Abstract
These two reflective poems emerged from my research on home-based care volunteers caring for terminally ill AIDS patients in rural Kwa-Zulu Natal, South Africa. I found myself overwhelmed by the emancipation offered by qualitative research, particularly when compared with the strict confines of the positivist paradigm that dominates clinical research and practice. My being “left to my own devices” was at once liberating and daunting. Later, when interviewing home-based care volunteers who care for people living with HIV/AIDS, I felt overwhelmed again, this time in a different way. The caregivers were like me in uncharted territory, their work neglected in government policy and practice. The poems granted me an avenue for reflection that helped me assimilate the diversity of experience and emotion with which I was confronted. Giving all of it space in the form of these poems allowed me to get on with the job of research.
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