Plan of Action

This first entry is a description of my planned itinerary. This, of course, could change.

I'll be spending 4 weeks (beginning February 7th) in Swaziland. This small country, about the size of New Jersey, has the highest incidence of HIV in the world. Four out of every 10 adults are infected with the virus and the average life expectancy at birth is 31.99 years.

It is also one of the last remaining absolute monarchies in the world and "every year around 75,000 young women in Swaziland flock to its capital to participate in the Reed festival, in which bare-chested virgins cut off a reed and dance for the king of the country, many of them hoping to be plucked from the crowd to be his newest bride." Yikes.

Anyway, I'll be there with 2 other HIV nurses from the States, both of whom are very experienced. Our sites will be a small nursing college and a hospital. Unlike the abundance we are fortunate enough to work with in hospitals in the US, I'm told that there really is no equivalence. I will be fascinated to see how creative the nurses are there with so little. I know I will learn an enormous amount from them about necessity being the mother of invention. I hope I will be able to give back as much.

My 2 compatriots will leave after 3 weeks and a new nurse from the US will arrive. My 4th week, in addition to continuing my work, will also involve acclimating him.

Then I return home on March 8th.
More to come when I actually begin this adventure.
I couldn't possibly be more excited.