BOOM

On our second night just as we were laying down to sleep we heard several long screeches and a crash. Sounded a lot like the sounds of one of our pet parrots growing up; Albert was a former truck driver companion. They're emergency service was quickly on the scene, granted the wreck was only 100 meters from the hospital. However, the fire department didn't arrive for about 30 minutes. Before they arrived the car was basically consumed by fire and the adjacent tree suffered some damage as well. There was quite a jump from the crowd each time one of the tires would explode. Quite a way to kick it off. "kick the tires and light the fires" Will smith quotes, oh yeah.

weather, voertrekker monument, blyde river

The weather here is phenomenal. There aren’t really seasons, just a rainy time of year and a not so rainy time of year. There might be one peak of a mountain that occasionally sees snow, but that’s about it. It gets a little hot during the days, but it cools down quickly and I am comfortable sleeping without AC. The landscape is a vibrant green, I imagine that it is the same hue which causes people to fall in love with the hills of Ireland.

We visited the Voertrekker monument erected circa 1945, which commemorates, via an immense freeze, the trials of the pilgrims as the trekked there way into the midland. It is an incredibly impressive monument. To the outsider it seems to add insult to injury as most of the trials were defeating the Zulu tribe. Take for instance… the building is constructed so that on Dec 16th at noon a beam of light falls perfectly from the towering roof strait to the basement insignia  “we for thee, south Africa.” I later found out that Dec. 16th is the anniversary of the battle of blood river where less then 500 voertrekkers defeated nearly 12,000 Zulus. Apparently the river ran red.

We rented a car and headed to Blyde River Canyon. Driving a stick shift on the wrong side of the road turned out to be more fun than annoyance.  Although, my travel companions may disagree… they may not have been in love with my approach to “go-karting” our way through African mountains. We stayed at a pretty nice cabin a stones through from the world’s 3rd largest canyon, and it was absolutely stunning. A mother baboon with baby clinging onto her underside opened the bathroom window, but retreated upon finding Justin showering. We hiked down a bit, not fully into the canyon, and found a well concealed 25 ft waterfall. The swim was incredibly refreshing after the long hike.  The only way it could have been better is if I wasn’t skinny dipping with two dudes.  After the hike we visited some driving look outs and bartered for some cool handmade “curios.” We drove to some amazing waterfalls, several were hundreds of feet high. I really feel like SA got far more than its fair share of the worlds beauty.

Afrikaners "offrikaners"

The majority of the people I am working alongside are Afrikaners. Which is the dwindling white population. They are the descendents of the Dutch farmers who were forced off the coast by the British and made a pilgrimage to the center of SA essentially becoming  Africa’s white tribe. They speak English fluently, but prefer the more exclusive Afrikaans(which is essentially 17th century Dutch according to a fellow foreign student from Amsterdam). All “G”s are pronounced like you are clearing your throat. Also, they will switch languages at the drop of a hat; this makes collecting information a touch harder. They are at an interesting point in history, with the “recent unpleasantness” being so recent(16 years.) When they turned over the government, many of them left the country out of fear of riot and retaliations (reasonably so, see similar history of white farmers in zimbabwe). However, Mandella orchestrated an incredibly peaceful transition. They still live in a great deal of fear and there is still a great deal of separation; whenever we ask about some activities we are always told about safe shopping malls, casinos, amusement parks… boring things that we have plenty of in the US. They are good people though and I don’t want to paint them in to harsh a light. The physicians I see are offering great care to an incredibly underserved population. One of the attendings I worked with is clearly working well below his qualification in terms of resources. He could have gone private to Cape town or set sail for the US, but instead he spends his days working up the train wrecks that SA delivers to his hospital. They have an incredible command of physical diagnosis forged from a paucity of CTs and a wealth of disease. On the whole, it looks like a tough road ahead, but SA is an optimistic country.

Arrival

I am doing a 1 month rotation in internal medicine at the University of Pretoria in RSA. I have only had a brief exposure to the tumultuous social environment, diverse wild life, breathtaking landscape, and extraordinary pathology of SA, but I can already say that this is shaping up to be one of the most intriguing chapters of my life.

Upon arrival in Pretoria I was immediately aware that this was a different sort of place. Every building is fenced in with either barbed wire or an electrical fence. The city is 1.5 million, but very small in landmass (the opposite of OKC). The city abruptly ends and beautiful rolling green hills continue to the horizon.  It is quite a stark contrast. I have heard quite a bit about how dangerous it is here, and at a glance I would have to agree. However, the people are some of the most friendly I have encountered and I don’t feel the least bit afraid to go out into the heart of the city. In fact, my walk into the city was my first glimpse of Africa as I had imagined it. The streets were so full of people that you would think you were at a festival. Different up beat African rythems were pounding from parked cars along the way and with every step there was a new sight or smell. I wasn’t quite cavalier enough to try some of the roadside kabobs, but I will when I return… EH 0157 be damned. (There is your medical joke Elizabeth.)