Last Week in Cape Town!

Hi friends and family! Sorry it’s been so long since my last update. I’ve been pretty busy for the past week and a half and haven’t had a spare minute to blog at all. This is an update of the highlights of my last week in Cape Town. My next one will be about my road trip up to Pietermaritzburg (PMB)!

On Wednesday, 9/17, I went to an orphanage called the Christine Revell Children’s Home. It houses up to 49 infants/children from birth to 5 years old. Most of the orphans are there because 1) their parents didn’t have the money or desire to care for them, 2) they’re taken out of abusive homes by social workers, or 3) their parents died from HIV/AIDS. They sleep upstairs, 6 to a room, and have a super cute community bathroom where all of their toothbrushes, towels, and washcloths are hung up on walls with name labels. Downstairs are the playrooms, kitchen, play ground, etc. My group of 5 got to visit the infant room first where there were 2 baby girls in cribs. One was named Ilana (6 months old) and the other was Valentina (2 months old). They both outstretched their arms when we came close to them and started grabbing whatever they could. My heart absolutely broke when I learned that the policy of the orphanage was not to hold the babies/kids so they wouldn’t become dependent upon being held. I know for a fact that babies need constant human touch and soothing; otherwise, they don’t develop correctly. When we left, the babies started crying and I did too because there was nothing I could do about it. I had to respect their no holding rule. Then we went into the toddler room (1-2 years old) where I was literally swarmed by babies learning how to walk with outstretched arms. They wanted to be held just as much as the babies did. It was so hard for me to be there and not do anything. Finally, we got to play with the 3-5 year olds out on the playground. I ended up pushing a bunch of kids on swings; they loved it and did not want me to stop. After being outside for awhile, my friend Rosie and I decided to go back to the room with the infants. They were supposed to be napping, but Valentina was still awake and fussing. We tried rubbing her head, patting her back, and singing to her, but nothing would make her go back to sleep. Eventually, we decided that we had to break the rules and hold her; it was the only way. The minute Rosie picked her up, she stopped crying. The women who were in charge of the infants at the time came in and were upset that we were holding her, but eventually gave up and left us alone. Shortly after we picked her up, it was time for the babies to be fed. A woman woke up Ilana, put a bottle in her mouth, and left it to rest on her body. Ilana could barely grasp it with her tiny hands. I couldn’t believe that a 6 month old was feeding herself. When she started to choke on the milk, I couldn’t take it anymore. I picked her up, patted her back so she wasn’t choking anymore, and fed her the rest of her bottle in my arms. I burped her when she was done; I can’t imagine the last time someone did this to her. After laying the babies back down, Rosie and I prayed for both of them; it was the only thing we could do. It was really hard to leave that place. I will never forget the encounters I had with the kids there. One of the nursing classes I’m taking this semester is a senior seminar class called “Ethics and Issues in Healthcare.” We have a huge paper that we write over the entire semester, and I think I’m planning on doing it on the ethical implications of not holding infants/children and treating them in the way that this orphanage did.

On Saturday, 9/20, I had another adventure packed day of shark diving. It was a pretty expensive optional activity, but like abseiling, I didn’t want to miss out on an opportunity of a lifetime. Taxi buses picked us up early in the morning and drove us 2 hours away to Hunt’s Bay, which is the only place in the world where you can dive with great white sharks. It was an absolutely beautiful day, just very windy. The organization, called “Shark Diving Unlimited”, fed us a huge breakfast, gave us a brief orientation, and then showed us to our boat. Apparently the cage we dive in is permanently anchored in an area where sharks are everywhere. The boat ride to the cage was really fun because were speeding over massive waves the whole time; I was on the top deck of the boat and it felt like we were going to get flung off at any second. Unfortunately, all that movement was not good for my full stomach and I got sea sick as soon as we stopped (along with quite a few other people). So while I wasn’t barfing over the side of the boat, I was taking a lot of cool pictures and videos. Six people go in the cage at a time, and I was in the last group out of four to go. We got all suited up in wetsuits (mine was way too big for me, so it wasn’t very effective), booties, and goggles and hopped into the FREEZING cold water. Then we kneeled on a bar inside of the cage and held onto bars above us. There was a big bumper in front of the cage (that already had teeth marks in it from previous sharks) to protect us from getting our hands chomped off. Whenever a shark would come, which they lured in by these massive tuna heads and fish guts, the guide would tell “Down to your right/left!” and we would hold our breath and go under water to see it. Unfortunately for my group, we ended up sitting in the water shivering for a half hour before our first and only shark came. It appeared that after the first few groups, the sharks lost interest in our boat and the food we had to offer. I was pretty disappointed and felt like I got hypothermia for nothing. It was hard, but I had to change my perspective and simply be grateful to even be where I was. We weren’t able to go to shark alley, which is the only place in the world you can see great whites breach, because the wind was picking up and the waters were too choppy. So we went back to shore, ate lunch, and watched the video a cameraman made for us. It was way too expensive for me to buy, but still cool to watch.

Tuesday, 9/23, was our last day in Cape Town. My final history paper, which I chose to write on the role of the church in the HIV/AIDS crisis, was due today. I didn’t get any sleep the night before because I was writing it, so I kind of felt like I was in a daze the entire day, haha. I had four dreadful hours of nursing class, hung out at Cornerstone for the afternoon, and then went back to Lucy’s for our “last supper” together. As a gift for letting Corey and I stay at her house, we printed out a picture the three of us took together after church and framed it. She absolutely loved it and even bragged about how she was going to bring it to work and show her coworkers the following day. We also gave her some dish towels, napkins, and placemats that I brought from home. She was more excited about the fact that they were from the U.S. than the gifts themselves. It was really funny. When it was time for Lucy to bring us back to the college, I was actually sad. I ended up really enjoying the two weeks I got to spend with her. I got used to her bluntness about everything; this character quality actually turned out to beneficial in my learning about the country’s (not so good) political state and her opinion regarding it. After I began having tea time with her every night after dinner, she started to warm up to me more and even started calling me “my lovely.” God answered my prayers…I finally made friends with Lucy!

I left Cape Town on 9/24 (Happy 23rd Birthday Dan!) for a four day road trip up to PMB. I’ll update you on that trip in my next post. I love you and miss you all. Thanks for praying!

Kaama, the Peninsula, & Lucy

Hi everyone!

It has been yet another week in South Africa and I’m back to update you on my adventures. Rather than give you a “play-by-play” like I’ve done in the past, I’ve decided to update you on the highlights of my week instead. Not only does this save time on my part, but hopefully it will make my blog a little more interesting.

The first thing I want to tell you all about is a conversation I had with Kaama, one of the mentors at Cornerstone. He is a 32 year-old black man from Lesotho, a tiny country enclosed by South Africa. From the moment I met him, I noticed that he had a significant limp and an arm that didn’t seem quite right. We had been trying to connect all week and time just kept getting away from us. He kept coming up to me saying, “You owe me,” so I was excited when I finally had the chance to talk with him on Sunday night after dinner. We exchanged basic family information, but the best part about our whole conversation was the story of his leg. Eight years ago, he was assaulted in Lesotho while he was walking down the street. Kaama didn’t remember anything that happened; all he remembered was waking up in the hospital one week later. The doctors informed him that he had a serious brain injury and was in a coma for a week. They also told him that if he didn’t die (which they assumed he would), he would never be able to use his left hand or walk again because his entire left side was paralyzed by the brain injury. Kaama refused to believe either of those things to be true. One night in the hospital, he started having difficulty breathing and panicked. All of the nurses were asleep (bad nurses!) and the doctors had gone home for the night, so he didn’t know what to do. Somehow (I think it was God), one of the nurses woke up, noticed him turning blue, and called a code. Kaama could hear everything going on around him (like them giving him CPR), but couldn’t see or speak. At that very moment, Kaama started praying. He asked Jesus for his forgiveness and promised that if Christ saved his life, he would serve Him for the rest of his life in whatever he did. As soon as he finished that prayer, he gasped for air and could finally breathe again. Jesus had literally brought him back from the dead; it was a miracle. After that near-death experience, he did physical therapy and blew away the poor prognosis he was given by the doctors; he started using his hand AND walking again! All of his life, he wanted to be an accountant like his mother. Before the accident, he attempted to obtain an accounting degree from 3 different colleges; however, he either failed out of his classes there or ran out of money. After the accident, he realized that maybe accounting wasn’t what God had planned for his life; thus, he applied to Cornerstone Christian College, got accepted, and had his entire education paid for by the school. Currently, he is in his fourth year at Cornerstone and will graduate in the spring with a theology degree. Now tell me that God isn’t great?

The second thing I want to tell you all about our bus tour around the South African peninsula on 9/11 (which, by the way, 9/11 means nothing to South Africans and was not mentioned once the entire day). We began the drive through incredibly wealthy areas where penthouses cost $4.5 million and a shot of 50 year-old single malt whiskey costs almost $2,000. When we were driving along the coast, which was one of the most beautiful sights I’ve seen in my life (white beaches, turquoise waters, huge rocks, the works), we passed through the richest area of SA called Clifton. Apparently many celebrities in the U.S. own houses there. Honestly, it reminded me exactly of Malibu. Seeing all of this opulence was surprisingly hard for me. I couldn’t help but notice the numerous homeless black people wandering through the streets of these wealthy communities. I also couldn’t help but notice that right next to these neighborhoods, there were townships. These are the neighborhoods where all of the black and coloured people were relocated to by the government during apartheid. Basically, these dilapidated houses are made out of steel (what appeared to be garage doors) and have no electricity or running water. This stark contrast between the richest of the rich and poorest of the poor living side by side shocked, dismayed, and even angered me. According to our tour guide, over 8 million people currently need housing in SA. In Los Angeles, the number of homeless people is 240,000. I then realized that I couldn’t be angry at the wealthy people in SA for ignoring the major economic gap because Orange County is exactly the same way. We live 60 miles away from one of the biggest homeless populations in U.S., but we don’t give it a second thought. Working on Skid Row, or Hope Street, a few weeks ago with my Community Health nursing class really opened my eyes up to the homeless situation in L.A. I really learned how important it was to serve “the least of these” just as Christ did. That got me thinking…what would it be SA be like if everyone knew and practiced the loving, servant attitude of Christ? It just makes me want to tell everyone about Jesus! Anyway, I’m going to get off my soapbox and tell you what else I did on the tour. I saw a whole lot of whales playing super close to shore, which was amazing. The most beautiful part of the day was at the Cape of Good Hope, which is the most South-Western point of Africa. Not only did we get to climb up a mountain to see over the entire cape, but we got to see where the Atlantic and Indian Oceans meet as well. It was one of the most incredible aspects of God’s creation that I’ve ever seen. You could see the white water currents mixing between the two oceans; they were even different colors! We also had the opportunity to see penguins at Boulders Beach. I never thought I’d see penguins anywhere other than Sea World, so that was awesome. Finally, we got to visit Kirstenbosch Gardens, which consisted of acres and acres of gorgeous South African plants and flowers.

The third and final thing I want to tell you about is my new place of residence. On Friday night, 9/12, we had our “Last Supper” at Cornerstone and then packed our lives away to go to homestays. Homestays are homes of people from local churches who have volunteered to house students who are studying abroad. The point of homestays is for us to be able to completely immerse ourselves in the South African culture, eat their food, and learn as much as we can from them. I was really, really sad. I felt like I had finally gotten used to everything at Cornerstone (the people, routine, even the crappy internet) and wasn’t ready to leave at all. The fateful moment came when Lucy, my homestay mom, picked me up. She’s a 62 year-old woman who has never been married or had any children. Right away, I felt like she hated me because she “didn’t know what [she] was supposed to cook for someone who was lactose intolerant.” I explained to her that it wasn’t that hard and I could eat pretty much everything as long as it didn’t have cheese on it. She wasn’t convinced. Lucy dropped me off at her house, which is a few blocks from school, and then left to go get Corey (another nursing major) because her car couldn’t fit both of our luggage. I seriously had never felt so alone in my life; I had just been ripped away from all of my friends and the community that I bonded with at Cornerstone. Anyway, things here at Lucy’s house haven’t been ideal. She is very particular about things because she has lived alone her entire life and is used to doing everything a certain way. You flush the toilet, turn off the lights, lock the doors, use the shower, and make the beds HER way, not your own. She is also very blunt and says whatever is on her mind, which can be hurtful at times. Personally, I think she is a very lonely woman who tries to fill in the silence in any way possible. As much as she may not like me, I really want to connect with Lucy and be her friend. Please pray for that!

Oh one more thing...I promise! On Saturday, 9/13, I climbed Table Mountain (the mountain that Cape Town is famous for), which is comparable to Half Dome in difficulty (just a lot shorter). There are rock stairs the entire way up, and it took us about 1.5 hours to get to the top. Then guess what I did? I abseiled (repelled) down a 400 ft. rock on the back of the mountain! It was one of the most frightening and exhilarating experiences of my life. I finally conquered my fears of falling off rock walls, and it felt absolutely incredible. God protected me and my newly reconstructed knee. Anyway, I have a week and a half left in Cape Town and a TON of work to do. We’re finishing up our history class and just getting into the meat of our nursing classes. Please pray that I have the endurance to get through it all. Also pray that I find God in South Africa. I’m still experiencing “separation anxiety” from my home church and don’t feel like God is as present now as he was with me this summer. I love you and miss you all so much! Your support means the world to me!

I Made It!

I can't believe it has only been a little over a week since I've left the U.S. It seriously feels like a month! It's going to be hard, but I'm going to try to summarize everything (or at the least the important things) that I've done since I arrived.

Let's start with the plane ride(s). Our first one to Dulles (Washington D.C.) wasn't too bad...only 5 hours. The second one was the killer one...14 hours! Fortunately, pretty much everyone on the plane (including me) loaded up on Tylenol PM and were out for a good portion of it. I shared a middle row of 5 seats with another girl and slept on and off for probably 10-12 hours. We left LAX at 8AM Thursday morning (8/28) and arrived in Johannesburg, South Africa at 3PM Friday afternoon (8/29)...31 hours later! We were all exhausted, to say the least. We spent the night at a hotel in Joburg (people here abbreviate everything...Joburg is short for Johannesburg), took a 2 hour bus tour through Soweto, and ended up at the Apartheid Museum. Both of those things were incredible, eye-opening experiences for me. Touring through Soweto, I got to experience the economic extremes of poverty (shacks made out of garage doors) and wealth (million $ homes) only a few blocks away from each other. In the Apartheid Museum, I was able to experience 1st hand the immense oppression of the Blacks, Colored, and Indians of SA. It kind of reminded me of the Holocaust Museum in D.C. We were even separated into Whites and Non-Whites and had to enter different areas of the museum. After that, we headed back to the Joburg Airport for our 3rd and final flight to Cape Town. On our way back, we drove by the Nelson Mandela's house. We weren't allowed to stop, but it was still cool to see the house of the man who ended apartheid. When we landed in Cape Town, it was pouring rain, windy, and FREEZING COLD; we found out later that we had arrived in the middle of a double cold front. I was actually scared that we were going to have a crash landing because the wind was blowing our plane so much. Of course, this was the one plane where we had to disembark on the runway, so we got completely soaked as we ran into the airport! We were greeted by a bunch of students/mentors from Cornerstone Christian College, loaded up another bus with our billion bags in the pouring rain, and drove to CCC. After bringing our luggage in, we all met in a big room, played some "get to know you games", and split up into groups of 5 with one mentor (who are students at CCC). We are going to be with these groups for the rest of our stay in Cape Town. Emma, my mentor, is a 20 y/o white South African girl from Cape Town; however, the majority of the mentors are from different countries in Africa like Uganda and Kenya. We then ate dinner and moved into our dorms. The dorms are cute but very cold; they have 4 beds, 1 bathroom, and no heater. The sink has separate faucets for hot and cold, so washing my face/hands was a bit of a challenge (which I have currently mastered!). The showers are very tricky too; they go from scalding hot to freezing cold, so you have to do tiny turns of the dial to make it perfect. The first night (Saturday, 8/29) was literally one of the coldest nights in my life. I was definitely not prepared for this weather; I only brought like 4 long sleeved shirts, one sweatshirt, and one raincoat! On Sunday (8/30), a group of 17 girls (4 mentors included) all went to the same church. We walked for awhile to get to the taxi, and when we finally waved one down, there were already 7 people in it. But we really needed to get to church and were freezing our butts off, so we all piled in. There were 24 people in a 14 seat van...it was ridiculous! I wish I could've gotten a picture, but was practically buried under girls haha. Christ Church Kenilworth is an Anglican church that is made up of mainly white people. It reminded me a lot of a conservative American church. It was a great message on faith (Ephesians 2:8-10), which I felt was really applicable to me and how I need to have faith in Christ in all aspects of my life (especially in SA). Later on, we were split up into 2 groups. Half of us are staying at the dorms for the next 2 weeks.

Monday, 9/1, was our first day of school. From 9-10:45AM, I had History & Culture of SA with an awesome colored man named Quinton. He totally reminds me of my dad, which is why I think I like him so much. We did a really neat exercise where we got together in groups and wrote down our top 3 goals for the semester on a poster board. Mine were 1) Build relationships with people that last beyond APU; 2) Make a difference in someone’s life, whether it be in nursing or somewhere else; 3) Grow in my relationship with Christ, learn to be completely satisfied in him, and trust in his plan for my future; and 4) Run with the wild animals of Africa and potentially train for the LA Marathon at the same time. We shared our goals with our group and then made a common list of goals in the middle. It was pretty neat to see the hearts of these students; we definitely have a great group going on here and I'm excited to get to know them better. After that class, we have a tea break from 10:45-11:15AM. Tea time is really big here (since SA was colonized by the British and Dutch) and I'm really starting to love it. After tea time, I'm supposed to have nursing from 11:15-1:00PM, but today we got to do something even better: CRICKET! We went to a sporting center pretty close to Cornerstone where there were 5 courts of astro terf separated by nets. After a long process of learning how to play, we split up into teams and started competing. It's kind of like baseball beacuse there's a bat and a ball; other than that, it's totally different. There's a bunch of crazy running around and ball throwing and trying to get people to lose points by hitting these wickets before they cross a white line. We also played a few games of soccer, which is definitely not my sport, but was still a lot of fun. I'm a very competetive/aggressive person when it comes to sports, so I ended up with a few bruises by the end of the day :)

Tuesday, 9/2, was my first day of nursing classes. My teacher, Leslie Van Dover, is a really sweet lady in her late 50s who has been a public health nurse her entire life and is obviously very passionate about what she does. She is teaching all 3 of our nursing classes in SA: 1) Senior Seminar: Ethics & Issues in Healthcare, 2) Nursing Research, and 3) Community Health Nursing. We spent the entire day going over our Ethics syllabus, which looks like it's going to be an incredibly challenging but interesting class. I'm hoping that it will answer some of my many unanswered questions about the ethical side of nursing.

On Wednesday, 9/3, we spent the entire class (which, fortunately, is only from 9AM-1PM) on Nursing Research. It appears that we're pretty much on our own in regards to this course (which was supposed to be online but got changed because of the unreliable internet here); we're going to spend the majority of our classtime on Ethics. Going over the syllabus was one of the most stressful things ever because our professor didn't make it herself and wasn't very clear about what most of the assignments/papers even were, but one of the sayings we have here is TIA (This is Africa!); we're all just going to have to be super flexible and roll with the punches. It's a hard thing for me to get used to since I'm such an organized person (as most of the nursing majors here are); however, I think it's going to be really good for me to learn to be a little more relaxed about life when I don't know what's going on and trust that God will take care of things.

Thursday, 9/4, was one of the best days in Cape Town yet. Tuesdays and Thursdays are our "excursion days" for the H & C of SA class, while MWF are reserved for classtime. Today's excursion was a 3-4 hour walking tour of Cape Town called "Footsteps to Freedom." It was the first absolutely gorgeous day since we had arrived: clear blue skies and temperatures up from the frigid 30s/40s to a warm 70-75 degrees. We walked to the train station (only a 5 min. walk from Cornerstone), took it downtown (30 min train ride), and started our walking tour at the Leerdam Castle. This castle was the meeting point for the British, Dutch, and other colonists arriving in SA as well as a holding place for imported slaves. We walked all around the city, which is surrounded by the most beautiful mountains: Devil's Point, Table Mountain, and Lion's Head. We visited places like City Hall where Melson Mandela gave his 1st speech after being released from prison; District 6 Museum, which is the area where the government forcefully removed over 60,000 freed slaves/immigrants during apartheid; St. George's Cathedral, which a beautiful old church where Archbishop Desmond Tutu preached out against apartheid; and Goverment Avenue where Parliament, the National Library of SA, the President's home, beautiful Company Gardens, and other government buildings were located. At the end of our tour, we got to briefly walk around Green Market Square, which is a huge open air market in the middle of the city. I bargained a purse down from R120 to R80, which is about $12! It was an incredible day. We were finally released from our "prison" at Cornerstone and got to experience the culture and history of this country.

Friday, 9/5, was a pretty low key day. We had H & C of SA all morning and afternoon, went to lunch and shopping at the nearby mall, and then hung out at the dorms for the rest of the night. Saturday, 9/6, was another incredible day out in Cape Town. After eating brunch at Juicy Lucy, a health food restaurant at the mall (with REALLY good fresh-squeezed OJ), I drove with my mentor Emma and some other girls to the sea (sea=ocean in SA). There were 2 other cars full of students/mentors that followed us. The law enforcement here isn't strict at all in comparison to LA. Seatbelts are not a big deal, nor are the number of people in your car, so we usually stuff 7-8 people in a tiny 5 person car. It's pretty funny. We got lost along the way, but finally found Green Point beach. It was supposed to have a huge open air market, but they got rid of it ever since they started reconstructing this stadium it's next to for the world cup (soccer) 2010. It's a big deal everywhere in SA and there's a lot of construction going on already. So we ended up walking along the beach instead, which I didn't mind at all. It was an absolutely beatuful day. and we even saw a whale! I couldn't get any pictures because it was too far away for my camera, but it was an incredible thing just to watch. We then drove down to Sea Point beach and climbed on all of the huge boulders and took a bunch of pictures. After that, we went to the Waterfront mall, which reminded me of South Coast Plaza on the inside and San Francisco on the outside. It was an extremely high-end tourist spot on the edge of this beatufiul warf/bay. I spent the rest of that night writing an amazing nursing paper (not) and hanging out with people in the dorm.

Today, 9/7, has been a relaxing day as well (which was perfect because it allowed me to write this super long blog) because the weather completely turned on us and is back to the windy, cold, raininess that greeted us a week ago. So that concludes my first week in SA. Now can you see why it has seemed a little longer than just a week? Please pray that I continue to adjust to the new culture, as I'm still feeling some separation anxiety from everyone back home. Additionally, pray for endurance in my school work, which is already starting to overwhelm me. I love you and miss you all!

Ready to Go!

***DISCLAIMER: I meant to post this before I left but ran out of time, so pretend like I posted this a week ago!***

I can't believe that the last time I blogged I was getting ready to leave for APU, and now I'm getting ready to leave for South Africa! These past 2 weeks have absolutely flown by. Let me give you a little update on what has happened since then.

After picking up my best friend and roommate Mandy from Ontario Airport, I arrived to school on Saturday afternoon. We got our keys from campus safety and moved into the lovely on- campus apartments called Bowles. OK they really aren't that lovely; in fact, they were pretty dirty and lacking heated water. Additionally, we had 4 girls in a 1 bed/1 bath and only 3 beds, so we were hurting for space. Unfortunately, we didn't really have time to think about any of that because we had to be at class at 6PM. Our orientation to the course was pretty overwhelming, so by the time we got back to our apartment later that night, we were all a little stressed (to say the least). Since we didn't have hot water, Mandy and I walked over to the dorm that we lived in Freshman year (Trinity) and took showers on one of the girls' floors. The APU girls' soccer team was already staying on the floor, so it was completely open. We got weird looks from the girls, but we didn't really care. We just wanted to get clean! So for the next few days, we walked over to Trinity for our showers. I think the hot water finally got turned on in our apartment on Tuesday.

On Monday, we spent the entire day in APU's School of Nursing skills lab learning all about community health nursing and how to do ear, eye, and scoliosis screenings. Tuesday was our first day of clinicals where I was assigned to school nursing (along with 6 other of my fellow students) in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD). LAUSD is the closest year-round district to APU; however, it's still an hour away (depending on traffic it could take longer or shorter). Over the next 2 weeks (Monday-Saturday), I went to 8 different elementary, middle, and high schools in the LAUSD. I drove pretty much every day, so I become very well acquainted with the 210, 605, 60, and 710 freeways. Gotta love LA driving! School nursing was fun at some places and a nightmare at others; it really depended on the nurse. My favorite schools were the ones where to nurse let me take over and do everything. "Everything" for school nurses includes everything from bandaging cuts/scrapes from playground falls to icing just about any body part that "hurts" to taking temperatures to putting calamine lotion on bug bites. Basically, there are very few serious injuries in school nursing; it's a lot about making the kids feel better psychologically (in my opinion). Even if they have nothing wrong with them, you still take their temperature, give them an ice pack, or even just give them words of assurance that everything is going to be OK. Working at the elementary schools was my favorite part because I love little kids so much. I had the feeling that a lot of them didn't get any attention at home, so they came to the nurse to get it. The nurses even had names for the kids like that who came in every day; they were the "frequent fliers" haha.

Besides working at those 8 schools, we had post-conference and lecture 3 times a week. Additionally, we did two actual community outreaches where we did our teaching projects. The first one was the Foothill Unity Back to School Fair at the Santa Anita Racetracks. This was a fair for low-income families in Monrovia where various companies came and gave away backpacks, school supplies, uniforms, food, etc. to kids. For my teaching project, Mandy, Kim, and I made a Food Pyramid flannelgraph (remember those from Sunday school?) to teach kids about the importance of nutrition. We also printed out a ton of blank food pyramids that the kids could color and put food stickers in the section that they belong. Much to our surprise, the kids LOVED it (especially playing with the flannelgraph).

The second community outreach we did was a block party on Skid Row in downtown LA, which they're now attempting to rename "Hope Street." The block party was specifically for homeless families (which actually comprise the majority of homeless people in LA because of the housing shortage and high cost of living). There we did height and weight screenings (which we then charted on growth charts for the parents) and nutrition/vaccination teaching. It was definitely uncomfortable and new It was truly an eye opening experience for me. I had never worked with the homeless in that way before (as a nurse and educator) and felt like this is what Jesus would be doing if he were still on earth today.

Oh one more cool thing I got to learn how to do over those 2 crazy weeks was give TB tests. I'm starting to feel more like a "real nurse" everyday, so mastering this skill was one more exciting step toward becoming one. TB is one of the most prevalent opportunistic diseases in South Africa (especially in those afflicted with HIV/AIDS), so hopefully I'll get to practice giving more of these when I'm there. Additionally, we got fitted for TB masks; it was a really long testing process where we had a bitter solution constantly being sprayed into these big yellow bags we wore over our heads. If we ever tasted the bitter, then we knew that the mask didn't fit and had to try on another size. It was a pretty funny process (I felt like Spongebob Squarepants), so I thought I'd include a picture.

Anyway, I survived the class (praise the Lord) and made it through pre-orientation with the rest of the South Africa students over the next few days. There are a total of 11 nursing students and 24 other majors. We are leaving on Thursday, 9/28, at 3:30AM for South Africa. I can't believe it's almost here!!!

Pressure Packing

So I'm sure you must be wondering why I'm posting my very first post (is that what it's called?) at such an absurd hour. Well you see, I'm what you call a "pressure packer." I honestly cannot pack for any trip, no matter how long or short, until the night before when I am so stressed out and pressed for time that I have to get it done within a few hours. Otherwise, I'm pretty sure I would end up spending days on end putting together outfits, packing, unpacking, weighing, re-packing, etc. until I drove myself crazy. Basically, I put it off until the last possible minute because I hate it so much. If I had money, which I don't but wish I did, I have no doubt in my mind that I would pay someone to do this horrendous job for me.

Anyway, this is probably the hardest packing job I've ever done in my life. I have to fit my entire life into two 44 lb. suitcases, one 18 lb. carry-on, and a purse. As of right now, I have pretty much all of my clothes packed; unfortunately, they take up the majority of my 2 suitcases and one cannot live on clothes alone. I still have my shoes, toiletries, sheets, towels, a backpack, nursing equipment, and various other random items to stuff in them. PLUS I have to "save room" for souvenirs when I return. Oh and I just remembered that I have to make room to bring gifts for the host family I'll be staying with. Ahhh! I took some pictures to give you a visual of the pain and anguish that I'm going through in this packing process. Feel free to start praying now!

P.S. I leave for APU tomorrow for 2 weeks of intensive community health clinical and lecture, which goes from August 9-23. Then we go straight into our pre-departure orientation with the rest of the students from August 25-27 and are off for South Africa August 28. I will try to post sometime between now and then, but my schedule is going to be a little crazy so we'll see how it goes! Goodnight!!