January; After a once in a life time New Years in Cape Town, stories of which I’m sure I’ll be retelling every New Year for the rest of my life, “this one time on my Gap Yah…” I can feel it coming. Coming back to work from Cape Town was such a struggle, everything was so, so, so hectic, as we’re the only people that do our job, when we go away, we need to prepack for the days we are away, and then when we return we need to back date all of our work. To make life trickier, we now have no Pharmacist; since Pieter left early December, and Ian left over New Year to go and do his PhD. Everyone is under a fair bit of pressure in all things pharmacy related. On the upside, we have moved up into our own little officey-room-type-thing. This basically means we can keep ourselves organised (whiteboard inclusive) and make more vitally needed space in the Pharmacy. We’re now based in the ARV Clinic so we can get tighter liaison with the ARV team which is also vital to the smooth running of the project.
With January brings a mass influx on newbies! We have a bunch of new comserve staff (in SA all health professionals have to do a year of community service post-graduation.) So we have, a physio, OT, speech therapist, radiographer and dietician. They are all absolutely lovely! We also got a new Dentist to replace Stevie he is also a really cool guy, apparently there is another new physio on his way, so I’ll let you know what happens there. It’s so exciting having all of these new people around, we are no longer being called the “new girls” only 5 months later. People have also stopped calling me Katy (one of the girls who was here before us) so all things seem to be on the up, people learning my actual name half way through and all that jazz! It’s quite funny, because apparently, we all look pretty much exactly the same to black people, how bizarre?! The New Year has also brought an influx of certain creature we’re not too fond of, yes…the dreaded snake! Lucky we’re all being a lot more vigilant since Becky (a doctor from UK) got bitten by a Knight Adder! There was also a HUGE one found just next to the ARV waiting room. But not to worry, now we’re all aware of it, we actually watch where we walk now.
With January brings a mass influx on newbies! We have a bunch of new comserve staff (in SA all health professionals have to do a year of community service post-graduation.) So we have, a physio, OT, speech therapist, radiographer and dietician. They are all absolutely lovely! We also got a new Dentist to replace Stevie he is also a really cool guy, apparently there is another new physio on his way, so I’ll let you know what happens there. It’s so exciting having all of these new people around, we are no longer being called the “new girls” only 5 months later. People have also stopped calling me Katy (one of the girls who was here before us) so all things seem to be on the up, people learning my actual name half way through and all that jazz! It’s quite funny, because apparently, we all look pretty much exactly the same to black people, how bizarre?! The New Year has also brought an influx of certain creature we’re not too fond of, yes…the dreaded snake! Lucky we’re all being a lot more vigilant since Becky (a doctor from UK) got bitten by a Knight Adder! There was also a HUGE one found just next to the ARV waiting room. But not to worry, now we’re all aware of it, we actually watch where we walk now.
Being on the wrong side of the world didn’t stop us celebrating Burn’s Night! We gathered everyone together in the Community Centre for a huge Ceilidh and haggis! It was soooo much fun and even Ceilidh first timers loved it, Sal and Karl had a particular talent…..not. Being all hot a sweaty afterwards, only one thing was on the cards, BEACH! Yeah, it was late and VERY dark, but oh my, what a laugh?! We stumbled down the incredibly uneven dunes in the pitch black and ran into the sea, which was surprisingly very warm. The moonlight reflecting on the water was simply beautiful, then we dried off gazing at a full sky of stars, it was simply amazing, I can’t think of a single time in my life I’ve seen so many stars shining so brightly….WOW. Anyway, that’s about it for January, eagerly awaiting February, for the half-way point and my birthday!! AHHH reaching the ripe old age of 19, the last of my teenage years, how quickly time flies ay? Lots of love to you all, and a special congrats to Beth and Matty on the birth of the beautiful Ellie Louise xxxx
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