Andrina D. Abrahamse
Andrina Doris Abrahamse - born in 1958, in Johannesburg, South Africa. Was an only child, to parents who were of white Afrikaner middle-class descent. Spent most of her childhood growing up in Cape Town.
A childhood that was saturated with abuse increased her sensitivity to the sadness that she observed in the eyes of the desolate street children, where she learnt that abuse knows no boundaries.
Entered the nursing profession in February, 1976 at Groote Schuur Hospital, where the first Heart Transplant had been performed by Christiaan Barnard in 1967, and completed the Course in General Nursing in February, 1980. Completed the Course in Midwifery at B.G. Alexander Nursing College in Johannesburg in June, 1981. Continued to work as a Midwife for two years before being accepted for the Course in Intensive Nursing Science at the Johannesburg Hospital Nursing College, and graduated in March, 1984.
Married in 1987 and had two children, a son and a daughter, and continued working as an ICU nurse until 1994. The first Democratic election in South Africa heralded an increase in general and political violence. Fuelled with the desire to move her children to a safer environment, she accepted a position as an ICU nurse in Lake Charles, Louisiana.
Divorced in 1997, and continued to work as a Registered Nurse while raising her children as a single parent. Never remarried.
In 2005, the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, a catastrophic tragedy, revealed images that brought back memories of people in South Africa who still suffer on a scale that seems insurmountable.
While spending time in Arkansas where she and her children found themselves as evacuees from Hurricane Rita, which followed Katrina, she began working on her first book, Through the Eyes of a South African Woman and Other Children.
The story embraces the time period of Apartheid - from 1958 to 1994, in which she gives voice to the children who today still find themselves trapped in a revolving door of hopelessness. Many of these children are orphans, a situation created by an apathetic attitude toward the explosive effects of the silent, but deadly AIDS epidemic.
Currently lives in New Orleans, where she recently completed a contract assignment at one of the teaching hospitals.