Two Days Until ISP

I had a super busy week/weekend! Like I mentioned before, we had tons of stuff due last week, and I felt like all I was doing was writing. I turned in an almost 40 page paper on Tuesday, gave a presentation on Wednesday, and handed in my Independent study project proposal on Friday. Then we went on to Relay for Life on Saturday. The SIT group was volunteering/walking, and with all the work the previous week, we were pretty unprepared! All the other teams had super decorated tents, tons of food, and team t-shirts, and we showed up with no snacks, no decorations, and two ugly brown tents. Go Team America! It turned out to be pretty fun though. Everyone was really nice, there were tons of people there, and there was lots of food and things to buy, so we didn’t go hungry. Our neighbors took pity on us as well and brought us muffins and pancakes the next morning. They said they knew we were in a recession and wanted to help us out a bit, haha. Then on Sunday my roommates and I went to a concert of a South African band called Freshly Ground in the Durban botanical gardens. We brought a wine and cheese picnic lunch and it was a beautiful day, so it was a lot of fun. Freshly Ground was great; I really like their music. So, it was a good Durban weekend. I feel like I’m finally starting to know my way around more, and know things going on and things to do, right as I’m getting set to leave again!

I start my independent study project (ISP) on Wednesday- two days! I’m super excited to be out doing my own project- we’ve all been going really crazy listening to lectures so much these past weeks. For my project, I’m going to be doing a three week practicum at a district hospital in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) which serves a large rural population in a small town about three hours away from Durban. There are two other girls doing their project there too, including my friend Sara, and we’re living together in a flat within walking distance of the hospital. My topic is pediatric diarrheal disease, which is a big problem in KZN. I’ll be learning about it while doing ‘participant observation,’ so shadowing doctors and nurses and helping out where I can, and also interviewing health professionals and parents of kids in the hospital about some of the social issues connected to childhood diarrheal diseases in the area. I’m hoping I can shadow a community health worker for a few days as well. I’m really excited- it will be really interesting to spend time in this hospital and learn more about the health issues there. I will have limited internet access though, so don’t be alarmed if I don’t respond to e-mail for awhile. So until next time, sala khale!