Ethembeni - Place of Hope

On Thursday, 10/23, I went with Bobby to Mpophomeni for our rotation in hospice care. Mpophomeni is a rural community of 43,000 people about 30 minutes away from AE. More than 80% are unemployed and more than 1/3 have HIV. In 2000, Howick Community Church began a ministry to this community, specifically aimed at caring for those who are dying alone, hungry, and without hope. The ministry is called Ethembeni, which means “Place of Hope” in Zulu. Its mission statement is “to provide spiritual, emotional, and practical assistance to families affected by HIV/AIDS in the Mpophomeni area through provision of home based care, family support, and residential care for terminally ill people.” Ethembeni has 3 programs: 1) residential care unit, 2) family support program, and 3) family center. The residential care center can accommodate and care for 4 people at one time; it’s basically a very small hospice run by lay people in the community. The family support program provides a holistic intervention incorporating not only home based care for the sick but also food security, income generation, and psychosocial support. On average, they visit 45-50 families a month (200+ adults and kids). The family center cares for 40 orphans and vulnerable children a day by providing meals, psychosocial support, and structured play activities. The core values of these 3 programs are very simple: God’s love and hope. Since the beginning of these ministries, they’ve worked with over 500 HIV infected families, directly benefiting more than 2,000 people. After that lengthy intro, let me tell you about my day.

When we arrived at the residential care center (which I’ll just call hospice from now on), there were already workers taking care of the patients and our help wasn’t needed. Kathryn, the head nurse who pretty much runs the place, decided that we would go and do home visits with the church volunteers. They were supposed to arrive at 9AM, but this is Africa (TIA!) and they didn’t get there until 10:30AM. Once they arrived, things finally started to pick up. There were about 20 volunteers gathering in a circle outside, so Bobby and I joined. We sang a song in Zulu (with hand motions and dancing), prayed in Zulu and English, and then were off in our cars to do the home visits. I went with a really sweet older white woman named Susan* and an equally sweet older black woman named Nobeni* (she was the translator). The first patient we visited was a 40 year old woman named Katiwe*. She had 4 kids under the age of 18. Her eldest, an 18 year old girl, recently had a baby but wanted to stay in school, so Katiwe takes care of the baby during the day. Katiwe looked pretty healthy, just very tired. The only medical problem she was having was diarrhea, so we gave her a recipe for a simple and cheap oral rehydration solution (1 tsp salt, 8 tsp sugar, and 1 liter water) and told her to drink until she could go to clinic. Anne flipped through her Bible and decided to read Psalm 9:7-10. Katiwe followed along in her own Zulu Bible while Nobeni read out loud in Zulu. Can I just say how incredible it is to hear the Bible being read in a different language? It really just reminded me that God is a God of ALL nations. Anyway, my favorite verse out of that passage was verse 9, “The Lord is a shelter for the oppressed, a refuge in times of trouble.” Susan explained to Katiwe that no matter how poor or diseased she was, God loved her and would never abandon her. We talked for a little while longer about Jesus, Susan reprimanded Katiwe for not attending a knitting class at Ethembeni (part of their program to get people jobs), and then we prayed for her. After loading Katiwe up with a ton of food (sandwiches, yogurt, soup, eggs, avocados, baby food, etc.), we got back in the car and headed down the road to a new patient. Her name was Maureen* and she lived in an even smaller 2 room house without electricity. We found out that she was 39 years old and had 2 kids (ages 3 and 5) and a boyfriend (who wasn’t the father of either of her children) who had HIV. She was unaware of her CD4 count, which is an important indicator of where people are at in their illness. A count below 200 and an opportunistic infection of some kind (like TB or pneumonia) is diagnostic of AIDS. She gave me a bunch of medical records, but they were all dirty and worn away so I couldn’t really read them. She has been to church before, but doesn’t go on a regular basis and doesn’t own a Bible, so Susan said that was something we were going to change. We prayed for her and told her that someone would be back to visit her in 2 weeks. This woman looked a lot sicker than the first, which was hard to see. After that visit, Susan dropped me off at the Mpophomeni Family Center, which is right down the road from the hospice. It was created after the hospice a few years ago and is actually pretty nice (for the location it was in). They take care of kids during the day who are either AIDS orphans and live with random relatives who work and can’t take care of them during the day, or they live in child-headed households and have older brothers/sisters who are in school during the day and can’t take care of them. So basically what Bobby and I did all day was play with them, and I couldn’t have been happier. I love kids because no matter what language they speak, you can still have fun with them and love on them (they all were black, Zulu speaking). We did races with them and taught them how to play “duck duck goose” and musical chairs, both of which they loved once they got the hang of it. As more kids got out of school, the family center got more and more crowded and our games got bigger and bigger. It was awesome. They love cameras, so I took a bunch of pictures of them until my camera ran out of batteries. When we finally left at 4, I was covered in little kid snot and dirt, but was smiling ear to ear. There was one little girl who was probably 1 ½ who was attached to me the entire day, and any time I put her down she would reach her arms out for me to hold her. I just wanted to take her home with me. OK I wanted to take them all home with me. I’m having serious thoughts about adopting a kid from here someday. There are 1.5 million AIDS orphans in South Africa alone. I can’t save them all, but if I can make a difference in at least one, I would be so happy. It was a great day and I couldn’t wait to go back!

On Friday, 10/24, I returned to the Ethembeni for my final hospice day. Since I had already done home visits and been to the Family Center, the nurse in charge decided that I would stay at the hospice and help out there. There were two older black women working that day: Busisiwe* and Nelisiwe*. They were both really sweet and willing to let me help. Our job for the morning was to bathe and clothe the patients and change their bed linens. We walked all four of them to the shower (where a shower chair was waiting) because none of them were strong enough to walk by themselves. There was a man who appeared to be in his 30s, a 21 year-old girl, and two other women who looked like they were in their 20s or 30s. It was sad enough to see these people in their clothing, but to see them naked was a completely different story; they were literally just skin and bones. These patients could barely lift their arms for me to wash under them. I cleaned one of the woman’s pressure sores and multiple ulcers covering her genitals with salt water; they were unlike anything I’d ever seen before. I felt so bad for the woman because it was obviously causing her a great deal of pain. All she kept saying was, “Thank you sissy” over and over. It made me really sad, but really blessed to be able to serve her. After I was done cleaning her, the nurse brought in a bunch of leaves from a plant, squeezed the sap out of them, and rubbed them on the woman’s sores. Apparently Ethembeni grows a few medicinal plants in their garden and this was one of them. It’s called a bulbine frutescnes (Ibhucu in Zulu) and its sap can be used to heal ulcers and cure itching. Pretty cool huh? Bathing the 21 year-old girl was really hard for me, too. I’m 21 myself, and I can’t imagine being so near to death at this point in my life. I feel like it’s just beginning! It really made me realize that I’m so blessed with my health and take it for granted way too often. We finally finished getting the patients bathed and ready for the day around noon (it was a long process because they couldn’t really do anything for themselves). Washing these people who are incredibly sick and ostracized from society was definitely one of the most humbling experiences in my life.

So that was my experience at Ethembeni. It was something I will never forget, that’s for sure. If you want to find out more about Ethembeni, you can contact Grant Edkins at grantedkins@telkomsa.net or visit the church’s website at http://www.howickcommunity.co.za/. This ministry is doing amazing things for the community of Mpophomeni, so please keep them in your prayers!

*Please note that names have been changed to protect privacy

Last Week at East Boom & uShaka Marine World

Sawubona family and friends! Sorry I haven’t written in awhile! Between school, clinical, and random adventures I’ve been keeping pretty busy and would love to share some highlights with you all.

Let’s start with clinical. I’m not sure if I mentioned it in my last blog or not, but the nurses’ scope of practice in South Africa is much greater than that of nurses in the U.S. They essentially act like nurse practitioners and are very autonomous in everything they do because there simply are not enough doctors working in clinics to oversee their practice. This is awesome for me because I’ve been able to do things that I would never get to do back home. So far I have learned how to draw blood, do pap smears, perform 6 week baby assessments, and extract teeth (ok I didn’t actually DO the last one, but I watched quite a few of them)! I’d never done blood draws on anyone (patient or nursing friend), so this was a completely new thing for me. Quite honestly, it was absolutely frightening to be that close to blood infected with HIV; however, I stuck those patients’ veins with confidence and drew vials and vials of their blood. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in nursing school, it is to be confident in every skill you perform; the patient will never know the difference between you and someone who has been a nurse for her entire life. I’d also never done pap smears before, so I was so excited when I did one correctly by myself. Those two procedures were amazing to learn, but my favorite experiences were definitely in the pediatrics and dental portions of East Boom clinic.

On Tuesday, 10/14, I went over the pediatrics section of the clinic, which I was really excited for obvious reasons. I love kids! I got assigned to an Indian sister who was in charge of doing 6 week assessments. When we saw the first baby, she absolutely grilled me on my assessment skills. I learned how to do a newborn assessment in OB (and a 6 week old is pretty similar); however, OB was 2 years ago and I was very rusty. After some practice, I became “pro” at the assessments and started doing all of them while she charted everything. All of the babies were so cute and I wanted to take all of them home with me. The sister turned out to be a great teacher. The only problem I had with her was her outright paternalistic attitude toward these moms. A lot of them were only feeding their babies for a few minutes at a time (when it should be at least 20 min) and were wondering why their baby was constipated, losing weight, or crying all of the time. All they needed was some simple education regarding feeding patterns; however, the sister took that as her opportunity to belittle the moms and criticize their horrible mothering skills. It was really quite shocking to me. What made me even more frustrated was that half of the time, the moms didn’t even understand the criticism she was giving them. The sister didn’t know how to speak Zulu and didn’t care to learn. She was shocked when I used some of my Zulu to greet the moms. When the moms would respond with a blank stare because they didn’t understand English, she would just talk louder and louder. Even I felt uncomfortable. I can’t imagine how the poor mothers felt. Oh so an exciting story. At the end of the day, right before I was getting ready to leave, a mom brought in her 6 week old baby and said he had a cough for about a week and was doing “something funny” with his nose. I noted some nasal flaring (which is a sign of respiratory distress in babies) when I was assessing his head/face. When I lifted up his onesie, I noticed that he was having severe intercostal chest retractions upon inspiration. This is where you can see their ribs every time they breathe in; it’s another sign of respiratory distress. His respirations were 63 breaths/min, which is way too much for any baby (60 is the max you want them to have). All of the sudden, he started coughing and getting really red in the face, so I turned him on his side and started patting his back. This did little to alleviate his cough, so the sister told me to put him on my lap upside down to loosen secretions. That still wasn’t really working, and I started getting worried when the baby started getting quiet from being so tired of coughing. The sister instructed me to put him on oxygen, so I found the infant mask and hooked him up. All of the sudden, a million things started happening at once. The sister started making phone calls and another sister came in and did a heel prick to test for blood oxygen levels. My sister drew up ceftriaxome, a prophylactic antibiotic that would hold him over until he got to the hospital where they would start an IV of it, and administered it in his thigh. Oh man did he hate that. She said that he most likely had a serious bacterial infection like pneumonia. The sad part about the whirlwind of activities was that the sister failed to tell the mom that she was going to the hospital, much less that there was something seriously wrong with her baby. I let her know what was going on and that everything was going to be ok; she looked absolutely frightened. I’m guessing she was only 16 or 17. The paramedics finally arrived 30 minutes later (which I guess it a good response time here) and took the mom and baby away.

Friday, 10/17, was our last day at East Boom. It was very sad for me because I had grown to love the clinic and felt like there was a lot more for me to experience. So for my last day, I decided to go to the dental clinic because I knew this would probably be my only opportunity to experience something like that. The clinic was totally packed when I walked in at 8AM. There were 3 rooms with dentists and assisting sisters, so I just walked into the middle one and asked if I could observe/help for the day. The dentist in my room was a young Indian guy and didn’t really seem to care one way or the other, but the sister welcomed me in. When I asked about the massive amounts of patients waiting outside, the dentist informed me that this was nothing. This dental clinic sees over 200 pts per day and last month they saw almost 4,000 pts. The dental clinic in the PMB area that followed in 2nd place behind East Boom only saw 300 pts last month! Anyway, the plan for this morning (and I guess every morning) was extractions. Apparently it’s the main procedure they perform. Although they do perform cavity fillings and other basic dental procedures, patients would much rather get a tooth pulled than have it repaired because they have to make an appointment to come back and get the tooth fixed/filled, whereas they can just get the tooth pulled that same day. The dentist was very efficient at what he did, and by the end of the morning, I could see why the patient turnover rate is so high at East Boom. First, all of the patients would come in, point to the tooth/teeth they wanted removed (some wanted 2 or 3), and the dentist would numb the area with a massive needle. That part took about 1-2 minutes. Then, they would all come in and get them pulled. There was one young man who wanted his 2 front teeth pulled and the dentist didn’t even blink twice before extracting both of them. After I composed myself from the cracking sound of the root being ripped out of its socket and blood gushing out, I asked the dentist how the man was going to eat for the rest of his life. The dentist replied, “He will manage just like everyone else.” He went on to explain to me how numb he has become to the pt’s pain and potential struggles in life because “it’s their own fault for not taking care of their teeth in the first place.” Basically he was saying that because they’ve already messed up, there’s no hope for them in the future. I was really shocked at his callousness toward his profession and life in general, especially since this was only his 1st year as a dentist. I later found out from my South African clinical instructor Wendy that dentists are required to do one year of community work before going elsewhere, and that’s what this rotation was for this dentist. He wasn’t even doing it because he had a heart for these people. Anyway, the whole extraction process for each patient literally only took 1-2 minutes. They had the next patient standing in the doorway while the pt before them was getting his/her teeth pulled. The dentist would throw away the nasty rotting tooth, give them a cotton ball to stuff in the bleeding socket, give them 2 tablets for pain (something simple like Tylenol), and send them on their way home. I couldn’t believe how such a big procedure had been reduced to such a simple thing in this culture. I asked him if the patients literally just went home with that piece of cotton in their mouths with hopes that they wouldn’t get an infection. He replied that a nurse gives all of the patients a group teaching session in the morning and they’re expected to follow them. I asked him how many people don’t listen and come back with an infection, and he said that a lot of them do and simply get the sockets cleaned out and are sent home again. I couldn’t believe how nonchalant he was about these people getting potentially life-threatening infections when they’re already immunocompromised with HIV/AIDS. It made me really frustrated at him, but then again, he was just doing his job and there wasn’t much else he could do for them if they didn’t take care of their own health.

So now that I’ve overwhelmed you with stories from clinical, I’ll share with you one of my adventures outside of East Boom. On 10/11, I got to go to uShaka Marine World, which is a marine and water park in Durban (a coastal city about 1 ½ hours away from PMB). There are two parts to uShaka: Marine World and Wet ‘n Wild. For a comparison to those in Southern California, the first is like Sea World and the second is like Wild Rivers or Raging Waters (but so much better). I went to the Marine World part first where I got to see all kinds of cool sea creatures like sharks, sea turtles, jelly fish, rock fish, sea horses, and sting rays. They even had a tank dedicated to Finding Nemo with all of the fish from the movie. Did I mention that this place is all underground in a big old steel ship? Pretty cool, huh? We also got to see a feeding, which was hilarious. A diver went in a huge tank with a bunch of food in a pouch and all of the fish, stingrays, and sharks swarmed him. They started sucking on any and every part of his body in the hopes of getting some kind of food. We also got to see a dolphin show, which was performed in a big stadium. All of the dolphins were incredibly smart (way smarter than American ones) and did a bunch of cool tricks. In the middle of the show, I was picked by one of the dolphin trainers to “get wet.” So I went down with 10 other people to the edge of the dolphin tank while a dolphin turned around and splashed us like crazy with his tail. I couldn’t stop laughing. After the show, we decided it was time to play at the water park. At first, I was too scared to go on the super high slides and stuck to the lower, safer ones. When I saw some of my friends go down the big slide (and learned that it was the tallest water slide in Africa!), I decided that I had to do it. Climbing up the hundreds of stairs was probably the scariest part. If I didn’t have my friend Mandy with me (I dragged her into it haha), I probably would’ve chickened out. The slide was a straight drop down and managed to give me one of the worst wedgies in my life, but it was totally worth it. After my friends and I conquered all of the slides, we headed to the Lazy River, floated around the park a few times, and then were off to the beach (which was right next to the park). It was absolutely beautiful; unfortunately, the water was too cold (even for me), so we just laid out until it was time to go. I was exhausted and slept most of the way home, but it was an awesome day!

On that note, I’m going to have to end my blog because I actually have to be studious and do work now. Please keep my health in your prayers. I got sick last week, got better, and feel like I’m relapsing again today. I’ll be doing hospice visits this week, so also pray that I’ll have a positive impact on people as they’re ending their lives. Oh one more thing. I have a mailing address at AE and am welcoming any letters/packages of love, so here it is. Sala kahle!

Nicole Hetschel
API Education Foundation
PO Box 13870
Cascades 3203
Pietermaritzburg
KZN, South Africa

Clinical, D-Group, & Birds of Prey

Hi again! I'm back and it's only one day later. Aren't you proud of me? This past week at AE has been super busy, so I just want to recap a little bit of it. Let’s start with my schedule:

· Monday: 8:30AM - Chapel, 10AM - Tea Break, 10:30AM - Community Health, 1PM - Lunch, 2PM - Ethics & Issues in Health Care
· Tuesday: 8AM-4PM - Clinical
· Wednesday: 8:30AM-4:00PM - Independent study for Nursing Research, 4PM - Tea Break, 4:30PM – Conversational Zulu, 6PM – Supper, 7PM – Conversational Zulu
· Thursday: 8:30AM - Family Time, 10AM - Tea Break, 10:30AM-4:00PM – Ethics & Issues in Health Care
· Friday: 8AM-4PM - Clinical

Ok now that we have that down, let me update you on the highlights of my first week in PMB. On Monday, 9/29, I had my first day of classes, starting with Community Health. It was pretty exciting because we got to meet the two South African nurses who are teaming up with APU for future semesters in nursing. Glenda and Wendy are both older, white women who are very passionate about community health and seem very excited to be working with students from the U.S. They lectured on the health care system and nursing in South Africa, which was very interesting. I learned that registered nurses here pretty much perform the same functions as a nurse practitioner in the U.S. There simply aren’t enough doctors and pharmacists who are willing to work in the rural clinics; hence, a Nurse Amendment Act was created in 1981 to allow nurses to perform certain medical diagnostic and treatment functions (such as prescribing medications). I can’t believe that nurses are not respected in this country when they play such a huge role in the health care system.

I was able to see these roles played out on my first day of clinical (Tuesday, 9/30). Our group of 11 nursing students was split up into 3 different clinical sites. I was assigned to the biggest one, East Boom Clinic, with 5 other students. The clinic, which is only 15 minutes away from AE, is located in an incredibly impoverished area of the city. There are two parts to the clinic and they are across the street from each other. On one side, there’s an anti-retroviral therapy (ART) and tuberculosis (TB) clinic. TB is one the most common opportunistic infection of people with HIV; thus, it’s a very big part of this clinic. On the other side, there’s an antenatal (prenatal) clinic called the PMTCT (Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission). East Boom, which is staffed by 60 full time sisters (what they call nurses in SA), sees over 1,000 patients per day and is literally always “booming” with business. We were absolutely overwhelmed by the amount of patients waiting to be seen outside. That morning, one of the charge sisters took us under her wing and taught us everything we needed to know about HIV/AIDS medications and the various regimes people are placed on. Most of this was new information to us; however, she was a great teacher and quizzed us until we got it down. She then took us around to meet everyone at the clinic, including the pharmacist, social workers, counselors, doctors, phlebotomist, and sisters. Everyone was very welcoming and happy to have us there, which definitely isn’t always the case in the U.S. hospitals we work at. After meeting the staff, Mandy and I were sent across the street to the PMTCT. I was pretty excited. The sisters there were very sweet and willing to teach us any and everything about prenatal assessments. I had very little antenatal experience in my OB rotation (it was mostly labor and delivery, postpartum, and nursery), so I was excited to learn more about this aspect of women’s health. In just one day, I learned four different ways of how to estimate the gestational age of the baby. One of them was measuring from the pubic symphysis to the fundus (the top of the uterus); for example, 30 cm = 30 weeks. Another was by counting with my fingers from the umbilicus to the fundus (the umbilicus is 22 weeks, and each finger is 1 week, so 4 fingers is 26 weeks). I also got to feel for the presenting part, which was usually the head, find the baby’s limbs and back, and listen to the baby’s heart beat with a cone shaped device called a fetoscope. I had never listened to the heart beat that way (I’ve always just used the machines in the U.S.), so it was hard for me to hear at first. I got the hang of it after awhile, but it definitely takes a trained ear and these sisters had it! If they can’t hear the heat beat via the fetoscope, they have a handheld sonogram to listen as well. One of the moms was worried that she hadn’t felt her baby move in awhile, so even though the nurse heard the heart beat via fetoscope, she did a sonogram so mom could hear the heart beat. Immediately after hearing the heart beat, I saw a look of relief wash over the mother’s face. It was a really special moment. Oh I forgot to mention that a majority of the mothers who come to the clinic are HIV positive, so there is a lot of teaching involving the drug regime they are either on already or needed to start in the future. Women begin taking ARV medications during their third trimester to prevent mother to child transmission. Most of the time it was hard for me to be involved in the teaching because the women only spoke Zulu, but the sisters were very good about translating and explaining their teachings. Additionally, many women do not take good care of themselves during pregnancy and need to be educated regarding nutrition and rest. It was a very busy but rewarding day. I can’t wait to go back!

Another highlight of my week has been starting a Bible study group (also known as a D-group). I really felt like God was calling me into some kind of spiritual leadership this semester and volunteered, along with seven other girls, to lead my own group. We ended up creating four different groups with four different focuses and decided that each group would be co-lead. My co-leader is Bethel (the picture below is her and I), a 19 year old global studies major from Wisconsin, and our focus is on nature. We figured that as long as we were living in this absolutely gorgeous place, we might as well study God’s word in it. Once the weather gets better (it has been raining for the past month and a half), we will hopefully get to hike places, sit by waterfalls, and walk along the game reserves and study the Bible together. Bethel and I really wanted it to be open to discussion and not too tightly structured; however, we also wanted to have some kind of focus. After some prayer and reading, we decided that we would start off by going through Ephesians. It really focuses on two of the things that I feel is our role in coming to South Africa: unity in the church body and living as children of the light. My first goal for this semester is to grow in my relationship with Christ and be a light for him in any way I can, and my second is to form quality, lasting relationships with fellow believers. I knew what I wanted out of the D-group; however, I didn’t know what the other girls wanted out of it and was pretty nervous for our first meeting. Anyway, our first meeting was yesterday (Sunday, 10/5) and we ended up meeting in Corey’s room because of the rain. Oh I forgot to mention that there are six girls in the group (eight including the leaders). We decided that we would begin every D-group with someone reading a verse in Psalm dealing with nature, so Bethel started off by reading Psalm 42:7. This verse, which became Bethel’s favorite this past summer, paints a picture of God’s incredible power in nature. I prayed for the group and then Bethel read through Ephesians 1. She has a NKJ Bible, so her wording was a lot different than everyone else’s NIV and NLT; however, this turned out to be very beneficial to our discussion. I talked about how incredible it was that before God created the world, he chose us by name and had a plan for our lives. Unfortunately, this whole “chosen in advance” idea got us into a big argument about predestination vs. free will. After a few minutes of back and forth arguing, I broke up the argument and changed to topic; this wasn’t exactly where I wanted to group to go. After talking more about Ephesians 1, I asked the group what they wanted to get out of the D-group. Most people wanted a consistent time when they were accountable to study God’s word and to build relationships with other people. That was encouraging to me, since they were kind of along the same lines of my hopes for the group. We ended with prayer requests and decided that we would pray for one specific person throughout the week. So all in all, the group went pretty well. We’re going to meet every Sunday for D-group and every Thursday just for prayer. I’m excited to see where God leads this group and really hope that we can all impact each other in some way.

Oh one more thing…I promise! On Saturday, 10/4, we went to the birds of prey center and got to see some really cool South African eagles, vultures, owls, and kites. I’m not really a big bird person, but it turned out to be a lot cooler than I expected. They did a bird show for us and had 4 different birds do different tricks like catch meat in the air, find it on the ground, or just fly around and swoop over the our group. After the show, the trainer lady took us over to the vultures and threw them a massive piece of raw meat. The ensuing attack on the carcass was like the Lion King in real life. They ripped at that thing and fought each other until it was completely gone (which only took a matter of minutes). I got a video of it on my camera. Speaking of videos, I have a lot of cool videos on my camera that I would love to share with you all (like shark diving). If anyone has any idea about how to do that, please let me know! I apologize for this blog being so long winded, but I really had a lot to say. Please pray for perseverance with my school work, that I would be a blessing to the patients at East Boom, that God would continue to work in my life and change me, and I would be a positive influence in the lives of my D-group girls. Sala Kahle! (Go well!)

Road Trip & Pietermaritzburg

Sanibona! Igama lami nguNicole. Ngiphuma eMelika no ngihlala eMgungundlovu. Ngisaphila.

That means, “Hello! My name is Nicole. I come from America and am staying in Pietermaritzburg. I am well.” How do you like my Zulu skills? Haha, ok so that’s really all I can say (plus a few other greeting phrases), but I’ve only had one class so give me a little grace! As you can see, I have arrived in Pietermaritzburg (PMB) and am already trying to assimilate into a new culture. Like I said in my previous blog, I left Cape Town on Wednesday, 9/24. Leaving Cornerstone was a lot harder than I thought it would be because we had to say goodbye to all of the mentors, students, and staff. In a matter of weeks, we had become incredibly close to these people (especially the mentors...I included a picture of my mentor Emma and I) and then had to completely abandon and possibly never see them again. Everyone, including myself, was crying and didn’t want to say goodbye. Somehow Kelli, our student life coordinator and substitute mom on this trip, managed to pry us from their arms and get us on the bus. And thus began our four day road trip. We did a LOT and a lot of driving over the next few days, so I’m just going to tell you about the highlights.

Thursday, 9/25, was definitely the best day of the trip. We arrived in George the night before and stayed at this Christian conference and holiday center called Carmel by the Sea. It was an absolutely gorgeous retreat; I wouldn’t have minded staying there for the rest of the semester. Anyway, we left Carmel early in the morning for a day of adventure, starting off with the Cango Caves. There was an option of participating in the “normal cave tour”, where you simply do a guided tour through the caves, or the “adventure cave tour”, where you crawl into really small spaces to get around the caves. Now normally I’m a pretty adventurous person; however, going into small dark places where I could get stuck is one thing I won’t do. Although the tour itself was slightly boring, the caves themselves were absolutely beautiful. The splendor of God’s creation never ceases to amaze me in South Africa.

Guess what came next? Ostrich farms! The tour started off with an intro to ostriches, which was pretty interesting. A funny thing I learned was that their brain is smaller than one of their eyes, so they’re pretty stupid animals. We were then introduced to a 2 day old ostrich that could barely walk straight. I even got to hold the cute little guy! He was a little bit smaller than the 6-7 ft tall adults we met next. The guide gave 3 girls some ostrich pellets to put in their mouths, and one of the “tame” ostriches pecked them out. This was called ostrich kissing. Then he picked some people to get an ostrich massage and I was one of them. He held a handful of food behind by back and the ostrich reached over my shoulder and pecked away. To be honest, it didn’t feel like a massage at all; it was just really funny feeling to have this huge feathered thing around my neck. As we continued the tour, we approached an area where all of the ostriches had blankets on their backs. You know what that means…ostrich riding time! After some other people rode, I volunteered to go. They had 2 “professional” ostrich wranglers who grabbed the ostriches, put bags over their heads (they’re so stupid that when they can’t see you, they don’t think you’re there), and brought them up to the mounting station. They lifted up the wings (which are HUGE), helped me slide onto the bird, put the wings over my legs, told me to hold on for dear life, took the bag off its head, and set it free. That crazy thing ran as fast as it could around the arena until I fell off and the wranglers caught me. Apparently ostriches are the fastest birds in the world and can run 120 km/hr for 5 miles straight. It was so much fun! Finally, we got to stand on some real ostrich eggs. They’re super strong and can withstand 300 kg of weight (over 600 lbs), so they barely held me up (just kidding).

After that, we were off to our final destination: the Cango Wildlife Ranch! We arrived 45 minutes before the park closed, so we had to rush through the entire park with a guide. We saw so many cool animals like beautiful pink flamingos, hippos, crocodiles, otters, white lions, cheetahs, African lions, white tigers, yellow tigers, and many others. All of the big cats had just eaten, so they were pretty sleepy (which was great for taking pictures). Then came the best part of the park – cheetah petting! We had to pay $20 extra to do it, but it was so worth it. The four girls that went in before me for some pretty good pictures; however, when one of the girls (Jess) tried to pet a cheetah’s head, it bit her leg! The trainers hit it really hard on the face and got the girls out of the cage. Jess was totally fine and only had a small rip on her jeans, but she was still freaking out. I have to admit I was a bit scared myself to go in next, especially when the trainers asked the next “victims” to come in. Fortunately, the cheetah that bit Jess calmed down, laid down, and let us pet it. In fact, it loved being pet so much that it purred to the point of its entire body vibrating. I absolutely loved the entire experience; it was definitely one of the coolest things I’ve ever done (like a lot of other things here in SA)!

On Saturday, 9/27, we finally arrived at the beautiful African Enterprise (AE) Center in PMB. AE is where we will be living for the remainder of our semester. To get to AE, you drive through this bumpy, one lane dirt road that is surrounded by a bamboo forest and hundreds of other trees (with monkeys in them). It’s absolutely beautiful and feels like some kind of resort. There are waterfalls, freshly moved green grass, plants, and hundreds of colorful flowers. I was assigned to live on the bottom floor of John Wilson, which is a two story building that looks like a house. Our chalet has 4 rooms, 2 toilets, 1 shower (yes I said ONE shower for 7 girls), a kitchen, and a common room in the center with 2 desks. Of course, the boys’ chalet has 4 showers and toilets between the 9 of them. Isn’t that the way it always works? Oh and my room has two twin beds, two desks, one nightstand, and one closet. I was assigned to live with a girl named Angel, who is a 19 year-old sophomore trying to get into the nursing program at APU. She is super tiny, vegan, and a total morning person. Basically, everything that I’m not! Anyway, she seems really sweet and I can’t wait to get to know her better. Please pray that God will give me patience and we will become good friends through this shared living experience!

So I'm running out of time and have to get to the homework that I've been avoiding all weekend, but I will update you on my first week in PMB sometime next week. I love you, miss you, and appreciate all of your prayers. I can't wait to share how God is working in my life and SA next post :)