Milk Tarts and Coffee...

Hi all. Just finished another ward round. After yesterdays soul draining experience we decided to be pro-active and get more involved. I offered my handy blood taking services which turned into a bit of a show with an audience. I had 17 people watching!!Although I have taken blood many times before, it suddenly became very daunting. It is like everyone is watching to see how easily and quickly you can find that vein, assemble the equipment and put it all together without any fuss or a fiasco. Luckily due to the sweat coming off my forehead that soon needed wiping and my past experience of glasgow drug users.....that magical feel of a bouncy hidden vein was felt under my finger tip and I shoved that needle in to see that lovely red flashback of blood when you draw back that syringe!!Pheewww.Show over ladies and gentlemen.

Ps...the nurses here are even scarier than at home. Note: do not mess with the nurses!If you do....they make you look even worse and speak back in a different language!really useful when you want to find a bin for blood covered gloves!

So that was all. No plans for the day yet. Meeting Stan the man for a coffee again tomorrow which is good.

The BBQ last night was also good. Met a lad from Dublin who is a Dundee student!Isn't it funny that the 3 Irish people here are all studying in the UK!!Anyhow, it was all very european and civil with wine and beer and everyone sitting at long tables and sharing the food etc. Had some weird south african sausage which was nice and then a bite of a spare rib...but because it gets dark at 6pm....you couldnt really see if it was cooked or not. Under the light of the moon...it looked rather soft and pink..which was then confirmed by the others who took big bites. I retreated to the corn on the cob and a good old spud.You can't go wrong that way!

So coffee and milk tarts have become the lifesaving post ward round saviour. Milk tarts are a traditional Afrikaans sort of cake thing. Highly calorific...but amazing.

The early mornings are just so normal now. 7.15 or 6.30 is the normal time to rise shine and eat.However, nearly every night you have 7.5hours sleep!even last night, post bbq and wine...it was 11.45 and we were all heading to bed!!The darkness is a natural sleeping pill!

On a serious note, one of the girls in the lodge is from south african. She is a black south african, born into a township and is one of three left in her family of 7. She has buried her parents, sisters and brothers all of HIV and has actually had a tougher life than any one of us reading this would ever imagine possible. If you could ever imagine somebody who is just so warm and lovely it would be her. She laughs...and I swear the whole world laughs with her. (Simon can second that as one night she was on her phone in her bedroom and she was laughing so much..that we were actually laughing...just becuase she is!) Anyhow, I see her with the patients and she is just so naturally good with people. She isnt afraid to go and hold somebodys hand...and she will wipe their face or help them up and do it without a care in the world and not flinch at the awful smells or soiled sheets.
When she was younger, she was determined to do well. She was the first person in her family to finish secondary school and she received a scholarship to study in the US. She did teaching there and whilst there she worked non stop to pay for her tution fees to do medicine. She was unable to apply to South africa as she, as a Black South African, coming from one of the poorest areas didn't stand a chance of getting in to medical school. So she applied to the US and got accepted to Columbia and a number of other top US universities but unfortunatlely couldn't accept due to her finanical situation. She has her acceptance letters in her bedroom. She was showing me them the other day; there were 6 in total. Eventaually she had enough money to cover her years there...and made it to 3rd year without any difficulty. Sadly, at the end of third year she had to return here as two of her siblings died of HIV and she had to pay to bury them. She had to pay for the rest of her family to live from day to day and she had to use that money she had saved to do that.

She returned and completed 4 th year, but is now three years behind her original peers as she has had to stop and start so she can finance each year. She is here now on placement in Cape Town basically to keep a roof over her head and try find a job. She needs about 10,000 euro to head back to the US sit her last exam and be fully qualified. She has been nearly here for a year. She has tried everywhere for work and has asked all sorts of places for funding but has not been lucky. She is religious in the sense that she is so so thankful for everything she has and alwasy says that God has got her this far and he will get her further but she will just have to be patient. She joked saying that God better not let any more family members die in the next year as that would be the end of money yet again.

I actually sat there listening to her, and you see some of the europeans who are now flying on to India for 6 months and than onto Maurituas for a holiday and even just the likes of me who are in South Africa in the first place. It reminds you of how lucky you are. It really really does. I am never ever ever ever going to moan about the debt I am in...!!!!!!if i could give her the money I honestly would!!!And the funny thing is, she will be the best out of all of us. Just naturally better. She told me that she will be the very first Black doctor from the whole area that she is from and she hopes to set up and school and a centre for children in that area. She wants to educate them and help them to finish school and get a better future and move on from that circle of poverty. She says that that is what she wants to do in thanks for the position that she is in.

I will tell you something, it certainly wakes you up. I went to bed the other night after talking to her and i couldnt even sleep. So so sad and certainly puts it into perspective!!I don't know how she does it and the funny thing is......every two minutes she is laughing. She has the best laugh ever and she is a bit like myself in the sense that laughing gets her into trouble. She said that once she starts...she just can't stop...no matter how hard she trys.Said she always got kicked out of class cause she would start everybody else off laughing too.....and you can really understand why if you heard her. She was brough up by her grandparents...and every sunday before mass, her granny would give her a proper lecture about not laughing...and she would always have to set near the back of the church!!

Anyhow, enough of that sad story, but it certainly is food for thought.
Going to head now...as i really need to pee thanks to the coffee and I am going to see what is the story for the day...and who is up for doing something.

Hope all is well and good at home.

Thinking of you all,
xxx