I'Khaya La Whatta?

Hey oh. It's been a while. I can only update on weekends, and last weekend I was a bit too preoccupied for ye, olde blogosphere.
But now ye has many, many updates. Settle in.

I started doing a LOT more at the hospital. My responsibilities really went from zero to sixty. I now spend my days running between one of the following seven things. In no particular order:

1. Tracheostomy Handbook
   I am simplifying sentence structure, developing format, and finalizing content in this 19-page handbook.
2. Series of Documentary Photographs
   For the tracheostomy ward. I have to take pictures of every piece of equpiment, every step of the process, and... just... everything. Tracheostomies are pretty complicated (at least to me, a newbie to them), and I basically need to document everything visually.
3. Occasional Seminars and Odd Jobs
   I am the unofficial assistant to the ward sister. Therefore, I do various oddjobs and whatnot mumbojumbo thingamalings. For example, I attended rounds. Ten specialists discussed four patients for about an hour in very complicated medical jargon as I tried determinatedly to understand and keep up. Halfway through, I started to worry someone would ask me for my opinion, in which case I was fully prepared to look that person in the eyes and say, "I concur" with force. Other random things I've done was to attend a seminar for parents whose children died, and this week I organized thousands of pieces of trach tubes.
4. Data Entry on a Burn Database
   I start Monday. Basically, they want to put all the information about locations of burn victims on a huge map so they can figure out demographics and where burn wards are located, should be located, etc. The first step? Getting me to type in thousands of entries.
5. Attending Occasional Surgeries
   One of the perks! I haven't started yet, I really hope it doesn't fall through, but with all luck this upcoming week I'll pretend to be a med student and observe a surgery.
6. Play Therapy
   When I say "play therapy", I mean I just go to a ward and pretend to fall over so children laugh. It's entertainment, it's a way to cheer up these really sick kids, and it's what a lot of people spend all day doing. This was what I was doing the first couple weeks I was here, and whenever none of my six other jobs need me this is what I do. It's good experiences, you still see a LOT of hilarious, interesting, devastating, [insert other adjective] things.
7. Housing Records
   This is my biggest job by far. The Red Cross is pretty much the only specialist children's hospital in Sub-Saharan Africa, so people come from very, very far away. Mothers are offered to stay in housing, which is just a small building next to the hospital (I'Khaya La Rotary). Many of them do, but very few of them sign out when their child is discharged from the hospital. Therefore, their fees continue, so mothers can end up being charged as if they stayed there for months and months on end, instead of just a few days or weeks. This is where I come in. I'm the person who figures out when a mother arrives, when she leaves, if she goes away for weekends, etc. And all the paperwork involved. On any given day, there are 35-80 mothers staying in housing. It's not so bad, but I will say that trying to understand Xhosa names is NOT EASY. (Xhosa is one of those clicky languages.)

SO, it's been a pretty busy week. The cons are that I have so much to do I can't do any of it very efficiently, plus the housing job means I have to work through my lunch break. And imagine how guilty I feel if I miss a day! I have four bosses!
Pros? I feel very important.

I sat down to watch my first-ever rugby match between the two best teams in the world (South Africa and New Zealand), and fifteen minutes in I fell asleep. Ha, the entire country was anticipating this game, as South Africa currently holds the world title. Sadly, we lost.

I have indeed been watching the Olympics. South Africa got one medal. And I feel so bad for their Olympian bicyclist, who crashed and took out two others with him. He has to come home to newspaper headlines that say "BICYCLE HORROR SHOW". Ouch!

I lost full feeling in my thumb after fetching scalding-hot coffee for a world-class neurosurgeon. Worth it? I think not. And speaking of coffee, I had a mochachocacchino. And now I'm addicted!

We went on a braai, which is the South African tradition of barbeque-ing. It was pretty cool, on a lake, and families all choose a spot among the hills and rocks to braai for the day. I felt a bit like a hobbit, eating sausages in the foliage. Click here to see a hobbit in its natural enviornment.

South Africa's currently having a competition for the next cast of South Africa's own High School Musical movie. And the camera crew came to the hospital!! Apparently there was someone who wanted to try out, though I'm not sure who it would have been, since most of our patients are under the age of ten. ANYWAY, I'm really excited to see our hospital on TV! Three of us were also interviewed by the Daily Mail, which is a big newspaper in the UK, about volunteering at the Red Cross. Look out world - this is my big break!

We also drove out to Darling, which is about an hour away from Cape Town. Very, very small Afrikaans town. Countryside is really pretty, it was all wine farm territory. Tomorrow I'm going to Durbanville, about half an hour away, which I hear is much more... populated. This week I was also able to go up Signal Hill and then back to Camps Bay (that beautiful beach I keep posting pictures of). That day, we went to a seafood restaurant and I had my first oyster ever. I'm told they're "REALLY GOOD" in comparison, not to mention ridiculously cheap in comparison to oysters in the States.

WELL, people who have access to CNN, I bid you adieu, until next weekend.
Love as always,
Erin

P.S. I want you all to know that filling up a tank here is the equivalent of EIGHTY+ DOLLARS. Quit your complaining!