On the floor (South Africa, Day 14)

[Make sure your speakers are on while playing video.]

I don't understand German, but I imagine Gelia, Timmy, Katrin, and Markus are all admiring Jean's awesome peeling out skills.

Hahaha, I love our little gold Chico.

Kids (South Africa, Day 14)

TEACHER

Hi sweetie, I'm Miss Rosie, and I'll be your teacher while you're in the hospital!

PATIENT

I like your hugs! You're nice and soft!

ME

[awkwardly]

That's because she's growing a baby!

PATIENT

Is the baby in your butt??

--

Kids. They really do say the darnest things.

Pretty visitors (South Africa, Day 13)

Knock knock.

I walked over to the door, puzzled as to which of my friends loved me enough to trek all the way over to Container City to visit me. And after dark at that!

I'd never seen the girl at the door before. Blonde, tan, and beautiful, she seemed a bit taken aback to see me. 

GIRL

Oh. Um. Hm...is Michelle in?

ME

That's me! 

GIRL

Hahaha, no. I was told that Michelle lives here.

ME

Yeah. My name's Michelle. And I live here.

GIRL

No no, I'm looking for the guy Michel. Did you just move in?

ME

Oh. Yeah, um, don't know what to tell you. I guess I'm the girl Michelle. And I've been living here for the last two weeks.

She left. And no more than twenty minutes later, yet another blonde and beautiful girl knocked on my door. Also looking for Michel. 

Who the hell was this Michel and why were people confusing him for me?? I figured someone was playing a prank on someone, and I was just an unfortunate pawn in this game.

I found out a few hours later, when I woke up to hear some loud sex noises coming from the container next door. Only, it wasn't the sex grunts that woke me up. See, a girl was yelling out my name every now and then.

Passionately. 

It was quite the disturbing night, needless to say. 

And then, the next day, I started finding those crazy disgusting condoms in front of my door. So lovely.

Europeans. Apparently Michel/Michelle is one of those androgynous names over there. 

Best part? After thinking about it, I realized that I had met this Michel character two days earlier at the weekly braai. He was greasy and sleazy, and I remember he rudely interrupted my conversation with Mark and Jean, by quite forwardly draping himself over my shoulders, and opening the conversation with "Hitler's my hero."

Yeah. I still dunno why I didn't go home with him. Such a catch, that one.

Walk this way (South Africa, Day 12)

The cutest kids ever.



And I got to play with them for a whole month. Although, I gotta admit, I was a little thrown off when I first met them, and they started making Bruce Lee moves at me.

They'd make Tyra proud with their fierce walks and all that smizing going on. So freaking adorable.

Best neuro exam ever.

Spring cleaning

Hey friends! A couple of things:

• I'm slowly but surely uploading pictures onto facebook! Will try to do one album a day. Today's = wine tasting! Go take a look; all of my friends from South Africa -- all beautiful and gorgeous -- are included in it.
• Will be posting additional blogs about South Africa in the coming days - ziplining, shark cage diving, ostrich riding, and more! So keep checking back. But, word of warning, blogs will be out of order so you might have to look for the new ones (to keep the days chronological). Sorry to the OCDers out there.

Thanks for reading! Comments are still disabled, but if you're feeling so inclined, you can send me an email at michellelwu [at] gmail [dot] com.

Please remember me (South Africa, last day)

Sitting in Heathrow, enjoying my first drip coffee in god knows how long, and missing my friends like crazy. 

I will follow you into the dark (South Africa, last day)

Leaving South Africa is quite bittersweet.

On the one hand, I'm glad to be going back to Chicago, where I have unlimited access to washing machines, hot water, and all the tv shows I could possibly want to watch. Yes Bravo, I've missed you and all your trashy housewives. And I only have a few more weeks left in Chicago too, and I still have so much I want to do before I move back to Los Angeles. There's yet more deep dish pizza to eat, final pictures to take with The Bean, and all the tourtist-y things I never got around to doing. Like how even after ten years of calling Chicago home, I have yet to go up to the top of the Sears' Tower.

So I know I have to get back to Chicago, so that I can start the whole goodbye process there.

But this past month in South Africa has quite possibly been the greatest month of my life. (Yes, even with all the strenuous hiking involved.) I've fallen in love with the culture, the vibe, the gorgeous scenery, and all of my lovely and wonderful friends here.

I will miss our family dinners as we all piled around a four-person dining table, Gelia's fantastically strong coffee, the crazy inappropriate jokes, stealing beers from Mark and Markus to give to the dean of Tygerberg, our GPS leading us through the craziest (and possibly most dangerous) routes, all the German lessons as we bastardized our way through ich's and das boot's and gutentag's, the number of red lights we ran through in order to stay together with the rest of the Chico caravan, my nightly ride back to my container, the amarula song, the lighthouse song, the Bavarian songs, the constant eating, and all the new adventures we had.

Can't I just stay here forever?

I love these people. So much. Thanks friends, for the best last hurrah of my medical school life. I will miss you all terribly.

S&M (South Africa, Day 20)

Things that are not acceptable to throw out the window -- dirty laundry, trash, diapers, condoms.

Definitely not condoms.

So I live in Container City on campus -- basically a complex of eighteen or so side by side trailers with individual bathrooms and kitchens. It's kinda great. Except for the fact that I will wake up with used condoms outside my doorstep every morning, the number depending on how particularly virile my neighbor was feeling the previous night. 

The first day it happened, I was sufficiently grossed out, side-stepped around it, and went on my ward rounds with the sole intent of bringing home a box of gloves so that I could de-condom my front step. 

The next day it happened again, only there were three used condoms. (If I weren't so grossed out, I might be suitably impressed by his sex drive. Perhaps even glad that even if he was stupid enough to be throwing condoms out his door instead of in the trash, that he was, at the very least, using protection. But as it is, I was just grossed out. Very grossed out.)

So every day, I would pull on some gloves and a week's worth of newspaper and gingerly push and prod the used condoms back to his side and under his step. 

After about four days of this happening, I couldn't take it anymore. I would have to say something.

But you know me. I'm passive aggressive. So, Jean and I came up with the most awesome prank during one particularly intense ward discussion on a patient that was completely in Afrikaans, and hence, completely incomprehensible to us. The plan was this -- we would each pull on five pairs of gloves, douse our arms in antibacterial spray, and with the help of some scotch tape, we'd put up all of his used condoms onto his door frame. They were, after all, just sitting in pile under his door.

I mean, if that didn't teach him a lesson, well then -- he might have Asperger's.

Only trouble is, the day we decided to do it, as I walked back to my container, a blond European guy saw me, and hurried over to say hello and introduce himself. Apparently, my sex-crazed neighbor had moved out, and this new, very polite guy, had just got in that morning, and was wondering if I could possibly show him how to use the stove?

I excused myself hastily to call off our terrible prank, and hoped to God that he hadn't noticed the giant pile of condoms at his doorstep. And prayed to all things holy that he didn't think that those were mine.

He never mentioned it. Halle-freaking-lujah. He was either the most socially aware guy ever, or the most oblivious.

Rolling in the deep (South Africa, Day 17)

Make sure you carry a spare wallet. And a fake credit card – like a Ralph’s loyalty card or something you don’t care about anymore.

What! Why?? 

That way, if you get mugged, you give them the fake credit card when they ask for your money. And throw the spare wallet in one direction as you run in the other.

Are you serious? Cape Town’s not really that dangerous, is it?!

Well, the city’s not. But the townships….just make sure you don’t stop or slow down to talk to anyone there.

I have heard some crazy stories about townships.

Equivalent essentially to the slums and projects housing America’s poorest of the poor, these townships are notorious for murders, drugs, carjackings, gangs, rape – essentially all the heinous crimes you see on Law and Order: SVU. And the stories our clinic patients tell us – one girl was raped by her grandfather, another was sold as a prostitute by her own brother – seem to corroborate the news stories we hear. The stories about foreign couples getting kidnapped and murdered, the stories about people being brutally shot or stabbed to death, the stories about gang initiations requiring one carjacking, one murder, and one stint in and out of prison.

And now here we were, on our way to the infamous township of Khayelitsha. I was apprehensive, sitting on my purse to hide it from view, and keeping my car window and door securely closed and locked, even though it was a million degrees outside, and even the slightest breeze would have been refreshing.

Our guide kept reassuring us. The people in the township are quite nice. Everyone’s so friendly. Everyone wants you to know their story. Wants you to come into their home and sit. Wants you to play with their children. And when we got there, we got out of the car, locking the door out of habit. No no, she said. Leave the windows and doors unlocked. It’s perfectly safe.

There were children playing with each other in the roads, and upon seeing our guide, they greeted her happily, yelling out “white foam” in Xhosa – their name for her, since her skin is as white as the foam upon the ocean. And even more children appeared out of the woodwork and from the sides of shacks and sheds to greet us. Mowla, cahn-jah-nee. They followed us around their neighborhood, picking up more children as we went, every now and then instructing us “photo! photo!” as they happily posed and smiled for the camera.

I gave one boy my Coke as the other children were preoccupied with Jean’s digital camera. He grinned excitedly, not quite believing that I was really giving the whole thing to him. Hiding the bottle under his shirt, he rushed over to his best friend, and after whispering in his ear, the two ran off on their own, looking back just twice to make sure they weren’t being followed and consequently wouldn’t have to share their newfound treasure.

It was quite a change from what I had  been expecting. Instead of people swarming us, pressing us to give them money, there were children everywhere wanting us to take their pictures and hold their hands. Instead of looking at us complete strangers as outsiders, they hugged us and welcomed us into their families. They wanted us to know the injustices and the prejudices that were going on against them. The racial stereotypes that were being perpetuated by the wealthier community. The broken promises the government kept telling them.

Yet, most of all, they wanted to show us that they were a community that could not be broken. True, they had been forced out of their homes and into shacks that couldn't keep out the fierce wind and cold in the winter, and became boiling metal boxes in the summer. But they were also a community, looking out for each other, forging a new home for themselves - using material salvaged from the garbage yards.

No sleep (South Africa, Day 15)

No trip to a foreign country is complete without a bout of gastroenteritis, right? So I should have known that with all the nonstop outings and eating on the go that it was bound to hit me.

It's pretty miserable.

I'm very thankful for my own personal bathroom.

Very, very thankful.

Lock and key (South Africa, Day 13)

The Key (an essay by an ex-political prisoner)

The day I found myself in prison, I made the resolution to resist imprisonment, to continually endeavor to escape and to resist with all my strength the possible adverse effect of imprisonment.

The incident with making of a master key to the cells of Robben Island must have been my fifth attempt to escape.

Before turning to the idea of a key, Japhta Massernola and myself considered other means of escape. Cutting through the bars was impossible, since each prison bar had a thinner high grade steel bar mounted on ball bearings inside an outer bar which made it virtually cut proof. We first tired jacking the bars aside with a screw jack. This jack proved to be too weak. A hydraulic jack might have worked.

It was my job to observe the pattern of the key the wardens used. I noticed that the manufacturer of the lock was British, and concluded that the measurement will be in inches. The height, depth, and diameter of the ring at the top of the keyhole was carefully measured. A thirty-secondth of an inch was deducted from these measurements and the width, height, and the diameter of the barrel of the key was obtained. Bra Jeff was thus able to grind the basic blank key from these dimensions. He did this very expertly since the only grinding tools he had in his blacksmith shop in the quarry were a grinding wheel and a whetstone.

This basic key was brought in twice to get a good fit. Once this was complete the key came in with a small supply of fat. Late in the night Anthony Suze and myself lit the fat and the blank key was held in the smoke until well blackened. This blackened key was then carefully inserted into the lock, strongly twisted and slowly withdrawn.  The first pattern of the key was formed onto the blackened blank and measured. The pattern was drawn on paper and taken to Bra Jeff. Bra Jeff then spent about two weeks grinding the first prototype of the key. The key was now brought back by Tony, expertly hidden in the search or tauza lines which all prisoners coming from the quarry must pass.

That night we once more put up our table next to the cell door pretending to study. Later when everybody was asleep we inserted the key into the lock. They key turned once lifting some tumblers. To unlock the door, the key must be turned twice and only a master key can do this. We now had a day key. Unfortunately we could not properly lock the cell door again. We spent that night desperately trying to re-lock our cell door. When morning came, the cell was still unlocked, and we saw the spectre of a period of starvation on spare diet in the solitary confinement cells which will inevitably follow discovery.

The day warder came and found the cell not properly locked. Instead of unlocking, he went straight to the head of the prison who came and inspected the lock and left. We were then let out and later that day we learnt that the night warder was charged for negligence.

The key was now taken to Bra Jeff for further refinement.

After about eight days the key came back but with it came a radio, which was acquired somewhere, with instruction that I must try and make it work so that we can get some very badly sought after news from the outside world. Unfortunately, and not known to us, this radio was missed and a massive search was on. We were totally surprised when the warders burst into our cell with shouts “hands against the wall!”

---
So close. And truly inspiring.

Skin and bones (South Africa, Day 13)

“The journey’s never long when freedom’s the destination.”

Today we went to Robben Island – infamous for the prison that held Nelson Mandela. Our guide through the prison was actually an ex-political prisoner. I couldn’t imagine the amount of PTSD he must face four times a day, as he recounts his story for each group, taking them to his own cell block, describing the horrifying punishments that were doled out, the inhuman conditions he lived in.

Yet, even amidst the grim stories of oppression, there were glimmers of hope. He told us how the prisoners created a system to pass along information – they would have discussions while covering the intercoms the blankets to muffle their conversations that were always being spied on. Then, they’d play fake games of tennis just so they could send balls sailing into different cell blocks. You see, this was their means of communicating with each other; those innocuous seeming balls were cut open and filled with scraps of paper containing information.

And so thusly, they kept the revolutionary spirit alive. Even as they were forced to carry buckets full of their excrement around, including mealtimes. Even as they were forced to work in the limestone quarries that damaged their eyes. Even as they were stripped of their names and referred to only by their inmate number.

There was hope as Japhta Massernola crafted a master key – guaranteed to open any lock in the prison. There was hope as Nelson Mandela wrote his memoir “The Long Road to Freedom” and successfully smuggled out a copy even as he was beaten and punished when the original was found. There was hope of a better tomorrow, and that is what kept them going, as clichéd as that might sound.

Colder weather (South Africa, Day 10)

Tea at Mount Nelson Hotel

From left: Markus, me, Jean, Gelia, Ami, Mark

Hey baby (South Africa, Day 9)

The boy smiled toothlessly at me, running around the exam room, asking me repeatedly “what’s this? what’s that?” at various doctor things, and even drinking my leftover coffee. His mother gave me his history amidst our games of hide and seek. Yes, he was very good about taking his medicines. No more seizures. No spitting up the drugs. He hadn’t been sick this month. No contacts with a cough or TB. Everything was good.

I then pulled out my stethoscope to start his physical exam, and upon seeing it, he immediately jumped up onto the exam table and lifted up his shirt so that I would have easy access to his heart and lungs, but also to show me that his umbilical hernia was still easily reducible, as he poked at it with his finger.
                                     .

He was on a new regimen of HAART though, so I suggested that we do some bloodwork to see if his viral load was going down. My attending agreed, and we led him to the phlebotomy room. After unceremoniously kicking his mother out the door (because we all know the moms cry more than the patients), we sat him on the table and put on a tourniquet to see which vein we should draw from. My attending felt one and dived in.

The boy started crying immediately. I was sitting on the table holding him hostage, and I could feel his hot tears on my hands and arms, as he looked at me accusingly. I was supposed to be his friend. Hadn’t I just been playing with him in the exam room? And now, here I was, sticking him with needles, refusing to let him go.

My attending kept repositioning the needle, trying to find that flash of blood, as his cries got louder and louder. No good. She pulled out the needle, and he immediately tried to jump off the table to get to freedom. But still I held him.

His mom came back into the room, promising that she wouldn’t cry or complain. He reached for her, and instead of picking him up, as he expected and most definitely wanted, she took his other arm, and held it out to my attending. We looked in vain again for a different vein, but no dice. We were going to have to do an arterial stick.

My attending wiped down his wrist with alcohol wipes, and once she pulled out the needle, the boy started screaming and writhing in my grasp. No no no, he didn’t want it. Now his mother was holding him, I was holding him, and Jean was also holding him down.

He couldn’t get away from us. So, instead, he pulled his wrist to his mouth and licked his wrist, his angry eyes defying us to try to re-alcohol swab the area. But re-alcohol swab we did. And we got his blood. The moment he was free, he jumped into his mother’s arms, refusing to look at us, even as we tried to apologize with sheets of stickers and lollipops.

I have never felt so guilty of betraying a small child’s trust. But I have to give him credit – licking the needlestick spot? Pretty ingenious. 

No curtain call (South Africa, Day 8)

Yes, that's Table Mountain in the background. So gorgeous!

Oof, I woke up this morning hurting all over. It hurt to sit, it hurt to stand, it hurt to turn over. It hurt to do anything. I was so sore. I am clearly made of lard, and very out of shape. I might not be hiking Table Mountain anytime soon.

So while Ami, Jean, and Gelia (yes, she went again!) hiked up Lion’s Head in the morning, I sat in my new room and quite happily observed the Lord’s day of rest. Because honestly, I could barely move. My muscles ached like crazy and I swear I had coca cola urine. And my new unit is air-conditioned! Who would want to leave?

So after the girls got back from successfully climbing up and down the mountain, they all took a nap, and then we headed out to Kirstenbosch, home to the gorgeous Botanical Gardens, and the venue for the aKing concert. Think Hollywood Bowl but with far prettier mountains and flowers as the background scenery.

I had never heard of aKing before, but they’re a South African rock band, who look like the Counting Crows and sound like Lifehouse/Nickelback/any other soft rock band you can think of. Although, I must admit that I thought they were singing in Afrikaans for half the concert, before I finally recognized a phrase and realized that no, all of their songs are in English.

I ended up buying one of their CDs as a souvenir, and as luck would have it, the concert ended right about then, with the announcement that the band would be coming over to the stand where I was in 10 minutes to sign memorabilia. And as hoards of fangirls rushed towards us, Jean grabbed my hand and dragged me over to the line, and thus is the story of how we became one of the first fangirls to meet and take pictures with aKing.

There’s a certain charm to rock stars, eh? I swear I almost fainted from pure giddiness when he shook my hand and asked for my name in that sexy Afrikaans voice of his.

aKing fangirl for life!

No woman no cry (South Africa, Day 7b)

GELIA

So after the beach, let's go to Lion's Head and we can have a nice dinner with wine!

ME

Oooh, sounds good! Let's do it.

JEAN

Ummmmm. Wait....

AMI

Yeah! Let's go!

I thought it was a pub. Seriously. I swear there's a bar in Chicago called Lion's Head or something, and that's automatically what my mind went to. Because when you think nice dinner with wine, you think of a bar or a restaurant or a lounge where you can hang out with your newfound international friends. So I agreed readily. And I was dressed for a pub. Cute top, white skirt, black sandals.

So then we started driving, and we ended up at the entrance to a trail leading up a giant rocky mountain. Were we lost? Jean looked at us, "it's a hike, guys. Ahhhh!! I thought you knew!!!" Ami and I had made the same mistake. We thought Lion's Head was just the name of a restaurant district or something along those lines. But no, Lion's Head is one of the mountains in Cape Town, and now, we weren't going to get dinner unless we hiked up to the summit.

How bad could it be, really? We're med students! We're trained to say yes automatically to all challenges. The first day Dr. Meanie Bikini told me to close a wound, I didn't even flinch. I just said okay, and started slowly and painfully mucking my way through it as she shouted insults about my terrible technique at me. But I digress - this is not a post about my terrible surgical rotation.

So we agreed to this hike. And we buddied up. Ava and Tanya - the two German athletes took the lead. Then me and Gelia. Then Ami and Jean. And before we knew it, Ava and Tanya were out of sight. And with them, our picnic dinner and wine. Gelia and I made our way up the mountain, turning to look back at Ami and Jean - both of whom were wearing flip flops. They stopped to rest, and Gelia and I continued upwards.  

Ten minutes later, I got a phone call from Jean. She and Ami weren't wearing the right shoes, so they'd be going at a slower pace. But we'd meet at the top!

Photo straight from camera - amazing, right?

So Gelia and I kept going, and all of a sudden, there were ladders and chain ropes and required rock climbing. Gelia scampered up and offered me her hand, and I took it, all the time wishing I didn't have to use one hand to hold my white skirt in a way so that I wasn't flashing my undies to the entire Cape Town population. After all, climbing up mountains is probably easier (and safer) with both hands.

Right about then, Jean gave me another call. She and Ami were turning around. I would have loved to go home too. After all, skirts and sandals are not appropriate for scaling tall mountains. But if I turned around, that would have left Gelia by herself with no one to spot her. Not that I was necessarily a good partner, but hey, at least I've got a sparkling personality, right? Sure, I might fall off the mountain, but at least I don't desert friends.

So upwards and onwards. And I still have no idea how we did it, but we did. We reached the top. And the views were absolutely breathtaking. 

I swear I suffered from rhabdo for the next three days. But it was worth it, to be able to tell people that I scaled Lion's Head in a skirt and sandals. I am woman, hear me roar.

Post-script: Jean and Ami went back the next morning and successfully made it to the top as well. And came home with far better pictures than I managed. Hey Leonardo, you might want to reconsider your claim as 'the king of the world.'

My life would suck without you (South Africa, Day 7a)

Ami arrived! And now our Northwestern trifecta is complete.

Today was action packed. First we went to Old Biscuit Mill Market, which is not your mother's swap meet. Basically, all the artists and artisans of Cape Town get together on Saturday and sell their wares under a giant tent. And then under a different tent, farmers and chefs sell the most delicious looking foodstuffs. It was amazing, I spent way too much money, and I ate too much food.

So then we grabbed our lunch to go -- ostrich burger, naturally, I swear ostrich is becoming my meat of choice these days -- and headed for the beach!

But unfortunately, while the German girls stripped down without any qualms, we all-American girls were a bit more conservative and kept our clothes on, and just enjoyed the surfing competition going on.

Red red wine (South Africa, Day 6)

Yes, I was double-fisting wine, but I deserved it. Really.

Per our schedule, Jean and I go off campus every Friday to a community clinic a little outside of Tygerberg. It's part of a township, and apparently that's where our Hope project sees our pediatric patients. Anyhow, since this was our first time driving to the place, we met up with our attending that morning so that we could follow her.

And about two turns before our clinic, our attending - rushing to get there on time because we had a full roster of patients to see that day - turned right on a yellow, and crashed into a car running the red light.

Thankfully, only her car bumper was damaged, and everyone was safe. But we then proceeded to wait on the edge of this township for police to come investigate the accident and for the tow truck to take her car. And Jean and I stood around her, in our crisp long-sleeved white coats in the searing African sun, and tried to look as intimidating as possible to ward off carjackers and rapists. And hey, it must have worked, because we only had to glare at five or so men that approached us with offers to help, if we would only give them our phone number. Right.

So after that was all sorted out, we finally got to clinic, two and a half hours late, where we proceeded to see the entire day's clinic in two hours. High five for Northwestern efficiency! It also helps that all of our primary care clinics are triple-booked. Seeing patients in five minutes? No problem. Different language? Makes history taking even easier!

After that rather stressful morning, Jean and I met up with the Canadian boys and took off for wine country, Stellenbosch -- just twenty minutes east of us, and quite the scenic road trip at that. Now, I'm not usually a drinker, but that was definitely one sweet reward.