Entry No 8: Ayoba no more times...

Highlights from the past week or so:

District Six Museum

Went to the District Six museum last week and it was definitely worth it, as District Six is considered a model for the apartheid movement in South Africa. District Six was named the sixth district of Cape Town in the late 1800’s and grew into a vibrant multi-racial community of mainly non-whites by the 20th century. However, as early as 1900 – Africans were moved from the community and relocated to other parts the Cape Town area. Finally in the mid-1960’s, the district was declared as a place for whites only and over the next 20 years over 60,000 people were forcibly removed (or left on their own when they realized they had no choice) to other parts of Cape Town. They were mainly displaced to Cape Flats, which is where many of the townships exist today. Now, District Six is a barren area in Cape Town, as many whites did not move there and instead its just fields of weeds and no housing. The area is located right next to where I live in Cape Town, and its pretty crazy to see it and imagine so many people living there once upon a time. There have been talks of giving the land back to the families that once lived there, but nothing has come to fruition at this point.

The museum itself is a testament to the people that lived in District Six, as there are many accounts of families that lived in District Six and in general the museum depicts what life was like in the area. Many members have come back and written messages in the museum stating what street they lived on and how much they loved life in that area. The street I live on now (Roeland Street), is where a lot of the factories were located that people from District Six would work in, and after seeing pictures of the area back in the mid 1900’s – its hard to imagine how different it looks now. Its quite sad to see how harsh their lives turned and one of things they talked about in the museum was how all people in Cape Town had to carry these cards which stated what their race actually was (White, Colored, Indian, Black). Whenever an authority asked for your card, you had to present it otherwise you went to jail. Pretty hard to imagine how different life was back then but overall I’m glad I went to the museum, as I learned a lot about the apartheid movement and how it affected everyday ordinary people. Its weird to think that during the 1960’s – the equal rights movement was occurring in the USA and moving in a positive manner, but here in South Africa it was heading in the exact opposite direction.

Last Saturday we also went to the Old Biscuit Mill , which has this market with stalls that serve all types of food and fresh produce on Saturday mornings. The food was incredible and reasonably priced so we'll probably head back at some point soon. Definitely one of the best places I've been to while here in Cape Town. Since it was raining on Saturday, we also went to the aquarium here (pretty good) and saw Toy Story 3 in 3-D, which was doooopppppeeee. It was the first movie I've seen in 3-D, and even though it was animated I had a great time I'm not gonna lie.

World Cup Final

For the world cup final we started with a pre-game brunch at Mikel and Oianna’s place, both of whom are from Espana and part of the Connect-123 program. Mikel made a tub of sangria for the festivities, and it was probably the best I’ve tasted at this point. I got the recipe, but I’m gonna keep it secret for now and overall it was a great start to the day as we all hung for a couple hours and then headed to FanFest together. Fanfest was a blur, but there were live bands playing from like 2pm in the afternoon and it was absolutely packed as everyone was just dancing and having a good time. I remember one of the girls breaking her flip-flop while dancing and someone just put a plastic beer cup on her foot (as a shoe) and she just kept dancing like it was no big thing. We also played some spin the bottle dance off, where if the bottle landed on you...you had to get in the middle of the circle and bust some moves. I think the bottle landed on me like 9 times honestly but not sure. That’s the kind of day it was, as everyone was just celebrating how awesome a world cup host South Africa was and how great of a time everyone has had over the month or so.

About a couple hours before the game, we went to get dinner at the Eastern Food Bazaar, which is this local food court kind of place right near FanFest and had local Indian, Chinese, and Middle Eastern food. I’m not sure the FDA (or my mother) would approve of the hygiene standards haha but the food is pretty damn good and cheap so it’s become a favorite food spot for kids in our program.

Overall I’m really pumped that Spain won, as they are my favorite side besides the USA and they definitely deserved it since I think they played the best over the entire world cup. Netherlands should have had at least 2 red cards in the game (De Jong’s tackle on Xabi Alonso was absurd), but in the end the team that deserved it won. The fan support was pretty even for both sides, although I think Netherlands had the edge here because of the Dutch influence. We met some people from Holland at FanFest and I was disappointed for them, but I think they could admit that Spain was the better side.

Now that the world cup is over, you can definitely see how different Cape Town has become, as it is much quieter and less touristy. I drive to work and while listening to the radio... all they can talk about was how they want to keep this South African pride and atmosphere going which I hope they can. I think a lot of people are dealing with post world cup depression hahaa and the rainy/cold weather here has not helped.

I really hope they can continue the atmosphere at least in supporting their soccer team, but there’s already been stories of xenophobic violence that has started again as many non-South Africans are now being displaced from their homes and/or having their stores looted and burned down in the townships here. Xenophobia is an extremely real problem here in South Africa, and something that the rest of the world needs to be aware about as it is starting to destroy this country. If you don’t know what I am talking about, I definitely think you should look into it, because I feel the only way for it to stop is if the rest of the world is aware of it and puts pressure on South Africa to act properly

Work

I got clearance from the hospital to go on ward runs this week, so I’ve been shadowing doctors and going on patient visits with other interns/students as the doctors make their rounds at my hospital. Today, I went to the pediatric neurology ward and saw some interesting cases of children that ranged from Tuberculoma, Epilepsy, and even a few cases of children with symptoms that could lead to Meningococcal disease. It seems that outbreaks of certain diseases (for example meningococcal) break out in the Western Cape and the hospitals end up seeing many patients with similar symptoms. For example, the main doctor told us about how a couple months ago there was a measles outbreak and the hospital had to dedicate an entire ward to care for patients with measles. Overall, the hospitals here are well run and technologically they’re up to standards, but the thing I notice the most is how much the doctors care about the patients.

I also sat in on a Radiology meeting where they would put up CT scans and MRIs of interesting patients who hadn’t been fully diagnosed. All the doctors would then talk about what they see and try to come towards some sort of conclusion on what could be going on. It was interesting to hear and see what they look for in these different scans as I’m starting to understand what sorts of things to look out for even without knowing the complete medical terminology behind it.

In terms of my research project, I am starting to statistically analyze all the data that I’ve been organizing for Dr. Laughton as she is hoping I can help determine whether the Molteno and Griffith tests compare well to each other and correctly diagnose what is going on in the patients she sees. The main question I am trying to answer is whether the patients score on the Molteno is a good indicator for their actual problems (behavior, neurological, physical) and whether it can be substituted for the Griffiths, as the Molteno is a much easier and less time consuming test.

Upcoming

Besides my research project, I hope to do a bit of travelling in the next month or so I have here. My roommate Mike and I are planning a trip to Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe for a few days in August and the other main thing on my agenda is bungee jumping off the Bloukrans Bridge (highest commercial bungee jump in the world). The bungee jump is about 4 hours away from Cape Town, and many people do it while they’re travelling on the Garden route towards Port Elizabeth and Durban from here. If I don’t get to do the entire garden route, I’m going to make sure I at least go and bungee. People are trying to pressure me into shark cage diving, but honestly all I can think of when they say that is the JAWS theme song so I’m still not sure I’m going to be able to man up for that. I have also yet to see any animals/wildlife, but while in either Zimbabwe or the Garden Route, we’ll definitely hit up some game reserves and chill with the Animal Kingdom, which I can’t wait for.

I’ll hopefully be heading to Robben Island this week and on Saturday our Connect-123 group is going to the Bastille Day Festival in Franschhoek, which should be a lot of fun even though I’m not a huge fan of the French. It’s Mandela’s birthday on Sunday too, which is called Mandela Day here so I’m interested to see what goes on.

I’ll leave you guys with a few songs that are burning up the clubs and radio stations here in Cape Town. I don’t think people have heard these back home so take a listen:

Liquideep - Fairytale

Dennis Ferrer - I Heard You Say

Tinie Tempah – Pass Out

Tinie Tempah - Frisky

Heres a cool link that tells you a bit about South Africa as well: http://zar.co.za/world.htm

Also, since ayoba time is officially over...I’m going to leave you with a youtube link to a commercial that would play on TV like 20 times a day here during the world cup. It pretty much depicts what the world cup atmosphere was like here...I’m definitely gonna miss it.

Here’s the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfIZ7krIg8E

Just remember...AYOBA ONE MORE TIME.

-Prabhat

Entry No. 7: Howz it Bru?

I know its been a while since I’ve last posted, but here we go. I’ll try and break it down by subject this time:

World Cup Games

Hillar and I ended up going to 5 world cup games (England v. Algeria, Cameroon v. Netherlands, Argentina v. Mexico, Brazil v. Chile, and Portugal v. Spain). The games seemed to get better with each one we went to with the highlight definitely being Spain beating Portugal at Cape Point stadium here in Cape Town. I’m praying that Spain wins the world cup now, as they really play incredibly as a unit – which makes sense since half of their starting team are players from FC Barcelona. Actually seeing it in person is even more entertaining. Its almost impossible to take the ball away from them, plus they have my favorite player David Villa. He’s everything you’d want in a striker...and Rooney certainly could have learned a thing from him during this world cup. I’ve been rocking my Villa jersey all the time and I hope he can get the golden boot over Klose. I hate Germany with a passion, I don’t even know why but I just do – probably cause they’re such a machine.

We travelled to Joburg in order to see the Argentina and Brazil games. The Argentina game was at Soccer City stadium and that is one of the biggest/craziest stadiums I’ve ever seen. It looks absolutely enormous from outside, but when you get in it actually looks a bit smaller than expected. It’s in the Soweto area, which is considered the largest township(s) in South Africa, but honestly there was nothing around the stadium really. The crowd inside the stadium was definitely pro-Argentina – although Mexico certainly had their share of supporters as well. The second Tevez goal was at our end of the stadium, and Hillar almost jumped out of his seat when it happened, since he’s a huge Tevez supporter. As a Manchester United fan, I want to kill myself every time I see Tevez score though...knowing that we should have kept him over Berbatov.

The Brazil game was at Ellis Park stadium, which is where the final for the 1996 rugby world cup that South Africa won was held (If you’ve seen Invictus, you’ll know what I’m talking about). The stadium itself is in the old downtown and it’s a pretty shady/sketchy area to tell the truth. Hillar and I pretty much only went from our lodge to the games and back as we decided it wasn’t really worth trying to check out whatever Joburg has to offer – we’ve heard not much. If you’re ever looking for a place to stay in Joburg, I definitely recommend checking out the Kwa-Mkhabela lodge though. We ended up booking that lodge the day before we left for Joburg, after reading reviews about our original hostel (Ball n Kicka) and how it was a complete scam. The Kwa lodge shows South African hospitality at its finest as the owner of the place Jamal drove us from the games and back, plus his family runs the place and it’s a really nice lodge.

Back to Ellis Park...as we were driving into the stadium – different guys in crossing guard vests would run by our car and tell us to follow them to a parking spot. One guy even yelled for us to follow him, as he was the VIP usher and he saw that we were in a BMW. I’m not sure what would have happened if we ended up following one of these guys – but probably nothing good. The game itself was awesome as Brazil put up 3 goals, but Hillar and I came to the conclusion that Kaka is probably the most overrated soccer player in the world. For someone who gets mentioned with the likes of Messi and C. Ronaldo, Kaka did almost nothing in the game really besides get a yellow for a reckless challenge. All in all, this wasn’t a good world cup for the superstars (Messi, C. Ronaldo, Rooney, Kaka, etc.) – as it seemed that most of them were just frustrated playing on their national teams plus really tired from a grueling season that just ended before the world cup.

Lions Head

About a week ago we also climbed Lions Head, which is one of the mountains here in Cape Town. The original plan was for us to climb Table Mountain, but after leaving our apartment and going outside – it was extremely windy and clouds covered the entire mountain so we went after Lions Head instead. If someone can explain to me why the clouds are so low in Cape Town even though we’re at sea level..I would really appreciate it. We’ve tried to find the answer but have come up with nothing so far.

My buddy Max from BU also came to hike and I really want to thank him and his dad for taking us out to Mama Africa for dinner in Cape Town and around to Camps Bay/Lions Head the next day. If you ever end up coming here, Mama Africa is one of the first restaurants you need to go to and check out. They have authentic African music/food and it’s a great place to hang for a night on Long Street. Max and his family have also been in South Africa for a while – travelling around and going to world cup games. Check out his website www.maxcondren.com - as he’s made some incredibly cool movies/blog entries that really capture what SA is like. If the internet at my apartment worked properly, I’d be able to show you some cool things too but I think I’ll have to end up waiting till I get back to the States. Look out for a facebook album soon though.

The Lions Head climb itself wasn’t too bad as it took about an hour up, but it was the first time I’d done anything like it really since I’ve never hiked much before so it was cool. Getting to the top was awesome as there were some great views of the Cape Town area. You could even see Robben Island, which is where Nelson Mandela was held in prison before his release in the early 90’s. Hillar was decked out in some Annie Mulz gear so I’m thinking that might be a worthy picture for your website Matt O – I have a dope pic of Hillar repping Annie Mulz which I’ll try and post soon.

That night we ended up going to the Purple Turtle again to see USA play Ghana and honestly I don’t want to say much about it. Losing to Ghana twice in consecutive world cups really sucks, especially since the USA team could have easily made it to the semifinals this world cup. Either way I’m proud of our boys but absolutely baffled at the starting line up we put out for the game. I mean Ricardo Clark over Edu? That was the biggest mistake we could have made, as the first goal Ghana scored was definitely Clark’s fault. All in all I’m pretty happy Ghana lost to Uruguay in the QF, although I felt bad for the manner in which it happened.

Other Highlights

Other than those two things, I’ve been going out with kids at the program and having a good time. Nate's older brother Andrew came and visited for one night a few days ago and we went to Royale for dinner, which is considered to have the best burgers in Cape Town and possibly South Africa. I was hoping to get an ostrich burger, but they were all out of ostrich so I went for the lamb. Overall it was a pretty low key night, but just wanted to thank Andrew for dinner as well. The craziest part of the night was while we were hanging out on a balcony at Stones watching people in the street, a small fight broke out across the street and a huge group gathered around. We ended up hearing from one of the ladies watching that a kid had run out of an alley and she said when he lifted his shirt, it looked like he'd been stabbed. We saw a group of kids carry a person into a taxi and speed off...and about after 20 minutes a ton of police showed up and they had two kids kneeling against a wall. We couldn't really see the entire thing though because it was mainly happening behind a gate in an alley. Safety is a priority here but I think its also exaggerated at times, as long as you are smart and aware you're usually alright. Number one rule: Don't walk into sketchy dark alleys.

Work has been great as well, as I was able to check out another hospital called Karl Bremer last Thursday and see how things are run there. I sat in on some infant visits and I pretty much played with little kids as the main doctor talked to the mothers and did check ups. Karl Bremer is considered a secondary hospital and their sickest patients or patients they don’t have room for – are transferred to Tygerberg hospital, which is where I actually work. Tygerberg Hospital is one of the biggest hospitals in the Cape Town area and Karl Bremer was a bit smaller/more specialized. I’ve found out that there is a huge discrepancy bettwen public and private hospitals here in South Africa, as they level of care is much different. About 95% of this country is medically uninsured though, but if you do have Medical Aid – then you go to a private hospital. Tygerberg and Karl Bremer are both public hospitals though, so they deal with the most/sickest people.

One of the main questions I had was: how do patients decide which hospital they are going to – especially when it’s a public hospital? I found out that each hospital is assigned a main area, which it covers and Tygerberg’s area is Khayelitsha, which is the biggest township in Cape Town. I also did some ward runs at Karl Bremer and learned of an interesting program they run called Kangaroo Mother Care (KMC). They do the program with premature infants and infants who aren’t growing to expected standards. What they do is they make sure the baby and mother have skin contact so the baby stays under the mother’s clothes (like a Kangaroo pouch) and they’ve found that this causes the babies to start growing and developing much faster. It was a treatment that I had never heard of but something that I found quite interesting. I’m also hoping to get to some clinics in the townships soon, which should be a great thing to do as well.

Yesterday a group of us went to Mzoli’s (look it up), which is kind of this tent covered restaurant and party area in the Gugulethu township. We took a mini-bus there (my first time), which was quite an experience as it was packed with more people than it should have been and only cost 9 rand (taxi would have cost over 100 probably). How Mzoli’s works is when you get there you choose what and how much meat you want (that is all they serve, sorry Vegans/Vegetarians) and then they cook it for you over a Braii/Fire Pit area. Once it’s all cooked they bring it in a huge bowl to your table and then you just eat it with your hands. We ended up waiting like 2 hours for our food to come so by the time it did, we absolutely beasted on it. It was pretty savage haha – as they don’t give you utensils or napkins. While this is going on people are just partying and dancing as there is a DJ in the tent too. It’s like an enormous tailgate but pretty impossible to explain if you don’t experience it yourself. The fact that its in the townships makes it that much more of an experience as its both tourists and locals just mixing and having a good time. The area is not somewhere you want to be travelling/walking in by yourself, but on Sundays its like a huge party where everyone just is together and having fun. I think we’ll definitely end up going back again and hopefully I can take some pics/videos of the place next time to show you guys.

That’s it for now, pretty pumped for Spain v. Germany and Netherlands v. Uruguay. I’m hoping for a Spain v. Netherlands final but we shall see what happens. In the meantime, I’ll leave you with a couple sayings so you can understand some South African lingo – remember to say all of this in a South African accent:

Howz it? – means: Whats up?

Iz it? – means: Is that true/Oh really?

Now Now – means: I’ll do it in a little bit

Cheers,
Prabhat

Entry No. 6: Bring it on Ghana

Man, it’s been a whirlwind of a week. So much stuff has happened but I’ll try and point out the highlights and lowlights. Last time I wrote, we were heading to the casino to watch game 7 of the NBA finals. We ended up choosing the casino since it was open 24/7 and we had called them ahead of time to make sure the game would be playing, which they said it definitely would be. The cab ride cost us close to 200 rand ( a lot of money for a cab ride here), as it was about 20 minutes outside of the city bowl (downtown). However, once we got there we were immediately told that they were not allowed to switch the channels on the TV’s around the casino during this world cup period. They told us the only channels they were allowed to play were CNN and Discovery, because they had been told not to show sports games since it would divert people’s attention away from gambling on the floor. We were clearly not pleased to say the least, and after a little arguing we ended up taking a cab back to my apartment at around 4am. On our way back, Hillar came up with the idea of trying to watch the game at his hostel as they had a common room TV, so once we got back we drove there at about 4:30am in hopes of at least catching the second half. At Hillars hostel there is a restaurant/café and when we got there we realized the door to the place was open. Inside the café is a flat screen TV with satellite, which we immediately turned to ESPN in order to watch the game. During this process we were trying to be as quiet as possible since we were the only ones awake in the whole place. Nevertheless, about 10 minutes after we had started watching...the manager of the restaurant (whose name we learned was Brandon) walked in, which I immediately thought meant we were about to get in trouble or kicked out. However, instead of kicking us out, which I definitely thought was going to happen...Brandon asked if we wanted to turn the volume up and also whether we’d like him to pull down the projector screen so we can watch it on a bigger TV. We were absolutely shocked. I mean this was like 4:30am in the morning and instead of kicking us out, he just was so awesome about everything. The Celtics were also still up at this point so we were all absolutely pumped about finally finding a place to watch the game. He told us he had just woke up because the breakfast crew would be arriving shortly to set up for the morning and as we were watching, we chatted with him and kind of explained how basketball works and how important of a game this was...the guy had no idea any of the rules or the teams which was pretty funny since we were trying to explain the magnitude of the game to him. At about 5am, a few guys from Spain arrived and they were clearly cheering for the Lakers and Pau “Ugliest Man Alive” Gasol, which made the atmosphere a little more entertaining. Nevertheless, I can’t believe we lost at the end and I’m happy I wasn’t in Boston to witness that..either way it was an experience I’m never going to forget. No where else in the world would we have been able to walk into a restaurant at 4:30am in the morning and turn on a game by ourselves, then have the manager walk in and be so understanding and helpful in asking us if we wanted the volume turned up and the big screen pulled down. I love this country.

The next day I slept until about 1pm, and then met up with Hillar as the USA was playing Slovenia at 4pm here. Although I was given off from work, most of the other interns in my program were not...so Hillar and I decided to go to The Dubliner (where I watched the first USA game) about an hour before the game. When we got to the place, we were clearly outnumbered by the Brits, as England was playing Algeria later in the day in Cape Town...but we found a few Connect-123 interns and USA fans to hang out with in the bar . British people are such goddamn drunks and pricks... its hilarious. The majority of the crowd was British men in their 40’s or 50’s, absolutely hammered.... they were real hooligans. One of the USA fans started yelling some obscene things to them, and a British guy sitting next to us told me to try and keep my friend quiet , because we had no idea how crazy some of these English dudes were. He said we’d be better off not starting trouble with them. Either way, our USA chants were not met with the greatest response, but there was enough of us to be heard in the bar which was good enough. During the national anthems, when the USA anthem started playing...all of the English fans started singing “God Save The Queen” and drowned us out which caused a little tension as honestly that’s pretty disrespectful (but still funny). Since some USA fans got pissed off, the British dudes apologized and then started singing our national anthem as we all joined in. That was pretty sweet to see, I’ve gotta say. The best part of the world cup has been meeting people from all over the world, as everyone is pretty open to finding out where you’re from and willing to talk to you. The game itself was a tale of two halves...as typically, we went down early and then mounted a furious comeback. The third goal that was disallowed was one of the worst calls I’ve ever seen and even the British people in the bar admitted it was a horrible call and said they felt bad for us. Either way...to tie 2-2 after being down 2-0 is remarkable as we were only the third team to ever do that in a world cup game. If we had won though, we would have been the first team to ever win a game in the world cup when being down 2-0 at the half.

After the game, Hillar and I headed down to the waterfront since we had tickets for the England/Algeria game (our first world cup game) that night. . The waterfront was absolutely packed as it’s where the most of the people go before entering the stadium. We clearly did not fit in with our USA scarves and jerseys since the majority of the people were British fans and decked out in red and white. We ended up getting into the stadium right as the national anthems were playing and I have an awesome two-minute video, which I hope to upload of the teams coming out and England's anthem playing. I’d say 80% of the fans at the stadium were British and their were England flags hung up everywhere...Algeria pretty much only had a corner section of the stadium to themselves but they were going crazy wild too. I felt like I was at a Premiership game with all the England banners though, you’ll be able to see from the pictures. The game itself was pretty poorly played, as all of England’s players just looked really tired. The highlight of the game was probably when some fans in the Algeria section started lighting off flares and going nuts around the 70th minute, but then the South African police put an abrupt stop to that. As for the game, Rooney looked exceptionally exhausted as he pretty much just stopped playing around the 70th min, as he was clearly frustrated from his lack of chances. I took a video every time England had a corner, and now I have about 10 videos of them just sucking on corner kicks. As a USA fan the result itself couldn’t have been any better for us, as it clearly put us in the drivers seat due to the fact that if we won our next game we would be into the knockout stages. As for a general experience, Green Point Stadium is an awesome venue and absolutely beautiful from both outside and in. There is honestly not one bad seat in the entire stadium...I can’t wait to go back for our next game there.

On Saturday we went to Boulder’s Beach, Simons Town, and Cape Point as our program had planned a trip for all the interns that wanted to go there. I ended up driving behind the bus that was taking everyone, since my roommates and I hadn’t signed up by the deadline and Hillar was coming with us too. Boulder’s Beach is a beach that has a massive penguin colony, and it was pretty funny to see them all just waddling around. I’ll put up some pictures for you guys to see. After Boulder's, we headed to Cape Point which is close to the most Southern point of Africa. Its where the Atlantic and Indian oceans meet so its definitely a place worth seeing. You can climb up to the lighthouse and to different cliff points, and there are some absolutely awesome views. Overall, the trip itself was fun and I’m glad I went but I was pretty exhausted by the time we got back. Driving a Hyundai Atos (my dope car) for 2 hours back and forth is not ideal. By the end, my legs felt like they had been sat on by Big Baby.

On Sunday...Hillar, Mike, Keenan and I took a city bus tour of Cape Town and we went all over the place. It was definitely helpful and a good idea, as I feel I know where everything in the city is located now. Even though Cape Town is pretty huge (3.5 million people), the city and surrounding area are pretty easy to navigate and not that confusing to understand. We ended up getting lunch in Camps Bay, which is considered one of the wealthiest beach areas around Cape Town and when you’re there you honestly do not feel like you’re on the African continent. Its similar to a South Beach or San Diego. Unfortunately, it was cloudy as hell when we were there so you couldn’t even see the beach, so I'm def going to head back when the weather is nice. I still don’t understand why the clouds here are so low even though we’re right on the water though. Where is George Tsak when you need him?

During the week, we’ve been going out for world cup games at night as I’ve been working during the day. We’ve been mainly going to Long Street since it’s close to my place and mainly just hanging out. Hillar and I have been playing a lot of pool at a bar called Stones on Long Street and my game is finally starting to improve since I’ve pretty much sucked at pool up to this point. I’ve never played that much, but at this point I've been crushing Hillar (he's scratched with the 8 ball left like nine times). I think the only reason I'm decent is probably cause they play on much smaller tables here, but either way its been a good place to just lounge and chill while watching the games. We went to Rafikis for the Spain game, which is quickly turning into one of my favorite spots in the area...and my boy David Villa finally put Spain on his back. His first goal was just plain nasty but I can’t believe he missed that penalty. Either way Hillar and I will most likely end up seeing Spain play either here in Cape Town or in Joburg as we have tickets to both of round of 16 games for their Group H.

The USA game yesterday against Algeria was absolutely nuts and I cannot believe they won in extra time. All of us went to a bar called The Purple Turtle, as it was one of the few places that was showing the USA game and not the England game in the Long Street area. The place was absolutely packed with USA fans (over 100 I'd say) and since we had so many chances to score (Dempsey’s goal should have def counted), we were all getting extremely nervous as the minutes starting creeping closer to 90. When we finally scored though, the place erupted and was absolutely mayhem as everyone was hugging each other and screaming and yelling...so damn awesome. The funniest part of being at the bar was that they would only play three songs for whenever the game wasn't going on and after when the place turned into a dance party. The only songs they played on repeat were: Party in the USA, Sweet Home Alabama, and Summer of ’69. Just hilarious if that is what America is perceived as over here. I ended up buying a USA flag for 40 rand off a guy on the street when we left the bar and tying it around my neck like a cape. USA fans were just in the streets yelling and rejoicing after the game. Everyone was giving us high fives and people would just start chanting USA USA USA if they saw another USA fan around. The only downside was in the middle of the celebration right after we scored, Hillar got his phone stolen and I got my sunglasses taken. Nevertheless, we’ll live and you just gotta roll with the punches here. It was an awesome day overall though, we did great.

As for our next game...we clearly would end up being the team that has to play Ghana...which is now the only African team left when the world cup is in Africa. Thus, everyone in Africa is supporting Ghana now...so we are just going to get hated on so much when we play them on Saturday. I know we can win though and I have a lot of faith in our boys. This is the best world cup team we’ve ever fielded I think, as Donovan and Dempsey are world-class players at this point. I cannot wait for the game.

Tonight, Hillar and I go to our second world cup game as Netherlands takes on Cameroon here in Cape Town. A bunch of other Connect-123 interns, including my roommates Mike and Keenan have tickets to the game as well, so it should be an absolute blast. Supposedly, 15’000 Dutch fans are arriving at the FanFest Grand Parade area around 4 o’clock and then celebrating/walking towards the stadium together. Should be crazy, just expecting a huge wave of orange. I’m pretty excited as we have great seats for this game as well...corner of the stadium second level.

Our plans for the next few days are to climb Table Mountain on Saturday morning (hopefully the weather is great), and then go somewhere for the USA-Ghana game at night. Then, Hillar and I are flying to Joburg on Sunday morning as we have tickets to both round of 16 games there. Our flight leaves at 7:30am and we’re seeing Argentina play Mexico at Soccer City stadium on Sunday night.... which should be absolutely awesome. We also have tickets for the other round of 16 game in Joburg on Monday at Ellis Park Stadium, which will most likely be either Brazil or Portugal vs. Chile or Spain (assuming Switzerland doesn’t qualify). We are then flying back to Cape Town on Tuesday and we also have tickets to the round of 16 game here in CT that night at Green Point Stadium. That game will also be either Brazil or Portugal vs. Chile or Spain (depends on who finishes first and second in their groups). If Spain advances, the fact that we will see them play either Brazil or Portugal (since we have tix to both possible games) is so damn sweet.

Also, although I pretty much talk about going out and the world cup atmosphere (since that is what I feel people want to hear about), I do work at Tygerberg Hospital everyday and that has been quite a rewarding experience as well. Once the world cup is over, I think I’ll focus a lot more of my attention to working at KIDCRU (the unit I'm working at in the hospital) as much as possible. I will definitely dedicate a blog entry towards what I’ve been doing at work exactly, (maybe once the world cup ends)...although I’m not sure how much I can say from a legality/confidentially standpoint. Either way, this country is not just all about the world cup, and I’ve been really glad that I can also work during my time here as that was one of the main reasons I wanted to be in South Africa. One thing I can say for certain, is that working at a hospital here has already opened up my eyes towards the medical field and helped me clearly realize that the medical profession is about helping others as much as possible first...and then worrying about everything else in your life later. For example, one of the doctors whose patient visits I’ve been sitting in on is actually on her leave (vacation) from LAST YEAR during this week, but she has still come in for a couple days this week so she could see some patients. People here certainly need dedicated doctors like her, as that is what working in the medical profession is all about. Overall, I’ve had a great and valuable experience at work so far, and can only hope it continues. I’ll definitely talk about it soon for those that want to hear.

Its gonna be an absolutely jam-packed and crazy upcoming week, I’ll def post again after all the games we go to but in the meantime, go USA! Enjoy the upcoming matches; this tournament is about to get even wilder. As the South African World Cup slogan says: Can you feel it? It is here!

Entry No. 5: Shosholoza..BEAT LA BEAT LA BEAT LA!!!

So I’m chilling at my apartment here with Hillar and we’re getting amped for Celtics-Lakers, which will start at 3am here, while watching France v. Mexico. Actually Hillars asleep, but we’ll get to that later. The plan is to go the Grand West Casino with two of my other roommates from the Boston area, Mike and Keenan – our cab arrives at 2:15am. The casino is the only place we could find that’s going to be playing the game live that late and I really wish I could rock my Rondo jersey but I forgot to bring it which sucks. Fortunately, I got off from work tomorrow as my boss Dr. Laughton is awesome and I cannot wait for Donkey and Shrek (Nate Robinson and Big Baby) to win us the finals.

Hillar’s actually passed out next to me, still feeling the effects of jet lag and being a little crybaby so I thought this would be a good time to quickly update you guys on what I’ve been up to. Nothing really noteworthy happened on Monday, and on Tuesday a group of us went to a club called Chrome off of Long Street. It was a decent spot, but not worth the 60 rand cover. 60 rand converts to about 8 dollars ($1 equals around 7-7.5 SA Rand), but once you live in Cape Town for a little – that sounds like a ridiculous amount of money for anything. Dinner costs around 50 rand an entrée and drinks are less than 20 rand, which is awesome but it does add up quickly especially cause the money here looks like it was made for monopoly. I don’t understand why all money can’t look like American bills; its just so much more official.

After living here you also learn to argue about prices and try to drive down costs of things such as cab rides and things you’re trying to buy off the street. So far, I’ve been dominating this aspect of living here (probably my Indian roots) as I’ve learned to not get ripped off by the people here. A prime example is when I tried to buy a USA scarf off a guy who had a tent set up and he told me it would cost me 80 rand. I immediately offered him 20 rand to which he told me 70, and then when I walked away he started shouting at me and said 50. I came back and told him 30 was my final offer or I’d go to the guy down the street...finally he said 40 which I agreed to. If only everything worked this way and you could get 50% off everything, I might actually be a millionaire.

Yesterday, Hillar got in and I woke up to him telling me he had arrived in Cape Town and was wandering the streets here...Once he came to my apartment, we went and got all of our tickets to the World Cup games we’re going to. It was a really weird experience going to the ticket kiosk and just putting in my credit card, and the machine spitting out all our tickets. I was afraid to get mugged with our tickets so I immediately snuck the envelope into my jacket and we got back to our apartment as quickly as possible so I could stash them away. I’m just kidding...this place really isn’t as scary as people make it out to be – in fact Cape Town feels very European at the moment, maybe its just all the tourists. I’m interested to see what this place is really like once the World Cup is over, but so far I think South Africa has been a great host for the games.

We ended up going to the Waterfront and watching the second South African game at this outdoor beer garden at Ferryman’s Tavern that was absolutely packed. Eventually we made our way to Long Street (again...) and when the SA keeper got that red card, you could just feel the collective hearts of all South Africans drop as they were pretty much stunned. It’s looking like South Africa will become the first host to not advance past the first round and I feel quite bad for the people here as it would have been a great story for them to go through. Either way the people were still dancing and partying it up after, but we decided to call it an early night. As for the rest of the World Cup, I picked Argentina to win the entire thing and honestly they're looking pretty solid. Like an idiot, I wore my David Villa Spain jersey yesterday and then had to cover it up after that embarrassing loss to Switzerland - I should have realized as Spain just sucks when it comes to the World Cup - even though they are by far and away the most talented team.

Anyways, that’s what’s been going on as of late. In the meantime I suggest you look up the following South African hymn – “Shosholoza”, which is one of the main folk songs that people start singing here before the games. It gets me really pumped and it’s awesome to hear someone start singing it and then everyone joining in. I’m hoping we can stay up for this game tonight, and I’m positive we’re gonna crush those purple and gold pansies but if we don’t...I’ll probably be pretty pissed off at 6am.

Either way, USA plays Slovenia tomorrow and I’m gonna be decked out in all USA gear for sure. People here actually seem to like the USA the more I’ve noticed so that’s starting to help – it’s a bit unlike Europe where if you mention USA everyone hates you. Hillar and I head to our first soccer match tomorrow night at Green Point Stadium here in Cape Town to see England vs. Algeria as well, should be great as I get to see my boy Rooney tear shit up.

In the meantime, AYOBA ONE MORE TIME!!!

-PD

ps. I have a ton of pics/vids that I wish would upload, but for some reason it never seems to work. Hopefully I'll be able to figure it out soon though so people can really get a feel for what the scene is like here and I'll update my posts. If only I could have American speed internet for like one hour..

Entry No. 4: USA! USA! USA!

Wow, what a weekend. Finally taking a day off to relax before I start work again on Monday. Thought it would be easiest to just recap whats been going on here over the past couple days

Went out to a bar called Tommy’s for the SA-Mexico game and the place was madness. If you haven’t seen or heard of a vuvuzuela (look it up) because it is one of the loudest horns I’ve ever heard and people just carry them around blasting them. They almost got banned for the world cup, but South Africans went crazy over the situation so they allowed them to be brought into the stadium and people pretty much just bring them into bars to create noise.

The bar we went to for the game was absolutely packed and we got there about a half hour before the game. Everyone was decked out in green and yellow and people would start chants and the whole bar would start chanting with them. When SA scored, a guy in front of my tackled his friend to the floor and I got pushed on top of them. I thought I was gonna get stampeded but man it was wild. The first goal was awesome and even though they tied, everyone seemed pretty happy with the result.

As for yesterday, we got up around noon and took a cab to Newlands stadium in order to watch South Africa play France in rugby. I honestly don’t know the rules to rugby but it was cool to watch people just crush each other. One French guy got absolutely laid out (truck stick Madden style) and had to be taken in a stretcher off the field. South Africa dominated the entire game so it was fun to be there, but I prefer football.

Afterwards we went out to Long Street in order to get dinner and go somewhere for the USA-england game. We ended up choosing an Ethiopian restaurant off of Long Street called Cape Addis I think. I’ve never eaten Ethiopian food but it was pretty damn good. They make you wash your hands before you eat and you pretty much use this bread like thing to pick up your food and it was delicious. Weird experience though and we thought it was funny we chose to do something like that right before the USA game.

Once dinner was over we went to a bar called the Dubliner on Long Street and it was packed for the USA-england game. I’d say USA and England have the most fans in South Africa right now so there was lot of support for both sides. We went to the back of the bar as all of the Connect-123 interns were there. There was a group of English guys in front of us and there was a whole lot of shit-talking going on back and forth throughout. One thing I have to say that America needs work on is our soccer chants as we pretty much had no comebacks for anything they said. The best we could do was sing God Bless America but haha it wasn’t like any of the chants they had. When England scored in the first five minutes, we were pretty much like uh-oh and I thought we might get crushed. However, I’m pretty happy with how well we played overall and Dempsey’s goal really got us going again. The goal that their keeper Green let in pretty much just describes England in a nutshell...huge chokers when it comes to the big games. The England fans were stunned when that happened and it was pretty hilarious to see how quiet but angry they got. I almost fell bad for them, since soccer is probably our 4th or 5th best sport.

We thought their might be a brawl between both sets of fans but at halftime we got to know each other and tensions cooled. Either way it was a lot of fun. I’ve uploaded some vids and pics so check em out. The internet really sucks here though so they might not show up..it takes like an hour to upload like 4 pictures, ridiculous.

Overall, I’m having a blast and Cape Town is a beautiful place. Although entertainment wise they’re a little behind the times, for example Will Smith-Miami was playing on the radio today. The people are extremely hospitable, cordial, and friendly so it’s real easy to meet the locals and have a good time.

My buddy Hillar arrives here in a couple days and we’re going to a few matches, so hopefully I’ll have some more stories in a little while.

My goals are to learn some Xhosa and Afrikaans at work so I’ll be concentrating on that for the week. Don’t be surprised if I start using clicks in my words when I get back to the States.

Cheers,
PD

Entry No. 3: Bafana Bafana..

Whats good? Alright, so it’s the morning of the world cup and this place has been going nuts. If you look out of my apartment, it’s a sea of yellow and green as people are already getting ready for the match against Mexico later today. I’ve been here for about a week now, and I’ve loved every second of it.

Two nights ago, we went out to Long Street and it was crazay as fans from all over the world were partying it up. We were line at this club called Fiction, with a group of Brazilian guys in front of us. They were all wearing flags and chanting it up when this Argentinean guy walked by us. They stopped him and they started trading chants back and forth. It ended with one of the Brazilian guys swapping his jersey with the Argintinean dude, which was awesome to see.

Yesterday was the official start of the world cup as the opening ceremonies got underway. Since I got out of work early, a bunch of us went down to the Fanfest area to party it up. Getting into the fan zone was one of the craziest experiences in my life as while we were in line, a bunch of people broke down one of the fences and people just started rushing through. Most of us got separated from each other and I ended up at the front of the line with riot police pushing us back with shields and clubs. They put up barriers of trash cans and wouldn’t allow people through. Young children were getting tossed over the fences so they wouldn’t get hurt. I even managed to have a reporter come up to me and try to interview me in the middle of all the mayhem.

Once we got through though, everything was gravy. The fanfest area is pretty sweet, and there was a huge concert going on. The highlight of the night has to be when R Kelly came out and only sang “I believe I can fly”, people were going insane. Afterwards we walked through the parade to Long Street and ended the night on this balcony bar where we would just chant USA USA USA to all the supporters below.

One thing is for sure is that the people here in SA love to dance and party. They honestly just dance on the streets and blast their vuvuzuela (stadium horns), which are the loudest things I’ve ever heard.

We’re heading out for the start of the Bafana Bafana game soon and it should be a blast...more to come after the weekend.

Entry No. 2: Settled in...Cheers

Alright, so I’ve been in Cape Town for a few days and it has been a blast so far. My flight arrived into Cape Town on May 31st and I ended up staying at the Scalabrini guesthouse, which was about a block away from the apartment I would be moving into the next day. I didn’t really do much at Scalabrini as I ended up getting there at 5pm, falling asleep at 7:30 and waking up the next morning at 8am.

A lot of people talk about safety being a top priority in South Africa, which is something I decided to test right away as I ended up wheeling my luggage to my apartment the next day from Scalabrini. Granted it’s about a block, I was still nervous that somehow I was going to get mugged or something even though it was like 1pm in the afternoon. Thankfully, all that ended up happening was some locals staring at me as I struggled to roll two suitcases on the sidewalk. My apartment’s located on Roeland Street and is in the Perspectives building, which is in the Central Business District (CBD). It’s a pretty good area to live in from what I’m hearing as we’re pretty close to the City Bowl and Long Street. I’m on the 16th floor, which is 2nd from the top, and below you can see a picture of Cape Town from my apartment. Within the past couple days; about 100 new people have arrived at the Connect-123 program (mainly from the US and UK). Connect-123 is the program that has set up all our internships, and generally assists us with everything related to work and living in Cape Town. It’s like a study abroad program, which is cool as I’m not sure that figuring out everything in Cape Town would be ideal on your own. Most of us live in Perspective so it’s been awesome to hang out with other interns, all of whom are here for many of the same reasons. The people that work at Connect-123 are really helpful and in general I’ve found South Africans to be quite social and friendly (get into that a bit later). They say “Cheers” like every three seconds, which is cool as hell.

The first night I got here, I went to the famous Long Street with some new interns as we went to a burger joint called Royale, which was pretty good. I wanted to try the ostrich burger, but pussied out and decided to go with something more classic for my first meal. Ostrich is on my list though, I’ll get that bird sooner or later. Long St. is a famous area in Cape Town for nightlife and I’m pretty pumped to experience that hopefully this upcoming weekend. There are also some real shady characters on Long St. and as we were waiting to get a cab back to the apartment, a guy walked by us and tried to swipe his hands through one of the kid’s pockets I was with. Pickpocketing seems to be the easiest “crime” committed around here, although it seems that close to everyone I’ve talked to says that they know someone that’s gotten mugged or almost mugged. The main rules are don’t walk alone at night and generally walk in big groups, but so far its been gravy. I think everyone just tries to scare you so you take the extra precaution and don’t act like an “American” idiot tourist. The highlight of the night was our cab ride back as the driver was definitely on a few drugs. Best quote of my being here so far was when he said: “Ya mon you American’s like skinny girls but not me, in Africa you want something big to hold onto you know what I’m sayin”. Priceless....

I had my first day of work yesterday, which was eye opening and I think is going to be a great experience. I’m working at KIDCRU, which is basically a research unit connected to Tygerberg hospital. KIDCRU focuses on testing/treatment for children who are HIV+ and/or have TB. They do lots of testing and treatment on these infants all the way from when they’re born until they’re about eight years or so I believe. I observed Dr. Laughton, who is a primary doctor focusing on neurodevelopment of children with HIV, do Griffith testing on an 8 year old boy. Griffith test is a psychometric test, which measures children’s motor skills, social awareness, etc. as compared to set of norms and it was interesting to see her interact with the child and his father. Most of the patients speak Xhosa, which as many people know uses clicks in its communication. This was really crazy to hear at first, but I kind of got used to it by the end of the day. Furthermore, Tygerberg hospital is in the northern suburbs of Cape Town so it is a predominantly Afrikaans area. Everyone speaks English as well, but the doctors communicate in Afrikaans a lot, which is a combination of Dutch African, and Malay influences. Hopefully, I’ll be able to get to learn some of the language but it’s a little strange not hearing English all the time. I also did some work for Dr. Innes where I pulled some data out of files they had, as their overhauling their data input system. I looked at some individual infants files in order to figure out basic things about some patients like their birth weight, WHO stage of HIV, and whether the mother/infant had PMTCT. Information that you thought would be easy to find is actually not, as its all over the place. Thus, I’m hoping I can help out as much as I can with their data organization and stuff like that. I’m supposed to go out to clinics soon and actually see them collect data from infants, which should be quite an experience. I meet with the Director of the Program Dr. Cotton tomorrow, so hopefully I’ll figure out more about what I’m doing but I think its going to be a mix of things, wherever I’m needed.

To end, last night a bunch of us went to a bar called Rafiki’s which was pretty fun. Got to meet some local university kids and they were a bunch of characters, but real friendly and shit-faced. They talked a lot about progression in South Africa and seemed to have a lot of pride for the world cup. After being here for a few days, I’m really hoping South Africa can advance out of their group even though they clearly are not predicted to. It’s going to make this place so much crazier and happier, I’m really hoping the Bafana Bafana do well. Today, I went to the waterfront with a couple kids, which is where the new stadium is located as well as restaurants and shopping stuff. We couldn’t get close to the soccer stadium, but it looks dooooopppe. The area is awesome and it should be mayhem for the world cup games, I put up some pictures below as well. The discrepancy between rich and poor is probably one of the biggest things that strike you about Cape Town and takes a little getting used to. Extremely nice areas are right next to areas that are run-down, which isn’t something you see a whole lot of in other parts of the world.

Oh yeah and I’ve also rented a car, as I’m going to be driving to work from now on since public transportation isn’t considered safe enough and the hospital is like 25 minutes away from where I live. Its gonna be quite the experience as they drive on the opposite side of the road here. My car is a Hyundai Atos, which is about half the size of the car I drive back home. I’m nervous as hell to drive, but it should make things a little to a lot more interesting. I think I’m carpooling with some people so that should make it easier, even though I think I’ll be the one driving.

That’s it for now, more in a few days. Lets go Celtics, not being able to watch the game is going to suck since they start at 3am here, but I know that Rondo is going to beast on Fisher so no worries.

Entry No. 1: Closer to Cape Town than Providence

What’s up world? If you’re reading this, you may or may not know that I’m going to be in South Africa this summer, working at Tygerberg hospital in Cape Town, as well as travelling to a few World Cup games. I thought this blog would be a good way to keep people posted on what I’m up to (mainly my parents so they don’t call me every day...yes I’m talking to you mother). My main goals are to just provide you with a perspective of SA, as well as what the world cup scene is like here. Hopefully I can keep you entertained for a couple minutes here and there throughout the summer.

Right now I’m posted up at the Millennium Airport Hotel in Dubai, courtesy of Emirates Airlines. Having already travelled 12 hours from JFK to Dubai, I still have a 9-hour flight from here to Cape Town to look forward to tomorrow morning, which would honestly suck if I weren’t flying on Emirates.

So what makes Emirates so incredible to fly on? It’s mainly just their on-flight entertainment system, which has over 100 movies including recent ones such as Avatar and Invictus, plus every TV show imaginable...all of which you can watch on your own personal screen about the size of an iPad. Sounds pretty sweet, right? Well it is until your screen stops working 2 hours into your flight and when you’re also sitting next to a woman who I will officially call Mrs. Rhino from this point on. That’s exactly what happened to me.

I boarded my flight in JFK being pretty pumped that I had an aisle seat, but my mood quickly went south when I saw Mrs. Rhino in the middle seat next to me. I don’t really know how to describe her, except for the fact that she was huge and had the airplane blanket over her face when I got to my seat. The highlights of my flight sitting next to her included the following: being ordered around to grab her various bags (she had 3) from the overhead areas, having my tray filled with her beverages (red wine) since she didn’t have enough space in her area, and also having her take my disposable toothbrush out of the pack the flight attendants give you and using it, since she couldn’t find her own pack. Lets just say, I was the soccer ball and she was the foot. I also was pretty much sitting in the aisle for most of the flight since she took up half of my seat as well. This allowed me to get steamrolled by the food and beverage carts a few times, which was pretty fun...PSYCH. The only admirable thing about Mrs. Rhino was her ability to guzzle red wine, of which she had 3 bottles with dinner and 2 bottles with breakfast. Oh she’s also a diabetic, which made it even more interesting as her diabetic meal of rice cakes and yogurt would be accompanied by her throwing down the airplane bottles of red wine like she was shotgunning them. The woman has certainly never heard of sipping in her life.

Anyways, that’s pretty much how my first flight went. There was also a couple with a baby sitting in front of me that wouldn’t stop crying, which would have probably annoyed me if I wasn’t so worried that Mrs. Rhino was going to eat it as a snack. I’m hoping I can bang out a few movies on my flight tomorrow including Avatar which I’ve never seen and Paranormal Activity, which is ridiculous and what I was watching when my screen stopped working on my last flight (hopefully not some sort of sign). I’m staying one night at a guesthouse in Cape Town before I officially move into my apartment on June 1st, so I’ll probably write something after that happens. If Mrs. Rhino somehow ends up being on my flight tomorrow, I’ll probably kill myself but let’s hope that’s not the case.

Oh yeah and also...Beat LA! Beat LA! Beat LA!

Peace.