Garden Route to Plattenburg

This past weekend (November 11-14) the fifteen of us girls went on a trip to Plattenburg. In order to get there we traveled east along the coast of South Africa in a tight bus for about eight hours. The fifteen of us girls were jammed packed in a little bus with our luggage. It was really an experience. We arrived at our hostel (Amakaya) around 8PM and went into the little town for drinks and dinner. Plattenburg is such a little town compared to what we are used to in Cape Town and doesn’t really have much to it.

Saturday morning we woke up and went to Knysna elephant sanctuary, where we went and played with elephants. At Knysna they take on elephants that are orphaned or endangered. It was so much fun and such an amazing experience. When we first got down to the elephants we fed them their breakfast of pineapple, carrots and squash. Then we walked around with them and pet, kissed and followed them around. The elephant tamers were really great and let us stay for three of the sessions in the morning instead of just one, so we were able to really get to know the elephants and see how they act. It’s really interesting to see such wild animals listen to the elephant tamers and pay attention when they are called by their names. They each had their own personality and were really funny. It was really cute being there with them and I loved every second of it. 

After being with elephants the bus took us to pick up the other girls while they were four wheeling and I made a friend with a little boy named Anderson. He was about three and the cutest little boy. He had me carry him all around the area as he showed me around and had me push him really high on a swing. Anderson was so cute and I hated leaving him! After we got back to the hostel three of the other girls and I went down to the beach for the remainder of the day. It was a lot of fun and so beautiful there. I can now say that I went in the Indian Ocean!

On Sunday seven of us started our day by going blackwater tubing and it was absolutely amazing! It was so beautiful there. We went down the river through the forest and the view was amazing the whole entire trip. The river ranged from easygoing pools to rapids. It was really fun but also exhausting to paddle down the river. Half way through the trip when we were exhausted and on our tubes in a pool our tour guides surprised with Bar One chocolate bars (amazingly delicious chocolate bars they have here in SA). I don’t think any of us have ever been so excited for chocolate before! Throughout the journey of blackwater tubing we also went cliff jumping and that was also so much fun! By the end we were all so exhausted but really did have a blast. After blackwater tubing thirteen out of the fifteen of us decided to take on the world’s highest bungee jump! I was so excited up until we went on the bridge and on the walk over to where we bungeed I got really scared when I looked down on the see-through bridge! We were sooooo high up (216m)! On the bridge they had music playing so we were all dancing and that helped clam my nerves a little bit. Out of our group I was fourth to jump and I was completely fine until they brought me out onto the ledge. Once I was on the ledge and I looked down (one of the pieces of advice they told us on the “not to do” list) I was so nervous and grabbed onto the men next to me and begged them to check my cords one more time. Since I was just acting scared and foolish they refused and I decided to swan dive off of the bridge into the air. The free fall down was so exhilarating and I have never experienced anything like it in my life. I really felt like I was flying through the air with nothing attached to me, it was so cool! I kept telling the girls I felt like Pocahontas but they didn’t really understand what I was talking about (haha)! The only scary part was when I was dangling there waiting for one of the employees to come down and get me, I really didn’t like that at all because you just dangle and look down at rocks and trees, SCARY!!! Once the gentleman came down and got me I grabbed onto him and would not let him go the entire ride up. He and the other employees thought it was really funny that I wouldn’t let go of his leg! Bungee jumping off of the tallest bridge in the world was incredible and I am so happy that I did it!

Monday Morning we woke up at 5am to get on the road to head back to Cape Town. On the way home we stopped at the Cango Caves. The caves were like Howe Caverns but a lot bigger, warmer and really humid! It was really beautiful down in the caves though and we were able to see all of the different formations while we were down there. After the caves we went over to the Cango Ostrich Farm. The ostrich farm was pretty interesting and I thought the birds smelled really awful and were so dirty. First they told us all about the ostriches and the farm. Then people who wanted to were able to hug the birds, but I was really grossed out so I didn’t. Then we saw little babies and they were cute. After looking at the ostriches we were ale to sit and ride the ostriches so I decided to do that (just for the picture). Another thing we did was standing on the ostrich eggs. I thought that was pretty cool that the eggs could hold all of our weight on them but if you were to jump on them or drop them they would break instantly.  

Camps Bay

On Sunday (November 6^th) I went to the beach for the first time since I’ve been in South Africa. Jeremy and I went to Camps Bay and it was absolutely beautiful. It was so surreal to be at the beach and have the mountains surrounding me. Along the beach there were purple snails and shells all along the beach. The snails looked like bubbles and when you stepped on them they popped like bubble wrap and stuck to your foot. After a while Jeremy and I went exploring and there were so many rocks to climb and sightsee on. After being at the beach for the day Jeremy and I went out to dinner at a restaurant where we could watch the sunset. Here they call eating and having drinks by the water at sunset “sun downing.” I am so glad the weather has been getting so much better here so I can go to the beach more often before I come home to snow and cold weather! 

First Day of Maternity Clinical!!!

This week I had my first day of clinical in maternity and it was absolutely amazing. I started out the day by feeding and holding the newborn babies and each one completely melted my heart. Throughout the day while the new mothers were resting I was able to care for the seven brand new babies by helping with bathing, feeding, changing and just holding them. The babies were incredibly precious and I could not get enough of them!

In the morning an expectant mother came onto the ward in active labor and I was able to be with her throughout the day! It was her second child and she came onto the ward with her husband but he left for the day so she was left alone. The other two students I was with and I stayed with her, watched TV and talked with her throughout the morning. Around lunchtime she began to use hydrotherapy to speed up the process. So while she was in the bathtub the other students and I went down to lunch. While at lunch one of the caregivers on the unit came running down to get us because the patient began pushing and the baby was on the way! When we got upstairs the doctor was already in the room and within a few minutes of us being upstairs a beautiful baby girl was born! It was truly a miracle. For the rest of the day we were able to stay with this patient and her baby girl. I was glad we were able to be with her as she did not have any visitors throughout the day.

There were many differences that I was able to observe in the hospital today compared to the United States. Part of the culture in South Africa is the mothers don’t scream and yell while pushing, like most mothers in the US do. If one were to walk by the delivery room he or she would never know there was a woman in labor in that room. Another thing is women share their rooms with other mothers on the ward so a lot of guests cannot come to visit. During visiting hours the newborns stay in the nursery and only mothers and fathers can come inside the nursery. Visitors can come onto the ward but they can only see the babies through the glass. I think this is a great idea to control infection and prevent the newborns from getting sick. Also, the nurses in the hospital deliver the babies if the doctor is unavailable at the time, something we are definitely not used to in the United States.

If my first day of maternity clinical was this incredible I know that the rest of the semester is going to be absolutely amazing. Even if I wasn’t to see a birth everyday like I was able to on my first day just being around the babies is more than I could ever ask for. 

Excursion Week In Johannesburg

  

So on Saturday (Oct. 22) we took a flight to Joberg! In Joberg we stayed in Sandton at the Westford Suites. When we got there they had pizza for us and Natalie, Sarah and I went outside by the pool and read our books! After a little while we went to Nelson Mandela Square where we had dinner, fresh sole and grilled calamari with veggies and a brownie sundae!

On Sunday we went to Soweto, the largest township in South Africa. There we took a tour of the Hector Pietersen Museum. The police shot and killed Hector Pietersen on June 16, 1976 at the age of thirteen. On June 16, 1976 school children in South Africa protested the implementation of Afrikaans as the language of instruction in secondary schools. More than 500 people died in the uprising and June 16 is a symbol of how brutal the apartheid government was to non-whites. During the tour of the museum I was most touched by the picture (posted on this blog) of Hector Pieterson being carried by Mbuyisa Makhubo after he was shot and his sister crying as she ran beside them. After security services discovered it was Makhubo who carried Pietersen away they harassed him and forced him to flee South Africa. Between the devastating picture and the story of how Makhubo was forced to flee South Africa I then realized how bad apartheid really was in South Africa. After the museum we went to Nelson Mandela’s Family Home on Valakazi Street. Valakazi Street is in the Guinness Book of World Records for having two Noble Peace Prize winners live on the same street (Mandela and Desmond Tutu). It was great to be able to see Mandela’s home and there was many pictures and interesting stories told in the house. For lunch we went to Wandi’s. Wandi’s had a buffet full of traditional foods from Joberg and it is a fun little place as they allow you to write and place things on the wall saying where you are from. We saw last years nursing study abroad groups writing and a school of nursing professor’s business card! Of course we all made our mark too! After lunch we went to the Rosebank Flea Market and had soooo much fun bartering with the men and women who were trying to sell us things. I bought wayyy to many souvenirs but it was so much fun. I was exhausted by the end of the day from trying to lower the price of EVERYTHING and telling people no to things I really didn’t want. They would try and try to get me to buy things I didn’t want and follow me around the market asking.

  On Monday we took a tour of the Apartheid Museum and that museum had so many things to look at it was a little overwhelming. It was huge but our tour guide taught us the gist of everything that was in the museum. For lunch we went to the Gold Reef City Casino and after we went to Constitution Hill. At Constitution Hill we took a tour of the Johannesburg Prison. It was incredible how black and white prisoners during apartheid were treated so differently. Black prisoners were given less food and had about 60 prisoners packed into a cell that was supposed to have about 25. Even the black wardens were treated differently. They were forced to stand throughout their whole shift while white wardens were able to sit and ordered the black wardens around. We also toured the black male prison where there was a lot of gang activity and our tour guide was great at explaining how the gangs operated in the prison. We really were able to learn so much from going on the tour. Going through the prisons really caused me to feel so many emotions and made me realize even more how lucky I am that I have never had to deal with the events that South Africans had to deal with less than twenty years ago. After the tour of the prison we went to the Constitutional Court. This court solely tends to human rights cases. There are 11 different judges, two of them are women and one is blind.  It was beautiful inside of the court and it is great that South Africa has a court that just hears to human rights cases in an attempt to never experience another issue like apartheid again. For dinner we went to the Monti Casino and it was really a casino for a princess. It was beautiful inside and seemed like a fairytale! Dinner was beyond fabulous!

Tuesday was supposed to be a day full of going to the largest hospital in the southern hemisphere and going to the peri-natal HIV research unit. We were all so excited but we couldn’t go because the person who does the tours was on holiday. So instead we went to African Romance. At African Romance we learned all about diamonds! At African Romance all of the diamonds are from South Africa and all of the employees are South African skilled workers. The tour guide started out by telling us all about the four very important c’s of a diamond- cut, clarity, carat, and color.  We then took a tour of the facility where we learned the process of how the diamond goes from basically looking like a stone to a beautiful diamond that we are all used to seeing. When the diamond comes into the facility the employees begin by boiling them in hydrochloric acid for forty eights hours. Then every diamond gets a barcode that basically shows the whole history of the diamond and travels with the diamond for life. In order for the diamond to be cut it has to be painted black and put into a little pot. It needs to be painted black because the machine that cuts the diamond has a laser that slices the diamond at 1500 degrees Celsius The laser would reflect and crack the stone if it wasn't painted black. The machine takes about three minutes to cut a 3-7 carat diamond and the operator at African Romance is the first black woman to ever operate a laser-cutting machine. The diamond then goes for polishing and “brillianteering,” in my opinion this process is an art! Every diamond then gets a certificate that travels with that diamond (with the barcode) forever. After we went through the diamond process we went downstairs to the gallery and all of the diamonds were beautiful! There was jewelry of all kinds along with diamonds that were not set as well. The employees taught us how to look at a diamond and what to look for in terms of quality. We were all very lucky to have that experience, as in my opinion it is very important for our possibly near future with diamonds!!! After African Romance we went to the amazingly beautiful World Cup Finals soccer stadium. The stadium is shaped like an African pot and one cant tell that so much work went into designing and building the stadium. 

Wednesday we went to Pretoria (one of the capitals of South Africa), which is also known as Jacaranda City. The Jacaranda trees are so beautiful and make the whole city look purple when one looks down upon the city. There we went to the Union Buildings, which are beautiful, where we took many pictures outside by the gardens. At the Union Building there was a group of Chinese tourists who were acting like paparazzi. It was really a sight to see as they were flashing cameras in our face and took pictures of everything we did! We all couldn’t believe it. For dinner we went out to dinner all together and then a few of us went back to Nelson Mandela square for desert in our last night in Johannesburg!