Dumela Botswana!

Dumela is a popular greeting in Botswana. I have been back in Cape Town for a few days now and already missing Gaborone. My short week in Botswana was condensed with warmth, inspiration, and information. I got to meet some amazing people like the Dean of UPenn, Dean of University of Washington, WHO counselors on HIV, UCSF professors, and Botswana midwives to name a few. The presentations were so informative that at the end of the day my mind would be absolutely drenched from thinking so much. Part of it was because the presentations were so thought provoking. I could tell that I wasn’t the only person processing all the information I was presented to daily and forming opinions, questions, and suggestions for all of them. I flew out of Gaborone more inspired than ever and my interest in women’s health issues has been reassured more than ever. During that week we stayed with Professor KD from the University of Botswana. The feeling of being driven around in a BMW and spending the nights in her four bedroom mansion in such a rural area of the world was unique. She seemed like she had worked hard for what she had though so that alleviated the awkward and guilty way I was feeling a bit. Most of the Botswana professors had received at least some part of their training in the U.S. It was one of the few times I felt good about America and its international influence as providing higher education opportunities to the developing world. Those women were truly making a difference in national and international levels and I learned a lot from their strength. I was also lucky enough to meet the former president of Botswana who stepped down in April. From the little bit of information I got from him I learned that he had been a gender equality activist during his term. He was still very outspoken about the power of women and his opposition to gender based violence. I guess something else I liked about President Mogae was that he was very modest when I met him and I didn’t feel like I was shaking a powerful and unreachable figure’s hand but that I was getting acquainted with a colleague. Even though he had flown from Uganda only a few hours before, he had openly accepted the gala dinner’s invitation and didn’t fail to have a good time on the dance floor. I also got a tour of the hospital and the obstetrics ward. Along the way I randomly met Dr. Ryan Phelps, a physician from Baylor working at a Baylor-Botswana HIV/AIDS Children’s Clinic. I was excited to see so much international cooperation. I also saw a Harvard Clinic. Not sure exactly what they specialized in.

After deciding to become an OB/GYN and a gender equality activist and being back in Cape Town I decided to do something I have always wanted to but have never been brave enough to do it. I figured that it was time I faced my fears and that it would make me feel that I could achieve anything. So I jumped off a plane… Ok maybe there are other ways I could have proven to myself that I could do anything I put set my mind on but the adrenaline rush of skydiving was thrilling. Coming down I got a glance of the beautiful view of Cape Town and saw whales and dolphins in the ocean. I have now ticked skydiving off of my list of “things I have to do before I die.”

Dr. Campbell, my U.S. mentor has been in Cape Town for the past week. I feel like I have gotten more done on the research this week than any other week we have been here. I was really upset about not having a clear plan for things and the thought of not being able to finish the project was really making me frustrated. I think that had to do with the fact that no one had formally met with us about the project and with a bit of Dr. Campbell’s supervision I am more hopeful and happy about our performance. We met with Naeema and Shaanaz, renowned researchers in the field of gender issues at the Medical Research Council. It was great to get a brief overview of some of the projects they are running and I hope to be able to stay in touch with them. We are having dinner with them tomorrow night.

Yesterday was an exciting day also. For the first time I got to take part in an NGO decision making meeting. The “One Man Can” project is funded by the Ford Foundation with the purpose of getting across the message of gender based violence prevention. The main setting for the conveyance of the message will be 2010 World Cup. They are planning to work closely with FIFA in order to use soccer coaches and players to become advocates for this cause. I couldn’t believe that an organization was given a large sum of money to capture the audience’s attention at such a venue but I guess anything would work. I think if I had to choose an audience I would direct my efforts to township residents and people who wouldn’t be able to afford a World Cup game ticket. It’ll be interesting to see how those efforts turn out.

Among other things, Jennifer and Tondeleyo from Durban are here the next couple of days so we will be sightseeing with them and showing them the beauty of our home, Cape Town.

The picture here is at a weaving place in Botswana. I loved the women there!

I Love Safaris!

I never thought I would be going to multiple safaris here in South Africa. I never wrote about the Aquila safari adventure we had. It was great seeing animals so close. Personally I have never been a fan of zoos… something about animals in cages just never excite me. But this was completely different. Seeing animals in their wildlife home is thrilling. I posted some pictures on facebook. During our trip to Aquila I met Hymie, a forty some year man who was very young and passionate at heart and used to be very active during the apartheid. His talkative nature didn’t bother me as much as bothered others in the van and I learned a lot from him. He has a very interesting past and is hoping to get rich by buying stock. He told me he would pick me up from the airport in his Mercedes in 2010! I also met Mr. Tchan, a lively and travel loving business man. He told me about his travels and how he has seen much of the world. I really enjoyed talking to him and he gave me a travel idea for next year. I am planning to take the Orient Express from Amesterdam to Beijing next summer. It costs about $2000 but all accommodations are provided and I would get to see much of Russia, something I have always wanted to do after my Moscow visit years ago. I hope my parents wouldn’t mind giving me that graduation present!

About work, until now we have identified all rape homicide cases for 1999-2002. the numbers vary for each year but the average is around 30 per year. 2001 had the fewest number of cases with 12. Now we are in the processes of entering the autopsy information of the rape homicide cases in the data tool set. This is a long process but I am starting to like it now that I recognize the difference between lacerations, contusions, abrasions, penetrating wounds, etc. I think I am getting more and more interested in the medical side of this.

Last weekend we went to a city called Knysna. This town was very young and lively and we got to experience the South African night life. The scenery was absolutely gorgeous with the ocean and mountains everywhere. We made it to the Elephant Park where we touched, hugged, and fed elephants (I still have some elephant dirt on my jacket…) We also went to Monkey Land where we saw more monkeys that I have ever seen in my life. It was scary to see how similar they were to humans. The Bird Park was also very fun and picturesque. I have some pictures posted on facebook. It’s been raining a lot here so it’s kind of difficult to go on any sort of adventures. We did get to go the waterfront where I got into a sailing boat for the very first time. I am planning to learn how to sail and own a boat one day.

Next week is looking great. I am flying to Botswana tomorrow so I am super excited about seeing another African country. Will update when I am back!

Khayetlisha and New Friends

It’s been a while since I have written here so I have a lot of updating to do. I will start from a week ago on Friday when I got a chance to go to the largest shanty town in Cape Town called Khayetlisha. The informal housing has around one million residents, a shocking figure of South Africans livings in below poverty lines. I guess what is so strange to me is that you can see towns like this everywhere here. The similarities that I see between Cape Town and Baltimore are in the sense of their vast inequalities in the distribution of wealth. In both of these areas everyone is well aware that this problem exists but a lack of opposition groups and corrupt political institutions is what makes these issues persist. Anyway, as you can imagine I was not sightseeing in Khayetlisha. I went there to see one of the forensic pathologists in our department present the autopsy of a murder case committed in 2004 by no other than two eighteen year old boys who at the time of the crime were about fourteen years old… yea scary… The two boys, one of them in jail and the other free, were chatting and laughing as if they had absolutely no worries in the world. It was definitely one of the strangest things I have seen. What kept running through my mind was “wow, these two kids have killed a human being.” Unfortunately one of the boys’ lawyers decided not to attend the hearing and the court was adjourned so I didn’t get to see the court in session.
After that exciting end of the week we decided to take a trip to Simons Town to actually sightsee. Seeing the little, cute, cuddly penguins made all the painful things I had witnessed flee instantly. Now that I am thinking about it, I think the penguins had far better living conditions than the people in the shanty towns. I felt like I was in another world than the day before staring into the ocean, the mountains around me, and hearing the constant camera clicks of the Asian tourists everywhere. I just wish that the one million plus people here could one day enjoy the beauty of this life that resides right in their backyards.
The rest of that week was sort of monotonous yet productive. Some highlights were finishing going over the 1999-2002 reports and sitting in a pathology lecture. Regarding the data we are now ready to start pulling out the information we need out of the data we have, soon start analysis, and most importantly start the whole writing process.
Then on Saturday things started getting a bit more interesting. We decided to explore our surroundings. We did more than window shopping and came back home a few rands lighter than from when we left the house. Our hungry stomachs led us to a restaurant called Mimi’s, where we had great lasagna and met our American waitress, Crystal. She was really sweet and her New York accent made me homesick. Crystal is pursuing a Master degree in medical anthropology at UCT. Her concentration is the status of women so when we told her about our research project she was really excited. It was good seeing people doing work in the social sciences aspect of what we are doing. I hope she contacts us and that we are able to get to know her better during our time here.
During our return home some other remarkable things happened like running into some people smoking marijuana in their car, a very entertaining passerby scene. After that we met two British medical students doing their rounds at UCT. It was fun to have dinner together and experience Cape Town night life more. I learned about the British medical school system and how 21 year olds are actually having hands-on experience, something you don’t see in the States until the third and fourth year of medical school. Anyway they are great friends to have here and I think we are going to be doing some other fun things together. I still have more updating to do but will continue this today!

Thuthuzela and More

Yesterday was very eventful. We are done collecting the files that we need to look at for the 4 years we are studying. As I was getting them from the storage I started looking at some of them and the information and pictures are very graphic and sad. It’s going to be very interesting looking at hundreds of those and figuring out if they are rape homicide cases or not. We are going to start doing that tomorrow. We also got a chance to visit an outpatient clinic that takes care of rape cases also. This is the only clinic women can go after they have been raped and in there they are supposed to receive counseling and support. There is a long list of government regulations on what the clinic should do when a patient comes in but I learned yesterday that they only look good on paper. The funding provided by the government is simply not enough to carry our most of those procedures. We got a chance to meet the only forensic nurse in the Western Cape. Sister Bartlett is a wonderful woman who takes care of all rape cases that come to the clinic and appears in courts testifying for rape cases. She was simply amazing. I don’t know how she was taking care of everything on her own. She showed us her normal daily schedule which usually consisted of 6 rape cases per day in addition to several court appearances. The need for more manpower and money in this field is more than I could ever imagine. I think before coming here I would think to myself that why would someone deliberately choose to get involved in this depressing field. When I met Sister Bartlett my question was answered. The immediate satisfaction of helping women in such conditions is present in almost every case. I heard a story about an 8 year old raped by her neighbor and a 17 year old raped by her father. I was completely devastated after hearing all this. We are going to start working at the clinic once a week and contribute in any way we can. I was glad yesterday they did not have any cases come in… Apparently crystal meth has become really popular here. It’s very cheap and accessible especially in shantytowns. This highly addictive drug is a huge reason for the higher rape cases. Men under influence lose control and become very violent. It’s very interesting seeing the mental health aspect of this as well.

On a bright side, we are probably going to Robin Island this weekend. That’s were Nelson Mandela was exiled to. It should be an interesting day trip. Finally got my ticket to Botswana so everything is set. We will be meeting up with Dr. Campbell in Botswana. I am excited about visiting a new African country and being able to participate in the conference.

Stellenbosch and Franschhoek

First weekend here and I have to say that I am impressed with the amount of sight seeing we have done so far considering we have not even been here a full week. Today we visited some of the most famous wineries in Cape Town. Overall it was a very French day I must say. The town was called Stellenbosch and it was a French colony once upon a time. There we went to a winery called Tokara and enjoyed the beautiful scenery around us. The adjacent town was called Franschhoek where we had a great meal in a restaurant called French Connections. I had never tried a combination of apples, mustard, steak, and French Fries but it was absolutely delicious (although I don’t know how French this combination is… sounds more Dutch) I have been trying to study the Cape Town map more and more and familiarize myself with my surroundings. Soon we are going to try the buses and see if we can make it to the waterfront. I don’t think the transportation is as bad as our mentors portray it. I know we have to be careful but sometimes I get kind of bothered by their overprotectiveness. I feel like it takes away from really experiencing life here. Today in Franschhoek we met a potter called Vuyisa Potina. His work was amazing and really inexpensive. I think he could make a lot more in America considering how expensive pottery is there. He said he is trying to go to America and got our contact. He was a really smiley and talented guy. The cool thing was that his shop was shared with a beadworker and a sewer as part of a community project to include more “colored” (as they say here) people in selling what they make. It was a great initiative and I had no idea I would find something like that here. I guess the thing that really surprised me about Vuyisa was the fact that he has such great goals for his life. I hope he is successful and that he doesn’t end up working in a Subway in Baltimore, like many talented people who immigrate to the US and have to take jobs like that just to be able to support their basic needs, and throw away his talent.

Last night was great also. We had dinner with Dr. Cheryl Dennison, a research and professor at the school of nursing, and her research assistant (and that is how we ended up in Stellenbosch and Franschhoek). It was good to see some Hopkins people at Cape Town. They were in Cape Town discussing collaboration with the University of Cape Town on a hypertension study. I can’t imagine making this trip for only a week but it seemed that they had done a fair amount of sightseeing.

I am still jetlagged and tend to get tired at random hours of the day and can’t fall asleep at nighttime… I think I am going to catch up with sleep tonight and we’ll see where the road takes us tomorrow. The bad thing about Cape Town weather at this time is how rapidly it changes. At one minute you have a sun and warmth and the other you are freezing and it pours. I never thought anywhere would be worse than California but I guess Cape Town is right up there.

Going to start work on Monday. Also I want to try to go to the transplant museum sometime this week. Everyone is really proud here that the first heart transplant surgery took place here so I think it’s worth checking out.

At Last

Loud and busy are the first words that I can say so far about Cape Town. It’s the second day of my stay here and after many hours of sleep last night I am finally refreshed and excited to go see the city. It’s a beautiful and sunny today which means that Claudine might be taking us to the waterfront. Yesterday was interesting. It was our first day at the forensic pathology unit. We got a folder full of paper on rape homicide and Dr. Martin’s thesis which is around 100 pgs… I started reading it and so far it seems to be a sad, interesting, and scary piece. Hopefully I get to finish it today. So far I love the white taxis and how they don’t even stop moving when people get on and off… I also love the way people yell out the destination of the taxis. I guess it kind of reminds of Iran. We were told not to get in them but hopefully one of these days Omar or June will take us. Oh I didn’t say anything about Omar or June. They are Dr. Martin’s assistants and super nice. They told us a million times that we will be ok and that they are here in whatever we need them for. They do their best so that we don’t feel out of place and at least from my part so far I can say that I don’t feel like a foreigner. Well I did get the “are you American line?” a couple of times but I think they only recognize the accent and the fact that I was learning the money bills as I was paying for things. I had the best samosa yesterday! Indian food is really popular here due to the large population of Indians. The Indian food here is a lot better than what I have had in the States (I also had meat curry and beryani for lunch yesterday.) I am hoping to get out and try some authentic South African food soon. Maybe it’ll happen today… We haven’t really started work since Dr. Martin is going to back on Monday. So far we are just reading and sleeping, both necessary for the intense research awaiting us.

The Journey Begins

It’s June 2^nd. Which means that I am sitting at the airport drinking my chai and listening to the continuous announcement of “por razones de seguridad el equipaje desatendido sera inspeccionado y destruido…” I am slowly learning to not hear it… I wanted to write this here since I never got a chance to update on the orientation. It was actually a stressful one week for me. I was sick all week and trying to push myself to go to go to bed at decent hours and waking up early wasn’t so easy. Overall though I thought it was great meeting Dr. Martin and having meetings with her and Dr. Campbell. They are both really strong and knowledgeable women. I think I can safely say that they are two of my roles models. The research project seems more intense than I originally imagined it to be. Not having seen a dead body before it’s hard for me to imagine how I would react going to death scenes, performing autopsies, etc. I have been trying to do a lot of reading in the area so that I am somehow professionally prepared for such scenes. Emotionally though, I can’t think of how I could prepare myself. What I have been trying to do is predicting what I would feel and thus far I am forecasting anger and appreciation. I just hope my feelings of appreciation overwhelm those of my anger ones. Right now I am sad, happy, nervous, excited, and tired of feeling so many different emotions. I am also not really looking forward the long journey ahead but I think it’ll be good for me to think about everything. Greg got me the book “Mountains Beyond Mountains” so I will be reading that and wishing that I was Paul Farmer. Inspirations like that help me tremendously in driving me more and more forward. I will be writing more in other airports.