Something that I may never get used to here is having people leave as quickly as they come in. We are saying goodbye to my roommate Giselle (future doctor from Argentina) this week and also to my coworker Wolke (Actress from Germany). [These are just two. Tomorrow there are at least 9 leaving and 15 or so coming in on Sunday.] I will miss Giselle's sweet smile and Wolke's laughter and demonstrations on how to exercise on our hospitality desk haha. I've got one roommate leaving and two more have just come in in the last two days. Our cabin has one spot left and will be full for a few months. Everyone is basically new here so everyone makes friends quickly. This last weekend some of us went to the beach to celebrate Giselle's time here and it was my first time to really get off the ship and go out into town. (The only other time I went off before that was to see all the fish that the fishermen next to us brought in..huuuuggee fish, stingrays, eels and jumbo shrimp. ) Saturday night we jumped in the land rovers and drove to the beach and had a bonfire and danced and sang and some of the guys brought guitars and a djembe drumb and sang worship songs in English and French?..I'm not quite sure haha. The locals would stop by every so often and hang around to see what we were doing. It was a great way to worship, say goodbye to Giselle and pray over her next season of life back home. So much fun. I was helping Giselle pack last night and her luggage had to be less than 24 kilos for the airline and was slightly over so she was weeding things out. She handed me a skirt, and also some medicine saying in her Spanish accent, "here you can think of me when you get the diarrhea." Oh how I will miss her.
This bench is an old bench from one of the previous ships called the Anastasis. This is my favorite place on the ship because every patient sits here and is prayed over before they go into their surgery. Most of these patients haven't been to the doctor's office, hospital, or a ship like this. Some have never seen a white person. They have to walk up over 40 steps to come onto the ship and then through reception to come back down more stairs to get into the hospital before going to their hospital room.The whole experience can be a bit overwhelming and a lot to take in all at once. This bench, to me, brings comfort, and being prayed over let's them know of God's love and protection over their lives as they go into surgery and is a reminder why mercy ships does what it does, and all the wonderful work/restoration/healing that's come through here.
On Sundays we can go to local churches in the mornings, the ward service, or an informal service Sunday evenings depending on when you're available. I went to the ward service this past Sunday and was able to worship with all of the surgery patients on board. I went down to the hospital and was able to sit among the patients with their casts, tubes, and bandages and hear a message both in English and French and listen to wonderful music all in French. They may be in bandages but boy can they really get with it and dance! It was so great to see the life in that small room packed with people. It was more of a traditional African, loud, wonderful service full of dancing, clapping, and singing their hearts out to our great God. There are so many beautiful small moments on this ship that I just want to really take in and keep in my memory forever. That was one of them. They know the reason mercy ships is here is because of Jesus' love and I believe that's the most important thing.
When we embark new crew and give them a tour we take them all over the ship including the hospital down below. My favorite part of the tour is this simple bench that sits next to the Operating room entrance.
On a completely different note, part of my job is baking for the new crew and guests. We have a whole book of recipes and the ones I've tried and tweaked so far have turned out great. I tried out a new recipe called Congo bars someone before me left in the book. I went with two of my roomates to the kitchen we were storing it in, pulled it out and cut the bars up to taste test them to see if they were edible for the business meeting coming up. I wasn't sure what they were supposd to be like since I've never made them and there was no picture. One of the guys from the galley came in to see what we were doing and I asked him to try it for me. He started eating it and held his throat and looked like he really needed some water to choke it down. I was laughing so hard I was in pain. I've never had someone reacting to my baking in that way before. He then proceeded to tell us it was like eating really great tasting sand. The oven I used is much hotter than the ones I'm used to using so maybe next time I won't cook it as long. We decided they would be really great with coffee and we don't waste food here...So we renamed them Congo biscotti.
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