lesotho

This is long… you might have to read it in shifts

Apologies to anyone my parents called this past weekend. Last weekend I told them I was going to Lesotho and I got nothing back but yelling about how I don’t listen to anyone, I can’t stay in one place, I’m going to get kidnapped one day, and if anything happens to me no one is coming to help. So when I left for my trip this past weekend I didn’t feel like reminding them. Apparently they either forgot or chose to believe I would listen to them and not go. What made matters worse was my mom called my South African phone number and thought she heard a man’s voice, someone being beaten, and then some moaning. So she panicked. My brother called the International Police and tried to reach Scotland Yard (the queen's police). My sister thought the voices and moaning was me in bed with someone and that I wasn’t calling back out of shame. My father just screamed at home. And my poor mother called all my friends and the UTMB faculty sponsoring me (so embarrassing!).

Camping in the mountains of Lesotho means going off the grid. There are no cell phones. I had to drive about 2 hours into South Africa to even get any signal. Again sorry to anyone that was worried. The funniest part about all this is that I actually came close to death a couple of times on this “holiday.”

Our Group:
Myself, my Russian roommate, her German friend, the German friend brought another South African friend, who brought another friend, and then an American. Total 6 (3 boys, 3 girls); we met another lesbian couple from the States there and now we were 8.
Pony Treking:
Completely misleading, because first of all they were horses not ponies and second of all this was a treacherous long long (7 hour) hike. There are certain places people would not be able to walk (because of height, distance, etc) so the reasoning is since we cannot walk here we should get on horses and have them walk through these places. Most of the trek was either going up or down steep and slippery mountains. The horses sometimes lost their footing and would slip. My horse (Sea Biscuit) made me proud and I learned to trust him. At one point I was on ledge about a meter wide and really high… ON A HORSE. This wasn’t the scariest part. The plan is we have a guide at the beginning of the line and each horse follows the horse in front , and then we have another guide behind us. 3 hours into the hike, Sea Biscuit decided he didn’t want to follow the others. He just headed out of the line, fast, down the side of the mountain. All I see in front of me is rocks straight down, and I start screaming “Oh my God, please help me please help me.” The group just stops and stares in awe and are afraid for me. The guides do not follow because they know that putting their lives in danger is of no use now, so they just yell “lean back, lean back, and don’t fall off.” I held on to that saddle like my life depended on it (which it did) and just screamed. If I die, it was not going to be because I fell off Sea Biscuit, but because the both of us fell of the side of the mountain together. We find our way back to the trail and the guides say “you have a stupid horse.”

Mountain Climbing (7.5 hrs)
(back story… I spent a month in the jungle in Belize the summer before medical school on an archeology dig. Over that month I learned I was not meant for the outdoors and life was really hard for me. The disappointing thing about my personality is I cannot be miserable alone. By the end of the month I was the most hated person at our archeology camp and tried to get one of the camp directors fired.)
This excursion brought back a lot of those memories.
First: I didn’t know how far, how high, and definitely how dangerous this hike was going to be. I was just told that it was going to be 6 hours long and my biggest worry was that I would have some exercise induced itching (this is a chronic ailment that I try to deal with silently). The group chose some guy from the nearby village who is not registered with our lodge, because he apparently does “great hikes.”
Second: when you are with a group of outdoors people you have to keep up or they get pissed. Do not try to retaliate when they do!
About 30 minutes into the hike someone slips and our guide stops all of us and says “take your time, go slow, and I do not want anyone falling.” I chose to take this warning very seriously, but did not realize until hours later than when he says “falling” he doesn’t mean tripping on some rock, he meant falling off the side of the mountain. We continue and I’m dead last. There isn’t any real danger for the first couple of hours, just a really steep high climb with maybe one break an hour. The lack of oxygen in the air, plus the extra weight I put on, plus me just sitting on my ass for the past 5 weeks made everything much harder. I was slowing down the group. At one of breaks the guide suggests we not go to the summit of the mountain because this looks like it’s hard for the ladies. The ladies in our group are hippies, lesbians, and me. They get angry that he said that because they were doing fine. I out of breath raised my hand and said “this is very hard for this lady.” I felt bad for slowing them down and said that I could make it to the summit, after all it looked like I was already over half way there. Then they let me know that I’ve been looking at the wrong summit. I was not over halfway there, I was maybe one eight of the way up. These fools were trying to reach heaven. I start getting angry and pouty and say
“that’s too high. Why do you want to go there? There is a peak right here, we can get good pictures there too.”
We continue. At the next break, someone says he wants to get a consensus on how everyone is feeling. He doesn’t want any of us to feel like we don’t have a voice and are being forced and have no choice. At this point I feel like my lungs are going to explode. The guide tells the whole group that he doesn’t think I’m going to make it and he wont be taking us to the top. This gets the others all stirred up and one of them suggests that I get left behind and they would come get me on the way back down (like 4 hours later). After I realize no one was going to defend me I yell, “you’re so stupid. No one is going to get left behind. You never leave anyone behind.” The guide lets them know that we wont be able to come back down this way, so either I go up with them, or he takes all of us down another way. Pretty much I couldn’t be left behind at that spot. I now realize I have some power and start making demands.
Me: “I will continue, but I need more breaks.”
Someone else: “we have a schedule and don’t want to get up there in good time”
Me: “taking a few more breaks might cost you an extra couple of hours. That’s still plenty of daylight”
Someone else: “2 hours is a long time”
Me: “well then, I can just faint here and then none of you will be able to get to the top and you’ll have to carry me down.”
Someone else: “no one is carrying you.”
Me: “then you’ll have to use all of your water trying to revive me”
Someone else: “we’ll take breaks, let’s just continue.”
So we do. And now I feel like it’s me against 8. I can do me against 8 in the city but not on the side of a mountain. I continue to struggle up and the others are barely in sight. I pretty much spent an hour climbing that thing by myself with rare glimpses at the rest of the group way ahead of me. Up until then the problem had just been my lack of endurance. Around lunch time fear sets in.
We are now walking along the side of the mountain and not up. There is a small ledge and a steep incline below me. I hug the side of the mountain with my hands holding on to rocks above me and trying not to look down because I can’t even see the bottom. A rock slips out from under me and carries all my confidence with it down to the bottom. My biggest fear right now is I am going to fall down to my death and there wont be anyone around. I swallow some pride and yell out “I’m really scared.” I don’t get a response. I’m regretting being such a bitch to the group. Fear, regret, loneliness, and hopelessness take over. I realize that I am moments from crying. My plan is just have a short good cry, get over it, and then move on. The sound I made was shocking and could only be described as a wail. I was even surprised at the volume and octave I was reaching. Then my right arm began shaking uncontrollably. I’d never seen this before (not even in the hospital). My right elbow was swinging around 6 inches in each direction at full speed. Knowing that I now only had my left arm to keep me stable, I felt paralyzed and all I wanted to do was be back home in my parent’s bed.
The group hears me crying and the guide has all of them stop. He and a couple of the guys climb back towards me and see that I’m plastered to rocks and now I’m shaking all over. The guide climbs to the ledge below me and says that I’m not going to fall. The other two get on either side of me and try to calm me down. I can hear him telling them that he doesn’t know how I’m going to make it to across this ledge like this. Even though I was too scared to move, I knew that the only way I’d ever see my parent’s bed again was to get across that ledge. So I did.
They get me to the rest of the group slowly and everyone is waiting. They decided that we are going to stop for lunch so that I could calm down and get some rest. I sit there for the entire lunch still shaking and crying shamelessly. They offer me pieces of cheese and put some peanut butter on bread for me, but I refuse all the food. My throat felt shut. Well… I accepted a boiled egg. I really love boiled eggs.
After lunch they tell me that the safest way is actually to the summit and then down the other side. But now I will be flanked by the group with the guide at my side the entire time. He even gave me his stick. I inch along (which means the entire group now inches along) and every time I slip I start crying.
Are you getting an image of how humiliating this entire experience was?
We make it to the summit and they all tell me how proud they are of me and I didn’t say anything. They take pictures and I don’t. There is a group picture with everyone facing it and my back to the camera. Maybe it will surface on facebook one day.
Going down the mountain was far easier and faster. I fell several times, but none of these falls had the potential for death, just some minor scrapes.
We have a long walk back to camp and they tell me that they know that being alone must have made that experience so much worse and that I should be proud and bullshit bullshit bullshit. When we get back to camp I look back and the mountain and could not believe what I’d done. This morning, they asked me again whether I can look back on the experience with some pride. I really can’t. It all seemed just really foolish and dangerous. I will never do that again, and if I had known what I was getting into I would have never done it in the first place.
Lesson’s learned:
I should have paid more attention to what I was getting myself into
I shouldn’t have let my anger and frustration get the better of me.
I was not the victim and should have been more humble; when it’s one against a group more often than not the group is probably in the right.
I knew I couldn’t do this alone and regardless of whether I agreed or disagreed with the rest I was in too vulnerable a position to act the way I did
I’m actually kind of proud for getting to the top

I’m back in Pretoria and today is my farewell party at work and then tonight with the friends I’ve made here. I cant wait to get back home and see all of you.

by the way... how awesome would it have been if the queen sent her police to get me off the side of that mountain?

updates

Things are starting to come to an end here. I’ll be in Chicago in less than a week. I’m very ready to head back to the states, but I will miss the people I’ve met here. I really have formed some of the warmest friendships in this past month.

Tomorrow I’m heading to Lesotho (a little mountainous country surrounded by South Africa). My buddies let me know yesterday that we’ll be camping! How much do I hate camping? A LOT. I won’t even camp in America, let alone poverty and AIDS stricken Lesotho. But I said I was really excited and that’s that.

I guess I should disclose what I’ve actually done here work wise. I was supposed to spend my time with one of the health directors. The first day he took me to a meeting. Then he decided that it would be best for me to spend a week in each of his departments (TB, HIV, Malaria, etc). That never really happened because people were always busy so I’ve spent my entire time with the Malaria group. I of course have some blame in this, because my 2 week vacation in Cape Town dampened some of the plans.

So this is my day:
I wake up at around 6:30am (half my bedroom is a moon roof so I get up with the sun)
I then have breakfast, chat with my roommates, the maid, or the gardener
Spend some time watching music videos
Take a shower and get dressed
At about 9 I head out the door and walk for about 5 mins to the mini-buses.
I get to work at about 9:30. I gossip and discuss South Africa’s shitty issues with my co-workers, and attend some meetings until lunch time.
After lunch I head to another office and gossip and discuss South Africa’s shitty issues with other co-workers, and attend some meetings.
I really enjoy the meetings because I’m getting to see health policy decisions made from the very very very top. They always ask my opinion, and I usually respond with a question.
Around 4 in the afternoon I’m done talking and I head back home.
When I get home I usually watch part of a Rugby, Cricket, or Soccer game with one of the roommates. By 6 the house is full of people and we braai (bbq), play poker, watch music videos, talk, go out, whatever…then I go to bed

On the weekends: we’ve either had more braais, hang out at the pool, play poker, or go out

They ask me what I think of the place and I tell the truth and say “sometimes I love it and sometimes I can’t wait to leave.” They usually think it’s because I haven’t seen their South Africa. Today the Indian’s found out I was Indian and I’m heading to little India in about half an hour. I have to buy some spices anyway. Tonight I’m cooking for a large group of people. I hope no one gets diarrhoea (that’s the English spelling of diarrhea).

we met Jesus today

I just had the most bizarre afternoon of my life. First of all, you have to forgive me because I don’t have enough writing talent adequately describe the following events.

I woke up this morning with a phone call from my father. The main topic of conversation was that South Africa is dangerous and I am not to go into any of the townships (this is where blacks were confined during apartheid). I agreed, fully knowing that I would be attending church services at the township this afternoon.
My roommates (a Russian and German) invited me with them to a Zionist Church. The lady that cleans their office belongs to the church. You can google this if you’re more interested in the history. But pretty much it’s pretty huge all over Africa. We have to wear long skirts and have our heads covered. I thought I was appropriately dressed until I am told that I need something that buttons in the front and that I should go back into the car because the men shouldn’t see me. I eventually get a sweater and then head into the church with my roommates and the lady they know.

The hierarchal nature of this church is painfully obvious the minute you get there. There are hundreds of people sitting outside the church (men and women separate) and they are not allowed inside. You walk a bit further and then there are more important people. These people are also on the floor but get some shade. The most important people get to be indoors and they have specially uniforms. The men have green wannabe army outfits with police caps and the women have on highlighter yellow balloon arm shirts with green skirts. Overall there are about 1000 people on the premises. So we have about 2000 eyes on us. Being foreigners we are paraded around the church, our names announced, and we’re given first row seats INDOORS!!!! As they were leading us in I saw a white women sitting amongst all the black faces and thought she must also think this is strange.

The prophets:
The crowd is full of these prophets. Some are in the special uniform and some are in street clothes. At any given moment one of them will scream or cry or fall down. They come to whoever the hell they want to and clap in your face and then point at you. If they point at you, you have to follow them outside (men and women through separate exits). The first time we were called out we refused to go because we didn’t want to hear our fortunes. We were physically forced to go and out there we heard our fortunes in some native language. Once we were allowed back to our seats we decided that we would not let another prophet force us out. We were determined to stand our ground. Then another prophet comes and calls my roommates. They choose to stay seated. We then see the angry prophet barge into the church screaming “this is my church. You come out when I tell you!” My roomies get up and go out scared. About 20 minutes pass and I’m getting nervous because that’s about 15 minutes longer than the last time. The white lady is called up and the priest has her sit next to me. I find comfort in having her next to me. Then low and behold this woman is also a prophet! She starts making a noise with her throat, jumps up, claps, points at some other people, and then they follow her out. Right about now, I have lost my faith in everyone there and my roommates have been gone for too long. When they get back they said it was even freekier. Apparently this prophet was now Jesus and they had to go back to Germany and Russia and tell everyone that they saw they light there. We decide to leave immediately. The three of us get up and start down the long aisle, heading for the door with everyone watching us. At the door we are stopped and taken back to our seats. It was all really embarrassing. My new plan is not to make any eye contact because who knows who is a prophet. In the next two minutes a prophet comes to get me. This time the prophet leads us to another prophet: a man in his 50s, crying, screaming, and spitting. After kneeling down in front of his aggressive man for 10 mins, someone finally tells me what he’s saying. I am going to be receiving some stolen goods really soon. I should not take the goods because they will lead to trouble. There was also some special tea I’m supposed to drink.

After all this, we’ve had enough and decide that we’re going to leave and no one will stop us. We get to the parking lot (it’s not a lot, just red sand) and see that we can’t go anywhere. Our car is completely blocked in. There is not structure in the parking, people just parked everywhere. We chose to sit and wait in the car rather than go back inside.

in cape town

i've been in cape town for 2 days now and having the best time. i got here on thursday afternoon, after a 30 hour trip from pretoria. the train ride was long. i was in a 4 person sleeper compartment with a woman my mom's age from zimbabwe, her 87 year old grandmother, and another older lady from S. Africa. When they came into my compartment i was dissapointed because this didn't look like what i imagined the train ride would be. i thought i'd be with young backpackers, make lifelong friends on the train, and so on. it turned out to be hilarious.

so the guy comes around with the cart and i order a beer. first of all, everyone here asks me if i have children and thinks i look older than 24. WTF!! i brush it off like it's a compliment, but we all know it's not. one of the ladies on the train asks how old i am and i say 24. She then says "oh for shame. but your body is so big." i say "yeah, i have a big body." we keep talking and once they find out that i'm a medical student they start telling me their health problems and stories about past doctors they've had. two stories stuck out...
"when i was 16-17 i went to the doctor and he said that i have a disease; the problem is my blood needs alcohol. he said if i don't drink alcohol in 2 to 3 years time i will be dead. i sit here today alive. i have never had alcohol and i am sitting here alive."
same lady, same doctor
"when i was 16-17 i went to the doctor because i was having headache and diarrhea. the doctor told me that i have a disease; my womb needs a child. he said if i don't have a child, in 6 months time i'll be dead. i told him that i am not married and no one will tell me when i need a child. i had my children years later and i am sitting here alive."
i told her that the doctor was trying to get her drunk and have sex with her. that was probably too crass a thing for me to say because the reaction was hilarious. the women turned into giggling school girls and started telling me how bad i was.

i got to cape town in the afternoon. headed to greenpoint. greenpoint is the poshest neighborhood in cape town. my cousin (actually a very very very close family friend) is here in cape town on vacation and lives in the master suite of this mansion with the most incredible view. the house is on the side of the mountain and we wake up every morning to a view of cape town, the new stadium for the world cup, and the ocean. my sister arrived from the states later that evening.

background on my cousin: she's 10 days younger than me and has been to 3 times as many countries as me, has an apt in manhattan, lives in barcelona part time, just graduated from one of the top law schools in the US, starts working in the largest firm in the world... pretty much she's a bad ass, and she knows it.

a black woman with that ego can't be in s. africa for very long without shit going down. last night my sister, cousin, and i go out for a fabulous dinner and then head out on the town. we meet a drunken, fierce, woman in her 40s. my sister immediately estimated the worth of her entire outfit to be about $5000. she and her crew take us to another private party. times were fine, but we eventually get bored. that's when i see the black diamonds. Black diamonds are what you call wealthy black south africans. i see three young girls having fun, introduce myself and before i know it our two threesomes are now a sixsome and we head out to another place. we all pile out of their car in a parking garage at the next venue and a white guy sees 6 black girls in a very expensive car and says "hope you guys didn't steal that car." the black diamonds are so used to this that they just brush it off... but hell no. my cousin is not okay with brushing that off. this was monumental.

she went up to his window.
he laughed "are you from zimbabwe?" (i don't know if that was supposed to be in insult)
"no you asshole! i'm american! i'm a lawyer in america. i can pay your salary. you're sitting her in a c-class. do you know what an effing c-class is?" it went on...
the funniest part was the guards (who were black of course) turned their backs as she berated this man, and would not lift the gate to let his car out. he and his company had to sit there and take it.

that's life in cape town so far. the black diamonds are coming to pick us up soon and we have a braai (bbq) with the fierce older woman from last night tomorrow. we heading out for a safari this week...