Paarl

Look it up on the globe, Paarl is this little town about 45 minutes from Cape Town. It is really beautiful (this area is probably the most scenic place I have ever been), and it is where I have been for the last 3 days, there and Stellenbosch. There is a group out here that has a bunch of clinics in this rural part of South Africa, so I have been in and out of some clinics out here and helping with different projects with these folks.

Dr. Nelis Grobbelaar runs and organizes a lot of the clinics out here and I have been in his back pocket for three days. He has been wonderful to me: incredibly welcoming, genuinely encouraging, and just nice to be around. He has been picking my American brain for the last couple of day trying to understand us, learn from us. He is 45 years old, he doesn't know me, why in the world would he give a rip aobut my opinion or perspective? But he did. Like he wanted to know what the American dream was, and what my American dream. He wanted to know about generation differences and the effects of internet and connectivity and social networking on our society. These were fascinating conversations to be having with a South African Dr. It was wonderful, made me feel great, and I think I learned as much from how he treated me as I did from how he treated patients or clinics or HIV.

On the other hand, he does have a lot of neat ideas about HIV treatment. He is on the forefront of moving clinics to nurse-initiated treatment, electronic medical records, and general HIV treatment. Because of the huge numbers of the epedemic, they are putting in place new ways to distribute drugs, keep track of patients, and break down some of the things that hinder treatment. He sees so much more to the problems than the physiology difficulties of the disease which in my experience is incredibly rare for a doctor.

There has been much more to this last chapter of the HIV tour (like Shoots and ladders baord game with an HIV twist, flipping through charts to collect clinical data, and chatting with the technology assistant guy who manages the electronic medical records system), but that is enough for tonight. Internet in Paarl is expensive.

Tomorrow I am back on the road headed toward Pretoria. Stopping tomorrow night in Kimberly... I think. It is just a long uneventful day of driving through the Karroo. Should be back in Pretoria Friday night and flying out of this deal on Sunday night. It is wrapping up in a hurry.