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!