Human pincushion

I am a human pincushion and have been injected to within an inch of my life in preparation for my trip. Well, perhaps not quite. As well as a tendency to digress, I also exaggerate - a lot! It was more like two injections, but they really hurt! I think I was more hardcore as a small child. At 6 it didn't phase me, but at 26 I was weighing up whether contracting some foreign disease was a more attractive option than having a needle stuck in my arm! My arms did actually really ache afterwards, but I'm thinking I'd be complaining a lot more if I got hepatitis A, diphtheria or typhoid!

The thing is, getting those injections was so easy and it was free. We complain about the NHS, and while it is severely lacking in some areas, we all still have access to free healthcare. If someone gets sick, collapses in the street, has a car accident, they are taken to hospital and treated, no matter what their sex, race or social status. It is just so wrong that those rights don't exist in every country today, in 2009.

I dropped Geography in school after Year 9, so I don't really know a whole lot about other countries. Or indeed my own country. When I applied for uni I found out that Bath and Bristol were on the opposite side of the UK to where I had thought they were. My parents paid a small fortune for me to go to private school and learn about Oldham and the Spindles shopping centre in Geography lessons!

With that in mind, I decided it was time to do some reading on South Africa. I went as far as getting Nelson Mandela's book off my Dad's shelf, but never got around to cracking it open. And neither has he....there's not one tiny crease in the spine. Clearly it's a display book to make him look more insightful and intelligent. A lot like my copy of Pride and Prejudice then (although in my defence, I have seen both the film and the TV series!). So I went for something a little lighter and have just finished reading Rainbow Diary: A Journey in the New South Africa by John Malathronas. Think Bill Bryson, but younger, gay and not adverse to a spot of recreational drug-usage and you're along the right lines......

After just a couple of chapters I was astounded by how much I didn't know about South African history and culture. I don't really want to get into a political rant, but it scares me how something like apartheid could continue until so recently. I mean, I can remember as far back as 1994, it was in my lifetime. How is it even possible that a regime like that could carry on until then? There is so much I want to say on the subject, but I don't know where to start. Yet.

But I have thought about what I believe....

• I believe that everybody has the right to education and healthcare and other fundamental things, no matter what their gender, race, age, sexual orientation or social circumstances.
• I believe in the power of dreams and imagination.
• I believe that love and laughter really can be the best medicine.
• I believe that anything is possible.

Something has changed within me

Something is not the same

I'm through with playing by the rules

Of someone else's game

Too late for second-guessing

Too late to go back to sleep

It's time to trust my instincts

Close my eyes: and leap!

~ Elpheba, Wicked