Submitted by McKayla Duffy on the 2018 winter session program in South Africa and Tanzania sponsored by the Department of Nursing…
The first week that we were abroad we were in Cape Town, South Africa. We spent the first week getting accustomed to the culture in South Africa and learning about their way of life. We went to a restaurant called Gold where we had a 14 course meal that included dishes from many African countries and we learned how to play the drums. We also went hiking up Lion’s Head Mountain as a group and explored the city of Cape Town, including the plethora of local vendors in Greenmarket Square. We tried the local restaurants and got a feel for how much Cape Town was very similar to a large city like Philadelphia.
Our second week was spent in the hospitals and clinics spread throughout Cape Town. Since there were so many of us, we went to a wide range of places within the city. We were all there for maternity care and we got to experience just how different maternity care is in South Africa. These women almost always delivered vaginally unless it was an emergency and they did it naturally without any interventions. It was amazing to see how strong these women were and we were excited to help them in this tough time, even if we just rubbed their backs for them to help with the pain of labor. The nurses there are called sisters and they appreciated us being there to help and wanted to teach us a few things since they do things pretty differently than we do in America. We also explored more of Cape Town and shared many bonding experiences with our group of 30 to enable us to mesh and create many friendships.
Our third week was spent in Tanzania. We were all sad to be leaving Cape Town, but we were extremely excited to experience a new country. Tanzania was definitely different than South Africa because it was less like a city and was more rural. We felt the culture shock there more so than in Cape Town. The language barrier was a major issue because their native language is Swahili and despite having a lesson on how to speak Swahili, we struggled to communicate most of the time. We were still thrilled to be there because once again we would be doing maternity work. We were excited to see how maternity care was in Tanzania and we were shocked to see how different it was even when compared to Cape Town. It was definitely more rural and although the sisters liked us more there than in Cape Town, they still didn’t really grasp the meaning of compassionate care when it came to patients. Maternity care and healthcare in general was extremely different in Tanzania than what we were used to because they didn’t have many resources. They still had trained registered nurses, midwives and doctors, but they did things a lot differently. They still believed in no interventions when laboring and mothers gave birth naturally and vaginally. We all were in different hospitals and clinics and saw many things that we will never forget, relating to nursing and healthcare. We got to help deliver babies like we had in Cape Town and towards the end of the week some of us went hiking up to the first base camp on Mt. Kilimanjaro, myself included. We spent a lot of time with girls that were rescued off the streets at a place called Pippi House. It is a safe haven for girls that may have been homeless, poor, getting sex trafficked, or merely needing a home. These girls were extremely excited to see us and the same went for us. We got to educate them and talk to them about sex education.
Our fourth week consisted of us spending our last day in the clinics and hospitals and then we made our way to spend time with the Maasai tribe. Before doing so, we had to depart from the girls at Pippi House and it was extremely sad since we had created so many bonds and had impacted their lives through education and they had impacted ours just as much. It hurt us all to leave the girls, but we were excited to meet the Maasai. It was amazing sleeping in the glorified tents that basically felt like cabins and getting to experience this culture. The food was amazing just as it had been in every other place we spent time in. The Maasai live their lives in huts called bomas and we got to see how they live their daily lives and we got to talk to a group of Maasai women about maternity and health. We even split into groups and helped them build huts to use as the bathroom and build a toilet. It was a lot of fun getting to help build, despite their form of building consisting of termite dirt and cow’s poop. I was with one group working on the bathroom and it was so satisfying to see just how much we had completed in that one day. We bought jewelry from the women and we were shown a very traditional dance from both girls and boys within the Maasai. We finally made our way to our last destination for our last week – to Kruger National Park for our game safari.
Our fifth and final week consisted of us on safari doing game drives. We stayed in a very nice lodge and woke up every morning at 5:00 am for a 5:30 am game drive and had another one at 3:30 or 4:00 pm. We got to see every animal in the big five: buffalos, lions, elephants, rhinos and even a leopard. We saw many wildebeests, zebras and giraffes as well and even a 12 foot long python. It was amazing being surrounded by nature and going on the game drives because the guides were so knowledgeable. I loved seeing all of the animals and getting to learn more about them. It was an emotional experience having to come back to the States and leaving Africa behind, but it will always have a huge piece of my heart. I am so thankful that I had the opportunity to go on this program and will be forever grateful for the experiences that I had while abroad.
