Mariko enjoying what the city has to offer

Mariko & Eric at Muizenberg Beach

Considering I’ve been dwelling on a lot of social issues in my blog posts, I figured I would start off by saying I’ve also spent a lot of the time here in Cape Town light heartedly enjoying all the city has to offer. Last weekend was our first free weekend since orientation, and I really hope it set the standard for all the weekends to come because everyday was memorable. We started off on Friday by heading to Muizenberg to take a surf lesson and an excessive amount of pictures on the colorful beach huts.  Despite being warned that the waters were too murky for the shark spotters to accurately predict if we were at risk of becoming shark bait that day, we all fully enjoyed our two hours spent making fools of ourselves while trying to catch some waves. Another major plus of that day was finding a really cute cafe that served amazing hamburgers, which seems to be the common craving amongst the group.

Saturday was supposed to be just as exciting because we bought tickets for our first UCT hosted event, Big Bash. To make a long story short, Uber drivers don’t always know where they’re going and we didn’t end up making it to the concert. Luckily, that just meant we had a free night to rest up for a morning hike on Table Mountain. Despite the looming clouds and 30 mph winds in the AM, we were confident that our group of nine Americans could brave the conditions to celebrate Eric’s 20th birthday at the peak. Unfortunately, the park ranger wasn’t so confident in us and told us to turn around before we even stepped foot on the trail. Somehow, Lion’s Head, the adjacent mountain, has its own sub climate and offered a good alternative hike. One thing I can say for sure is that I am never going to get tired of the views here. Our festivities continued into the night with dinner at the Water Front, where Mteto surprised Eric with an opera version of Happy Birthday. All in all, the weekend was a major success, making the transition into the work week somewhat difficult on Monday morning.

             

The nature of our work at Sarah Fox hasn’t changed much, but it does get more challenging to handle as I grow more attached to the kids, all while finding out more about their background stories. We got to attend our first general meeting on Tuesday, during which the ward nurses, matron, social workers and doctor discuss a select number of patients. To my surprise, the medical aspect of each case remained on the backburner while the social concerns took the spotlight. I initially anticipated that medication, equipment, and professional staff shortages would present as the main obstacles facing the hospital, but that doesn’t appear to be the major concern. The biggest problem is not being able to send kids home to their families, despite many of them being ready for discharge. Most families either fail to cooperate with external social workers, are out of contact completely or live in conditions unfit for any child, never mind one dealing with a sickness. Every case seemed hopeless in that regard and I struggled to remain optimistic while witnessing the very obvious sense of defeat amongst the other workers. I’ll just have to wait until Monday to see which patients do end up finding a place to call home. In the meantime, I’m eager to see what the Human Rights Weekend has in store for us.