Self-Care

HUMN 8110 Advanced Social Work Theory and Practice

Week 12 – Self-Care for the Social Worker (ASC)

AJIA MEUX: Today is July 29th. It is my last day at Mary Open Doors. I leave Sunday, July 31st. And the last two weeks have been a little challenging, as you know about my issue on the island. But also, when I came back from the island, I got really sick, and I have been at the hospital three separate times. I found out that I have amoebas, which are parasites, and I have an intestinal infection. I got really sick on the boat ride over back to Belize City, I passed out. I've had diarrhea like a million times a day, headache, nausea. It's hard for me to eat. I'm eating really, really small meals. So anyways, last two weeks have just been really challenging. I'm on the decline of my trip. There's still so much undone work at Mary Open Doors, so much undone work. This week has been so challenging for me because I've been back and forth to the hospital and stuff like that. So I haven't been able to do a whole lot of stuff. I finished a report. I had to do a summation of my experience in San Pedro. I finished that report. But I haven't been able to complete the referral that one of the kids needed to see a psychiatric nurse, because he's hearing voices, and the voices sometimes tell him to kill himself. I haven't finished my report of my experience at Mary Open Doors and some of my recommendations. I haven't finished that. There's so many things that I wanted to do, like purge all of the old client files, wasn't able to do that. I haven't even been able to count the number of clients that I was able to see. I don't know how many clients I was able to see the whole time I was there, probably 10, 12, which doesn't seem like a lot, but it kind of is. And that's the number of clients, not the amount of sessions that I had. The Visa application that we completed for Theresa, I don't know the status of it, none of that. There's just so much stuff that I just feel like I couldn't do. I felt like I was a help to the organization, but I felt like if I could stay, I could've done so much. One of the things that the trip has really made me conscious of is some of the challenges that domestic violence victims have internationally trying to flee their countries, and all of the red tape that they have to go through, and how there needs to be some type of underground system for people to escape. And I don't know whether or not that can even be done, but hopefully when I get back to the states I can start the process. That's all I'll say about that.

I want to come back to Belize; I want to come back soon. This was a very unique experience and opportunity. And I really feel like God has been with me on this entire trip, just the way that things have been scripted and sculptured and all kinds of things. I'm really grateful for this because not too many people get opportunity to come and-- well to just to go other places, A, to help other people, B, but then, just to be a witness to the insane beauty of this country or any beautiful country. I'm going to be sad to go. Tomorrow is Ms. Anna's daughter's wedding. So I'll be going to that. It's Friday night, I don't know what I'm going to do tonight to close out my last Friday night in San Ignacio like it's been a big, huge party since then, but anyways.

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