Katrina's adjusting to Cape Town life

Adjusting to Cape Town Life

As I finish up my second full week of internships and classes, it’s becoming clear that I’m transitioning from tourist to…well I’m not quite sure what but certainly not a tourist. I still stick out like a sore thumb from the way I look to my very noticeable American accent, but I am starting to adjust to life in Cape Town quite a bit. Everything is still exciting but not nearly as daunting. I’ve gotten much more street smart and aware, but I’m no longer paranoid of every unknown person or the idea of being by myself.  My life here in Cape Town, from our house in Rondebosch to the clinic I work at in Mitchells Plains, to classes in UCT, has turned to routine, and dare I say it I’m starting to feel completely at home.

Some of the subtle difference between the US and South Africa are starting to feel normal. For instance, the fact that pedestrians NEVER have the right of way here (I’ve had a few close calls but I’m still in one piece). Or the fact that any given bathroom in Cape Town will be missing AT LEAST one of the big three: toilet paper, soap or paper towels. Yep, even the fanciest of restaurants, and you guessed it: even the staff bathroom at the clinic…. But you live and you learn, and every day I become that much more savy about the life and culture here.

I’m finally starting to get my bearings, and have a pretty good idea of how to get around Rondebosch, and slowly picking up when we’re in the Atlantic Ocean, versus when we’re in the Indian Ocean (BRRRR). Lucky for me there’s a beautiful running park not even a quarter mile from our house, filled with people at all hours, in which you can run around the 1.5 mile sidewalk to the view of Table Mountain, or through paths in the long grasses (if you watch out for snakes….). This has become my daily spot, and even oasis to get some time to clear my head and feel the breeze. There’s a ‘Pick n Pay’ grocery store a few miles away on main road, and we usually have to walk there a few times a week because unlike America, they don’t use many preservatives or additives so the food actually goes bad!!! But don’t feel too bad for me having to walk all those deliciously juicy fruits back home in the hot African sun, there IS a froyo place that may or may not know us by name at this point. Life here is much slower and much simpler. While I wear my watch almost without fail (the tan lines are pretty bad), time is no longer a burden. Granted we certainly have places to be at exact times and are very busy, but time does not have the same nagging effect as I find it has at home. You may enjoy an unexpected conversation, or a dinner may take up to 3 or 4 hours, but it's not looked at as a waste of time. At home I am almost obsessively consumed by my individual schedule, with every second of my life planned out, and ‘wasting’ time being a crime. Here people are so willing to sacrifice their time for me, or anyone, but to them it’s not even a sacrifice. When you say thank you, people say ‘pleasure,’ but its in way that they genuinely mean it was a pleasure to give you their time or help. I hope to learn so much from everyone who’s shown me this love, and bring this mentality back home with me.

From Monday to Wednesday I’m interning with 4 other students at Tafelsig Clinic, one of the very few government funded ‘free’ clinics available in the townships. It’s located right in the heart of Mitchell’s Plains, a very poor township with lots of violence. Every morning about 15 of us cram into a van that drives us all over the globe to each of our internships. It’s a pretty bumpy ride, and it’s a little over an hour before we get dropped off. Every morning you pass through the township where most of our patients are living, and it’s a hard scene to get used to. Miles and miles of informal settlements as they call them, basically shacks made of whatever people can find, most without plumbing or electricity. There is clutter and debris everywhere, kids running around without shoes or many clothes, and stray dogs, goats and the occasional horse littering the roadside. I see some children in uniforms making the long journey to school, others pushing grocery carts for miles looking for anything useful on the side of the road. When we arrive at Tafelsig, there is a line outside that has formed at 5AM. The five of us walk in wearing our scrubs (which are the greatest thing ever), and draw quite a bit of attention being the only white people in the place, on top of our American accents. Our first days at the clinic were very intimidating. The place is PACKED, small, loud, chaotic and boiling hot, and everyone speaks Afrikaans. Luckily the Sisters (what they call nurses here), especially Sister Castle, took us right under her wing and started teaching us right away. I spend the first few days mostly observing, and overwhelmed with how little I understood about anything.  Frustrated and exhausted patients would ask me questions I could barely understand let alone know the answers too. For once in my life I was the one that no one could understand, and for the first time in my life my ‘accent’ felt wrong when I spoke.  But I loved that excitement and buzz and chaos of the clinic, and every new case had promise of getting to see something cool to tell my friends about at lunch. I picked up on the different systems much faster than I thought possible, and soon I was actually DOING something, even if it was just printing labels, or moving folders from triage to the doctor’s room, it was something.

Allie, Emily W, Katrina, Jenna, & Morgan ready for a day at Tafelsig Clinic

Today was only my 6th day and I can’t believe how much I’ve learned. I walked into the clinic with confidence, and smiled and said “Goeie more” to as many people as I could (Afrikaans for good morning). I ended up working with a Sister in the triage room, and by the end of the morning I was calling up patients, taking their blood pressure, asking what was wrong, and from there doing all sorts of things from HIV, to hemoglobin to urine tests. While I was under the supervision and lots of guidance from the sister, the patients were looking to me for help, and more importantly to really listen to what was bothering them (which wasn’t the easiest in their broken English). Many of the patients wait from 5 in the morning until 2 or 3 in the afternoon to even get seen, with many of them in lots of pain or discomfort. This leads to a lot of angry patients, yet the sisters work under the pressure with loving but stern attitudes, and are still willing to take the time to teach us students. While there are times where you end up just watching or sitting around, any chance to try something new is so incredibly exciting. Giving my first HIV test, my first EKG, finding a missing folder in the filing room (quite the accomplishment), or learning a new Afrikaans phrase from a patient all make me so excited about my day . Every day is so exciting and has so much potential, and I’m so inspired to be a PA or doctor someday and do the real thing. And all of us interning at the clinic have felt the same excitement, and you should see us when we all meet up for lunch, giddy to talk about the gross infection you just saw get drained, or the catheter you just got to drain. Every day I’m learning more and more about South Africa, the health care system, and myself as a person. And I’m certainly coming to love my life here in Cape Town very much. 

Emily W on her many new adventures

So first off I just want to give a 21^st birthday shout-out to the best friend anyone could ever ask for Monika Jones!  Since I know you are reading this you better enjoy it and feel special.  Miss you buddy.  

We have been in Cape Town for about a month now and I couldn’t be happier.  As I listened to “My City” on my IPod and ran around the commons towards Table Mountain, I had an epiphany.  We are finally starting to adjust to life here.  It feels good to have a handle on things and I feel as though Cape Town has become my home for the time being.  I finally made a successful omlette and my cooking abilities are starting to get a little better.  Although I have had eggs for the last few dinners, I have been genuinely enjoying them.  I have been spending a lot of time at the beach, especially Camps Bay trying to work on my tan and it is coming along very nicely.   

 

Emily W at Camps Bay

Last Friday we climbed Table Mountain and it was by far my favorite experience here yet.  We made friends with a mini bus driver and it was perfect because we found an inexpensive way to get there.  We climbed Table Mountain and I got an ostrich burger at the top because I’m in Africa so why not experiment?  It was absolutely unreal when we got to the top and words cannot properly explain the view we had that overlooked all of downtown Cape Town.  It was simply incredibly and the hike back down Table Mountain completed the epic day.

Tafelsig has been getting better and better each and every day.  Yesterday we were lucky enough to be able to do ECGs, urine tests, and HIV tests.  We are truly moving up in the world of medicine and I am so excited to see what else they allow us to do. Seeing how some of the patients live really opened my eyes up to the true poverty in this country.  So many of the patients could have prevented their illnesses if they had the proper means to do so and I wish there was something I could do to make that better. 

Emily B on learning her way around

Everyone on this program has his or her own personal and unique reasons for choosing study abroad in Cape Town. A first I thought it was because I wanted to experience a new culture, to do some good and learn more about myself in the process. While that is all definitely true, I realized recently that I came here because I wanted to be uncomfortable. I wanted to try and do new things that were outside of my comfort zone and into the “Oh sh*t” zone as David has so eloquently dubbed it.  I am a creature of habit. I like routines and knowing what to expect. To a certain degree of unconsciousness I became bored with that at Storrs. Who wants 4 years of predictability? And off to Cape Town I went.

One of the things I was most uncomfortable about but also looking forward to (I like a challenge), was getting lost. I am notoriously getting lost, even in areas I know. I am constantly getting turned around or thinking I know where I am when I don’t. My housemates can attest to the number of times where I have said things along the lines of, “Wait? Isn’t it the other way to Loch?” or “Do I go left or right to Main Rd.?” So it came as quiet a nice surprise to me when I began to get my bearings. I went from being in a state of constant geographical confusion to being able to predict what the next stops were on the train. I am now able to navigate my way around the city and suburbs by train or minibus taxi with relative ease. This all has added up to me feeling comfortable here, not quiet at home, but definitely not a stranger.

My favorite stories of my newfound abilities involve others asking me for directions. The first occurred a few weeks ago when I was waiting on the corner for my minibus to my internship. Another international student from the United States asked me where to get the Jammie bus that goes up to the University of Cape Town. I easily gave him directions (granted it was literally across the street) and thought to myself “I got this.” Earlier today I was walking to my internship after a pit stop at the grocery store when a South African came up to me and asked me where the mall was and subsequently how to get to it. I was able to tell her the closest mall, which minibus taxis to use (you can take few different ones going toward Cape Town) and roughly how long it would take her to get there. Not to boast but I was pretty proud of myself.

There is something to be said for familiarity. Although I left Storrs to escape it, I definitely appreciate it in Cape Town.

Val gaining insight into how people should be treated

The past few weeks have been about adjusting. It seems like we’re finally finding some sort of semblance of normal, although I don’t know if you would consider choosing between authentic Ethiopian, pan-African and McDonalds delivery for dinner or, on a relative whim, climbing one of the Seven Wonders of the World necessarily normal. Also, to provide further insight into the beauty of Mr. Delivery (the delivery service here), yes, McDonalds can be delivered. And yes, the laziness in the big house has reached an epic new level. Who WOULDN’T jump at the opportunity to have obesity delivered to their front doors rather than through their car windows?

To get back to the point, let me rephrase: we are finding normalcy in doing abnormal things; or, at least, abnormal for most American twenty-somethings. Which, in my case, involves successfully giving myself food poisoning due to my lack of culinary skills with chicken (is that really abnormal for you Val? Let’s be real here, no.). Let’s hope at least for both the sake of my teeth, since stomach acid tends to do unfriendly things to those babies, and the sake of my roommate (Val throwing up every five seconds at night = no sleep for Cassie) that that particular abnormality does not become a part of the whole normalcy-in-abnormality thing.

So, other than my up-chuck reflex being exercised recently, needless to say, with the steady influx of new information, my brain has been pretty jammed up with thoughts. I’d love to be able to sort them out here, but you probably don’t want to hear about my feelings on curry followed by a rant complete with cyber *hairflips* about the Fat Cactus waiter James (hashtag drama). But what I will disclose is that Cape Town has been many wonderful things, which I’m sure you’ve heard plenty about from the blogs of my peers. What strikes me the most is the beauty of this place, and no, I don’t mean the physical beauty. Yes, seeing Table Mountain every day from the baby-deck at the big house is pretty darn snazzy (I ain’t blind people), but that isn’t the most remarkable part of Cape Town. It’s the people. There’s the middle aged dude passing you on the street who doesn’t know a thing about you, but looks you in the face as you walk by and says, “Good Morning”. There’s the father with his five year old who not only offers you directions when you walk around looking like the clueless tourist that you are, but takes time out of his day to take you to where you need to be just in ensure that you get there safely. There’s the funky hipster chick at the bar who catches your attention as you walk by just to tell you that you’re beautiful. And there’s the church full of people who, even though you are some random white students from America filling up their already packed, sweltering church and taking their seats, show you how to dance and laugh with you as you play with their children.

Now by no means am I being naïve or romantic about Capetonians. They are not unicorns and they are certainly not Beyonce (in other words they aren’t perfect). Not every single one of them offers me a smile or has the best intentions for a 20 year old white American girl, but the overall attitude of this place exudes familiarity. By that I mean it doesn’t feel awkward or intimidating to talk to strangers. In fact, strangers don’t really feel as “strange” as they do back home in America. Because of the lack of personal space, constant touching, eye contact and general openness of everybody towards everybody, it’s almost like constantly being surrounded by your big Italian family, minus the force feeding and the excessively loud talking. And, to my surprise, I like it. I like having the ability to strike up an easy conversation with strangers over squash and carrots in the grocery store. I like smiling at people who walk by without the threat of someone thinking I’m creepy or overly friendly, like back home. People are people here. And there’s a certain level of respect that is met in recognizing that each person on the street deserves a smile and a “Good Morning”. The effortlessness and simplicity of it hits me like a wrecking ball (Miley Cyrus reference). I want to be more like that. People in general should be more like that. Inspiration has been found, ladies and gents. Thank you Cape Town for providing me with the obvious, but not so obvious (obviously) insight into how people should be treated as people. I’m going to go contemplate WHY those ideas never crossed my mind before this moment. And also maybe eat my weight in cookies.

Cassie & Val