Apathy and Indifference

Today...hmm...was, as Gary put it, a very sobering day. We were supposed to tour Dora Mzynga Public Hospital, but it turns out that they actually wanted it to be like clinical. So they split us up into 2 groups: 8 went to the burn unit while the other 8 went to the maternity unit. Me, Chelsea, and Megan ended up in the male burn unit. It was hard to watch the indifference and lack of empathy the nurses displayed for their patients. They treated them like objects that needed fixing instead of people who needed healing. The doctor and swarm of med students and the nurses left 2 patients shivering uncontrollably after examining them. As they struggled to put on their robes, I took the initiative and put their robes on and made sure they were comfortable. The 3 of us were almost in tears over this horrible care. Later, when more of us toured the male burn unit, the 13-year-old boy getting washed and debrieded was crying and yelling in pain, and what did the nurses do? Yelled at him to be quiet and straighten his legs (which looked painful). All of us had our jaws on the ground...it was so sad. Chelsea got overheated and overwhelmed and had to go sit down, which is totally understandable. We gratefully ate lunch and then headed to labour and delivery while the others went to peds.

The nurse there ignored us and then treated us with disdain, assuming that we knew nothing about OB and judging us for this assumption. After waiting around for a half an hour and hanging out with 2 residents there doing their residency program, we were told a woman was at 10 cm and ready to push. So we watched a birth!!! It was amazing!! The baby spent about 10 seconds with mom before being ushered off to get cleaned up, weighed, etc...and then just left him on a table. When we left 20 minutes later, he still wasn't with mom and she was still laying there...in her bodily fluids...they hadn't cleaned her up! It was appalling! Debbie quick showed us the pre-mees in the NICU and we got out of there! I came back and showered before post-conference w/Gary and Kim. We all vented about the day and then went to Leonardo's for pizza. I'm back now and ready to go to bed...whew.

Bridges, Screaming, and Elephants

Today was the adrenaline junky day of our entire trip, no question. After breakfast, we headed over to the Bloukran's Bridge to bungie jump. 14/16 of us girls did it while me and Kellyn cheered on the sidelines. We had a good view of the bridge and the jumpers using binoculars. Eventually we moved into the bar and ordered coffee, watching both the live video feed close up and running over to the ledge to see the big picture of the entire bridge and the jumper. Some people were crying, others quietly panicking, some jumping around to the music...it was a variety (they play loud, pump-it-up music on the bridge to psych people up). After that, me, Kellyn, Gary and Kim drove with Jenni and Kayla so they could sky-dive. That was cool to see because they were these little, screaming dots in the sky and they fell for about 30 seconds before they pulled the parachute. We ate lunch and shopped in a little town before heading off to the elephant sanctuary to hang out with the elephants! We got to walk around with them, touch them, and me and Kellyn RODE them! It was crazy! Last, we drove back and I'm helping Sara put pics of her bungie stuff on Facebook.

Zipping and Zagging

Today is our first day in Tsitsikamma! We got up and went to our canopy zip-line tour, and it was super fun! There were lots of lines of various speeds, and sometimes we didn't even need to brake due to the incline of the line. We think the guides were really good...but that the guy clipping us in might have been tipsy...but no accidents occurred, so it's all good. We devoured our lunches and headed to Tsitsikamma National Park to climb on the rocks, admire the ocean, and hike to the suspension bridge. The waves were HUGE and the water was a beautiful blue-green in the sun. The hike was short and really pretty, and walking across the suspension bridge was fun because jumping on it causes it to shake and messes up the people who are attempting to walk on it. Some people wanted to climb up this steep ravine, but it was gonna get dark soon so we just walked back. The winds were picking up and a storm was rolling in, which made the waves even BIGGER and turned the water to a grey-blue color. We high-tailed it out of there and are not at our hotel. I'm in one of the two 6-person indoor flats, and there's 4 people in 2 permanent tents outside.

Preggers...prevention.

Today I went to the Walmer Clinic for our last day of clinical. We waited around and took a tour, which brought us to 10:00 AM. For the next hour or so I spent time in Family Planning. Basically what the nurse does is specialize in birth control, pap smears, STI's, HIV/AIDS prevention, and planning for pregnancy. The nurse was fun and interesting, and she allowed us to give birth control injections! After clinical, we ate lunch and had a post-conference in Gary and Kim's room. We talked about vulnerable populations here, and the talk shifted to what we're going to do this weekend in Tsitsikamma. 14/16 of us are bungie jumping, 9 or us are riding elephants, and 2 are sky-diving. I'm just doing the elephant riding...bungie jumping isn't really my thing and I can sky-dive anywhere in the world and have it be awesome. We chilled in the afternoon and had a braai for dinner! Then we chilled and now off to bed!

Providing Comfort and Help

Today was pretty long in terms of clinical stuff. I was doing hospice stuff today. What that involves is riding around with a hospice nurse to various homes and visiting them. It was part social call and part health interview and physical. There was a wide range of the health of the patients; some were looking so healthy that you would never know they had a terminal illness, while others were on their death beds and not expected to make it another day. My nurse and I were primarily in the middle-class areas, but some of the other girls got to spend some time in the townships, which I am kind of jealous about. We got done around 4 and ate dinner, and some people went bar hopping while us tired people tried to go to bed early. Problem was that people were loudly partying all over the building because the study abroad people are leaving this weekend. So I fell asleep around 12 or so...now I'm tired and trying to motivate myself for the day.

Mommas and Migraines

Today we spent our morning at New Brighton Clinic. I started off with Kayla and Sara in the "treatment room", where general things like vitals, weight and height, and smaller things are taken care of. We saw a nurse take out stitches and staples, and I highly suspect the man was involved in a fight including a gunshot wound to the stomach and a fistfight due to the location and type of injuries he had. We then were relocated to the antenatal area because they were open. See, the OB nurse was sick, so they didn't have another OB nurse to take over and work that area, so they had closed that section of the clinic. Last minute a nurse from pediatrics came to work with the patients, with 2 nursing students from Port Elizabeth University in tow. There were originally two patients, but it turns out that one of them wasn't even pregnant! She had done something funky with her birth control, which made her think she was 5 months pregnant. The routine urine test came back negative, and it was obvious she wasn't 5 months pregnant because her stomach was completely flat. So she left, and we shifted our focus to the other patient in the room who was actually pregnant! Since it was her first time there, they did an extensive exam. First they checked blood stuff, like hemoglobin and HIV testing. The HIV test is terrifying because, although it only takes 15 minutes to give results, it's occurring on a small card right on the table. The nurse had the sense to cover it up with something so the patient wasn't staring at the card for 15 minutes, but she still was distracted by it while the nurse was trying to take her medical history. Finally they showed her the results, and there was a tense moment where all of us were praying it was negative...and it was! It's one less baby who will have HIV and, at least for now, one less young person. Then they did the head-to-toe complete physical. They use a measuring tape from the top to the bottom of the stomach and this wheel paper thing to determine how many weeks along she was, and she was about 28-30 weeks. As what I learned in class came back to me, it got me excited about OB again.

We got back from there and, because it was rainy, people wanted to go shopping. Unfortunately a migraine got in my way enough to keep me in bed. Sadly shopping didn't work out for them due to transportation issues. We ate out at an amazing seafood restaurant, and Gary chipped in 80 rand each from the "kitty", which contains all the extra money we spent on the main fee of the trip. I tried this cajun kingclip fish thing, and it was amazing! Then we just came back, and I called some people and now off to bed!

Scamming

Today was kinda boring. We left around 8:15 for St. Francis Hospice, who we will be doing home visits with. We had to sit for 3.5 hours listening to them talk about their facility and what they do. Most of us checked out after the first hour, but they couldn't tell. See, you can be looking straight at someone or at some display and look like you're paying attention when you're actually busy thinking about what you want to do in the afternoon. So after we were done, we came back and lounged for the day. I read tons of "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" (great book!) and relaxed. When I took a shower that night before dinner, the hot water just wasn't there so I took an ice cold shower...lovely. We ate at Primi's again, and Ana and Kayla flirted with the waiters enough to get us all shooters for only $1 each. The bill was messed up so it took awhile to figure it out, which is really annoying because it really can't be that hard to print a receipt and have it be correct. After we got back, we were all set to listen to one of the CDs we bought at that Pub in New Brighton. Sadly the artists scammed us and gave us blanks! Frustrated, I went to my room and typed up my Journal #2 for class and went to sleep!

Organized Chaos

So today we were back at Kwazaquele Clinic doing stuff. I was back in pediatrics, as I have been so far. It was very, very busy, as every Monday is apparently. I started off with Sara in a room where all the kids who get to be patients went to get weighed...there were kids everywhere! They would cram 8 kids and their moms into this small room and have them all weighed at once. Since little kids don't like taking their clothes off (they get cold), there was constant crying/screaming in the room. Towards the beginning, a little boy peed all over the floor...and they never cleaned it up. It's like they pretended it wasn't there; even the nurses! And these little kids were walking barefoot across the floor! So much for a sanitary environment...anyway, things got more interesting later in the day. We (me and Sara) were allowed to give vaccinations to these little babies who were 6 weeks old! We gave them in the thighs and took blood for HIV tests from their feet. But man, those needles are HUGE, much bigger than I think they should be for where they're giving the shot. It was cool though to actually be able to use those skills. After clinical, we were supposed to teach some kids at an elementary school some first aid stuff, but the school had no idea we were coming due to the poor communication between NMMU and the school, so we got a free day instead! We ate lunch on this beach, and although it was sunny, it was windy so it was a bit cooler and sand was blowing all over the place. I did manage to doze off though, although I have no idea how since I was on this rock hard cement...guess I was tired! I ended up going grocery shopping with Beth in the afternoon and sitting out on a porch reading. It's nice just relaxing in South Africa, you know?

Cuteness and Cages

Today has been a day of mixed feelings. I got up early and went to church with some people. It's a small Catholic church about a 1/2 block away, so it wasn't very far to walk at all. I could tell right away that the priest was from Ireland because he had that classic Irish lilt. After church we headed off across the street to the huge Sunday market on the beachfront. It's only on Sundays from about 9-2, so we were there for hours buying things and just browsing. I think all of us spent quite a bit of money but it was well worth it. After the market, some of us hopped in a taxi and headed out to see some baby lions! We got to pet and play with them, and although they look cute and cuddly, watch out. The boy cub took a swipe at my arm and cut me a little (no blood, don't worry mom), but they just bopped him on the head to signal him to not do that. I got some cute pics with them too! Then we walked around and saw some other animals...but, like in a zoo, they were in cages. And because the safari had the animals all free and in a huge area of land that is like their natural environments, I have trouble seeing these same animals locked in cages. So I think zoos are forever ruined for me. But we did see some giraffes on the side of the road as we were driving out (they weren't in cages) which was pretty cool. After we got back, we headed to a pizza place called Leonardo's, and it was fantastic! I got this bacon and banana pizza and it was insanely good! Now we just got back and are relaxing for the rest of the night!

Safari!!!

Oh yeah, that's right, safari!!! OMG. This has probably been one of the best days of my life. No joke. We left at 9 to go to Addo Elephant Part, where we saw tons of elephants (of course), mostly around this one watering hole and a hilly area nearby. I also got some good pics of zebras at that same watering hole. We were probably 15-20 feet from the watering hole, so we had a great view. We were in a big van at this point, so we had to take pics through the window. They turned out fine, but it's always better when there isn't anything in between your camera and what you're taking a picture of. We then took a short drive to Scotia, eating chips and juice for lunch...probably not the best options, but that's what the tour guide gave us. We transferred to a 4-wheel drive safari truck/jeep thing made for off-roading. Our guide's name was Malcolm, and he did an outstanding job! He pretty much saw everything all the time because he does his job almost every day of the week and has been doing it for 10 years! If nursing doesn't work out, then maybe I'll join his team haha. I got lots of good pics, but one by one our camera batteries died lol. My favorite animals to see were the lions and the giraffes. We spent lots of time with the female lion and her 5 little cubs. I got a good video clip of her growling/roaring at one of the other tour jeeps as it approached shining the obnoxious huge light they use at night. The rhinos and hippos were pretty cool too. The ride was super bumpy but fun cause it was kind of like being on a rollercoaster with all your friends. After several awesome hours of animal watching/searching, we have another braai at this cool tiki hut thing, and the food was superb with huge, warm fires. It gets pretty cold in S.A. at night, so we all had on warm clothes and huddled around the fire. After that, Malcolm took us back out there to see more animals. Interestingly enough, the male lions we had searched for happened to be pretty much right near where we came out of the tiki hut place, along with the mother and her cubs and the hippos! It was quite the crowd. Honestly, if you ever get a chance, a safari is totally worth however much money it costs, especially if you have a good tour guide and you're in a top-notch nature reserve/a country with the animals that are in that reserve.

Crazy Mommas

Today was a clinical day where we actually used a tiny bit of our skill set. My group was sent to a clinic where we were distributed among different areas. I ended up working with kids 2 months-5 years of age, where were either sick or needed drugs for HIV/AIDS. I was able to listen to lung sounds, count breaths, and take temps, and she used MY findings to diagnose! Her complete trust in my skills kind of shocked me. I mean, I believe my data and conclusions were correct, but I'm no RN, so I was surprised she never once asked to double-check, especially when she came to the conclusion that they had some condition that needed treatment.
There was once major incident that ticked off and stunned both me and my nurse. A woman came in with a child that wasn't hers...the thing is that the woman doesn't even KNOW the child at all; the mother PAID her to take the child to the appointment and watch him until she could pick him up. The problem? The mom doesn't know the woman either! She's a complete stranger! Would you trust some random woman to take good care of your 2-year-old child?  Because of this, we didn't have any info on the exact age, medical history, immunizations, symptoms...it was bad. I just wanted to take that child and hold onto him until his idiotic and irresponsible mother came to get him. After clinical, I took a nap, which was super nice :-) We went to a braai, which is a bbq potluck type thing that the profs threw for us. The food was good and it was nice to have a free meal. Then a bunch of us nursing girls hung out for awhile in one of the apartments until it was discovered that there were a large number of these beetle things in the main hallway outside the apartment (and one got into their bathroom!). It was kind of gross, not just because they are beetles, but because 2 of them were mating (or one was trying to but the other beetle didn't seem interested). We did manage to get to our room unscathed though, which is always nice :-)

Little Kids and Chaos

Today was great! It started off with us heading to AIDS Haven, which is a place where kids who either have HIV/AIDS or who don't have it but have parents that do who can't take care of them live. Basically they could be considered orphans. Anyway, we played with these little preschool kids. I helped a boy named Mkhiwala work on his letters. He was trying to figure out how to write his name, and generally kids learn and practice one letter per week, but we learned both K and H! I was pretty impressed with our teamwork. Then we went to Kwazaquele Clinic with my clinical group while the other group went to Chatty Clinic. Kwazaquele is a township, and the clinic reflects that atmosphere. It was what we expected all clinics to look like: people packed in as much as possible, long waiting periods, long lines, not enough staff, short assessments...all things that I wish could be fixed right now. Interestingly enough, the people there were pleasant and polite to us despite the fact that they may have been waiting all day. After that, we went back to the hotel and had post-conference in Gary's room (Gary is our program director and a nursing prof at CSB/SJU). We tried this fruit that tasted like donuts, apparently it's a delicacy in South Africa. I declined the molani worm, which is something that apparently tastes like potpourri and sticks. They are these dead, dried out worms that are native to South Africa, and Gary has made it a cultural requirement that we have at least one. I passed...I'm not ready to try it yet. Then we took a quick trip to the grocery store and then bummed around until we went out to dinner on The Boardwalk. Early morning tomorrow...bleh.

Wild and Free

It was election day in South Africa today, so we had a free day instead of our first day of clinical. We slept in and headed to the beach, intent on getting a tan and at least stepping in the Indian Ocean. The problem was that it was really windy, so the sand was blowing everywhere, getting in our eyes, ears, mouths, all over us. Therefore it made lying out there difficult. So we eventually just all ended up walking near the water and getting our legs wet. It actually wasn't as cold as I thought it would be, but it certainly wasn't warm. I would say it's a little warmer than Lake Superior, but you get used to it. Then after freshening up, we headed to the Boardwalk. It's a place with shops, restaurants, rides, and even a casino! It was nice just having a relaxing afternoon. We got ice cream at either Mickey D's or this little shop...I chose the shop and got super jipped on this tiny fake banana milkshake. I did end up with a soda from Mickey D's though. Then everyone lounged around.  took a long shower, and relaxed. Overall, it was a good day :)

Orientation

Today was one of those "structured" days. We got up early and headed to NMMU (Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University) to do an orientation of the Nursing Dept there. They also spoke about the health care system in South Africa and how messed up it is. Did you know that not too long ago, nurses only made about $15-20,000 per year? Apparently now that they've gone on strike and have been fighting it, their salaries have improved considerably, although I don't know the new numbers. The most interesting part of orientation was tea time. Yes, in South Africa, people have tea around 10:30 every morning. So we got ushered off to another room where we had tea, coffee, and food. It was awesome :) After orientation, we headed off to two hospitals: a private and a public. The private hospital looks just like how our hospitals here look. Very clean, lots of technology, decently staffed, what you'd expect to see in America. The thing is, only 15% of the South African population uses private hospitals, so there were very few patients. I think we saw 3 the entire tour. It was kind of annoying because they made us put on all the "OR" get-up: the hair net, shoe covers, gown, you name it, and we didn't even go anywhere that required such protection...we were just hot and a little miffed at the OR doc who made us wear them. The public hospital shows the very stark contrast between the two. It's huge, but that's because it's almost always at full capacity. They don't have enough health care workers so the nurse to patient ratio is very high. They don't have new technology, the floors and windows don't look nice (broken glass anyone?), but the staff are nice people who know what they're doing. I think it would be a more exciting place to work than a private hospital because there is more to do and more variety to see. After that, we came back, ate, and went to karaoke at a bar called Captain's. It was kind of fun, but it was smoky and super, super crowded. It was interesting watching people sing and watching the native South Africans do these dances to music us Americans have never heard before. Around midnight we headed back, and I started battling the internet, trying to put up some pictures on Facebook, but only had a little bit of luck.

Facing Reality

Today was a very moving, life-changing day in my opinion. We had a city tour of Port Elizabeth today, and the tour guide took us right into the townships. If you don't know this, townships are those huge areas where people live in "houses" they make out of tin, cardboard, wood, and anything else they can find. There is no running water, no electricity, and no effective waste removal system. Just walking through them and seeing this reality surrounding me really hit hard. I had to fight against the urge to feel pity because the residents would find that offensive. We came across some really nice people who took pictures with us and two little boys who followed us around for awhile. Although I know that the residents would probably love to have the basics that we have, they enjoy the community-feel of it. We ended up at a preschool for 2-5 year olds....wow, they were super cute! And energetic. And they love sunglasses; they snatched Beth's right off of her head! So we took lots of pictures with them and really didn't want to leave. Next we drove into a part of P.E. that our tour guide was from, and we ate at a pub there. The food was amazing and they had these two groups sing and play marimbas for us, and I ended up buying a CD from one of the groups. We then had a free afternoon and hung out, playing cards and talking and going to bed early.

On to Port Elizabeth

Today we flew to Port Elizabeth. Unfortunately there was a 3 hour delay which we don't really seem to know what the reason was. Gary sent a questioning email wondering where we were that none of us got cause we didn't have internet access. The airline overbooked the flight by one seat, since apparently if you bring a baby, it still counts as an extra seat. So one person volunteered (reluctantly) to get off and take the next flight. The weather in Port Elizabeth (P.E.) was warm and sunny, which was a nice change from the overcast and cold weather we mostly had in Cape Town. We got some groceries at the local Pick N' Pay, went as a group out to a recommended restaurant where I ate the best salad ever, and called home and played cards for the rest of the night.

Minnesotan accents

We didn't do much of anything until 1 today when we went to Green Market Square; before that we were watching Judge Mathis...who knew he could make it all the way to South African television! I bought a few things, as did most people. Of course some of the sellers can get a little too annoying, but you just deal with it, be firm, and move on. People that wondered where we were from mostly thought we were French or English, some not even considering guessing America cause our accents didn't sound American. It could be because Minnesota accents don't sound like an average American's accent. For dinner we went to a restaurant called Mama Afrika, which was more of a traditional African food place. I got something called bobotie, while others were more adventurous and tried crocodile and ostrich. It was pricey though, and the lady kept messing up our drink orders pretty badly. She would set down a pina colada and think it was a margarita...maybe she was new. We went looking for a cool bar to hang out at afterward, but didn't really have much luck. We went into this one called The Neighborhood, but it turned out to be pretty lame with no good music and pretty much no one there. So some of us just went back and hung out for awhile talking while the others kept looking for a place.

Table Mountain, Penguins, Cape of Good Hope

We finally hiked Table Mountain! It is a hard climb for certain, but the view is fantastic! I have tons of cool pictures of a sea of clouds with the mountains poking through; it was really beautiful. So we hung out on top for awhile, and then some people hiked down while the rest of us took the gondola down. In the afternoon we went to see the penguins on Boulder Beach! It was odd seeing penguins in this environment since people mostly associate them with very cold, icy places like Antarctica. They were cute but looked kind of bored and sad sometimes. It cost money to go down on the actual beach, so most of us just took pictures from a path, which still turned out pretty nice. We next drove to Cape Point and the Cape of Good Hope, which is thought to be where the Indian and Atlantic oceans meet, but that's just a misconception. I guess they meet like 3 hours east of where we were or something. We came back and ate dinner as a group at a close by restaurant and packed everything up. 

Wine, Smoothies, and Cubana

Today, me and my friends Kellyn and Beth walked around town for awhile in the morning, just seeing the sights and getting Kellyn's dad a cool Harley Davidson shirt. The best part was the smoothies we got that were made with real mangoes and strawberries! They were delicious beyond belief! We spent the afternoon on a wine tour, and it was fun smelling and tasting the different reds and whites; sometimes they can taste waaay different than they smell, which is pretty interesting. We got a tour of one of the wine cellars and a brief explanation on how to make wine as well. I bought a bottle of Pinoget, which is a red wine that smells like coffee and chocolate and tastes fruity; it was delicious, so I had to buy it! On our way there, we drove by the 3rd largest township in South Africa, and it hit me pretty hard. These kinds of places are not something Americans really see, and it is shocking and saddening to see. After that, we went to a restaurant called Cubana, which had some really good Cuban food and odd-tasting pina coladas. This lady at the restaurant worked in the bathroom, pumping soap into people's hands and giving them paper towels...well, we had to give her a tip! For things that we could do on our own...which was annoying. After dinner we walked back to the hotel and just chilled the rest of the night.

Prisons, Penguins, and Drama

I'm on one of the older computers, which unfortunately has Internet Explorer 6 and doesn't support gmail chat or facebook chat. So email/blogging will have to do...*grumble* I'll make this quick though cause I don't have that much time left. I try to be on the internet everyday, but it can be tough when I don't have the 5 rand coins for change.

It sucks that your weather is better than ours...but that's inevitable...that ALWAYS happens when I go on vacation to somewhere I hope is going to be warmer than it is. Today was another cold one with rain thrown in the mix. NO FUN.

But we did get to see a maximum security prison. AND I saw a couple random penguins that didn't fit in there at ALL. It was really random. We were with a whole large class of African students who were on the tour for class, and that was kind of entertaining, but we could tell they were getting bored about 1/2way through. I guess it would be hard for me to have fun if I knew I was going to be tested on that info.

My hairdryer doesn't work of course. I don't know why; probably the type of plug they have. BUT my straightener does! Which is good.

Let's see........that's all for now I think. Might take a little nap before dinner at 8, not sure where we'll end up eating, because it's hard to figure stuff out as a group of 16 girls...can anyone say drama? Meh.

Touring Cape Town

Today we went on a city tour around Cape Town and up at the base of Table Mountain, which is this famous landmark that wants to become one of the Wonders of the World or something; we will probably hike that sometime this week, which I hear is REALLY difficult....so we will see how that goes. We were going to do that today, but they had it closed cause visibility was poor up there due to all the fog. Made it look kind of creepy actually.

Anyway, the weather started out warm but then it got windy and the sun went away; we were on top of a double-decker bus because the view was amazing, but therefore were freezing cold. I think it was worth it though; we saw a lot of the city. The only not-so-fun thing are the hagglers that want you to buy their stuff and won't leave you alone until it's been a significant amount of time or you buy something. I did buy some stuff at a market we went to, which was nice, although I hope the price I bought them at wasn't a rip-off; it's hard to tell sometimes.

We went to this restaurant, but for some reason it was the biggest deal in the WORLD to get us separate checks. It took like a half an hour to get them printed and then another 15-20 minutes getting us change and stuff. The manager was up there at the register swearing and stuff; whatever, it was stupid.

More later!

-Katy