totally random but important to me

This is a really long post and it has almost nothing to do with my Maui life. Sorry, I am not including any pictures. If you don’t have the time or the desire to read it than that’s fine, but its on my mind and feels better to put it in words. I hope it comes across the way I felt it.




My chest feels heavy and my heart feels numb. My eyes burn from holding back the elephant tears that my conscience insists on strategically placing in the corners of my eyes.

I just sat through the most amazing presentation in my Microbiology Lecture class. The alleged main educational topic: Malaria.
The supporting topic: Nursing in Africa.

My teacher invited a close friend to inform us about the parasitic disease, Malaria. Her personal experience comes from an 8-month journey through the most desolate and deprived villages of Kenya, Africa. Her story and photos touched every heart of my 67-student class. Not one of us walked away without questioning the purpose of our lives and the reason we want to become nurses and doctors.

She graduated from the same nursing program that I will begin in January. Immediately after receiving her licensure and degree as an RN, she embarked on a journey to Africa to make a difference. She was tired of sending her money to a faceless organization in hopes that she could help feed a newborn infant, send a child to elementary school, or provide medicine for an impoverished mother dying of AIDS/HIV, Malaria or some other vicious disease. She made a decision to fly to Africa and see first-hand for herself where her money was going.

Most nurses will tell you that your first year working in the field is like being in school still. It is learning how to apply everything school has taught with real, live patients. It is an incredibly challenging feat to make the transition from Nursing Student to Practicing Registered Nurse. The fact that this woman went straight into Africa blows my mind and even she admits that it was a task that she was not quite ready for.

But then she told us that no amount of nursing experience in a hospital could have prepared her for what she saw and experienced. She was put in situations to practice completely out of her scope. She became the magical, white “doctor” of the village. She could not save many people, and yet there was nobody better than her to do the job. Death, dismemberment and disease became apart of her daily routine. She cried herself to sleep almost every night for her first month. Her personal hut was made of mud walls and cow manure floors. She had one spare bed that was to provide a place for the patient who needed her the most for the night. It wasn’t long before as many as 14 sick children were snuggled up in her hut.

She recalled how the children adored her. At first she feared the sicknesses and disease and taught the children to raise the “shaka” sign and call out “eh brah!” in the mornings rather than shake her hand. Her 6-mile daily walk to the “clinic” was littered with hundreds of children running from the fields and huts to raise their new friendship symbol to the village medical savior. By the end of her trip she almost couldn’t peel the little ones off of her. She was in such personal and close contact with them that her health and safety were at risk. At this point she realized it did not matter. She was there to make a difference and could not let the opportunities pass her by.

At one point she was infected with Malaria and found herself near death in a hospital bed with an untrained nurse to start her IV. After the nurse left she looked down to find that the needle was inserted into her skin and then poking out again. All the medication was dripping down her arm and onto the floor. In near delusion the Malaria causes, she pulled out the IV and restarted it again into her own arm. Had she not been conscious enough to do this, she would have died.

There is no doubt that the mission she went on was dangerous. She did not choose the average organized trip to Africa with her church, or the 3 week African Safari with her friends. There are many companies and organizations that round up a group of people to educate and build homes for the poor. These are without a doubt selfless and admirable ways to give help to Africa, but she chose to go her own route. She went to the depths of Kenya and picked the worst places she could find. This woman literally described these villages as “The hell holes of Africa”.

Her speech not only made me think twice about my dreams of going to Africa, but it made me realize many of my reasons for wanting to become a nurse. Not only do I want to see the world, but also I want to make a difference in it. I don’t want to just donate to a cause; I want to be the change that the world needs. I want to personally save a life or comfort one that will not be saved. I want to give other children a chance to have the opportunities that I have been blessed with and make sure that I don’t waste the resources that I have been given.

I want to be the change that I want to see in the world.