SYTYCMMMTIDY?!

Hi everyone,

Sadly there's not much to report, so this is just a check-in.

We've entered the last month until I return home to blistering, blizzarding, snow. Not that the weather here is much different. (Glooobal waaaarming....)

The hospital is still well. I was able to scout out a nearby hospital for "chronic invalids", because one of our patients needs to be transferred. It was one of the very few times here where I had to restrain myself from crying. Disadvantaged as the hospital is, visiting it definitely renewed the idea that impoverished Africa is certainly not hopeless. In the horrible circumstances, people are still working hard with what they have. There are amazing people that are really dedicated and devoted to third-world development, despite the fact that most of the world has given up.

*steps off soapbox*

Hope everyone is well.
I wish I had more to report.

Namaste.

Salty Crocodile

Hi all,

SO, last week five of us interns took a trip down the coast, which is known as The Garden Route. It was a four-day thing, below are the exploits.

First stop: Mossel Bay. One of the candidates for the beginning of humankind, it's a small residential town with a strong downtown (Holland, anyone?). We found our hostel and then went straight to the beach. The wind was pretty hectic, causing rough seas and 30-foot waves!! We hiked the side of a mount and found a partial cave. All along the rocks were dassies. Dassies look like giant disgusting rodents, but are the closest relative to the ELEPHANT.

Above: the non-elusive dassie.

Mossel Bay

We spent the night in Mossel Bay and the next morning went to the beach. It was too cold to do much, but I found strange snails with squishy squish squish for feet... and then realized that the squish is to help them dig under the sand... and THEN realized I was standing on sand that was slightly in motion... because of all the snails. Ehhheheghh...

Later we drove to Knysna, which is famous for its forest. We drove straight through the forest to make it to Knysna Elephant Park before it closed. There are 9 elephants that we saw, and we paid an extra $2 to be able to feed them. They take their tusks, you place the food in their tusk, and then they transfer the food from the tusk to their mouth. They were greedy and stole my entire bucket of food (not that I was going to eat it). All of the elephants there had been taken from the wild solely to save their lives. After we finished feeding them, we walked around with them and the guides. The elephants allowed us to touch their trunks, ears, sides, etc., except for a pregnant elephant who was extremely territorial.

Greed at work

The next morning we left our hostel in Knysna early to make it to Plettenberg Bay. That morning in Plett, we went "dolphin kayaking" on the Indian Ocean. We were supposed to see dolphins/whales/seals, etc., but nothing ever showed. Not to mention the wind picked up and I got so seasick my kayak partner had to paddle us back to shore entirely by herself.

"I'll just lay here for a few hours, guys..."

NEXT, we rushed past Plettenberg Bay to make it to the world's tallest bungee jump. Before you even begin to think it -- no. I did NOT bungee jump, and I am FINE with that decision. Paying $70 to fear death as, attached to a cord, I plummet down a 218-meter ravine towards unapologetic boulders? Pass.

I did, however, walk the bridge, which is cool enough.

No way.

Three of us did bungee, and it was... cool?... to watch them do it. We drove back to Plett and spent the night at the hostel having a braai (South African version of barbeque).

Driving back the next day took about 9 hours. The highlight was the Karoo, where were stopped to visit the Cango Caves. No pictures, but I can tell you that the Caves were gigantic and a lot of the formations are about 500,000 years old. It was a pretty quick stop, and then we kept on driving through Ostrich Country. Ostriches EVERYWHERE. I think more than 80% of the entire area's living must come from ostriches somehow. When we had lunch at the caves, Marcos even ordered ostrich neck for lunch. The visual highlight of the drive home was the mountains past Outdshoorn.

So ugly.

Not so ugly.

So that was the Garden Route trip.

In other news...

South Africa's Halloween was the most pathetic thing I've ever seen. I could enjoy the lack of decorations and advertisements everywhere I looked.... but when it came to actual trick-or-treating... ha! We passed at least one hundred houses and only four of them answered with sweets. I tried to explain the brillance and extravagance of an American Halloween. Most people here didn't even remember the date. Heh. Heh. Heh. In their defense, there was absolutely nothing to remind them of the date. I've heard that Guy Fawkes Day (Nov. 5) is much more widely celebrated and that there will be lots of fireworks.

Work at the hospital is still going well. It's an extremely quiet time of year in terms of how many volunteers come, so I seem to attract kids wherever I go.

Before the trip, some of us went to a restaurant downtown and tried game meat. Ostrich (tasted acidic), warthog (like beef!), and crocodile (salty). Yum.

Still just bracing for the election. Planning to stay up the whole night and watch results come in state by state, like the nerd I am. Stupid time change puts me an extra hour behind Michigan.

Love to all. Enjoy that frosty weather.

- Erin

My Fellow Americans

Don't think I've forgotten about you.

I'm in the middle of an epic battle with hay fever. Once I am victorious, I will put down the sword and pick up the pen (keyboard).

It's a big update because of this week's trip down the coast, and I'm going to do my next update justice! Just gotta wait this sickness out.

- Erin

Molo! Unjani?

This past week, kids at the hospital have been trying to teach me Xhosa. Sadly, this midwestern accent doesn't sound quite right trying to click and deep vowel her way through sentences. I'm pretty sure I'm slaughtering the language. But now, I can say vital phrases like, "Amanzi ndiphilile impilo ewe biza amapolisa." Which translates roughtly to "Water I am well cheers yes call the police". (Suffice to say, I've got a ways to go.)

We had our first pool day here, complete with braai (barbeque). Of course the day after it's freezing and windy again. This has been the rainest winter Cape Town has had in more than 50 years. However, the rain is over for the year, and with the exception of today it's heating up.

My camera was dropped by a conjoined twin at the hospital, which accounts for the lack of pictures as of late.
The US aircraft carrier ship is parked in Cape Town. No one has any idea why. It's GIGANTIC, you can see it clearly from the top floor of the hospital, which is at least eight miles away.
Also, you heard it here first -- and now it's true. The ANC has "split", but not very effectively. Mr. Lekota (an ANC dude) has started his own party. I can't remember what it's called... but now Mr. Lekota is an ex-ANC dude. It hasn't been very effective thus far (as far as I know) because he's only taken a small percentage of ANC supporters with him. However, it is expected that their numbers will grow and grow as time passes. It's awkward timing with the upcoming election in March.
And speaking of upcoming elections, how nuts is it in the States right now? The American elections are getting huge amounts of attention HERE. I cannot imagine how inescapable it is there.

Last week, we went sandboarding for a friend's 9th birthday. Just like snowboarding... but on sand. I didn't even realize sandboarding EXISTED, but it makes perfect sense -- the boards were exactly the same as what we use on snow. Finally, a talent I can transfer!

Mmmmkay. 2 mas months...

... see you soooooon!

Erin Has Horse Hair.

OK! I'm back! With a vengeance! (Or just on a sugar high)

I am getting transferred to a different part of the hospital. I'm too popular for my own good --- see, there are hardly any volunteers during the North American & European school year. The meeting that will finalize everything is tomorrow, but it sounds like now I will be helping in the cancer outpatient clinic. Apparently they're absolutely scrambled for someone to come in. There's a giant nursing shortage in South Africa, and the Red Cross is feeling the crunch. From then on, I will continue my duties in the housing unit. And although I've been asked to stop my duties as a ward assistant in the tracheostomy unit, the trachy nurse doesn't want me to go. Especially because I have been working one-on-one with an emotionally upset girl. She is without family and needs the stability of someone to see her daily. I only started working with her last week, so it's not like I can abandon her now.
So it looks like I'm on triple duty.

The ANC is soooo going to split. From what I understand, it sounds like some of the top party leaders are going to break away and start their own party. Oh, the political dramz! I'm lovin' it!


A child broke my camera (grrr...). So we are without photos. It's been sent away to be fixed, but of COURSE it would happen just before the weekend I'm going to Cape Point.


Spring has sprung. It's starting to get hot. Which is bizarre... it seems like right now all the leaves should turn orange and I should be raking the lawn. Instead, car windows are rolled down and open-toed shoes must be worn.

While you all at home are stressing like mad about the financial crisis, I am LOVING it. The States sneeze... South Africa catches a cold. The rand (South African currency) is doing very poorly against the dollar. When I arrived it was about 7,20 to the dollar. Now it is 9,19. Niiiice!

Listen, I'd carry on, but there's Survivor to be watched. Priorities are priorities.

More soon!

Amor,
Erin

MMMBeki! Ba, Bou, Doo, Dop!

Where to begin?
It's been a while, and I'm sorry about that. Between hectic-ness, nothing to update, and lack of time, I have not been the dedicated blogger the world deserves.


First, let's talk politics.
South African history is being made. About ten years ago, there was a gigantic arms deal involving lots of Top People in government, including ANC president Jacob Zuma and South Africa's first post-Mandela president, Thabo Mbeki. (The ANC is the African National Congress, South Africa's majority party to which both Zuma and Mbeki belong.) Both Zuma and Mbeki have been involved in corruption charges that have gone to trial. Zuma's trial finished just this month and he was found not guilty. There are obvious, pink elephant-sized questions about his innocence, since a great number of Zuma's supporters threatened to incite civil war and large scale violence if he were found guilty. It obviously wasn't worth the bloodshed to send him to prison.

With Zuma's innocence officialized (is that a word?), several government factions next set their sights on Mbeki. This is where I get confused, but basically the ANC had a meeting last Friday to decide whether or not Mbeki should be president. And they decided to recall him, or in more basic terms, to fire the country's president. Mbeki then chose rather to "resign". It took a weekend to sort out who would be the acting president. First, it was Speaker of the House, who would have been South Africa's first female president, but she resigned along with Mbeki. In fact, FOURTEEN ministers loyal to Mbeki handed in their resignations (that's more than 1/3 of the cabinet). Among the ministers who resigned was Trevor Manuel, the minister of finance. The rand (South African currency) crashed briefly, then strengthened, weakened again, strengthened, etc., throughout the course of the afternoon, until Manuel was asked to retain his post and agreed.

So the president is out, the temporary president is in, cabinet is shuffled up, and Zuma is set to be elected as president come scheduled elections in March (unless they call early elections to deal with the political crisis).

Imagine this in the States. The Republican Party fires George Bush, they put somebody like Rudy Guiliani in temporarily, McCain is guaranteed the presidency next year, the secretary of state, treasury, defense, and attorney general (among several others) all resign, and the dollar goes up and down by the minute. This is history, people!


What else, what else?
I made it out to Kirstenbosch Gardens, which is one of the most renowned gardens in the world. It was like Meijer Gardens to the 1000th power. It has this crazy view of the mountains and is absolutely enormous. The tracheostomy sister I work for used to have a house IN Kirstenbosch because her stepfather was the director!

I also had some more animal sightings. I saw a whale JUMPING out of the water. From afar, yes, but as someone who has barely even seen a whale before, it was REALLY cool to see. They are huge. I had a staring contest with a seal (it won). And then we were able to get fresh yellowtail fish that had JUST come out of the bay. Yummmmm...

Wednesday was a public holiday: Heritage Day. I'm not quite sure how to celebrate heritage (as opposed to the easy holidays like President's Day). Anyway, it was also South African National Braai Day. If you remember, a braai is just a barbeque, and it's what South Africans are good at. I stuffed myself into a delicious oblivion.


Unfortunately, I made the poor decision to get sick. I'm stranded in bed for a few days with sinusitus and a fever. Lots of Groundhog Day, 7-Up, and shortbread. The doctor said that the fauna on the mountain goes pollen crazy and all of it sweeps down into the city. Apparently if you haven't lived in Cape Town for awhile, you're doomed.

I just recently hit the halfway mark of time here. I know the remaining time is going to go sooo fast. Hopefully the weather will improve (it's been cold and wet forever) and I can hit up all the things I want to do before I go. I'll be a much better blogger from now on, even if there's nothing to report!

Cheers,
Erin

A Photographic Tour

Well, it's time. For a visual glimpse into life here.

This is my workplace: The Red Cross War Memorial Children's Hospital. Long name, I know. It was built by the victors of World War II (instead of a monument). Strictly a children's hospital, the oldest patient is 14. And it is often followed with the title of "the only specialist's children's hospital in Sub-Saharan Africa".

This is my beloved rotary. It's on the hospital campus, and is where the parents of patients stay. And go figure, I work in a hospital filled with cute and terminally ill children and the people I get attached to are their PARENTS. The I'Khaya is simulatenously my favorite and the most frustrating job I have.

Just for fun; this is the sad loved bench on which I eat lunch everyday.

This is the living space in the apartment into which I just moved last weekend. 14th floor. Roommate Rachel. Lots of interesting cooking experiments.

That's all you get! ...For now. I want to take photos of the inside of the hospital, but technically, I'm not allowed to. The trick is to give your camera to a kid.

Okay, so what's new?

I'm definitely getting into the hospital work now. I'm working on the burns unit, the cardiac/tracheostomy unit, reception, the rotary, and the FRIENDS office. Therefore, I'm getting to know the hospital and everybody in it really well. And making a fatal mistake: getting attached!

I've also been exploring the city a bit more. I found some beautiful gardens right down the road and the church that Desmond Tutu used to preach at. Who knew?!

Speaking of church, I went to the Claremont Assembly today and it was crazy! People crying, jumping, the whole schpiel. I even got a gift bag for being a first-time visitor. I really enjoyed it, though, because it was the most diversity I've seen since I've arrived; and that includes the hospital.

Other minor news:
I switched apartments, a move from the 11th to the 14th floor. I like the new one better.
I was on the minibus and a guy next to me had a seizure - luckily we were next to the hospital. Draaamatic!
The weather has been tempermental, like usual. But Saturday was too gorgeous - a preview of the days to come, I'm told. (Remember seasons are switched.) So Janet took me on a drive looking over False Bay that was SO beautiful! We stopped in Simon's Town, which is a bit touristy but is a big fishing & boating locale. I saw a whale, penguins from afar, and a seal in the harbor. Pretty. Sweet.

Simon's Town

I'm thinking about going to Namibia or Mozambique next month. If anyone wants to tag along...

you know you're welcome!

Love,

Erin