Monday, August 18, 2008, 7:02 AM Ok, I know that it has been 10 days since I’ve been back in the United States, and that I haven’t included any events in my blog from July 21st onwards (yikes), but better late than never, eh? When I got back on Friday morning (August 8th), I headed up to the Ruhle’s Vermont house with my brother for a little shindig with Jeff, Dave, Jon, and some NJ friends, then to Kawanhee for Counselor Party (dinner, party, and all), then back home for a night before spending the next week with mi madre at Humarock. Needless to say, I’ve kept busy. And, as usual, the blog has been put on the back burner. But I have an open chunk of time this morning before everyone else wakes up (typical, ... read more

Sunday, July 27, 2008, 10:55 AM DISCLAIMER: I know, I know, it’s been a while since I last wrote, so in all of your best interests, I will split up the entries instead of giving you one fat 60-pager. Enjoy ☺ So picking up where I left off, last Thursday the 10th: I felt moderately better thanks to the lifesaving effects of the hard-won antibiotics and felt up to a little cultural jaunt. So I brought my laundry to the little laundromat down the street (cultural experience #1--the ladies there speak 9 parts Xhosa and 1 part English. Also, for the record, that was only my second load of laundry since I’ve gotten here…my bad) and then headed up the block to the South African Jewish Museum. This museum (cultural experience #2) was my favorite SA ... read more

Tuesday, July 1, 2008 (RABBIT RABBIT!), 12:45 PM Road trip commences: We inevitably left an hour late on Friday—you know how it is trying to motivate eight college kids on vacation schedules. But at least we were on the road by 2 PM. The great thing about the Garden Route is that it consists of one road, and one road only: the N2. The N2 is a scenic, winding highway that passes through all sorts of South African biomes—fynbos (mostly through the mountains, with its fair share of sheep!), thicket, forest, etc. We drove the first 5 ½ hours or so, and stopped in Mossel Bay for dinner. By chance, we happened upon Delfino’s, a restaurant recommended to us by a past Connect intern. They had great service (usually a rarity around here), great food, and ... read more

Sunday, June 15, 2008, 8:42 AM Something about this really foggy, rainy Sunday morning put me in the mood to write, so here we go. Hang in there guys, this will be a long one… This past week (wow, it HAS been a while…) was productive—I worked every morning at the hospital, gave a presentation about my research at the pain management meeting on Tuesday, made a powerpoint for a talk Dr. Albertyn (although we all just call her Rene) is giving on Tuesday, prepared templates, and went to observe a surgery on Thursday. This surgery was especially cool…a cranial reconstruction they called it. The boy’s misshapen skull was putting too much pressure on the brain, so they cut the skull off (so the brain enclosed in the meninges was exposed), inserted a piece of metal ... read more

Wednesday, June 4, 2008, 11:44 PM So a lot has happened in the past two days. I had my first day of work yesterday (!), and of course, I woke up early to find it pouring. Typical. But I drove in with Lea, the Connect-123 director, who introduced me to the doctors I’d be working with, sat in on our meeting, and helped me get settled. The Red Cross Children’s Hospital is slightly old-school, yet well established, and the staff is very welcoming. I’m currently assigned to two projects, both focused on pain management (or the lack thereof) in Africa: the first is studying the care given to NAI (non-accidental injury, specifically, sexual abuse) patients (there is a widespread custom of not prescribing anesthetics in these cases), and the second: a more research based study of ... read more