Pictures!

Hello???





















I'm in London!!! (London Eye in the background - takes an hour to go around)












Beautiful English countryside











Scuba diving training
- heading out to
dive to 18 meters












It's SO beautiful underwater!!















Ready for 'Hip-hip night'
notice the 'bling' - all hand-made!










'Best Dressed' award! oh yeah!






some of the 'difficult' patients and our 'Patch Adams' charge nurse during the ward open-house

February 19th-

Things are really shaping up here in Togo, as we get closer to the start of surgeries. I assisted with the first screening here on Tues. Due to upcoming elections, the Togolese government has requested that we try to not have vary large crowds gathering. So, instead of the mass screening (with 1000’s of patients) that we usually have, there are going to be about 30 small screenings (only accepting 400 – 500 people at each) over the next ten weeks. Tuesday’s screening was a bit disappointing, only about 75-100 people came to be screened, and not very many of them were canidates for what we can do. But, the next two (on Wed and Thurs) had MUCH better turn outs.

Tuesday was ‘Shrove Tues’, never knew that’s what the Tues before Ash Wednesday was called, but obviously it’s quite popular in England. Basically it’s an excuse to get together for pancakes – which are actually more like what I would call crepes, rather than pancakes. They are so delicious, especially with Nutella on them! I was taught the proper way to make them with sugar and lemon juice on them, so I feel quite cultured now.

Went on my first dive, since completing the scuba diving course in Tenerife, today. The water here in the port is kinda nasty, but not nearly as bad as the port water in Benin was! It was a ver y different experience than the Tenerife diving – the water was a lot murkier, and warmer, and we had to go under the ship (I was slightly nervous at first), and there were only three of us on the dive (compared to eight). As we were standing on the edge of the dock preparing to jump in, we noticed a lovely sight of a couple of turds gently floating by. I must say, it was NOT the sort of thing that instills the desire to jump into the water, but I was already committed, so in I went! There were also many pieces of trash and lots of plastic bags. Added twist was that, for the last few weeks we have had the Discovery channel people here because they are doing a segment on Mercy Ships on their show called ‘Mighty Ships’. So they wanted to film us diving – well, jumping in and then getting out. So supposedly I will have my ‘15 minutes of fame’ sometime in the near future. They didn’t get to the dock in time to film us getting out of the water, so we had to traipse back down to the bow of the ship and jump in again, swim down the side of the ship and come out again at the aft end again. Then we each had a brief interview before heading back up to deck eight to get out of our gear.

To spice things up a little bit, and just because cook-outs are fun, we will be having bbq chicken on the grill out on the dock for supper tonight. There will probably be some of our finely talented musicians out there playing a bit of music for our enjoyment too. So it should be quite nice!

Then, after supper, we are having a Ward Open House, so that all the non medical crew can come down and see the hospital and get a little idea of what goes on down there. Hopefully it will make them more comfortable, when we have the Adopt-a-patient program, to come down and visit patients. Some of the other ward/OR nurses have been planning many fun little activities for the crew to enjoy, such as – ‘Take care of a difficult patient’, race to assemble and put on a patient gown, get their blood pressure checked, try their hand at suturing, intubating, and also try out the OR bed with stirrups – if they want! It should be a really fun night!

So that’s a few of the recent AFM activities; and now it is time for chow!

International Travels

It's been a while since my fingers last stroked the keyboard for this blog. So, the last two weeks or so, have been a whirlwind of activity. After frantically packing my bags (within the strict weight limits of Ryanair) the day before departure, I flew out of RDU on my way England two weeks and two days ago!

Started off by blasting through London for two days! Visited all the highlights of the fair city with four fellow travelers, courtesy of our own personal tour guide, Becky Glover. Listened to the melodious sounds of Big Benn announce the hour (after racing pellmell through the streets to get there in time!), took pictures with the lions in Trifalgar square, nearly got kicked out of the House of Commons (for falling asleep during the debates - oops!), watched the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace (didn't get to see the queen though), sprinted through the Egyptian/Mylasian section of the British Museum (now know the RosettaStone language program is named after an actual stone), took in a broadway show of Sister Act after a lovely dinner of fine Indian cuisine, and rode the tube (pronounced 'tewb') multiple times.
On our third day there (Thurs), one of our compatriots had to leave us to continue her travels in Madrid before meeting back with us in Tenerife. So the four of that were left slept in REALLY late and nearly missed our hotel checkout time (12p), needing some recovery time from the barrage of London and all. Then we hit the road, on the wrong side mind you. So here I went, careening down very narrow coutryside roads while sitting in the driver's seat, only, it wasn't the driver's seat. It took me quite a while to stop mentally telling Becky to "get over to the right" when another vehicle was approching.

Along the way to Becky's home place of Somerset, we detoured to Bath, England; which, when pronounced properly by Bathonians, isn't like bath in 'bathtub' but rather, 'both' - with a soft 'o' sound. We toured a little bit around there and visited a really old church/abbey, and learned some about the early Christians in England. Then we hit the local hot springs/mineral water spa! So refreshing!! We were transported into a wonderland of warm waters and hot steam rooms, and foot hottubs. Aaaaahhhhh! After bebopping around between the steam rooms, indoor, heated pool, rooftop-open-air pool, and shrivelling into raisins for two and a half hours, we returned to the car in a much more jello-y composition. As it was almost dinner (tea time), we stopped and procured some fish and chips at The Golden Chip, run by an aisian couple. After arriving at Becky's parents house (where we were staying) we consumed the feast, visited with her parents and brother, had a time of piano playing and singing (including in Welsh), then crashed into bed.

Over the next two days we explored some country lanes (all lined with lovely hedgerows), ambled through some beautiful hillsides, and hiked a couple hills. Then to top it all off, the night before flying out for Tenerife, we helped Becky throw a barn dance fund raiser. Important lesson of the night? You don't cube the cheese for Ploughmans (an English hors d' vors) but cut it into thin squares. Us poor, unknowing Americans! But at least we had a good laugh! After more frantic packing, mainly on Becky and Alainie's parts early Sunday morning, we left for the airport to fly to Tenerife.

We arrived to the ship around 4:30p on Sunday got all checked in and had a wonderful reuniting with our Gateway group. Then early the next morning (7:30a) I started scuba diving training. Normally people don't start off with somthing like this, this soon after arriving, but a wonderful friend that was already on the ship had arranged for me to go with him and four others to get certified. I have never really like water very much, and up until my Gateway training in Sept/Oct, I wasn't even able to float properly. Now, after just a four-day course, I absolutely love being in/under water. It was so amazing getting to see more of God's beautiful creatures and creations. Underwater is a totally different and beautiful world; if I had been able to grow a set of gills, I don't think I would have ever resurfaced. We were able to get the training at a much discounted rate through Mercy Ships, but there is a bit of a down side, now we all have to take some turns cleaning the intakes on the underside of the ship while we are in port, and believe me, port water is just about as nasty as water gets!

Well, I think that's all for this post. We are currently churning through the sea toward Togo. It has been a bit of a rough ride so far, lots of dipping and weaving through the waves. Thankfully I haven't gotten seasick (although several people on board have) and am really enjoying this sail.

Servant of Christ,
Sharon