Independent Study Time

It’s the week’s end once again. As the cleaning man of my apartment building told me this morning after I told him TGIF, “time keeps moving quicker and quicker.” Amen to that one, brother.

This week has been filled with work. Sometimes the work is enjoyable, sometimes tiring, and sometimes heartbreaking. I have been traveling around to clinics and hospitals in the Durban area with Dumisani, the outreach coordinator for the Down Syndrome Association. Dumi is a very vibrant and talkative man who is not afraid to talk to people…or introduce me to anyone and everyone. I can’t even tell you how many people I have met this week, but I think it may be a PR. I’m gaining quite a bit of pertinent information for my project, but I’m a little concerned as to how it will pull together into one coherent essay. Somehow things like this always work out in the end, so I’m not too worried J

One thing I have learned from my project so far is that the government-run medical centers vary in the quality and type of care provided. Today I visited a new hospital that is absolutely spectacular. There was local artwork everywhere, the medical staff was very attentive, and the patients seemed relatively relaxed. It made me so fuzzy inside to see a government hospital functioning at a high level. However, once I thought about a hospitals I have visited that are poorly functioning, I realized that care is not equal across the board. The other hospitals are old and literally falling apart. These hospitals seem to have a severe shortage of medical staff and equipment, and the patients were crammed into small, hot rooms. As with many other aspects, South Africa’s medical system has made progress post-Apartheid, but gaps and holes still need to be filled.

As for fun things of the week, the highlight was definitely Wednesday Night Karaoke at a local pub. I will not divulge what time I actually made it back to my apartment, but we all spent a good chunk of the night singing corny American songs and dancing like baboons. The rest of the nights have been relatively low-key with a few NBA games, ice cream runs, and shopping thrown in. This weekend I hope to visit a market I have heard so much about and possibly take a surf lesson! I think the waves here will punish my body, but it just looks like so much fun.

Upon request from Man Cub (aka my brother Conner), my things I like/don’t like list is returning. So here it is:

Things I like about S Africa:
1. Watching surfers at 5 am in the morning ride the Durban waves
2. Incredible lightning storms that roll over the ocean at night
3. Peoples incredible and legitimate interest in getting to know you
4. Observing Zulu mama’s excitedly roll around in the surf because most cannot swim
5. Men that address a group of girls with “hellos” as the plural of hello

Things I don’t like so much about S Africa:
1. Lack of reliable public transport
2. People thinking you are wealthy because you are white or an American
3. Remembering that South Africa functions on ‘African Time’ or 30 minutes late
4. The constant construction for the 2010 World Cup
5. Having to do schoolwork when the beaches are so sandy and warm