Kruger National Park

This weekend we took a 2 night 3 day safari trip to Kruger National Park, which is the largest park in Africa and is the size of England. We woke up at 4:30 AM and made our way to the airport in Cape Town. Our flight from Cape Town to Johanasburg was a 2 hour flight. Once we landed in Joburg we met our driver who drove us around all weekend. We drove 4 hours to Nelspruit, which is the town where the entrance to Kruger National Park is located. We arrived at the camp around 4:30 PM and had to be on a sunset safari at 5 PM. We spent the next three hours driving through the park with large spotlights, looking for the reflections of animal's eyes. We saw elephants, a rhino, and several small nocturnal mammals. We awoke at 5 AM the next morning to catch our all day safari. Within a half hour into the safari we saw a large, male cheetah standing within 5 feet from our van! What a way to start our day. Throughout the day we saw elephants, giraffes, baboons, hippos, impalas, water buffalos, hyenas, zebras, springbocks, cliff jumpers, Kudus, crocs, along with a variety of birds.

First story from the safari: The Lioness

As our safari was coming to a close we came to a road where there were roughly 15 cars parked on a bridge overlooking a grassy savannah. We pulled up and one of the cars told us that a lioness was spotted in the grass somewhere and that a pack was traveling towards the grasslands. We were excited but didnt see anything but grass. Then out of no where a girl in our van points out the lioness. We were the only people to see her laying in the grass. It was hard to make her out but I do have a picture I will eventually post. No one knew that we saw the lioness and we did not share with anyone. We just drove off :)

Second Story: Distress Water Buffalo

Again as we approached camp, still excited after seeing the lioness, the private tour guide we had pointed out 2 hyenas laying in the grass. Not one person in our group saw these hyenas. The tour guide shouts out "Matthew ( the tour guide's son, who in fact is a tour guide himself) remember what I told you about hyenas? They are very inquisitive." He then rolls the window down and makes this long and steady repetitive sound. Within the second sound, two heads popped out of the grass. Then the hyenas stood up with their ears perked and one actually ran closer to the vehicle. We got some good pictures. Without the tour guide we would have never seen them.

After the all day safari we had a braii (traditional BBQ). We played cards and roasted marshmallows. We all crashed hard that night. We were tired from the all day safari. We awoke at 7 AM the following morning and left for nelspruit. We went to a waterfall, a river with awesome geographical features, and a God's Window. I have pictures from all three that I will eventually upload. We left nelspruit headed back to the Joburg airport at 4:30. We got to the airport at 7:45 for a 9 o clock flight. Once we were through security we arrived at the gate to find that the flight was delayed an hour and a half. Just our luck. I didnt get back to my house until 1:30 AM and had to be up for work at 7:45.

The TB campaign is going well. We are targeting a very poor area of Masiphumelele called the wetlands where people just build shacks on open plots of land. There are two debris ridden rivers lined with freshwater taps where the ladies are often doing laundry and others are dragging buckets to and from their houses to fetch clean water for the day. We have also been continuing our work in the morning, helping the clinic prepped the patients before being seen by the nurses.

I also have to thank Dr. Belafsky who treated me to a wonderful dinner at a fantastic restaurant called 95 Keerom. It was a fantastic meal.

Well I cant wait to see what the rest of the week has to offer. Next Tues we get to meet Desmond Tutu! Im excited

Week 2

Its been 2 weeks exactly and they have been awesome. Working in the clinic is getting tiring, but whenever I take a step back and look at the situation I am in, I realize how lucky I am to be where I am today. I would not trade these past two summers so far for anything! So far this week I have done much of the same work I did last week; weigh and take temperatures of kids under 13 or patients with HIV/AIDS, sit in on consultations with the doctor and nurses, and go door to door for the TB campaign.

I do have a rant coming soon regarding how the clinic seems to over prescribe meds and give them out without much examination, along with some funny stories but I am too tired to type it all today.

Stay Tuned

This is Africa!!!

The past three days have been hectic! I awoke on Monday at 7:00 AM to take a cold shower. There are six of us living in the house and if you are not one of the first 4 to shower then there is no hot water left. I learned my lesson fast Monday morning; be the first one to shower! We were en route to our placement at roughly 8 AM Monday when the driver realized that we had forgotten to pick up our professor, who wanted to come along the first day, to see what we were going to be doing for the next month. We were forced to turn around and sit in "peak" traffic as the South Africans like to call it. We did not arrive to our placement in Masiphumelele until 9:45 AM. Aside from being late, our first day was amazing. We learned that we would be doing a TB (tuberculosis) campaign in the township. TB has been running rampant in the township of Masi for the past several years, because many people are infected with the disease and do not even know it. The residents of Masi live in make shift houses, made from corrugated roof tops and wood, which are often dimly lit. If there is little light in the house, TB, which is passed from one person to another via air borne particles of bacteria, can thrive for up to 4 hours outside the body. This leads to many people becoming infected. Our job is to go door to door in the areas of the township which are suspected of having higher rates of TB and convincing the residents to get free testing done. The test consists of the person, spitting into a sample cup when they first awake in the morning. They are then to bring the sputum sample to the clinic, where it will be sent off and an analyzed. Once the results come in, the clinic will notify the resident of the results. If a person comes back positive, they will receive free treatment at the clinic and everyone living in the same "plot" will be tested.

Originally, Masiphumelele was established to hold 500 families. Each family owned a plot, or yard, and were free to do what they wanted on their land. As time went on and more people were displaced with apartheid, Masiphumelele became overcrowded. To accommodate for this people began allowing others to build these make shift shacks on their plot. A typical plot now houses roughly 6-10 families! To date there are over 40,000 residents of Masiphumelele.

After learning all of this Monday, we took to the streets and began our door to door campaign. Many of the residents d not wish to get tested, either because they are afraid to find the results or they feel they do not exhibit any symptoms of TB. Oh i forgot to mention many of the residents in Masi do not speak English. They speak an Bantu dialect called Xhosa which consists of clicks. So, we have 3 residents of the community who work at the clinic, who travel with us and act as our interpreters. It is difficult at times to communicate with the people, but over the past 3 days we have handed out over 75 tests, with a retention rate of about 20% coming back and actually dropping the samples off at the clinic.

Our day Monday was basically orientation to the township of Masiphumelele and our first day of the TB campaign. Tues and Wed have been a lot more busier. We generally arrive at the clinic at 9:00 AM. Instead of going directly into the community, the clinic has asked us to do assessments on patients, before they see the doctor to reduce the time with the doctor, thus allowing more people to be seen in a shorter time span. 80% of the patients coming to the clinic are children under the age of 5. We weigh the children, take their temperatures, and do a basic assessment before passing the chars on to the nurses. It has been amazing working with these kids.

One particular child really touched my heart on Tuesday. I purchased a black bracelet similar to a livestrong bracelet in the local grocery store that said "United 4 Bafana Bafana" which is the nickname of the South African World Cup Team. Bafana Bafana translates to the boys. There was also a small African flag on the bracelet. This child who was about 6 came into the room, and I greeted him. He did not respond, instead he just looked at the floor and stood there. I approached him and stooped down on one knee and said, Hey how are you today? No response. The nurse comes in and says to me he is deaf and mute and can not communicate with you. No sooner did she say that, the kid noticed my band on my wrist, pointed to the African flag on it and then pointed to his chest as if he was saying this is my country. I responded by pointing to the words bafana bafana and giving him the thumbs up sign. He smiled and gave me a thumbs up sign back. He pushed his thumb up to mine and flicked it to the side. When I later asked the nurse what that meant, she told me that many kids great each other like this, as if American kids were giving each other a handshake. He then pointed to my band, and then pointed to his chest, asking for the band. I gave my band to him and he had a smile from ear to ear. As he left he waved good bye and gave me another thumbs up "shake".

We typical work in the clinic from 9:00 AM to about 11:45 AM and then we take to the streets to begin our TB campaign. We come back from our TB campaign at about 1:30 PM and work in the clinic until 3 doing what we had done earlier in the morning. In order to avoid a large line of people, which would probably wrap around the clinic several times, the clinic sees patients from 9:00 AM - 11:30 AM and then again from 1:30 PM to about 4 PM. We leave at around 3 PM once everything is under control and the nurses can manage the load.

Today, July 21st another funny thing happened. Except this time, instead of it being a person interacting with me, it was a chicken. Many chickens and stray dogs roam the streets of the townships, and during our campaign today, I saw a chicken with 4 chicks that could not have been more then a couple days old. I walked up to the chicks, thinking I could get a picture taken with one. Was I wrong! I cornered this one chick and had my hand on him when all of the sudden the mother chicken came rip roaring at me and started pecking me in the back of the my legs. I decided to leave the chick alone and ran back to the road. Many of the locals were laughing hysterically at me. I always manage to make people smile. I can not wait to see what tomorrow brings!

Oh, I almost forgot about the taxi ride last night. When we first came to Cape Town, they warned us not to take the mini bus taxi's because many of them have been known to rob tourists and drop them off in the middle of no where. As we were going out last night with our RA we decided it would be cheaper, 6 rand compared to 30 rand, to get to the local night club and we flagged down a mini bus. As we were loading the mini bus, another mini bus parked directly in front of the original mini bus and the driver got out shouting, "This is not your territory, you do not belong here. These are my customers!" The driver of the mini bus which had 7 of the 10 people in our group loaded into it, tried to back off. Thankfully I was 1 of 3 who was not in the mini bus yet. The mini bus backed up directly into another taxi cab, and smashed the front bumper up. All of the people in the mini bus got out and decided not to take the mini bus taxi. Instead we took 2 metered taxi's, which are the main option of getting around town, and we arrived safely at the club with a funny story to tell.

I think i wrote enough today! Hopefully instead of these mega posts, I will try to update my blog daily. Thank you all for the comments and love. This country is truly an amazing place!

Exhausted

Im so beat from working the past three days at the clinic. I am uploading pictures now but I will make a post later today. Stay Tuned!

Tour of Cape Town

Last night was a very interesting night. I learned a lot from hanging out with the medical students of UCT (University Cape Town). One of the RA's in our group, Eddie, invited Derek, Victor, Walter and I to hang out with some of his friends who had just arrived back on campus for the start of their next semester. The med school students start a week earlier then the rest of the college. We got a cab and arrived at the Med Res short for Medical Residence and hung out with 8 guys who were undergraduate, pre-med students.These guys were funny. At times it felt like I was sitting in a room with a group of my friends, just that these guys talked about the World Cup. Boy do the South Africans hate Suarez. For those who dont know Suarez plays for Uruguay and got away with a blatant, in terms of the South Africans, hand ball. Uruguay was the team that knocked South Africa out of the world cup! He is hated here and it is quite comical listening to these guys talk about him.

Today we awoke at 7:00 am to get ready for a tour of the Cape Town. There were a total of 8 coach buses that took a bunch of international students arond the city of Cape Town. We saw the downtown, Maiden's Cove, Hout Bay, the penguins, Oceanview township, and the Table Mountain Nature Reserve/Cape Point. Oceanview township is a black township where many children grow up in single families and there is over a 50% unemployment rate. To avoid drugs, crime, and violence, the township has established a program where students can partake in music and dance. We ate lunch at the recreation center and the kids performed for us. These kids have talents! It was incredible to see the excitement and satisfaction of knowing that performed to their potential. The show closed with two kids who were no older then 10 doing a tribute to Michael Jackson. Both kids busted out the moon walk and other various dance moves. I will upload that video once I get it from Derek. Tomorrow we start our internships and we have to be up early so I am signing off.

Be sure to check my Flikr page to see the new pictures that I uploaded

Day 4

Yesterday we went on a tour of the District 6 Museum. This museum was awesome and very thought provoking. For those who dont know what District 6 is wiki it, because the internet here is expensive and I dont have time to describe it. I have uploaded several pictures from the past 4 days some of which are from the district 6 museum.

Last night was Rakshana's (If she sees this sorry for the spelling) birthday and we went out to eat at an indian restaurant. Let me tell you what, those indians know how to cook! The food was amazing. The best part about the dinner was it only cost me $40 US dollars for an appetizer, a bottle of wine, an entree, a side of rice, and 2 beers! Where can you get that in America?

This week is all orientation, so I really do not have much to reflect on in regards to working in the clinics. We did get our placements and I am working with 8 other students in Masiphumelele. It is a black township on the outskirts of Cape Town. We start monday at 8 am sharp.

Nothing is planned today, so Im going to use this day as a day of rest. Jet lag has taken a toll on me. I am going to upload pictures to my Flikr now. The link to the album is on the left. Have a safe weekend all.

Arrival

Wow,
What can I say. So far this trip has been amazing. Its only been two days and I feel like I have been here for over a week. Im am living in a house with 6 others, annd sharing a room with 3. We have a guard on duty at night who will escort us from the one house to the other house where the rest of the group is staying. It is roughly a 4 block walk so it really is not that bad.

The first night here, not counting the night we traveled was one of the best nights I have ever had! I have met some really interesting people from all over in just 24 hours. The bus is here so I cant finish ill post more later.