durban questions.

i traveled to durban, south africa 3 weeks ago, with two other nurses, as a "nurse mentor" on a PEPFAR (presidents emergency plan for AIDS relief) grant being managed by the association of nurses in AIDS care or ANAC (of which i am a member), and georgetown university. i have mostly been working with nursing students and "enrolled nurses" (equivalent to licensed practical nurses or LPNs) on the medical wards at st. mary's, a catholic district hospital just outside of durban where probably 90% of the patients have AIDS. my time here leaves me with only questions, and their unsatisfactory, often contradictory responses (i refrain from calling them answers).

do i know, after 3 weeks, that there is a desperate need for better nursing and medical care at the facility where i have been working? most decidedly, yes.

do i feel like my being here was very valuable? no (sad and very humbling to feel this way).

do i feel that i really connected with and was helpful to the nurses that i was working with? no (i didn't think this would be the hard part, but it was).

were there a few good, meaningful interactions? yes.

do i feel like the money spent on my plane ticket, on my much-nicer-than-i-need accomodations, on the driver that shuttles me to and from st. mary's every day, should have been used instead for a nurse's salary, for more pain medication, for extra blankets, etc. at st mary's? yes.

do i continue to feel confused about and uncomfortable with the appropriateness of most outside "development," (public health or otherwise) interventions? yes (more than ever).

did i take out a loan (that i'll be paying off for a while) to study these very interventions in public health over the past couple of years? yes i did.

do i think that study was worth it? i don't know.

did i see and experience and feel the sadness and weight of how unbelievably overwhelming HIV/AIDS is in South Africa? oh yes.

can i even begin to fathom how the nurses i worked with, and the families of the patients i met and talked with, deal with this sadness and weight each day? no.

did i see and experience moments of hope? yes.

did i pay money to see some beautiful places on several occasions? yes.

did i feel guilty about this spending on myself, in the context of the rest of what i was experiencing? yes (but the draw of beautiful places is too much for me to resist).

a wise and lovely person i met here told me, "be gentle with yourself as you wrestle with the challenges of caring in a context where people don't quite know how to receive what it is that you have to offer. trust in the mystery of life and intention and that love is given and received even if it is hard to see or define how."
do i question whether i really do have something worthwhile to offer? yes.
do i also ask whether maybe i do not know how to offer it if i do? yes.
am i trying to trust in the mystery of life and intention? yes (or else i'll feel quite despairing).
do i believe intention is always enough? absolutely not.


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in the drakensberg mountains...













the south durban beach


on a drive to a clinic in the "valley of 1000 hills"


the entrance to st. mary's hospital


yesterday, at cape vidal: there are few things, in my experience, as good for the soul (at least mine) as spending an hour in the warm waves of the indian ocean.