Long Post, But Trying to Catch You Up!

Happy Valentine's Day Friends and Family! Sorry for not posting anything for the last two weeks. My computer decided to poop out on me then and I have since been using a community computer on AE campus. Not the most convenient timing for my computer to decide to become undependable but I should be able to get along just fine using the community computer and borrowing my friends' computers until I go home. So we have been quite busy since the last post but I will try and catch you up on all that has been happening here. It’s going to be long but no pressure to read it, feel free to skim or just look at the pictures J

On February 3rd, I was back at Ethembeni. This time I was able to deliver food to four different families and interview one new patient that wanted to join the program in Mpophomeni. I learned that Ethembeni's food is all donated by a local farm and dairy who decided to tithe 15% of their food to Ethembeni. And the food is delivered to these patients once every two weeks and an Ethembeni volunteer visits them once a week to just catch up and pray with them. Ethembeni requires that each new patient that joins must sign a contract stating that they will attend classes on sewing, gardening, cooking, or something they call the “wonderbox” which is basically a box that they put together and will cook food without electricity. They are all about empowering them to provide food for themselves and to provide Ethembeni is an amazing non-profit organization and it truly is a place of hope.

One patient’s name was Thandi, which means “love” in Zulu. Thandi was 34 years old, HIV+ and had two children, one girl who was 12 years old and one boy who was 4 years old. Thandi showed us a picture of her daughter and then asked us to pray for her. She explained to us that she came home yesterday crying after school because her teacher called her up to the front of the whole class to say that she was ugly and stupid because she was “black.” Even though in 1994 the apartheid ended, the impact of it is still lasting. The teacher is “black” herself. It is heartbreaking and appalling that a teacher, someone that is supposed to be a role model, would ever do or say such a thing to a child. I wished so badly that her daughter was their so that I could look her in the eyes and tell her she was beautiful.

Another patient was a precious HIV+ grandmother. She had two daughters who both lost their lives to AIDS just a few years ago. The sweet grandmother is now caring for her four grandchildren, two who are in high school and two who are under age 5. She was so happy to show us her garden that was growing beautifully. She had been selling some of her vegetables and was able to buy new seeds to expand her garden. Ethembeni truly was her place of hope because before them she never knew how to garden. I was blessed to be able to return to Ethembeni’s community center and spend some time with my favorite little Ahkona:

On February the 5^th the twelve nursing girls went to the beach in Durban while the other students went on a field trip for class in PMB. The beach was absolutely gorgeous and the sun was very hot. Some of the girls forgot to put on sunscreen and got burnt really bad, thankfully I wasn’t one of them. I took a walk along the beach to a lighthouse with one of my friends and then on the way back I unfortunately got stung by a tiny tentacle from a blue bottle jellyfish or Portuguese man of war. He came out of nowhere and just got me. It stung pretty bad but thankfully it only got one toe. The lifeguard gave me some magic cream and the pain went away after a few hours. Afterwards we went shopping at the biggest mall in Durban and I picked out a new purse. It was a very relaxing day that I definitely needed.

On February 8^th I was assigned to Mason’s clinic in a township called Haniville. I was placed to work in the ARV unit (clinic for HIV+ patients) with Mary Bette. Together we were able to work with Dr. Masinga. He only works at Mason’s once a week for two hours, so we were really lucky to be able to work with him. He taught us how he does a generalized head to toe assessment which was great because we were able to see what types of things he looks for in an HIV positive patient: eyes for jaundice, mouth for oral thrush, hands for clubbing, black lines on nails for liver function, white spots for protein loss, skin for rashes or fungal infections, calves for muscle loss, and feet for fungal infections. He then had Mary Bette and I switch turns performing assessments on each patient that came in while he overlooked. It was such a great experience! I was able to see lots of cases with oral thrush, fungal infections, enlarged lymph nodes, and even anal warts.

After Dr. Masinga left, we were reassigned to work with Sister Thandi. She was explaining to us that people here value money more than life. Many people come in to the clinic complaining of a bad cough and night sweats, claiming that it is TB. But upon auscultation their lung sounds are clear and they cannot even produce a cough, so they are lying. They lie because the government will give them a grant if their CD4 count is below 350 and if they have concurrent TB. So they lie to get the nurse or doctor to send in papers to the government for their grant. And when the nurse denies them, they go and sleep around more to raise their viral load and decrease their immune system so that they do catch TB. It is a sad reality and extremely frustrating that they value money more than life and that they don’t turn to the Father in their time of need since He is Our Provider. But who knows what I would do if I were in their situation, I could only hope that I would value life and rely upon the Lord during that time of desperation.

Also, I was able to do two successful blood draws on my own while Sister Thandi overlooked which was great. Later in the day Sister McKay came in and told us to come see this patient that had just walked in. It was this young woman who had this horrendous infection on her right breast. The infection was basically eating away her skin and it was just so raw and had tons of pus –it looked so painful! The woman had a little baby about 4 weeks old and had been breastfeeding when all of the sudden the baby started refusing to nurse from that breast and would only take from left. She said the infection started to show up three days ago and her sister tried to help “squeeze it out” but it only got worse. It looked awful when she came in, I cannot imagine why she waited so long to come to the clinic for help because it was so gross and just so disturbing. Sister McKay ended up referring her to Northdale Hospital’s causality unit so that she could get immediate attention since the doctor had already left. So that was a super packed day, full of learning and lots of interesting things to see!

On February 10^th I was back at Mason’s ARV unit, this time with Kristina and Sister McKay. It was super crowded that day and we did a lot of observing. It seemed as if every patient that came in was either a child or a young adult. It really pulled on my heartstrings just because every single patient was so young. One mother came in who was 29 years old and had a little baby that was 1.5 years old. My beautiful sister Alison is that same age and so is my nephew Owen. I just could not imagine Alison and sweet little Owen walking into an HIV clinic for medical treatment, it just boggled my mind. It just made me start to really question God and ask Him where He was and if He was present. The immensity of HIV is just so crazy and it just really seemed to smack me in the face. So in that moment I just said a simple prayer asking for faith and asking that I would not lose sight of Him amidst all this sadness. And after I prayed, like a minute later, the whole entire waiting room outside broke out in song!! Sister McKay explained to me that a pastor comes in and usually has a little sermon for them and together they pray and sing in Zulu. She said they were singing praises about how He provides. How amazing that these people in such a desperate situation still praise God and call Him the ultimate Provider? I cannot imagine any clinic in America ever breaking out in song to praise God. It was just such a beautiful moment and I really felt God was there.

On Saturday the 12^th we all went on a little hike through the Drakensburg mountains to see some old Bushmen cave paintings. The scenery was gorgeous and the paintings were very neat. The nursing girls are scheduled to camp out in the Drakensburg mid-March with Professor Glenda’s pastor. I am really looking forward to spending some more time surrounded by God’s incredible beauty!

Yesterday after church we had a “talking drums” session –it was basically an hour jam session with djembes and other such instruments. It was so much fun! A little family of three came in with djembes for all of us and had us do a bunch of different rhythms, it was totally awesome and I am totally looking forward to practicing my djembe from Ghana when I get home J

Other than clinical and the fun Saturday outings, we have just been in class learning a lot. Here is a picture of our classroom before we began our HIV/AIDS in South Africa lecture with Professor Wendy and Professor Glenda:

Oh and we've been trying to fend off these devious little creatures who like to steal my candy: