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.