Houston Chronicle
Our trip to South Africa was featured in the Houston Chronicle today. The text of the article is below:
Paper: Houston Chronicle
Date: Thu 07/06/2006
Section: ThisWeek
Page: 1
Edition: 2 STAR
Area Rotarians leave mark in South Africa / Group members share details on infectious diseases
By LISA VIATOR, Houston Chronicle Correspondent
Three current and two former Houstonians received much more than they gave during a recent health and education goodwill trip to South Africa.
The group - comprised of Houston residents Barbara Clemmons, Jerry Morales and Sandi Pruitt, along with former Houstonians Paul Rockower and Carol Davis - was sponsored by Houston's Rotary District No. 5890. They left March 11 for a five-week benevolent journey to the country.
The gist of the trip followed closely with Rotary's mission, "Service Above Self," which included donating books to South African citizens, a project that has distributed nearly 6 million volumes in the past five years.
The books were distributed in Johannesburg, Eastern Cape and Free State Province.
Clemmons, a long-time area Rotarian, took on the task of group leader and Rockower documented the journey.
With health-care providers Morales, a housing case manager for AIDS Foundation Houston, Pruitt, a pre-doctoral fellow at the University of Texas' School of Public Health, and Davis, who works for the Texas Department of Health, the trip also took on the added dimension of serving as a vocational exchange with a focus on infectious diseases.
The group visited numerous clinics and hospices, and spoke with medical practitioners to learn more about how clinic directors strive to maximize private and government funding in the face of AIDS and tuberculosis.
While group members say they were enthralled by the exotic locales, they also agreed the foreign land and their own home state had a few things in common.
"It was 100 percent Texas," Rockower said. "Good old boys, windmills, cows - the only difference is (in Texas), no zebras. We were ambassadors from Houston, Texas and (found out) that all they know is J.R. (Ewing, from the 1980s television series "Dallas") and `Houston, we have a problem.' "
Morales agreed.
"Texas, with an occasional giraffe," he said. "We shared many experiences together (with the natives) and my focus was on the health aspect. I've served African immigrants but will be able to do so much better after having spent time there."
Pruitt said her participation in the trip was the result of being in the right place - in her case, a coffee shop - at the right time.
"I was sitting in a Starbucks on Shepherd, mulling over my dissertation, and saw a poster advertising for a free trip to South Africa," she said.
Upon further investigation, Pruitt discovered aspects of the trip might benefit her studies on how a community's socioeconomic status affects cancer treatment - she would be able to visit cancer-oriented hospices while on the trip.
"I'm not sure how it will apply to my research, but at some point it will," she said. "There are not many people who do what I do in South Africa. AIDS has created such a vacuum of medical staff."
Tour benefits
For Rockower, a former press officer with the Israeli Consulate in Houston, the trip benefited the people he was there to serve, as well as his own personal journalistic passions.
"My aspect was meeting with newspapers, radio and television (stations) and seeing how they cover the Israeli-Palestinian conflict," he said.
Clemmons said the group stayed in homes of South African Rotarians, and members were treated like visiting royalty, despite woeful working conditions in the country.
"They have 60 percent unemployment, and there are many middle class domestics," Clemmons said. "It's almost a civic duty to create jobs, and many (domestics) have been with the same families for 20 or 30 years."
Clemmons said in equal synchronization was the Houston-based group, most of whom were not acquainted before the trip.
The group leader said she had high hopes in the beginning that would be the case, "and by the time we left, we were a solid team," she added.
"By the end of the month, we couldn't identify who among us was the most eccentric," Rockower added.
Morales said among one of the more amazing bits of information he gleaned was the South African national anthem contains four languages.
"And there are 11 official languages in South Africa - nine of those tribal," he said.
"The Rotary project supports a computer training center and at one I requested the students sing," Morales added. "The next day, 90 children filed out in uniforms and sang. We were all in tears."
Pruitt was disturbed by the lack of what she referred to as "cancer infrastructure," but was encouraged when she learned the physician at the most progressive hospital-clinic had worked at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center.
A learning experience
"The best thing was meeting so many people,"Pruitt said. "They constantly remarked on how they were learning from us, and I feel like I was learning from them."
"We never had the same day twice," Rockower added. "One day, it was 2,600 feet underground in a gold mine; the next soaring in glider planes.
"And if you view South Africa as black and white, you're missing the big picture. They're so much more than apartheid. At Robben Island, where (Nelson) Mandela was imprisoned, their message is one of reconciliation."
Morales described the people as "alive, dynamic, diverse and all chipping in their little bit with a smile," he said.
The three Houston-based group members agree they will return to the country in the future.
"They are a people who forge ahead, smile, enjoy what they have and do amazing things out of their hearts - fiercely proud of their past and looking forward to the future," Clemmons said.
...
TRIP BLOGS
To read more about the goodwill trip to South Africa sponsored by Rotary District No. 5890, see Paul Rockower's blog at levantine18.blogspot.com or Sandi Pruitt's account at exitingamerica.blogspot.com.
Paper: Houston Chronicle
Date: Thu 07/06/2006
Section: ThisWeek
Page: 1
Edition: 2 STAR
Area Rotarians leave mark in South Africa / Group members share details on infectious diseases
By LISA VIATOR, Houston Chronicle Correspondent
Three current and two former Houstonians received much more than they gave during a recent health and education goodwill trip to South Africa.
The group - comprised of Houston residents Barbara Clemmons, Jerry Morales and Sandi Pruitt, along with former Houstonians Paul Rockower and Carol Davis - was sponsored by Houston's Rotary District No. 5890. They left March 11 for a five-week benevolent journey to the country.
The gist of the trip followed closely with Rotary's mission, "Service Above Self," which included donating books to South African citizens, a project that has distributed nearly 6 million volumes in the past five years.
The books were distributed in Johannesburg, Eastern Cape and Free State Province.
Clemmons, a long-time area Rotarian, took on the task of group leader and Rockower documented the journey.
With health-care providers Morales, a housing case manager for AIDS Foundation Houston, Pruitt, a pre-doctoral fellow at the University of Texas' School of Public Health, and Davis, who works for the Texas Department of Health, the trip also took on the added dimension of serving as a vocational exchange with a focus on infectious diseases.
The group visited numerous clinics and hospices, and spoke with medical practitioners to learn more about how clinic directors strive to maximize private and government funding in the face of AIDS and tuberculosis.
While group members say they were enthralled by the exotic locales, they also agreed the foreign land and their own home state had a few things in common.
"It was 100 percent Texas," Rockower said. "Good old boys, windmills, cows - the only difference is (in Texas), no zebras. We were ambassadors from Houston, Texas and (found out) that all they know is J.R. (Ewing, from the 1980s television series "Dallas") and `Houston, we have a problem.' "
Morales agreed.
"Texas, with an occasional giraffe," he said. "We shared many experiences together (with the natives) and my focus was on the health aspect. I've served African immigrants but will be able to do so much better after having spent time there."
Pruitt said her participation in the trip was the result of being in the right place - in her case, a coffee shop - at the right time.
"I was sitting in a Starbucks on Shepherd, mulling over my dissertation, and saw a poster advertising for a free trip to South Africa," she said.
Upon further investigation, Pruitt discovered aspects of the trip might benefit her studies on how a community's socioeconomic status affects cancer treatment - she would be able to visit cancer-oriented hospices while on the trip.
"I'm not sure how it will apply to my research, but at some point it will," she said. "There are not many people who do what I do in South Africa. AIDS has created such a vacuum of medical staff."
Tour benefits
For Rockower, a former press officer with the Israeli Consulate in Houston, the trip benefited the people he was there to serve, as well as his own personal journalistic passions.
"My aspect was meeting with newspapers, radio and television (stations) and seeing how they cover the Israeli-Palestinian conflict," he said.
Clemmons said the group stayed in homes of South African Rotarians, and members were treated like visiting royalty, despite woeful working conditions in the country.
"They have 60 percent unemployment, and there are many middle class domestics," Clemmons said. "It's almost a civic duty to create jobs, and many (domestics) have been with the same families for 20 or 30 years."
Clemmons said in equal synchronization was the Houston-based group, most of whom were not acquainted before the trip.
The group leader said she had high hopes in the beginning that would be the case, "and by the time we left, we were a solid team," she added.
"By the end of the month, we couldn't identify who among us was the most eccentric," Rockower added.
Morales said among one of the more amazing bits of information he gleaned was the South African national anthem contains four languages.
"And there are 11 official languages in South Africa - nine of those tribal," he said.
"The Rotary project supports a computer training center and at one I requested the students sing," Morales added. "The next day, 90 children filed out in uniforms and sang. We were all in tears."
Pruitt was disturbed by the lack of what she referred to as "cancer infrastructure," but was encouraged when she learned the physician at the most progressive hospital-clinic had worked at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center.
A learning experience
"The best thing was meeting so many people,"Pruitt said. "They constantly remarked on how they were learning from us, and I feel like I was learning from them."
"We never had the same day twice," Rockower added. "One day, it was 2,600 feet underground in a gold mine; the next soaring in glider planes.
"And if you view South Africa as black and white, you're missing the big picture. They're so much more than apartheid. At Robben Island, where (Nelson) Mandela was imprisoned, their message is one of reconciliation."
Morales described the people as "alive, dynamic, diverse and all chipping in their little bit with a smile," he said.
The three Houston-based group members agree they will return to the country in the future.
"They are a people who forge ahead, smile, enjoy what they have and do amazing things out of their hearts - fiercely proud of their past and looking forward to the future," Clemmons said.
...
TRIP BLOGS
To read more about the goodwill trip to South Africa sponsored by Rotary District No. 5890, see Paul Rockower's blog at levantine18.blogspot.com or Sandi Pruitt's account at exitingamerica.blogspot.com.
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