Just think how much you can do in just one day!!

Where am I? What am I doing?? What is a Child Life Specialist??



Some of our toys sitting out to dry

I am currently interning with the Child Life Program at the Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital (RCCH) in Cape Town, South Africa. And I love every moment of it!!!  I cannot even begin to express in words how good it feels to finally find something that I love to do that fits me so perfectly and fully. For the first time... in a long time... I feel like I have actually found a true balance in my life and it feels so incredible!! Who would have thought that waking up at the crack of dawn and going to work Monday through Friday would be right up my alley? Not me.

Buddy gets an amputation

Setting: The Red Cross is the only pediatric hospital of its kind south of the Sahara, RCCH has about 200 inpatient beds as well as outpatient clinics and emergency departments. Roughly 250,000 children receive care annually at this medical facility and the need for supportive services is great.

Mission: Our mission as the Child Life Team is to apply child life principles and interventions to best meet the needs of the children and caregivers treated at the RCCH, reducing their anxiety and fear and empowering them with culturally effective coping skills.

Our Motto: Just think how much you can do in just one day!!!!!



Hands from the memory tree



What is a Child Life Specialist?? In the hospital Child Life Specialists work with patients and family members providing procedural support, procedural education, caregiver support and emotional support. Child life specialists are trained professionals with expertise in helping children and their families overcome life’s most challenging events. Armed with a strong background in child development and family systems, child life specialists promote effective coping through play, preparation, education, and self-expression activities. They provide emotional support for families, and encourage optimum development of children facing a broad range of challenging experiences, particularly those related to hospitalization. Because they understand that a child’s well being depends on the support of the family, child life specialists provide information, support and guidance to parents, siblings, and other family members throughout the hospitalization and bereavement process. They also play a vital role in educating caregivers, administrators, and the general public about the needs of children under stress (Child Life Council).

The Child Life Team at the Red Cross works with the Palliative Care and Pain Management team. We currently work on the Oncology/Hematology ward (G1), the Burn Rehabilitation ward (C2), the ICU, the Tracheotomy ward (E2), the Cardiology and Medical specialty ward (D1), and Day Surgery (A7).  I spend most of my time on G1 and ICU and I float onto C2 as often as possible. I am also currently working with the Cystic Fibrosis Clinic. Each and every child that I spend time with brings so much light into my life. Every day is filled with new challenges and struggles... coupled with so much joy and light that some days I feel like I might explode. I have found that in the very moments that bring me to my knees, in the very moments where I almost feel like it could be too much to take... I am reminded more than ever the reason why I am supposed to be here. It is in those moments that I am reminded of the power we have to make a difference (in whatever we do) in just one moment, in just one hour, in just one day.  AGHHHH!!!!!!

Truth is both spirit and flesh

by Malika Ndlovu on June 9, 2010

Truth is both spirit and flesh

It is the hotel bill or photograph discovered in a pocket

The open mouth saying nothing in defense

It is the fact splattered across the courtroom

Exposed to cameras, microphones and strangers ears

It is the addict at the brink of suicide

Frozen between picking up a fix or the telephone

It is the vibration in your chest and stomach pit

That hits when you hear or read a real guru’s words

It is the breath absent from the body of a beloved

Who will not wake up or ever laugh into your eyes

It is the child speaking without thinking

Unaware of the adults they have suddenly stripped naked

It is the cut, the scar, the wrinkle, the rash, the swelling

The illness revealed in the face, in the shaking

The toxin reflected in the skin

It is the uninhibited hug projected from the heart

The electricity of a long time lover’s touch

It is the smoke or the stench

That cannot be dismissed or disguised

The bone that waits decades to be found

The memory in our cells

The irrepressible rising of tears

It is the current in our veins

The universal rhythm of our hearts

It can be understood in any language

It lives within the word and the sound

It is liberation and source of great pain

It is both water and fire

It is the visible and the invisible

It is the written and the unwritten

The space and the line

It is different

It is the same

It is buried

It is the silence before

Beneath and beyond

The lie

It waits for you and I

It will not die

Truth is both spirit and flesh

Today I was given the opportunity to attend a bereavement conference here in Cape Town. The crowd was filled with people and professionals from all walks of life. During the conference I was honored to have the opportunity to meet Malika Ndlova... an author, poet, performer and mother who describes herself as a Durban-born performer-word-weaver-story-lover. She filled the room with her presence the moment she opened her mouth and touched me deeply with her performance this afternoon. She began with an enchanting, echoing song that poured out of her little body and into the entire conference room. During the performance of one of her poems I struggled between sitting with my eyes closed, listening, taking every word she said in and feverishly attempting to write down every single word she said. The poem began with a description of the human form that I will carry with me for the rest of my life: we are light beings. Malika then slapped her chest, her legs, and her arms and stated, "We are so much more than this... this body, this life, is simply a veil... we are born to bring light... we are light beings, portals of love, makers of peace, creators of beauty..." Every word she spoke held such strength and gravity that I could almost see it dripping out of her mouth and slowly falling down and out into the space around her like water flowing from a faucet. I have been searching for about an hour online and sadly have yet to find the full poem anywhere online... but luckily I will have the opportunity to see her again within the week and find out which published piece of her work I can find my light beings poem. She will be delivering a copy of her book Invisible Earthquake to me at work at the Red Cross Hospital due to the fact that she ran out of copies today. Only here does it seem so natural for a woman such as this to offer to personally bring me a copy of her book after she drops her boy off at school in the morning! Such a light being!! I think that might have to be my new favorite comment... rather than, "oh she is such a doll," I'm going to say, "oh she is such a beautiful-little-light-being!" (http://www.malika.com.za/)

The Violet Moon

By Ilana Slomowitz

The moon drags her violet veil

into the jewelled night,

her sail gently brushed

with strokes of pastel light.

Silent, still, she slides

into suspended bliss,

floating gold in mystic blue

mixed so fine to violet hue.

Sparks ignite, and twinkling bright,

transform the ink black night.

Visible the dancing shapes

that set the night alight.

Jewelled sky’s now fading light,

dawn cracks fresh with dew

The moon still trails her violet veil,

then, in a breath, takes flight.

Another Cape Town artist that I has fallen into my life since my arrival in Cape Town is Ilana Slomowitz. Ilana is an award winning ceramic muralist, artist, and dancer who's ability to spin words has grabbed my heart. I just now discovered one of her poems about the moon... which of course hits a high note for me! (http://www.ilana-slomowitz.com/)

Open Happiness

Every night when I go to bed and every morning when I wake I am constantly reminded to “open happiness” by the vibrant Coca Cola billboard outside my bedroom window. How fitting it seems that I should make my way all the way to Cape Town to be reminded on a daily basis by a 30 foot can of coke to open up my happiness. The billboard is of course one of the many remnants the world cup left behind in its wake; the coke bottle itself is exploding with colorful soccer balls, stars, peace signs, music notes and vuvuzelas.  It’s funny though, a bottle of coke.. no matter how huge or how South African it may appear (decked out in its world cup gear) will always remind me of Chattanooga.

The last few days I have been seriously out of commission and a slave to my room, hot baths, liquids, and movies.  The wonderful news is that there is a place called Mr. Delivery in Cape Town that was kind enough to deliver me two orders of Tom Kha Gai soup and an order of white rice straight to my doorstep late one night this week.  With the love and care of my amazing roommate, my wonderful girls here in Cape Town and a little hot soup I am on the quick road to recovery.  It’s almost funny though… nothing that I can think of about being sick makes me happy but even as I sit here in bed right now the lights of that open happiness sign literally glare at me through my window. It’s good though. I love my billboard. It reminds me now and again when I look out the window to open happiness in one way or another... even if it’s just a bowl of my favorite soup or a conversation with wonderful friends late into the night. Oh coke… always spreading the joy.

Every day at work I feel blessed to be given the opportunity to put in just a little bit of happiness into the lives of the children that I work with. If only they knew how much happiness they brought into my life!! Take bubbles for example, it is simply amazing to me the power of bubbles. I promise I know I sound like I’ve totally lost it to all of you who don’t get to hang out with 3 year olds everyday! But I’m serious… bubbles are like magic here. You walk into a room of screaming, crying children and begin to blow bubbles and if you’re lucky they might for just one moment be able to forget that they are in a hospital, or hooked up to a machine, or hungry, or in pain and remember that they are still just a little kid.  Oh bubbles… always spreading happiness!

So thanks Coke people wherever you are... for the delicious cane sugar Coca Colas down here and for the constant bright red reminder outside my window... I’ll try my best to look up, listen up and then try to open up a little bit of happiness today be it within myself or those around me