Transitions

Gelane, Bri, Premal and I were super sad to say good bye to each other!
 I know we will keep in touch, but after 2 years of living, working, traveling together it was really hard to part.

It has been forever since I posted, I know, but I am going to try to get back into it.  You might have noticed that the description of my blog has changed (it is now "tales of my life as a pediatrician in Botswana and beyond....") I figured that was easier than setting up a new blog.  That is because I have moved to Cape Town, South Africa!  The Pediatric AIDS Corps program had 5 years of funding which ended in July 2011.  Other sources of funding were sought and the program transitioned to the Global Health Corps this July.  It will be very similar to the PAC program, but smaller and will focus on more than just HIV/AIDS.  Though it was quite hard to leave Botswana, all the patients at the clinic there, and the friends I have made in the last 2 years, it was time to move on.

I also had to say good bye to Gizmo our cat.  He clearly wanted to come along, but loves to be outdoors and I don't think he would have done well in a Cape Town flat.
Luckily Bilen moved in next door and Gizmo moved in with her.
They are both very happy now ;)

I have taken a job with an organization called South to South.  It is an NGO that is funded by USAID and is housed at the University of Stellenbosch in Cape Town.  The goal is to help South Africa expand their pediatric HIV program.  Many healthcare providers are comfortable treating adults with HIV but not children, so our goal is to help them feel comfortable treating children.  In addition, the goal is to increase the number of clinics that provide ARVs (medications to treat HIV) so that patients do not have to travel as far to reach the clinics or wait all day to be seen (do to overcrowding at the centers which exist).  You can read more about it here if interested www.sun.ac.za/southtosouth.I am the Pediatric Clinical Advisor which means I will be doing training and mentoring of healthcare workers (nurses, doctors, lay counselors, etc).  A lot of my time (about 40%) will be spent traveling around the country. Right now we are focusing on a district called Moretele which is in the Northwest Province of South Africa (about 2 hours north of Johannesburg), more on that in a few weeks after I have actual been.

Almost half of my residency class managed to make it to Sonia's wedding!

Sonia and Elliott are officially married

Before moving to South Africa, I was lucky enough to get to spend almost three weeks back in the States with family and friends.  I was really lucky that Sonia decided to get married during that time and so I got to attend her beautiful wedding and see a lot of my friends from residency (as well as two delightful new additions to our St. Chris family - Josie and Walter ;)

Josie, beautiful daughter of Meredith and Trevor

Walter, adorable son of Ruth and Robert

I spent lots of quality time with my parents, grandmother, aunts, uncles, and cousins.  Definitely the thing I miss the most about being "this side" is time with family and friends who are "that side" but luckily the technological age (skype, internet phones, etc) helps with that a lot.

I will try to post a few flashbacks of my last months in Bots and then will move on to giving you a sense of life in Cape Town.  Right now it is a lot of logistics, finding an apartment, buying a car, opening a bank account, etc but photos and details of all those things to come!