Celebration!

My friends and I got together at my flat. We were celebrating two things. 1st- my friend's mom was visiting Cape Town from Lesotho. 2nd- it was Thanksgiving last Thursday. So I cooked and invited everyone over.

We had sooo much fun! Some of the pics are below!

Dragonboat Racing

About a month ago I took part in a Rotary fundraiser. The fundraiser was dragon boat racing. This is my second time dragonboat racing for Rotary. It's a lot of fun, but I never seem to make it on to the winning team! During my Rotary scholar orientation, my dragon boat team lost. And....the same goes for this most recent race!

Here's the funny part, of about 25 teams, we came in 2nd to last. the only boat that we beat got stuck in a sand dune! Maybe dragonboat racing just isn't our thing! Or...maybe we could use some more practice before races.

Anyway, the picture above is of me and Sifa. Sifa is a part of the Stellenbosch University Rotaract (rotary club for young adults), and I am part of one of the Cape Town Rotaracts. The other picture is of our team racing on the water.

Anyway, the way the fundraiser works is companies and organizations host a team by paying for each member of the team to be in a racing boat. The money paid for each team member goes towards charity. So it's a pretty good deal....we get to race, have fun, and even if we lose, it's not really a loss, because by simply competing in the race, we're supporting a charity.

PS. The pic below is of the whole team before a race (except for me.... the photographer). Unfortunately I had a little technical difficulty when uploading the pic!

The Cuban-South African Connection

Hello!

So I've finally finished all my final assignments for the semester! This weekend i'm going to just chill....ie. hang out with my girlfriends, watch Desparate Housewives (though we never really took a break from that), do my hair, and go salsa dancing. I think I deserve it after a busy semester.

Monday......it's back to business. Classwork is done, so now it's time for me to move on to my thesis research.

My thesis research is going to be on medicine in Cuba. Cuba is world renowned for medical care. Cuban docs travel the world, providing care in African, Asian, European, and Latin American countries. They even offered assistance to a North American country after a huge hurricanne that that destroyed a city and threatened the health and lives of millions of people. That country turned down the offer!

Within Cuba, they have one of the lowest HIV/AIDS rates worldwide, lowest infant morality rates, and health care is free! In comparison to many countries, (ie. the US) free health care is amazing.

So you might be wondering WHY I'd be researching Cuban medicine when I'm going to school in South Africa. Well THERE IS a connection. Cuba has a program that offers free medical school education to young people from "disadvantaged" backgrounds or from marginalized communities. The deal is that in return for FREE medical education, those students must go back and work in their own communities.

Cuba offers these scholarships to students all over the world. I personally know of students from South Africa, America, Zimbabwe, Columbia, and Nigeria, who are in med school in Cuba. (The pic at the right is of Honduran doctors who had trained in Cuba) Anyway, my thesis research is going to focus on the experience of South African students who attend medical school in Cuba. So that's what I'll be working on for the next several months.

Anyway, my friends, I have to go. But I'll be back to chat soon.

This is the ELAM, the Cuban medical school where scholarship recipients spend their 1st two ears of medical training.

Thanks!

I'm glad to see a few of my friends have joined my blog. Thanks! I'll be posting some more photos soon. But I'm going to take a hiatus for a few days. I'll be back on Thursday when I finish my last essay of the semester!

Robben Island

During my semester vaction, which was June-July, my friend Deidre came to visit me. She is a medical student in North Carolina, but was doing her summer research and visiting family in Ghana. So since we were on the same continent, she decided to travel to South Africa to visit me.

We had a great time during her visit. We traveled to Cape Town's major tourist destinations.

Robben Island is one of the places that we went to. It is an island off the coast of Cape Town. This island housed a prison where many political prisoners were sent during aparthied. Nelson Mandela, South Africa's first democratic president, and Robert Sobukwe, founder of the Pan African Congress were both imprisoned there.

Apartheid was a legal system in South Africa that segregated people based on race and color. The system favored the needs and rights of White people, followed by Colored and Asisan people, and lastly Black people. People like Nelson Mandela and Robert Sobukwe fought this injustice.

The picture that I've posted from Robben Island is of the prison's food menu. The menu shows the differences between the food that prisoners received. Asiatic and colored prisoners, neither of whom are considered Black, received one food diet. "Bantu" prisoners, who are consdiered Black, received a different food diet. You might notice from the picture that the Asiatic/Coloured menu has larger food portions than the "Bantu" menu. I think this demonstrates the extent to which apartheid influenced institutions in South Africa. For even in a prison, a distinction was made between people because of the color of their skin.

It's improtant to keep in mind that racism and segregation was not exclusive to South Africa. In the United States, Jim Crow laws in the South allowed for a segregation system very similar to South Africa's apartheid system. In Germany, discrimation towards Jews was allowed.

Injustice is a worldwide problem. Being able to tour Robben Island and see things like the food menu helps us to remember the past and hope that in the future the same unjust actions aren't repeated.

Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar Orientation - Part I

In February (2009) Rotary of Southern Africa hosted an orientation for all the Rotary Scholars who are either studying in Southern Africa or who live in Southern Africa, but will be serving as Rotary Scholars in other countries. It was a great weekend!

There were over 20 Rotary Ambassadorial Scholars representing USA, South Africa, Uganda, Canada, and Japan.

Each of us had already or would soon be leaving our own countries to study and live in another country. Some of the countries include South Africa, Botswana, Mozambique, Canada, and Norway.

In this picture, we are "dragon boat racing." We were divided into two teams and raced dragon boats in an isolated part of a bay in Cape Town. And yes..... that's me with the scarf on. Unfortunately, after 3 races, my team still couldn't manage to win a race!

Overall, the orientation was amazing! Besides boat racing, we also toured Cape Town, did some team building activities, and learned a lot about the service activities that Rotary clubs in Cape Town are committed to. In the next blog I'll share more pictures from the orientation.

Welcome to My Blog!

Hi Everyone!

Welcome to my blog!

I want to share with you what my experience is like living in Cape Town.

For those who don't know, I'm spending a year in Cape Town as a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar. My job as a Rotary Scholar is to be a representative of my country (USA) and promote Rotary ideals of Goodwill and World Peace. That sounds like a big task right? Well, I think it's actually quite simple. I believe that goodwill is promoted through community sevice and world peace can be promoted through cross cultural relationships and communication. So all my activities in Cape Town revolve around building relationships, learning/teaching, and communication.


While I'm in Cape Town, I'm studying Medical Anthropology at a South African university, spending time with my host Rotary Club, making friends from around the world, doing service work, and basically just living life. So everyday, I have plenty of opportunities to be an ambassador for my country and build relationships.

I'm going to use this blog to share my experiences as a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar with you. I hope you enjoy learning about the life of one young woman in Cape Town, South Africa.