Learn, Live, Laugh

Wow! Life is still so busy! And it is now technically November (for a whole hour) in South Africa! I can’t believe I’ve been here for 7 weeks! It feels like a long time but not at the same time (if that makes any sense haha). I don’t even know if I remember everything we’ve done! Back in the U.S. when us 9 nursing majors took Community Health in May, we created a teaching project for a group to take to Uganda and for us to take to S.A. We finally got to present them to a high school in Mpophomeni, near one of the clinics we work at. We taught 5 classes of about 40 students about basic hygiene, communicable diseases, and dental hygiene. We had a lot of fun and it was cool to implement a project that we actually created on our own.

Then on Saturday, we were given permission to take over the kitchen at AE and we cooked an awesome Mexican meal. We got to make taco salads or burritos and it was seriously one of the best Mexican meals ever (and I’m pretty sure it’s not b/c it actually tasted good). Mexican food isn’t really common over here at all so it was a nice taste of home! I got to make the guacamole and was SO excited… but they don’t sell tortilla chips over here so we had to use tortillas and it was still delicious =)

The next week was Homecoming week!!! It was actually the same time as APU’s homecoming back in the U.S. Each day of the week we had a certain theme and people had to dress accordingly! The first was backwards day so we all had to wear our clothes inside and out and backwards! And Tuesday was crazy hair/clash day. Wednesday was black and white day. On Wednesday we had the privilege of going to see the Drakensberg Boy’s Choir. It’s a school for 4th-9th grade boys that teaches music. Their voices were incredible!!!!! I seriously don’t even know how to describe it. Then Thursday was twin day! Our chalet had a pair of conjoined twins and then pregnant twins that were pregnant with twins haha. That day we also played a homecoming football game! It had been raining, which made the game even more fun! I even caught the ball!!!! And then that night we had an “airband competition”. Each chalet had a routine to a song. My chalet (Nicholas B) “acted out” a music video I Need A Hero from Shrek 2! We had so much fun trying to choreograph it… we didn’t even start until 2 hours before the actual competition haha. We didn’t win, but the guys’ deserved to… there’s was hilarious! And then on Friday each chalet had been given a color and everyone had to dress up in that specific color. Ours was black and we went all out with thick make-up and everything! And later that night we had a braai (South African BBQ) and tacky homecoming dance! The dance was a lot of fun and believe me… the outfits were awful! It was such a good week and it really helped with bonding within all of the chalets… I LOVE all the girls in this chalet they are all so wonderful!

A very important component to the South Africa Study Abroad program is that all the non-nursing majors participate in a community engagement class. On Friday and Saturday the nurses got to sit in on the lectures and they were extremely interesting. API fly’s in a man named Francis, from Uganda, every semester to teach this class for a month. He has worked for World Vision and done so many cool things in his life. He really is a blessing to Azusa and is one of the most interesting people to talk to! But this past week has been really different for the non-nursing students. This was their first week to go out to their service sites and work with the communities. I love hearing about what they see and what they do. I’m glad they’re finally getting a chance to go out and see what we’ve been experiencing the last month and a half. I know people are going to be wrestling with what they see and wrestling with God and just trying to make sense of it all. I’ve already heard some amazing conversations that have been sparked by what has been seen out in the communities!

This past Tuesday I got to go to the Family Center in Mpophomeni and basically hang out with kids for a couple of hours. I WAS SO HAPPY!!!!! There were 3 of us nursing majors there and we had children climbing ALL over us! There was this one little boy, who doesn’t know how to talk yet and couldn’t tell me his name, who I fell in love with. He kept wanting me to pick him up and hold him! He is such a cuddler and I didn’t ever want to set him down… I was so depressed when I saw our ride come.
The rest of the week was filled with lots and lots of homework! But today, Saturday, we went to the Drakensberg mountains and got to see cave paintings from a really long time ago. It was cool to see…but I was more impressed with the beauty we were surrounded by. It was SO green everywhere! I wish that the U.S. was as green as it is here… you really can’t even describe how vibrant the colors really are. And tonight we watched a Scooby Doo Halloween episode and then I Am Legend to celebrate Halloween. We were all exhausted so we kept it pretty chill.

Wow… these long posts are becoming ridiculous! But again if you read through this, thank you for taking the time to read about my life in the beautiful country! And I’m so sorry for the terrible grammar and sentences that don’t even make sense. It’s 1 AM here and I am so tired, but I wanted to blog before I forgot. I miss everyone a lot! And I can’t believe I’m past the halfway mark. Definitely Bittersweet…But my chipotle cravings are getting stronger I don’t know how much longer I’ll last! Hope you’re all doing well! Love you!

Oh yeah kind of random and not that important, but we’ve been having TONS of rain! And the most amazing thunder/lightning storms EVER!!!!!

God bless,
Kels

Is it really October?

My beautiful running trail!

It has been such a busy couple of weeks! I don’t even remember what I’ve done haha. We went to the beach in Durban and I got to swim in the INDIAN OCEAN!! It was so exciting!! And the beach was so fun… they had lifeguards that were out in the water telling people how far out they could go, but they had whistles and would start whistling a beat and clapping and everyone was in the water dancing and clapping their hands. There were seriously so many people in the water but it was so fun! And then a big wave would come and everyone would run into each other haha I loved it! Weird fact… the lifeguards wear Speedo’s haha. But while we were hanging out at the beach, a guy named Garth who’s in his mid-twenties came over and started talking to us. We found out he was a Christian as well and a couple of us started talking to him. So many people are friendly here, so it was really cool! But our group got his number so that if we ever came back to Durban we could all hang out.

Kels & Kels at the Indian Ocean

The rest of the week was filled with way too much homework!! And I also got to go to a new clinic, called Mason’s clinic in Haniville. One of the ministries in the area describes Haniville as:

“The community of Haniville is a very poor community where people came together after being displaced in the old Apartheid system of South Africa pre 1994. There houses comprise tiny 2 rooms that accommodate up to 12 people, mainly children and many of them sleep on the floor.The socio-economic conditions have also led to an explosion in HIV AIDS and we are starting to see the ravages of this pandemic with people now getting very sick after having contracted HIV up to 6 years ago.”

That kind of gives you a picture of the type of patient’s that we saw in the clinic. We saw a lot of HIV… the numbers still shock me. The first day we were at Mason’s we worked in the ARV (basically HIV drugs) clinic and I got to do my first blood draw!!! It was so exciting!!! I got it on my first try… but my hands were shaking so badly I think I scared the patient oops! =) We do a lot of blood draws here, because people that are on ARV treatments have to get their blood drawn every 6 months to look at their CD4 count in their blood, which they want to be over 200 to go off ARV’s, but many people are at 4, or 0. After working in the ARV clinic, I got to go help in the antenatal area. So I assisted a nurse with assessing pregnant women! It was so beautiful! I got to feel the stomach and find where the baby was and listen to it’s heart through a fetoscope (it was so hard to hear it though). It was a very happy part of my day =) The next day, Adah and I went back to Mason’s. The nurses were very busy so we got sent to the immunizations room to help. When we walked in we were the only people there and the nurse said she would send in a student (who was only in her second year of nursing school) and then we could start seeing patients. I was so shocked! But it was awesome!!! Adah and I basically ran the immunizations all day! We got to give immunizations to babies and kids! It was a lot of fun! I love giving shots… I don’t know if that’s completely evil or not =) but I do hate making the babies cry, so I promise I’m still compassionate haha. We also gave a lot of Depo-provera (birth control) shots.

That weekend we went to a rugby game in Durban! We invited the guy, Garth, that we met at the beach and so he agreed to meet up with us at the game. Rugby is an awesome sport! I’d say it’s just as fun as ice hockey! It was crazy how violent it is! And they have like no padding anywhere… pretty hardcore! I definitely think we should get a pro rugby league in the US! After the game, one of our SLCs (Student life coordinator) stayed back with a group of us that wanted to go out to dinner in Durban. We went to an Italian restaurant with Garth and all 8 of us had such a good time talking and sharing life stories… it was seriously just surreal. But can I just say highlight of my evening… We were in South Africa in an Italian restaurant and Enrique Iglesias was playing… talk about a melting pot haha. The next day, Sunday, a group of us went with the other SLC, Reagan, to a black township church. It lasted 3 hours! Pretty crazy! But I really enjoyed it! And once again everyone was so friendly and welcoming! This church was held in an old community center building, but the people in there added so much life to the place! The way they were singing praises was beautiful! All of us from APU that were there were so excited when they started singing a Zulu song that we actually knew! We were singing and dancing and just enjoying life!!

The next week I was back at Mason’s clinic. Adah went to the antenatal clinic and I got to go back to immunizations with two South African nursing students. One patient came in that needed her blood drawn to test her CD4 count. I asked if one of the students wanted to do it and they said they don’t learn blood draws until they’re about to graduate… so I was on my own haha. They asked me how to do one, so I taught them how and it was only my second time!!! Praise the Lord I got the needle in and filled up the tube! I was so grateful! Adah and I made friend with the nursing students that we were working with so we decided to go to a movie that night! There were about 7 of us from APU that met up with the students, which was so much fun! I love all the relationships we’re able to build here!

That Thursday I went to a different clinic site, Ethembeni, which means place of hope. At this site, we get to go out with one member of a church and one healthcare provider. I went out with two of the most incredible ladies I’ve ever met, Patty (from the church) and Nelly (healthcare worker)! This ministry goes out to houses in the township of Mpophomeni. We went to four houses on Thursday. The first had a woman that had an infected wound so we set up transportation for her to get to a hospital. Then the woman from the church prayed for this woman, and then we brought the family food. This house was really small. It had two rooms, one didn’t have anything in it and the second one was taken up with two large mattresses. There was a small kitchen that did not have a ton of appliances. Then there was a small living room with a couple of seats in it. There was a bathroom attached to the house, but the only thing separating the bathroom from the living room was a curtain. Not much privacy at all. There was only a grandma and 20-year old granddaughter living in this house. The young girl had a child, but the father’s mother had taken the child after the father’s death. This way the father’s mother can collect money from the government, because she has a child in the house. It’s really sad how many stories there are like this, where people abuse the governmental handouts. The second family we visited was composed of a dad and his two sons. Patty translated the names of the two kids for me… the first one’s name meant joy and the second one’s name was enough! I thought it was hilarious! But we found out that the mother left the family a year ago and moved to Durban. She still collects the money from the government for having two kids… but she only visits them every once in a while and most of the money does not go towards the kdis. It seriously broke my heart. How could a mother leave these adorable children? (The little girl is a friend of theirs, the two boys are the ones that lived in the house)

Jeanna and I at Ethembeni

This past weekend we went to the Battlefields where the battles were fought between the Zulus and Boers (basically Dutch farmers) and the British throughout the 1800’s and early 1900’s. It was really interesting! And I loved seeing more of South Africa. This really is a stunningly beautiful country!

Okay this has been a ridiculously long posting, and if you read the whole thing I’m sorry, but thank you so much for taking the time to follow what’s going on in my life over here. It really does mean a lot! Thank you for the continued prayers and support. I’m really starting to miss people, but I am still so happy to be here! Miss you guys! Lots of love!

God bless,

Kelsey