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.
No comments:
Post a Comment