Nurse Nelson? I Think Not: Coming to Terms with My Public Health Trajectory and Week Three of Kembong Life

This week was very insightful on a number of things, and for a number of reasons. One of the many reasons that I decided to do Peace Corps was to refine my professional goals for the future, one of which being whether or not I wanted to pursue the clinical side of health and pursue a Bachelors and Masters in the Science of Nursing, which would mean that I would be a nurse practitioner at the end of the three- or four-year program. I was looking at different dual-degree BSN/MSN programs at Johns Hopkins and Duke (with the Peace Corps Fellows program, too) for upon my return. But after doing some soul-searching and my experiences here thus far, I can definitively say that I will not be pursuing the clinical side of public health, at least not as a nurse practitioner. I’ve found that the clinical aspect of healthcare, while interesting, is not something that I would find fulfilling for the rest of my life. I’m much more interested in the public health side of things (a very good thing that I’m happy with my MPH degree, especially considering the amount of debt I’m staring down). This became especially clear after being invited to observe various clinical procedures at the health center, namely various pregnant women’s examinations, a circumcision, numerous IVs being put in, and listening to the guttural grunts and piercing screams of a child whose finger had been cut off/hand sliced open due to a machete accident with his brother. So by clarifying what I definitely don’t want to do, what I do want to do has become infinitely clearer. On another health note, after finding and bringing in the children with bowed legs and their mothers, the Chief told me that he was so impressed with my dogged dedication to finding these children and with other ideas for community health work that he wants me to take over the family planning portion of the health center’s work, including meeting and counseling with couples and parents of children who wish to have more invasive birth control measures (pills, injection, implant, IUD, for example). I think it’s a testament to how much I have changed by being here that the prospect of doing this didn’t even phase me. Just as a refresher, I told the health program managers that the one thing I definitely didn’t want to be doing was sexual health education, but over the course of training (my work with the secondary school health club to educate them on family planning measures and different aspects related to HIV/AIDS/sexual health), I’ve become significantly more comfortable with the idea, particularly as it would not be my sole mission in the community, but rather part of the bigger health landscape, the complexities of which I’m only just beginning to understand. I also enjoyed doing the counseling with the bowed legged children’s mothers; reviewing with them the importance of nutrition, the meaning of the supplements, and the importance of taking them while the children are still growing (not to mention ideally avoiding potential pelvic bone deformations with the female bowed-legged children). Later in the week, Julia and I decided to go to Bamenda for a little break, see other PCVs from our staj and buy some supplies (notably an internet key for me). Bamenda (the capital of the Northwest region) was both great, and very overwhelming. In Kembong, apart from the ‘white man’ and occasional other comments, people really don’t bother me that much at all, which is not the case in a big city. We met up with TJ and Casey and Edith, a Fulbright fellow, at PresCafe (a café operated by the Presbyterian church), and had salads (aaahh!) with homemade feta cheese and smoothies – oh, the luxury! There, we learned that Erich, a YD volunteer from our staj, had ET-ed due to family and other personal issues. I was shocked. Erich was one of the last people that I had ever expected to ET, and his departure was instantly saddening; we became like a family during the first three months, and any person’s loss will always be felt. After a day spent getting different things, especially in preparation for Christmas (including pamplemousse rouge – my favorite!), Julia, TJ and I headed to TJ’s post in Bali for a delicious meal of puffpuff and beans (beignets without sugar or fish and deliciously spiced black beans). The next day, after negotiating the insanity that is public transportation here, we made it to Mamfe and then I headed back to Kembong, never more happy to be in my own community and own space. The next day, I went with Pauline to one of the last churches I had yet to attend in Kembong, the large Presbyterian church across the road from my house. The service was lively and highly enjoyable, and also included me introducing myself to the 300 or so church members gathered (yay for integration!). As part of the service, they also had an auction of various items that people had cultivated at their farms, mainly yams (think the size of a small child – and I’m not kidding), a whole plantain bunch (roughly 50 plantains per branch), the plant to make eru and other small items. In total, Pauline and I were there for 3.5 hours, and the service was just getting into full swing when we left. Later that afternoon, Pauline called me to take me to an Ekpe initiation ceremony several villages over that was being held for a relative of hers. There were three separate parts of the ceremony (essentially three different parades) and it was super cool to witness all of them, and participate as a part of the female entourage of dancers. In fact, after the last parade, there was a giant dance party, where people where drumming, singing and dancing. The older women in the Nkanda society would often grab my arm and insist that I danced – at one point even having my own dance circle with a woman who had to be pushing 80 years old – a real treat! The women went wild when I danced with them, and I felt pretty damn good, too – there’s something amazing and freeing about just letting everything go and just going with it. After the dance party, there was lots of feasting, and then Pauline and I grabbed a bumpy moto home in the pitch-black dark. When I arrived home, I couldn’t help but do the proverbial pinch to see if indeed the life I am living is real, and to take a moment to be grateful for all that I’ve been able to experience while being here.