Yesterday was nothing short of, well, fantastic! (It seems we use that word a lot here, doesn’t it?)

We started the day by traveling to Khaylitsha, the third-largest township in South Africa. We visited Fikelela Children’s Centre, a home for abandoned and orphaned children. It’s a great setting for these children and the staff’s explicit goal is to arrange foster care for them so they aren’t institutionalized for a long period. It’s run by the Anglican Church of South Africa. The children sang Christmas carols for us, including Jingle Bells. I found myself wondering just what images were going through their minds as they sang, “Dashing through the snow, in a one-horse open sleigh”!

Following our visit there, we toured the Intensive Care Unit at Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital in Cape Town. Sister Marleen Peterson and Dr. Shamiel Salie did the honors and provided excellent information and hospitality to our large and fascinated group. They’re a referral hospital for the entire country and do wonderful work on relatively limited resources. One of the sobering and saddening discussions was regarding allocation of those scarce resources. For example, how can one justify spending huge amounts of money on high-tech procedures (e.g., ECMO) and complicated cardiothoracic surgeries when so many more children who might die of such common illnesses as gastroenteritis and dehydration could be saved? They do a heroic job and we thank them for their very warm in their reception of us.

Following lunch from Woolworth’s, eaten in the van, we arrived at Groote Schuur Hospital. This is the location of one of the Western Cape’s largest neonatal ICUs, with over 80 beds for very tiny newborns. Again, the sister and physician in charge gave us the typical warm South African welcome and spent some of their valuable time telling us about and showing us their very busy unit. We were all able to walk around the various rooms and talk with sisters and physicians about their patients and their work. One of the highlights for me was being able to talk with parents who were visitng their babies. I spoke with one father who was visiting his 2-lb, 1-month-old son. As we spoke the father was very tenderly stroking his son to comfort and nurture him. It’s obvious that the staff make the effort to engage parents and involve them in not just the physical care of their babies, but in the developmental and emotional care as well. I also spoke briefly with a mother of a baby about the same size and age who was providing Kangaroo Care. If you’re not familiar with KC, it involves skin-to-skin, chest-to-chest contact between a caregiver and a baby. It’s wonderful for both parties and the provincial government enthusiastically supports and promotes the practice.

Our last stop of the day was at the Heart of Cape Town Museum, in the old Main Building of Groote Schuur Hospital. The museum opened last year, which marked the 40th anniversary of the first successful heart transplant in the world. This was one of the best museums I’ve ever visited. One doesn’t just wander around looking at displays by any means. We had a 2-hr guided tour that started with the retelling of the tragic account of the death of Denise Darvall, the donor of the first heart. We then proceeded to see a 23-minute video about Dr. Christiaan Barnard, which was made by the developer of the museum, whom we met on the tour. It was amazingly and touchingly well done.

The tour continued with visiting phenomenal exhibits in the actual operating theatres where Denise Darvall’s healthy heart was removed and where Louis Washkansky’s diseased heart was removed. These rooms are set up exactly as they were on the night of December 3, 1967, with lifelike mannequins, etc. It was incredible. I was really impressed with how sensitively and respectfully details about the donor and the recipient were handled, especially considering relatives of these people are alive and living in Cape Town.All in all, this museum should be on everyone’s list of things to do in Cape Town.

Our day finished with a delicious and unique dinner at an Ethiopian restaurant called “Addis in Cape, owned and operated by a lovely woman named Senait Mekonnen.

Senait Mekonnen

The restaurant is on the upper stories of a historic Dutch building in the City Bowl off Long St. It features traditional seating and has live music on Fridays. We were having such a great time, we were there nearly 4 hours! The restaurant also has a small collection of jewelry for sale and I was able to buy a few Christmas presents while there!