Beginning my third week...holy poop

Hello friends.

I think the group is definitely easing into life in South Africa. Like normal life. There isn’t a bon fire at Eltasha every night, we don’t find ourselves sitting around and having extremely deep talks. As a group we are starting to like our time apart as much as we like it together.  We travel less as a pack of 10 and more in small groups. We have a routine of how we like to make our sandwiches for the day, make dinner for each other, etc. We hail our own mini-busses (the equivalent of a taxi here), and can finally figure out whether we should signal with our hands downward (local), or upwards (out of town) when we hail them. We know when we are being ripped off and when something is a good price. We have a slew of inside jokes that get us through the day when we are just sitting around the health promotion unit in our little conference room waiting to be told what to do.

I can speak some spedi now. Very little, but enough to impress people. Christin, who the eltasha management calls “Terabyte” shows us all up because she soaks up the language like a sponge. Hence the name terabyte.

I’m not saying that I have South Africa in my pocket, but I certainly do feel a little more at ease. Everything isn’t as much of a puzzle. For example, I know that I have to turn left and then right to get to the Pick N Pay (the supermarket) in the mall, I know that I have to be asked to be seated at Mugg n Bean (the coffee shop we like). All of these things are great improvements from our first week.

It’s kind of funny because our professor showed up this week and is following us around to our field sites and accompanying us in our daily activities. She keeps saying things that we already know, as if she has forgotten we have been here for like 2 weeks.

This weekend we went to an “open air museum” which is a reconstruction of a traditional village with people who reenact weaving, fire making, etc. Except, when we visited “all the employees got paid the day before and didn’t come to work today.” So we had a lone tour guide show us around an empty village. It was still pretty cool. He showed us how the huts would be arranged according to the number of wives the chief had.  He showed us that there were separate huts for cooking, sleeping and storage. We were quickly escorted into the van and driven to down town Polokwane where we were supposed to see a museum. When we entered the museum, we were told that the event for the day wouldn’t be ready until later in the afternoon so we all piled into the van again.

 Then we drove an hour to a neighborhood just to pick up two pieces of toast stuffed with ham, hot dog-like meat, fries, cheese sauce and an egg. This was wrapped in saran wrap into a tight little pocket. It was a pocket of pretty much the most unhealthy things I’ve ever put into my body at one given time. It was a brick of fat. I could only eat half. We ate at 1 pm and I didn’t eat again until 9 that night. Then we were driven to the museum and dropped off by the drivers. No one told us what this event was, no one told us how long it would be, no one told us what the museum even was about. I mean, this was a pretty typical African day. I just feel like we are always swimming lazily around without much direction and then Africans gently push us in a different direction and we float along that way. I wake up in the morning assuming that everything I have anticipated for the day will probably not happen.

Also, I’ve gotten used to instant coffee. For everyone who knows me as a coffee fiend, you know what a feat this is.

Today we began work in our clinics! I’m excited to get settled into our field sites. Already I have seen a dog bite and a scorpion bite and a lot of diabetes hypertension patients. My group mate and I decided that for our group project we would investigate the relationship between nutritional status and their access to food through case studies. So hopefully that with informal interviews, we will be able to get a better understanding of their food situation and determine their main source of food. Then, we will hopefully go to that source of food and profile them as well. It’s not exact science, we aren’t exactly authorized to survey people and do real research here. I’m just really excited to engage with people in the community.

Well, on that note, I shall leave you. Hopefully I will provide more details about my clinical experience in the future!

Week 2!!

Hello friends!

Meet the new and laid back Emma who is TOTALLY down with African time. I’ve never been this relaxed in my life. It’s awesome.

This week has been kind of interesting because we have hung around the health promotion unit a lot. Tea time will run into lunch time and before you know it we would have had a 2 hour break. We bring a Frisbee for us to play with in downtime. They also have lemon trees and we take walks around the premises often to get lemons for our tea. It’s really beautiful there, I’ve never read so much in my life.

Because things have been rescheduled a lot- we haven’t been to a lot of places. We have a lot of classroom conversations. We have been sitting on the health promotion module classes of a masters level education program. Those conversations have been interesting and eye opening. Visiting places is even more eye opening. We went to the main campus of university of Limpopo and saw there student health clinic. They gave us a little educational talk about HIV/AIDS and other safe behaviors and explained all the materials they used. We went to a private hospital and saw how they run things there. The private hospitals here are state of the art- funded by patients who pay for medical aid- the equivalent of our insurance. The hospital doesn’t employ the doctors- the doctors are paid by the medical aid of the patients who subscribe to their private practice. The doctors simply use the hospital as a place to practice in. Because doctors don’t simply work at a hospital 8 hours a day making rounds, nurses are a very respected profession here and they have more responsibilities than nurses here.

We do the Insanity workout program every day in our little court yard. Yesterday we all did Insanity and then ran and jumped into the pool. The guesthouse management (Mmaphefo, Lebo, Auntie Martha) all thought we were crazy. It was like 70 degrees out and they were all wearing wool coats and long pants and hats. The pool was ice cold and I was just in my sports bra and shorts. So then I ran into their house and hugged all of them after I was soaking wet. They were laughing hysterically and asking me to get off of them. They thought I was nuts. Amma, the little ten year old girl that is the daughter of the manager, follows us every where. Even though she was freezing as soon she saw that we were getting in the pool she ran in the house and put on her bikini. She was the one that led me to Auntie Martha and Mmaphefo when I tried to get them all wet. We have a pretty good relationship. 

This is me and Nala. She is always trying to get into my room. 

This is a picture of the scenery around the Health Promotion Unit where we work (my face is included as scenery):

Amma is wearing my clothes because she put on her bikini and immediately regretted it. She looks adorable. Honorary morale captain! 

This is our little conference room that we hang out in when we do work in the health promotion unit. I think mostly we are just watching funny youtube videos right now... 

Me Amma and Ashley making dinner. Amma likes stealing my camera more than she likes us taking pictures of her. She also filled up Andrew's shoes with sand as a prank. She's sassy and hilarious. 

I realized that my last post was a hot mess. I kind of rambled about whatever came to mind and tried to put them in a logical order. So, after my last post I tried to make mental notes of what I should report back on instead of doing the “ready, go” approach.

If any of you know me well, you know that cats are not my favorite creatures. I find them unpredictable and untrustworthy. I know every one loves their own cat and finds their aloofness cute, but for the most part, they are worth avoiding. Well, my friends, hell has frozen over. I have found love in a kitty. There is this stray cat that is stuck in the Eltasha guesthouse enclosure. We asked Auntie Martha about it and she said “yes, yes we have fences and barbed wire but still the cat gets in. I’m so sorry.”

We first met when the kitty sat on our doorstep for one and a half hours and wouldn’t leave. We would peer through the door crack and there it would be STARING at us. We were naturally terrified and screamed every time. It didn’t want to leave us alone. The cat lovers in the group quickly discovered that the kitty was non-aggressive and very friendly. I was still skeptical. But as it followed me and brushed up against my leg and meowed at my door for the next couple days I succumbed. We named it Nala (like good Americans whose only reference for wild life in Africa is the Lion King) and we are friends. Everywhere we go, Nala goes. Tomorrow we are buying it a toy and some food. This is probably a bad idea.

There is also apparently a black bunny in here too. We agreed with Auntie Martha that we should call it Kwanza because they find the concept of Kwanza absolutely hilarious. There was a bit where we weren’t sure if the bunny existed. Kind of like Kwanza, really.

Thursday we were told that we would be provided food at the health promotion unit before we went off to work. When we arrived there was a very neatly arranged plate of microwavable goods: chicken nuggets, mini hot dogs and fish sticks. Fish sticks. We assumed that our supervisor forgot to tell her administrative workers that we were to be served breakfast until the morning when they scrambled around in the freezer to find anything to put out for us. Then, later, as we were talking to Auntie Martha about what we wanted for breakfast in the mornings we said we wanted to have whatever they typically have for breakfast. She said, okay, I make fish sticks. We just about lost it laughing.

That’s the other thing about food in Africa- you’re not sure when you’re going to get it next. Because they run on the self-proclaimed “Africa time” (about 2 hours behind), a meal is usually pushed back several hours from when you expected it. You might eat at 9 am and then not again until 2 or 3. When we do eat, we eat like we’ll never eat again. I feel like I’ve either been starving or so full and bloated that I have to unbutton the top button of my pants Thanksgiving style.

Hey, today I held a lion cub. Yep, I held it up like it was Simba on Pride Rock. One tried to bite me. It was adorable. The guide just kept rapping his knuckles on the head of the lions every time they tried to bite. A good old knock on the noggin. It was fantastic.  I HELD A LION. ARE YOU HEARING ME? I HELD A LION. For only 18 dollars! 

Next week we start the real work. Right now we are going through the long welcoming process. For now, Africa is like one big party with lion cubs, bon fires and big malls. This coming week I hope to be exposed to some of the health inequities and flaws in the health care system. Our goal is to strengthen the preventative care aspect of the health care system, a level of care that is very poorly developed here. Generally, the South African health care system waits for people to become patients before they address the issues. Once they are patients, they just want a cure, they don’t want a lecture or education on how to prevent it from happening again. It all seems pretty broad right now, but hopefully as I observe different clinics, schools, hospitals in the coming weeks my understanding of the issues will involve more details.

South Africa has been good to me. The people of the Eltasha guesthouse: Mmaphefo, Auntie Martha, Lebo, David, Steve, all are like family already and its only been a week. I can’t imagine how hard it will be to leave in 5 weeks. They have truly made Eltasha a home. I feel comfortable and at ease. They love having both funny and deep conversations with us. We are learning from each other and all of us are growing, I can tell. Welp, that is all for now. Hopefully this post was better than my last!! 

Hello!! I've been writing a lot for my assignments here, so I thought that a video of me rambling would be appropriate. One thing that I really didn't say enough about is what an amazing man Nelson Mandela is. My admiration of him since high school was only confirmed in the days of my visit here so far. I nearly cried in the museum. Anyways, I hope you enjoy my awkwardness and the mole underneath my chin.

Departure!

In just about 24 hours I depart from Dulles airport to Johannesburg! I really can't believe it and while I felt pretty prepared for this for a while now, I suddenly do NOT feel prepared. I feel like I am forgetting things and wish I had a crystal ball so I could see into the future. 

For those of you who do not understand or know about what I am doing in South Africa, I will attempt to explain (I don't really have a good idea either). First let me begin by saying that my interest in all things South Africa stems all the way from high school when I did various projects on Apartheid and the Springboks (the SA Rugby Team) in every class that would allow me too. This is part of the reason I was so eager to apply for my minor, Global Health, which included doing fieldwork in South Africa. While in SA, I will be studying the private and public health systems and nutrition. This will involve shadowing professionals and students, conducting surveys and doing LOTS of journal assignments for my professor, Dr. Cyzmoniewicz-Klippel, who we call Melina behind her back because, well, it's a lot easier. The purpose of the fieldwork experience is to learn and develop global citizenship. Developing that kind of perspective will hopefully allow us to engage in more productive global health work if our careers take us there. 

I will be living in house with 13 students and working under a supervisor at the University of Limpopo in Polokwane. I will be traveling to Kruger, Capetown and Johannesburg during my stay as well. Another group of students will be in Tanzania. I will be returning on July 1st. 

Follow my blog if you are interested in following my experience abroad. The chances of me being able to connect with everybody I care about back at the states is unlikely as internet access is limited. I'll try to post once a week! Enter your email above if its easier to get my blog posts in your email inbox. 

YAYYYYYYYYY I'M LEAVING STATE COLLEGE FINALLY!!!