Travelling in Africa......always an interesting experience!

I've decided there is no adventure quite like travelling in Africa; you never know what's going to happen.

A couple weekends ago Alex and I and three friends decided we needed a break from the ship and we wanted to go to Banana Island and stay at Dalton's guest house. Alex made all the arrangements, got a taxi driver who said he could come pick us up at 0745 on Saturday morning, told Dalton that we would need a boat ride to the island at about 0900 and needed a room to stay in for the night. Everything was a 'go'.

We got up bright and early, and a bit sleepily, went and got some breakfast and packed lunches. The phone rings, taxi driver is by the gate, it is 0745, things are going great. We walk out to the gate - no taxi; so we thought maybe he was waiting at the gate to the Dental clinic area and started walking up the road to that. At the same time, he calls again to see if we are coming, so Alex asks him where he is;t turns out, he is at the fistula clinic in the town of Aberdeen (~50 minutes away). Apparently the locals call the fistula clinic "Mercy Ships", because it used to be associated with us. Once the confusion was figured out he said he would be at the correct Mercy Ships in 45 minutes. So back we went to the ship to chill out for a little while.

About 0845 back out we go and the taxi is there this time, we throw our bags into the trunk, pile in and we are off. The first thing I noticed, as the four of us girls were crammed in the 3-person back seat, is that there is a nice sized hole in the floor board. Oh, well! At least the car runs well enough! We are also informed that taxis are only supposed to have four passengers at a time so as we come up to intersections where a policeman is directing traffic, one of us will have to get out and walk through the intersection and get back in on the other side. Being on the edge, Becky volunteered to be the walker.

After the hour or so long ride to Kent beach, where we met the boat, we were tired of being crammed in the car and ready for the boat ride. So, we all piled into the fishing canoe along with a few locals, Dalton, a couple guys who worked with him, and a chicken. We started off across the bit of ocean between mainland and island. It was going well, then the rain came, and the water got a bit choppy, but still fun and exciting. About halfway across there is a bit of commotion from the rear of the boat (we were at the front) so we looked and the chicken had made a run for it! Right into the water. Chickens don't swim or float very well for very long, of course his little feet being bound probably didn't help. The boat stopped and turned to go back and get Chicken, who is still bobbing on the waves at this point, but these canoes don't turn quickly. Unfortunately, Chicken was flapping to try and stay on the water but kept going under, and by the time we got to her and one of the locals grabbed her, she was deceased. Becky attempted to instruct Dalton in how to do chicken CPR, but he wasn't really interested and kept saying "it take too much water inside". When we asked him what would happen with Chicken he happily said he would eat it for dinner that night.

Shortly after that, we arrived at the island. We had to wade through the water to get to the beach and there were lots of sea urchins so we kept our flip flips on in the water to keep from getting impaled. That night when asked what we wanted for supper we asked for fish, but Dalton said there wasn't enough for five people, so he could cook some chicken too, at which point we started laughing and asked if it was the one that had jumped, and he laughed and said 'no, my wife is cooking that for me right now'. Whatever poor chicken we did eat was rather skinny and tough, but the fish was tasty.

We stayed up until well after dark talking and swatting at mosquitoes. When finally decided to call it a night, we went to the rondeval where were to sleep. It was divided down the middle by a wall that didn't quite reach the ceiling into to rooms. Alex and I were on one side and the girls were on the other. We were talking back and forth as we searched the rooms for creepy crawlies; I didn't really see the point because there were big cracks around the door and shutters, and two small windows that were completely open.

Alex was stabbing at spiders and I was checking for mosquitoes inside the mosquito net when there is quite a commotion in the other room. They had found a scorpion on their wall! It was quite high up on the wall so they were throwing their flip flops at it to knock it down. It was n't moving during all this, so they thought it might be dead, but when they finally knocked it down it was definitely still alive, so they killed it. Alex went over to help with getting it; he wanted to make sure it truly was dead and didn't come back and climb over the wall to our side during the night.

The next day was nice and relaxing. At 2:30p. Dalton said we should go ahead and pack up and head back to the mainland before bad weather moved in. The way back across was nice and sunny and uneventful. Although, when we first hopped in the boat we noticed a dime sized hole that had water pouring through it, but not to worry, it was quickly re-stuffed with a piece of fabric and 'fixed'. The boats are quite leaky, several small leaks, so there is always someone elected to be the bailer and they bail a bucketful of water out every 30 seconds or so.

By the time we got back in the taxi (the same guy came back) and were well on our way home, it started raining a bit. I sent up a few prayers for safety as we careened down the rain-slicked roads with nary a seatbelt between us. At one point I looked to see how fast we were going (it felt like about 60mph) but the speedometer didn't work so that was no help. This time Alainie volunteered to be the walker through the policed intersections.

Happily, we made it back to the ship all in one piece, with lots of memories to look back on over the years.

It's so worth it...

In the many weeks since I last put fingers to keyboard, I have written many blogs - in my mind that is. So as my first blog for this outreach I wanted to write about one of my personal experiences with a patient.

Working as a charge nurse, I don't have quite as much interaction and direct contact with the patients. As of late though, I have gotten to have many shifts as a "Real Nurse" as I like to call it; where I am a regular ward nurse and have my own patient assignment.

So one of my first shifts as a "real nurse", I had the privilege to have a young man named Teejay as one of my patients. During hand-over - the previous shift gives information to the on-coming shift - the night nurse told me that Teejay was very quiet, melancholy, didn't want to get out of bed, and kinda depressed acting. He spoke very good English (as opposed to the local language of Krio), so throughout the morning I tried to make a point of talking to and encouraging Teejay.

As I gave him his medicines and feeding (by nasogastric tube) I would ask him questions and just talk to him. But still he would not speak or even smile. He would raise his eyebrows as a 'yes' answer or shake his head 'no'. I wasn't sure what to do about him, so I would say a quick prayer to God now and then to help Teejay; although I wasn't quite sure what kind of help he needed.

So, the morning went on, about 11am I was ready to start doing dressing changes on my patients. I did a couple other dressings that only took a few minutes and then I got the supplies and went over to Teejay. I told him what I would be doing, and that it wouldn't hurt. He raised his eyebrows in understanding. After removing the bandage, I cleaned the incision site and then asked him if he would like to see himself in his mirror (each patient gets their own little hand mirror). It took some convincing, but after I put the mirror in his hand he finally looked at himself.

His eyes lit up, he looked surprised. He looked at me and then back at himself. Then I saw tears forming in his eyes; he put the mirror down, reached for my hand and held it saying 'thank you! thank you! God bless you!' I had not realized that this was the first time the bandage had been removed since his surgery and he had not seen his new face yet! He smiled a small smile - he still wasn't sure how much he should move his mouth - and kept saying 'thank you'. I must say, my smile was huge! I had him take another good look at himself and then applied a new bandage.

I can't put into words how much this encounter touched me. To see first hand how someone's life and body were transformed and to be a part of that is more than I could have ever asked for. After his dressing change there was such a visible change in Teejay, he still was not exactly talkative, but he would respond when spoken too, smiled now and then, and was ready to start walking around to build his strength back up.

He has since been released to go home. I saw him a few weeks ago as he was walking down the corridor after having his post-op appointment. He recognized me and stopped to hold my hand and say 'thank you' one more time. His smile was much bigger now, he no longer had stitches and was healing quite nicely. I asked him how he was doing, he said he was very happy and was going to go back to school to learn a trade.

Teejay's tumor may not have been big compared to some of the other patients we have, but to him it was monumental and had altered his life in very negative ways. And now, his life had been changed yet again, but this time it was positive.

Seeing how tall Teejay is, in Admissions

Time to have vital signs checked.

Being prayed for.

Cinderelly, Cinderelly

'Night and day it's Cinderelly,...............do the mopping, And the sweeping and the dusting'.

Ok, ok! It's nothing like what poor Cinderella had to do, but I am doing the mopping, sweeping, dusting, and toilet cleaning. But I must say, my boss, leader, manager, I don't know, what ever she's called is very, very wonderful to work for.

During the sail most of the hospital staff that aren't needed for planning things out for this outreach, are reassigned to other departments. I was reassigned to the Housekeeping dept. So far it's not been bad. I'm sure I will be thoroughly tired of sweeping, mopping, and wiping walls. I'm already tired of the toilets. They aren't even all that nasty, but just the thought of what happens in them and the fact that my face and hands are in such close proximity, turns my stomach. Blecht!!!

We are in teams of two, and we are assigned a different deck for a week at a time. This week Becca (one of my fellow Gatewayians) and I have been teamed up and were assigned to decks two and three. It sounded like a lots at first, but it's not the whole decks, just the forward parts. Most of deck three is the hospital, and most of deck two is the engine room. So we don't have to clean those areas.

It's kind of fun to clean, because I get to see instant results. I'm not very patient, so I like instant results. Sometimes people walk through the areas we are cleaning, but for the most part they very considerate and try to go a different route. I wouldn't want to have this job during outreach, as there are so many more people to get in the way and dirty things up. I kinda enjoy working in other departments, as long as I know it is only for a short time!, because then I get to see things from their perspective. I think it helps me to be a bit more considerate of others, and try to not make their job any worse.

Last sail I was assigned to the dining room team. It was quite fun, but the 5:30a starts just about killed me! Mentally anyway. My poor little noggin just doesn't know how to start functioning that early in the morning! I know I've worked nights for years, but it's a different story when noggin is waking up at that hour, than when it has been functioning all night. So it's nice to try an 8-5 position for a bit.

So, guess that's about it this time. Not many interesting or funny things happen when your just hanging out with a broom and a mop........so.......see ya next time!

Sauerkraut and tea and muesli, Oh my!.......

Sauerkraut and tea and muesli!

Started cleaning the ship this week. Yay! ...........Not. Well, I guess it really is Yay, because it means that we are getting closer to redeploying the ship and heading up to Sierre Leone. I'm just not a big fan of cleaning. As I'm sure most people aren't. I mean, I don't mind keeping our living area neat, but large scale clean-up? I'll pass!

It hasn't been too bad though, kinda fun at times actually. But who wants to admit that cleaning is fun? Not me! The actual cleaning time is pretty short because we have to drive 2 hours each way which is included in our 8-hour work-day. I'm used to driving long distances, but there are at least 50 speed bumps along the way. Ugh! For real! cus, I counted them. I think I mentioned in an earlier post that South Africa has been overtaken with speed bumps, and we bah-bump along every day. I know that when plants and animals that are not indigenous to a place and are introduced, sometimes they flourish and take over. I think that is what has happened with the speed bumps. They don't have any natural predators here.

Anyway, so about the cleaning. I thought I was going to have to head up a team to clean the hospital corridors and wards on deck 3, and strip and wax all the floors down there, but the technical crew are still working and traipsing around down there, so it can't be done yet. Instead I was put on a team of four to wipe down walls in the classrooms, and then we ended up working on deck 2 emptying the gigantic freezers and putting everything on the dry storage shelves.

The freezers weren't on, and we could tell; they stunk! New shelves had been installed for all the dry goods, so they had been stored in the empty freezers until the freezers were needed again. So the title comes from moving all this stuff. The ship has to have enough food for the sail and for three months after arriving in Sierre Leone - in case there are delays in getting our food shipments through customs. But between the three items listed above, I don't think we'll starve, we just might not like what we are eating. Oh yeah, and the instant decaf Nescafe coffee. Not only did way too much decaf coffee get ordered, but most people drink it for the caffeine. Bad combo.

So first was the mountain of peanut butter. One of the other people working with me thought she would start with the peanut butter because it didn't look too difficult; after 45 minutes whe was still moving PB. It just didn't seam to end. I started with the sauerkraut, 45 cases of six cans each later, I was quite satisfied with my work. Then I went into the other freezer.............and there they were..........25 more cases. My next project was Symphonie in Gelb (German for symphony in yellow) tea. I neatly shelved four laundry baskets worth of boxes of 20 tea bags. Then we went into the refrigerator, and there smiling at me, was half a pallet full of more cases of boxes of Symphonie in Gelb.

Ahh, muesli.........does anyone actually like the stuff?? It looks really healthy, and from my experience, most things that are really healthy for you don't taste very good. But, someone obviously thought it was going out of style. Three of us moved muesli........for 45 minutes. Then, as we were putting it on the shelves in the fridge, we noticed the pallet of Fruit 'n' Fiber cereal was covered in a 1 1/2 foot deep layer of more bags of muesli. So we stacked that with the rest, because we figured it should all be together, for moral support you know ('cus nobody really likes it!). Actually though, when I stop and think about it, we really are so blessed, I have carried, pushed, and stacked more food than some people, especially in West Africa, will see in their

lifetime.

Well, that's a little 'taste' of what I did last week. Next time I'll tell about all the joys of stripping and re-waxing floors!

Here are a few pictures I took. It may not look like all that much but the shelves in these pictures are all about three feet deep.

The first batch of sauerkraut

Syphonie in Gelb (only the front six inches

is actually tea, the rest is all the decaf coffee)

Muesli heaven

The tower of tuna

Never ending PB

One of the freezers after we emptied it.