Meryl is return

Heidi and I picked her up at the airport.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_L4fltWl9-A

Heidi said leaving a bag unattended in an airport in Israel is a good way of having it exploded by security.

Jeff

Home

Hello,
I left JoBurg Thursday evening and arrive in the US Friday evening . It took about 27 hours. I watched a lot of television and movies and the food was pretty good. I flew Virgin from JoBurg to London. Richard Branson was on the flight and went around greeting his customers.

I'll keep blogging to cover some experiences and thoughts I didn't get to while abroad. Such as, the most disgusting thing I ever ate, almost, two days ago.

A nice woman at work makes a corn porridge for breakfast and brings it to work. She would make an extra portion for me sometimes so I could have an authentic SA breakfast. It was good with lots of sugar and milk. By coicindence on my last day of work (I think! I hope it wasn't a treat for my last day) she had brought in another authentic SA food. It some kind of insect or grub. I don't even know.




I'm pretty into food and you have to eat weird things to have street cred as a food enthusiast. There were a few African people at the table in the break room and they were sampling the fried insect. Here I am contemplating one. It's pretty big. And disgusting.



Here I am nomming on a grub. I didn't want to eat that whole thing so I bit off a third. Then I held it in my mouth for thirty seconds. The outside was kind of flaky and crunchy and the inside seemed goey. I couldn't chew it. I wanted to, but I couldn't get past the thought, if I start chewing on this, I'm going to be chewing on bug guts.


So I spit it in the trash and moved on with my life. (center below the napkin)

Kruger

I went on safari in Kruger National Park with Waverly and her friend from the US, Miranda. On Wednesday we went to Nelspruit, a major town near to the park. Thursday morning we awoke at 5am to get to Kruger for a morning drive. The driving is done in safari vehicles, a cab in front for the driver and 3 or 4 raised bench seats that are open except for a canvas roof. It was very cold and windy most of the time in the vehicles and especially in the morning. The driver for our first game drive in Kruger is the driver for the hostel/safari company and the rest of the game drives were by safari guides.

We entered Kruger and the first thing we saw was impalas. There are lots and lots of impalas in Kruger. The driver even told us, we don’t need to stop long, you will see many impala. The way game drives are done is to drive around in the safari vehicle trying to spot animals. There aren’t viewing areas you can go and see a wildebeast or whatever, you just drive around and hope you see something. Watering holes are likely to have animals like waterbucks or impala, but we saw the more “exciting” animals in the bush. If you see something you tell the driver to stop and if he sees something, he will stop. The drivers are really good at spotting animals. It was always exciting when the driver stopped because we knew there was something to see we hadn’t spotted. When the vehicle would stop we would crane our necks from side to side and I would ask Waverly “what is it? What is it?” Sometimes the guide would just look off into the distance intently for a bit but most of the time there was an animal we hadn’t spotted. Twice he spotted giraffes, once in dense brush off the road and once in a tree line over a mile away that we would have missed.

After the first impala’s we saw we drove more and I spotted a lone impala off in the distance framed by foliage. I was proud of my animal spotting skills but this would end up seeming kind of silly compared to what we saw in two and half days. At that time, we didn’t know what to expect and it can vary a great deal. People at work had told me about going and not seeing any cats, so I knew that was a possibility.
Then, we passed another vehicle headed towards us and they said they had been following a lion. The animals walk on the road a lot so that is an easy way to spot them. Later we saw an incredible picture of that lion sitting in the road.

The first exciting animal sighting was two rhinos, a parent and smaller rhino. The guide told us that white rhinos have the babies walk in front and black rhinos have the babies walk in back of the herd. Then he said “where do white people hold their baby?” “And, where do black people hold their baby?” That is how you can tell whether you are seeing black or white rhinos. We never saw rhino herds and there are mostly white rhinos in Kruger, so it was not the most useful explanation.

Then we went to camp to have breakfast. We were staying in tents in Pretoriuskop, in the southern part of Kruger. I invented a sandwich at breakfast, toast with peanut butter and jelly and cheddar (It was to have lots of calories and protein. Of the pbj family, it was better than peanut butter and banana, not as good as pbj and bacon). Then we went on another game drive. On safari, you mostly are either eating or on a game drive. We saw more impalas including two males that were fighting. They were rubbing their horns together but not very vigorously, so it looked more like they were flirting. Impala’s look delicate and soft, even the guys. Then we saw our first zebras. I really like zebras. They are like funny horses. Their neck fringe stands straight up so they look punk. There were some impalas and zebras and wildebeests hanging out in a field by the road. Later the guide told us that animals like to hang out with animals tougher than them, so they don’t have to worry about predators as much. For those animals wildebeat>zebra>impala. Sometimes there is low grass near the road, which is good for sightings. Tall grass and trees are worse. The most exciting part of the mid-day game drive was seeing elephants. There were three elephants way off in a grassy depression leading away form the road. At the time, we didn’t know if those would be the only elephants we saw, so it was great.

Then we broke for lunch at one of the rest areas. A guy from Europe was with us and he warned us about trouble monkeys. Those are monkeys that hang around the rest areas and try to take loose items or food from vehicles. I thought that was a fun concept to bring back to the US. “I can’t find my keys, maybe a trouble monkey took them.” Every meal we had on safari was great. Breakfast was pastries, the aforementioned sandwich, yogurt, fruit salad, cereal, etc. Lunches were sandwiches, salad, and very delicious curry potato salad or macaroni salad. Dinners were cooked over a camp fire. Marinated chicken the first night and beef stew the second night, with pap and rice, respectively. Pap is a South African dish made of corn flour. There was a lake near the rest area and we saw our first hippo there. Hippos bob up and down in the water, from fully submerged to sticking their nose out, so you don’t see very much hippo.

It sounds super exciting when condensed, but on safari there are long stretches of driving when you don’t see any animals. Sometimes, we went an hour or two at a time only seeing impalas or something way off in the bush.

That night we had a night drive. We went out at about five as the sun was setting. Right outside of camp we saw our first baboons. They were crossing the road in front of us. There was a baby baboon riding on it’s mothers back which delighted Waverly and Miranda but I missed it. On night safari, there are bright flashlights in the vehicle and you shine them out to the sides and use the lights and headlights to try to spot eyes in the dark. I think we mostly spotted animals in the lights without actually seeing their eyes. Night drives are good for seeing cats and we hadn’t seen any cats yet. The night guides were different from our day drivers and they were incredible at spotting animals. As the sun was still going down they saw a rock antelope on a rock face way off in the distance. The drivers also spotted a chameleon on a tree (while we were doing about 20 mph and in the dark!) and we saw a bush rabbit. We also saw a few owls. Mostly I am using correct names but if I don’t know the right name, I just append “bush.” Bush rabbit, bush squirrel, etc.
I have a bunch of black pictures from the night drive from trying to take pictures at night of animals in dense bush. The first cat we saw was a leopard. It was walking towards us on the road and then it turned away and walking away about level with the vehicle. I have a picture of its butt. I think the second exciting animal we saw was a hyena. It was about 20 feet away and not moving. It was gazing at the ground and didn’t seem to care that we shining a light on it and talking. I really like hyena faces and I’m glad I got to see a hyena. Then we saw two lions. One was a girl lion and they both might have been, I’m not sure. They were very close to the road. I think when we first stopped they were only 15 feet away. It felt a little bit dangerous. They moved away from us but stopped about 25 feet away for a bit. I think lions are a bit overrated, because you usually only seem them briefly and at night. It’s also fun to see elephants playing or impalas bouncing up and down over brush, but when you go to Kruger people are really concerned with seeing the big five (lion, elephant, rhino, leopard, water buffalo). The big five comes from hunting and if you are sightseeing, then zebras or giraffes might be more fun than water buffalo but not as good for bragging if you are a hunter. A bit later we saw a third lion walking parallel to the road and roaring. The Euro guy had done an impression of the lion he saw and it was like that. Low and short and not very loud, Ruuur, Ruuur, Ruuur. The guide thought he was looking for his lion ladyfriends.

It was pretty cold our first night in Kruger. We had hot water bottles to snuggle with and we used them for the morning drive the next day too. I think of day two as elephant day. First we went and looked at a watering hole that was empty except for a few hippos. Two young hippos were playing, sticking their jaws out of the water and on each other. Then we saw a few waterbucks. Waterbucks have a white behind. The guide explained that waterbucks sat on a toilet seat that had been painted so they have a white U shape on their butt. Then as we were cruising along the road a pack of wild dogs approached in the opposite direction. Wild dogs are very rare, I think only cheetah’s have fewer numbers in Krueger. They are splotchy black and tan and white and about the size of a coyote. There were about seven of them and they didn’t seem fierce at all. Some went by on the road, close to the vehicle and some veered off into the bush. Wild dogs are thought of as intense predators because they will bring animals down in a pack and start eating while the animal is still alive.

Then we went and saw the watering hole where the battle at Kruger took place. It’s on youtube, but I can’t get the link from my work computer. There were lots of Waterbucks there and I was hoping there would be a lion-croc fight over one of the young ones but it didn’t happen. Then we saw about three zebras. I asked the guide how many zebras he would see at a time since we hadn’t seen more than four and on tv I have seen large herds of zebras. He said nine or ten was the most zebras he would see in Kruger. Then we drove for another hour or so, seeing a bush lizard, before we saw about fifteen zebras right by the road! There was a kid zebra and a teenage zebra dude and a bunch of adults. That was one of my favorite sightings.

Then we saw an elephant pretty close to the road eating a bush. After that we saw water buffola completing the Big Five. ***old dudes*** Next we went and looked at a creek bed. In one direction there was a rhino off in the distance. In the other direction there was a giraffe way off in the distance. I have a picture that looks like a loch ness monster picture because the giraffe is so far away and it has the same head shape. Nevertheless, we crossed off giraffe from our list of animals to see.

Then we stopped for lunch. There were lots of trouble monkeys at lunch. When the group next to us finished eating trouble monkeys came and scavenged their leftovers. Then the trouble monkeys went to our vehicle. I had to shoo five monkeys off our vehicle trying to get into our bags. As we were pulling out of the parking lot I saw that there was a minivan with an open window and monkey was going into it.

We saw a lot of elephants after lunch. We were driving thought high bushes and I saw some dark shapes behind bushes. Just as I thought I should say “stop” to check if they were animals we got a clear view of another elephant between two bushes. There were three or four elephants eating leaves as they wandered away from us. The guides had told us to stay low in our seats and not lean out because animals will react to a human shape and not to talk too loudly. One of the elephants shook his head at us and the guide told us that he was irritatied with us. We moved on and saw a lone elephant pretty fast. That elephant shook his head even more angrily. He wanted to kill our safari vehicle. Our guide told us elephants had charged him but he didn’t get give details about what happened. Shortly after that we saw two groups of elephants. One groups was next to a concrete cylinder with water in it. One of the elephants was sticking it’s trunk in and then spraying water on a child elephant. One of the smaller elephants was trying to get his trunk in the water but he couldn’t reach.

We moved on from the elephant area and drove for a bit before seeing some cars stopped on a bridge. The bridge was a bit narrow so cars were backed up and the first person we asked didn’t know what there was to see. When we pulled forward more someone told us there was a leapord in the dry creak bed. That was the only cat we saw during the day time. It was lying in the shade of a tree and didn’t move during the time we were looking at it. That was it for day 2 and we went back to the camp.
This was the giraffe day. The guide had an incredible sighting of a giraffe and zebras way off in a tree line. Then we saw giraffes not too far away in trees and bushes. There were two. The way the head sways as they walk is fun and I like the horns. The giraffes looked at us, which was nice. A lot of animals either ignore us or move away.



Jeff

The worst thing I saw today

In the HIV section of a case report form “mom refused testing.” The child was one year old.

Most of the CRFs don’t have any extraneous writing, it is just boxes checked or lines filled in. Still, a lot is apparent about HIV testing in South Africa. People definitely are not testing when they should be. Stigma and denial must be huge factors, as well as worrying about having access to treatment if diagnosed.

I am only seeing cases with invasive pneumococcal disease, which is itself a warning sign about HIV status. Sometimes, a patient will have wasting and candidiasis or TB and candidiasis and the box is checked that they refused testing. Sometimes there is a CD4 count, which indicates the doc thought there was HIV and is going to try to treat the patient without acknowledging that they have HIV.

Sometimes I see a narrative through CRFs. Someone has the box checked for suspected HIV and they have AIDS defining illnesses but they refused testing. Then, three months later, there is another set of CRFs and they are positive.

Jeff

Bara

I like my women like I like my hospitals. The largest in the Southern Hemisphere.

On Thursday I visited Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital. Bara is the main hospital serving Soweto, a black area that abuts the southwest of JoBurg. It was a separate municipality until 2002 but now Soweto is considered part of JoBurg. There are clinics in Soweto, but if you need a hospital for something serious, or you can't pay very much (or at all) you go to Bara. The hospital gets 150 000 inpatients and 500 000 outpatients per year and 160 gunshot wounds a month (1).

Aside from being really really big, Bara is unlike any hospital I have ever seen. I have only seen hospitals in America, where they are usually squareish buildings with a lot of concrete. Bara has lots and lots of one-story buildings as well as two larger buildings and a variety of sizes in between. The largest building is about 11 stories. The wards are mostly 1 story and they are scattered around the middle area of the grounds. There are brick buildings, concrete, tin roofs, and a variety of colors. There are small buildings scattered around between the wards. Some of them are restrooms, some have doctor’s office, some sell halal food.

I was at Bara to learn about the GERMS-SA surveillance and burden of disease. The Group for Enteric, Respiratory and Meningeal Disease Surveillance-South Africa (GERMS-SA) does surveillance for a variety of disease that are associated with HIV positive individuals. HIV is one of the risk factors for invasive pneumocococcal disease generally, as well as for serotype 19A specifically, which I am working on. Bara has about six surveillance officers for adults and 1 for pediatrics, all women. In SA, nurses are called nursing sisters. Sadly, male nurses are not nursing brothers. When diseases under surveillance by GERMS-SA are identified in the hospital laboratory the surveillance officers go to the patient to ask for consent to have that person be a part of the surveillance.

The sisters told us that finding patients and consenting them can be tricky. Older patients may be illiterate. Sometimes it is hard to locate patients in such a large hospital. Patients with cryptococcus are often experiencing cognitive difficulties. People may abscond. We couldn’t locate a patient and the sisters thought he might have absconded. People may be transferred to the step-down hospital before the sisters have time to see them. People may be unclear about what they are consenting to because they want to be treated and so want to approve everything. This happens with HIV testing as well. GERMS-SA wants to identify HIV positive individuals. Sometimes patients “consent” to HIV testing. Then when asked if they want to receive the results, they don’t.

The first patient we saw was a child. The mother was there and so the surveillance officers were collecting information from the chart and from talking to the mother. They want to know things like vaccination record, temperature on the day the CSF isolate was collected, does the child live with siblings under 18, has the child been hospitalized recently, etc. If the patient is a child, surveillance officers will check when family members visit so they can talk to someone.

While walking to the next patient we had a fascinating discussion about HIV treatment. People will often see a traditional healer, either instead of seeking treatment or in conjunction. This occurs especially in HIV positive individuals with Cryptococcus as the mental effects may seem to be a curse from someone else or spirits and also may affect judgement. The doctors try to incorporate the traditional healers into the health plan and people will come with their healer to the doctor. Also, we learned that people sell anti retroviral drugs to drug dealers. ARVs can cause hallucination even if taken correctly so people will grind them up and smoke them for fun (2). About this time we passed a condom lying in the gutter. Oh JoBurg.

Then we looked for a patient in one of the adult wards. He wasn’t where they expected so they did a bit of investigating. They knew where he had been admitted and so they could check the night counts and what the computer system said about transfers. They weren’t sure if he was transferred to a different ward and it wasn’t noted or if he absconded. The wards are segregated by gender. This seemed strange to me because I don’t think of US hospitals as segregating by gender but I guess they do. We do it by room but their wards are one giant hall so it’s the same idea. It just felt different because it isn’t stated in the US, only one gender but room, but I guess that’s the policy. I asked a sister about it and she said privacy is important and “you wouldn’t put a lion in a room with a lamb.”

The next patient we saw was an HIV positive individual with Cryptococcus. The patient (TP) was experiencing cognitive effects so TP had been admitted to the hospital. TP had ARV medication but hadn’t been compliant with the treatment. Both interviews by the surveillance officers were in languages I don’t speak so they would have to explain what was happening. TP wasn’t clear on the importance of taking medication and possibly TP’s counseling when TP was diagnosed with HIV was not adequate. TP wanted to know about buying ARVs but that would be very expensive and they would be free at the hospital. Sometimes people that are HIV postive are in denial or don’t want to talk about their status because of the stigma so the sisters will talk to them about treatment without talking about their status. It was sad to see TP because TP was very nice and the sisters were trying to impress upon TP to take TP’s medicine and TP didn’t seem to be getting it. One of the doctors told us if TP wasn’t complying with his treatment he would be sent to the step-down hospital and then discharged because they need the bed available. One of the people with me on the site visit was an MD from London and she said TP would probably relapse and die from crypto if TP didn’t take the medicine for that.

Then we went to the morgue where the sisters sometimes go to check about paperwork. There was music playing a bit loudly in the morgue. The sisters told us that is to keep the spirits cheerful.

There is a building at Bara for prisoners that require medical treatment. Also you see people with orange jumpsuits and wrist and ankle chains being escorted around the grounds. We went to an HIV clinic next and it was pretty crowded. The waiting room had about 30 people in it including a prisoner. It is an obstacle to testing and treatment that the HIV care is pretty centralized in Soweto. It can be hard for people to get the Bara.

The sisters were very friendly and worked hard. It was great to see where my dataset has come from and what data they have trouble collecting. I asked one how long she has worked at Bara and she had been there 4 years. She said she enjoyed her job and it is interesting but it is hard because so many people have HIV. She said ARV treatment wasn’t helping very much because people get sick before they are started on ARV. I think the CD4 count has to get below a certain number before ARV is started. In the 80’s mortality at Bara was similar to a hospital in the US but now it is much higher. It can make treating patients seem futile. I was a little concerned with some aspects of the data quality after seeing the sisters. For example, they mentioned that they round age up. If I have a date of birth, I use that. If not, I go with the indicated age.

Then I went on pediatric rounds. I have been on rounds once before, at the ICU at SF General. That tine, there were a few people dying, a lot of people with trache tubes that couldn’t talk and seemed pretty miserable, etc. Although yesterday we were seeing sick kids, it was still kind of cheerful, compared to SF. In one room, there was a dad laughing as his kid held a Gatorade bottle for his dad like a bottle. The rooms were painted brightly with lots of images on the walls. There were usually parents with the kids and sometimes there were siblings too. The kids all had infections of some kind and antibiotic resistance is often a problem.

In one of the wards I vaguely noticed something on the ground but it didn’t register because hospitals often have miscellaneous equipment scattered around. The doc mentioned how it is hard to do infection control and pointed. I realized it was a sink on the ground that was ripped out of the wall. Everything was a bit grubby and the doctors talked at times about having trouble getting certain (expensive) medicines, but they seemed very competent and able to treat the kids.

Jeff

1. http://www.chrishanibaragwanathhospital.co.za/bara/article.jsp?id=161

2. http://www.aidshealth.org/news/in-the-media/no-turning-back-teens.html

p.s. I retracted my earlier post about hearing gunfire (in the comments), but I should say it on the front page too. It was just a loud noise. Although a friend of a friend was shot in an attempted carjacking near to where I live. She survived.

Melville

I haven't been writing very much about work because it is not very exciting. Using a computer, meetings, learning lab techniques. So, travel writing.

Over the weekend I went to visit Waverly in Melville, which is a neighborhood in JoBurg (hi Waverly!). Firstly, I called a cab to pick me up at the compound. Lots of people who live in JoBurg don’t know where Sandringham is. It’s also called “Jewish” because it’s an area where Jewish people live. Cabbies mostly know where Sandringham is, but then they don’t know where the NICD is. There aren’t really address numbers in the area I live, so you can’t locate 1 Modderfontein Rd by trial and error. You have to know where NICD is. So, of course, the cabbie can’t find me and I have to explain things I’m near, like Sandringham HS and the Elfin Lodge (old people home).

Finally, he finds me, and great, we are off to Melville, which is near Witz University (the main university in JoBurg). He must not be very good at being a cabbie because we get comically, comically lost. Literally, driving in circles and stopping over and over to ask people where Melville is. This seems crazy to me, it’s one of the neighborhoods in a city you are a cabbie in. And other people didn’t know either! We passed through the worst area I’ve seen in JoBurg yet, which was fun to see while uneasy in a cab. It may have been Hillbrough, one of the two places you are definitely not supposed to go, ever. Razor wire even more everywhere than normal, people passed out/sleeping in a park, and it just felt dangerous. A ride that should have taken 30 minutes took an hour and a half instead. The cabbie was nice and he really was lost and not doing the scam-the-foreigner routine. He didn’t charge me much more than it should have cost without the impromptu tour of JoBurg (200 rand, rand is 8 to 1 with dollars).

I arrived eventually and met up with Waverly and we went exploring in Melville. We heard so much about how dangerous JoBurg was before leaving that it felt weird for me just to be walking around on the street. Also, I had spent about three weeks in the compound without leaving except to go to the mall a few times, so being outside around people and stores was making me a bit giddy. We wandered around the residential area in Melville while getting slightly lost in search of a café with internet. There was a reverse vampire effect, where we had to be home before the sun went down because I had my laptop with me.

After dropping off valuables at home we went out to dinner. There are about 7 blocks between the main street Waverly lives near (Main Street) and the night-life street with bars and restaurants we were going to (7th). This is not something I would think twice about in the States, but Waverly and I have to get into an involved discussion about walking 10 minutes at night. How late we should stay out. And what to do if we see people walking towards us or hanging out on the street. And whether we should go on the slightly shorter street or the busier street that is a bit longer. And, etc. (Safety meeting that emphasized how scary foreign countries are, and JoBurg especially, mission accomplished). I got my wallet ready to hand over to a mugger by removing half of the money and my ID.

For dinner we went to a Chinese/sushi place. Things are cheaper in JoBurg so we had a fantastic meal with sushi, multiple courses of Chinese food, beer, desert and tea for about $10 each. We had Windhoek, which I like more than Castle, the main beer in SA. Windhoek is less bitter and a bit sweeter. They are both lagers. Draft beers are about $1.50.

After dinner we took a pre-mugging photo so we could have before and after photos if we got mugged. Then we walked around 7th avenue and looked at the bars.

(pre mugging photo)

I liked how Rat’z looked so we went there. It had a great atmosphere; dark lighting, eclectic art on the wall, and good music (US 90’s music ).

It was a bar I would be happy to find in the US. Because I like to be as authentic as possible (and getting drunk in strange and dangerous countries is wise) I had the Melville Rat. Blue curacao, pinapple juice, Malibu, Archers.

(my drink was blue, but it looks green in this photo)

Walking back to Waverly’s was a bit tense because it was later (11 pm) and if we were going to be mugged this is when it would happen. We crossed the street at one point because there were two guys ahead, but otherwise it was uneventful. We smelled pot a few times in Melville while walking on that street.

The next day we went to bookstores and ate Indian food for lunch. The Indian food was a disappointment after the Chinese the night before because it didn’t come with a bunch of courses and it wasn’t as delicious. Walking back after lunch I had a moment of disconnect with reality. This was a perfectly normal day to have (book shopping, Indian food) but I am in Africa, and in Johannesburg specifically, which is a completely bizarre place for me to be living. And it still feels completely routine after just a day in Melville. There are kids that hang around the mall begging, but otherwise I could forget I was in a foreign country.

Jeff

p.s. I know some of you don't know Waverly. She is BSHE and doing community research about religion and sex.

Night (Jeff)

Hi,
We have an 8:30 am staff meeting on Monday which resulted in my being very tired yesterday. I was at home waiting for Two and a Half Men to come on at 7:30 (American television is a rare treat, even if it's crap) when I decided to get in bed for a second. Predictably, I feel asleep. I woke up at about 8:30 to be sad for a second that I missed tv, then went back to sleep. I woke up again, unsure of what time it was. It was probably late enough that I should accept that I was not going to be awake any more tonight and I could take off the polo shirt and sweater I was currently wearing and get under the covers. I turned my cell phone on to check the time. 3:30 am. That's not good. I hope I haven't ruined my internal clock too badly. I've been going to sleep between 11 and 12 because there is nothing to do at night here and taking baths has made me sleepy. I can stay awake until bed time tommorow (as in tonight now, but last night I was considering it the next day) and restore my schedule. That should be -

BANG!

Shit. Was that a gunshot? I think it was. It was close too. Not on campus, but not terribly far away on the road. I heard a siren about ten minutes later, which probably confirmed it was a gun. I live near a hospital so it isn't totally conclusive.

I think in SF I could hear gunfire from the Mission while in Diamond Heights (and once while I was actually in the Mission) but it's a lot more scary when I am alone in a strange country. I knew people that lived close to or in areas with gun fire in SF and Oakland so it is not completely crazy to be hearing a shot (http://rhubarbpie.typepad.com/rhubarb/2008/08/it-matters-to-u.html). And I'm a compound controlled by guards. Still it was pretty scary at the time. Listening to all of the sounds that my cottage makes at night, thinking, is that someone trying to break in, is that someone trying to break in? It feels a little silly in the light of day.

Jeff

Now With Pictures (Jeff)

Hi,
I don't have a lot to add about JoBurg since entering the NICD compound. There are animals around the NICD for science-y stuff, so I see turkeys and geese when walking to work. When I was first getting a tour of the grounds, the woman told me "and over there are the stables" and I thought "aww, horsies" and then she continued "their blood is used in the labs." I haven't seen the sheep yet so one of my goals for the weekend is to find the sheeps.

I've been to the mall twice and it is like the mall in America, mostly. If anything, it is nicer than the malls I am used to going to.

There is a super market in the mall which is not something I have seen before, but makes sense (Or, hypermarket, as they call it). Why wouldn't you want to combine grocery shopping with mall shopping?

Here are some images of housing from the Soweto tour. In the first picture, the long, flat, grey structures to the right are the older housing, without electricity or running water. The colored houses to the left and foreground are the new houses, built by the government to get people out of the old, crappy housing. I think this was housing for miners. JoBurg had a lot of immigration for gold mining. That's part of why there is such a mixture of ethinicities here, like a large Indian population. The second picture is of informal housing we saw down the street a bit. You can see the port-a-potties they use as latrines to the left of the photo. There were some pigs running around these houses, I assume for eating.

Jeff

Things that don't work at my cottage or the NICD (Jeff)

1. The front door (cottage).

2. Any of the lamps (cottage).

3. Printer (NICD).

4. Shower (cottage). The shower isn't mounted on the wall, I have to hold the nozzle up. Which is stupid but not the end of the world. The problem is the hole in the tube leading to the nozzle, which the water sprays out of. I can either plug the hole with my finger and use the nozzle or use the spray from the hole.

The printer issue is being resolved soon, hopefully.

On the plus side, yesterday I left a dish in the sink to see what would happen. It was cleaned and returned to the cabinet when I got back from work. Score! I think maybe my laundry is done for me as well. I'll know about that soon.

Jeff

p.s. Heidi, is there a way to spellcheck posts?

It Doesn't Seem Real (Jeff)

Hello,
The whole time in South Africa has been a bit surreal for me. All hostels are kind of the same and the only time I have been in hostels was in Europe. So, I'm in a room with some Canadians, Americans, Dutch, and I have to remind myself "In South Africa."

Yesterday I did a tour of Soweto, which is a township next to JoBurg. I had a similar feeling when we went to see some "informal housing." As I was gazing out at these shacks, it didn't feel real. I've seen a million photos and video of slums in India, Brazil, etc. and now I'm actually seeing it in person. That experience was a little bit disapointing as it is clearing packaged for the tour. Someone who lives there meets us and shows us around a bit and then we got to see a woman's house, but she is a part of the tour, essentially. So, not super authentic. On the tour, we saw the spot where Hector Peterson was killed.
http://www.eng.fju.edu.tw/worldlit/africa/south_africa_h.htm

After the tour we drove through downtown JoBurg. I couldn't tell that it was that dangerous. The tour guide told us about the time he got shot in a botched mugging in JoBurg. In the side.

The area I'm in now, Kensington, is not super dangerous. People at the hostel have been going to the market and the internet cafe constantly (girls, alone) so I summoned up some courage and went shopping. All of the houses around here have walls and fences and razor wire, but it felt safe. The whole day yesterday I didn't see any white people except other tourists. Today, I saw a few Asian people on the way to the market and there were a bunch of white people in a restaurant across the street from the hostel.

Jeff