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 :)

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!