Princess Consuela Banana Hammock

11:47 am: Haven't updated in a while... Lots has happened, I'll try to summarize it, otherwise I'll be here a while... Lately I've been spending almost all of my time at the AIDS center. I've gotten to know several patients pretty well and I've been going to see them almost every day. Lats week me and Vicky (English/Chinese volunteer, really fun girl) took Vusi (one of the patients at the AIDS center) to get a haircut at the mall nearby. We went into 4 different salons, the first 3 of which refused to cut his hair because he's HIV+. So rediculous! Like you can get AIDS by touching hair... Finally the last place in the mall agreed, and they didn't even charge us anything, they were so nice. I've been going with Mustafa (another patient) to Durban quite a lot, trying ot get him anti-retroviral drugs. It's been really difficult but I think we finally managed today. Mustafa found out about this semi-private hospital which charges 140 rand a month ($30 or so), which is totally managable, at least temporarily. Hopefully by June or July he'll be able to go on the government program which is free. I'm so glad it finally worked out! We've been to 4 different offices together (some of which more than once) and they all refused to help after totally waisting our time.
Most of the volunteers from last month left, and new ones came. I became really close with many of them, and it was really emtional and sad saying goodbye. Julie's here for 3 months, thank god. The new volunteers are pretty nice, it'll take a bit of time to get to know them but I'm sure it won't take long. There's only 10 of us here this month, which is really strange (last month we were 29 or so). There are benefits though, like always having hot water for a shower and sharing a bathroom with only 1-2 people...
I went to Thulothando (the orphanage) yesterday and a group of us volunteers decided to build another 2 bedrooms. Volunteers from last month bought all the supplies for it, and now we just have to hire someone and help him build. I think it'll be really fun to build knowing who and what it's for and to actually see results. At the moment there are 16 kids sleeping in one room with 12 beds so more space is pretty important... I'm really excited about this project!
I went to Durban again this weekend and pretty much lay on the beach the entire day. I didn't get to go skydiving last week cause it rained! I wasn so disappointed (and kind of relieved...). I'm out of time again...

02:44 pm: Five of us volunteers took the cutest preschool kids on a field trip to this river. It was so much fun, it was such a nice change for them from their normal dirty school. I can't wait to show you pictures of these kids, they are so so cute! After that I went to see Mustafa again at the Dream Center, and sometime next week I'm gonna take him to get a CD4 cell count (if it's below a certain number then he's eligible for ARVs). Hopefully this isn't total gibberish to you...
Today I went to an African funeral. A baby with AIDS died at the baby home two days ago, and the funeral was today. It was so incredibly sad. Funerals here are totally different from anything I've seen. Everyone sang throughout most of the funeral, loudly, with clapping and everything. It was pretty amazing to be there, but really hard to take because it was a baby that died. One of my best friends here (her name is Julie, she's from Norway) held that kid quite a bit so it was especially hard for her.
One to something happier: I'm gonna go skydiving! In Durban, probably next week! I'm so excited and totally scared shitless but I think it'll be amazing. Me and Julie (and Gwen, another really awesome person) promised eachother to go. Out of time!

02:28 pm: I went on a safari! It was so so cool. We rode in the back of an open jeep and saw elephants, cheetahs, leopards, giraffes, hippos, crocodiles, rhinos and more. It was so so cool seeing those animals literally 10 feet away! We stayed overnight in a hostel and the next day went out on the boat, where we saw the hippos and crocs. I really wanna go on another safari later, maybe once I'm done volunteering. Things are pretty much the same for the most part. Today I went to Durban with once of the patients from the Dream Center (named Mustafa) to go to some government office to try and get him AIDS drugs. He's not a South African citizen so he can't get them like everyone else, and it's a really complicated process so of course he has to go back. Afterwards I took him to lunch and then we took the bus back to the Dream Center. His feet hurt a lot from the TB drug that he's on, and we had to walk quite a while... They make it so hard to get health care here, it's unbelievable. At the bus station I was the only white person around, which was kind of unnerving. Despite Mustafa's awful situation (having AIDS and having to come to South Africa while leaving his wife and kid in Malawi) he's still such a positive person, which is totally amazing to me. Not all of the patients are like that at all. I'm almost out of time so I goota go. XOXOX

01:48 pm: Gotta write super fast cause I'm on an internet cafe again... So much has been going on here! Yesterday (and the day before as well) me and the volunteers went to the beach in Durban, which is the most beautiful beach (really fine sand with palm trees everywhere and the biggest waves I've ever seen). Me and Gwen (a 25 year old volunteer from Amsterdam, really cool girl) rented surf boards and tried to surf! I almost stood up after like 1.5 hours... But we're gonna take a lesson next weekend probably. It was Helen's b-day yesterday (another volunteer) so we celebrated by going to a bar in Hillcrest on Saturday. That was so much fun too (drinks are so cheap here, Liv - a cosmo is less than 3 bucks!)all of the volunteers that are here are such amazing people, it'll be so sad whem some ofthem leave before me!
The other day I went to work with Habitat for Humanity, which was really cool. It was hard hard work but so satisfying! The other guys that worked there were really cool too. It was a little hard to communicate cause they speak mostly Zulu but we made it work. I also went to a new project, a preschool with more than 80 kids and only 2 women who run it. Some of the kids there are orphans and don't have money for snacks, so me and another volunteer are buying their lunches. My time is up so I gotta run.

P.S. If anyone has any children's clothes that they can mail over here, let me know and I'll give you an address.

10:58 am: I'm in Africa!
Hi Everyone! This livejournal is such a great idea, I don't have time to write personal emails to everyone because I'm in an internet cafe with a time limit, so... Here's what I've been up to: I arrived in Durban and met several other volunteers at the airport, and we drove to the volunteer accomodation center. People are really nice here! I really had no reason to be nervous about coming here... There are about 15 of us staying in this big house, and I'm sharing a room with this Dutch guy named Erwin, he's pretty cool. Most people are in there early twenties, but there are also several 18 and 19 year olds as well as two women in their late 30s and one that's 60(!). All the other volunteers are really really nice, I'm so glad I'm doing this! Yesterday we had out orientation day. We went around and saw the different projects that we're gonna volunteer in. There are lots of drop-in centers for kids, some have as little as 10 kids and others have over 100! The kids are so amazing!!! When we got out of the van they all ran towards us, hanging off our arms and laughing and yelling... They are so so cute! I lost count of how many kids I've held in one day... Almost all of the kids that I held took my sunglasses off my head and put them on (and then tried to put them back on me upside down...). They were amazed when we took pictures of them and showed them on the digital cameras. We also went to the baby home, where there are orphaned or abandoned babies between the ages of 0 and 3. Some of them are sick, it's so sad. We also went to an orphanage, where 16 kids sleep in 2 rooms. Other volunteers funded bunkbeds for them, before that they were sleeping on the floor. The last place we went to was the Dream Center, a medical center for AIDS patients. We just had a talk with the manager there, so I'm not sure what that'll be like volunteering there.
Anyways, I'm running out of time so I gotta go, but leave me a comment or write me! Love you all.

10:34 pm: War & Dreams
There's a fucking war going on here! It's pretty scary because it's so close. It started when 2 Israeli soldiers were captured by the Hezbollah in Lebanon, and 3 others were killed. Israel of course retaliated, which was totally expected. Since then Lebanon has been bombing Israel as far as Haifa, which is only like 20 minutes away from here. Israel in the mean time is bombing Lebanon, twice hitting Beirut International Airport. Everyone is glued to the TV keeping up with what's going on. It's pretty tense.
On to something happier... Last night I had a lucid dream! It was amazing and incredible and really hard to describe. But I'll try. It started when I was in one of those sleeps that's really deep and you try really hard to move but you just can't, and you really want to wake up and then it seems like you're just strong enough to move and then you do and that wakes you up (that was a really long run-on sentence and hopefully this has happened to you so you'll understand). Anyways, this time for some reason I decided to flow with it, just let the dream take me and not fight to wake up. OMG, it was such a wonderfully weird experience. I was totally aware that I was dreaming, where I was in my bed, that it was nighttime and dark out. Then I moved (not physically), but I didn't walk. It was more like gliding, or moving on a cushion of air or something (like I said, hard to describe). I left the room that I was sleeping in, moved into the computer room, than back out into the entrance hall and the kitchen. It took a lot of effort, and I was still totally conscious and aware that I was dreaming. Fafa (my grandmother) was there sometimes, talking to me, telling me something or other. Time sort of happened in flashes (one moment she was there, then she was gone and then back again). At that point I could feel my eyelashes twitching, and I knew I was going through a REM cycle (trippy huh?). I was also aware of my heart beating fast. I woke up after going back into my room and bed (and body?) with my heart beating fast. The feeling left over from the dream was of being scared, and that feeling stayed with me like it used to when I was a little kid. All these stupid fears that I'd totally forgotten about came back to me, like being scared of lying down with my feet dangling over the edge because something might grab me, and constantly turning around to make sure that nothing was behind me. I remember being excited about the fact that I was finally lucid dreaming, and I was afraid that that excitement would wake me up, but I was in too deep a sleep. Eventually I think that that is what woke me. I also had a certain amount of control over my environment, but not a lot (I remember trying to make it light but couldn't). I probably fell asleep at around 11:30 and I woke up just before midnight, so the whole ordeal was relatively short. I was totally aware of the fact that I was lucid dreaming throughout the experience.

04:28 pm: So, this is the first entry of my travels! Here goes: London was... I don't know... It's definitely a city to go to with someone rather than alone. But hell it was free and has the biggest gay bar in Europe (which was awesome - Heaven really was heaven... it has 3 huge dance floors, played really good music and was totally packed on a Wednesday night). I learned how to use the underground (if you call it the subway you get beat up) and sort of how to use the bus system. I saw Westminster Abby, Tower of London, went to the British Museum, the works. Anyways, I left London early on Saturday, but my plane was late so I barely made my connecting flight in Vienna (I had to book it through the airport and I just made it). My baggage didn't make the flight so I spent a day in my grandma's t-shirt. Oh well it's here now. My cousin gave birth to the cutest baby girl! It was so incredible holding that tiny baby, I can't describe it at all. Anyways, I'll write more soon (now that I'm away I'll do it lots more).

10:07 pm: PIE
So... Me & Jess are making lemon meringue pie for my mom's b-day, and we kinda ruined the meringue... So Jess broke into my house, headed for the fridge and stole eggs. My mom was sleeping and didn't catch her... to bad, that would've been funny, hehe... Oh, and we made pie-crust cookies with lard (Jess is the brilliantest pie crustest maker EVER! - residue from the non-vegan days). They taste OK after a while, kinda like an acquired taste (especially if you dump some sugar on them). Well, the pie crust has been in the fridge for a while so we're gonna go put it in the oven... PIE POWER!!!

10:23 pm: starting
Wooo. Started my journal.
I love Jesara. She is my bestest friend in the whole wide world.
But now I need my mommy to come pick my lazy ass up so I can sleep.
Love,
Daniel