Happy Voting Day!

4/22/09
I felt myself slip into a routine this week. My day starts at 7am. I have a bowl of cereal, get ready for work, pack my “lunch” which consists of a peanut butter and honey sandwhich, granola or pretzels and an orange or clementine (I forget what they call them here), cut up an apple and take it with me to meet the rest of our team downstairs for 7:40am. We get to work just before 8am, change into our scrubs, grab a ‘bag of tricks’ and head to the ward. Once there, we take note of all the children on the ward and what their treatments plans are for the day. From there we assign roles and get underway. Things are generally a blur until about 10:00am. “Tea” happens anywhere between 10:30 and 11:00 (some days we get to break for a snack of our own at this time). The children get their lunch around noon. At this point things tend to calm down a bit. We are either doing play interventions, waiting for a patient to go to theatre or the treatment room, or we assist in the feeding. Around 2 we walk the ward collecting our toys and saying our goodbyes. We reconvene in our office where we do our documentation, debriefing and eating. The toys are soaked and laid out to dry, then we change and head home. We make an evening plan which usually consists of (in no particular order) a nap, a workout (and my daily shower), The Garden Center (Post office, Pick-N-Pay, cell phone minutes, items for work), a dinner plan and maybe a fun outing, and always always always Fleetwood Mac’s “Everywhere”. Often times, everyone ends up in my apt lap tops in hand-to do work stuff, blog or trade pics. A lot of these things can vary greatly depending on the day and the weather, but for the first time in my life, I have a regular routine…that I thoroughly enjoy.

Today is Voting Day!!! I think it’s super exciting to be here on Voting Day. It’s the talk of the city. Here, when the residents vote, they recieve ink marks on their left thumb at the nail bed. This is how they keep people from voting twice. Apparently the marks take weeks to fade. It is also a National Holiday. With nothing going on at work (they don’t even do dressing changes on holidays), we took the day off as well. We started the day with a group breakfast. I tried out my new favorite thing: Croissant French Toast. It was pretty tasty. After that Cara, Jamie and I set out for Table Mountain. We had wanted to tackle “Plateklip Trail” since our group hike last week. This trail is on OUR side of the mountain and consists solely of an open, zig-zag, rock ‘stairway’. We took this trail down as a group and the reverse hike seemed so steep and difficult that the three of us (being super competitive) had to try it. The estimated time for hiking up this trail is anywhere between 2 and 2 and half hours. We did it in 1 hour and 11 mins. We were on a mission! Table Mountain has challenged me both physically and mentally more than any other hike I’ve done. She is steep and unforgiving. But, wow, is she gorgeous. She and I have a beautiful relationship and I will probably miss her the most when I leave here. Mostly because she is everywhere I turn…keeping me company 24hours a day.

two hours: cake!

The rest of the day has been a blur since we are operating on fumes from our intense morning…but I think we went to the waterfront for souvenir shopping, dinner at pancake house (you’d be surprised the number of delicious things you can do with a pancake), and gelato-of course. Now I’m off to bed before another exciting day at RCCH!

table top picnic after a record breaking hike