Hi! I think I finally got it to work. I am here in Tugela Ferry! We made it early this afternoon after a long journey. We arrive to SA 2 days ago on the evening and had a great night's stay in a hotel. Nothing like my arrival to the Delhi airport. A man was standing there after we passed customs with a sign with my last name on it. Our ride to the hotel... Day 2 included getting our rental car, a VW, and beginning the drive on the opposot side of the road, out of Jo'burg and into Africa. The ride was longer than we'd expected, and it was beautiful. SA looks different than anything I have ever really seen before. At some moments it looks like the western US, like the Badlands maybe, and other times it looks much more majestic. We stopped our drive last night in the closest town-like place before getting to our destination b/c it was getting dark. All rule-books say no driving at night, so we stayed at a B&B owned by an Albanian man, which was lovely. This am we had our first experience in a south african grocery, stocking up before we headed the hour long drive to our new home for the next month. Tugela Ferry is in the Msinga District of KwaZulu Natal. The people are primarily Zulu. On the drive we began seeing the traditional Zulu homes which are round with thatched roof. (i hope to include a picture but we shall see if it works). These houses were everywhere as we drove up into the mountains and crossed the Tugela River and eventually as we entered the town, although I don't think you'd really call T. Ferry a town. Our housing is nice. I am sharing a room with Kun, the other nursing student here with me, and we are living in a home with our preceptor, Susan, and a missionary nurse, Jody, who has devoted her later adult life to South Africa and the Zulu people. She lives here indefinitely and is lovely. We toured the hospice center run by Philanjalo, a non-profit, that we will be working with, that provides palliative care to AIDS pateints in the lates stage of the disease. They do so many other things, all of which we will be a part of to some degree. They provide ARVs, antiretroviral meds, to these patients, have a care center for children with HIV, do home visits out to the Zulu people of the Msinga district. This is run by an amazing woman named Mary, who we met this afternoon. Mary is not Zulu, I forget is she is Xhosa, or another, I'll get back to that, but she has been running the home based services for 8 years. It is amazing the care they can provide by having volunteer "caregivers" of the community go out on foot and car, mostly on foot, to help people who are very far from the 13 healthcare centers or the hospital, all run by the Church of Scotland Hospital, which is the other organization we will be affiliated with-Yale has been doing AIDS & TB work with them for years, as well as with Philanjalo. We will be involved in the homebased care, these volunteers, non medical, but trained, help with medication adherence (crucial to HIV & TB treatment), nutrition, assessing if individuals need to make the trip into the hospital, help with children, etc., I think you name it and they do it, selflessly it seems. We will spend our 2nd week here doing many trainings for the caregivers to help them be more medically astute, no more about ARV (AIDS meds) therapy side effects, etc. We will do one at each of the 13 clinical sites, which are out posts run by nurses to make primary care more accessible. On the third week we will do training for these nurses that act a bit like nurse practitioners, b/c they are more trained and one their own out in the community, which is far reaching I have been told- and will soon see. This week we will be orienting and observing the different aspects of community health provided in Tugeal Ferry mainly, I think observing the pediatrician, in the maternity ward, one home visit, and in the orphan care project. It is a bit unreal to be here. All the things you think you might know or notions you have about what Africa might be like flood your thoughts when you actually see it and are here. This processing is all still happening in my mind and feels difficult to wirte about at this point. Much more to come I imagine. There is poverty all around me... I love you all and hope this doesn't all blob together too terribly. I am jet lagged a bit and probably other things...