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!