Went to the clinical tonight in a township called Masiphumelele. These townships, also called shandys, are past the mountains where the Afrikaans live. Each family (or two or three) have these tiny little shacks made out of metal and random pieces that they find. I was going to add a picture but the internet here takes forever and that would cost a lot of usage. Not worth it. Think of a junk yard basically. About five “houses” all share one outdoor toilet. No showers. If they need medical attention (which is free) they can go to these clinics and wait hours after hours to get seen by the staff. All of the staff is medical student volunteers and one volunteer physician. We got a short tour of the place. The pharmacy consisted of four bins in one of the back rooms. All of the posters around the place were about AIDS or TB. We got to sit in on one of the rooms and for one of the groups, the doctor welcomed them then looked at the patient and said, “I have bad news for you- your HIV test came back positive”. I walked out of the room I was in and 30 seconds later heard that. I could never imagine hearing the news that I have a chronic illness and here it’s like hearing you have strep throat. In South Africa, especially in these townships, AIDS is hardly a big deal and it’s horrible to see first-hand. This is just an example of what's to come in my time here.
That's so sad =( You hear about the crazy things that are happening across the world, especially in Africa and other third world countries, about AIDS but it doesn't hit home until you actually see it yourself. =\
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