Reconciling myself.

December 16th, Reconciliation Day, nee Blood River Day. It's the date of a famous Zulu-Africaaner battle that apparently used to be celebrated by some and mourned by others. Nowadays in the spirit of a multi-cultural South Africa, it seems to be an opportunity to hit the beach. And have a braii. Naturally.

Except in Mosvold, where we work public holidays. However, with pretty much no patients coming in, I put in a couple of hours on the ward and then headed south to meet up with some friends from the UK for a night in a game park. I had thought that after the last few weeks I'd have had my fill of animals but Thula Thula managed to pull a closer-than-comfortable on-foot elephant experience out of the bag to keep me entertained.
Not that I needed to be; I'd forgotten how lovely it is to spend time with friends who you can totally relax with, as you've known them so long you'd actually have to try really hard to offend them. It was interesting hearing their thoughts on my experiences (as read in the blog) and being reminded of just how surprising some of the things that I now take for granted are. In some ways I worry that being here is toughening me up (not necessarily a bad thing for Princess Caroline some would say) and that I am now much more accepting of things clinically than I would have been at home and have lower expectations. But talking about it, I realised that my attitude is contextual and I'm reassured that I should still be able to respond appropriately to my UK patients and their non-HI-viral illnesses.