Me and my sunburnt thighs.

I'll briefly apologize for the temporary break in the blogging action, but I must admit: I'm not all that sorry. Nearly ten days ago this trip grabbed Nate and I by our respectively sun-drenched wrists and sort of dragged us around for a while, eventually leading us to the beaches of Uruguay (which is - I add editorially - not such a bad place to end up.) And now a brief summary of the reasons this trip was awesome:

climbing on stuff
jumping off of stuff
swimming in stuff
waterfalls!
growing beards
lots of delicious Argentine meat and beer
wearing a shirt as infrequently as possible

And now I'm home, watching my sunburn slowly settle into something resembling a tan. I also had what was perhaps my final med school interview today. The school was a very impressive looking place, but perhaps didn't feel like the absolute best fit. I did, however, run into one of my good friends from South Africa who is coincidently beginning her travels along the interview trail just as mine are coming to a close. It made the whole day better to spend it catching up about life in Durban - sharing stories of friends and activities 8,000 miles away.

There's an off chance that I'll be invited for another interview before February is out, but I won't be holding my breath. I'll be so relieved when this whole process is over. In general I'm very positive about how things are going - and I think there's a decent chance that I'll end up in New York City come August - but it has already been more than a year since I began the earliest preparations for my application. That's a really long time to be worrying about the same thing.

And now I'll leave you with two excerpts from an article in The Lancet, depressingly titled, "Crystal meth boom adds to South Africa's health challenges":

"The Medical Research Council (MRC) estimates that there could be as many as 200 000 tik (a South African nickname for meth) users in and around Cape Town. About half the people receiving treatment cite tik as a primary or secondary substance of abuse—far ahead of alcohol. But among the under 20-year-old age-group, this figure rises to 70%, according to the South African Community Epidemiology Network on Drug Use (SACENDU), which is funded by the MRC and the government. In 2002, it was less than 1%. About 90% of patients are coloured, according to SACENDU's November, 2007, update.

Antidrugs activist Naelah Scott says tik has heightened the reign of terror exercised by notorious local gangs as they battle for turf and for their slice in the lucrative drug pie. Chinese triad gangs were initially blamed for bringing tik to South Africa in exchange for endangered abalone shellfish, a delicacy in Asia, but now the trade is believed to be firmly in the hands of the locals. Scott says that the gangsters use minors to do their dirty work, knowing they cannot be prosecuted, and entice schoolchildren with free samples and presents to get them hooked. She accuses the local police station, which is plagued by allegations of corruption, of turning a blind eye to the crisis and allowing the drug lords to operate with impunity."

Pretty heartening, right?