Week 7

Hey everyone!

Sorry it has been so long since I've written, I've been pretty busy. There are 8 new volunteers here now (well, not really new anymore, they've been here for 3 weeks), and Simone, whose been here since I got here just left this morning to go back to Switzerland. There are 6 photographers and 2 girls on the community project. There's also a new Medical volunteer coming on Monday. Right now, there's Kelly, from Australia, Lesley and Alison from Scotland, Laura form Wales, Ray and Chris from the U.S., and Stefanie and Timo, a german couple who have been traveling around Australia for the past 2 years.

Work has been pretty normal. The girl from the bus accident is getting MUCH better which is very exciting. We saw her for the first time in my first week and I don't think it will be completely healed by the time I leave, but it will be very close. Plan, the guy with the gunshot wound, is getting worse again, but there isn't really much we can do except for what we're already doing. I've seen 2 new people recently that have really left an impression though. The first is a man who had a stroke a while back and has lost all use of his legs and one of his arms. His family doesn't have a chair or couch for him to sit on, so he just lays on the floor on heaps of blankets, and, if he wants to sit up, they can put him in a wheelbarrow. The other is a young woman, about 26, whose tongue has swollen up and rotted (at least that's what it looks like). The doctors told her it's cancer, but they didn't do anything to help her. It looks like she's in a lot of pain. She can't eat or drink anything and has to pour liquid directly down her throat because she has problems swallowing and she can barely speak. She also has HIV and her white cell count is only 62, so thank you Grandma for trying to help.

Anyways, two weekends ago, I went back to Mozambique, and there were dolphins!! Then last weekend on Saturday I went on a game drive in Hluhlue/Imfolozi National Park, about an hour away. I didn't see any Lions or Cheetahs, but I did see Rhino, Giraffe and 16 Elephants as weel as a bunch of smaller animals. On Sunday I had a surf lesson with Simone at Cape Vidal, which is the best beach I've been to. For Simone's last night yesterday, we had dinner at the house last night, then went out to the local bar for a while. She had to leave for the airport at 8:15 this morning, and I think she only had an hour of sleep.

That's about it for this time. Keep commenting, and I'll try to get some more photos up next time I'm on.