Wind and parking your car in Cape Town

I'm not talking about the fierce wind that makes me feel like I'm moving backward when I run. Although I just got back from a run on the "commons" and the wind was so bad I honestly had trouble going forward. For my friends at HH, it's like the wind tunnel between parking and Children's hospital. For my UConn friends, just about anywhere on campus. I'm happy to have a safe place to run that is right across the street from my flat. Only issue is that it is so flat and incredibly boring. There is common area (really an empty field) that is surrounded by a walking/jogging path, it is about 1.7 miles around. So twice and you get close to a 5K. There are always a lot of people walking and running so it is very safe. I will post a picture of Table Mountain and University of Cape Town in the back drop. I have to admit, it's quite stunning.

So the wind I'm talking about occurred during a teaching encounter with a couple of my students. The patient was a very nervous, self conscious, first time mom with 36 week twins. She was feeling overwhelmed and wanted help breastfeeding. So, I was teaching my students and the mother some techniques to get the baby to latch on. As I was doing that, one of the nursery Sisters (nurse) came in to give both of them injections, ignored us and took the baby from the mom. The mom explained that she needed help breastfeeding and apparently the sister didn't like what we were doing, which is common and absolutely fine. But this is what really made me want to laugh out loud and say "really, you're serious, you think that's going to work?" The sister proceeded to tell the mother that the baby has "wind", I looked at my students and shrugged my shoulders. The sister told the mom that you can tell if the baby has wind by where it's tongue is, if it's up against the roof of the mouth, there is wind, if it isn't there isn't wind. At this point I still had no idea what it meant to have wind. Was that the same as passing gas? Apparently not, having wind means you need to burp, now you are probably way ahead of me here, but it took me a while to get it. The whole tongue issue really confused me, I'd never heard of that, but that's not to say it isn't true. Then the sister goes on to teach the mother how to "break the babies wind", puts the infant up on mom's shoulder and rubbed the back exactly two times and proclaimed, "wind is gone, the baby will eat now". None of us heard anything close to what we call a burp. Mom gave us a confused look, but allows the sister to help the baby onto the breast, and what do you know, the baby latched on, the students looked at me, and I shrugged my shoulders!

Now parking your car here is an adventure, as if driving on the other side of the road isn't fun enough. I have 3 clinical sites that I go to, none of them have adequate parking, but what they do have is people willing to "watch your car". This is a source of income for people, they get your attention as you pull into the parking lot, some how they find you a spot, direct you into that spot and there you go. At first I didn't like it, I felt pressure because there are at least 10 people trying to get your attention. When you come back to get your car you are expected to give a tip for their services. They will find you no matter how much later you come out of the hospital and boy do they remember your face!

This week I had two very nice things happen to me related to parking. At one site the parking person wanted me to parallel park my car. I can't do that back home, never mind on the other side of the car, on the other side of the street. Just too much for me to process. So I took a chance that he spoke English and explained that I didn't know how to park that way, there was clearly no where else to park. This man patiently proceeded to guide me through the whole process without hitting anything. I was so pleased I gave him his tip before I went in just in case he wasn't there when I got back. He looked very happy with what I gave him. When I got back I saw that he had washed my car - windshields, hubcaps, the whole thing and he was smiling profusely, obviously proud of himself. So, your wondering how much did I give him to deserve such royal treatment. I gave him 9 rand, which is equal to a whopping 90 cents. That is just one example of how poor some of the people are.

The other incident wasn't nearly as striking, but it made me realize that these men and women really are providing a service and I am now happy to let them help me find a spot and then park. Today I got into a spot that I never would have guessed I could get into, but with the guidance of my parking man, I got a spot right in front of the hospital. When I got out of the car he told me to have a good day. I gave him 9 rand and wished him a good day as well.

I'm posting a picture of the beach I went to Sunday. I'm not trying to rub it in, but boy was it beautiful.