later during the day during the clinic, a man walked in and i found out he was of bushman descent, or the san people.
these people are the actual native natives of south africa who've been here thousands of years. wikipedia even says that "Genetic evidence suggests the Bushmen's ancestors predate the genetic changes of the rest of the human population", which pretty much makes them like. everyone's ancestors.
anyway, she told me that not all once-in-a-lifetime experiences were activities to do or things to see. sometimes, they were people you met and the interactions you had with them. the san people are slowly being phased out as technology increases and modernization of africa occurs. she described their culture as being goofy, and all about laughter--bonding came from poking fun at each other and sorts. indeed, this guy was about 50-60 and was a cute little old guy who had this goofy grin on this whole time and cracking jokes in afrikaans, even though he had HIV.
dr. zeier told me i should remember this man forever because i would most probably never have a chance to meet another bushman ever again.
that stuck with me. and it will forever.
god that was so cheesy. i hate myself haha
as the day went on, i saw other interesting patients.
one man survived a stroke, and sure enough, had the left side of his body paralyzed. but he was still an alcoholic and was non-compliant in taking his ARV's...which really aggravated his wife and doctors. i don't understand why you would opt to skip out on your anti-HIV drugs when it's been made perfectly clear that if you miss even ONE dose, your chances of survival and drug efficacy drop exponentially.
another thing about the ARV's...the consensus method of treatment for HIV around the world nowadays is something called HAART, or highly-active anti-retroviral therapy. it's basically using a combination of 3 drugs at once in hopes of suppressing the viral load to undetectable levels. the virus can never be completely extinguished. at this point, the only surviving viruses are dormant and incorporated into the host genomes. once a patient misses a dose though, the drugs inhibiting reverse transcriptase, invertase and proteases will fail and the virus will mutate and become resistant. thus, new drugs are required...but already, the virus is much stronger. this is why it's so important to never miss a dose.
but the highlight of my day came from a mother infected w/ HIV who came in with her 2-yr old daughter, also infected w/ HIV. the virus was passed during the third trimester of her pregnancy b/c the mom had been non-compliant w/ her drug taking. thus, the doctors had been angry with her because had the mother taken every dose, the child would most likely not have HIV. but just today they had found a temporal lobe lesion, which gave the mother epileptic episodes. [epilepsy isn't what you think it is normally...not really that spastic stuff in reaction to flashing lights and whatnot, although that does occur. i saw a case of that in the dominican republic] but her form of focal epilepsy caused her to have strange, uncharacteristic personalities and she sometimes wouldn't recognize her daughter.
this led the doctors to believe that the mother had forgotten to take the drugs because of these epileptic episodes...which unfortunately, are extremely hard to detect even w/ imaging techniques. thus, they apologized for blaming her directly for the child's HIV.
but this little girl, as SOOON as she walked in and saw me, stopped crying and ran screaming into my leg and hugged it. i was a little shocked but it was so cute. she'd keep trying to hug me and she was rummaging through my bag as she was on my lap and she found my mints. she knew there was candy inside, so she made me open it and she took like 5 mints and kept asking for more as her mom was being checked by the doctor. adorable. it was the most heartbreaking thing ever knowing that this 2-yr old cute girl was infected w/ HIV and would not live to be 40.
fuck AIDS man. HIV may be the next step in viral evolution...but we don't need this shit. fuck evolution in this case.
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anyway, on a chipper note, tuesday night i climbed lion's head, which is the second tallest mountain in the western cape area [table mountain being the first]. it's 669 metres, or 2195ft high.

yay big pictures. i thought it would be a leisurely hike...and it was till about halfway up or so. you can see the trail curling around the mountain. but after that, the hike turned into a literal mountain climb. at times, there were vertical rock faces that we had to scale using nothing but chains they had left for us. and the rocks were wet from the rain the night before. reassuring. i slipped and almost fell to my death many many times. there were no fences or anything to keep you from falling.
anyway, we made it to the top in about an hour. it's actually not that tall, it just looks like it. but at the top, i got my first view of the entire cape town area and the atlantic ocean...and it was incredible. we watched the sunset and watched the lights of the city come on. absolutely incredible. the scenery beats anything i've seen in the US.
we climbed down after the sun had set...and realized it was pitch black and we only had flashlights on our cell phones to guide us down. imagine jumping down a wet, slippery mountain w/ nothing but a cell phone light to guide you. good times though.
later that night, we went to camp's bay for dinner. this is the richest area in cape town...like where all the celebrities and rich white ppl (also called schmirdles) live. these mansions situated oceanside were the most amazing homes i've ever seen...even beating out pebble beach in CA and whatnot. anyway, the value is INCREDIBLE b/c they're only about $750,000...my house in arizona costs more than that and is just a regular house. in california, that'll get you a nice small, medium-sized house im sure. and in manhattan, that'll get you a crappy apartment if you're lucky.
point is...if you're going to buy a house, just buy one on the beach in south africa :]
the real estate market is supposed to burst after the world cup though. i was reassured by a local real estate agent though that the prices would drop soon after the world cup ended. yesssssss
im going to come back and buy a house in the future.
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