Last day in Cape Town and South Africa!! This is the craziest. We woke up early and went to Jooste to say our last goodbyes to Estelle. We brought her chocolates and talked for a while, and it was so nice. I’m going to miss her; she was the cutest thing ever! Then we headed to the consulate to pick up Miles replacement emergency passport—talk about being last minute. Luckily it was there waiting for him, or that would have been bad news poor Miles. On the way into town, there were some underwear shops that we stopped in and checked out, and then headed to Green Square Market. We had a funny little incident here—one of the sellers were asking us wehre we were from, and Miles said “From far far away”, and he asked again, so Miles stuttered out “Canada” instead of the United States, because the sellers tend to give us US tourists a lot higher prices and give us more trouble. The guy looked at us confused, so Miles said, “you know, Vancouver, Winter Olympics??” it was the funniest thing. He still didn’t know what we were talking about…
After our craft shopping, we drove back to Vangate mall across from our house to pick up some spices that Joan used in the koeksisters that we wanted to make sure we had. We used the internet for a bit, and picked up a few other things we wanted. On the way out, we ran into Colleen—the lady from the beginning of our trip that gave us the historical tour of Cape Town. I was so glad, because I liked her a lot and wanted the opportunity to see her again before we left. It was so great.
We got home and prepared to go out on the town (: lol not that seriously, but we wanted to go to Camps Bay. We went to this cute little restaurant called Paranga for dinner. It was very lovely. For our starter, we had Ostrich with blueberry risotto; Miles told me this was my revenge opportunity lol. Ostrich is quiet yummy though. For dinner I had this amazing fruit and vegetable salad that was amazingly light and healthy tasting. It was so good because firstly I love food like that, and I haven’t had it for like 11 weeks! I’ve only eaten heavy foods, so it was incredible and I felt so good afterwards. It was a nice little goodbye Cape Town dinner. I can’t believe that tomorrow is my last day here. I’m sort of in shock.
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Last Work Day
Today was our last working day in G.F. Jooste hospital. How crazy is that? And there was nothing going on. All of the surgeons were either sitting in the waiting room in theatre talking with nothing to do, or were up in the staff lounge doing the same thing. So, we left early. We were just sitting there anyhow. We got pictures with Estelle, the site supervisor for us at Jooste, and with uncle as he dropped us off for the last time. We are going to go back tomorrow quickly to give Estelle some chocolates and to say goodbye to a couple other people we were fond of before we leave Cape Town for good. I can’t believe that this ten week stint is nearly over. I have two days until I leave for home. I am so thrilled, yet sad at the same time. I think I’m more excited though, than anything else.
Miles and I headed to pick up our rental and went to our final meeting with Avril and Marion. We had such a nice time; I am going to miss them! They are picking up some of the new students at the same time as Miles and I have to be there for our flights, so we will say our final goodbyes there at the airport. After our meeting, we went to the waterfront and had dinner at this restaurant called Melissa’s; it was so good! Anella, a former intern that I met with before I came, had told us this was one of her favorite spots. It was incredibly good—she was so right. We tried to look for a few world cup things for Miles’ sister (she decided to ask him for something two days before we left…) but had no success. Upon arrival home, Miles told me he hadn’t even started packing yet!! So, me being the nice one (: hehe I went over and helped him. That went late into the night, but we (or I) finally finished and had an amazing sleep.
Miles and I headed to pick up our rental and went to our final meeting with Avril and Marion. We had such a nice time; I am going to miss them! They are picking up some of the new students at the same time as Miles and I have to be there for our flights, so we will say our final goodbyes there at the airport. After our meeting, we went to the waterfront and had dinner at this restaurant called Melissa’s; it was so good! Anella, a former intern that I met with before I came, had told us this was one of her favorite spots. It was incredibly good—she was so right. We tried to look for a few world cup things for Miles’ sister (she decided to ask him for something two days before we left…) but had no success. Upon arrival home, Miles told me he hadn’t even started packing yet!! So, me being the nice one (: hehe I went over and helped him. That went late into the night, but we (or I) finally finished and had an amazing sleep.
Friday, June 4, 2010
Prayer Call hehe
When we got to work this morning, Miles told me that he was awoken at 6:20-ish am by prayer call, and I realized that I have never spoken about it!! Because there is such a heavy Muslim population here in South Africa, some parts of town have loudspeakers on the outside of buildings that are very loud and make it known when it is time to pray. The man that comes over the loudspeaker is almost chanting in Arabic, and I believe it’s a recording because five times a day when it’s prayer time, the same exact chant comes over the city. It’s quite annoying actually. There isn’t even a loudspeaker in our neighborhood (it was banned lol)—the closest one is like a three minute drive away and you can STILL hear it!! We can hear it in the hospital while we work too. I would die if it was next door to my house.
Across the street, the Vangate mall is Muslim owned, so ever restaurant in the mall has to be strictly halaal, which pretty much means Muslim-friendly or non-pork serving. It’s surprising that huge chain restaurants will change their menus for the sake of running their business in places like this, but they do. At one of our favorites, Mugg & Bean, instead of serving bacon on certain items in their menu, they serve “Macon” in Vangate, and truthfully, Miles and I have absolutely no idea what that’s even supposed to mean. It sounds gross though so we avoid it haha.
Since nothing too eventful was going on in orthopedic surgery besides plate and screw removals, we decided to peak into general surgery. A man was already on the table when we arrived. He was a 76 year old man that had had his leg amputated a few years prior to the operation because of sepsis. He was getting a debridement done, and then was stitched back together. I guess whenever you have an amputation done because of something like sepsis, they periodically cut open the leg where it looks infected, and burn all of the infectious or possibly infectious areas away to keep it ‘clean’ and then stitch him back together. It sounds terrible. His whole leg came off in the amputation too—he didn’t even have a nub, it was chopped off from the hipbone, so when I first came in I actually thought they were operating on his lower abdomen.
After the debridement was complete, the gynecologist came in to do some evacuations—he actually had three lined up but we only watched one. I didn’t even know what that meant before the surgery. I had to ask the doctor who explained to me that after a miscarriage, they have to remove all of the blood clots, tissues, and ‘debris’ left behind to avoid infection and sepsis. It was kind of sad to see, but I think it was interesting and good for me to experience at least once. The rest of the day was quite dull and uneventful.
Miles came over after work again, and Joan made us curry (the first one I have had since Durban, and it’s slightly different), rootie, and homemade salsa. It was SO yummy! She’s such a good cook, and she’s so cute! Miles and I were peering over her shoulder trying to learn how she was making everything and she explained it all to us in detail. She so goofy and sweet, I’m going to miss her a lot!
Across the street, the Vangate mall is Muslim owned, so ever restaurant in the mall has to be strictly halaal, which pretty much means Muslim-friendly or non-pork serving. It’s surprising that huge chain restaurants will change their menus for the sake of running their business in places like this, but they do. At one of our favorites, Mugg & Bean, instead of serving bacon on certain items in their menu, they serve “Macon” in Vangate, and truthfully, Miles and I have absolutely no idea what that’s even supposed to mean. It sounds gross though so we avoid it haha.
Since nothing too eventful was going on in orthopedic surgery besides plate and screw removals, we decided to peak into general surgery. A man was already on the table when we arrived. He was a 76 year old man that had had his leg amputated a few years prior to the operation because of sepsis. He was getting a debridement done, and then was stitched back together. I guess whenever you have an amputation done because of something like sepsis, they periodically cut open the leg where it looks infected, and burn all of the infectious or possibly infectious areas away to keep it ‘clean’ and then stitch him back together. It sounds terrible. His whole leg came off in the amputation too—he didn’t even have a nub, it was chopped off from the hipbone, so when I first came in I actually thought they were operating on his lower abdomen.
After the debridement was complete, the gynecologist came in to do some evacuations—he actually had three lined up but we only watched one. I didn’t even know what that meant before the surgery. I had to ask the doctor who explained to me that after a miscarriage, they have to remove all of the blood clots, tissues, and ‘debris’ left behind to avoid infection and sepsis. It was kind of sad to see, but I think it was interesting and good for me to experience at least once. The rest of the day was quite dull and uneventful.
Miles came over after work again, and Joan made us curry (the first one I have had since Durban, and it’s slightly different), rootie, and homemade salsa. It was SO yummy! She’s such a good cook, and she’s so cute! Miles and I were peering over her shoulder trying to learn how she was making everything and she explained it all to us in detail. She so goofy and sweet, I’m going to miss her a lot!
Shoulder Reconstruction & "Spaghetti"
I’ve noticed that I have gotten into the habit of not wearing a seatbelt in most cases because almost no cars have seatbelts (or functioning ones) in the back seats. In our rental I always wear a seatbelt, but other than that I never can because I am in the back seat. It’s crazy the things that change when you are elsewhere; at home I am a seatbelt Nazi.
Today was my exciting orthopedic surgery scrub in day, and my surgery was so cool!! As soon as I arrived I was sent to scrub in, and we were doing a shoulder reconstruction surgery. The patient had chronic and constant dislocations so he needed his shoulder muscles to be moved around so that it would keep his shoulder bone in the proper place. I learned how to properly scrub in sterilely and then we started the operation. The surgeons I worked with, Dr. Rowe (aka “boss”) and Earnest were amazing. I have observed them over the past little while and really really like them. Earnest finished his internship in January and was trained by Dr. Rowe, so they have had a long relationship. Dr. Rowe is very praiseful and consistently complimented Earnest on his work during the procedure, which I think is great and much needed in order to build confidence in your abilities. I think that most tend to point out all of the mistakes instead of all of the strengths, which doesn’t help at all. So, I was really happy about how this was working out.
For most of the procedure I was holding a tool that held the muscles back so that Earnest could work and see in the area below it. I also held a tool that they put around the head of the shoulder bone to keep it in the correct place while they were preparing the muscles and tendons around it. My arm was SO sore because of the amount of force I had to exhibit for the tool to do the job it needed. The procedure was about two or three hours long, so my arm was dead that night. As they were progressing in the surgery, they would point out what they were working on and show me what everything was, and let me feel and help out. It was so cool. I also helped with the flushing and suctioning of the blood coming out of the open wound, among tons of other things. I also discovered that cauterizing muscles and tendons is the worst smell in the world.
During the procedure I accidentally became unsterile. I did this because my face mask was coming up and getting into my eyes and without thinking I used my forearm to pull it down a little bit, but my mask is unsterile so I had to rescrub in the middle of the surgery to continue. I thought Dr. Rowe would be mad, but he joked that this would just give me more scrubbing practice. After the long surgery, I helped Earnest stitch the muscles into place, and then stitch the man’s shoulder back together. It was so cool being this close to the procedure. Both Earnest and Dr. Rowe praised me for my help and good work afterwards as well, which was so nice of them to do.
The next patient was a 14 year old boy who needed his wrist to pretty much be stretched and repositioned, which is too painful to do awake. This is called a reduction. So, they brought him into surgery where they can put him to sleep for ten minutes to do the procedure. Earnest let Miles do the work. It required a lot of strength and my arm was exhausted so I was happy that Miles was doing it and not me. He was told what to do, and did it perfectly. Then Miles put the pop on, which he never did in orthopedics like Lauren and I did, so it was good experience for him.
The last surgery was an ankle reconstruction surgery, and a bad one. The man had broken his tibia and fibula two years ago from jumping out of a building running away from the owner or something like that. He was put into a Hoffman exoskeleton and then had surgery to get the bones fixed, but something went horribly wrong in the process because the bone is worse now than it was when he first broke it. It was noticeably broken; the bone was practically pushing out of his skin, and the x-ray was horrendous. It was going to be a long and gruesome operation. Miles scrubbed in for this one as well. To get this man sorted, they broke the other bone completely in half so that the only thing connecting his foot to his body was skin. They had to remove all of the bone that had tried to grow over the past two years, as well as the pieces that had become septic or dead, and then shorten it to be put back together. While trying to remove all of the bone growth and sepsis, it was easier position wise for them to bend the foot practically behind the leg so that the bone was fully exposed. The foot should obviously never normally be able to reach the point it did, so it was totally weird to see. It was incredibly grotesque but very interesting. Miles was still in surgery when uncle had arrived to pick us up, and he couldn’t leave in the middle; he was helping! So I left with uncle and Miles was going to be picked up later when the surgery was complete.
Miles was dropped off at my house when he was done and told me all about the rest of the procedure that I missed. It apparently took a long time to get the bone fixed enough to put back into place. One they finally did, they had to put a plate and nails in to secure it all. Earnest has the biggest arms I have ever seen; he looks like a rugby player, and apparently while trying to reshape the plate, he snapped the wrench in half. Who does that?!? I have never heard of anybody being able to do such a thing, and everyone in the operating room was in shock that he actually did it. How crazy is that. But, they found something else to do the job, and then secured the plate in his leg. At the end, his leg ended up being quite a bit shorter than his other, but that’s the only way they could fix it. All of the good bone they took out of his leg was kept for bone grafting if he might need it later. What a crazy operation.
During the day, I talked with the radiology technician a bit because he immediately recognized that we were from the States through our accents and told us that he has been to Oregon. I was really curious why he went to Oregon out of everywhere more famously world know to visit, so I asked and he had quite an interesting story. He worked for adidas and was doing a conference there (the adidas headquarters is in Oregon) because they were trying to get the South African soccer team to be sponsored by adidas instead of Nike as they currently were. He also apparently won an award for best presenter in the company or something along those lines, and I found out he is one of the inauguration speakers for the World Cup. Is that not the craziest run-in ever?? Who would have thought I would meet somebody like that in Cape Town’s gang yard hospital surgery theatre. You truly never know who you will run into.
For dinner, Joan told Miles and I that she was making spaghetti and I was sooo excited. Anything “American” sounds so incredible since I haven’t eaten anything of the like for practically three months. Miles was just as excited as I. When we sat down at the table, there was a pot of spaghetti as well as a pot of rice…Joan served us rice with spaghetti on top. Even foods we are familiar with come in such an unfamiliar way here haha. Oh, South Africa...
Today was my exciting orthopedic surgery scrub in day, and my surgery was so cool!! As soon as I arrived I was sent to scrub in, and we were doing a shoulder reconstruction surgery. The patient had chronic and constant dislocations so he needed his shoulder muscles to be moved around so that it would keep his shoulder bone in the proper place. I learned how to properly scrub in sterilely and then we started the operation. The surgeons I worked with, Dr. Rowe (aka “boss”) and Earnest were amazing. I have observed them over the past little while and really really like them. Earnest finished his internship in January and was trained by Dr. Rowe, so they have had a long relationship. Dr. Rowe is very praiseful and consistently complimented Earnest on his work during the procedure, which I think is great and much needed in order to build confidence in your abilities. I think that most tend to point out all of the mistakes instead of all of the strengths, which doesn’t help at all. So, I was really happy about how this was working out.
For most of the procedure I was holding a tool that held the muscles back so that Earnest could work and see in the area below it. I also held a tool that they put around the head of the shoulder bone to keep it in the correct place while they were preparing the muscles and tendons around it. My arm was SO sore because of the amount of force I had to exhibit for the tool to do the job it needed. The procedure was about two or three hours long, so my arm was dead that night. As they were progressing in the surgery, they would point out what they were working on and show me what everything was, and let me feel and help out. It was so cool. I also helped with the flushing and suctioning of the blood coming out of the open wound, among tons of other things. I also discovered that cauterizing muscles and tendons is the worst smell in the world.
During the procedure I accidentally became unsterile. I did this because my face mask was coming up and getting into my eyes and without thinking I used my forearm to pull it down a little bit, but my mask is unsterile so I had to rescrub in the middle of the surgery to continue. I thought Dr. Rowe would be mad, but he joked that this would just give me more scrubbing practice. After the long surgery, I helped Earnest stitch the muscles into place, and then stitch the man’s shoulder back together. It was so cool being this close to the procedure. Both Earnest and Dr. Rowe praised me for my help and good work afterwards as well, which was so nice of them to do.
The next patient was a 14 year old boy who needed his wrist to pretty much be stretched and repositioned, which is too painful to do awake. This is called a reduction. So, they brought him into surgery where they can put him to sleep for ten minutes to do the procedure. Earnest let Miles do the work. It required a lot of strength and my arm was exhausted so I was happy that Miles was doing it and not me. He was told what to do, and did it perfectly. Then Miles put the pop on, which he never did in orthopedics like Lauren and I did, so it was good experience for him.
The last surgery was an ankle reconstruction surgery, and a bad one. The man had broken his tibia and fibula two years ago from jumping out of a building running away from the owner or something like that. He was put into a Hoffman exoskeleton and then had surgery to get the bones fixed, but something went horribly wrong in the process because the bone is worse now than it was when he first broke it. It was noticeably broken; the bone was practically pushing out of his skin, and the x-ray was horrendous. It was going to be a long and gruesome operation. Miles scrubbed in for this one as well. To get this man sorted, they broke the other bone completely in half so that the only thing connecting his foot to his body was skin. They had to remove all of the bone that had tried to grow over the past two years, as well as the pieces that had become septic or dead, and then shorten it to be put back together. While trying to remove all of the bone growth and sepsis, it was easier position wise for them to bend the foot practically behind the leg so that the bone was fully exposed. The foot should obviously never normally be able to reach the point it did, so it was totally weird to see. It was incredibly grotesque but very interesting. Miles was still in surgery when uncle had arrived to pick us up, and he couldn’t leave in the middle; he was helping! So I left with uncle and Miles was going to be picked up later when the surgery was complete.
Miles was dropped off at my house when he was done and told me all about the rest of the procedure that I missed. It apparently took a long time to get the bone fixed enough to put back into place. One they finally did, they had to put a plate and nails in to secure it all. Earnest has the biggest arms I have ever seen; he looks like a rugby player, and apparently while trying to reshape the plate, he snapped the wrench in half. Who does that?!? I have never heard of anybody being able to do such a thing, and everyone in the operating room was in shock that he actually did it. How crazy is that. But, they found something else to do the job, and then secured the plate in his leg. At the end, his leg ended up being quite a bit shorter than his other, but that’s the only way they could fix it. All of the good bone they took out of his leg was kept for bone grafting if he might need it later. What a crazy operation.
During the day, I talked with the radiology technician a bit because he immediately recognized that we were from the States through our accents and told us that he has been to Oregon. I was really curious why he went to Oregon out of everywhere more famously world know to visit, so I asked and he had quite an interesting story. He worked for adidas and was doing a conference there (the adidas headquarters is in Oregon) because they were trying to get the South African soccer team to be sponsored by adidas instead of Nike as they currently were. He also apparently won an award for best presenter in the company or something along those lines, and I found out he is one of the inauguration speakers for the World Cup. Is that not the craziest run-in ever?? Who would have thought I would meet somebody like that in Cape Town’s gang yard hospital surgery theatre. You truly never know who you will run into.
For dinner, Joan told Miles and I that she was making spaghetti and I was sooo excited. Anything “American” sounds so incredible since I haven’t eaten anything of the like for practically three months. Miles was just as excited as I. When we sat down at the table, there was a pot of spaghetti as well as a pot of rice…Joan served us rice with spaghetti on top. Even foods we are familiar with come in such an unfamiliar way here haha. Oh, South Africa...
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Throwing Up & Maid Drama
I had the most horrible night! I suddenly woke up at 3am for some reason and never fell back asleep; I fell asleep at 6:45 and have to wake up at 7 so I’m not even going to count that. I just couldn’t fall asleep for the life of me, so I laid in bed restless for all of those hours. I was so tired the whole day because of it too. Horrible.
Orthopedic surgery was very entertaining today. The first operation required fixing the tendons in a lady with stab wounds all over her body allegedly from her boyfriend. She had wounds on her wrist and palm that were operated on today, and then got stitches removed from the wounds on her thigh, breast and arm. I can’t imagine how painful the palm is going to be during the healing process; that is most certainly a defense wound. She was put into a cast that covered almost all of her fingers so that they could heal properly and still function correctly. If she had full movement, it would have been pointless for the tendon repair surgery. The second surgery Miles actually scrubbed scrubbed in for. It was an ankle reconstruction. It was really interesting to watch and he had fun as well. He got to drill screws into the bone to secure the placement, helped hold the skin and tendons back while the surgeons repaired things, etc. That was the last surgery we saw; sometimes it take hours to complete one operation, so in such cases we don’t get through very many a day. I get to scrub in and assist with surgeries tomorrow. I’m pretty excited! I hope I get to do a cool operation.
Later in the evening, Joan made “viennas” or hotdogs for dinner, and if you know me, you know how I feel about those. They were the longest hotdogs I have ever seen, and she gave me TWO of them! With eggs, bread and avocado. Talk about a South African meal. Anyways, I couldn’t not eat them, especially since she was sitting at the table with us. Ugh. I felt like gagging even seeing them on my plate. But, I had to try, so I poured a huge amount of chutney sauce (my options were mustard or chutney sauce—fabulous…) onto my plate to try my best and disguise the taste and smell as I attempted eating them. I was pretty proud of myself—I got through one of them without gagging too visibly, but still had a whole one more to eat. I took a deep breath, cut a piece off of the second hotdog, dipped it in chutney and put it in my mouth. As I bit into it, I was greeted by a hard something against my teeth and that was pretty much the end. Joan was talking to me during this time, and I nodded while I was trying not to let anything come out of my mouth, got around the corner, and booked it to the bathroom. I made it just in time to throw it all up. When I came back to the table, I couldn’t even be courteous and try to finish the second one.
I took a nice bath a couple hours later, and gave myself a lovely pedicure. I did my toes up and started on my nails, which I will finish another night. I am trying to do things to distract me and take up my time so that I don’t think about home too much. It’s worked pretty well so far. Joan and I had a nice conversation for a good while as well, and then we got ready for bed.
Earlier this week, I forgot to mention something that happened. While I was getting ready to go to dinner with the gang and Marion and Avril, I was looking through my suitcase for a particular top that was nowhere to be found. I ended up emptying my entire suitcase with no luck, and was baffled as to where it could be. I asked Joan if she had seen or washed it and asked Lauren if she remembers me wearing it here. I couldn’t remember when the last time I had seen it was. Neither Joan nor Lauren remembered ever seeing it, so I texted (or sms’ed as South Africans say) my host mom Zola from Durban asking her if I had forgotten the top, and her response left me jaw dropped. She told me yes, that Zodwa (our maid) told her that I gave it to her. First of all, I loved that top, and second of all, Zodwa spoke not one word of English, so how could that exchange have possibly gone down? Whenever I needed to talk to her, I had to tell one of the boys to translate it into Zulu for me and vice versa. She also did my laundry the night before I left and gave it all back to me the morning I was leaving, so I was frantically packing and assuming she gave me all of my clothes….apparently not. I was so angry!! I think I was most angry about the fact that she lied, and then just stole my shirt. I couldn’t believe it, and still can’t.
Orthopedic surgery was very entertaining today. The first operation required fixing the tendons in a lady with stab wounds all over her body allegedly from her boyfriend. She had wounds on her wrist and palm that were operated on today, and then got stitches removed from the wounds on her thigh, breast and arm. I can’t imagine how painful the palm is going to be during the healing process; that is most certainly a defense wound. She was put into a cast that covered almost all of her fingers so that they could heal properly and still function correctly. If she had full movement, it would have been pointless for the tendon repair surgery. The second surgery Miles actually scrubbed scrubbed in for. It was an ankle reconstruction. It was really interesting to watch and he had fun as well. He got to drill screws into the bone to secure the placement, helped hold the skin and tendons back while the surgeons repaired things, etc. That was the last surgery we saw; sometimes it take hours to complete one operation, so in such cases we don’t get through very many a day. I get to scrub in and assist with surgeries tomorrow. I’m pretty excited! I hope I get to do a cool operation.
Later in the evening, Joan made “viennas” or hotdogs for dinner, and if you know me, you know how I feel about those. They were the longest hotdogs I have ever seen, and she gave me TWO of them! With eggs, bread and avocado. Talk about a South African meal. Anyways, I couldn’t not eat them, especially since she was sitting at the table with us. Ugh. I felt like gagging even seeing them on my plate. But, I had to try, so I poured a huge amount of chutney sauce (my options were mustard or chutney sauce—fabulous…) onto my plate to try my best and disguise the taste and smell as I attempted eating them. I was pretty proud of myself—I got through one of them without gagging too visibly, but still had a whole one more to eat. I took a deep breath, cut a piece off of the second hotdog, dipped it in chutney and put it in my mouth. As I bit into it, I was greeted by a hard something against my teeth and that was pretty much the end. Joan was talking to me during this time, and I nodded while I was trying not to let anything come out of my mouth, got around the corner, and booked it to the bathroom. I made it just in time to throw it all up. When I came back to the table, I couldn’t even be courteous and try to finish the second one.
I took a nice bath a couple hours later, and gave myself a lovely pedicure. I did my toes up and started on my nails, which I will finish another night. I am trying to do things to distract me and take up my time so that I don’t think about home too much. It’s worked pretty well so far. Joan and I had a nice conversation for a good while as well, and then we got ready for bed.
Earlier this week, I forgot to mention something that happened. While I was getting ready to go to dinner with the gang and Marion and Avril, I was looking through my suitcase for a particular top that was nowhere to be found. I ended up emptying my entire suitcase with no luck, and was baffled as to where it could be. I asked Joan if she had seen or washed it and asked Lauren if she remembers me wearing it here. I couldn’t remember when the last time I had seen it was. Neither Joan nor Lauren remembered ever seeing it, so I texted (or sms’ed as South Africans say) my host mom Zola from Durban asking her if I had forgotten the top, and her response left me jaw dropped. She told me yes, that Zodwa (our maid) told her that I gave it to her. First of all, I loved that top, and second of all, Zodwa spoke not one word of English, so how could that exchange have possibly gone down? Whenever I needed to talk to her, I had to tell one of the boys to translate it into Zulu for me and vice versa. She also did my laundry the night before I left and gave it all back to me the morning I was leaving, so I was frantically packing and assuming she gave me all of my clothes….apparently not. I was so angry!! I think I was most angry about the fact that she lied, and then just stole my shirt. I couldn’t believe it, and still can’t.
West Coast
It is officially one week until I will be standing at the Sea-Tac airport in good old Seattle. Ahh (: Today we had plans with Gregg to head out to the west coast. He wanted to take us to a town called Langebaan, to a “restaurant” called Strandloper. Strandloper is pretty famous to Capetonians. It is a seafood eatery right on the beach waterfront; the tables are all dug in the sand, and you sit on makeshift rock chairs with your feet in the sand and eat a nine course meal. Everything they feed you is fresh out of the ocean right in front of us, and is cooked on ‘grills’ that are built into the sand around the tables. It sounded cool when he described it, and I was really excited, I just wasn’t quite expecting the way he arrived to ‘fetch’ (how South African of me :) us.
He arrived in a ‘bus’ (once more, how South African of me hehe ;) that holds seventeen people, and it was FULL minus one seat left for me. I was most certainly not expecting him to bring his whole gang of friends—I thought it was just going to be him, Miles and I. How wrong was I. The drive took about an hour and a half, but was fun. Everyone he brought was so nice and very funny, so we pretty much laughed the whole way there. When we arrived, we were all so hungry and ready to eat. The owners were expecting us, so quickly brought us to our table. The first course had just been cooked, so we arrived right in time and were able to start eating immediately.
Everything was amazingly delicious. All of the seafood was the best I have ever eaten. They also had homemade bread with every course and that was amazing as well. After the ‘meal’ was done, we had the finale of homemade coffee and koeksisters, which was fabulous as well. It was such a beautiful perfect day too, so the overall day was incredible. We were all SO full and ready to head back, so we did. The car ride home was definitely a lot quieter than the way up there, but it was relaxing and nice. We dropped everyone off, and Miles and I went to Gregg’s house to wait for traffic to die down before he took us home. Traffic here is terrible sometimes, and can take hours to get somewhere that would normally take half an hour. While waiting, we headed to Café Caprice in Camps Bay (Gregg lives up the road, in Camps Bay as well), and had drinks and dessert—this was quite a few hours after eating. And then home we eventually went. We had a very lovely day today.
He arrived in a ‘bus’ (once more, how South African of me hehe ;) that holds seventeen people, and it was FULL minus one seat left for me. I was most certainly not expecting him to bring his whole gang of friends—I thought it was just going to be him, Miles and I. How wrong was I. The drive took about an hour and a half, but was fun. Everyone he brought was so nice and very funny, so we pretty much laughed the whole way there. When we arrived, we were all so hungry and ready to eat. The owners were expecting us, so quickly brought us to our table. The first course had just been cooked, so we arrived right in time and were able to start eating immediately.
Everything was amazingly delicious. All of the seafood was the best I have ever eaten. They also had homemade bread with every course and that was amazing as well. After the ‘meal’ was done, we had the finale of homemade coffee and koeksisters, which was fabulous as well. It was such a beautiful perfect day too, so the overall day was incredible. We were all SO full and ready to head back, so we did. The car ride home was definitely a lot quieter than the way up there, but it was relaxing and nice. We dropped everyone off, and Miles and I went to Gregg’s house to wait for traffic to die down before he took us home. Traffic here is terrible sometimes, and can take hours to get somewhere that would normally take half an hour. While waiting, we headed to Café Caprice in Camps Bay (Gregg lives up the road, in Camps Bay as well), and had drinks and dessert—this was quite a few hours after eating. And then home we eventually went. We had a very lovely day today.
Hard Day
I was so excited for the opportunity to sleep in! I have rarely gotten to do so here, plus I had such a late night last night that I wanted all the sleep I could get. Whenever you want to sleep something always wakes you up early, so of course, Joan called super early in the morning (the house phone is right next to my bed) to let us know that she was on her way home to make us a big breakfast. That part was nice, but dang it about her waking me up! Lauren crawled out of bed soon after I did, and Joan arrived shortly after that, and started on her cooking. She is so cute. Miles came over in pajamas (he wasn’t feeling the morning time as much as I wasn’t) She made us a big South African breakfast and we all got to talking and lost track of time. When I decided I would check the time, we needed to leave in forty minutes for the airport, so we all scrambled to get ready. I pulled on my lulu lemon sweats and Miles’ UW sweatshirt, Miles threw some jeans on, Lauren grabbed her bags, and out we went (:
Lauren drove for the last time on the left side of the road in South Africa to the airport, but that’s so grim. She drove HERSELF to the airport; what a lovely goodbye. Miles and I are driving ourselves to the airport as well, and it just seems so wrong and incomplete. Anyways, we returned our rental and went through to check-in with Lauren, and then said our goodbyes right before she went through security. We stayed to watch as she walked through security and into the terminal area, and boy, that was probably the worst feeling I have felt in a long time. It was horrible to watch her leave knowing I still have to stay for another week. She will be reunited with her friends and family and I will be waiting for my turn thinking about it. Auh!!
As we walked away, I thought about my departure. I am thrilled to come home; it’s been so long and I miss everyone terribly, but at the same time, I will have such mixed emotions, just as I did when I was preparing to come here. I will be so excited and happy and anxious, but then sad to leave this amazing place that I will likely not return to for a long time, not to mention all of the great people I met along the way that I may never see again. And the adjustment was quite difficult for me, yet I’m comfortable with most things now and have to come back. I don’t know. Saturday is going to be an interesting day; I will probably be just as much a disaster as the day I left for my journey, the day I’m departing my journey. I have never experienced so many emotions at one time as I have these past 11 weeks. I hope people understand, because if not they probably think I’m bipolar and crazy.
When Miles and I returned back to Joan’s, we were kind of down from experiencing all of those emotions at once as well as from saying goodbye to our month-long friend. We went to Lauren and my room; I laid on my bed, and Miles laid on Laurens and we sat and just talked for a while, still pretty down at this point. Joan came in soon after and told us that we were going to have a braii that night with her daughter Renee and her husband Ronnie. We couldn’t believe it because Lauren never had a braii and wanted to before she left. How convenient for us to have one the afternoon she leaves. Miles and I went to the grocery store to get some things for Joan, and it was packed!! There were SO many people in there. They were like vultures over the recently restocked items and I won’t even discuss the lines for the bakery and checkout. It’s nothing like you can even imagine in the States. I will never complain about the grocery store being packed back home ever again.
While Joan was seasoning the meat, Ronnie turned on the rugby game. Rugby is one of the most popular sports in South Africa, and it was a final between two rival South African teams; the Bulls and the Stormers. Miles and I were pretty much quarantined to the living room to watch it as well. Before it was halftime, the power suddenly went out in the whole house, and Ronnie went ballistic because that meant it shut his game off too. He ran to the kitchen to check the box, but it wasn’t the house, it was actually the whole Vanguard Estates area, including the huge mall across the street. This apparently happens A LOT in South Africa randomly for a few hours here and there. It stayed out for three hours this time, so it was good that we were having a braii because we wouldn’t have had anything to eat if we were planning on cooking.
We all huddled outside by the barbeque thing because when it gets dark in Cape Town, the temperature drops dramatically and very quickly. It gets FREEZING at night, and with the power out, it was even more noticeable. The meat took a while to cook, and just as it finished and we were sitting down to eat, the power came back on! How crazy is that. While I was waiting for the food to cook, I was in bed trying to keep warm, plus I was so tired from not getting much sleep. After I ate, I went back to bed because I was still pretty cold (I am forever cold) and still tired. Miles came into the room and was doing something that I don’t remember haha and I apparently fell asleep at 8:30! This wasn’t really a good thing because we had plans for the night! A very famous music artist in South Africa named J.R. was coming to a club called Galaxy, which is just down the road from us that we were going to attend. He is famous for creating a song that has basically become the World Cup anthem. It’s just really fun and everyone goes crazy when it comes on; we thought this would be super entertaining. After the J.R. event, we were supposed to go with Gregg to a yacht party. Well…..
I suddenly woke up at midnight because I heard a noise that I thought was somebody breaking into the house via my bedroom window (the crazy things your mind concocts when you are half asleep), but was actually Miles taking his clothes off of the hanger in my closet. He was getting into his pajamas to climb into Laurens bed; he had fallen asleep while trying to write his thesis, so gave in and got ready to sleep for the night at my house. I’m not sure why we never went out—he could have easily waked me up and we could have gone, but it just never happened. I went back to sleep pretty much immediately, and slept for a full twelve hours in total. I bet you believe I was exhausted now.
Lauren drove for the last time on the left side of the road in South Africa to the airport, but that’s so grim. She drove HERSELF to the airport; what a lovely goodbye. Miles and I are driving ourselves to the airport as well, and it just seems so wrong and incomplete. Anyways, we returned our rental and went through to check-in with Lauren, and then said our goodbyes right before she went through security. We stayed to watch as she walked through security and into the terminal area, and boy, that was probably the worst feeling I have felt in a long time. It was horrible to watch her leave knowing I still have to stay for another week. She will be reunited with her friends and family and I will be waiting for my turn thinking about it. Auh!!
As we walked away, I thought about my departure. I am thrilled to come home; it’s been so long and I miss everyone terribly, but at the same time, I will have such mixed emotions, just as I did when I was preparing to come here. I will be so excited and happy and anxious, but then sad to leave this amazing place that I will likely not return to for a long time, not to mention all of the great people I met along the way that I may never see again. And the adjustment was quite difficult for me, yet I’m comfortable with most things now and have to come back. I don’t know. Saturday is going to be an interesting day; I will probably be just as much a disaster as the day I left for my journey, the day I’m departing my journey. I have never experienced so many emotions at one time as I have these past 11 weeks. I hope people understand, because if not they probably think I’m bipolar and crazy.
When Miles and I returned back to Joan’s, we were kind of down from experiencing all of those emotions at once as well as from saying goodbye to our month-long friend. We went to Lauren and my room; I laid on my bed, and Miles laid on Laurens and we sat and just talked for a while, still pretty down at this point. Joan came in soon after and told us that we were going to have a braii that night with her daughter Renee and her husband Ronnie. We couldn’t believe it because Lauren never had a braii and wanted to before she left. How convenient for us to have one the afternoon she leaves. Miles and I went to the grocery store to get some things for Joan, and it was packed!! There were SO many people in there. They were like vultures over the recently restocked items and I won’t even discuss the lines for the bakery and checkout. It’s nothing like you can even imagine in the States. I will never complain about the grocery store being packed back home ever again.
While Joan was seasoning the meat, Ronnie turned on the rugby game. Rugby is one of the most popular sports in South Africa, and it was a final between two rival South African teams; the Bulls and the Stormers. Miles and I were pretty much quarantined to the living room to watch it as well. Before it was halftime, the power suddenly went out in the whole house, and Ronnie went ballistic because that meant it shut his game off too. He ran to the kitchen to check the box, but it wasn’t the house, it was actually the whole Vanguard Estates area, including the huge mall across the street. This apparently happens A LOT in South Africa randomly for a few hours here and there. It stayed out for three hours this time, so it was good that we were having a braii because we wouldn’t have had anything to eat if we were planning on cooking.
We all huddled outside by the barbeque thing because when it gets dark in Cape Town, the temperature drops dramatically and very quickly. It gets FREEZING at night, and with the power out, it was even more noticeable. The meat took a while to cook, and just as it finished and we were sitting down to eat, the power came back on! How crazy is that. While I was waiting for the food to cook, I was in bed trying to keep warm, plus I was so tired from not getting much sleep. After I ate, I went back to bed because I was still pretty cold (I am forever cold) and still tired. Miles came into the room and was doing something that I don’t remember haha and I apparently fell asleep at 8:30! This wasn’t really a good thing because we had plans for the night! A very famous music artist in South Africa named J.R. was coming to a club called Galaxy, which is just down the road from us that we were going to attend. He is famous for creating a song that has basically become the World Cup anthem. It’s just really fun and everyone goes crazy when it comes on; we thought this would be super entertaining. After the J.R. event, we were supposed to go with Gregg to a yacht party. Well…..
I suddenly woke up at midnight because I heard a noise that I thought was somebody breaking into the house via my bedroom window (the crazy things your mind concocts when you are half asleep), but was actually Miles taking his clothes off of the hanger in my closet. He was getting into his pajamas to climb into Laurens bed; he had fallen asleep while trying to write his thesis, so gave in and got ready to sleep for the night at my house. I’m not sure why we never went out—he could have easily waked me up and we could have gone, but it just never happened. I went back to sleep pretty much immediately, and slept for a full twelve hours in total. I bet you believe I was exhausted now.
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