Bonjour once again!
I’m going to try every weekend to sit down and write down what’s gone on during the week so that I know I’ve got it all down in one place, and in the years to come I’ll be able to come back and reminisce perfectly about what happened.
It’s hard to believe, but I finished a total whole complete week in South Africa ! Unbelievable. So much of this time has had a surreal quality to it – coming from cold and snow, and then 48 hours later to be walking into bright sunshine and heat with spectacular views that I’ve only seen in National Geographic or from pictures. You know that this world exists, but when you’re walking in it, and the beauty of nature is all around you and you’re breathing it in with your own eyes… just doesn’t feel like it’s really happening! To wake up each morning, and be greeted by the most amazing view as the first thing I see every day is like something out of stories. I hope that I continue to be amazed, and not get used to the beauty that can become every day life. I want to keep that awe. I know I’ve written to absolutely everyone about how gorgeous it is here (and you can even see it now with the luxury of fb photos!)
This whole week I’ve been stuck to my pens and paper like white on rice. Whenever I had some free time, I was writing to everyone about what experiences I had had – it was my ‘connection time’ – I love narrating my life, and whenever I started missing people, I would just explode into stories and narrations from my day that I had just had, as well as any general observations I had newly thought of, or cultural things I had learned about, or worries I had about what was to come next. It was my ‘brain release’ time. I realized that I really need time to do that! If I were in Canada (or anywhere with broadly accessible internet), I would just go online and find someone to talk to about what was going on – I’d become so used to that from the past months living back at homehome that it was very difficult at first feeling restricted by not being able to do that (phew! That’s a lot of words!). So even though it isn’t instant – it really felt like ‘talking’ to people, while writing to them. Unfortunately, that method of communication will take a super long time to actually arrive with the chance of receiving a reply taking even longer. But for the time being between chances when I had time and opportunity to go online and check email, it let my brain feel more relaxed J. I mailed off all my letters and postcards today (since I had the chance to go and buy stamps!), and it actually feels a little bit like loss … those letters were my ‘conversations’ with friends abroad this week, and now they’re flying their little way on over across the ocean/land. Silly to feel that way!
Even with all my time spent scribbling away, I’ve actually had some good bonding time with my new roomies: Tamara and Rahel. Tamara and I seem to be quite like-minded and both rather chatty about life in general – she’s generally who gets to hear my constant life narration “now I’m going to do laundry” … “well, I’m going to run off to the toilet and then I’ll be back” … “oh! The potato looks moldy” …. Really deep, interesting stuff. I think she’s coping with it well ;) Rahel is still getting used to English, but I can see that even just over the week she’s also been here that she’s getting more bold with her conversations and initiating talking or questions – really good! She seems like a nice girl, I’m looking forward to getting to know her better. Right now it’s almost like she’s too nice, if that makes sense – not the nice Sherky teasing so much, but that will come I’m sure. Also: note to self, probably not a good idea to use sarcasm in English since that would be rather tricky to understand. Hmmm. I’ll have to revert to some German teasing… “und der Eisel, der bist du!”
As the week progressed, I spent more and more time in the clinic with Marinde. I really love how she nurses – very similar to me! She has so much organized and you can see she’s very knowledgeable and that she continues to push herself to learn and see the big holistic health picture. I’m once again in learner-mode for a new nursing job (seems like constantly for the past half a year!). I’m so thankful for all the experiences I’ve had leading up to this time – from the summer of camp nursing right up to the week before leaving Canada and being at Sunbeam … it all seems to relate to what I’ll be doing here, and I can really draw from those times to be able to nurse to the best of my ability here. It’s exciting to be drawn into this new clinic nursing with a lot of health networking and connecting to other health care professionals to continue with optimal health maintenance – there’s a lot of independence and responsibility = totally right up my alley J I love the mix of chronic and acute types of care – there’s a lot of health maintenance and making appointments at the hospital for general check-ups in all fields and doing general assessments, but there are also emergent incidences where you have your brain with all gears whirling and focusing in on the immediate circumstances. I’m a little worried about my dermatologic assessment skills, as I’ve not had many experiences to diagnose skin conditions or assess differing types of rashes on dark skin – which is ridiculous, I’ve decided. All the anatomy and pathophysiology lectures we had at Mac only gave visual representations of eczema (for instance) on white skin. It looks very different on black skin! I’ve borrowed a textbook from Mariende for the weekend to look over all the different skin conditions – she took a tropical medicine course before taking over nursing responsibilities at Rehoboth so has specific textbooks which are a great resource.
My nursing role here is that of general practitioner/nurse practitioner/OT/PT/pharmacist/
Educator/empowerer/emergency responder/medical records/everything. Every bit that comes new makes me more excited about being a nurse – and getting to nurse here. There will definitely be challenges. That’s partly what makes it so stimulating and interesting – my nursing knowledge will be stretched beyond anywhere else I’ve been yet so far since I started nursing. I’m ready to be heavily challenged – I feel in a safe environment to be pushed to my limits and beyond.
I have to be frank. I love living in endless summer. Yes, it gets massively humid. Yes, I have to douse myself in sunscreen every morning (and bugspray). But somehow the bright sun, the warmth, wearing light clothing, feeling the sun on my skin, makes everything much happier. Perhaps I was born into the wrong climate?
This weekend, Tamara, Rahel and I went to Oribi Gorge – a nature reserve basically in my backyard ;) …. Only a short 20 min drive away? Something like that. Very close anyways. Absolutely gorgeous. I never thought of myself as a major nature person, usually I’m more interested in historical pretty buildings, but I keep getting completely floored by the sights I’ve seen! Just wow. More pictures to be posted from that day as well… I took Saturday as my personal photography day, and filled up my sd card with loads of instructive and beautiful pictures. Hopefully I will have remembered to post them as well!
Hope you're all doing well!
Heather
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