snow factor on Valentines Day in Uconn). The tables were set up with white tablecloths, nice white chairs. There was a vase filled with water with a floating candle as the centerpiece for each table. Every girl received a red rose. We had regular glasses and wine glasses - we received our juice (which guava = delicious!) and then free wine! I did not really care about the wine since I don't like alcohol but everybody else loved it! Our dinner was a lamb buffet. Yes I ate the lamb and yes I liked it as long as I convinced myself it was a cow. The dinner was delicious. There were also two stages set up. One was for marimba players (they played that famous Andre Boccelli song on the marimbas) and the other was for a live band that was very good. We had locals reciting their original poetry and we danced. It was so much fun, despite the cold. Plus we got to meet a lot of really nice people and they all wanted to make sure that we were having fun (seeing as we stuck out like a sore thumb). There is a foam party there tonight that we were invited to but I am not going to go to. I think instead I am heading to a concert in Observatory that the other house went to last night.

Anyways, after our dance, we exchanged secret valentines. Previously we had picked out of a hat and put a limit of R35 for each secret valentine. The person I had was Jung and I bought her flowers, a beaded flower from the street and some P.S. I love you chocolate (a big thing around here). Noelle had me for a secret valentine and she bought me a beaded flower (that was a common theme for gifts), a really cool candle and a cupcakes with hearts on it from Charlys. She had heard about my mom's famous heart shaped cakes and how I was going to miss them this year so she improvised and got me a cupcake with hearts on it! I thought it was adorable. Also, since I had a bad night the night before, my roomie, Amanda, bought me daisies. Somehow she remembered that they were my favorite flower and they are gorgeous! They are painted daisies and I absolutley love them! Plus, to make the day even better, my amazing sister (along with her amazing husband) sent me a V-day package with a holographic Little Mermaid card (that is taped next to my bed) and the most amazing Little Mermaid shirt. I wore it this morning when I walked to get food for our braai today. It was probably the best valentine's day I have ever had. The secret valentine idea was the best idea we have ever had and I would do it every week if we had an occasion. Since everybody liked it so much we may just make up random occasions to do it.

So today, we had a braai because Dr. O, a professor from Uconn and the head of the UNESCO chapter in Connecticut (I believe but don't quote me on that) was in the area. Nolyanda, Babalwa and Mongamo came as well since we invited them. They were the three students that we met our second week here - they were the ones in hte video about taking the Matric exam when attending school in a township. We have become great friends with them and they were so much fun. They taught Lara, Christine and I how to do a dance. We showed off to everybody and I have a video of it. You will have to see how ridiculously bad I am at it :). So, that is that . It was a great day today and we had such a blast. Oh and more exciting news, next weekend we might go kayaking. I will add pictures to this blog later. I gotta run so that I can go to my concert! :) Love you all!

2008-02-14T14:44:00.000-08:00

I just wanted to say Happy Valentines Day to everybody! A lot happened today but I am too tired to go into it all right now, especially since it is almost 1 AM here. I will try to post details about it tomorrow. Thank you to everybody who wished me a happy V-day and especially to mi hermana mas bonita for sending me the coolest shirt ever!!! People think I am nuts because I got so excited about a little mermaid card and shirt. But trust me - coolest shirt and card ever! Anyways, hope everybody had a wonderful day!

2008-02-13T10:49:00.000-08:00

This week has been fairly good at my internship. I am still so stressed that I will not finish everything on time. Today I actually saw two patients in the ICU that are on ventilators and now have pneumonia. It is easier to get the information that I need for the study since I can ask the Sister (a.k.a. nurse) the question. Retrospective research is hard because not all of the answers you need were written down. It was sad seeing the children that were really sick. Apparently, one burn victim died of pneumonia over the weekend. Although it is really sad, it gives me that much more motivation to continue to do what I am doing and to finish this project, in the hopes that it will shed some light on something.

Besides that, I saw 27 dresses this week. Cute movie. I also bought a really cute dress that I am going to wear to the Valentine Day's Dance tomorrow at UWC (university of western cape where two people in my house intern). We are exchanging secret valentine gifts tomorrow so that should be interesting. Right now I am not sounding overly enthusiastic since I am pretty discouraged. We have to do this activist project for the women's study class and I decided that I was going to focus my efforts for my activist project on the after-school program in Khayelitsha that we visited on Saturday. When people ask me what I am doing and I mention that, they give me this attitude. I feel like a horrible person because they stated that we were all just doing that for fun and here I am asking for credit. Does this make me a horrible person? I was thinking about doing this before we even went and before everybody had such a good time. I figured that I would take a different angle, besides being a mentor to the kids, by trying to fundraise in order to get money for the program. They cannot do any fundraising for themselves because they need certain things in order to start fundraising. First off, they need t-shirts in order for the soccer team to be able to compete against other teams in Khayelitsha. They also need traditional clothes in order to be able to perform at places like the waterfront where donations are given to performers. People are still giving me crap about all of this. Then to make matters worse, apparently it is really hard to try to fundraise. I wanted to try to see if I could coordinate something with some people at Uconn in order to raise money for them but everywhere I go, people keep shooting me down. Way to keep my confidence boosted! :)

Also, although I have been told that Uconn and UMD want to interview me for the PhD programs, UMD has not gotten back to me about whether or not I can have a phone interview. Uconn has told me that I can have a phone interview (about a month ago) but still have not emailed me about the date or time. I did not get into the NIH program and I have not heard back from Emory, Columbia, Georgetown or John Hopkins. Although I love it here, I feel like I am compromising my future. I have worked so hard to get where I am and will being here prevent me from getting achieving it?

2008-02-09T10:52:00.000-08:00

The last two days have been amazing. I didn't update during the week because nothing really occurred. Wednesday I finally started gathering information for my project. I felt like I was shopping for lives because I literally had a shopping cart and went up and down the aisles of old patient files, looking for the different files I needed and once they were found, I placed them in the shopping cart. When the shopping cart was full, I checked them all out, went to the other building, dropped them off and continued again. I am still not done - there are probably 500 files that I have to get. I am finally getting excited about my project which is good but afraid that I will not get it done on time though - hopefully I can!

Thursday we had presentations for the South African polysci class. It went alright - it was really boring but whatever - how can polysci be fun? (Ches you do not have to answer that)

Friday was awesome. I unfortunately did not realize that Parliament was opening or I would have gone downtown earlier to be part of the celebrations. Mbeki (the pres.) was there so there was a large police force with guns and places were blocked off. Anyways, Amanda, Sarah, Noelle and I decided that we wanted to go to downtown Cape Town to go to several museums. We planned on hitting them all but wound up only hitting up the South African Musuem. It was more like a natural history musuem but we had such a blast. We took funny random pictures next to gigantic sculptures/figures of animals. There was an entire row of taxidermy animals. It was really creepy to walk down because all of these animals were staring at you - the eyes are what did it for me. Creepy. So basically, we were being silly, which will be evident when I put pictures up from that day and collect other pictures from everybody else. They had the best photography exhibit ever - such amazing photos of animals. All of the photographs had a story underneath about how the photo was taken. One was a close up of a bear in the water. Apparently the photographer was trying to photograph trout, looked up and a bear was staring him right in the face. He stupidly took a picture but the bear didn't attack him. There was also some mind blowing photographs of little kids. The description the kid gave was "We were on vacation and I saw these monkeys so I borrowed my uncle's camera". It was cute.

After the musuem, we wandered around Company Gardens for a little bit. It is gorgeous in there - it is essentially a park that is right behind Parliament. By this time I think Mbeki left Parliament because the police were taking down the blockades and heading out of the area. We then went to Green Market Square, again. I have a very bad habit of spending all of my money when I go to Green Market. this time I bought another painting - it looks kind of abstract but it is of two African women. I also bought two pieces of jewlery: one intricate beading necklace and another necklace made out of onyx, I think. There were none of the onyx and jade ones that I really liked but man, I could spend so much money there, it is unbelievable. I had to hold myself back from buying the flowers made out of beads (which I am going to buy eventually because they are gorgeous) and the baskets. I also have a huge problem with the paintings - I want every single one of them! Right after I haggle my way down to a decent price and buy it, I find another one I like even more! It is ridiculous! This time there was no random monkey on a women's shoulder though. It was quite disappointing. There was a guy selling key chains of animals made out of beads for really cheap. I was going to get some and send them to Ari but we were in a rush....:( I promise Ari will get some eventually!

Oh another amazing moment of that day was that I went to McD for the first time in a while. And to my surprise (and yours Aunt Ann), it tasted exactly the same, if not better. The if not better part was probably because I have had withdrawal so the taste of the greasy salty fries was even more amazing due to my brief period of abstinence. I think if I tried a hamburger it would be different - apparently hamburgers around here have much more seasoning in it so it tastes more like meatloaf on a bun. Instead I got the test tube chicken - a little drier than normal but besides that, it was f-a-n-t-a-s-t-i-c!

Later that night we decided to go out to Chrome, a club on Long Street. Ches was right when she said that Long Street is the place to be. I wore my Africa dress! Everybody loved it and it was a warm enough night for me to wear it. I was not cold at all. Chrome was an okay place - I did not like it as much as La Med or the Tin Roof because the music was not that great and unlike most people, I go for the music, not the alcohol. The problem with last night was that it was free vodka shots. Now I hate vodka so I obviously did not drink any but many other people did. Two girls were wasted within an hour and a half and had to be taken home. For once I did not take it upon myself to help them out and decided that I was going to stay and have fun, which is exactly what I did. I was pretty proud of myself for that decision, although it may seem minor.

Today was another amazing day. I did not get any homework done, seeing as I am typing this up at 10:30 and am so tired I could pass out right now. One of the girls, Alex, works at Hope Worldwide which is an NGO that works on HIV/AIDS prevention in the townships and other places. They also do much more than HIV/AIDS advocacy but a majority is that. Because she works in Khayelitsha, she found out about this man who does an afternoon program for kids, all on his own. Since there is no program like that in Khayelitsha, he has the kids over his house. He has a drama, soccer and cricket club for the kids to join and he is pretty much a mentor for them. All of this is coming out of his pocket money too. He has not established this as an official organization, which needs to happen before he can get funding. Basically, he is an angel in this township, especially since it is so filled with violence and poverty. These kids have a safe haven for a couple hours a day which is more than most get in other townships. We went to visit them, since they do things on Saturday as well. It is kind of a soccer camp for them. A lot of us pooled our money together and bought them three soccer balls, a basketball and some cones to use as goals. All I can say is that the money was well worth it. These kids were absolutely amazing. First off, the drama kids performed a play that they wrote and rehearsed just for us. It was called Rape and is now being used to inform other kids about the high incidence of rape in South Africa, specifically Khayelitsha and how it is not a good thing. I expected high school performances out of them but with the performances I saw, I could have been on Broadway. They were amazing. There was singing, acting, dancing - you name it and these kids could do it to perfection. The play that they wrote also was very close to making me cry. The youngest was 12 and the oldest was 16 and they wrote this extremely insightful play. One of the kids has taken it upon himself to write to the government to make harsher punishments for rape crimes. A large theme of the play was that rape is not okay and when bad things happen, do not lose hope. I could not help but wonder how many of the kids sitting in that room with me had experienced rape at some point in their life. I am sure that almost all had either been raped themselves or someone that they knew was raped. It was so powerful, even the parts in Xhosa which I could not really understand. I was amazed beyond belief.

After the play, the soccer club kids split up into teams based upon if where they lived in Khayelitsha and played a game. I have to admit, I did not really pay attention to the game. Instead, these three cute little boys were staring at me. I waved to them and they immediately giggled and ran away. I saw them mocking the way that I waved at them and minute later they were back. I said hello and once again they ran away and mocked the way that I said hello. I figured this was some sort of game. We were all spectacles because they probably have never seen a white person in Khayelitsha, or had such close contact with a white person. Once I realized it was a game, every time they came back, I made a funny face which sent them into laughter. Then the cameras were brought out and whenever anybody tried to take a picture, they ran in front of the camera and made all of the funny faces that I taught them. Alex has most of the pictures - when I get them I will definitely be posting them because these children were adorable. This other little girl who did not understand english (most of the younger ones did not) latched on to me and I carried her around, played with her and let her drag me around to different people, showing me off in a way. She was one of the most beautiful kids I have ever seen and had the very best temperament. We sat through another longer play that was all in Xhosa and she just watched, did not get antsy or talk, just watched. I was impressed.

Once the soccer game was over, it was time for the UConn kids to play the winning team. I thought we were going to be killed. These kids were really really good players. I feel like all Africans are born with the ability to play and a soccer ball attached to their feet. We held our own though and ended the game 0-0. Granted, the coach did take out the best players from the other team and let some of the weaker players have some time to play but we still held our own. My soccer skills have gotten abominable though but compared to everybody else on my team, I was pretty good! It was so nice to play a game again though. I reignited my love for that game and cannot wait to go to Khayelitsha again so that I can play with the kids.

Towards the end of our day, I was talking with this young boy who was part of the drama program. Somehow the topic of music and dancing came up and I asked him if he enjoyed dancing. He stated that he did and that he knew lots of forms of dancing. Now I figured that he would list off these hip hop moves or African dances and when I asked him what types of dances he knew, I was surprised. Immediately, he started this long list that went something like this:"the cha cha, Venetian waltz, marimba, tango, jazz, swing....etc." Now I thought he might have been running his mouth a little bit but once again I was wrong. This kid could dance and was completely serious about it too! Then, I was taught by a 16 year old South African how to waltz. It was nuts! I kept apologizing for being such a horrible dancer but I can say that as of right now, I am not too shabby at the waltz. :)

Leaving was sad - all of the kids wanted us to stay. I am most definitely going back - it was by far the best experience I have had while I have been here. When we were going to leave, everybody gave us a hug, including the guys. Now the teenagers, giving a white girl a hug was a big thing so they took full advantage of it and gave us a tight squeeze; pretty much being normal teenage boys. The little kids were so cute and tried to come home with us. They asked if I was their friend because friends will come back to visit them. I am very adamant about going back. The only hill that needs to be crossed is the problem with transportation but I will make it work, somehow. Even if I can't go back as often as I want, I really want to try to raise money for these kids so that they can get the type of equipment that they need to really play soccer or to have a set for a drama production, even to have more snack food while doing the after school program. Some people are planning on looking into how to help the guy (the one running the program) turn the organization into an official NGO in order to get funding. I know that every second spent on this project is going to be well worth it. I am still constantly amazed at the people here in South Africa. They are such wonderful, hopeful people with such a zest for life. It makes this country even more gorgeous and I absolutely love living here. I finally feel like I am at home. I need to remind myself that I am in Africa because I do not think of it as being in a foreign country any more: this is now my home and I am loving every second of it. Yes the beginning was very very rocky but it was well worth it.

2008-02-05T11:42:00.000-08:00

This week has been interesting. It has not been less stressful though. If anything it has been even more stressful.

I have my project yet I still cannot do anything. In order to get any request done, I have to hound the person a million times. Plus I need to get all of this research done (for two separate research projects: one on VAP and one on the healing effects of honey) by the end of March so that I can write the paper and have it corrected by the time that I leave. Then it will be published. That in itself is a lot of work. Add on top of that the stress of having all of this schoolwork, having to work in groups and make things creative, which I haven't had to do in so long. Then I am planning the whole rugby game thing and I need to get the exact number of tickets that we need to get. So I need to go around and ask people if they want the tickets. If people want the tickets, I need to get the money from them. Most people want the tickets but don't have the money. The other house is not giving me a definite answer but instead tell me 6 or 7. Well which is it, 6 or 7?? If I buy 6 and 7 people want to go, they will get mad at me. If I buy 7, I could potentially be losing out on R85. Plus I need money from them too. I can't foot that bill. On top of that, I was supposed to go with Lucas and Benji to get the tickets tomorrow. They are now going on Thursday at 2:30. Well I could go Thursday, but only in the window of 12 to 2. I cannot go at 2:30 because that is the start of another one of my classes. They cannot go from 12 to 2 because they have class then. So that leaves going on Wednesday by myself. First of all: it is a really long walk from Red Cross Hospital. Secondly: it closes at 3:30. I have a lot of work that needs to be done or at least started at the Red Cross Hospital. I would have to leave at 2 in order to walk over there and get the tickets. I do not know if I can afford to leave 2 hours early. If I do not have anything to do then yes, I can afford to do that but can I? I will not know until I access the situation tomorrow. I just do not want to ever plan anything ever again. Why do I have to be so nice and try to accomodate everybody?? My conscious really is a pain in the butt. I really hate it sometimes. So needless to say, I am stressed but what else is new?

Life Is A Highway, I wanna ride it all night long....

2008-02-03T07:46:00.000-08:00

So these are the two identical twin Swiss boys that I am going to the rugby game with on February 16th. The one on the left is Benji and the one on the right, the one that we met on our way to Muizenberg to surf is Luki. He texted me today to see if I wanted to get rugby tickets, which I obviously did so I met up with him in downtown Rondebosch. His two South African friends, Luki and his brother Benji picked me up to get tickets for the group (a friend was with me so there is no need to worry) and we went to the ticket office. There is a really cool sports store right underneath the ticket office that I can get jerseys at. Unfortunately the ticket office was not selling tickets until Wednesday so they are going to pick me up after work. The entire group wants to go so I have to buy about 30 tickets. They are R85 a piece so I am making sure that everybody gives me the money BEFORE I leave. Anyways, it is Katy Sileo's birthday on Monday so we decided to go out for her birthday last night. We went to La Med - a club inbetween Clifton and Camps Bay that we had gone to before (the one where I was on drunk duty). Apparently it is dead on Saturdays and people were not very happy about that. I was thrilled because it meant more room to dance and have fun. They played some great American music and Luki and Benji showed up. It was a blast. Eventually we left to go to another club since Katy wanted it to be busier. The two Swiss guys and their friends went home and we went out again. Surprisingly I had a lot of fun, unlike the first time I went out. Crap hit the fan later on that night but it was a lot of fun, just being myself and hanging with friends. I believe I might actually be feeling comfortable with this group and with being here. It is gorgeous here and last night was such a beautiful night. I was in a skirt and tank top and was not even cold (which for everybody who knows, is amazing since I am always cold). So anyways, I had a great night last night. Today was spent doing homework which was fine and tomorrow is the start of hopefully a less stressful week of internships.

The Long Hike Up Table Mountain

2008-02-01T08:56:00.000-08:00

Finally! I have climbed Table Mountain. We have been planning on doing it for weeks but we finally accomplished it today. It was just Jeff, Matt, Katie and I but it was good with a small group - we would never have accomplished it with everybody.

There are many paths to take to get up there. You can also take the cable cars up the mountain but we really wanted to climb it. We took the path from Kirstenbosch botanical gardens. The route was essentially Smuts Track to Skeleton Gorge. It was gorgeous but man was it strenuous. The city did a great job at keeping the trails up and because it is so steep, it is mostly thousands upon thousands of stairs/steps made out of wood. Sometimes, the stones acted as the steps. Also, there is one point, after you climb up several ladders that are built into the rock, that the path is completely gone because of a rock slide. So we had to maneuver ourselves up the rocks, up big boulders, ladders and more rocks to get to the very top. My knees aree killing me now. I took tons of pictures at the top but all I can say is that the pictures do not do the view justice at all. It was gorgeous. You could see all of Cape Town, the Atlantic Ocean and the Indian Ocean. Plus, it is surprising how much fauna is at the top of Table Mountain. There were gorgeous flowers and that is where we saw the Proteaus, the country flower. Hopefully I will be going up there again soon. I do not think I could hike that route again (and no Amanda I will not take you on that route because it is too strenuous and the ladders would freak you out. They freaked me out) and it took us 3 hours to get to the top. Once at the top and once we had lunch (which is was a major thing...I was starving), my knees were hurting so bad that Jeff, Katie and I took the cable car back down, hailed a taxi and went home while Matt hiked down. He wanted to do it by himself but I still feel bad. He is still not back yet and it is 7:13, we got back at 4:30 and we left the house this morning at 9:30. That mountain and the mountain range is gorgeous though. I cannot wait to do it again and I cannot wait to show Amanda. I am so excited for her to come down, even though it is 3 months away. But I am also insanely jealous that she is going to Belgium and Paris next week. Oh well - I am living in a place where I can see table mountain out my bedroom window. Once again...it is gorgeous here - everybody should come!

I have added more photos to my photobucket site. Oh and for anybody that wants to send me packages, you can. the delivery man, if you or somebody is not there, will leave a note and you then have to pick up the package at the post office. They will not leave the package on the doorstep. So in case anybody wants to send me something (watch out it may be expensive but I could really use some ring dings), my address is 10 Loch Rd, Rondebosch Cape Town 7700, South Africa.

Love and miss you all!

2008-01-30T05:00:00.000-08:00

"I've learned that no matter what happens,or how bad it seems today, life does go on, and it will be better tomorrow." - Maya Angelou

I saw more burn patients today in the actual burn ward. Dr. Rhode (finally figured out how to spell his name correctly) was the one that took the med students around. Once again, I felt like a moron because I could not stay in there for more than 20 minutes. All of a sudden I got weak kneed and light-headed. It is also really warm in those wards because, due to the burns, it is hard for the body to control its own temperature, and there were about 15 of us, at least, packed into a very small space trying to listen to the patient history. Some patients had burns over 80% of their body. It was so sad. This one beautiful girl had burns covering her entire head and all over her legs were scars from the graft donor sites. She was so spunky though - she whispered to me that she had a boyfriend and was afraid that he was too old for her. She is 7 and he is 8 - it made me laugh. There is no way that her hair will ever grow back since there is no dermis left and she will have scars for her entire life. Unfortunately, society ostracizes people with scars on their face. Just think about the movies: Man Without A Face, Phantom of the Opera - most movies that have a character with facial disfigurement are the villains. It is always the beautiful characters that are the heroines. Even if the person is beautiful inside, like this little girl, I am afraid that society will still ostracize them. She was so cute - I hope life gets easier for her.

Most of the day was the same stuff that we have been doing for the past two days. It was traumatizing and I was asked to hold the legs down on a child when they were trying to draw blood. His burn was severly infected and they wanted to see if it had traveled to other parts of the body. I thought that today would be a little easier because I had been exposed to children covered in burns but it was no easier. Thankfully, the trauma ward round was canceled today. Why, I have no idea but I am very glad of it. I was talking to a professor and he said that so many people from the UK come to do internships at the Red Cross Hospital and other hospitals around Africa because things that you would read about in a book but rarely ever see in the States or in Europe, one would see often in certain areas of Africa. He said that it is amazing how many cases come through the trauma unit. Not many people can cope with it and he said that they could explain what they saw to you but it would be so surreal because you would not be able to actually believe their story. He said that it is sad, that you are able to see so many things that you would only read about in other places of the world but that is what makes working in Africa so rewarding for a doctor. They can see things that nobody else in the world would see. Thus I am very thankful that I did not have to see for myself, I do not think I would have been able to handle it.

So Jeff and I tracked down Dr. Rhode today and we talked to him about our project. I do not envy Jeff's project whatsoever because it is so broad. He is working on the ethical implications of severly burned patients. So the questions he has to ask and answer are at what extent do you not treat a patient? If a patient is severly burned, about 98% of the body, should you use what little resources and stocks you have to try to save them or let them be? Either way, 98% burns are going to leave you with scars, severe scars so the major question that has to be asked, which is asked in all fields of medicine is quantity of life or quality of life. It is hard to put life in those terms, to quantify the life of a person but that is the ethical part that he is supposed to work on. My project, on the other hand, is strictly scientific (thankfully) but I was disappointed. I will not be working with patients at all (part of which is good seeing as it is hard for me, emotionally, to see the burned children) but I was disappointed because I will be sitting behind a desk, making notes. Essentially, my project is to look through old cases of all burn victims that have been on ventilators and compare the ones that acquired ventilator associated pneumonia (VAP) to the ones that did not acquire this condition. No research has been done on this before so I guess it is exciting but it is essentially a case study where I sit behind a desk and look through old files. We want to see if there were certain underlying conditions that led to an increase in susceptibility to VAP or if there is another way that VAP can be prevented. VAP is a major complication in all patients that are ventilated and we want to see, specifically in burn victims, if one agent is more predominant than others in causing VAP. That is my project and it is interesting. The only thing that I am severly disappointed about is that I was told I would be doing research on HIV/AIDS. I told the grad schools that the reason why I was doing this program was to do research on HIV/AIDS because I wanted to be of some help in the epidemic. Now I am not even doing research on that at all. My topic is very interesting but I feel as if I am not addressing my reasons for coming. Dr. Rhode can switch me over to another project (although he works strictly with burn patients) but I would feel bad since they really need someone to do this project. But then how will it look when I email grad schools to tell them specifically what I am doing here in Cape Town? Will they think I am a liar, when it turns out that I am not working with HIV like I previously said I would be? I also think it is a little unfair that Vernon told me I would be doing research on HIV and in fact, I am not. I understand that the doctors are very busy but they took no time whatsoever to try to get to know Jeff and I, to try and figure out what project would be more suited to our passions, our personality, anything. I know Rhode has a ton of projects, he even stated so. It just would have been nice if he took the time to get to know Jeff and I and THEN made a decision on what we should be doing. Yes, I can switch my project but I feel badly. I just don't know what to do. I am confused. Either way I am doing a great project but what will grad schools think? I do not know how I even think about not doing anything with HIV when that was the soul reason for me coming here.

Obla-di Obla-da Life Goes On...

2008-01-29T10:32:00.000-08:00

Life does go on - so many children demonstrated this today. All of these horrible things happen to them and they move on. It is amazing how much you can learn from a child, just by observing them. Today was not as bad as yesterday. Today I was actually emotionally prepared for what I was going to see. Today I saw such hope and love for life, it was really moving.

The day started off with a lecture at 8 A.M. on two different topics. One was on the increased percentage of children that are born with this defect (cannot remember the name) where the stomach muscles do not come together. As a result, their kidney, colon, intestines etc. are outside of the body. Sometimes they are covered by an external membrane and other times, they are not (the membrane determines what the condition is called). For patients who have a small enough mass, the intestines and other organs can be pushed back into the body but a lot of the time, the mass is huge while the infant is small. There is no room for the organs to go. What happens is, if a membrane covers the organs, doctors use a substance that will dry out the membrane. In drying out the membrane, the mass shrinks and slowly, over about 1-2 years, the mass will continue to shrink, organs will continue to slowly be pushed back inside of the abdomen and eventually, the child is normal. Unfortunately, since it is a membrane that is not as tough as skin, there is still a high mortality rate due to infections. If the child does not have a membrane around their organs that are external to their abdomen, a so-called manufactured membrane is placed over it and performs the same job to slowly push everything back inside. I had never heard of either of these conditions but they are increasing in frequency. There is no idea why it occurs but there appears to be a trend with extremely young and extremely old mothers. What was even more amazing was that during rounds, I saw a baby in an incubator that had this condition.

We went to the clinic where the day before had acted as a burn clinic. Today it acted as a general clinic and it was pretty crazy. There were so many patients to be seen and all of them had different things. It appears that a common theme among the patients was gastrointestinal problems, specifically with constipation. One boy, whose name I cannot remember because I could not pronounce it, was the highlight of the day. He was 11, going onto 18 - such a mature boy. He walked in with his backpack on, a wrestling shirt on and his foster mother in tow. Out of all of the children, he was the most well behaved and attentive child. Apparently, what occurred is that in the rural regions, when a child is constipated, the mother takes it upon herself to relieve the blockage or whatever is causing the constipation. This boy's mother took an object, put it up his anus to try to rid the boy of constipation. Unfortunately, the object was caustic and completely destroyed the colon. At a very young age, he had to have a colonoscopy because it was practically dead tissue. I do not know what happened to the mother, she could have died or he could have been taken away from her. The foster mother was there and explained that ever since this incident when he was a boy, he has been unable to control his bowel movements. At least once a day, he soils himself, a lot of times it is during school. Due to the lack of a colon, he just cannot control it. He can feel that he needs to use the bathroom but at times, it is too late. The ridicule this kid must have to endure from other children cannot even be imagined. What is worse is that this condition is irreversible. Doctors can do a procedure that will give him a "bag". Essentially, they set him up with a bag where all of his urine and stool will go so that he no longer soils himself. This bag is tiny and would not be able to be seen by the other children yet the foster mother will not consent. I can completely understand her reasoning. Boys are active; what would happen if he fell and the bag popped? What would happen if one of his classmates found out about it? He would endure even more ridicule. This foster mother really was an amazing woman and realized that either way, this child is not going to have a childhood. But with a bag, he will have even less of a childhood because it will be one more thing he has to worry about. She wants to wait until he is old enough to make the decision himself. All that we could do was to take an x-ray of his abdomen to make sure there was no blockage or inflammation and then increase the dosage of his medication. The theory is that if the stools become more firm, less will be passed and there will be a lower frequency of him soiling himself at school. After having to live this life, I would have thought that the boy would be angry at the world and depressed. He was the happiest kid, had such a smile on his face. I asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up and he said a police officer, so that he can make the world safer. Throughout the day, I saw him, walking (which is more of a bob because he walks with such a spring in his step) and whenever he saw me, he got this broad smile on his face, said hello and waved frantically so that I would notice that he was there. It did not matter that people in the room were talking to about him soiling himself (a conversation he can understand) and he did not get embarassed. Instead, he laughed at my attempts to talk Xhosa with him and enjoyed talking to Jeff about wrestling. He thought it was hilarious that Jeff's name was close to one of his favorite wrestlers. There are so many horrible sights to see in that hospital but I can tell that boys like this one are what helps get the workers through the day. They may not be able to help him, but he had such a love for life, was so vibrant and cheerful. When his foster mother got hot and took of her coat, he immediately folded it up and placed it in his backpack, so that she would not have to carry it. I continue to be amazed by him and by this country. They have such a large compacity for forgiveness, resilience and such a love for life. There is so much hope here that it is infectious. Tomorrow I will be in the burn ward and the trauma ward but I hope that in remembering that little boy and others just like him that I saw today, that I will be able to get through the day.

The picture is of some children that we made friends with in Khayelitsha, one of the townships. I uploaded pictures of Boulder Beach (the beach with the penguins) on my photobucket website. I do have to say there are some cute pictures of penguins.

First Day of Internship at Red Cross Hospital

2008-01-28T07:13:00.000-08:00

I cannot stop crying. I am upset because I am frustrated and because of the things that I saw today. I really don't know if I can do this.

Jeff and I arrived at the Red Cross Hospital at 8:30, like Dr. Millar said to. First of all, there was nobody there. It was so disorganized that I was getting really frustrated . I need to get used to the fact that this country is much more disorganized and "go with the flow", which everybody knows is hard for me to do. I am used to having an organized first week at an internship, like at Pfizer, which to some degree, is disorganized as well. When we arrived, Dr. Millar was not in, his secretary was not expecting us and had no idea what we were to do. We were thrown into a lecture with final year med students. It was a talk about how to define child abuse, what typical signs there are if a child is being abused and then what to do if you suspect a child is being abused. Eventually, I found Dr. Millar and asked him what he wanted us to do. Thankfully he remembered us (only after we mentioned Vernon) and said that Dr. Rhodas would be taking care of us. According to Dr. Millar, Dr. Rhodas had a project in mind for me but did not know what to do with Jeff yet. We ran into Dr. Rhodas in the hallway and we introduced ourselves. I had hoped to get started on what I was going to do today but that was not the case. First off, he told me that I would be doing research on opportunistic infections in burn victims. I was disappointed because I really thought I would be doing HIV/AIDS research and that is what I told graduate schools I would be doing. All in all, the burn victims project would still be cool but that is what everybody does when they work at the Red Cross Hospital. What really annoyed me is that Dr. Rhodas and Dr. Millar took no time to get to know me, what my background was or anything. They assumed that I was a premed student and when I explained to them that I am not, that in fact I am more interested in laboratory research with infectious diseases, they once again did not know what to do with me. So once again, I have no idea what I am doing. I asked what they wanted us to do for the rest of the day and Dr. Rhodas decided (since he was not feeling well and was going to go home) that for the rest of the week, we should shadow the medical students. Once again, a major disappointment.

So we spent the entire day shadowing the medical students. Jeff and I went with a bunch of students to the surgery ward and we were supposed to witness operations on burn victims but we were too late to see any of them. Katie (a last year medical student from Edinburgh) and I decided to sit in on a different surgery where they were essentially doing a tracheotomy or something of that sort. It was 28 degrees celcius in the room (don't know what it is in farenheit but it was really hot) and I started feeling faint. Although I watch surgeries on t.v., I could not handle watching a live surgery on a little baby. I left and waited outside (since I really thought that I would faint) and felt so ashamed of myself that I could not handle it.

After that ordeal, we went to the burn unit where a bunch of doctors were doing check-ups on the skin grafts of various burn victims. This is where I could not handle it and part of the reason why I cannot stop crying. There were so many children, probably 75 (and that was a slow day to them) that came in with their parents to have their burns/skin grafts examined. These weren't just local burns though. Most children had burns down the side of their head, covering their abdomen, and all over their arms. The oldest child there was probably no older than 7. In order to protect the burns, the areas are wrapped in what looked like seranwrap. With some children, they had so many burns that they walked into the room covered in only seranwrap and underwear. One child had a skin graft placed underneath his neck. Half of the graft took (meaning that the skin was attaching) while the other half did not take. More than likely, this child is going to have to undergo another skin graft. Not only did we have to look at the areas where the skin was attached but the donor area: the place where the skin was taken from, in order to check for infections. One child had a horrible infection and had to be admitted. With children that have burns on their joints, such as their elbow or hands, the doctors had to force them to bend their elbow or make a fist. This is because scarring is eventually going to set in and when that occurs, it shrinks the amount of skin over that area. If the skin shrinks, it is harder to move the hand or elbow. If that happens, the muscle will actually shorten. This may not seem to be that big of a deal, to make a child use his arm or hand but these were babies who had third degree burns on their joints and in making them use their hand or arm, they were screaming. I cannot even begin to imagine the type of pain they were in. I just could not handle it and sometimes, I needed to crouch on the ground because I thought I was going to faint. If I am going to work in the burn ward on opportunistic infections, how can I possibly do this, day in and day out? I really don't know if I can handle this. I know it was only the first day and it was a very overwhelming first day but what if I never get used to it? What if I always feel like I am going to faint? I can see all of the children in my head. People who work there stated that most of the children are admitted for trauma in car accidents, drowning and burns. Most of the burns this time of year are hot water burns which is why these children were covered, head to toe, in burns. During the winter, the majority of the burns are from fire because in the townships, burning a fire is the only way to stay warm. With the houses built so close, the fires can easily get out of control and it just spreads, leaving tons of devastation and burn victims. I just don't know if I can emotionally handle this.

Tomorrow and Wednesday are going to be even worse because according to the med student schedule, which Jeff and I have to follow this week, we have to go to a surgery ward, trauma unit and burns ward rounds. In the trauma unit, people have stated that it is not unusual to see children there to be treated for knife wounds. This is why I did not want to be a doctor and why I never want to be a doctor. I do not want to see capacity people have to hurt one another; I do not want to see how unforunate people's lives can be. What is even harder is that all of the patients are children - innocent children. I do not know why I thought I could handle this because I don't think I can. Stick me in a lab with some infectious disease - I will be fine there but if you show me the patients that are affected by these diseases, by human nature and whatever else, I break down emotionally.

I really hope it will be better next week. I am dreading going tomorrow and on Wednesday. I am frustrated because I still have no idea what my project is and what that will be like. Other people are figuring out what their internships are really going to be like while I have to wait yet another week because they are too busy to deal with Jeff and I. I just feel so lost and emotionally unhinged.

Photobucket Albums

2008-01-27T08:18:00.000-08:00

Photobucket albums are up!

http://s254.photobucket.com/albums/hh98/cailin814/Distric%206%20Musuem%20and%20Slave%20Lodge%20Musuem/

http://s254.photobucket.com/albums/hh98/cailin814/downtown%20Cape%20Town%20and%20Rondebosch/

http://s254.photobucket.com/albums/hh98/cailin814/Wine%20Tours/

Those are the links to the different photo albums. I haven't put up my pictures to Cape Point yet because there are a lot of them. I also have more photos than I put up - I just posted the best ones because I have a ton and it takes a while to load them anyways. Hope everybody enjoys!

2008-01-26T09:27:00.000-08:00

January 26, 2007

Hello everbody! Guess what? I finally have wireless on my computer so now there is no more waiting game for internet! I am actually writing this blog as I speak instead of writing it in a word document and uploading it later. Hopefully some pictures will be put up onto my photo website later tonight so that you can all see it, now that I have my computer to myself. Sorry I haven't updated in the last couple of days, not much has really happened but I will try to recap.

Wednesday was a fun day. Some people went to their internships and the rest of us hung out. Amanda, Mia, Sarah and I decided that we wanted to go back to downtown Cape Town and go to Green Market. This market is absolutley amazing. For anybody who has been to the Fair Trade Store in New London, take the type of stuff they have in there and multiply it by one million, that is the craziness that is Green Market square. It is pretty much like a flea market. Most of the stands were carrying things like baskets, soap stone figurines and bowls, carved figurines out of wood, things made out of beads and wires, jade jewlery, various types of bowls made out of different materials, hand painted items and masks. Some things you can tell are mass produced although each vendor will tell you that they made it themselves. What was even more amazing is that it turns out that I am pretty good at bargaining! I was psyched because I got an amazing hand painted painting (on fabric) of Table Mountain from Robben Island. It is gorgeous. It was supposed to be 100 rand and I would definitely have paid that but after having been in the market for over an hour and a half, all I had was 50 rand left. I told the lady that and she would go to down to 70 rand but she did not understand that I literally only had 58 rand left, 8 rand was needed for the mini bus taxi to get me home. Right before I left the booth with Mia, she was looking at other smaller paintings, the lady went down to 50 rand. I was stupid and said "Are you sure?" I thought I was ripping her off. The painting was soo gorgeous that I would have paid 70 rand for it but people tell me that they would not have sold it to me if it was a rip off . So, I have an amazingly beautiful painting, along with some stuff made out of soap stone. Downtown Cape Town is so much fun and I felt much more relaxed and safe in the city than I did the first time. I absolutely love it here!

So the craziness of Wednesday was the experience of the mini taxi. Amanda, I am not looking forward to taking you on one of these because you are going to freak out. These taxis are small vans which should hold 8 people but are holding 18. They speed, drive in and out of traffic and almost hit people. You really have a death wish if you step out in front of a taxi. It is absolutly crazy. There is someone that hangs his head out the window and shouts at people, telling them where the mini cab is going . If anybody shows interest on getting on, the breaks are slammed on and everybody gets shot forward. It does not help that there are no seat belts so you pretty much have to pray and brace yourself. This experience was so crazy and scary but at the same time, so much fun. It is also pretty scary because it is quite easy to get mugged on these things without even knowing it since everybody is packed into the car like sardines. Also, you never want to be the only person left on a mini bus taxi - it is really dangerous. Plus you never want to take them at night because the chances of you being the last one on the taxi is much greater. At night, primary transportation are meter taxis. They are much more expensive but more reliable and safer.

Coming back from downtown Cape Town was much harder than getting there. In order to get to downtown Cape Town, you pick up a mini bus taxi at the front of the Red Cross Hospital (basically for me, I just need to walk around the hospital since my room faces the back of it). But on the way back, you need to go to the Parade which is somewhere you do not want to be past 5:00 since the street children come out and mug you. Once at the parade, you get to a mini bus taxi platform where there are hundreds of mini bus taxis, all in line under certain signs that let you know where it is headed. Most people know the routes of these taxis so they know which one to get onto. We did not since there was no sign that said Rondebosch or Red Cross Hospital. It turned out that we needed to take the Hanover Park taxi and specifically state that we needed to go to the Red Cross Hospital. The taxi drives by the hospital but does not stop unless someone states they need to go there. The only way we figured this out is that we asked someone. Natives were looking out for us, it was nice. The mini bus taxi on the way home was crazy; the driver kept making fun of us for being American and he was the worst driver I have ever seen in my life. At one point, he was driving on the sidewalk to get past the traffic. It scared me, especially since I was in the front and could see what he was doing. Overall though, it was an extremely fun day and the mini bus taxi is certainly an interesting experience.

Thursday classes started. We have History and politics of South Africa at 9:30 on the UCT campus. Some people were complaining that they were going to take the jammie (the UCT bus that runs around this area taking people to different parts of the campus) but it is only once a week. The reason why people were complaining is not just because they are lazy but the campus is literally on the side of Table Mountain. It is pretty steep and is quite a workout but for once a week, I am definitely hiking up there. Plus it is a pretty walk.

Our class was okay. We learned about a very brief history of South Africa and we are going to go into more detail later on. Vernon's class was canceled because he still needed to bring other people to their internships. Marita's class is from 6 to 9 at night in our bar room. It is a little exhausting seeing as we have class sporadically throughout the day from 9:30 in the morning to 9:00 at night. Thursday was more exhausting then I thought it would be even though we did not have Vernon's class because I came down with a horrible cold. I was so exhausted and just wanted to go to sleep but I obviously couldn't. There was also a lot of drama going on in the house that I did not want to deal with. I am really starting to regret living in a house with 15 other girls. Too much estrogen! Marita's class was really good though. We watched a documentary on the schools in the townships. What happens is that every South African has to take a standardized test at the end of the 12th grade called the Matric. In order to go to college, you need to pass the Matric. To go to the college that you want, you need to get a high enough Matric score for that school. It is essentially the SATs and GRE's (which pissed me off since we all know how I feel about standardized tests). Unfortunately, the education system is still messed up after the apartheid regime. The township schools still have a really poor education system. Sometimes their teachers do not show up to class, they do not have heating or air conditioning, no computer access, and limited access to certain classes. There are no guidance counselors so they have to decide what path they want to take without even knowing what classes are needed in order to obtain their goal. Many of these kids show up to school hungry because their family could not afford food and sometimes do not even show up with shoes. The conditions were horrible and this documentary followed several lives throughout the process of studying for their Matrics. Three of these students were watching the documentary with us and answered our questions after the showing. The only name that I remember of the three was Barbalwa - they were the sweetest people I have ever met. Barbalwa has been text messaging me about how she wants to hang out with us again, how she had so much fun with us and cannot wait to see us again. She was so sweet and is such a bright girl. She was one of the few that managed to pass her Matrics with a high enough score to get into college. We saw a copy of the English exam and it was ridiculous! With English as our first language, we did not even know the correct answer to some of the questions, nevermind if we had english as a second language. It was a really good time, even though I was sick. After the question and answer session, we had a dance party going on with some Soul Candy (a popular South African techno group that we have grown to love because it is always playing in mini cabs). Our guests left, I took some medicine and passed out.

Friday was fairly boring. Many people went to their internships in downtown Cape Town with Vernon and the rest of us stayed home. I was thinking about going somewhere but everybody else just wanted to relax which turned out to be a good idea. I put on my suit, laid out by the pool, lathered in sunscreen, took a nap and then read a book. It was so relaxing and it was such a gorgeous day. When I got too hot, I pretty much rolled myself into the pool (which was significantly cooler) and then stayed in there for a couple of minutes. Almost everybody from our house was doing the same thing and it was so nice to relax. Eventually though, I got bored and needed to get out of the house. I thought about going online but the plumber people (a drunk person broke our faucet the previous night when I was passed out from exhaustion) had screwed up the power and we did not have power for 7 hours. Nobody thought anything of it at first because South Africa is having a power shortage so they frequently shut off powers to certain areas for hours at a time. This rotates so that they can try to conserve some amount of power. We figured that the power was shut off for our area but after 6 hours of no power, we knew something was wrong because power outages are usually only 3 hours. Thankfully, someone went across the street to our scary neighbors and asked them if they had power, which of course they did, and we had to call the landlord to let him know that the plumbers screwed up our power. Unfortunately, by the time we figured this out, all of our milk and eggs in the fridge had gone bad and our kitchen still stinks.

Friday night, Katie Welsh had organized all of the taxis and tickets to get us into A Merchant In Venice, a outdoor Shakespeare play that was being performed nearby. At first I was quite skeptical about it because we were not sure if it was going to be in English. It could have been in Afrikaans for all we knew but it was in english and it was a really good play. I had forgotten how much I loved Shakespeare plays and I had never seen this one before so it was fun to go to. Plus with it being outdoors, it made the experience even better. The night air was nice and cool to our skin after we had all accidentally burned to a crisp from laying out by the pool. The stars were gorgeous and just where they had set up the stage was perfect. Wilderness surrounded the stage and it just really made it a nice background for a Shakespeare play. It reminded me of Conn College's Shakespeare in the Arboretum. I miss those days!

Today was fairly interesting. All of us got up early and walked to the train station in Mowbray (the town that has the other house in it). It was a nice walk but took a good 30 minutes. Little did we know that there was another station much closer in Rondebosch that we could have taken as well. So we took the train (round trip was only 11 rand) to Muizenberg where there was a beach for a bunch of us to take surf lessons. I opted out of the lessons because I knew I did not have the upper body strength to pull it off and I did not want to spend the money. The people who did take the lessons had alot of fun though. For me, I decided that it would be a nice relaxing beach day. That was not the case though. First of all, it was extremely windy. When it is extremely windy, the sand kicks up and pelts you in the face. It hurt so bad. Plus with the wind, it was really chilly and I was freezing cold. Everybody else, besides the surfers, decided they were going to walk around the town since they were sick of sitting down and being pelted by sand. I volunteered to stay with the stuff; I did not realize they would be gone as long as they were. Thankfully, I had some company. We met a couple of people our age on the train who were planning on going to the same beach as us. The only names I remember are Julliette and Lucas. Juliette grew up here and was African while Lucas was born in Durban but lives in Switzerland. He is here to take English classes with his twin brother and several other friends from Switzerland. There were also two other African girls and two other African guys and they were the nicest people! Apparently they all knew each other through church and sat down and talked with me. We exchanged numbers (turns out they live right down the road - I was not giving out our address because I felt uncomfortable doing that but, to make a long story short, they now know where we live and that they live on a road adjacent to ours. It is in the same neighborhood) so that we can go running at the Commons. I had expressed interest in going to several futbol and rugby matches. They mentioned that there is supposed to be a great one on February 16 so I think I am going to go and get tickets sometime next week (it is supposed to sell out). They are probably going to get tickets with me and a couple of other people from my house. It should be fun and I am looking forward to it. I will tell you all about it Junktrap! :) So anyways, that was pretty much my day. Everybody, excluding Sarah and I, went out to a club. We were too tired and did not feel like paying for a taxi but I like it this way, a nice and quiet house to ourselves. I am totally pysched that we now have wireless because it just makes communicating with everyone easier.

So this was a long post but that sums up the last couple of days. Tomorrow we might go to Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens (we still have not made it there) or we might go to some concert that is being put on. It is all up in the air. I miss everybody! I hope everyone is doing well and drop me a line anytime!

2008-01-23T01:38:00.000-08:00

January 22, 2007

A bunch of us were taken around to our different internships today to learn more about our placements. I was taken to the Red Cross Hospital with Jeff, another student who is interning there and I was so excited. I have been waiting for this moment ever since I got here because this was the real reason why I came to Africa. I also really wanted to learn, more specifically, what I would be doing so that I could write to the various grad schools that I applied to and let them know what kind of internship I am doing. John Hopkins was very interested to know the kind of work I would be doing and I was unable to tell them. I was really looking forward to telling them exactly what I will be doing soon but it looks like I will have to wait another week.

When we arrived at the Red Cross Hospital, our advisor who happens to be the head surgeon, was in a meeting so we waited around for 20 minutes. Finally, when he emerged, Vernon introduced Jeff and I and we each told our advisor (whose name escapes me) a little bit about ourselves. I explained that I was interested in HIV/AIDS and that I am a microbiology major who wants a career in research. Jeff explained that currently he is an international relations major but is taking science courses in order to go to med school. He really wants to use this internship to determine whether or not he wants to pursue a medical degree. After we introduced ourselves, that was basically the entire meeting. My advisor said that he was sure that they had something for me to do but did not elaborate on anything. It seems as if he was not prepared for us and that he was not sure what project I would be working on. Vernon said I was going to be doing research on HIV/AIDS but is the type of research that I am used to or is it clinical research? What exactly will I be researching? I am just so frustrated because I have to wait another week in order to figure out what I am doing. This internship is the whole reason I am here and I am not even sure what I will be doing. I feel like I have no direction and I was partly looking forward to this meeting because I felt like it would make me feel better about being here, like I had a purpose. Anybody who knows me knows that everything I do has a certain end goal in mind. Right now I feel so lost and I do not know what I am doing here or that I even belong here. That is actually an extreme statement but it is what I am feeling in the back of my mind. I am enjoying myself but I also love my research and love learning and working with infectious diseases. I was just so ready to learn about what I was doing but I will just have to wait (something I am not good with). It is only a week right? Anyways, I think a bunch of us are going to go to the Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens tomorrow and then we start classes on Thursday.

I could really use some of you right now, what with all of the doubts running through my mind. I miss you guys more than ever.

Adding the baboon picture...as promised. I did not get a very good one though....:(

2008-01-21T23:55:00.001-08:00

January 21, 2008

Last night, after I wrote my journal entry for the day, we went out to La Med which is a club at Camp’s Bay. It is actually more of a bar than a club but it was a pretty strange scene. Half was outdoor and half was indoor but I guess that is the way things go when you have a club right on the beach and it is 70 degrees out at 9:00 at night. In reality, I did not want to go to the club because I knew that everybody else wanted to get wasted which is not my idea of a good time. Surprisingly, I started out having a very good time. Amanda, my roommate, and I went to the dance floor. Dancing at this place was very different than dancing at an American club. Back home, when you are at a club with friends, you need to keep a watchful eye out because guys love to come up behind random girls and “bump and grind”, as they say. Here, no guy tried to do that and the guys danced in their own groups. I was very intimidated by how good some of the people were on the dance floor but I still had fun. They also played a lot of American songs that you don’t hear in clubs back in the U.S. such as Build Me Up Buttercup (I was totally pumped about that one) and Summer of ’69. All of us American girls got so excited to hear songs that we knew and loved.

After a while, dancing got to be boring, nevermind the fact that we were all sweaty and gross. I went to find the guys that were with us and wound up talking to these really nice Africans. One was from Guguletu and his friends were from other townships, including Khayelitsha. They are bartenders at La Med and decided to stay and have a few drinks after work. Out of all of the people that I met there last night, they were the nicest. We also met a lot of Afrikaaners, the white inhabitants of South Africa, most of whom are rich. They were what made the night go from good to bad. Yes, to all of the girls out there, they are very very good looking but once you get past the outer exterior, they are pigs. First of all, they believed that all Americans are porn stars, complete partiers, and made all of these other assumptions that disgusted me. Then, according to some other people in the group, they asked whether or not we sided with the Africans in South Africa (about the whole apartheid thing and how the blacks want to be equal with the whites) but they did not call the Africans “Africans”. Instead, they called them a much worse word which also made me angry. The club used to be exclusively for whites during the apartheid days and now is mixed colors but mostly whites inhabit it and it seemed that most of them were the rich Afrikaaners or British boys out for a good time while on break. They were the snobbiest, most pompous people I have ever met and in saying that, I am being kind to their true nature. All they could talk about is how their parents sent them away to school in England but it did not work out so they are just living off of their parents money and are partying every night. I did not buy into their little “poor rich white boy” story but unfortunately, a lot of those in my company did. To make a long story short, by the end of the night, I was tired, pissed off, and slightly ashamed by how some of the groups of us were acting. It was a fun experience but once is enough for me. Although everybody else wants La Med to become a frequent place for us to go, I think I will opt to being the “party pooper” and staying at home by myself.

Last night just made me realize how different I am from everybody here, save for a couple few. Yes this is an honors program but most of the people here are like me, not in the honors program but have a decent enough GPA to be eligible for the program. Unlike me though, everybody else is an English major, a women’s studies major, other majors that do not require a lot of work. I am not trying to diss other majors but am just trying to say that my major, in order to maintain the GPA that I do, requires a lot more work and commitment. What I am trying to say is that once more, I feel like an outcast. The only people I feel slightly comfortable with are two of the guys but even they go off and do their own thing. Don’t get me wrong, I love it here but sometimes, it is a bit lonely and the company can be discouraging.

Today we had a day off and decided to relax. To all the Uconn kids, hope you had fun moving in today! I walked with a bunch of people to the store to get groceries. Apparently, the communal food thing that we had decided upon only about a week ago is no longer happening. Now each person buys their own food, labels it and there is no communalness going on at all. That is kind of annoying. Also, we originally agreed that of the community money that we all pitch in, we would buy toilet paper, laundry detergent and other cleaning supplies but I guess that plan went down the drain too. I feel like everybody is so petty and possessive. So far, living with 12 other girls is very exhausting and I feel as if I am the least liked out of them all. Oh well, what can you do right? Anyways, I need to get ready for our “family” braai. I love and miss you all!

2008-01-21T23:49:00.000-08:00

January 20^th, 2008

Today we went to church in a township called Guguletu. They are a Xhosa speaking township, mostly, so the sermon was 95% Xhosa. We obviously did not understand it but it was amazing because we did not need to. The enthusiasm and spiritualism radiated out of their bodies and into ours. It was the best religious experience I have ever had. Randomly people would burst out into song and the sermon would be paused for a short while in order for everybody to get up and sing. The people there were so inviting as well. It was completely filled with blacks and then, here we are, this group of around 30 whites marching into their church. I was highly aware of my color and certain people stared at us, especially the children. They got used to us being there and welcomed us in with open arms. Constantly, throughout the sermon, things were being said, in English so that we could understand, thanking god for bringing us to their country, their township and their church. Afterwards, I received so many hugs from people and they were saying thank you to me when I should have been thanking them for letting us intrude on their service. We then waited around because the community had gotten together and made us sandwiches and provided refreshments for us. This touched me most of all. You need to keep in mind that these people are the poorest of the poor. They live in what is called shanties or shacks along side the road yet they invited us into their place of worship and gave us refreshments. It was really interesting to see the amazing sense of community in these places. All of these people are living in these townships not by choice. Some refuse to leave but others have no where else to live. To me, it seemed like going to church was their refuge from the daily hardships of their lives. What was even more amazing is the fact that they came into the church with smiles on their faces, thanking god for everything that they have when they have so little. These are the people that the government and politics have forgotten about; they have been treated the worst yet we did not see bitterness today. Instead we saw hope and resiliency. It made me ashamed of myself: for all of those times that I complained about various things that were going wrong in my life, it was nothing compared to what has happened to these people yet they are still thankful for everything they have.

Once the service and snacks were over, Dr. Guma (a.k.a. Tops who was wearing a hat that said “Breastfeeding is the best”) took us around the townships, particularly Khayelitsha. Tops has a Ph.D. in Public Health but is a traditional healer in South Africa. Apparently a pretty famous traditional healer and he knows everybody. He did his graduate work at UNC Chapel Hill I believe and was telling us about how he set up a lot of the SIT programs that are run in South Africa. Ches, did you know him? One of the girls that wound up doing his SIT program applied to John Hopkins School of Public Health for a PhD and wound up getting in because they were amazed by how much she had learned by being in the field. I hope I get in! Plus somebody that was working at John Hopkins at the time, that she interviewed with, was Tops’s advisor at UNC Chapel Hill. I jokingly said that he should write me a letter of recommendation and he stated, seriously, that he would. Not sure if that will really occur seeing as he barely knows me. The township tour was heartbreaking though. It was hard to see all of those people, living in such close proximity to one another and in such horrible conditions. It made me want to cry. I really saw another side of South Africa today. We have seen all of the rich, touristy stuff and now we saw what life is really like for a portion of the population. The population of Khayelitsha alone, which is only one of many townships, is getting close to one million people and not everybody is registered. There is a 40-45% unemployment rate and people get stuck in these places. Rarely will a person be able to get out of that cycle in order to make a better life for themselves. It is sad knowing that I can’t help and the people that should, the government, is not helping either.

2008-01-21T23:38:00.000-08:00

January 19^th

Today, we went to the V&A Waterfront (where the jazz club was) and took a ferry over to Robben Island. Some neat facts that I learned: lepers were held there for a long time and it was mostly a leper colony until antibiotics (a.k.a. a cure for leprosy) was discovered. It was used as a military base during World War II for a short while and there are still remnants of the military base on the island. The base was supposed to protect Cape Town in case of an attack but nobody ever attacked South Africa in World War II. They have this big gun that is still functional on the island and it was supposed to be used to protect the Cape but was finished two years after the war ended. What was also neat was driving in the bus (part of the tour was a tour of the island) and seeing tons of shipwrecks. I guess before there was the lighthouse, they used fire to try and signal ships the right way. Strangely enough, after the lighthouse was built, more shipwrecks occurred than when they used the fire method. We got to see the house that Robert Subokwe who was a political prisoner. He was the founder of the Pan African Congress (PAC), a political party, and the government kept him isolate from all other prisoners in a house all by himself. They were afraid that any contact with him might result in a unification of all prisoners against the guards. Behind his house was the dog kennels where they tortured and starved the dogs in order to make them more vicious so they could be better guard dogs. Currently, a small population lives on the island – some people who were political prisoners kept in Robben Island, some are former guards at the Island and their families live on the island as well. There is a school which used to be the hospital when the island was a leper colony. It was neat to be driving and see various forms of wildlife, including a lonely ostrich near the beach. Why an ostrich was near the beach I do not know. How an ostrich ever got there I also do not know but nevertheless, it was there.

Finally, that part of the tour ended and we entered the maximum security prison. Our tour guide was a man who was held on Robben Island as a political prisoner. Apparently he was part of the armed wing of the ANC. During one of his missions, he was captured and was tortured for several months for information until he was finally transferred to Robben Island. I cannot remember his name but he showed us his cell which was right down the hall from Nelson Mandela’s cell. What I did not realize is that Jacob Zuma, the current President of the ANC and may be the future President of South Africa, the stupid person who was on trial for raping several girls, was on one side of the cell of Nelson Mandela. On the other side of Mandela was Mbeki who is the current President of South Africa and succeeded Mandela in the Presidency. For some reason, I found that really interesting.

After our quick tour, we had a question and answer session with our tour guide, who was really good. If you ever want to have a good tour guide, just go to South Africa – every single tour guide I have had has been amazing, most likely because they have had first hand experience with what they are talking about. We asked him why he came back to the island. He said that initially, when they set up the museum, somebody asked him to come back to be a tour guide and he refused. He could not find work and was sure that times would change but they never did. Finally, he agreed to come and work at Robben Island for the sake of his family. What he was not told was that some of the guards would be living on the island and working at the museum as well. He said that hardest thing was getting over his anger and bitterness towards the guards, even though he had not met any of them during his stay on Robben Island as a prisoner. I was amazed by the resiliency of this man. Yes, he did not want to come back and work at Robben Island but he did, even though he said that at the time that was the last place that he wanted to be. He called it “hell on earth” when it was used as a maximum security prison and I am sure that it was. Also, he said that he is now glad that he came back to work at Robben Island because it helped him be a better husband and a better father. By working at the museum, he was able to deal with all of the anger that he was previously channeling into his family. The whole trip in itself was amazing and it brought tears to my eyes. I know I am not the only one who will admit to that.

The ride back was a little rough – the ocean became very choppy and it resulted in several people getting sea sick right next to me. We all know how I react to that and let us just say that although I love boats, I hated this boat ride because of it.

Since then, we have been chilling at the house. Those who did get sick still did not feel well enough to go out and a couple of us went for a run around Rondebosch common (highly sketchy place – never cross through the middle of it). It felt so nice to go for a run and thankfully, some of the guys wanted to go and I was easily able to keep up with them. J

Anyways, I miss everybody! It was really good to talk to Amanda last night and I forgot to tell you Amanda that my cell phone greeting is Sweet Nibblets – I think of you all the time. Everybody sees the pictures of the dogs and thinks that they are so adorable. I also showed them wedding pictures of you (I put several on my computer to look at when I am home sick) and they all think you were the most gorgeous bride ever! I wish I had brought some of my DVD’s with me now. Lara, who studied abroad in London last year, watched movies whenever she was feeling homesick and she said it helped a lot. I could totally use some Little Mermaid right now…L But alas, at least I have my sweet pillow case! Thank you Ari and do not worry, I have not swam with any hippos yet.

Sobe sibonane! (see you later in Xhosa) Sala kakuhle! (goodbye in xhosa)

If you want it in Afrikaans it would be Sien jou later/totsiens, just in case you were wondering.

2008-01-18T11:32:00.000-08:00

January 18th, 2008
I cannot even begin to describe the beauty of this place. It is absolutely amazing. Everywhere you look, there are mountains, there is gorgeous blue water and on top of that, such a beautiful culture. Yes, I took 430 pictures today (I am totally going to beat your record Ches, probably in this first week!) but none of those pictures can possibly classify the beauty that is South Africa.
We went to Cape Point today. Supposedly, this restaurant that we stopped at is famous for fish and chips but as the connoisseur of that particular meal, I did not think it was the best. Definitely good but not the best.
This restaurant was at a gorgeous beach. The wind was whipping around today so it was chilly. Some crazy people went in the water – I did not envy how cold they were when they got out. After this little trip, we went to Cape Point and the scenery along the route was gorgeous. It was all cliffs, mountains and water. The roads were extremely curvy with very very tight curves on the edge of a cliff so Amanda, I suggest we do not rent a car to get down there because we would both be freaking out driving around that area.
Cape Point was amazing. For anybody who doesn’t know, it is the southernmost tip of Africa, besides Cape Aguilhas. Africans say that it is where the two oceans meet but unfortunately, it is at Cape Aguilhas that the two oceans actually DO meet. This, for all interested readers, is also the playground of the infamous Chacma baboon. Unfortunately for us, they were a little tired from harassing tourists the day before and we saw all but two walking along side the road. I was very angry that I did not get a good picture of them because when I pointed it out (which I shouldn’t have), everybody stood up with their cameras and got in my way. L I am sure I will see more baboons at another point for all of you fanatics. Oh and by the way, the houses that they raid are huge!! No wonder the baboons raid those houses! They know that all the good stuff is centralized there!
Anyways, getting back to Cape Point – we took a trail to the very tip of the peninsula which was very steep. Once again, I am not sure if you would want to walk this trail Amanda because the wind was blowing so hard you could practically get blown over and you are walking along side a cliff with nothing next to you but more cliffs and water. When we reached the point though, the view was amazing. All you could see was ocean and more ocean. We found this little hut thingy (it looked like a bomb shelter) and climbed on top of it. The view from up there was even better and I am so glad that I did not stay behind with the other group of people that decided to take the trolley because they did not get to go. To get to the point, or what everybody else considered the point who did not go on the trail, you can either walk up a steep hill and many steps or take a trolley up. I chose to walk up because it isn’t that big of a deal and the other half chose to be lazy and take a trolley up. They missed out big time on the other views that we were able to see. Oh and my RA Matt said that the last time he was at Cape Point, the trolley was more open and when you went on it, baboons jumped out of the bushes and grabbed your stuff. I found this particular story hilarious.
After Cape Point we drove through Simons Town which is the town where all of the rich people live and where the baboons terrorize them. We then went to Boulders Beach, a cove between Simon’s Town and Cape Point. This is the beach with all of the penguins. I think half of the pictures I took today were all of penguins. It was ridiculous! Anyways, I really do not know what I was expecting. I think I thought that it was a regular beach that you walked onto and you were surrounded by penguins. I was very disappointed. I should have thought logically and figured that penguins = tourists = protection for the penguins = regulated passageway. First of all, we had to pay to get in, like an aquarium. Then there were all of these raised boardwalks that you walked on and the penguins were all around. Amanda – I told them that you said hello and that they will have to wait to see their favorite person! J Anyways, the penguins were cute, the ride back we all slept because we were exhausted from the walking and the sun. Right now we are having a briae (sp?) which is a barbecue so I should go and be friendly! Love you and miss you all!!

Sorry guys - I meant to put pictures with these but I need to work out a more efficient way to add the pictures. I will add them later for sure but for right now, I want you to know what I am doing. The internet situation is quite crazy so I won't be able to blog as often as I thought.

2008-01-18T11:30:00.000-08:00

January 17th, 2008
Today we did the wine tour. It was such a gorgeous day – probably upper 80s to low 90s when in the sun. When we left it was kind of cold outside so I put on jeans – not a very good idea. I was hot for the rest of the day but it cooled down again. People say that 4 seasons happen in one day here and that is very true. It can be bitter cold when the wind whips around, it can be spring like, deathly hot and then can turn into fall later at night. The weather is quite strange but nonetheless it is gorgeous.
The first winery we went to was Altydgedacht Estate. It is a small, family run winery that has been owned by the Parker family for 6 generations. First of all, the view was beautiful. The tour guide, the owner of the estate, was also a very good speaker and informed us on the types of wines that the estate makes, how they make red wine versus white wine and how they have changed/updated the ways that they make wine but that at times, it is more advantageous to use the old way. It was all very interesting and we got to see where they make the wine and where they bottle it. Unfortunately, we did not get to walk through the vineyards or even see them. I thought that is what the tour would be like but it wasn’t. We then were led to their small store that is attached to the winery and had our wine tasting. I believe there were four different wines although I don’t remember the names of them. The first two were white wines and Amanda, you were wrong when you said I would like the white wines. Thankfully, I did not make a face and just tried to suck it up and drink it all until someone told me that I really didn’t need to drink it if I didn’t like it. The third was a pinkish color, perhaps a Merlot, not sure exactly. The final trial was a red wine which I definitely did not like. I know that it wasn’t Pinotache which is strictly a South African wine, which I tried last night at the club and also did not like. Many of my fellow students in this program bought bottles of wine and wanted it to be for the house. They thought that the entire house should have to chip in – I immediately protested because some people do not like wine (obviously me) and there are so many different wines to choose from, how could you possibly agree on just three?
From that estate, we went to a larger, more commercialized winery called Spiel. Supposedly, it makes some of the best wine in all of South Africa. Here, we did not do the wine tour (the wine tour was covered by the study abroad program at the other estate) and instead, we ate at this African restaurant called Moyo. Just for this place in itself, I want to take Amanda there but I have heard that it is EXTREMELY expensive. Marita (the professor for the program) forced the study abroad office to let us go because Moyo has such a good reputation. Basically, it is an African buffet and it essentially immerses you into African culture. We had some men dressed in tribal garments come up to our table to sing and play music. There were some African women who did a traditional African dance, played this really cool long tube of an instrument and then also sang us a song. Before we ate someone came around with water and bowl to wash our hands and then a different person used some sort of white paint to make a design on our faces out of white dots. It was so cool! Plus the food was amazing! It was hard to understand each cook at their station because Africans speak very softly and I am still trying to get used to the accent. Anyways, I tried a lot of new stuff! I know you should be surprised, I was surprised at myself! It turns out that I like some sort of fried calamari. I also tried the ostrich and it was pretty good. It tasted like a steak but without as much flavor. The kus kus (sp?) was good and the chicken was fantastic. I don’t know what kind of fish it was, but they had this fish on a stick that was amazing. It seems like they put a lot of salt on everything as well because everything seems pretty salted.
After lunch, we got to explore. They had a zoo, sort of, with a cheetah in it. I guess you could pay to go inside of the zoo and you could pay to pet the cheetah but we did not have time for it. They also had a couple eagles (yes I got pictures for you Dad as my camera was dying). There was a crafts market with a lot of the types of crafts that you see at the Fair Trade Store and at the markets in Cape Town. They were slightly more expensive because we were in a very touristy area and tourist would pay that price. The one thing that I did buy there, because I did not expect it to be in the Cape Town markets since it is made in the Kwa-Zulu Natal region, was a basket made out of telephone wire. It cost me R85 which is the equivalent of $12.5 (thanks for the money converter Mom – everybody in the program loves how I have it because they use it as well). That is definitely so much cheaper than the ones you buy at the Fair Trade store! I also bought some post cards so hopefully, some people will be getting post cards soon. How long it takes me to send them is another question because I need to buy stamps and find an international mail box.
I forgot to mention that on the way to Spiel, we passed by Khayelitsha, one of the townships that people were forcibly moved to when land was declared “white land”. It was sad, seeing all of these run down shacks that are people’s homes, crammed together in conditions you would not imagine. Apparently, over 40% of the population that lives in this township is HIV positive and over 6000 people live there. It is crazy how the government actually moved people based upon the color of their skin and placed them in such horrible conditions. We also passed by other townships, they were all over the place since we had to pass through the outskirts of Cape Town but I do not remember the names of them. I know of Khayelitsha because some people have their internships in there working to educate them about AIDs.
We got back at around 6 so it was a fairly long day. A bunch of us decided that we should walk to Pick N’ Pay, the grocery store of choice (although quite small and not having the same brands of things that I like such as peanut butter – theirs tastes all natural with no oil = yuck). We were walking down the street and passed by these two people, a middle age women and man. They started talking to us and after the women left, the man continued to talk to us and completely scared us about safety. He apparently knows the landlord of this house and our RA Matt talked to the landlord about this guy. Thankfully the landlord said that this guy is a drama queen, likes to make mountains out of molehills and all of the things he was telling us was way out of proportion. We definitely got scared though.
Anyways, I am really missing everybody right now. I always miss everybody. I love it here but I am horribly homesick which I did not imagine would happen. Hope everything is well with everybody else!

2008-01-18T11:26:00.000-08:00

January 16th
Today was once again an amazing day even though I slept all of two hours last night – still suffering from jet lag. We finally got our IDs and I bought a mocha espresso but man do Africans like their espressos strong! I needed to pour out half and fill the other half up with milk in order to actually drink it.
After that we went to the Slavery in Africa museum. It was really interesting and the owner of the museum gave us this large introduction that was pretty amazing. What was also interesting to learn was the fact that Afrikaans was not derived as a white language but a conglomeration of all of different dialects of the slaves. The conditions they had to live in were absolutely horrible but it was interesting to learn all of it.
After the museum, we were allowed to find lunch on our own and explore for several hours in Cape Town. Vernon recommended Mamai (I think that is a name) which is a place that cooks ethnic food of the region. There was Indian, African, some European. Almost everything had Indian spices in it – Amanda, you would have loved it because there were a lot of curry and samosas. I had a chicken pie which was absolutely amazing. Basically, my chicken pie and coke cost me the equivalent of a little of two dollars which is all of 19 ran. I love this place!
Lunch did not take long so Mia, Lara and I explore the mall. I wanted to find new sunglasses since I am going ghetto right now with broken sunglasses that are kept together with tape. We found the most amazing store (at least to me right now). I think it was Sheet Street or something. Basically, they had pillows. I have had the hardest time trying to find a pillow and I got a very nice pillow for 14.95 ran, about two dollars. It was a lot of fun and exciting – to be on our own, be able to wander around and explore Cape Town and have to actually worry about our security because we were not in a large group. I loved the diversity – there is so much diversity here and yes, everybody is quite cautious, at leas the tourists but the natives just look so comfortable. It also seems strange that this beautiful city turns into a place where you do not want to be at night. Little children, homeless people, meth users come out after 5 and everybody I have ever talked to warns me about making sure I am out of the city, especially the Parade.
We went to the District 6 museum which was amazing. This was probably the best speaker I have ever heard that talked about the importance of District 6 to us. He actually lived there and was relocated by the apartheid government. The museum was so moving – Chesney, hopefully you made it there when you were in Cape Town. I just cannot even begin to describe everything. After apartheid ended, they opened this District 6 exhibit and there was a map of the district on the floor. People who used to live in the district and were relocated to the townships came and requested a pen in order to write in where they had lived. What was supposed to be a weekend exhibit has lasted 14 years because of how popular it was and the funding that they were given. The people that were moved to the township were forced to commute hours to work so both parents had to work. Children were left alone after schools and violence ensued, gangs were created and that is what has resulted in places like Khayletisha which is still a very dangerous township right outside of Cape Town.
I have just returned from Manenberg at the waterfront which is this ritzy jazz café. RDP played and they were amazing! They played covers of some famous South African jazz songs, or so Vernon was telling me. The women singer had the most amazing voice and I just couldn’t believe the notes she was belting out! We had dinner there (I found out that I like sparkling wine or at least one sparkling wine) and I had the fish for dinner. The fish was really good but what was disappointing was that even though we arrived at 7:00, we did not receive our dinner until about 10 and did not leave until 12. I think that is the African way of doing things though. It seems that they are very lax about all of that and have long drawn out dinners but with small proportions compared to the sizes of American dishes. When the band played, at one point, Vernon got up and took me out onto the floor and we danced. From that point on we danced all night long and it was the most fun I have had in a long time. Unfortunately, RDP does not have a cd so I will not be able to show it to you. Also, I was afraid to bring my nice camera so I did not bring it and missed the amazing pictures of clouds rolling over Table Mountain on the way there. Tonight was amazing and tomorrow we go to Stellenbosch for wine tours!
Oh and I asked Vernon more about my internship and he said that I will actually be doing research on the AIDS virus pertaining particular to its’ methodology in children. I am so psyched!

2008-01-18T11:25:00.000-08:00

January 15, 2008

So today was amazing! I feel so much more comfortable here. It was really stressful but mostly because I was actually able to access the internet today from an internet café and contact everybody to let them know that I was okay. I think that was stressing me out the most, being so separated from the rest of the world. Also, I have a cell phone now although I doubt it will be used very often. People can contact me (please keep in mind that I am 7 hours ahead) by calling 0027714287372. It will cost you a lot of money though so I don’t suggest you do that unless you want to buy an international calling card and use a landline.
Anyways, so about today – we went to downtown Cape Town. We saw the places that we are not supposed to be at after 5, which is called the parade, because street kids will attack you for money. It is fine to walk around there in large groups or even by yourself during the day and large groups at night on Long Street. I hope to go there with Jeff (who also works at the Red Cross Hospital with me) after work because there were some exceptionally amazing flea markets selling awesome paintings that were on fabric, masks, carved wood and baskets. I wanted them soo bad! But apparently we should bargain for them so I am super nervous about that and I am bringing somebody with me who is good at bargaining, for sure. We ate at this amazing bakery called Charlys (Amanda I must take you there when I go). Their phrase was mucking afazing cakes, if you switch the letters around you will get it. So this bakery is amazing and eventually I will upload some pictures of the actual cupcakes we got. I had a lemon and chicken pie which tasted like a pot pie. It was to die for and was the best meal I have had by far. Apparently this place bakes cakes for Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu, Oprah and various other famous Africans and these cakes are gorgeous. They are absolutely amazing. We also saw an amazing building, built by the British under British rule which was the place of central government under apartheid, now turned into the library. The balcony of this building was where Nelson Mandela made his first speech after being released from prison. What was also neat was seeing the church where Desmond Tutu was Archbishop I think. He has since retired but the church was gorgeous.
We did not go to the jazz café tonight because apparently there is not a band playing but we will go tomorrow. After seeing Cape Town, we went to the American consulate so that we could be registered and got a huge talk on safety. Once again, it scared us to pieces. We also went to a store to buy transformers and adaptors since it has been incredibly hard to find them anywhere. There is this amazing tea store near where we shop for groceries that has red tea, which is made in South Africa and it is delicious. I have yet to find a place that will sell a comfortable pillow!!
Interesting events that happened today: we were bothered by a beggar who was trying to coerce our address out of us. We are not supposed to be giving that out since it is a common trick to get the address in order to break in since it is assumed that Americans have a ton of money. I pulled a Mom today and dropped a 2 Liter bottle of Coke on the ground which spurted everywhere and managed to hit my ankle and cut it. Also, I managed to accidentally hit the panic button on the house and the alarm system went off. The landlords did not tell us what the code was so we were expecting armed guards to show up. Eventually the alarm went off but it was a silent alarm from then on. We called the landlords, they gave us the alarm code but the disconcerting thing is that the guards never showed up. It could possibly just be a rumor and maybe they hope that the annoying noise of the alarm will scare the burglars away. So that was my exciting day! I have to wake up early tomorrow morning in order to get my student ID from University of Cape Town and then we are going to some museums. Should be another fun filled day! J

Hello from Cape Town

2008-01-15T12:31:00.000-08:00

January 14, 2008

So I arrived in Cape Town last night. The flights were annoyingly long and very cramped. It took us awhile to get all of our luggage (which actually took longer than getting through customs) and finally we got to the house. The house is absolutely gorgeous. We picked rooms and I am living in the main house (not in the pool house) with my roomie Amanda Ploch. We originally had a room in the pool house but there was no bars on the window and we were right in front of the road. That made Amanda feel uncomfortable, along with the lack of security in the pool house like the main house has, so we switched rooms with some of the guys. If you look out our window, you can see mountains. I am not sure which one but it is definitely a mountain! Right now, it is really hard to be so far away from home. It is especially hard to be out of contact with everybody because there is no internet access and we do not have our cell phones yet. I will get used to this eventually though.
I am suffering from severe jet lag: I slept all of two hours last night. Part of it was definitely that I am really nervous about all of this. All of a sudden I feel as if I shouldn’t be here, that I made a wrong choice but I know it is just because I am scared of the unfamiliar surroundings. Besides, I can’t go home anyways what with Amanda coming in April (I am counting down the days!). Everybody has been really great though and instead of sleeping, like I should have been doing, I just sat in the pool table room (which also has a mini bar and everybody thinks that we should chip in money to fill up the bar with alcohol. Lets just say I am not exactly for that plan) and read my book. It is really strange, being in such different surroundings with no way of contacting anybody that I am really close to. Even though I am surrounded by 24 other people, I feel really alone.
Today, Vernon, the organizer of our internships that lives in Cape Town, gave us an official Cape Town greeting and told us what was on our itinerary for the week. We went to the University of Cape Town campus for a tour. They talked a lot about safety and pretty much freaked all of us out. Our tour guide showed us the middle, lower and upper part of the campus which, by the way, is absolutely gorgeous. People who participated in this program last year were not kidding when they said that it was part way up a mountain. It will definitely be a hike when we have to go to class. Unfortunately, we had our tour and all of our stair climbing during the hottest part of the day – I don’t know for sure how hot it was but it definitely felt like it was 90 degrees. We did not have any water with us and I thought I was going to pass out, from the lack of water and from the lack of food. But I stuck it out and after that, we left to go and get some food, plus to do some shopping for necessities. Since I got no sleep the night before, my necessity was a fan to drown out all of the noise. We also had to go food shopping, I needed to buy shampoo and it was really stressful. Plus what made matters worse was that most people did not have Rand (thank you Grammie Lyle for that!) and needed to hit an ATM but there was a power outage so none of the ATMs were working. We were supposed to get our cell phones today but there were not enough so I think we are getting them tomorrow morning.
Tomorrow we are going to walk around downtown Cape Town, visit the American consulate and eat dinner at a Jazz Café. On Wednesday, we are going to visit the Slave Lodge in downtown Cape Town and the District Six Museum. We also need to return to University of Cape Town in order to get our ID’s; this was supposed to happen today but due to the black out, the machines were not working in order for us to do this.
So I am here and I am safe. Right now I am just more overwhelmed by anxiety and nervousness than anything but I do have to admit that this is a gorgeous city (from what I have seen so far). Everybody is great here but I really miss everybody at home already. I hate feeling so disconnected from the rest of the world but what can you do?
Love and miss you all! Oh and so far, no baboon sightings.

Leaving on a jet plane

2008-01-12T10:26:00.000-08:00

So I leave in an hour. Very very scared, nervous, sad yet excited, all at the same time. I am going to miss all of you! To everybody that I did not get a chance to see before I left, I'm sorry. I have been crazy busy - I promise I will come home and see you to tell you all about my adventures. To everybody that came to the surprise party - thank you so much!!!! I was so happy to see all the people that took time out to spend time with me and wish me good luck. I will be thinking of you all! Just to let everybody know, my phone will be "suspended" so if you try to call it, it will not work. It will be reactivated when I get back! I love you all and will miss you! I will keep you updated! Best of luck to you all next semester!

Journal of South African Semester Abroad

2008-01-05T16:44:00.000-08:00

Hi Everybody!

I am going to be posting my journal, along with some various pictures, on this website. You can comment, email me, whatever. It is officially 7 days and counting until I leave. I am so excited yet so nervous at the same time. To update, my internship is official, I am working at the Red Cross Hospital with AIDS patients. I am not sure exactly what I am doing there, just that three days, Monday through Wednesday, will be spent working there. This is exactly what I wanted to do so I am happy. What is even more convenient is that the house that I am living in is directly behind the Red Cross Hospital. Unlike other people, I do not have a huge commute by taking multiple taxis and mini buses to get to my internship. My house is located at 10 Loch Road, Rondebosch Cape Town. I am not sure exactly what you would write for my address if you wanted to send me mail but I will look into that. Anyways, that is all for right now. I will keep updating to let you know that I am alive, staying safe and having fun!