Home Sweet Home

"We do not need to go to Nazareth, Capernum, or Bethany to walk His footsteps. We will find His footprints beside the sickbed, in the hovels of poverty, in the crowded cities, everywhere human hearts are in need of consolation. We are to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and comfort the suffering and afflicted. We are to minister to the despairing and inspire HOPE to the hopeless."

"So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life - your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking around life, and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for Him. Don't become so well adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God You'll be changed from the inside out." Romans 12:1-2

That first quote was provided by my lovely Aunt Pat. I felt like it was a perfect fit for my journey through Eastern Africa and I wanted to share it with all of you guys!

In other news, I am officially home! After a long, long journey with many hours spent in the airport, I arrived back home in good old North Carolina on Monday evening! It feels so good to be home..I have been sleeping, sleeping, and more sleeping. I definitely miss Uganda and all of the people I met there, but I was certainly ready to come home, to begin the next chapter of my life. One thing is for certain, Africa, especially Uganda, has a special part in my heart now, and I will definitely be going back when God's timing is right!

I guess I need to let you guys know how my last couple of weeks leading up to my journey home went! Especially since one of those included the neuro camp at Mulago Hospital! I think my last entry left off with James and I heading off for safari in Tanzania. Before leaving for safari, James and I had the amazing opportunity to meet Nikson, the child James has been sponsoring for the past 2 years. On the Friday before we left we spent the day with Nikson; we went to his home and met his mother and took him to lunch and to a snake museum. His mother was so beautiful, so kind, so welcoming. She greeted us with tea and cassava, and gave James a huge bunch of bananas. It has always amazed me, the generosity there, how individuals with so little can give so much. Dikson's mother kept saying how blessed she felt to have us in her home, especially with how small and poverty stricken it was. The truth is, I felt blessed to be there. I felt more comfortable, more at home there the second I entered the door then any other home I have ever visited in the States. They live in a one room home, very similar to Ronnie and Grace's home. A mattress takes up one side, a sofa the other. No electricity, no running water. They live in a community of a dozen or so homes of similar size - a communal toilet. I went to use this hole in the ground in the midst of our visit. I guess I shouldn't be surprised when I was questioned on whether I actually wanted to use their toilet - that I might find it too unclean for my standards.

I am going to generalize for a second here, knowing that no, this does not include everyone. But Westerners tend to come here to this place, Africa, and carry their standard of living along with them. They stay in luxury hotels and hang out in white areas and ultimately leave Africa without every knowing the real Africa. I don't want that, I don't want to enter a place and give off this perception that I am too good to live like the people must live everyday of their lives. So you better believe I used that toilet! It has been interesting to see how I changed throughout the trip. Day 1 I would have never used that toilet, now, I would almost say I wouldn't have it any other way.

The safari with James ended up being great. It was hard at first; I was really starting to feel the burn out and exhaustion from traveling for so many weeks and the desire to go home was really starting to set in. Plus, I had caught a nasty head cold from my time in Kenya (guess it doesn't matter where you go! The dreaded cold will find you!), and poor James was having a lovely spell of traveler's sickness. For four days and three nights, we traveled to Lake Manyara, Serengeti, and Ngorongoro Gorge. At night we camped out and hung out with other fellow backpackers and travelers and during the day, tracked animals through the different parks. I have to say that my favorite part of the safaris was meeting fellow travelers. Everyone is always so happy, so filled with energy. It was so interesting to hear about where they had been, how they got there, where they were going.

Alright lets see if I can make use of all of my English classes and attempt to sum up each national park in a sentence or two. One really beautiful thing about Lake Manyara was the flamingos. Everywhere you looked out onto the lake was pink. It was almost like the water was on fire or that the sun was beaming off its surface. Hundreds and hundreds of flamingos as far as the eye could see. The Serengeti: dusty, dusty, dusty! I have to say that the Serengeti was not my favorite place but we did get to see a ton of lions there which was the one animal I was still really wanting to see! Ngorongoro: absolutely beautiful! Breathtaking, captivating, amazing! Well worth the rest of the safari! You start your journey inside of a cloud, on top of the outer ridge of the crater. Your view is obstructed to a few feet in front of your eyes and you wonder whether you should have even made the journey to the park. How in the world are you going to see animals if you can't see your own hand when put out in front of your face? And then you begin the descent into the crater. As you descend, you suddenly find yourself dropping from the clouds and emerging to the most spectacular view. All along the left is the gorge, touched lightly by the first morning sun's beams as they sneak through the clouds. In the distance, you spot the mountains which mark the outer boundaries of the crater and central are two lakes, glistening with a ring of clouds around their outer edge. It was a glorious change to say the least from the dry and dusty view the Serengeti yielded. There are hundreds of zebras, buffalos, lions, birds, cheetah, elephants, every creature moving their own way but in a perfect unison in the crater's bottom.

After the safari, James and I spent one last night in Arusha Backpackers before catching an early morning bus to Dar es Salaam. Bus rides in Africa always promise to be an adventure. Flying across the pot holed roads at top speeds, the driver performing manuveurs unfit for a vehicle of its size. Vendors jump on and off at each town and at the journey's end, you end up with all sorts of odds and ends filling the buses extra space: bags of oranges, nuts, crackers and cookies. It was 9 glorious hours indeed! So here is the kicker of the journey: on the bus traveling with us was a family of 5 from Boone, North Carolina! AND, the mother and father happened to be UNC graduates! Not only was it amazing meeting people from NC who knew exactly where we came from, where we live, but they were also such a wonderful family! They made me feel so comfortable, so safe on the journey. I felt like I had a small piece of home with me all of a sudden. It is such a small world! The mom even has a brother who lives in south Charlotte. Well, the family certainly was a blessing from God because at this point in the trip James and I weren't exactly doing too good in the funds department. When we arrived in Dar es Salaam, the father helped pay for a taxi so James and I could get safely to our hotel and provided us with extra money so we could eat dinner. We had not said a word to them about our financial situation! I hugged both the mom and dad goodbye and tried my best to thank them for their amazing generosity! Once I fully rest up and recuperate, I want to find them so I can send them a thank you card!

For our last day in Tanzania, James and I explored the city of Dar es Salaam. Dar es Salaam means "Haven of Peace" which I am not sure is the most fitting name for the place. As you walk around, you definitely pick up on the mix of African, Arabic, and Indian influences; the main language, Swahili, bringing all of the people together. Dar is Tanzania's capital, with a population of nearly 3 million. Despite its size, I really found walking the city center really quite manageable. It was a pretty laid back day of exploring. We were exhausted from the safari, lacking money, and had our plane to catch the next day for a week of work at Mulago Hospital. We visited a few markets, had lunch, and made sure we got a glance of the Pacific Ocean. I was excited to return back the the comfort and warmth of Kampala, and to have the ability to take a much needed shower! I had shattered my previous no shower record on this journey and was pretty certain my hair would be forming dreadlocks if I didn't shower soon. My hair was much like the consistency of cardboard.

Alright, the week in Kampala with the Duke team! My emotions and feelings were definitely all over the place that week. Mainly fueled by the fact that I was with people all of a sudden, I had a group to dialogue with, to experience the trip with. And yet, we all were coming into the week with completely different angles, different mindsets. Mine was one that had been there for months, a few had been there for a couple weeks, and the last for a couple of days. It was hard because I wasn't quite ready to share, I hadn't fully processed all of the weeks spent in Africa myself and the full depth of everything I had learned and experienced.

How about a quick summary of the week? We arrived and checked into our hotel on Friday. On Saturday, we headed to Mulago for a day of continuing education! The whole day was spent setting up the operating rooms, ICU, and recovery for the surgeries to be performed through the week, and in a classroom with Ugandan nurses learning about proper aseptic techniques, how to properly scrub in to surgery, how to do a neuro assessment, etc. On Sunday, we went to a church called Christian Life Church and then to an orphanage afterwards that is connected to the church. Monday-Thursday we completed almost 40 surgeries. The student nurses were able to scrub into the neuro surgeries, help recover patients in the PACU, walk patients on the floors, work in the ICU, and shadow the CRNAs. I just want to give a HUGE thanks to the Duke team for being so helpful and amazing to the students during the week! They really took the students in and taught us so much during that week! On Friday, we headed for Queen Elizabeth National Park to relax until our flight on Sunday back to the States. After a 9 hour drive back to Entebbe, an hour flight to Nairobi, an 8 hour flight to London, an 8 hour flight to Washington D.C., a 30 min flight to RDU, and many hours of layovers, we were finally back in NC! How is that for a summary?

The nurses and docters there were so appreciative of the fact we were there and what we were doing. When I first went to Africa, I entered with this perception that I was going to be so much more knowledgeable then the nurses there and maybe even the doctors. That this was a place for the unfortunate and uneducated. I could not have been farther from the truth! The health care workers are extremely knowledgeable. They know there is a gap between their system and ours and they are so eager to absorb as much knowledge as possible! They are forced to make the best of what they have; the little resources the government provides them with and because of it are extremely innovative and flexible. I volunteered in Mulago but a drop in the bucket in the grand scheme of things and felt the burn out, the loss of hope and energy. I couldn't imagine working there day in and day out, wanting to save lives and make a difference, having the know how to do it but lacking the capacity. How do you keep your spirits up in such a situation? It is draining, burns you out. And yet, the doctors and nurses do it! I have so much respect for the ones we worked with. Their pay is pathetic, the situation seemingly hopeless. And yet, they persevere, push on, and come in each and every day with a smile on their face and with the passion to help the patient to the best of their ability. That is what health care should be all about. To think of what they could do if they actually had the appropriate funds!

A word or a few words about my work experience at Mulago. It certainly had its frustrating moments working at Mulago, feeling lost and helpless at times, wondering how in the world I could make any kind of difference in such a place. And sure the program has much to improve and grow, but what an amazing opportunity it was! My time spent there was nothing but life-changing. It was emotionally and mentally draining at times, but the health care in Mulago is a reality for many in the world. Most are not as blessed as the Western world and by working at Mulago, I was able to learn that; it needs to be learned, eyes and hearts need to be opened so that chance can begin-improvements can begin to be made. I do have to say if there was one thing I would change, it would be that there would be a little more structure, but I knew that it wasn't going to be perfect since I was the first student nurse to come and weeks in advance before anyone else. I was alone and yes, it did certainly feel that way. But I wouldn't change the experience I had for the world. I may have felt lost and hopeless but I really did learn a lot about Africa, about East Africa, and its people both through my travels and through what I experienced and saw at Mulago. Because of the lack of supplies and equipment, I had to rely heavily on compassion and patience, love, and focus on supporting the patient. I always knew those were important concepts, but I never grasped how far they really go, how much a patient really appreciates being listened to, really cared for. You can't put a value on a real nurse to patient relationship and I really do pray that I take what I learned about humility, putting the patient first, and compassion, and really apply it to my future work as a nurse. It really was hard to swallow sometimes because I had such a passion to change things, make improvements, save lives, and suddenly I was thrown into a world where tons died daily, died of things completely preventable if the right treatment could have been afforded, available- cheap treatments. It was hard to swallow that all I had the power to do was to love, to offer my hand, and sometimes just watch as someone slipped away.

The baby with the fluid in his lungs who opened its eyes and looked at me keeps coming to mind-that is what is all about. That baby didn't make it to along and happy life, but in that moment, if only for a few minutes it knew what being loved in this world felt like. It knew what it felt to be held and comforted on this earth by someone. And I can't help but think and pray that if in that few minutes if that helpless baby could finally grasp what earthly love is, then his eyes would be opened to how vast and how great God's love and desire and passion is for him.

Am I emotionally and mentally damaged? No. Mentally and emotionally drained and fatigued? Yes. But who wouldn't be after traveling strong in a foreign place for months. The more I think about my traveling solo, the more I really appreciate that beautiful time. Sure, I missed home and my family tremendously, but it gave me the time for pure reflection; no being bent and swayed or fueled by other people. It was just me, God, and my journal. My journal, a place to talk to the Lord and get my thoughts and feelings out; my true, pure, real thoughts of reflection.

I think it is interesting, almost funny how God works. I never intended on this trip being a "mission trip" by any means. My faith had hit a sort of road block and stand still before I came and a part of me was wanting this trip to be a break from God. Faith found me. God found me and for that I feel so blessed. I was removed from the comforts of home, my materialistic comforts that I often lost myself in, hid myself in. I was thrown into a place I knew nothing about, didn't know what to expect, and because of it clung to God - and when you cling to God, there you find peace and joy, serenity. You feel loved and far away from feeling along. You have the strength and confidence of 100 and your path knows no bounds. It truly is bliss and I pray I don't so easily lose that relationship with God in the comforts of home that I have returned to.

I pray that for years to come, people get to travel to this beautiful continent, to Uganda even, the Pearl of Africa, and get to see how amazing, how enchanting it is; to build a bond with this place that will always bring them coming back because of the comfort and feeling of home that is there, and the beauty and pure creation of its land. I know I will be coming back - God is not done with me and He is not done with Africa. This place has too much to teach the world, too much to offer for it be forgotten and left in the shadows; to be labeled as the "Dark Continent." This place is very much alive and filled with levels of fellowship and generosity that never quite grasped until traveling there. This trip truly has changed me, given me life, and for that I am so thankful.

On a last note, I just want to thank all of you guys for your love and support and encouragement through my whole journey! I don't know what I would have done without your prayers and emails and the trip certainly would NOT have been possible without your guys financial support. Your emails and comments and prayers helped me day in and day out to persevere, push forward, to make the best of every day! So thank you again with every ounce of my being! I love you guys!