Arrived at the Airport; What Next?

Arrived at the Airport; What Next?

Traveling to a new place is one of the most exciting things to do often in one’s lifetime. William Maddux, an America Social Psychologist at INSEAD Research Center in his studies on how living abroad makes one more creative says that it’s not just being in different cultures, but being open to immersion: learning the language and adapting to an alternate way to life. Having arrived at the airport, all one hopes for is the best experience and that the trip will be worth the time and money spent. In most cases, it is, in some cases, it is not. Depending on your planning things are most likely to flow smoothly. Having organized your trip with Elective Africa, you will find one of our team members already at the airport for your pick up. Ensure you get your Visa at the airport upon arrival. Different countries have different fees and names for this. In Kenya, for instance, we normally advise our participants to take a Tourist Visa while in Tanzania you take a volunteer visa.

Not everyone wants the same things from travel. Sometimes there’s nothing better than doing nothing on a beach for a week. That’s fine, even healthy but sometimes all you want to do is to have fun with the locals or share your time with the disadvantaged in your host community.  Whatever it is, Elective Africa customizes the placements to ensure that your objectives and interests are catered for. You will have your house orientation and local area orientation, that is, shown around shopping malls, ATMs, and the town. In your hospital orientation, you will be introduced to your supervisors, mentors and your departments of rotation. With the operations coordinator on ground 24/7 you have nothing to be worried about.

You can be rest assured that you will find very exciting and amazing stuff to do, both within the hospital & outside the routine hospital placement.

Your placement destination is laden with unique attributes; the people, their culture, and history are essential to understand, as a start to a hospital placement. You are required to put in a minimum of 25 hours a week, the rest of the time you may want to use it to get away for a safari as well as other trips or sightseeing adventures. You may also want to share your time and skills with pupils in the nearby community school or a baby orphanage.  This is also the time you will be taking your Swahili Lesson and Global Health Tutorials that gives you a broader picture of the host’s healthcare system. As you can see, your day is almost packed. You can stretch the perceived time of our placement; expand your memories, return home with more creative ideas and reenergized for your career in medicine. Medicine is a science of uncertainty and an art of probability. Take a leap and experience a unique healthcare system in Africa and the rich culture of its people.

by Elective Africa