Words Cannot Even Describe-August 24-25th, 2012

Today was our last days of being in Mombasa. We spent the day taking in the whole being in Africa feeling. We had to go out with a bang and have one last meal at Cafe Mocha where we pretty much ate almost every day. On Saturday, we all had to pack our bags and hoped that they weren't going to be over weight. Then came the worse part, saying good-bye. I had such a bittersweet feeling, I was excited to be going home, but then very sad that our trip was over. I never thought that being with a group of people for only 3 short weeks you would get to know them as we all did. To Joel our British friend, I don't even know where to start. Joel taught us everything, if it weren't for him I would have never learned or got the hands on experience that I did. I would have doubted myself and would have never even tried. He even let me practice putting an IV in on him. It was my first time, he had more faith in me than I had in myself, and to my surprise, I got it in on the first try. He also gave us a reason to try out our British accents, to compare differences in name of things, and for him to make fun of our "accents".

I learned more in 3 weeks here than I could have ever imagined. Their culture is much different than ours, which I think was one thing that took the most to get used to. One thing is their emotions toward death and life don't have much difference like they do for us. As I mentioned in a few of my previous blogs I saw 2 stillborn births and after each of the babies were born, the deaths didn't even phase the mothers. I am not completely sure if that was because they are just acustomed to the kinds of hardships because their whole lifes have been hard or because they just don't show their emotion. Another is that when the mothers give birth to their babies, the fathers are not present. They give birth all alone with no epidurals or any pain medications to sooth the pain. They are the toughest women I have ever seen.
I have never been to a place before where the people are so friendly and amused by bluntly speaking whites. Everywhere you walk people are always looking at you, saying "Jambo!" and asking "How are you?" They also tend to be very friendly by whistling or yelling. Also when approaching the orphanages the children were always so eager to grab your hands and take pictures with you. The children always had a bright outlook regardless of what they have been through.
As for the hospitals, I can't even explain how "rundown" I feel it is. They have the minimal amount of supplies and somethings don't even exist like an MRI machine. The patients don't recieve the best quality care that they should and many things are not very sterile. This was another aspect that I couldn't get used to because we are so used to the clean, sterile hospitals here at home.

After a long 30 or so hours on an airplane and in airports, I have made it home. I couldn't believe it that we were back in the US and I cried seeing my parents and boyfriend. This trip was an experience of a lifetime. It made me really realize how much we take for granted living in the US and bottomline how much I take for granted. After taking a cold shower everyday, handwashing clothes, brushing my teeth with bottled water, eating potatoes, rice and pasta everyday and not having clean water, I have realized that the little things we have matter and to not take them for granted because literally somewhere in the world, someone has it worse off.

No words can explain the things I seen and the things I experienced here in Africa. I will treasure these memories for the rest of my life and hope that I can experience something like this again. I never thought that I would have ever made it to somewhere like Africa. I owe a huge thank you to my wonderful, loving, caring and supportive parents for making this dream come true. I would have never got here without them and their support. Thanks to everyone for reading my blog, I hope that it gave you a little perspective on what I saw and learned. I enjoyed sharing it with you! Also to see pictures of the trip please go to my facebook page.