Preparing myself and my family for my upcoming adventure is an adventure in itself. Essentially I am packing for 2 trips in one while trying to anticipate the needs of my husband and 2 daughters while I am away.
Most importantly, I am preparing to function as a nurse educator in a foreign country, without knowing my resources or the School of Nursing faculty expectations. Hopefully, the expectations will be clarified soon, so that I can prepare some lectures and materials ahead of time and fill my computer with information that will be valuable to my students. My teaching experience is limited, but I have a solid nursing background and clinical expertise, that will hopefully carry me a long way. Fortunately, English is the academic language in Tanzania, but I am also trying to learn some Swahili to be able to communicate with patients and local people that I hope to meet.
Duke School of Nursing has been very supportive in helping me to prepare. Susan Henk is an amazing organizer and is able to juggle the needs of several students' travel needs at once. She has provided information about what is needed before traveling including:
Travel documents - passport, green card etc.
Visa information
Embassy information ( I registered with the Canadian embassy - as long as someone comes looking for me)
Booking flights.
Accomodation arrangements.
Contact information and a primary contact person in Tanzania.
An amazing book called the "Duke University Guide to Moshi, Tanzania" published by a previous student in 2001.
Vaccination information.
I am also blessed as my professor, Dr. Powell, will be traveling to Moshi in February and I can compose a list of questions for her to ask on my behalf.
As the preparation list gets longer I am actually grateful that I am not leaving until March!
