Goobye weekend

Friday night began the goodbye weekend.  Just like last year, it was started with an ipod full of oldies but goodies music that everyone in the car sang very loudly to.  The night took us to O"Mally's pub and had good food and good times. 

While we were waiting for our food a waiter came out carrying a giant wooden hippo.  He said that it was only for Maggie.  The hippo appeared in the ship shop weeks and weeks ago and I wanted him from the begining.  I named him fred and would go in and try to sneak him out and at one point got in a race, and wrestling match with Johan to get him.  A group of friends got him and have secretly been plotting (how any of you kept a secret for weeks is beyond my understanding) to give him to me when I leave.  By far the best present EVER!  He went through several name changes, but the original stuck so Fred it is. 

Yesterday when I was packing, most peoples concern was for Fred and how he was going to handle the trip.  11 pounds is a lot to try to carry as hand luggage so in the suitcase snug and wrapped up goes Fred. Thank you to everyone involved for the wonderful present.

On Saturday morning several of us went out in the pouring rain for breakfast at the Crown Bakery.  Even with a taxi we were soaked by the time we got there but the laughs and breakfast were worth the wet clothes. 

The rest of Saturday was spent watching movies.  9 of us set off in a land rover to Aberdeen to find a movie theatre we had heard about.  None of us had ever seen a theatre in West Africa, so we were all curious.  It turned out to be very nice with popcorn, soda, and icecream.  The movie was Beverly Hills chijuaua, so that was a disaster but a bad movie gave us something to laugh at.  Then we made our way back to the ship and got stuck in traffic for over an hour.  What is there to do when stuck in traffic?  Well, listen to music, sing really loud, and buy food from people that walk by selling it of course.  Plantain chips, chocolate biscuit cups and prawn chips to be exact. 

Saturday finished out with a movie with the normal Saturday night group, and then another movie with some other friends later.  I can't remember the last time that I watched 3 movies in one day. 
Sunday, I started to panic about not having anything packed so I spent the morning packing and getting distracted until Hettie came and got me organized.  I put a box together to donate to our ship botique but most of it was taken by various people that stopped by the room to chat while I was packing.  Actually, they probably came to see what they could get out of the box before I took it to the botique.  Last night was the last card game of phase 10 and hanging out in mid-ships waiting for our friend Angie to arrive back on the ship from home.  It was a busy weekend spent with wonderful friends.  Thanks to all of you for making goodbye weekend fun and often times hilarious.  I will miss all of you very much!

Vitalis Chronicles, White Shores

Sometimes there are things that you don't picture yourself doing in Africa (besides living in a big white ship).  Last Wednesday I attended a launch for a book written by one of my friends.  Every land rover was booked out in anticipation for this event and the crew were all clean and polished as we made our way through surprisingly not to bad Freetown traffic.  Earlier that day I had purchased the book from Amazon.com (shameless plug) and had read the first few chapters before having to leave.  I was already hooked.  Listening to the live reading and finding out that more excitement was to come had me hurrying back to the ship to read the rest.  During lunch breaks and late into the past two nights I've been reading White Shores and just finished it.  My head is full of vivid images of the characters and I can not wait to read the next two books in the trilogy.  If you know me, or have ever seen my room, you know that I love books and this is one that I'm going to read again.  Anyone that is interested can purchase the book on e-reader/kindle or paperback from Amazon.com and also Barnes and noble.com

Next

Since my replacement phlebotomist came to the ship today, I guess my time here is almost finished.  So I've made a list of the things that come next. 
1)decide where to live
2)decide where to work
3)learn how to scuba dive
Well, there are a few things jumping around in my head that I've decided not to share with anyone just yet, but this should prove that the future is very undecided. 
However, in one year this giant white ship will be sailing towards Guinea and I think I'd like to be on it.  My goal is to finish an outreach.  All the way through from begining to the end.  Until then maybe have a few adventures :)

I need Africa more than Africa needs me

 

  I borrowed this from Mocha club website, but it says so much that is in my heart. 

                                      

   I Need Africa More Than Africa Needs Me

When I think of Africa, the following images immediately come to mind: Starvation. AIDS. Child soldiers. Genocide. Sex slaves. Orphans. From there, my thoughts naturally turn to how I can help, how I can make a difference. "I am needed here," I think. "They have so little, and I have so much." It's true, there are great tragedies playing out in Africa everyday. There is often a level of suffering here that is unimaginable until you have seen it, and even then it is difficult to believe. But what is even harder is reconciling the challenges that many Africans face with the joy I see in those same people. It's a joy that comes from somewhere I cannot fathom, not within the framework that has been my life to this day.
The images spilling out of my television showed circumstances that could seemingly only equal misery, and I was fooled. I bought into the lie that circumstance defines happiness. The truth is, in Africa I find hearts full of victory, indomitable spirits. In places where despair should thrive, instead I find adults dancing and singing, and children playing soccer with a ball crafted of tied up trash. Instead of payback, I find grace. Here, weekend getaways are not options to provide relief from the pains of daily life. Relationships and faith provide joy. Love is sovereign.
My new reality… I know now that my joy should have no regard for my circumstances. I'm ashamed by my lack of faith, but at the very same moment I am excited by my new pursuit. I'm forced to redefine the meaning of having much or having little. I'm uneasy with the prospect of change and of letting go, but just the thought of freedom is liberating. I want what I have learned to trickle down from my head into my heart - I no longer want to need the "next thing" to have joy.
I'm not saying that Africa does not need our efforts. It absolutely does need our partnership. But for me, I've come to understand that I NEED AFRICA MORE THAN AFRICA NEEDS ME. Why? Because it is Africa that has taught me that possessions in my hands will never be as valuable as peace in my heart. I've learned that I don't need what I have and that I have what I need. These are just a few of this continent's many lessons. I came here to serve and yet I've found that I have so much to learn, and Africa, with all its need, has much to teach me.

Photos of a Great Weekend

Chimpanzees at the sactuary

                                          

Sharon, Alex, Sarah, and me hiking to the falls

Charlotte Falls

The best trivia team! 

Word of Life Church where two of my translators attend

Helga and Florence

                                 It was an amazing weekend with good friends and adventure!

15 minutes

Every day I go to the admissions tent at 1pm.  During the day the patients have had vitals taken, seen the dr, and answered a thousand questions before being admitted for surgery.  My translators and I have a good system and the patients flow right through.  Of course every once in awhile something random happens.  Yesterday was strange because I had 12 patients and 11 were children.  While drawing blood not one of them cried.  Today two of the patients were gone when we went to draw the blood.  This is kind of strange and several of us went to investigate.  The two men were tired of sitting and left to go get sweets.  Grown men.  The children were still there.  Sitting exactly where they were supposed to be, but the men took off.  It was strange then but seems kind of funny now.  I was irritated that they were wasting my time and stood under the tent fuming.  Then a tiny little hand grabbed mine.  The little girl was one of the patients being admitted for surgery tomorrow.  Even though I had drawn her blood earlier she still wanted a hug from me and that is kind of unusual.  We spent the next 15 minutes skipping around the dock, throwing rocks into the giant rain puddle, and playing ring around the rosy with another boy.  The little boy had surgery months ago and comes back for therapy in the tent next to admissions.  He walked up to me and pointed to his arm and said "you juk me"  in krio that is basically that I stabbed him.  It amazes me that months later he remembers that I drew his blood.  We tested out his improved legs as he begged me to run faster around the dock.  If all had gone to plan,  I wouldn't have stopped outside to play.  I would have done my job and missed out on the best 15 minutes of my day. 

Taking a walk

Sometimes doing very little is the most fun.  Once again, I have found myself wandering the market of Freetown.  Walking the cracked streets and dodging trucks, taxi's, and motorcycles.  However, not so successful on the last one.  My elbow met some handlebars on Saturday but seems to be fine now.  My friend Sarah told me that I obey no traffic laws, but I think I have turned into a local while walking down the street.  The rules are easy.  Go fast.  Swerve anyway you need to to get through congested areas and squeeze into tight places you would never imagine you could get through.  All the while watch where you are walking so you don't fall into the ditch of sewage off to the side.  Oh yeah, smile at all the children who call out "hello how are you".  If the crazy does happen and you walk into a mud puddle and your flip flop decided to stay in the mud while your foot travels on, that is ok.  Just stand there and look like an idiot until some nice lady reaches into the mud and puts your shoe back on your foot.  It seems to help if you look very surprised and just keep saying "my shoe, my shoe". 
It is rainy season here.  When it rains it really rains.  If you are at a bakery with friends and just ate a lot of pizza (really, really good pizza) and it is pouring outside, the walk home seems very far.  Therefore you should all pile into a taxi and don't try to negotiate a price.  There is a rain price and a sunny price. 

The market street is by far my favorite here.  There is so much stuff to see and every time many new things.  Today a lady tried to sell me some fish.  When I told her that I don't cook, she said "how do you eat?" a very good question.  It would have been hard to explain that if I cooked I'd only ever eat grilled cheese so I just said that other people cook on the ship and she laughed at me.  How different our lives are.  I'll include pictures of some of the things we saw on our walk through the market.  The walk ended taking a short cut through a churches property.  There is a burned building that I've wanted to take pictures but i didn't expect to meet lots of children and moms down that road.  We had a lot of fun, just talking and taking snaps (pictures).  It was a very relaxing weekend spent with friends. 

The Urine Experiment

Ok.  I'll explain.  Yesterday during morning coffee break one of the surgeons on board asked me about doing an experiment involving boiling urine.  By afternoon coffee break (yes, we take two a day) Sarah the Lab Tech and I  were sold on the idea and ran around trying to get all the things we'd need.  My supervisor decided to take the morning off so she wouldn't be involved in what was going to happen.  Claudia is by far the best supervisor to have around!  Sarah and I decided to start at 8am so as not to interfere with the rest of our work, and had the beaker, hotplate, thermometer, eye goggles, and face masks (just in case it smelled) ready to go right on time.  The patients bladder had other plans and there was a small wait time.  This is the experiment...
It is a heat test for Bence-Jones protein.  It is an abnormal protein associated wiht multiple myelome (cancer of the plasma) and is not a good thing to have.  I could say more, but google it if you really care.  We were doing the test to see if a patient has this problem.  This is an old test, and since our lab doesn't have the machines available for this paticular test we needed the old school version.  Basically you heat urine to 60 degrees.  At 60 you may see crystals form on the bottom of the beaker of urine or you may not.  Then you continue to heat to 100 degrees and the crystals (if they had formed) should disappear.  Then allow the urine to cool back to 60 degrees and watch for the crystals to reform.  If there are crystals at 60, then no crystals at 100, and crystals again at 60, that is a positive test for Bence-Jones protein.  If none of the things happen it is a negative test.  Our test was negative.  Yeah for the patient!

Now that i have bored everyone to sleep with that explaination, I'll close by saying that it was a lot of fun and I learned quite a bit that I never expected to learn here in Africa.  Thanks to Sharon and Alex for moral support and humor, and to Liz for taking our pictures! 

Two weeks

In the last two weeks I have......
1) slapped my roommate while having a bad dream
2)had a lab tech pass out cold while drawing my blood
3)said goodbye to many very good friends
4) been hit by a day volunteer while drawing her blood
5)had crazy dreams almost every night
6)given up drinking starbucks hot chocolate due to the bad dreams every night. 
7)decided that I really don't want to leave the ship in 33 days.
8)boiled urine to perform an old school experiment to help a patient
9)actually kind of helped cook food.
10)sat in the middle of the hospital hallway and raced trucks with some little kids from Ward A. 

These are in no specific order.  It's fun to realize how much has happened.  My mind is still on the friends that left the ship in the last two weeks and still hoping to see them in midships or the dining room.  Last Saturday I attempted to help cook lunch for a family leaving the ship tomorrow.  The Peet family is going back home to England and we will have one last coffee break together tomorrow morning, just as we have the last two Thursdays when friends left. 
Blood has been an entirely difficult issue on its own.  The new lab tech was learning how to draw blood and passed out cold.  Thankfully she had removed the needle from my arm before.  Yes, I was the victim for her.  Today we had a blood transfusion that should have been simple but the blood really didn't want to come out of the crew member.
On a lighter note.... my roommate that missed me while I was home really wishes that I'd go back now :)  Francis has been the victim of many nights of my bad dreams.  The first night I stood up (bunk beds) and slapped her arm before realizing where I was.  After that there were nights of getting trapped in the curtain and talking in my sleep.  It's never dull around here. 
Today, I discovered a new fun thing.  There are several little boys in A Ward right now who are healthy enough to wander around the halls even though they aren't really allowed to go without a nurse.  So I sit in the middle of the hallway and we race trucks and toys up and down the hall.  Of course we try and make as much noise as possible and there is much laughing along the way.  It is the perfect reminder to me of what I'm doing here.  Since June is just about finished my time is almost up.  I have a feeling that I'm going to want to stay and they are going to have to throw me overboard to get me to leave!

Catching up.....

It has been a month since I posted last.  A month full of sad news, leaving Africa, one crazy adventure home to Virginia, time with family, saying goodbye to one, and then returning to Africa.  Without a bunch of details I'll say that I felt like I needed to go home to be with family and help.  When the time came that I wasn't really helping anymore and didn't feel needed, I came back to the ship to finish out my time here.  With 7 weeks remaining on my original agreement, I wasn't sure it was worth it.  It just didn't seem like enough time to be on the ship.  Then I realized that usually I come for only 8 weeks and have done ok so it was worth it. 
Some day I'll write down the story of my return home and the unbelievable adventure that it was but it was an uneventful trip back and nothing was better than coming back to the ship.  Going around the corner and seeing friends in midships and laughing with them and then going to my room to see loving notes and pictures and one sweet carved turtle on my door and bed waiting for me.  It felt like coming home.  Even the chaos, sounds, and smells of Freetown felt familiar.  
Not everything is all roses though.  I found out some disturbing things about having my facebook examined by others that have no real buisness doing that and have deleted it for now.  My parents are also mad at me since I left my room a mess at home when I left.  Although atleast one of my roommates missed me being messy so maybe in a few weeks my parents will miss that and not be mad anymore.  Today was the day that many of my favorite people left the ship.  We did have a great going away dinner last night :)  Some are going on vacation and won't be back before I leave, and others are done with their time here and are moving on with life.  The problem for me is that some are the first people I ever met with mercy ships and I can't imagine life without them here.  It was a very hard day watching them all drive away to the airport (probably nervous after hearing about my airport adventures) Most of them I will see again since we are all famous for Mercy Ship reunions, but the ship isn't the same and it is hard to invest time to get to know new people. 
This has been a big jumble of catching up and getting a few thoughts out of my head so maybe I can go to sleep.  I'll be in a better mood tomorrow!

Work experience

Usually school and work are separate things.  Children and teens of crew members attend school here on the ship.  There is an academy with grades from pre-school through high school.  During the sail, Claudia (my boss in the lab) and I taught a science class about blood and the students were intelligent and able to use the things they learned in the lab during the hospital open house.  They remembered things that we talked about in class weeks before and helped educate the crew on blood types.  Tonight was an open house and creative arts demonstration and I was amazed by the talent of all the students.  One of the reasons that I've always been impressed is with student work experience.  Each of the high school and middle school students applies for a job on the ship that they are interested in.  Nursing, dental, lab, engineering, photographer, media, or sales.  For a week the student works beside crew members to get an idea of what the job is and to see if they would be interested in that career.  I was able to have Lara as my student for the week.  My goal for the week was for Lara to draw blood from a crew member.  By the end of the first day we had to start an entire new set of goals. It was amazing.  By the end of the week she was drawing blood from crew, patients and also drew a pint of blood for a patient in the O.R needing a blood transfusion.  It isn't easy to focus on your work when you are drawing blood from a child (or a grown up that acts like a child) but Lara was professional and compassionate to everyone.  When she wasn't being the student vampire she was working in the lab running tests on the blood. During the week Lara joined me on the Emergency Medical Team for a fire drill and visited the O.R to observe a surgery.  I was impressed with the skill that Lara was able to show after only a few days training.  It was also a hilarious week of fun but hopefully noone will ever see the hour long video of us laughing while Linda tried to interview us.  I had a great time growing up and was able to experience many different things but never anything like work experience week.  One of the best things is that after her week Lara decided to pursue a career in medicine and is applying to University.  Whatever she decides to do, Lara will do great.  

Rambles of today

Today some pretty amazing things happened.  Yesterday and today I was asked to help in Admissions as an admissions nurse.  This is an interesting job that has many good things and some challenging things with it.  The patients arrive in the morning.  One by one they come to the 3 nurses in the tent (think MASH T.V show kind of tent) and we go through the paperwork, vitals, history, and draw labs.   Usually I just appear for the last step in the process to draw blood for lab work.  Hearing the stories of travel to the ship, life, and what happened to bring them to us is my favorite part.  Today the translator kept asking me to keep writing but I was distracted listening to the stories.  I could write a book about the people I met today.  One little boy was 8 years old and loves to study English in school.  However, after much proding he admitted that he likes football (soccer) more than school.  Of course I pulled out my football stickers and told him that I did too and that made him laugh. There was also a little girl named Naomi.  Her story made me cry and soon I will share it will you, but not in this happy blog.  Naomi is an energetic happy 4 year old.  She reminds me of my neice Peyton and is very very smart.    It has to be scary to come to the ship.  It is a giant white ship full of crazy people.  People here spend quite a bit of time out of doors and the hospital is on Deck 3 with no windows.  It feels closed in.  Tonight I went into the hospital to see Naomi and draw labs from a few new patients and enjoyed looking around and seeing familiar faces.  Usually people don't want to see me coming since it is mostly for blood draws.
Ok on to the rest of the day.  A patient was in surgery and needed a lot of blood today.  While trying to help admissions I was paged back on to the ship several times to draw pints of blood from donors to give to the patient in surgery.  We gave 3 units and when she needed one more I donated my blood to her.  All of us have been screened and cross matched to the patient, but needing 4 is pretty rare.  There is something about giving your own blood to save someone that connects you to that person.
At the end of my day I went to one of the hospital wards and played with balloons and laughed with some of the kids.  It was a good end to a very long and exhausting work day.  Thanks for letting me ramble on and on, and I hope that you all are well.

Pizza delivery and live chickens

We have several translators that work in admissions.  Helga, Blessing, Joel, and Florence have kept me laughing over the last 10 weeks.  Last week I walked in the admission tent and Florence asked me how I like to make my pizza.  Do  you mean what toppings I like?  No, she wanted to know step by step how I make it.  So of course I explained.  I pick up the phone, dial a number, and 30 minutes later pizza shows up at the door.  It made perfect sense to me, but judging from the looks they all gave me, it is not a familiar concept here.  You can walk up to someone on the street selling food.  Usually it's a stew with different ingredients that they serve over rice in a bowl.  Pizza Hut delivery is still a strange concept.
Today was a normal day traveling out to the eye screening site to assist the eye team.  I'm not sure how many people we saw today, but near the end of the line the nurse walked past a lady, turned back and told me that she had a chicken.  Actually, she explained by saying that she either has a chicken with her or just clucked.  As I walked up I hoped that she had a chicken with her, because even though that is strange it would be worse if SHE was clucking!  She did have a chicken.  A live chicken with its head sticking out of the bag.  Of course we had to tell everyone and after calling on the radio (don't tell the captain we used the official radios for a chicken) our entire team came over. The women was getting very upset and a man near her called out that "she didn't want to sell the chicken" that was fine since we didn't want to buy the chicken.  We all laughed for awhile and tried to explain that we wouldn't know what to do with it if we did buy it.  Isaac, one of the translators tried to explain to me how to prepare the chicken, but it was gross so I won't share it.   I can almost picture this woman leaving her house to go to the eye clinic and her husband calling out to her to pick up some chicken on her way home.   TIA.  This is Africa.

Mom

A million billion years ago, before the earth crust had cooled, a wonderful thing happened.  Pamela (my mom) was born.  Yes, that makes her really old, but she looks good for her age.  Not a wrinkle or a gray hair to be seen.  Mostly because of botox and hair dye, but she looks great.  Surprisingly, my mom has been around for my whole life.  She had the brilliant idea to put me in a Santa suit when I came home from the hospital, but other than that she has amazing ideas. 
I'm the least sentimental person in the world so I don't usually make big speeches about how great people are but today seems like a good day to break that rule. 
Since we don't get to chose our families you just kind of hope for the best.  I got the best.  My mom always took care of us, made us be on time for everything.  Actually, she really made us be 30 minutes early.  She walked us to the school bus every morning, but that was also to make sure we got on the school bus.  Mom let us get dirty, play sports, make messes, and only locked us out of the house when the air conditioning was on and she said that we were letting the cold out.  She used to make a hrrump kind of noise when my dad was umpiring baseball games to let him know that she didn't agree with his decisions.  Then she learned how to be an umpire so she could work the games with him.  Mom took care of the entire neighborhood.  If anything went wrong, they came to my mom.  When the boys across the street got burned on his legs he ran over to my mom for help.  Many times I would hear my parents out on the front porch talking to everyone about everything.  My mom babysat other kids full time when my brother and I were growing up.  Those kids still come back 20 years later to talk and to have a drink of my moms wonderful iced tea.   Mom was always our cheering section, our guidance, our warden, and usually had the best ideas for fun.  That includes loading up the back of the truck with kids from the neighborhood and going to the pool.  Don't panic, that was back when it was still legal to ride in the back of a truck. 
Childhood was a long time ago.  Mom's support has continued through college, living on my own, traveling, and finally living on a ship in Africa.  We don't always agree.  I'm pretty sure it is because we are identical and think alike, but don't want to admit it.  When I grow up (mom is laughing her ass off at that thought) I want to be just like my mom.  To be adored by my friends, family, and random strangers.  Yes, did I forget to mention the fact that she likes to talk to random strangers?  It still embarrasses me, but dont' tell my mom that when she isn't around I do it too!  Every day.  Every single day (even when I don't want to admit it) I'm glad that I have the mom I have.  Thankful is a better word.  So Happy Birthday Mom!  I love you! 

The day the ship shop got food

Last week an amazing thing happened.  I'm sure that someone got their legs fixed in surgery.  Someone that was blind probably got sight back.  Lives were changed, but that happens everyday.  This was big!  An epic event.  The container came and the ship shop got restocked!!!!!!!!  After weeks of suffering, horrible neglect, and sadness we finally got some food. 

                                           Seth punching Gemma when she tried to steal his food. 

 I didn't take any of these photos.  I was hiding in my room until the roar died down, but I certainly got there in time to pick up some pringles and chocolate :)

Market

 Going to the store takes on an entirely different meaning here.  This is my third time volunteering in West Africa and I still can't get used to it.  At home you go to one store to do your shopping.  We complain about the isles and how the bread should be at the end so it doesn't get squished by everything else in your cart.  Imagine that there isn't a cart.  The streets are filled with thousands and thousands of people selling things.  Some sell out of baskets they carry on their head.  The ladies with a giant tower of eggs carefully balanced on their head, gracefully weave in and out of traffic and the crowds.  How do they do that?  Some are in wooden stalls set up on the "sidewalk"  I guess it is a sidewalk, but mostly it is broken concrete slabs that the sewer runs under, and cars still drive on it anyway.  You have to pay taxes on things you sell in a set up stall, so some simply lay the products down and pick them up when a car gets to close or when they see the police walking near.  It is amazing to walk through, but I can't imagine trying to buy anything.  Nothing is a set price.  You barter for every tube of toothpaste or live chicken that you need to buy.  Yep you read that right.  Today a lady walked by with a plastic bag containing one LIVE chicken.  Christina believes that it is her pet and I didn't have the heart to tell her that it was dinner.  Now that I think about it, we had chicken for dinner tonight so it could have been our dinner.  On one side of the street today was all different kinds of fish.  Fish.  Sitting on boxes in the open air with people calling out to us just in case we want to buy them.  Thankfully the ship shop restocked us on chocolate because if I was ever temped to snack on a fish while walking through the market I'd have to rethink my life.  The market constantly amazes me.  Once you get used to the honking horns (it is constant here) and learn to swerve around vehicles, other people walking, men pushing full carts, and avoiding the giant gaps where the concrete "sidewalk" has broken and not fall into the sewer, the market is a lot of fun.  Someday I will make a list and go to the market and do my shopping. Just in case you are wondering.... there will NOT be any live chickens on my list.  

    

T.I.A

T.I.A means This is Africa.  Almost every day someone is uttering those letters.  Last weekend I went off on an adventure with Brittney and Christina.  T.I.A started with a 4 hour wait for a taxi driver who told us he was at the gate.   4 hours sitting at the gate with security guards, police, and lots of people wondering what we were doing.  It was a great time to talk and to be able to greet the President of Sierra Leone as he entered the gate for a special ceremony.  After our taxi arrived and we set off we agreed to a price of 120,000 Leone's.  When we arrived at our destination he actually wanted $120 dollars.  T.I.A.  Then of course there is the boat ride which is really a giant canoe that surprisingly didn't require any bailing out of water, or any  failing engines.  We arrived at our destination of Banana Island Guesthouse that the website describes as the True African Castaway Experience.  All that is true.  You are in Africa.  You can't swim back to the mainland.  You are praying for your life in the canoe.  And it is, in fact, an experience.  You feel like a castaway since there is a huge menu, but you can't order anything on it since they "just ran out".  The first night that wasn't a big problem since the only thing on the menu was lobster that the man swam out and pulled out of a trap right in front of us.  The next day a fisherman pulled his boat up to shore with a giant fish and a giant barracuda and sold one to the cook at our camp.  That was dinner.  No ordering necessary since that is all they had.  I guess it solves indecisiveness.  Well, we really wanted barracuda but they said it was to big for just us 3 to eat so we had to buy the other giant fish.  They did have cold sodas.  Well, not the first day since the generator that runs the fridge ran out of fuel, but late afternoon the next day we got a cold soda.  I'll spare you the details of the really, really bad night the second night, but it was bad.  We were ready to not be castaways anymore and go back to our giant white ship.  I'll end my long story by saying that it was a true T.I.A experience, but I can't remember when I've had more fun!  I'm sure it was the company I was with more than anything and I really enjoyed hiking around the island and meeting people that live there.  Until my next adventure.  Goodbye

Eye screening

Every week for over a month I've been helping with eye screening.  This is held off ship on Monday mornings and I've been a part of the security team.  We basically go to assist with the line of patients and help answer questions and direct people where to go.  Usually I stand at the gate and smile at people as they enter.  Occasionally someone is naughty and likes to sneak in, but usually we can catch them and send them back in line since everyone else has been waiting hours to be seen.  Yesterday I was able to go out into the crowd and using a translator tell the crowd waiting the things that we are here to do.  The problem is that people line up to see what is going on, and to get help for many things that aren't eye problems.  Even when we announce what we are doing most continue to stand in line just in case.  Everyone is screened by nurses and those we can help are given cards to go see the doctor.  It is easy to imagine that we could separate those that need us and those that don't.  However, every week there is at least one that I want to run to the front of the line and help.  Last week a lady was brought inside by her son.  He sat her down in front of me on a bench and went to stand in line for her. After awhile I went over and said hello.  As I sat down she began to tell me about the first screening and how she was at the gate.  I never doubted her words because she knew exactly what had happened in detail at the gate.  After her story she laid her hand on my arm and told me "that one man even died there"  This woman had no idea that I was there or how that man has impacted my life since that day.  She also never asked me for anything.  It is sometimes hard to get to know someone simply because a lot of people just want something from you.  Not just here in West Africa but in every country.  We tend to develope relationships based on what we can gain from it.  Networking is a polite way to put it.  This woman just told me of her experience and waited patiently while hundreds of people walked in front of her to see the dr.  I believe that people are placed in our lives for a reason.  Not everyone.  It can't happen every day, every moment because it wouldn't mean the same thing, but sometimes something just speaks to you that you have to do something.  It happend a few weeks ago to me during the second screening.  A boy was told that we couldn't help him and off he went with his dad.  The entire time they screener was examining him and talking I wanted to cut in and beg her to let them through.  The reason that he was turned away was valid, and most likely there wasn't anything that we could have helped with, but I've thought of him often.  There isn't a dramatic ending to my story with the lady from eye screening.  She waited her turn and was given a card to see the dr.  While she waited though she told her son all about me and when she crossed over to stand in the line waiting to see the doctor she patted me on the butt to show me her card.  Ignoring the patting my butt part I was very glad to see her with a white card.  Since it is hot in line and there is no place to sit, we wanted to move this lady forward in line.  Around the corner was a place to sit comfortably while she waited so we moved her forward.  A few others also wanted to help her after hearing me telling her story, and no one else in line seemed to mind this older woman moving forward.  Usually I like to follow the rules and keep things fair, but like I said, every once in awhile you have to do something.  There is no ending for this story.  If we were able to help her she was given a card to come to the ship at the begining of May for surgery.  If she didin't need help she wasn't given a card to come to the ship.  I wasn't able to stay the whole day and have no idea the outcome of her visit with the dr.  She knows my name and knows to ask for me if she comes to the ship. I'm sure everyone is wondering why I just told an extremly long story without a real ending, but hopefully in a month we'll have an ending.  I'll let you know :)

Freetown, Sierra Leone

When we first arrived in Freetown I wasn't able to put pictures on my blog.  For those people that aren't on facebook I wanted to add some of my favorite pictures that i've taken since arriving here.  Freetown, Sierra Leone is an interesting place that I'm still trying to figure out.  Some places you can see the level of development before the war, and in also see the shacks and bad living conditions.