Students studying abroad have multiple options. They could stay in a castle in England, an apartment in Australia or other comfortable settings.

Senior Shauna Solomon went to Kenya, where she had no running water and no electricity. She worked in a clinic and orphanage for people affected by HIV/AIDS.

Through a grant of $2,500 from the nursing honors program, she traveled to Kenya to work with those affected by the virus.

When she arrived in Nairobi, Kenya’s capital city, she began working with the Orbit Village Project, a non-profit program started by a local church and school to help deal with the HIV/AIDS problem in the community.

The idea behind Orbit, Solomon said, is caring for people in every way: education, health and any other way HIV/AIDS might affect them.

The school had about 500 children, and all of them were affected by the virus.

“If the children weren’t infected, then their relatives or friends were,” Solomon said. “It’s very common over there.”

The orphanage had 25 kids, and none of them tested positive for the virus, but she said they had lost parents to HIV/AIDS.

The facility contained 12 apartment-sized rooms where every child had a bed.

Programs like Orbit are the primary means for people to get care for HIV/AIDS in Kenya, she said. Religious or physician groups perform a major role in prevention and education of HIV/AIDS.

Solomon gained great respect for the people of Kenya, she said, because they persevered despite little help from the government.

“I saw the strength of the people,” she said. “They still have hope. They are fighters.”

Solomon spent three days a week in the clinic, working with HIV/AIDS patients. She didn’t work on her own, but she did perform checkups with kids, mothers and a few men. Other services the clinic offers include HIV testing, counseling and administering the drug cocktail that combats the virus.

“If the tests came back positive,” Solomon said, “(infected patients) would be sent to counseling so they didn’t have to walk away with this awful thing hanging over their head and not knowing how to deal with it.”

The effects of HIV/AIDS don’t just diminish a person’s physical health, Solomon said. People get fired from their jobs and children are discriminated against for having HIV/AIDS.

Some families abandoned their children when they found out their kids were infected, she said. The Orbit program takes care of orphaned children and teaches them what they can do to stay healthy.

Nursing in Kenya is both similar to and different from nursing in a more developed country, she said.

The main differences come from the deficiency in technology and the absence of a developed health care bureaucracy in the area.

Solomon and her colleagues had to wash their hands in water jugs instead of sinks with running water.

The clinic she worked in was made out of cinder blocks with a metal roof, and the supplies she used were all donated.

There are no HMOs or health care services to tell you what to do when you get ill, she said.

In Kenya, she said nurses get as much respect as doctors.

“In Kenya, people value you as a health care professional, not for your credentials,” Solomon said.

“The developing world is a place where nurses can flourish,” she said. “Nurses are able to care holistically and aren’t told how to do their job.”

The basic principles of heath care are still evident wherever you go, Solomon said.

Basic concepts such as doing the most good while doing absolutely no harm to patients, and patient advocacy are prevalent in the care where she worked, she said.

One way her education at UW-Eau Claire’s nursing program helped Solomon, she said, was the emphasis on culturally confident care.

“Students are trained to deal with all cultures to care for them in a way that is congruent with their culture, rather than forcing American things on them,” Solomon said.

Senior nursing major Amy Schmitz has been friends with Solomon since the two were lab partners in chemistry during their freshmen year. Schmitz is considering going on a trip similar to Solomon’s to learn about nursing in other cultures.

“It’s not OK to assume what we do is OK for all cultures,” she said.

Schmitz and Solomon have similar views on nursing, especially about the cultural consciousness that UW-Eau Claire’s nursing program emphasizes.

Kenya is a developing country, Solomon said. The specific area she was in was urban but impoverished. The impression people get, is that those in developing nations aren’t as happy, she said, but the truth is they live happy and full lives, and they aren’t lacking something.

“(The experience) opened my eyes to see how other people live in other cultures,” she said. “It is still a good life and people are proud of it.”

Solomon encourages all students to go abroad, and to leave their “comfort zone” to see how other cultures live.

“America is in the minority in how people live,” she said.

Solomon said she wants to work with impoverished women with AIDS as a graduate student through the University of Washington, where she is going for her Master’s Degree. Solomon graduates from UW-Eau Claire’s nursing program in December, and she decided to go to Washington for her Master’s because it is the best nursing graduate school and the only university to have an infectious disease program with different grants and fellowships for work in underserved areas, she said.

“I think the rewards you take away (from nursing) are the same in America or anywhere else.”