Cape Town Pictures

I said that I would put up pictures from Cape Town a long time ago, but I never ended up going to an internet cafe to do it. I'm so sorry! I have some time today though, so I'll show you lots of pictures from the adventures I had in Cape Town!


Table Mountain dominates the landscape

We stayed at a college called the Bible Institute (BI) in the small town of Kalk Bay, which is about 30 minutes away from Cape Town

BI is only 150 meters away from the ocean! This is the view from the dining room.

We took the train any time we wanted to go into Cape Town on our own. It was really nice to have a station so close to BI.

We went to the Waterfront several times to eat or shop

We took a tour of a nearby township called Langa. It has a lot of government housing, but also many rundown shacks.


We hiked to the top of Table Mountain one day. It was a really difficult hike- an hour and a half of climbing up a rocky staircase. But it had the most beautiful view from the top!

We took a ferry to Robben Island...

...the prison that housed hundreds of political prisoners during apartheid...

...and Nelson Mandela's jail cell.

We also went to the Cape of Good Hope


We went to Simon's Town (near Kalk Bay) where there's a colony of 3,000 African Penguins!


A few of us went to a concert by the Cape Town Philharmonic. They were wonderful!

We also had the opportunity to pet a cheetah

Half of the time that we were in Cape Town, we stayed in people's homes in the township of Ocean View. Sarah and I stayed with the Daniels family. They were so incredible! I miss them.

The last great adventure that I had was shark cage diving! That's me on the top.

One of the 6 sharks that we saw

Cape Town was an incredible experience. It was extremely different from our time in Pietermaritzburg, but I was so glad that we were able to spend a long amount of time in both places. I miss them both so much!

Shark Cage Diving!!!

I'm sorry it's been so long since I posted anything. It's been really busy since we got to Cape Town. I did a homestay with one other student for the last week in a township called Ocean View. The family we stayed with was wonderful, and it was really hard to say good-bye to them today.

Also, yesterday I went shark cage diving!!! I went with 7 other students to Gans Baai, which just so happens to be the great white shark capital of the world! It was such an incredible experience! I wasn't scared at all! We saw about 6 sharks total, and the biggest one was 15 feet long!

We leave for home on Wednesday. I seriously can't believe my time here is almost over. It's really bittersweet. I'm going to be sad to leave this amazing country, but I'm very excited to see all of you wonderful people very soon!

Phrase of the Day: "hoe gaan dit?" (oo ghan dit) means "how are you?"

Cape Town!

Wow, it’s been a while since my last post. I’m so sorry I haven’t been able to keep you updated on everything I’ve been doing. I was extremely busy the last three weeks and I didn’t have internet connection most of the time. We’ve finally settled down in our new home in Cape Town, so I’m able to blog once again.

I’ll try to catch you up on the last 3 weeks as quickly as possible:

3 weeks ago…
We nursing students turned in our big senior papers and did presentations on them. It was such a huge relief to be done with it! We spent the entire next day playing cards for literally 6 hours straight as a form of stress relief!

Easter Sunday wasn’t quite the same as I’m used to, but it was still nice. Apparently Easter isn’t a very big deal in churches here in South Africa. My church didn’t really do anything different that Sunday except start an hour earlier. I was a little disappointed that Easter wasn’t really mentioned much in the service. But after church, the Activities Committee threw a big Easter celebration at AE. We had a delicious brunch with all the wonderful breakfast foods I’ve been missing, and then games afterward. It was very fun!

2 weeks ago…
The following morning we woke up at 4:30 am to leave for our safari and Zulu experience! We spent the entire week about 4 hours north of Pietermaritzburg on safari and living in mud huts! It was such an insane but amazing week!

My birthday was that Tuesday, and I was on safari the entire day! It was so wonderful! I couldn’t have asked for a better birthday. We went out in the safari jeeps 3 times during the day, so I was able to see elephants, hippos, giraffes, zebras, and impalas. Then we had a birthday party in the evening!

The next day, we went to a private game reserve and saw cheetahs! We were able to drive really close to them (they were about 15 feet away!) and we even saw one chase after an impala! It was so exciting!

In the afternoon, we traveled to the Zulu village to get a completely different experience. We stayed way up in the hills in an extremely isolated village. We slept on bunkbeds in round mud huts, used an outhouse, and had to carry our own water to the shower to fill the shower bucket. It was very different than anything I had ever done before.

The first night, a bunch of the neighbors came over in traditional Zulu outfits and danced for us. The next day, we went on a hike. The local medicine man showed us some of the plants he uses in his practice, and some neighboring ladies showed us their technique for making beaded jewelry. We also learned how to stick fight and use spears and slingshots! On our last day, we helped cover one of the huts with a final layer of mud. We had to mix the mud with our feet and use our hands to smear it onto the walls!

1 week ago…
The day after we got home from our safari and Zulu experiences, we had to pack up our rooms to move across the country to Cape Town. Unfortunately, many of us got sick that day from some sort of bug we caught at the Zulu village. I was one of the unlucky ones. I was so dehydrated from vomiting all day that I had to make a quick trip to the emergency room to get an IV. After 30 min of fluids, I was well enough to go back home. Another girl was nice enough to pack for me, so by the time we got on the buses the next morning, I was feeling much better.

We spent the week traveling across the country in a very nice charter bus. We slept in different hotels every night, and made a few stops during the day. 46 people went bungy jumping at the highest bungy jump off a bridge in the world! (I chose not to do that.) We also took a tour through the underground Cango Caves and visited an ostrich farm! I got to feed an ostrich and sit on one! I never in my life thought I would ever do that!

We arrived in Cape Town on Thursday, April 15. I love it already! It’s so beautiful with the ocean on one side and Table Mountain on the other! It’s strange to be in a big city after being isolated for so long at AE. But it’s very fun.

We’re actually not staying in the city, though. We’re staying at a tiny Christian college called the Bible Institute of South Africa in the small fishing town of Fish Hoek. It’s on the other side of the cape, about 30 minutes from downtown Cape Town. It’s right on False Bay though, so the water is literally across the street from us! It’s beautiful! There’s a train station (like the metro) 5 minutes’ walk down the street, and we’ve taken the train into downtown Cape Town every day so far.

Today we went to Hillsong for church! I didn’t even know there was one in South Africa, but apparently there’s a big one in Cape Town! It was pretty fun, but definitely not the type of church I’m used to.

Well that sums up pretty much everything I’ve been doing. I’m sorry I’m not able to put any pictures on here, but the internet is very limited and we’re not allowed to upload pictures. I’ll probably only do one or two more posts since I’ll be home in less than 3 weeks, but check back in a few days and I may have put up a couple pictures by then!

Word of the Day: I’m no longer in an area where people speak Zulu, so I’ll be learning Afrikaans from now on!! I’m really excited about it! So for the rest of my posts, I’ll teach you Afrikaans. Today’s phrase: “baie danki” (which literally sounds like “buy a donkey”) means “thank you very much.”

Greys Hospital

Things have been slowing down quite a bit over the last couple weeks here in Pietermaritzburg. We had our last nursing lecture on Friday, so all we have left is our senior seminar paper (the big paper every senior at APU has to write before graduating), a community nursing final exam (on the Saturday before Easter- how horrible is that?!), and two presentations. I've been working on my senior sem paper all day, so I'm taking a short break from it right now to post this.

The non-nursing students have been going to their service sites for the past 3 weeks. They go out pretty much every day of the week, from 8:30am to 4:00pm. Since we nursing students are done with clinicals, we get to stay here at AE. It's a strange reversal- instead of nursing going out to clinicals while everyone else stays at AE, now nursing are the only ones here. It gets kind of lonely during the day with only 6 people here instead of 53!

This past week has been pretty fun. On Wednesday, our nursing professors took us to the nearest hospital, Greys Hospital.

It's considered a specialty hospital, so you only go there if a doctor has referred you to see a specialist.

It's not much different than the hospitals in the US.

The nurses dress quite differently, though. They don't wear scrubs like we do. Instad, they wear white dresses and white hats, just like nurses used to a long time ago! We definitely stuck out in our blue scrubs, just like we do anywhere we go.

It's a pretty big hospital, but even so, most of the rooms are 6 beds to a room! I couldn't believe it! That was one big difference from the US, where even 3 in a room is very uncommon.

The highlight of the trip was going to the Neonatal ICU. There was a doctor there who was teaching medical students, and he gladly let us join them. They were trying to diagnose a 4-day-old baby who was born at 34 weeks. He has a multitude of problems and deformities, but the biggest issue is that he doesn't have very much brain tissue. Most of his skull is full of fluid instead of brain.

It was sad to see him and know that if he survives, his life will be anything but normal. It made me wonder why God makes some babies like this, and some are born completely normal and healthy. But then he looked up at us with his adorable baby eyes, and I knew that God still has a purpose for his life. He gave me so much joy just from looking into his eyes! We stayed with him as long as we could, and we learned a ton from the doctor in the process. It was a really great moment that I won't forget for a long time.

Now I need to get back to writing my paper, so I'll post some more later on.

Word of the Day: "lalela" (la-lay-la) means "listen"

Thank You!

I got some mail today from the wonderful ladies at Glendora Friends Church! Several of you mentioned that you read my blog, so I just wanted to say THANK YOU!!! It was really fun to get the cards from you, and I felt so encouraged and loved after reading each one.

The envelope full of cards was handed to me whle I was sitting in my nursing class, while we were taking a quick break. I had fun opening the cards in class in between lectures, and then later on during the day. You ladies brough many smiles to my face throughout the day. : )

I just wanted to let you know how much I appreciate your constant prayers and support. I feel so blessed to be remembered by you while I'm half a world away. You are such incredible women and I hope to be half as great as you one day. I love you all!!!


Word of the Day: "manje" (mon-jay) means "now"

Ethembeni Family Center

Today was our very last day out in the community as nursing students. It was also our very last day at Ethembeni, which is really sad! I've fallen in love with that clinical site, especially with the Family Center, which I'll tell you about now.

The third and final part to a clinical day spent at Ethembeni is my favorite part of the day! After home visits, we get dropped off at the Family Center, which is just a house in the middle of a residential area. It was converted into a daycare center for kids with no parents, or kids whose parents are affected by HIV in some way.

Young kids (about age 1-5) stay there all day and are watched by caregivers. Older kids (about age 5-17) come over after school to do homework and play. All of the kids are fed lunch, and I believe dinner as well.

The center is a great place for these kids because it's safe, they're well taken care of, and they have mentors that help them with homework and life skills. I was told that they have about 70 kids enrolled to come to the center, but I've never seen more than about 30 there at one time.

There's not really anything particular for us nursing students to do when we go there. We just get to play with the kids! The caregivers are happy for the break, and the kids love new faces (as well as all the stuff we carry in our scrubs pockets). We stay for a few hours until someone comes to pick us up around 3:30.

Getting to know these kids has been one of the biggest highlights of my semester! They are incredibly cute and just want to be loved. They never run out of energy to play duck, duck, goose and soccer, be spun around over and over, or climb up the slide again and again. It's definitely been a workout keeping up with them!

I've fallen completely in love with 3 kids in particular at the center. From the very first day, this little boy wouldn't let me put him down.

He is the most adorable boy ever! He's about 2 years old, and he loves to cuddle in your arms when you hold him. He would never answer me when I asked "Ubani igama lahko?" so I just found out his name today. His name is Dinangwe, but they call him Tokelo. I'm going to miss holding him so much!

The next kid that I fell in love with is one of the school-aged kids. Her name is Andiswa and she's 6 years old.

My first day at the center, I was sitting on the ground with wild kids climbing all over me, and Andiswa just quietly curled up in my lap. All she wanted to do was sit there and let me hug her. The next week, as soon as I walked into the yard, she ran over and gave me a huge hug! She had remembered me! She wouldn't leave my side that day. I was surprised that she wanted so badly to stay with me since most of the kids her age just wanted to do their own thing. I played with her the rest of the day, and every other day that I went. I'm going to miss Andiswa the most out of them all. She's such a beautiful, happy girl!

The last kid that I fell in love with is Andiswa's little sister, Akhona.

Akhona is 2 and extremely malnourished. She is super skinny and as light as a feather. She's been improving a lot in the last few months, though. In November, she couldn't even stand, but today she walked all over the house while holding onto my hands! She can even climb up the slide now! Even though she may be smaller than the other kids, she still has quite a personality. She talks up a storm, and she's extremely smart. When we were doing medical assessments on her today, she watched me use an otoscope to look in her ears, then grabbed it from me to play with. To my surprise, she put it right back in her ears herself! I think she's going to be a nurse one day. I'll miss her a ton, and I hope that she's able to continue getting stronger and gaining more weight!

I'm really going to miss all the kids at the Family Center. I'm hoping to hear lots of stories about them from the APU students who come to South Africa in the fall!

Word of the Day: "Woza" (wo-zah) means "come"

Catching Up

Hey everyone! I'm sorry it's been a while since I posted anything. It's been a crazy week! I'll try to just catch you up a little on what's going on in my life right now.

I was supposed to go backpacking in the Drakensberg mountains with the rest of the nursing group last Wednesday and Thursday, but I got sick and had to stay behind at the base camp. I've been recovering since then, and finally today is the first day that I've felt comepletely normal again. : )

This was me trying to decide if I felt good enough to go on the hike. A few minutes later, I was certain that I couldn't do it.

Things are wrapping up here in Pietermaritzburg right now, and it's making me really sad. Where did the time go? I can't believe that we've already been in South Africa for two whole months now! I'm not ready to move on to Cape Town yet. AE feels like home, and I'm not ready to leave it behind. It's going to be really sad to start thinking about moving on. At least we still have 3 weeks left here to enjoy it!

This is the last week of nursing classes, which is exciting. We have a lot of assignments and projects piling up that we'll need to work hard on for the next several days, though. I'm only 4 pages into my 15-page senior sem paper, and it's due in 2 weeks. I'm starting to get nervous about it now. Please pray that we'll stay focused and not feel too overwhelmed!

I've also been kind of homesick lately. I think it's because I was feeling sick, and so all I wanted was to be in my own home. I'm past that now, but I've still been thinking about home a little more than usual the past few days. Looking at pictures makes me feel better though. It's hard to balance thinking about home and at the same time trying to live in the moment and enjoy every second that I have in South Africa.

I am still very glad to be here and I'm having so much fun with the new friends that I've made here. We've become a family of 57, and I'm so thankful for the group that God put together for me to share this experience with!

Word of the Day: "Ngiphuma eMelika" (ghee-poo-ma e-mel-ee-ka) means "I'm from America"