my (rugless) southern home

some pictures...

here are some pictures from the last week. the scenic ones are of the golf course behind the fenwick's house, and some photos from our scenic drive. the others are of the paramedic, michael, and a case we went on where a little boy had a fractured femur.

i'll be home in 3 days...

this is the first time i've been able to access the internet in almost a week... and what a week it has been...
i spent the weekend being wined and dined with the fenwicks in sommerset west. i had a great time but it was interesting to come back home and to really feel the difference between white south africans and the people of color. it's weird, i think i feel more comfortable in the setting of my homestay, which is in a predominately coloured area...
i have learned so much, it's hard to know where to begin to explain. i've spent the past 3 days, from 7am to 7pm, riding along with a paramedic named michael. i want to acknowledge him seperately from everyone else for being the person i have without a doubt learned the most from while being here. above and beyond any doctor or nurse, he has gone out of his way to explain the physiology behind each disease and it's corresponding treatment--and his knowledge base it so extensive... but perhaps even more than that, he has proven to be one of the most compassionate and truly kind people i have ever met. yesterday i saw (for the first time in my life) a head on collision where two people were dead on arrival, and i think that had i been in the company of anyone else, it may have really scarred me. he could tell that i wasn't exactly ok despite my repeated attempts to tell him i was, and finally, when we were back at base he took the time, again, to ask if i was ok (because he knew that i wasn't), and when i fell apart crying he reassured me that my reaction was exactly how i should feel, and that it means i am a good person and will be a compassionate healthcare provider. i guess the best way to describe him is that he's one of those people who can tell what you're thinking even if you're trying your hardest to disguise it, and can hit you at the exact right moment to make you just drop the borders you build around yourself and let go...
i feel like a different person since i've been here. my views on healthcare have definately evolved, as i've realized that you can treat illness with the greatest technology in the world or with the least amount of resources, and your results will be the same unless you treat the underlying cause of disease, which in this case, is poverty. it seems so depressing to give someone a treatment you know will cure them for the time being, and then to send them back to their homes, the one thing you can't change, that will almost certainly cause the reinfection... dirty water, overcrowding, insufficient housing, crime, and unemployment are just as important if not more than genetics, age, gender, diet, and exercise... which is what we are taught to be the contributing factors of disease states.........

more weekend...