08/17/07

Thoughts \ Developed Thoughts \ Rants \ Raves \ Writing

06/18/2005 12:54 +0200 GMT

Lwazi

After walking 'round town for hours, because after all, by foot is the best way to see a place, I met up with the UASOM crew at their new locale, the Backpack on New Church. They'd had a day of sandboarding, believe it or not. I had a Windhoek while I waited for them to shower, then we caught a taxi to the University of Cape Town Medical School, where we met up with a 5th or 6th year student named Lwazi, whose names rhymes with Swazi, as in Swaziland.

Lwazi cuts a slight frame, with petite features, black braids with a few stylish orange ones, all tied back simply. She wore a 3/4 length dark sweater over trousers, and an entirely pleasant countenance. She was single-mindedly generous with her time, answering all of our questions with free candor, touring us enthusiastically through the campus, showing us where the research buildings were, notably a very modern infectious disease building, and also including the lecture halls, small group study areas, then on to Groote Schuur hospital, made most famous as the place that Christiaan Barnard performed the first successful transplant of a human heart. We visited a pediatric ward, where a small boy was suffering respiratory distress. The father works here on the Cape, and the mother lives in Jo'burg. She'd been at Baragwanath, a hospital in Johannesburg that I visited on the way out of Lusaka in 1999, in March, a day or so off from my 31st birthday, and that I have heard is the largest hospital in the world...The mother was referred here. So she had to uproot to come here for treatment, having arrived today along with her daughter. "Typical case," referring inferentially also to the family dynamics, Lwazi said.

After countless questions about being a medical student at the UCT, and persistent demands that she join us for dinner, Lwazi proved to be a most gracious hostess.

Toward the end of our tour, Lwazi offered us a ride to a place for dinner, calling a mate to get a referral for a nice spot, then finally she relented to joining us. What a pleasure she was. It turned out that her babysitting duty was cancelled for the evening, and she stayed on regaling us with personal stories of the pleasures and formative experiences resulting from growing up in a township during the violent battles against apartheid, of living in the KZN - Kwazulunatal - of her personal life, and so on. We ended up at a nice spot called La Vie, and then stayed on 'til late. Lwazi was very open in telling us of her upbringing, the local scene, classmates' aspiration, etc. It was a rare, wonderful time to make such an instant, likeable acquaintance.

As a Lwazi epilogue, Stewart had a little struggle with HZ, and he called Lwazi, who instantly gave a solution. Grand girl.

Today, I just walked a lot. There were two or three squalls that would've made a pedestrian wet, but I managed to get indoors at just the right times. I caught the last part of the Springboks v. France in rugby. It ended 30-30. Then I saw Ghana v. the RSA in football. It was a very high speed, fast-paced match. Ghana scored early, and went on to win 2-nil.

Lwazi, man, what a charming girl.

I got a couple of emails from Maggie. God, I love that woman. I missed her terribly. I'm carrying around the card from Estelle with me, the one she wrote to me when she was writing cards to her family members back home, here.

Stewart, Brad, Michelle and Katrina went out shark-diving today. It sounded like they had a great time.