So many things have happened since the lasttime I updated my blog that I will just have to go "briefly" through some of the things I've done during the past few weeks. I will start with telling about some of the travels I've done and then continue on with my practical training.

My travels in the Southern Africa...

Johannesburg and Pretoria (20.-22.2.)

On the first weekend after the Sodwana Bay, we went to visit Johannesburg and Pretoria. A friend of ours had been in Jo'burg all week and had arranged almost everything for us. All we had to do was wait for a kombi to come and pick us up one Friday morning. After a nice 5-hour ride, we arrived in Jo'burg and met our friend at one mall. Most of the girls (if not all) were very excited about the possibility of finally being able to do some serious shopping. It's not that the shops in Swaziland wouldn't be good, it's just that the options in Mbabane and Manzini are guite limited. I was also very excited about the shopping, but of course didn't find anything... there must have been something wrong with me.

At the mall, our friend intoduced us to some of is oter friends who we ended up spending the rest of the night with. It was a good thing, because we hadn't booked any accommodation and in other words, didn't have a place to stay in Jo'burg. Then one of the guys, Ian, called his parents and got us all a place where we could go for the night. His parents' house was located in one of the safest, if not the safest part of the city and was very nice with a swimming pool and everything. Their grandma was out of town for the weekend, so we got to stay in her own little house. Her house was quite small, but could easily accommodate all 9 of us (plus 3 guys).. 4 slept in the grandma's bed and the rest of us on the floor. But don't worry...we didn't go streight to sleep, because it was a perfect time for a little party. We realized we were too out of shape for soccer , se we just played in the pool, enjoyed some drinks and then went clubbing... The club we went to, was full of antique furniture and had lots of things hang up on the walls. It didn't even really look like a normal club, and maybe that's the reason why I really liked it so much.

After clubbing, we went back to Ian's house and tried to get some sleep... but as you can imagine, it's hard to fall asleep when there are so many people in one room and when one starts laughing someone else joins and so on.. In the morning we woke up to find out that some of the group (the ones that didn't go clubbing and stayed at the house) had been a little too loud and that Ian's parents weren't too happy about it. Everyone was feeling very bad (even the ones who hadn't been there when it happened), because they let us stay at their house for free and then we kept them awake all night. We apologized the parents and they said it was ok... they have a son who likes to party, so they are used to it. They just didn't want us to wake up the neighbours who had small children.

After many apologies and cleaning up the place, we started heading towards Pretoria, the capital of South Africa. The city was very nice and our plan was to spend the day at one of the biggest and the best malls in the area. Before shopping, we went to have some brunch and started making more plans for the day. We found out that there was going to be a big rugby game in the city that afternoon and that DJ (our friend) was going there with his cousin. After thinking about it for a while, we all decided to go with the boys.. and the game wouldn't start til 3 p.m. so there was still time to do some shopping. To make sure we'd get tickets for the big game, me and DJ drove to the stadion and bought them... and while we were on the road, we also went to book us all hotel rooms for the night.

The rugby game was very nice, eventhough we didn't really know the game or the rules. Lucky enough, there was a man sitting behind me, who would every now and then tell me what was going on. He also told us wen to stand up and what to yell. The weather was extremely hot and our seats were in the sun, but I believe everyone was still enjoying the game. It was definitely a fun sport to watch... pretty much like (American) football but without the pads and with fewer interruptions. After the game we went to our hotel. We had to be a little bit sneaky, in order to get 10 people into two double rooms, but we made it. The day had been long, and most of us haven't slept too much the previous night. After taking showers and having some dinner at a nearby restaurant, most people decided to go streight to bed. Me, Marjo, Manna, DJ, Gareth and Lou decided to go clubbing instead. We visited some different clubs, danced and had some drinks..enjoyed the night.

Sunday morning we split our group in two. Me and Marjo went shopping with DJ (Marjo had to buy a new camera and I had spent the previous day driving around the city buying rugby tickets and booking a hotel) and the rest of our group went back to Jo'burg to visit an Apartheid museum. When me, Marjo and DJ arrived in Mbabane in the afternoon, we were so tired and hungry that went streight home. After a while, me and Marjo decided to hitchhike to town and back and get some food... And after eating a delicious sub, it was time to take a much needed nap.

Kruger Park (27.2.-1.3.)

Kruger Park weekend started on Friday morning, when a Taman tours' kombi came to pick us up from Fairlady. We hear the road had been bad, and the kombi arrived over an hour late. In spite of the delay, we were full of excitement when we finally started our 5-hour drive to Kruger Park. It was a hot day and we thanked the African spirits for the air-conditioned vehicle. When we arrived at the lodge we were staying at, we checked into our rooms and headed to the pool. After 4 p.m. we started heading to the gates of Kruger Park and got ready fr our 3-hour open landrover evening safari. It was still light when we started the safari, but it didn't take long before the sun went down. It was very excitingto drive in the dark and we got to use some bright lights for searching glowy eyes in the darkness (red eyes for the big cats and white for impalas etc.). We were lucky to see some rhinos, giraffes and zebras when it was still light, but when it got dark, we only saw impalas...hundreds of them if it makes it any better.

The next day was all about game viewing. In the morning we jumped into our air-conditined kombi and drove back into Kruger Park. We spent almost the whole day in the car, trying to spot some animals. To be honest, I personally enjoyed the Masai Mara (in 2007) more than I did Kruger Park, but it was still nice to see all the animals. The day was quite long, but things got a bit more exciting, when we decided to change the route and didn't know if we could make it out of the park before they closed the gates. Our driver wasn't even sure which way to go, but we made it to the gate just in time. But once outside the gates, we still had to drive two hours in the dark to get to our hotel...and we were running out of gas. After searching for a gas station in a scary looking town and filling up the tank, we finally arrived at our hotel (almost 4 hours later than was originally planned). Even though it was already 10 p.m. and the restaurant was supposed to close at 9, the staff was still there waiting for us. When we got there, we were all starving, but tried to eat as fast as possible, because the staff was already working overtime. After stuffing ourselves with all kinds of delicius foods, we went to see our rooms. I guess the day must have worn everyone out, because the evening at the Blyderiver Canyon's Aventura Resort turned out to be very guiet and everyone just went to sleep.

In the morning someone left our front door open, and soon we found a huge baboon in our kitchen. (How could you remember to close the door when there's only a 20-inch sign on the door, warning abut the baboons.) But anyway. We had some breakfast at the restaurant and then decided to go for a one hour hike to the nearby waterfalls. The trail was very nice and the scenery was absolutely amazing. It was a litte bit rainy, but the weather never really bothered us.. we were too exited about the adventurous walk and the sounds of the nature around us... And to be honest, we maybe even liked it better than the Kruger Park. On our way back to Swaziland, we stopped at Blyderiver Canyon. Once again, the scenery was undescribeably beautiful and I was happy that we saw it (we almost didn't go there because the weather was really rainy and misty, and we were sure we wouldn't see anything). After that, the rest of the day was spent in the car, driving back to Swaziland.

Mozambique (6.-8.3.)

After changing our plans for about dozen times, we decided to go to Mozambique by ourselves. We split our goup in two, so half of us would go to Maputo with kombis and the rest would rent a car. Night before we were supposed to leave, Lauri got a hig fever and had to stay in Mbabane. Olli didn't want to leave him alone and decided to stay with him (just in case)... that left just me and Heidi be riding in the kombi. To catch the first kombi to Maputo, we had to leave before six in the morning. We were in Manzini exactly at 7 o'clock (when the kombi was cheduled to leave, but like always, the kombi didn't leave until it was full.. and by then it was already 9.30.

We arrived in Maputo after 1 o'clock, without a map or a working phone. Luckily our kombi driver promised to take us to our hostel (where we then didn't stay 'cos there wasn't enough room for all of us, but anyway) for extra R20. From the hostel, they gave us a map and directions to the nearest place where we could buy some local SIM cards. When we finally got a hold of the rest of our group, we found out that they had gone to a different hostel and booked us dorms there. That meant that me and Heidi had to walk back to the other hostel, explain why we weren't staying there, and then walk accross the city with all our stuff in the burning hot and humid weather... By the time we made it to the other hostel, it was already 2.30 and i was literally starving... Good thing that others hadn't eaten anything either, so we could all go out and look for a restaurant. We managed to find one quite soon, stuffed ourselves with food and cold drinks, and then decided to go for a walk in the city. Before lunch, I had already started to feel a little bit irritated because of my hunger, but after I got something to eat, I was totally fine and the rest of the day went nice and smoothly.

The next morning, we woke up around 6, had some breakfast and took taxis to the Maputo harbour. Our plan was to take a boat to the Inhaca island and spend the day on a beach. When we arrived on the island, we were a bit surprised to find out that we had to pay M200 island tax we hadn't even heard of. (But we checked the facts before we paid, and there really was a tax we were supposed to pay - kind of like an entrance fee). After we cleared the whole tax thing, we found out that the island was actually bigger than we had thought...and of course all the great beaches and clear waters were on the other side of the island. The easiest way to enjoy from the clear waters, was to go to the Portuguese island. It wasn't even far away and we found a nice guy who promised to take us there with his boat and even come pick us up later.

The Portuguese island was very nice and the water really was much clearer than it was at Inhaca. The only thing that disturbed our quiet beack break a little, was the big cruiser boat that had stopped near the island and tranferred all of its passangers to the beach. Now the island was full of people and the music was playing while the turists enjoyed the sun and the beach...

The day was very hot and when we arrived on the island, we couldn't wait to get into the water to cool off. We found a nice spot for our stuff and I was the first one to get into the water. I got out of the water just before others got in, and was the only one not to get stung by a jellyfish.. There were lots of them, but none of us had seen them...or actually we hadn't really even looked if there was anything in the water. We were just too excited about the beach and the clear blue water. We also didn't know if jellyfish stings could be dangerous or not, so we walked to the cruiser boat's nurse who was located right behind us. She gave the others some ammonia to wipe te skin with and told us not to worry. The jellyfish weren't very poisonous, and only caused some pain in the arms and blisters on the skin where the jellyfish had stung them. (If one was allergic to bees, the stung could have caused a heart attack.) After a while everyone was ok, but decided to avoid swimming as much as possible.

After a very hot and relaxing day on the beach, we returned back to Maputo and went to have some lunch/dinner. Some in our group had got nice sunburns during the day and were looking a bit red by the time we found a nice restaurant.. luckily though, the sun was going down and in the dark the red color started to look more like a tan.. After eating and getting back to our hostel, we all took showers and started getting ready for the evening. Around 11 p.m. we went out to this night club called Coconuts. It was a very nice place (with a swimming pool, pool tables, ping-pong tables, a big dancefloor etc.) and they were even having a lady's night, so all the girls got in for free. Even if it was called the lady's night, there was still something for the guys as well.Around 2 a.m. they had a show, where hot girls were showing around some playboy lingerie on a catwalk. The men were going crazy and definitely liked what they were seeing.

Around 3 a.m. we headed back to our hostel to get some sleep, because some of us had to get up before seven and go find a kombi to take us back to Swaziland. We went to the kombi station around 8 o'clock, but again, didn't leave until 10.30. Surprising enough, the time went quite fast and before we even knew, we were on our way back to Swaziland. We arrived in Manzini around 3 p.m. and were back in Fairlady by 4. After all, I have to say that I really enjoyed the weekend in Maputo, and we are already planning on going to Tofo for the Easter.

But so that everyone won't think that I'm only travelling around and having fun, I will next write someting about my practical training...

My practical training in Swaziland, part 1.

My first four weeks of practical training were at the Cheshire Homes of Swaziland. It is located in Matsapha industrial area, and is the only rehabilitative centre for children and adults in the entire Kingdom. The rehabilitative services at Cheshire include physio and OT services, a 20 bed short to medium term residential rehabilitation unit, outpatient services, children's clinic, training for all carers, parents, service users and community groups, some assistive technology and transport services. The staff includes one physio, one OT/admin. person, one therapy assistant, one driver, one peer educator, three ladies who take care of the cooking and cleaning, and some guards and maintenance personnel. There is no nursing staff, so most of the residents have a carer who comes and lives with them at the Cheshire.

Almost every week follows the same schedule. Every day, all residents have a two-hour gym session in the morning (except for Monday, when it's in the afternon), when most of the active rehabilitation takes place. Because there is not enough staff, the carers are often taught what to do with the service users, so that they can still do things even if the therapist isn't there to everything with them. Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday morning, two groups of adult outpatients come in for rehabilitation, first group from 8 to 10 and second from 10.30 to 12.30. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, there is a children's clinic, when 3-13 kids come in for therpy, all at the same time. Again, every child can't recieve individual therapy every time, so the mothers are incouraged to get down to the floor and do something with their kids. In the past, the childen's clinic used to focus on just streching, but has lately started using more active methods (like play).

One thing I really liked about Cheshire was, that I could see so many different things all in one place. People who came to Cheshire were facing many different kinds of challenges in their lifes, some that you could rarely see in Finland. The most common diagnoses of adult service users' included stroke, unspecified neuropathy and brain injury, but there were also cases with extremely bad pressure sores (ones where you could actually see the bone coming through the skin). For me, it was also shoking to find out that if a person doesn't die in a car accident itself, he/she will, most likely, die for infections caused by pressure sores. In the children's clinic, the diagnoses varied from autism and cerebral palsy to unspecified conditions, where the child has suddenly for example lost his/her ability to walk.

During the four weeks I stayed at the Cheshire, I learnt a lot, saw many new things and gave two presentations on rehabilitation and the roles of a physio and an OT. After all, I would say that I had very instructive four weeks there and I truly enjoyed every day of it. It was also a great pleasure to get to know so many wonderful people. who will always have a special place in my heart.