Mason's Clinic

One of the reasons I was so excited to come to South Africa with APU was that I'd get to do clinical hours here for my nursing degree. I've always been interested in international health care and the differences between American nursing and nursing in other countries.

My missions trip last year to Haiti and the DR gave me a taste of what nursing and medical care is like in developing countries. Now, South Africa is allowing me to experience nursing in yet another country that is completely different from the US. I hope that I'll be able to use all that I'm learning and seeing in these different cultures to be a better, more culturally-aware nurse in the future.

We've been doing clinicals two days a week for a month now here in South Africa, and so we've logged 65.5 hours so far. We need a total of 78 hours for our time here, so were almost done! (And that means that I have A LOT of catching up to do on my blog!) The 6 of us nursing students rotate between 4 different clinical sites, with 1 to 3 students at each site at a time. The sites vary greatly in their size, purpose, and function, but they're all very interesting and great places to learn. Right now I'm going to tell you about the first site that I went to, Mason's Clinic.

Mason's Clinic is located east of AE in the rural hills above Haniville. The area is extremely poor, and there are tons of crude shacks built hastily on the hills.

The streets in the area have no street signs or markers, so you have to just memorize the way to get there based on landmarks. There are a lot of goats and cows wandering around in the area outside the clinic since it's in such a rural neighborhood.

I spent two days at Mason's with 2 other students, Brianna and Lauren. The first day I was with Sister Mhlongo (the nurses are called "sisters" in South Africa, which is based off the British nursing system). The patients that came to her had general, acute illnesses or problems. The patient would come in and sit down in a chair, and Sister Mhlongo would talk to him or her in isiZulu to find out what the problem was. She would then translate for me and explain to me what we could do for the patient. Next, she would choose the appropriate medication to give the patient and let me fill out the label and dosage. She also let me explain to the patient how to take the meds, since most of them spoke a little English. Then that patient would leave and the next one would walk in right away.

Patients don't have appointments at these clinics. They just show up early in the morning and wait in line half of the day until the nurse can see them. They usually spend at least 4 or 5 hours just waiting. I've had a really hard time understanding this system since it seems so unfair to the patients. The clinics in Haiti were exactly the same way, and it didn't seem fair to me then either.

In the afternoon, I sat in with Sister Carson and Brianna. They were simply handing out HIV meds to the patients or relatives of patients that came to collect them. This happens every Thursday. We then got picked up at 3pm.

On my second day at Mason's, I visited several different areas of the clinic. It's a really small facility made up of an old house and a modular building. (The modular is in the background of this picture of some kids at the clinic.)

There are 3 main sections to the clinic: acute illnesses (where I was the first day), HIV, and TB/chronic illnesses. On Tuesdays, there is also an antenatal room where pregnant women can go for check-ups.

I started out in the HIV section with Sister Gasa. We did basically the same thing as I did with Sister Mhlongo- assess the patients and find out what their chief complaint is, then give them meds to fix it. Nurses in clinics here are allowed to function like doctors. They can diagnose and prescribe meds, whereas in the US, only Nurse Practitioners can do this.

After tea time, I joined Sister Carson, my favorite nurse at Mason's. She is a wonderful teacher and loves to give us hands-on experience. (This is Sister Carson with another student, Chelsea.)

Notice the shoulder epaulets that Sister Carson is wearing. These indicate that she is a nurse. RNs wear maroon ones, the equivalent of LVNs wear white ones, and nurse aids don't wear any at all. The different bars indicate what specialty training she has received. Black is general nursing, green is community, and yellow is maternity. You'll also notice that she's not wearing scrubs (she usually wears a skirt, not pants). Nurses just wear a collared white shirt and a blue skirt or pants. That's their uniform.

Sister Carson was doing the antenatal section that day. I love anything to do with babies and maternity, so I wanted to see what she was doing. She let us feel for the baby inside the womb, measure the size of the patient's belly, and listen to the baby's heartbeat with a simple plastic cone. It was very fun!

The afternoon was very slow because there weren't many patients left to be seen. Most of the nurses and counselors were just sitting around chatting or braiding each other's hair, so I learned how to braid cornrows by watching them! We finally got picked up at 3, an hour earlier than we were supposed to leave.

I really enjoyed Mason's Clinic. It reminded me so much of the clinics in Haiti and the DR that I felt homesick for those places and the rest of my missions team. Working at Mason's also made me realize that I need to work a lot harder at learning to speak isiZulu!

Phrase of the Day: "Igama lami uBethany" (ee-gah-ma la-mee ooh-[your name]) means "My name is Bethany"

Downtown Pietermaritzburg

After visiting the lions, we drove through downtown Pietermaritzburg. There are a lot of pretty brick buildings, but overall, the city looked a little run-down. I was pretty surprised.

We drove past several statues of important people, but the most interesting one was a statue of Gandhi.

We found out why there's a statue of him in the city when we stopped at the train station.

On June 17, 1893, Gandhi got on a train at this very station. He had purchased a first-class ticket, but he wasn't allowed to take his seat since he wasn't white. He refused to go to a lower class, so they kicked him off the train. This experience is what started his passion for active non-violence.

I don't know very much about Gandhi, but I do know that he was very influential and is highly respected. It was a crazy feeling to be on the same train platform that he had once been on. I never imagined that I would even be in the same place that he had once been, let alone in the very place that changed the course of his life!

We found out a few days later that Gandhi's family had been scattering his ashes in Durban that very same day that we were at the train station because it was the anniversary of his death. I felt even more amazed at this coincidence! Now I want to find out a lot more about Gandhi's life and what he did after he left South Africa.

Word of the Day: "Nxese" means "sorry" X is another click. This one is the same as the noise you would make if you were calling a horse. Nxese is pronounced nt-es-ay.

Lion Park

After the Birds of Prey, we went straight to the Lion Park. I was really excited to drive through the park, where wild lions roam free. We had heard that the last 2 semesters who went in had lions attack their cars! I really hoped that that would happen for us too. It would be such a neat thing to see!

Needless to say, I was very disappointed when I found out that we weren't going to drive through the park. The two big vans that we have are being rented, and if lions did attack us and scratched or damaged the rented vehicles, then we would have to pay a lot of money. To be on the safe side, our CLCs decided that we wouldn't drive in.

The guards at the entrance gate did let us get out of our cars and walk up to the fence though! It was so much fun, and probably better than driving through in cars!


The guards let us stand right next to the fence, and when the female lions saw us, they slowly started slinking up to the fence. It was so neat to see them walk like that!


After they came to the fence, the males decided that they would come see what all the fuss was about. We had about 4 males and 5 or 6 females come right up to the fence. They walked back and forth in front of us as if just as excited to see us as we were to see them!


It was such an amazing feeling to be literally inches away from lions! I crouched down so that I was at eye level with them. They were such beautiful creatures!



They seemed so gentle and harmless because all they were doing was walking back and forth, just being friendly.


One of the males yawned right in front of me, just like my cat at home does. He had much bigger teeth though!


I really wanted to touch one, but I was scared. When I saw the guy next to me stick his fingers through the fence and touch one without the lions noticing, I decided that it was safe for me to do it too, so I did. I stroked her back after she passed by me, and she didn't even notice. She was so soft and smooth, just like my dogs!


I took a lot of pictures and videos of the lions. It was definitely my favorite moment in South Africa so far. I don't think I'll ever forget how powerful, terrifying, and yet beautiful, the lions were.

Word of the day: "ingonyama" (een-gohn-yah-ma) means "lion"

Birds of Prey

Our first weekend field trip was on Saturday, January 30. It was a four-part trip. First, we went to a Birds of Prey sanctuary. Second, we went to a lion park. Third, we drove through downtown Pietermaritzburg and stopped at the train station. Then, on our way back to AE, we drove to the top of a hill and stopped at a beautiful lookout where we could see all of Pietermaritzburg and the surrounding area. It was a long, exciting day! Right now, though, I'm just going to talk about the birds.

The Birds of Prey Sanctuary houses about 50 different species of vicious birds. (South Africa has over 80 species of birds of prey total!) Most of them have been injured in the wild and are simply recovering at the sanctuary.

We got to walk around the grounds and look at all the birds for a while. There were owls, hawks, falcons, eagles, storks, and vultures, just to name a few.




After walking around, there was a show for us to watch. They brought out 5 different birds and let them fly around in front of us. The lady running the show was really funny and told us a lot of interesting information about each type of bird. She demonstrated some of them catching food in the air, and one bird walked around by our feet and found food that had been hidden between people's shoes! It was quite interesting.





We then ate our packed lunches at some picnic tables, and afterwards, we watched the vultures eat their lunch. It was a crazy thing to watch!

The vultures were so mean and picked on each other. They kept nipping at each other's necks while waiting for the food. One even flipped another over on its back by the neck! It was so crazy!


When the food finally did come, they all fought over each other's pieces and played tug of war with every piece until all the food was gone. Then they were perfectly civil with each other since they weren't hungry any more. I had never seen anything like it before.

After watching the vultures, we packed up and headed off to our next adventure, the lion park!

Phrase of the day: "Ubani igama lahko?" (oo-bon-ee ee-gah-ma lock-o) means "What is your name?"

Zebras!

Now that you know all about the boring, daily stuff that goes on in South Africa, I'll start posting about all the fun and exciting moments I've had here so far.

My first exciting moment after starting classes happend on the first nursing day off (Wednesday, Jan 27).

I had spent the entire morning and afternoon working on homework assignments for my online research class. By the time I finished, everyone except nursing students were in one of their required classes, so 4 of us nursing students decided to go for a walk through the game reserve next door.

During our walk, we saw a lot of pretty trees,

and flowers,

and several monkeys hiding in the trees along the path (can you find one on the right?)

After about 10 minutes of walking through the reserve, Lauren and Chelsea suddenly stopped and said, "Shhh!" Brianna and I hurried up to them to see what they found. I was expecting a whole gang of monkeys which we didn't want to disturb so that they wouldn't chase after us. Instead, I was surprised to see this:

ZEBRAS!!!!!!!

None of the other students had seen any zebras yet, even though lots of students jog through the reserve every morning. It was such an exciting thing to find 2 zebras casually eating some grass, only about 30 yards away from us!

We slowly and quietly walked closer and closer, careful not to disturb the zebras. We were able to get really close to them, probably about 10 feet away!

Suddenly, another zebra appeared in the trees to our left and stood watching us for a while. It eventually walked over to where the other 2 were standing and nuzzled with the baby for a little bit. It didn't seem very comfortable with us being so close though, because it kept looking straight at us every 30 seconds or so.

We decided we should leave, and then one more zebra started coming out of the woods over on our right!

We watched for a few more minutes, then realized that it was almost dinner time. We started to hurry back to the AE campus, when suddenly a whole gang of monkeys appeared in the middle of the road, blocking our path!

I haven't shared much about monkeys yet, so let me just tell you that they are very dangerous and not nearly as friendly as they look. They enjoy attacking anyone who gets too close, and they seem to like chasing girls more than boys. In fact, one almost attacked me just this morning on my way to breakfast! Needless to say, we were scared.

We grabbed some big sticks in an effort to scare them away

but then a random man suddenly came jogging past us. We warned him that there were monkeys ahead, but he said, "Oh don't worry about them!" and just kept on jogging. We ran closely behind him, and sure enough, the monkeys scattered when they saw him, and we all passed safely by.

We made it back to dinner without any further incident, and with some great stories to tell!

Word of the day: "Ngiyakuthanda" (ghee-a-coo-tahn-dah) means "I love you"

A Day in the Life at AE

In case you were wondering what daily life is like for me here in South Africa, I'll tell you!

We keep a vey busy schedule, and in fact many people are feeling exhausted already after only 3 1/2 weeks. The classes are intense because we finish them in just 6 weeks (because the second half of the semester is focused on community outreach). That means we're already halfway done with the main academic portion of the semester!

Weekdays are full of classes and clinicals, homework, and a little bit of fun.


Weekends are full of field trips and attending a local church, homework, and a little bit more fun.

Meals are always at the same set times. Breakfast at 7:30am, morning tea at 10:30am, lunch at 1:00pm, afternoon tea at 4:00pm, and dinner at 6:00pm.

Classes are different for everyone because there's 3 classes that are required, plus 5 different electives to choose from. For nursing, we have 3 nursing classes plus 2 of the required ones. My schedule goes like this:

Monday: Chapel, History & Culture of SA, Community Health, Ethics. Then a little break. Then Zulu at night.

Tuesday: Clinical from 7:30am to 4:00pm.

Wednesday: Free day! No class!! (But everything is due on Wednesdays for our online Research class)

Thursday: Clinical plus Post Conference.

Friday: Chapel, then Ethics until 4:00pm.

Saturday: As I mentioned, we go on field trips almost every Saturday. We've done a lot of fun ones already, which I'll do separate posts on soon.


Sunday: We can choose between 4 different local churches to attend in the morning. I really like going to them because it gives us a way to connect with the community, as well as a glimpse of South African culture. So far I've been to a predominantly White church and two predominantly Indian churches. All were very welcoming and very glad to have us. They were pretty similar to "typical" American churches, so I felt very comfortable at all of them.

It's a pretty easy routine to get used to, but it's also very demanding. I feel like we're always in class or on the go, but I'm not complaining. Our classes only last for 6 weeks (except for a couple that are 10 weeks), and who else gets to go on such amazing field trips every weekend? I wouldn't trade this experience for anything!

Word of the day: "Angizwa" (on-geeze-wah) means "I don't understand"

Pietermaritzburg

The morning after our long day in Johannesburg, we went back to the airport for one last flight. We flew for a short hour from Johannesburg to Durban. As soon as we got off the plane, we were struck by a wall of heat and humidity. We could definitely tell that it was summer here in South Africa!

We then drove for an hour from Durban to Pietermaritzburg, marveling at the lush green countryside the entire way. We were thrilled to see signs welcoming us to African Enterprise (the name of the campus that we're staying at while in Pietermaritzburg), because after such a long weekend of traveling, we were finally "home"!

The campus is absolutely gorgeous with pretty white buildings on green hills, all surrounded by tall trees, a waterfall, and a stream. There's also plenty of wildlife, from the four cats that are pets of the permanent staff, to the dozens of wild monkeys that have become a huge nuisance on campus. (I'll write a whole separate post about the monkeys soon.) The campus is also located right next to a game reserve where we can go running or hiking whenever we want. We often see a family of zebras there!

There are 5 buildings that house the students from APU, and each building is split into 2 chalets (top floor and bottom floor). My chalet is called Festo (named after Festo Kivengere, but I have no idea who he is). My roommate is Brianna, who is also a nursing major. We get along really well, and I'm very glad that we're roommates!

The weather in Pietermaritzburg is wonderful. It's usually sunny and warm with blue skies and white fluffy clouds. A couple days a week, though, a summer storm suddenly blows through. The rain doesn't usually last longer than a few hours, so it's not too bad. Right now, though, there's a heat wave going through because it hasn't rained in several days. It's been in the 90s since about Friday.

All of our meals are cooked for us by the wonderful staff here at AE. They've been really good so far. The best, though, is tea time! We get a tea break twice a day- in the morning and in the afternoon. There's always Rooibos and Ceylon tea, coffee, and hot chocolate to choose from, along with a delicious snack of either muffins, gingerbread, cookies, donuts, or cinnamon rolls. Most of them are homemade! I never liked tea before coming on this trip, but now I look forward to tea time every single day! It's so wonderful to have a break during our classes when we can just sit and talk with friends and enjoy something scrumptious!

Alright, I think that's enough about the campus for now. Here's a few pictures so you get an idea of the paradise that I'm living in for the next few months!

The dining hall

My chalet (the bottom floor)

The view from my bedroom window! (That's a waterfall in the left corner!!)

The waterfall outside my chalet

The prettiest building on campus, the Prayer Chapel

This campus has already become home to me. I absolutely love it here!!!


Word of the day: "Cha" means no. The pronunciation is really tricky though, because a c in Zulu is a click! (There's 3 clicks total, all with different sounds.) For the c click, put your tongue behind your teeth and suction it backwards. It makes a "tah" sound. "Cha" basically sounds like "tah-a"