We made it to African Enterprise! Beautiful place, beautiful staff. I am so so blessed to be living here for the next 10 weeks! God's beauty is everywhere -I feel like I have to pinch myself every five minutes so that I know that I'm not dreaming. AE has a ton of land -including some beautiful waterfalls. I'll have to post some pictures of those later when it stops raining -it's been cool and rainy since Sunday, which is quite enjoyable after the hot and humid Saturday we had. Here is a picture of Kelly and I at the entrance to AE after our hike in the rain:
This building is the main hang out. Our dining hall is in the middle. The windows on the far right are our classrooms and the last window on the very left is the library. It's on a little hill and our chalets are just down the hill.
When we arrived on Saturday, we were greeted with these tribal dancers on the lawn in front of the dining hall. It was a great welcome and it was so fun to hear them all sing together in Zulu.
You can see the brick-like buildings in the back, those are the chalets like the ones that we live in. They are fun and remindful of my days in the SPU dorms. There are four rooms within the chalet, each with bunk beds, so that means we have 8 girls per chalet (except my chalet has 7 because we have one girl who is rooming solo). The eight of us share a bathroom that has 2 showers, 2 toilets, and 3 sinks. It works out nicely. Here is a picture of my bedroom on the first day trying to get it all organized with my roommate Mary Bette, so excuse the mess.
AE is surrounded by a game reserve so there are these beautiful hiking trails that go throughout the reserve and I'm just loving it! There are zebras, impalas, reedbuck, bushbuck, blue duiker, and monkeys. It's amazing having such animals for neighbors!
The zebras are my favorite -they are so cute and it's crazy how close they will let us come to them! I love love love it!
Yesterday (Monday) we had class from 8 until like 3. We like offically met our instructors. Dr. Wendy Hall and Sister (Professional Nurse) Glenda Tuckell. They are absolutely wonderful and so fun. They are both from Zimbabwe but have lived and worked in South Africa for 30+ years. Our classes we take with them are Ethics and Community Health in South Africa. We just had an introduction in both classes but I already feel like I'm learning a lot. We had "tea and eats" twice during the day -it was lovely, and I know I will miss those breaks when return to America. We got our clinical assignments from our instructors and I was placed in the EastBoom Community Health Center. It sees about 1000 patients per day. And it has different units for like everything -L&D, chronic illness, ARV (anti-retroviral -for HIV+ patients), mother and baby, pediatrics, etc. Here is a picture of Mary Bette and I this morning at 7:00am just before leaving for our clinical.
I ended up gettting placed in the mother baby unit with a wonderful professional nurse (SA has 3 levels of nurses, professional is the highest -they can diagnose & prescribe). She was Indian but from South Africa. She has been licensed for 16 years. We did head to toe assessments on the mother and baby. It was a challenge for me to remember all that I had learned when I was in my maternity rotation and working at St. Joseph's in Orange. My nurse was a fantastic teacher though and very patient with me. The room we had was tiny and dirty. Supplies were limited and things were reused often if they were not "visibly soiled by blood." We saw babies from 6 days old to 8 months old. A lot of teaching was done because mothers were not properly caring for their babies. Incorrect formula to water ratios, not cleaning the umbilical cords, putting too many clothes on the baby/overheating the baby, not sanitizing the baby bottles, etc. Teaching was also done about prevention of pregnancy.
And over half of the mothers that came in were HIV+. Babies with HIV+ mothers had to have DBS testing - 3 drops of dried blood sent to the laboratory. Results would not come back until 3 weeks later. Babies were then started on Bactrim (to help prevent infections such as bronchitis or pneumonia) and Multivitamins (to increase their immune system) prophylaxis until the results came back. If the results come back positive, they would be started on ARVs and if negative, they could stop the prophylaxis meds.
Many referrals were made for the mothers to go to the other units for baby immunizations or for ARV treatments. It was very interesting and I learned a ton. I felt like I was asking a question every other minute. I am excited to keep learning and I'm just feeling so blessed. I am just so grateful for this experience. Tomorrow I have my History of South Africa class as well as my Zulu class. And I am hoping to make a trip to the local mall -I've heard it's a lot like American malls so that should fun.
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