Brooklyn Chest TB Hospital

Today was my first day working at the Brooklyn Chest TB Hospital! Today I worked in pediatrics, which so far has just been feeding and playing with the kids. Some of them are exclusively Afrikaans speaking, which is REALLY FRUSTRATING, but part of service abroad I suppose. Like most little kids, they love jewelry and electronics, which are hard to get back if you let them play with them. But there were definitely reminders of where we were. One girl had an audible rattling in her chest. The kids want to be picked up and held so badly, and they’ll refer to you as ‘mama’ right away. It’s a referral hospital, so their parents are usually far away and can’t afford to visit very much. Bizarrely, they like my singing. Anecdotes to come.

Sunday- Women's Day in Nyanga

Happy belated Women’s Day! My favorite of all South African holidays, the celebration of the role of women in SAfrican heritage gives way to awesome events all over the city. Brigid and I went with April’s dance class to see a Women’s Day arts performance in Nyanga, a Cape Town township. First we got a chance to look around at the art people had done, and then the performance began with older, traditional dancers. Here is a photo to see there face paint, and I’m going to try for a video as well.

After, there was a drama act that included a neat monologue about pride in South African womanhood as a gift from the mothers that fought apartheid. Then, a bunch of 8-9 year old girls did a RIDICULOUSLY salacious dance to ‘live your life.’ Finally, my favorite act was a group of young girls doing traditional dancing, which was actually quite similar to belly dancing but much grander motions.

Afterwards, we went to Mzoli’s meat, a township braai that serves huge piles of meat with sausage on top. It’s weirdly like a day club. Sunday at 3pm, everyone was drinking a lot and dancing in a packed space to a DJ. Very confusing. Sufficed to say, Brigid and I mostly chilled and played a bit with a baby.

Here we are in Nyanga posing as empowered women!

Saturday joining the rugby bandwagon

Saturday, after the usual market trip, we completely lucked out and got to go to the South Africa v. Australia rugby match (in which Australia was completely humiliated). I almost understand the rules! The stadium is about a 15-20 minute walk from the Res, so we strolled down with hundreds of other Springbok fans in forest green (this also included a lot of flags waving and honking). Admittedly, rugby is a very ‘white’ sport. It wasn’t integrated until after the 94 elections, but then it became an important part of uniting the country. They were world champions the year the integrated. Still now, though, you’re hard pressed to find a Black fan at a rugby match- it’s just about all white and coloured. We were the standing room only behind a goal post, which made the angle for watching a bit difficult (luckily though, games are only 100 minutes with halftime, so our shins made it through).

Brigid, April, and I in our Springbok green

Sean and I during the game (under an overhang)

Proud fans

Springboks in action!

Friday Afternoon- Halfway to Educational

Friday afternoon, after Brigid and I took a break at a coffee shop, we high tailed it to the South African Museum (5R entry, 75 cents ish, stellar) with Sean and Michael. One of my professors (History of Medicine in the Making of Modern South Africa) recommended an exhibit there called ‘Subtle Thresholds’ on the history of human perceptions of disease. Completely fascinating. We also took this opportunity to play with the huge whale ribs (picture 2) and prehistoric models (picture 3).


This is what’s known as Cultural History of disease- more philosophical-mind-boggling than apply-twice-daily







Finally, while doing our usual picnic pot luck on my floor, we saw a gorgeous sunset. This is the view from my balcony.

Friday Morning -Marching in the Streets of Cape Town

In July 2007, a 19-year-old girl was brutally murdered in Khaylitsha, Cape Town’s biggest township, for being a lesbian. The trial has had 21 court dates and 20 postponements. On Friday, Brigid and I went to a march in her honor, against hate crimes. The local human rights and LGBTI groups are asking to have the case moved to the High Court. The march was scheduled for 9AM, and we arrived at 9:30 (luckily, as predicted, it didn’t start until 10:15) at Grand Parade. They had bussed people in from all the townships who wanted to participate, and-of every single environment I’ve been in here-the march was the most amazing cross section of South Africans. All races, genders, sexualities, ages-yes, that’s a priest on the right.

The march went from City Hall to the High Court building, with a ton of people on the streets in between. There were window washers 12 stories up that started banging on the metal scaffolding when we passed (in support- we were doing lots of noisemaking as well). There was also a man on a corner who read a sign and responded “come on, he was a Christian!”...about the murderer. That really took me aback, though that contingent exists in the US for sure (think pro-life groups after George Tiller’s murder), I’m not sure how likely you would be to run into them on the street. As though the murder of a 19 year old girl was a Christian act. Painfully absurd. After speeches and the presentation of a position at the government building, we went to St. George’s Cathedral nearby. There was a lot of singing and really powerful speeches. The pastor opened saying “I’ve heard that the brutal attacks on and raping of lesbians (an increasing act in some townships) has been called ‘curative.’ It’s not curative, it’s punitive. It’s punishing someone for who they are.”

Apparently, the church has played a major role in a lot of the city’s human rights movements, even before the resistance to apartheid strengthened. So far, churches here have seemed to play such a positive and powerful role- it’s been amazing to be a part of it.

Saturday Wine and Marimba

Among the many reasons that CIEE is a stellar program to do study abroad with is that they organize legitimately AWESOME day trips throughout the semester, the first of which was on Saturday. We went up to Nelsons’ Creek, a vineyard in Stellenbosch (a huge wine area right outside of Cape Town), for a tour. The vineyards were gorgeous (see below), and lunch and the wine tasting was great. Apparently, vineyards are one of the big employers of Zimbabwean migrant labor during picking season, since grapes picked by hand are much better than the ones picked by machines. Also, it seems that the global recession has been great for South African vineyards, since South African wines are cheaper to produce than the popular wines in Western Europe. Avid wine drinkers are apparently switching from French to South African wines to save some money, and Nelson’s creek is having its best year in a while.

A view of the vineyards- breathtaking

Sara, Sean, Brigid, and I tasting a rose. The black thing is a spit bucket but she told us we didn’t have to use it (thank goodness)

Grape Vines

Crate storage

Saturday night we went to Mama Africa, a completely amazing place for live African music. The marimba band, Marimba Vibrations, was amazing. The group I was with even bought a CD to share. There were 4 drummers and 2 xylophonists, as well as two singers, totally unmic-ed. People were switching between all the drums and singing and dancing on stage, and I was pulled on stage to dance- a ton of fun, but god help Brigid if she reveals those photos.

Friday Afternoon at Robben Island

Friday, since Brigid and I both finished class at 11AM, we decided to visit Robben Island- probably the number one must do for Cape Town. The tours leave on scheduled ferries, which you have to book in advance, and we scheduled one for 13:00. We began to regret that decision at 10AM, sprinting through torrential downpour on campus to make it to our respective only classes. (Apparently my study abroad advisor was right in telling us to bring gortex- when it rains it POURS). Luckily though, things began to clear up around 12:30. UCT runs various shuttles between it’s campuses (upper and lower are walking distance, but the medical school and the fine arts campuses are on the other side of town) and the res, so we managed to take the shuttle to the fine arts campus, cutting the cost of the cab down from R100 to R30. (Also worth noting, the greatest pancakes/crepes in Cape Town are at a restaurant by the Robben Island Ferry dock). The tour of the island itself was really surreal. The bus tour, which was first, drove us around the island, so we could see the medium-security prisons, manual labor sites, and the guards living area (a bizarrely picturesque town, sports courts and such built by the prisoners and enjoyed by guards and their families). The nature of the tour was a bit peculiar, and very careful not to exacerbate any ‘white guilt’ such a post-apartheid tour might bring about. The guide asked who was from the US, England, Holland, and Australia, and then told us that “all of our countries were instrumental in ending apartheid and ensuring that Robben Island would no longer be a prison,” and then had us all applaud ourselves. Well, if we’re talking about historical contribution, it seems strange to exclusively praise the English and Dutch for South Africa’s progress. But I suppose if these tours had an effect of any guilt or unpleasantness, nobody would come.

This is the lime quarry where all prisoners did their manual labor. Prior to its use for anti-apartheid political prisoners, the rock reached the grass.

The bus tour was followed by a tour of the maximum security prison by a former prisoner. This bit was really interesting, but was so much to absorb at once. Our tour guide had been arrested for ‘sabotage’ in the mid 1980s, after burning down a rent office to stop the ability of the government to arrest Blacks in townships who had refused to pay rent (on government shacks, after having their houses confiscated as part of the Group Areas Act). He spent time in six different political prisons in South Africa, and (I think) 6-8 years at Robben Island. He was really fascinating, and I wished I had been able to ask him more questions, but the experience itself was so hard to comprehend until after we had left.

This is number five, Nelson Mandela’s cell. (bathroom on left, bed on right)

The wall of the maximum security prison