As most of you reading this know, I created this blog to
document my time in Kenya & Uganda where I will be interning as a nurse.
This has been a long time goal and the ball started rolling on this project for
me just about a year ago.
I have always wanted to be in the profession of “helping
people”, and as soon as I started nursing I wanted to go abroad and use my
skills to benefit others. I always thought of it as a “oh, one day it will
happen” idea. It wasn’t until a professor at Nipissing (Steve Carins) told us
about his travel nursing and really promoted to our small group that this was a
very real possibility for us; not just a far off ideal. From that point I
started to grasp at my opportunities and look for the roads to my dream.
When I heard of the Nipissing Students for Development project (funded
by CIDA, organized by AUCC and partnered with MOI University and Free the
Children) I knew I had found my match. Not only was it a great nursing project,
but also incorporated so many other things that I value. This project involves
the inter-collaboration of nursing, teaching and geography, and how this
alliance benefits the community as a whole. Having worked in the healthcare
field, I have experienced first hand how great collaborative efforts like this
can be and this is a big reason that I was drawn to the project.
There was a tedious and nerve racking process of
application, petitioning letters from advisors, interviews, and of course the
waiting game. When I was offered a spot in the program I was ecstatic! But
that’s when the real work began.
All summer it was excitement and delight that this adventure
and experience was to be mine. As time went on and extensive preparation came,
the reality of this adventure started to sink in. I would be away from my
friends, family and everything familiar to me for 3 months; I would be reliant
on those I have not met for my life abroad; I was going to be held to a great
standard and looked up to by many of the locals that I would become close with;
I may be in dangerous or uncomfortable situations. Such things are not light
burdens to bear. However, the awareness that what I was going to be a part of
would change, inspire, heal, liberate and empower lives completely and utterly
trumped any barriers that I might encounter.
I chose the title of this blog in reflection of what I hope
to get of this experience. I want my life (existing in this experience and
beyond) to be an adventure, not just a life lived for the sake of being. Of
course my sense of what an “adventure” is may differ from others. To me an
adventure is more than the “epic” or thrilling; it’s about finding yourself,
making a difference, giving it your all, being afraid but not backing down,
And now – as I am sitting here in my seat flying over the
Atlantic Ocean sipping wine out of a plastic cup and on my way to my big
adventure – it is amazing to look back at what it has taken to get here and look
forward at what is to come. With writing this blog I want to accomplish a few
things. Of course I want to document my time in these two countries, but more than
this I want to remember why I am undertaking this project; to really live. So
here goes nothing!
