My African Migration, Essay Example

Being a good nurse requires an amazing skill set, and is not all about just knowing how to change an I.V. or fill out Medicare paperwork.  Being a good nurse mean knowing how to navigate into unfamiliar situations, ask for help when you need it and try to keep your cool even when things are very tense or frustrating. This is a story of my journey from Africa to America, and of how I had to use all of the skills mentioned above to get me and my family safely to where we needed to be.

Brave New World?

One of the first lessons I learned, which will be good for my nursing career, is how to deal with very new situations.  This story begins when I was migrating from my native Ghana to the United States with my pregnant wife and five- year- old daughter.  On this journey, everything was new for me. This was the first time in my life I had made such a long trip and had to deal with the difficulties of tickets and luggage and getting through all the noise and confusion of the airports.  Everything went successfully from Ghana to Casablanca, where we made a connecting flight from Morocco to New York’s JFK.  It was when we reached New York that all our problems started.

JFK is a very confusing, loud and hectic place and I did not realize that we had a connecting flight to Columbus, so when I met a man in the airport who offered to assist us, we saw no reason to doubt him. We did not realize until later that he was a taxi driver trying to take advantage of us.  He brought a cart and helped me load our luggage and then took us to the garage via the elevator. He then drove us to the Greyhound and charged us $150.  What did I know by then? I had to pay. It was at Greyhound that I decided to call my brother- in- law who was supposed to pick us up, so he asked me where we were but I found it difficult describing our location to him so I asked a certain guy to talk to him on our behalf. It was then that I realized we were lost because he said we had a connecting flight to Columbus.

Asking For Help

Another important lesson that I learned from this situation, which will also help me as I become a nurse, is the ability to ask for help. Sometimes nurses try to do everything themselves and don’t always cooperate as much as they should or ask for help when they need it.  I did not ask for help at first as we made our way back to the airport for a three a.m. flight and I had to push and drag all the luggage there myself. It was very cold my wife and daughter didn’t have jackets on and they were both exhausted, especially my wife in her condition.  However, we managed to get through to JFK again and now we were missing one of our larger suitcases (and never did get it back).  We needed to make that connecting flight but because of the misadventure we had had with the taxi cab driver. I was nervous about asking someone what we needed to do and I wasn’t able to call my brother-in-law.  Finally, I mustered up the courage to walk up to one of the airport employees and explain our situation to him. He could tell that my wife and daughter and I were all really tired and hungry, so he asked to see our papers and I gave him our documents.  He was gone for a few minutes, and when he returned he said we had missed our flight!!!

Grace under Fire

At this point, I think I learned one of the most important lessons for being a good nurse: grace under fire, the ability to keep cool and think on your feet even in a very stressful situation. I asked the officer what we needed to do at this point to get to Columbus and he said we would need to buy more tickets, and that it would be $180 for the three of us. The officer walked us to the ticket counter but when I went to pay for the tickets, I realized my wallet had gone missing and I had no money. It was humiliating and scary, since we were stranded at the airport now. Luckily I saw an African American lady talking on the phone so I asked my wife to approach her, since it would be less intimidating to talk to a woman, and ask if we could borrow her phone to call my brother- in- law and explain our situation. She didn’t hesitate to give us the phone, so I called my brother- in- law and told him what was going on and I believe he was shaking his head in disbelieve and shock judging from his tone on the phone: I was stranded at JFK stranded with an eight- months- pregnant woman who had not eaten for almost 12 hours.  He then asked me if I could get a phone number from the front office for him, the lady whose phone we were using offered to go and get it for me. He called and talked to the officials the airport, and about 30 minutes, they approached us and told us we were boarding the next flight to Columbus so we should pay attention to the board and watch out for the flight number. Finally at our flight came in at a quarter to six in the morning and by a quarter after seven, we were in Columbus with my sister and brother-in-law at the airport to meet us.  It was such a relief to have that adventure over!

Conclusion

In conclusion, I chose to write about my African migration because it was a very significant and stress experience in my life, but it also taught me many lessons which I think will help me in my nursing career: adapting to new situations, asking for help when I need it, keeping cool in a tough situation.  It was also a time when I felt very vulnerable, and I think that it will give me empathy for patients who are vulnerable themselves.