Heading In Country

I’m writing this on the plane so the posting date is going to be a bit off.

It’s been a very full day so far and I’ve only just gotten on the plane. Last night I met the two other nurses with whom I’ll be working (They’re wonderful) and this morning we had our pre-deployment meeting.

Apparently there are 3 different categories of work we’ll be doing; Knowledge Building & Clinical Mentoring, Leadership, and, finally, Communities of Self-Care. Most of our work will fall under the first category but we will likely be delving into these other categories as well. With regard to "Communities of Self-Care, we were told an absolutely horrible statistic; 10% to 15% of nursing students in Swaziland do not live to complete their training. This is horrendous. They die before they finish nursing school! Remembering that close to 40% of the adult population is HIV+, this illustrates how every aspect of the population is affected, as well as infected. Here we'll be teaching about signs and symptoms of various opportunistic infections, and the nurses sitting in front of us will be experiencing those very same signs and symptoms. This is almost unbearable to contemplate.
And so, in a painfully tone deaf seque, and on a much lighter note…I lucked out! Nobody is sitting next to me! 17 hours in the air and I’ll have 2 seats all to myself!
As they say, I’m not worthy.
Johannesburg (or Joburg, as the people in the know call it), is supposed to be like “Escape from New York” so, since I’m traveling on my own (the 2 other nurses will meet me Saturday night in Joburg) I’m supposed to walk thru the airport as if I own the place. Thank God for New York bravado.