D-i-e

Describe

Overall nursing. I heard of an incident which really bothered me. I had heard about similar case before but this happened to my collegue. Mother came with her newborn child to show it to a nurse. The nurse did check the baby and found him dead. The nurse then continued her work and the mother was left crying.

Interpret
Like I said in my previous blogpost, in Uganda, nurse has a wayy more patients than here in Finland. There are alot things to do. But while I was treated for my back pain in a local hospital with a descent reputation I kinda bumbed into same issue. Some nurses were caring, friendly and listened to patienst while others were ignorant and even rude. This seemed to be more common than I thought in Uganda. Great variation how to treat patients.  Some were frierndly and others..cold. Why this is that way, I can only speculate. Maybe its because of rush. Maybe you dont have enough energy to give love, compassion to others. Maybe it has even something to do with culture: you really cant show your pain in Uganda. You might even get laughed at if you do. Specially labouring women, they cant really make sound when giving birth or they might get mistreated, laughed.

Evaluation

The way we live, is made from pieces like education, culture, family, even friends. Uganda has had big  difficulties in like 40 years, including reign of Idi Amin. It is a poor country. Harsh enviroment. You have to struggle. Maybe that is one reason why people there are like lions. They dont weep so much. They struggle to survive and maybe there isnt any place for "weakness". This same kind of thing happened here in Finland 70 years ago, when war ended. People were busy building Finland and there were so many wounds. Spiritual, mental, physical. I think people didnt have resources to deal with the pain and scars so what they did is they build. They build Finland as it is now. No mourning but many suicides. How we deal with our pain, past, is individual. But maybe there are some common elements  concerning us as a human specie. Love, compassion, we all grave that. But how can you give those if you are a broken spirit.



Mark 12:30-31

 ^"And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment.

³¹ And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these."

"Letter" home or memories from trip

I was having my work placement in Uganda, Kampala. I study nursing in Centria for a second year. 

Reason I named this as a "memories from trip" is, that I had to come back to Finland earlier. I had an accident that worsen my condition (Discus Prolapsis) and had to come for an operation back to Kokkola.

Uganda was nice. When we first arrived Entebbe, Uganda around 5am in the sunday morning, I could´nt help but wonder how smalll the airport was! After all, Uganda has around 42 million residents. But everything was well organinized by our host university. We had a driver waiting for us and we soon got to get going. 

City was quiet that time of day but we could still see alot people moving by car, walking etc. First thing I noticed was the poor condition of roads. Uganda is one of the poorest countries in the world.

It took around 1.5 hours to get to our hotel and in some point we were in disbelief, does the driver really know where we are going. But we got safely (and tired) to our hotel and that day, we mainly rested. 

Next week we started working by getting to know our host university, Clarke International University. It was located in top floors over an hospital. Staff there was very friendly and we got to taste local cuisine. We spend the week by visiting different work placement places, mainly hospitals and health centers. This was the week when I hurt my back. Roads are awful over there. And the traffic..

I managed to still work by the power of medicine for 4 weeks, first 2 weeks in Rotom health center which was mainly for elders but had younger customers aswell. That time was amazing, we got to see how people live in rural areas. We had a "party" where we praised and sung and had a nice dinner after that. I learned alot about laboratory work. Patients were regurally inspected of malaria, HIV etc. Staff was friendly and guided us. 

Next 2 weeks I spend in Angelina Health Center. It was class 3 health center (scale is 1=best, 4=lowest). It is kind of same nursing than here in Finland, we give medicines, take care of the patients etc same way BUT there is alot more patieets for 1 nurse than here in Finland. Overall rate is that they have 1 nurse for around 1400 clients and here in Finland its around 12 (?)nurses for 1000 people. Example, there was 1 day a week, when there was vaccinations for small children. There might have been like 15 people in a small room, and nurse would just give vaccinations for the child and call next. It took around 2 minutes to give all the vaccinations for a child. That was efficient on its way..

Over all, I miss Uganda. I miss the team, my fellow students. I cherish the memories we had together and would invite anyone to try travelling. You get hooked.

Stay alive

Kyösti

Introduction of Fiona Mwacharo

Hello everyone. My name is Fiona Mwacharo and I am a third year Environmental Chemistry and Technology student. Honestly I am a little terrified about going on exchange because of being in a completely new environment and culture where I know no one, but I am looking forward to meeting new people, immersing myself into a new culture and experiencing education in Netherlands.

Letter Home - InnsbruckEnvi

Letter- Home  - Innsbruck, Austria

Hello Everyone, My name is Prakash Pandey and I am from Nepal. I have been studying Bachelor of Engineering, Environmental Chemistry and Technology in Centria  UAS since 2015. I was on Exchange study in the Management Center Innsbruck, Austria. I was studying a Bachelor of Science, Environmental Process and Energy Engineering for a year in Austria. The curriculum in the host university was filled with a bunch of technical courses while a few were business and cultural courses.

The host university used a traditional type of teaching methods where most of the lecture is occupied with contact lesson. Almost every lecture was based on calculations rather than the theory and presentation. The professors were using the German symbols and notations during calculations and it was a bit difficult to understand in the beginning. I found the gap between the teachers and students and was quite difficult to communicate. Even some local students find difficulty in sharing their problems with teachers. There was a kind of stress and pressure about exams because exams were most difficult.

However, later on after a semester in host university, I was used to the system. I was familiar with the local students and the class turned out to be like as if I am with my high school buddies. They made me familiar with the learning techniques and exams preparation methods. Apart from my studies, I spent most of my time cooking with other international students at my dorm and learned a couple of recipes from Thailand, Korea, Japan, India, and Austria. This was the most interesting part of my exchange. 

D.I.E Assesment ;A trip from Germany to AUstria

A Trip from Germany to Austria

Description

Once it happened, I was traveling from Frankfurt (Germany) to Innsbruck (Austria). On the way, there was a break for 15 minutes for food and beverages at a gas station. I was lucky to be on time to the bus but some of the people around 10-15 were missing. The driver was on the seat, ready to continue the journey. As soon as the driver started the bus, many people gathered around his cabin and requested him to pause the trip so that the passengers who were missing could get into the bus. The driver did not listen at all and continued the journey. The leftover passengers gave him a call, but he did not answer. Even he did not answer the call of the police. Finally, the police pulled over the bus after an hour and those leftover passengers followed the bus through taxi.

                                         
                                                               Fig: Deri Zinnen

Interpret

After that incident, I came to know the importance of time and people in Germany take it super seriously.  I saw the driver was a bit angry and was quite loud when the other passengers were requesting him to stop the bus. So, no one was able to convince him. The majority of the leftover people were from the non-EU region and maybe they were unknown about German's rules and regulations.

Evaluation

I was a bit worried after that situation and one of the passengers sitting next to me was also missing.  I thought the situation could be easily solved if the driver could wait for them for a while.  On the other hand, I thought the driver did very well because he did not stay overtime which is against the rule. Similarly, he did not pick up the call while he was driving. It is quite difficult to judge the situation but it's always our responsibility to follow the rules of each and every nation.

D-I-E Thu Nguyen - Colombia

DESCRIBE

Friendly and proactive is the adjective I describe Latin America. In my perspective, Colombia is a nice place, at least my study area’s climate, it’s approximately 15 – 20 Celsius degree for the whole year. The people are never hesitated to support and help me. There are some refugees from Venezuela live in Colombia and sell some basic stuff such as coffee, water cake or appliance to earn for a living. I listened to their story and did volunteer in a nursing home. Thanks to those experience, I empathy and widen my eyes about the world.

INTERPRET

There was also an extreme problem happened to me, visa issue as well as the language barrier. Residents in Colombia don’t know English well and some have no idea about English speaking, includes employees who work in international places like the airport and there was no translator who can solve the problem. I did explain about my visa issue due to the instruction of Colombia embassy in Finland. However, they seemed to be misunderstood and locked me together with some people didn’t have any personal documents. I was scared to be sent back to Finland, but the host university helped me out and treated me very well.

For the young generation at my age, some of them who studied in English institute or did experience English speaking environment, they were more confident and express themselves clearly. However, most of the students around me were not used to communicating by English. And when we were doing teamwork, they spoke by Spanish and I felt like I was isolated in the team, they just spoke to me if they thought they had to. There was once when I missed the lab work as they were discussed in Spanish and I didn’t understand at all. I should ask them immediately, but I didn’t because I thought that content wasn’t related to work.

EVALUATE

I think Colombia is not yet an integrated country that everyone welcomes to speak and aware of communication skills. I didn't state they had to speak English everywhere since I was in Spanish speaking though personally, I feel being unrespectful from that behaviour. I accept and respect their culture and language. Nevertheless, this is in the educational environment, to which I was there to extend and exchange my knowledge. Although they did not aware and intend to do that, for me it was quite impolite and non-altruistic to international students. This issue happened in many environments, not just only in the educational area and to many countries. I've not overstated this problem, yet it did not always happen to me there. You just imagine if you are in a foreign country with the important task and local friends even didn’t concern or have eye contact to, and leave you some English sentences told you what to do within the whole group meeting, how do you feel? It was also my mistake that I should tell them to adjust their behaviour and please let me join the group completely. Yet it was also their drawback to disconnect with foreign students. Therefore, to future exchange students who desire to go to Colombia, you should prepare yourself a certain amount of Spanish to be in touch and express you feeling clear so both sides can empathy and modify the conduct.

I still enjoy the time there except the circumstances above. The friends are friendly and generous to me surplus an amazing adventure to enhance my vision of Latin American culture and sightseeing.

Introduction

Hello!

My name is Jyrki Hautaniemi and I'm third year student in Community Educator at Cenria University of Applied Sciences in Ylivieska. I'm from Sodankylä. During my study I live weekdays in Ylivieska.

I will go to work placement in Toronto Acrigola Lutheran Chuch. I will start my internship next fall. I'm there for the period between September-November. I have had long time interested in Canada and now looks like the one dreams of mine will come true.

I hope that at the end of my internship I speak fluent english. I almost forget, yesterday registered in the Niagara Falls Marathon. So, I hope that I can run all the way to the finish. I'm sure that I will meet lovely people and get new friends in Toronto.

Take care - Jyrki