Carl waiting to make a decision

Today brings an end of our first week of real work, concluding with 6 hours of class; all of it very interesting and captivating. In Vincent’s class we did roughly 300 years of history in 3 hours, and we learned all about what led up to the Apartheid and stopped with 1990. Then in Vernon’s class we spent our time discussing our orientation. I thought the lay out of the orientation was designed with many thoughts in mind. First, I felt that we tried to get all the touristy things out of the way so that we weren’t urging to do them while we were at the District 6 Museum or in the townships. Then another thought I had was that we were doing it so that we could see all the amazing places in Cape Town and all the million dollar homes, and then have the shock of driving into Langa or Khayelitsha and seeing where the people that were pushed out of Cape Town during the Apartheid lived. I feel like doing orientation in this way made people appreciate visiting the townships so much more. Then Vernon also asked us about what we thought of the church service that we went to and a few other things, which I care not to comment on. Then he finished class telling a story of how he got to where he is today, and it was something a lot of us needed to listen to. The story was that he was placed in an internship where they had no work for him to do. So he branched out at the internship, and through a series of connections he ended up going to divinity school at Duke and eventually come here. I know there are a handful of people, including me, that weren’t happy with their internship after the first week, but maybe we just need to give it some more time.

My internship at Maitland Cottage Hospital is definitely not what I expected it to be. I expected to be in surgery once or twice a week and then spending the remainder of the day there helping out with physiotherapy. What it is turning out to be, however, is we are spending the majority of our time there just playing with all the kids. Its not that we are avoiding the work, but there is simply very little to do. Zara, the physiotherapist, also told us that it probably will get busier, but we won’t have much of a chance to do much hands on since we don’t have any college degree. So basically we will be observing most of the time.  Since there won't be very many opportunities for us at Maitland Cottage I am feeling a little iffy about it. I have worked at a summer camp so I do have experience working with kids, but I can only do it for so long. Even though playing with the kids is great and making them happy, I am only really helping them short term. I want to have more of an impact by helping them with their physio so they enjoy the long term. Then, of course, I want to learn more about physiotherapy since it goes along with my major. But after listening to Vernon’s story today I decided I will give it another week before I made a decision about the internship.

Another thing I wanted to mention was about the kids at Maitland Cottage. They are all so cute and glistening with joy even though a lot of them can barely walk and some can’t even get out of bed. It is kind of inspiring to see them like that because I kind of feel like I am in a prison when I walk down the windowless corridor leading to the wards and see the kids trapped in their beds. Then, what determines your sentence is how healthy the doctor thinks you are.