Kenya reminded one woman of North Dakota, except for the mountains and the wildlife.

Recent Bismarck State College graduate Virginia Grotberg felt at home in the rolling hills and grasslands of the African Country.

"There are a lot of similarities," said Grotberg. "Like how friendly the people were."

Grotberg, 28, was in Kenya in December completing part of her nurse's training. She worked with two children's homes and a clinic near Nairobi.

The training was a preceptorship, which is like a mentorship with a registered nurse. The training can be done anywhere. She was intrigued by the work an instructor did in American Samoa, but the teacher was not making her yearly trip. Instead, she chose to go to Kenya. Both her sisters were in Africa, and she asked them for help finding someone to sponsor her.

Her sister in Kenya found someone through a conference she had attended. Both her sisters are nurses in Africa. Her other sister is in Ghana. It gave her an opportunity to see a place she's always wanted to see, and spend time with family.

"I wanted to see where my sisters work and be part of their lives,"she said.

Where she ended up is near the capital city of Kenya. The children she worked with are orphans, but the places they live are not called orphanages; that's the name given to places for abandoned baby animals, she said.

Much of her work involved treatment for human immunodefieciency virus. She treated, weighed children and provided other care.

"Not all the children have it, but parents had it and died or weren't tested and left them in the village," she said.

About 1 in 9 people have HIV in Africa, she said. In Kenya, there are about 1.1 million orphans with HIV or AIDS, according to the World Health Organization.

She enjoys nursing. Some day, she would like to open an adult daycare and offer gardening and animals for the people she serves. She'd also like to have children come and spend time with the people she serves.

Grotberg hasn't always wanted to be a nurse. She was an emergency medical technician and she worked on the 4,000-head hog farm partly-owned by her family.

The family is getting out of the hog business, and she decided to do nursing. She started with the distance learning program through BSC.

"It's really nice for older students who are trying to save money," she said.

For two semesters she took classes online, then she moved to Bismarck and took classes here. She graduated earlier this month.

Her experience in Kenya helped reinforce the values of nursing: caring, compassion and communication, she said. She learned this through how the culture there dealt with death and other issues.

"Immediately, people surround you and they don't let you be alone at any time," she said, about when someone dies.

She also saw people open their homes to other people, much like they do in rural North Dakota. When people invited her to their homes, it was for a meal, like at home, she said.

She knows she could have done her training closer to home, but it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. She hopes other students take similar opportunities.

"It's a chance to expand their learning, even if it's not a lot of hands-on care," compared to domestic opportunities, she said.

(Reach reporter Sara Kincaid at 250-8251 or sara.kincaid@;bismarcktribune.com.)