Back in Hartsvegas...

Hey guys! I am back at home and just wanted to let everyone know that I will update my posts and post some pictures as well - but after I take a much needed nap!!! That 19 hour plane ride almost killed me....uggghhh....so please check for updates within the next day!!!!

February 26, 2009

Today I had my last HIVE class. HIVE (Human Immunodeficiency Virus Education) is a class that I teach to Zambian natives at Maramba Farm every Thursday afternoon. I, along with another medical volunteer (I was with Gillian for two weeks and Laura for one week), and Brave teach this class to a group of Zambians that are interested. It is a 5 week course that ends with a final exam – if they show up to every class and pass the final exam then they are graduates of the HIVE program. They receive a certificate at the end as well as a picture of themselves with their instructor. I really have enjoyed teaching this class and wish that I could be here for the last one but unfortunately I am leaving on Monday to go home! L I like teaching this class because it allows me to use some of my nursing knowledge and it also allows me to get to know a select group of Zambians really well. I will definitely miss this group when I leave.
Today we talked about Voluntary Counseling and Testing which is a process by which patients are provided with HIV counseling services as well as an HIV test. VCT is completely and totally confidential (which is a major issue because of the amount of discrimination that can happen if people know that you are HIV positive). We then talked about the medical treatment of HIV. I discussed the side effects of taking Anti-retroviral medications and what you can do to combat these side effects.
It was really quite sad to finish this class today because I knew that I would not see these people again for awhile. Although I plan to return to Zambia within the next year, I have become really close to all of the HIVE participants and it is going to be heartbreaking to leave them.

February 23, 2009

I can’t believe that I am leaving here a week from today. It literally seems like only yesterday that I was stepping off of the plane at the Livingstone airport saying, “I can’t believe I am actually in Africa! Wow…it is really hot here!” But now, 3 weeks have passed so quickly and I don’t want to go home. I miss Bradley, my family, and Sadie but I feel as if this place really has become my second home. I have made so many friends – most of them locals – Brave, Bennie, Mulopa, Victor, Chris, Sharon, Ivy, Ronnie, Alex, Dillon, and Dominic and I am going to miss them with my whole heart. They are all the most amazing, friendly, welcoming, loving people that I have ever been blessed to meet and I have loved every minute that I have spent with them. They have all played a major part in making me a better individual. I feel like a completely new person and I am so content with myself as a person. I never thought that I would be able to say that but, after this trip, I can honestly say that I have such a sense of calm within. I have made lifetime friends and these people really are ones that will stay in my heart forever. The experiences that I have had here have all been ones that I am so lucky to have had and I know that they have changed me for the better. I feel like I have finally been given a pair of glasses that have allowed me to see what has been in front of my face my whole life. I have also been able to finally see how truly blessed I am in my life. I used to take so many things for granted that I know will never be taken advantage of again. I really, really hope that this feeling never fades and will remain as amazing to me as it is now. I’m really going to enjoy every minute of this last week…..

February 21, 2009

Today I went to Zambezi Sun for the first time! I can’t believe that I have been here for almost 3 weeks now and have not been to this resort yet. The staff let African Impact volunteers use the pool on the weekends – as long as we buy a drink or something while we are there. It is an amazing place and would be such a cool place to go on your honeymoon b/c it is right beside Vic Falls! I mean, it literally took us 2 minutes to walk to the falls from the pool! Amazing!! While you lay out by the pool, there is a band over by the bar that plays really relaxing African music. They had all these African instruments that made the music sound even better than it already was. While we were at the pool swimming and sunbathing, a herd of zebra walked by the pool on the way to go munch on some grass!! Yeah….an actual herd of zebra! How cool is it that I am now able to say, “So…the other day, I was laying out by the pool and looked up from reading my book, only to realize that about 7 or 8 zebra were coming towards me”! Yeah…pretty awesome huh?! I was absolutely speechless but was able to grab my camera and get a pretty good video of the whole thing. About an hour later, I was lying in the shallow end of the pool still reading the book when, out of the corner of my eye, I thought I saw something move. Well, I looked up and saw a monkey running over to where my lounge chair was. I had heard that the monkeys around this resort were really notorious for stealing food and other things from the guests at the pool. So, as soon as I saw the monkey making its way towards my lounge chair, I just knew that he had his mind set on getting something of mine. I started to climb out of the pool to try and go stop the monkey but as soon as I stood up, I saw him hop on my chair, reach over to the table beside the chair, and steal my pack of breath savers that I had opened just 15 minutes before. I was so surprised that I just kind of loudly said “Hey! That monkey just stole my mints!!” My waiter just happened to be nearby at the time and promptly decided to throw down his tray and run after the monkey. So…just imagine seeing this….a red butted monkey (that also had really obvious, crazy looking blue balls) sprinting across a lawn with a stolen pack of mints in his mouth – and following quickly behind is a young, African, sharply dressed waiter that has a look of absolute determination on his face. He didn’t catch up with the monkey but it was absolutely hilarious…and now that monkey has some serious fresh breath.

Walking Safari

February 15, 2009

Went on a walking safari today! Gemi, Corrine, Johanna, and I had to be at the post office at 6:45 am! Awfully early but it was pretty worth it! Other than the 4 of us, there was another man on the safari that I swear looked exactly like Mr. Bean! I tried to take a photo of him during the safari but I don’t think that it turned out very well. He had the huge nose and the buck teeth and everything! It was hilarious! Anyway, on our way to the bush, we picked up a man named Katongo. His job was to protect us during the safari. He carried around an AK-47 (no lie) and was supposed to shoot up in the air to scare any animals away that might charge. It was pretty scary actually but also really cool at the same time. I had never seen an AK-47 in real life before so I was pretty amazed. About halfway through the safari we took a little snack break. As we were sitting by the jeep eating our egg salad sandwiches, I got up and went over to speak to Katongo and our safari guide. I started a little conversation and ended up talking about the AK-47 that he was carrying around with him. He asked if I wanted to take a picture while holding the gun. Of course I said yes but told him to make sure that the safety was on before I put it into my hands – he chuckled a little and then pushed the gun into my arms. All I could think to myself was, “Oh my god…I’m holding an AK-47…I really hope I don’t kill anyone”. I just had this horrible picture in my head of me accidentally dropping the gun and it unloading on everyone as it bounced on the ground. Not a good mental picture at all. But, we posed for two pictures and they turned out really good. I was wearing khaki shorts and a green top so I looked like I was meant to be holding the gun. It is really hilarious and I can’t wait to be able to post it so everyone can see.
The beginning of the safari was very, very boring – no animals to see except for a lot of impala. And they would run off as soon as we got close to them. So, the guide was I guess feeling a little antsy b/c he was not able to “please” his customers. So, he began talking to us about plants that we passed while walking. He kept on and on and on with this plant talk and it really started to frustrate me a lot. I paid $60 to go on an ANIMAL safari, not a botanical safari. Well, after we saw a lot of plants, the guide decided that he would move on to talking about dung beetles. So, we found a big pile of rhino poop and the guide proceeded to talk about the iridescent color of the dung beetles and how some of them were small and some of them were large. Oh my god…it was terrible. But then, finally, we started to see some animals. I was really excited to see an animal but I was even more excited about not hearing anything else about beetles that survive off of poo. We ended up seeing zebra, wildebeest, monkeys, a warthog, buffalo, giraffe, an elephant, and a really big lizard. It ended up being a really exciting experience but I was slightly disappointed b/c I expected to be able to get a lot closer to the animals than we did. I also expected to see a lot more animals than we did as well. But….hey…..I got to hold an AK-47 while standing in the African bush…..that’s pretty good if I do say so myself.

February 15, 2009

I forgot to write something in here the other day that was really pretty special. The Zambian African Impact has a house handyman that can fix absolutely everything. Well, he got a pretty terrible cut on his right pointer finger about a week ago when he was fixing something at the house. About a day after it happened, Lucy, the project coordinator, called me over to where they were standing so that I could see what I thought should be done about it. He told me that he had been to the clinic and that all they had given him was Panadol for the pain and had said that they were going to have to amputate the finger. He was very upset for obvious reasons but also because he is the house handyman - so if he is unable to use his hand for awhile then he would most surely lose his job. So, after looking at his finger for a little while, I decided that it was definitely infected because it was swollen to about 3 times the normal size - the swelling had also spread to the palm and the front of his hand as well and he was in a significant amount of pain. If this had happened to him in the states then it would have been cleaned, bandaged, and he would have been given a 2 week dose of an antibiotic and he would have been fine - I'm sure that there would have been no talk of amputation. But, in Zambia, amputation is a very common treatment b/c antibiotics are not readily available and if they were, no one would be able to afford them. So, I got out the first aid kit that Luke had given to me before I left - I cleaned the wound with betadine, put some gauze over it, wrapped it, and taped it. I also gave him some of the Doxycycline that Bradley had given to me before I left. Doxy would definitely not have been what I would have recommended for him if we were in the US but I figured that it was better for him to take something than nothing. He was very grateful and said thank you about a million times. So for the next couple of days, I would come home for lunch and clean and re-wrap his finger for him. A couple of days ago, about 3 days after I first looked at his finger, I was doing the daily rewrap on it and I asked him how he was feeling. He looked at me and said, "I know God sent you and I thank him. I was going to lose this finger but you saved it. I couldn't move it and now look (he bent his finger back and forth)...the clinic was going to cut it off but you gave me pills and cleaned it....it feels like brand new. I called my wife last night and told her 'This white lady from America saved my finger. She is here to volunteer and she didn't have to care about this but she does and she checks on it everyday. She really cares and now I won't have to have it cut off. God sent her to me.' I thank you...I really thank you. It probably was the sweetest, most heartfelt thing that anyone has ever said to me. And now that I helped him out, I have become pretty much "the medicine woman" for the staff. The bus driver came to me for "flu medicine" (I gave him Tylenol), the sports project manager had a bad cut on her knee from rafting - she came to me and I dermabonded it for her....it is really cool. I really enjoy it......This was definitely an experience that will stick with me for a lifetime.

February 12, 2009

Today was actually a really good day! This morning I did Dambwa Home Based Care with Bex and four home based care givers who were there to translate for us. We saw about 5 patients in total and ended up finishing around 10:30. All the patients that we saw had pretty significant health problems that needed to be seen by a doctor but all of them had transport problems. One lady had a necrotic left great toe. After I assessed her and asked her some questions, I finally came to the conclusion that she had an infection in her left foot. I told her that I was unable to gie her any antibiotics b/c we don't carry those around with us but that she really needs to be seen by a doctor at the clinic b/c the infection could spread and she could end up losing part of her leg. She responded to me by saying that getting to the clinic was very hard to do b/c it is quite a long walk and she hadn't eaten since Saturday (and keep in mind this was on Wednesday!). I came to find out that she quite frequently did not have enough food and she was therefore too weak to walk to the clinic. Uggghhh!!! It was so hard to not really be able to do anything for her other than give her some Panadol for the pain and tell her that we would try to arrange some sort of transport for her. It's really frustrating for me to go to someone's home to help them get better and have to just walk away without getting them on the road to a cure. I felt like all I did was give a little advice and say, "Hope you get to feeling better!" But, I guess I did all that I could do given the circumstances.
In the afternoon I did HIVE (Human Immunodeficiency Virus Education) with Bex, Gillian, and Brave. Since it was my first time doing HIVE, I really just sat back and listened to Bex and Gillian teach. Brave interpreted for them and did such a good job - he is so animated that he just demands everyone's attention. All the people in the class were constantly taking notes and were not really able to pay attention or ask any questions so I decided to make a pamphlet for the next HIVE classes. It has a diagram on the inside that describes (with pictures that I drew) what the HIV virus does to your body and on the other sides, as well as the back, it talks about how you can get HIV and how to protect yourselves and others that you may come in contact with. I am quite proud of it and am going to take it into town and make about 50 copies of it to hand out to the class so that they don't have to write so many notes. It is only about 500 kwacha per double sided copy - which comes out to about $3.00 for all the copies - so it is definitely something that I can afford. It will be a little donation from me......