In which Alison is NOT in India, but in South Africa

Well. This is different.



I'm in South Africa now for a program with my school, and promised that I would try to keep u p with blog stuff if possilbe. Now taht the internet is fixed, Ill get down to it. Same rules apply: no making fun of spelling mistakes, and this is as much for me as you so I tell it as I see it.

We arrived on Tuesday night, and walked into the Druban airport. That's where I met the Traditional stduents who are coming with us for the first time, Jill, Jenn and Endera. Jill had come from Rome (her family had spent x-mas there) and had sat in the airport for ten hours waiting for us. I can't belive she didn't do anyhting, but then again, she didn't really know anything about the area. They are all very nice. Jill is my roommate, and is bright and bubbly. She reminds me fo Kyla VEry much. Jenn is the model of the group (like Abeje) and is planning to work on neonatal intensive care. Indira was in one of my classes, but she was a little quiet but really sweet.

We all got into the huge white van, and Bob Norton (our teacher DR. Notron's husband) took off. The van was standard shift, and even through we had a GPS device we were soon lost. Dr. Notron had the GPS (Gertrude) in her hand, and was not able to turnon the sound. Finally, I got a hold of it and turned n her voice (all my expertice with E mily is paying off) and read the directions so we got easily...back to the airport! The GPS was trying to go home! We reset her and made it ot the hotel, while is unfortunatly on a hill on which the van stalle dout, but we got it going again. I can tell that Bob already hates the van.

We split up into rooms (I ended up begin the odd-second degree student out) and couldn't belive our luck. The rooms are lovely, with huge white fluffy beds, nice showers, lovely decour, and huge windows onto the garden. There's a pool and a lounge, and breakfast was going to be 7 the next morning. We were asleep right away.

The next morning we got up and had a wonderful breakfast, cooked by Emma our hostess. Eggs and tomato and mushrooms and all knids of good thigns. We went ot eh ospital, were we met with the cheif docotr and the nurse manaager who assigned up all exactly where we wanted to be. I will be working in the midwife labor unit and HIV treatment unit. I also volunteered to go out the first day on the mobile clinic. I was looking forward to seeing the counrtryside.

Yesterday, we got up saying that we neeeded to be at the hospital for the mobile clinic at 8:00am, so of course we didn't leave until 7:45 and were running in the gate at 8:05. Catherine and I ran to the front desk, where the lovely lady looked us up and down as I said, "wearegeorgetownstudentssupposedtogoontheMobileclinic" Her responce? "Yeeeees....they left you."

Well, shoot.


But, luckily, she took pity on us, finding a driver, Dennis (the menece) and have him drive us to where they were working. The drive was near the hostpial, up into the hills. We passed a "town" though I histate to call it taht since it had no center, nothing but a taxi stand (were people could catch the cab to Druban and Pinehill) and a meat shop made out of siding. We drove a little farther, and pulled into a clinic, in which the mobile unit was parked in the parking lot. Turns out the mobile clinic is less mobile than I would ahve throught, just going to local community clinics to do testing for HIV and CD4 counts. We were taken under the wing of Sister Doris (it's a little strange being around so many nuns) who runs the clinic. She sat us down in her office, and started seeing patients. It reminded me very much of Inida, except Sister Doris stopped in the midst of every patient to let us know what was happening, what was being said, and what she was going to tell the patient. This was really ehlpful, becuase so many of their stories had very little to do with why they were here.

A few patients stood out for their injuies: a woman with vaginal discharge (gross), a child with infected foot sores (really gross), a woman whose arm had been burned in a parafin cooking fire. But three stood out because of their stories. One man, who came in with penile discharge, was sent to the van for ain HIV test. He said that he had had a girlfriend who refused to use condoms, and had run off recently. I think there might have been more to this story (we talking in our HIV class about how common it is for men to have multiple partner ehre, and how NOT using a condom is a sign of trust and indicates that you are the "main" woman, so some women don't want to sue comdoms so they move up in the pecking oder. I ahve no idea if that was at play here, but it was an interesting thought). but he had a really nice demenor, just really friendly and jokey about his past, even in front of the strange white girls. It made us feel like "all verterns together" as if he expected us to be on his side. But, after he went to the van, one of the workers from the testing came back saying taht he had just tested postiive. He said that it was "just good to know", but I couldn't imagine the impact of this on his life. Another patient already knew that she was postive, but her husband didn't know. She didn't want to go out of the van to get her CD4 test done, so we had to do it in the office, and then she was terrified that her husband would know that she'd had something done because of the pin-prick. She started pumping her arm fast, probably to get rid of the mark, but that just made blood gush from the puncture. The last patient was a seven year old (who looked more like she was 5 years old0 who had a vaginal dicharge and Sister suspected that she had been abused. She denied it, but it was still such an upsetting thought. She was so tiny, and with erh fine features and short hair she looked just like an elf.

The clinic closed up early because of the holiday (New Years Eve) and we headed back to the clinic for the afternoon. We stopped at the cafeteria for lunch (the caf is great, a huge plate of hot, homemade food for less than two dollars) and chatted with Dr. Nortons husband, who was also at loose ends. After we finished our lunch, I wanted to go for a walk around the compound (I was feeling a little claustrophbic) but Catherine (who is a muhc better person than I) said..."Oh, what can we do? We'll stock stock-rooms!" Luckily, Dr. Schivone asked us to come with her to Peds. It was a rather frustrating experience, but it a good, growing way. I just felt so...not sure what to do with myself. At first, Dr. Schivone handed me a stack of papers and told me to file them in the patient's charts (which are at teh ends of their beds, old school style). I though, ok, I can do this. UNfortunatly, three of the patient's we'rent there anymore and one was mis=labeled. Having failed to complete that task (though I did as much as I could) I was set losose in the main room with children in it. While Dr. Schivone always had something to do, I was unsure of how to start. The kids were of all ages, from infants to ten year-olds. Some had HIV complications, some had burns, some were there for other things. Finally, I helped Mustafa play the hand-clap game wiht the kids, and then set them up coloring. We finally left just as I was learning words for animals in Zulu. I can now say "Hello", "I'm fine", "whats your name?", "fish", "dog" and "I'm ALison".

After we finished at the hostpial, we headed back for our new-years party. We showered, got dressed up, and went down to Caitlin and Catherine's room for a little champange. Then, we all piled into the van (with Gertrude the GPS device) and went into the city for dinner. The restaruant we went to was right on the Indian ocean, and there was a drumming group and fire-works over the water. We had our first South African wine, and had a wonderful time. Dr. Norton's husband (Bob) told the story of how they met on New Years Eve when they were in High School (they had each taken other blind dates to a party) and it was very sweet.

After dinner, we came back and watch the countdown on TV. The tradtiional students wanted to watch a concert, and it made all of us feel very, very old to keep saying "Who;s that singer?".

I went to bed shortly aftermidnight. More about today, tomorrow!