Reflections

I read a powerpoint on blogging and I have been challenged ever since. I always thought I had this blogging thing down, and is there really a way to tell someone how to reflect on what has happened. But it is true, reflecting is a process. Thinking of an event and reflecting how you felt and why you felt that way. Looking at blogging or reflection in a systematic way. This being: 1. Experience. Focus on a critical incident that took place. Describe the event as objectively as possible, how would your community members explain this event? And how do these two explanations compare. 2. Reflection. What are my assumptions and how can I tets them. What were the assumptions, and is there another way to see this event? (this is interesting for me because I have always explained an event, how I felt but not how I could see it in another way. That perhaps there is always another way to look at things. 3. Analysis. How is it related to other issues. Who or what could help in this situation. What action will I take? And then what are the outcomes you hope to achieve. And then reflection on the actual outcome, what worked well? REFLECTION IS A USEFUL LEEARNING EXERCISE BUT IT OUGHT TO LEAD TO ACTION. I have never really thought about this. Its odd, because now I am reflecting on reflecting. It’s never ending. Hahaha. But I will try this from now onwards for any exciting events that happen or if an incident occurs. So this week has been a lot better than last week, last week was just a ard week coming back from Zim and having to go straight back into reality. I think I felt that way because we were on such an emotional high in Zim, we were so fired up with passion and energy and so moved by what was done at Zim, that returning to SA and the reality of marks, and group work, and having to still get through the next 3 months of this degree was a difficult thing to think about when all I wanted to do was be in a lecture at Zim, or in a local taxi going to a game reserve, or walking through the local markets bargaining with the locals. My heart was in Zim and my mind in SA. It was hard. Looking back and reflecting on this, I think that I could have prevented some stress and some bad days and moments if I had reflected on what was going on. I was so wrapped up in the drama and the fighting and the stress of marks, that my eyes were taken completely off the picture. And that is the community. I need to remember that always. And it then keeps me sane. It then makes me realise why I am here. Looking at how to reflect etc, I think this situation I found myself in could definitely have another way of looking at this event. Like looking from other’s points of view. Maybe the group had other things happening in their lives or in their degree, and maybe I needed to keep in mind that I have been taught differently. I don’t know. I feel a lot calmer and more tolerating this week. I am trying to take everything in my stride and remember that I need to be patient in everything that I do. Patience, a huge lesson learnt for me this block. I need to practice patience. The community is not as fast and structured like the other placements I have been to. Patience came in here where I had to learn that the community cannot work on my time, I need to work on the community time, or else one will end up getting frustrated and irritated. Things will happen eventually. Today was a perfect example of community time and just the community in general. We needed to go on a home visit for a follow up client from the previous block. We contacted one of the ward councillors, and she came from Pinetown to assist us in finding this home. After driving around and numerous phonecalls to one of our lecturers, and going to the wrong house (which was really interesting because it happened to be the house of one of the famous soccer player’s granny, and this house had just been redone because cars kept rolling down the hill and knocking the house due to the poor infrastructure of the road. The house had been hit 3 times due to cars having accidents on the narrow road. This is so interesting because this is where the government needs to step in, or the ward councillors and development organisations etc, something is being done about this), anyway we had to access the home visit handover file to find the correct address or contact numbers, and the use of the handover file was proven to us- how very important it is to have updated information and how important it is for the handover file to be easily accessible AND easy to follow! We had some trouble finding this, and the urgency of this case was not specified which we think it should have been because after reading thr handover, we were under the impression that the ramp was being built for this client, where in fact it had not been started, the ward councillor we were with was not allocated to the ward the client was in therefore we need to contact the proper ward councillor. It is so easy for things to go wrong when there are so many people to contact and only some who are motivated to do their jobs. The ward councillor with us today was expressing concern over the politics of the wards etc. It was so interesting because for the first time I felt like we were really exposed to how CBR works, with all the different levels of communication etc. I know I have gone completely off the point now. Oh yes community time. So we had to be patient today when trying to find this client’s house because we cannot operate on our time, but on the community’s. Very interesting experience. Today was a better day. We had some good laughs with the speeches and we found a new restaurant that we fell in love with. It is all about morale building in an MDT, so people become more tolerating of one another.