Wacky Weather

The weather here is very unpredictable. The locals say you can experience all 4 seasons in 1 day, and that's pretty much what I have experienced. You can wake up and it be freezing, by noon the sun will make an appearance, around 4 the winds will pick up, and by 7 it's cold and rainy again! We had some good days in September, but the cold and rainy ones far outnumbered the good ones. When it rains, the clouds get so dense and thick that the mountain literally disappears. At one point we went for a period of about 4 days straight without seeing the mountain! October brought with it fewer rainy days, much warmer weather, and even stronger winds. At times the wind blows so hard that, from my room, it sounds like the house is literally going to be blown off it's foundation! The picture below was taken on a cloudy day right after I got back from work. I hope you can see the rainbow just over the building!

A Small Piece of Home

Thursday night, a few of us (Alexis, Kaitlin, and Anuja) went to the John Legend concert. It was nice to get a little piece of home after having been away for what seems like forever! John Legend put on an AWESOME show, and I really enjoyed it. Keri Hilson opened for him, and I could have passed on that one. The concert was scheduled to start at 8, and by 8:05 Keri Hilson was taking the stage! She preformed for about 30 minutes, and I hate to say it but those 30 minutes were pretty painful. At the end, people clapped but I am not sure if it was because they loved the performance or they were happy she was finally finished. The crowd seemed content with her part of the show being over when her hype man came back on the stage and tried to convince the crowd to cheer for an encore. She did one more song and finally left the stage for good!

While they were setting up the stage for John (we're on a first name basis now), arena workers were passing out these little plastic packs of water. Alexis, Anuja, and I were pretty thirst, so we had no problem drinking it. Kaitlin, on the other hand, has a serious fear of food poisoning and was really skeptical about drinking it. Her thirst eventually trumped her phobia, and she drank some water...but only after she made us promise to care of her if she got sick! John Legend performed straight for about an hour and a half. He started the show in the crowd singing a Bob Marley tune and then made his way to the stage. He sang hit after hit and even pulled a girl up on stage for Slow Dance....if only that had been me! All in all, it was a GREAT night! Alexis and I had been talking about going since about day 3, and we were definitely not disappointed!

The Masterpiece

BANAGRAMS!!!!!

Bananagrams

Hi, my name is Eboni, and I'm addicted to Bananagrams….. Sad but true!

Kaitlin introduced me to a new game, and after one round I was hooked. Bananagrams is like scrabble without a board. Each player gets a certain amount of letters and you basically make your own crossword board. Once you have used all your letters, you say 'PEEL' and everyone has to take another letter. If you want to get rid of a letter, you say 'DUMP'. You can put back a letter but you have to pick up three in its place. The goal is to be the first one to use all your letters. It may not sound like much, but it is LOADS OF FUN!!!! The other morning, I actually played a round all by myself and (with Anne Marie's help) managed to win! "BANAGRAMS!!!"

Obama!!!

The general feeling I get from people here towards Americans is very different now than when I was here two years ago. Before coming in 2007, I remember the program director telling us to be very cautious and not draw attention to the fact that we were American. Of course, no matter how hard you try, people know exactly where you are from once you speak :o)

I went to Cape Point with Professor Lee and Dr. Murphey-Brown and just happened to be wearing an Obama shirt. The entire day, people were smiling, waving, and giving me thumbs up! It's amazing what a warm and positive reception he receives from the rest of the world. One man even commented that he would love to see Obama and Mandela photographed together. Talk about a powerful photo! This was before the Nobel Peace Prize controversy, but my guess is that though people may not agree with that decision, they still support President Obama and the things he is trying to accomplish. Alexis and I joked about wearing a George W. Bush shirt as a social experiment to compare the reactions but decided we did not want to risk having things thrown at us.

My Room (trying again)

I realized this picture didn't post, so I thought I would try again.

Nyanga

My second trip out with the Tutu tester crew was to the heart of Nyanga, one of the most dangerous townships. We were stationed at the taxi rank (the place were all the minibus taxies park; similar to a bus station). The taxi rank is full of people and action. There are hundreds of minibuses parked in rows and street vendors selling everything from clothes to goats lining the perimeter. The day in Nyanga was the first day the crew did TB testing since I started, so Katharina thought it would be a good idea for me to see how that part of the study works. It turned out to be a very good day for me to go because quite a few people tested HIV positive, so there were lots of sputum samples to collect. This was my first experience with inducing sputum, and trust me, it's not pretty. I felt really bad for those people just sitting in a tent, breathing salt water, and coughing their lungs out!

My other duty in Nyanga was to assist with registering patients. When people come to the tester, they have their height and weight taken. Then they come to me to be registered. I basically enter their information into the computer, get their fingerprint, and give them a tester number. They then rejoin the cue and wait for the nurses to call them in for the tests. I met some very nice people and a few not so nice ones! Among the nice ones was a man from Zim who had family in St. Louis. He has been in Cape Town for about 10 years and is considering going to the US to see if he would like it. Among the not so nice ones were two older men who were not very pleased with me. They approached the table and began speaking Xhosa. When I told them I did not under stand and asked them to speak English, one man got very upset. "English! NO!" he said, and continued to yell at me in Xhosa. After a couple of minutes of this, my friend from Zim came to the rescue. He said something to the man who then threw up his hands and walked away. My friend explained to me that the man was upset because I was black but did not speak the language. To the man, this was unacceptable. He explained to the man that I was from the US, but by that point the man was so displeased that he just walked away. Since then, I have been trying to work on my conversational Xhosa, but I'm sad to report my progress has been very slow.

Yesterday, I went back to Nyanga to assist with a 12-hour testing event. The MSR coordinators wanted to test as many men as they could from 10am to 10pm. I went out with the first shift and was  at the testing site from 9 to 2:30. I was the one-man registration station and was responsible for registering all the men and then printing their vouchers (today they were given R50; $7 USD) after they finished posttest counseling. Within the first few hours, I had registered over 50 men (about the same amount that we did the whole day I was out the last time), and there were probably double that waiting. I believe they were expecting over 500 men to show up, but with only a handful of nurses and even fewer counselors, I have no clue how they were going to serve all those men.

I was supposed to go to the airport with Professor Lee, so I left at 2:30. At around 6:30, I got a very disturbing phone call from Katharina. Shortly after I left, there was an armed robbery at the testing site. I do not know many details, but the computer, some supplies, and all the staff's cell phones were stolen. Other than being very shaken up, everyone is ok. The Lord was definitely looking out for me yesterday. Had I been there,  I probably would have been on the next flight home! Cape Town is a very beautiful place, and it is so easy to forget that it is also a very dangerous place. I will continue to work at the foundation and ask that you send prayers of health and safety my way.