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January 16, 2008

Sawubona!

That means 'hello' in Zulu, one of the eleven official languages here in South Africa. We are into week three of our study abroad class and things are going great. This week we have been spending a lot of time talking with different groups of people about issues here in South Africa.

On Monday we visited with faculty at the University of KwaZulu-Natal about an AIDS education and prevention program aimed at elementary and middle school students. AIDS is a huge problem in this country, but since I have been here, it can be put into perspective. The US has many different health problems as well, and I have learned that preventing the spread of AIDS is more complicated than we may think.

Yesterday we went to a local hospital to talk with docots and administrators about health care. Kind of like colleges in the US, the health care has a public and a private system. The private system is for those who can afford it (about 15% of the population) and the public is for those who can not (85%) As you can imagine the private hospitals are state of the art and rival hospitals in the US, while the public hospitals are very poor and can not care for everyone that needs their help. It is a sad issue in this country, and one that the government is working on to fix.

Today we went to Steers which is the South African version of Burger King and visited with the owners about economics and business practices. They were very interesting to listen to, and afterwards we all got free lunch! Can't go wrong there. Tonight I think we are all going to hit up a fancy Italian restaurant in downtown Durban because it is our last night here. Tomorrow we leave for a national game park for the weekend to see some wildlife and then Sunday we fly to Cape Town for our last week of the course.

Being away from home for this amount of time has definitely opened me up to all the things we have in the US that we take for granted every day, like internet access or tap water or even working bathrooms. I have learned to adapt, but being in a foreign country for any amount of time changes a person. I would highly suggest studying abroad during your college years, maybe more than once if you can! It is a great experience. Not to mention, the weather down here is extremely nice!

Hope everyone is having a good time back at home. Stay warm! (I sure am :-)

Shane

Posted by Shane at January 16, 2008 05:34 AM