Sunday Afternoon Guests

On Sunday afternoons, the crew members of the AFM are allowed to have Sierra Leonian guests on board the ship. Last Sunday was the last available day to have personal guests to visit during this field service, so the ship was very chaotic because everyone had their friends on the ship. My friend Vince and I had our friend Fatmata (Effie) and her sister, Aminata (Amie), on the ship to visit us. They arrived to the ship around 4:30 and we were able to give them a tour. However, we are relatively limited in where we can take guests on the ship, so we were only able to show them around decks 5, 6 and 7. Deck 5 consists of the dining room, the reception area, the Starbucks cafe, the ship shop, the library and some guest cabins and family cabins. Deck 6 has the academy, the laundry room, the crew galley, the International Lounge (which is a big meeting room for Sunday evening church services, Thursday evening community services, etc.), and the galley. Normally guests are not allowed in the galley but as we were standing in the International Lounge the food services manager came out and offered to show our guests around, which was really exciting for them. (He also gave us fresh bread, which was really exciting too-- Not just for them, but for us as well.) The only portion of deck 7 we showed them was the outside, but they were very happy about it because they had never been on a boat before, so it was scary and exciting at the same time. After we gave our guests a tour of the ship, we had dinner with them. I think dinner was probably the highlight of their time on the ship because the dinner lines are all self serve and they were able to have as much or as little as they want, which is rare for West Africans. During dinner a few crew members came over and greeted our guests and the chief engineer came over and gave each one of them candy! It was so amazing to see how welcoming everyone was to our guests, even though they did not know them personally, and there were many other visitors around. Fatmata and Aminata left around 6 to go back to their village.
Later that evening, I was invited by my coworker to go to a Philippine ship docked a few ships down. A group of 7 of us went over to have dinner, and the food was SO good. Real juice and real citrus were such treats! The ship we visited is a container ship and the crew consists of about 25 men, mostly from the Philippines except for one German man and one Russian man. After we ate dinner the men whipped out a karaoke machine and went to town on it. Apparently karaoke is one of their favorite things to do! James, my coworker, was so excited to be able to belt it out... It was like watching a little kid on Christmas day. I got a tour of the engine room a little later with two of the people I came with which was cool, but very, very hot. All in all, it was a cool little trip. The men were extremely hospitable, and it was fun to see a different kind of ship than the one I live on.

Effie and her sister's baby girl

Effie, Amie and the little ones.

My guests and I

James singing Karaoke on the Philippine ship

Fabric Street & Craft Market

The new Gateway group got here about a week and a half ago, bringing two new receptionists with them. Our team is losing one member but also gaining two. In addition to Tori, James, Michelle and myself, we now have Sara and Jim, both from Florida. Since there are now 6 receptionists, one us has to be the day shift worker, and our boss chose me! This means that I now only work 8:30-5:30 Monday through Friday, with every weekend off. I’m so happy that I get to work this shift now because even though it feel like a longer day, I don’t have to adjust my sleeping schedule every two weeks for night shift, and I get weekends off! This weekend is a ship holiday. We get one ship holiday a month, which means a 3-day weekend. This is because the ship has so many nationalities on it that we can’t possible celebrate every single holiday from every single country, so every once in a while we get a long weekend.

Today is the first day of our ship holiday, so with my day off I went to the fabric street and the craft market. I went to the fabric street earlier this week with fabric I had already purchased and my local friend took me to his brother, who is a tailor. Today I picked up my new skirt and dress made with African fabric. This fabric street is basically a long stretch where all the stands around sell beautiful and colorful fabric.

After picking up my new clothing and looking around, my friends and I went to get shawarmas on the street. They are put on a tortilla and have lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, street meat, chips (fries), some spice, and some sort of sauce. I never really like spicy food before I came but this is delicious. Even though my mouth feels like it’s on fire when I eat, it’s so worth it; especially with a cold bottle of coke from a stand down the street. When buying something with meat though, you always want to make sure you see them cooking it in front of you. If not, you never know how long it’s been sitting out and how many bugs have touched it. I tend to never ask what sort of meat I’m eating because I’m not sure I necessarily want to know the answer. I know friends who have eaten rat and dog, and I just don’t want to know if that is the case. I’m pretty sure the meat I had today was goat, which is all right with me.

After taking a lunch break, we trekked on to the craft market, which is basically a flea market. Walking through the craft market can be a little stressful because everyone grabs you and wants you to look at what they have. The craft market is in a big building with two levels. On the first level they tend to have wooden figurines, straw hats, and more carving sort of things. They also sell necklaces and bracelets made out of typical African beads, and coins and shells. The upstairs of the building has more jewelry, shoes, purses, and fabrics. My bargaining skills have definitely improved after taking a few trips there. Today my friends and I brought one of the Sierra Leonean day workers from the ship with us, in the hopes that he could help us with the prices, but he mostly just watched.

On another note, the pier the ship is located is gated and guarded by Sierra Leonean men and women. I always enjoy have a conversation with the guards, who are so friendly and always willing to help.

Sahr and Abu, two of the guards

Traffic Rules Don't Apply

If there’s one place in the world that normal traffic rules don’t apply, it is definitely West Africa. In Sierra Leone there are a few different transportation options available for Mercy Shippers.

First, there are of course the ship vehicles. The ship has a collection of Land Rovers that crew members are permitted to take out for 8 hours maximum. Unfortunately, all of the cars are stick shift, which is definitely not my forte. I am not a driver but a few of my friends are and it’s always exciting to be able to take out a car without going through the trouble of flagging down a driver on the street.

Another option is taking a taxi. While taxis are a normal thing to take in the States, the cars here all have a unique twist to them. I have yet to be in a taxi with air conditioning, which leads me to believe that none of them have that special feature. The windows in the taxis are typically a crank window, but most of the drivers take the crank off because people tend to steal them. Therefore, if you want to roll the window up or down (and trust me—after sitting in a sweaty car for 30 seconds, you will want it down), you have to ask the driver for the crank so you can stick it on the little metal piece and roll down the window. Once I rode in a taxi that actually had automatic windows! That was really exciting. Depending on where you’re going, Taxis can be as low as 1,000 leones per person or up to 40,000 per person, even higher if you’re going a long distance. (4,200 leones are equivalent to $1.)

In my opinion, the worst way to travel is in a podo podo. Podo podo’s are basically large vans/mini buses. Typically, they try to cram as many people as possible into a podo podo. Inside the van, there are about 4 metal benches, which lead to sore bottoms and cramped legs. Every row, except the last one, has a slide out seat so that people can actually get to the back. Podo podo’s are the cheapest way to travel. I have never paid more than 5,000 leones for about an hour drive.

My favorite way to travel is on the back of an acada. Acadas are basically small motorcycles and they are so much fun to ride on! Even though most of the acada drivers only carry helmets for themselves and don’t necessarily have their license, they are some of the best drivers I have ever seen. They dodge in and out of traffic with such ease and talent; it’s amazing! Acadas are usually around the same price as taxis, maybe a little cheaper.

Of course, with all of the modes of transportation, it takes major bargaining to get a decent price. Typically walking away once and telling them you’ll find another driver always gets them to call you back and give you the requested price. Yesterday I went to a restaurant with my friend Jillian and I bargained for a very good price. While on the acada, the driver told me I know Sierra Leonean money too well because I knew what price to pay. It’s amazing how much the drivers can overcharge us Mercy Shippers if we don’t know what the real price to pay is.

Driving anywhere, no matter if I take a ship vehicle, taxi, podo podo or acada, is always an adventure. No matter where I go, there is always a LOT of honking going on, even if there is no one in the way. Driving in a market is crazy because there are cars going both directions on both sides of the street, people pushing carts through the street as if they are a car, people walking everywhere, and acadas weaving through traffics and nearly knocking people and carts over! One of the culture shocks I’m expecting to experience when coming back to the States is the resist to honk my horn everywhere I go, because it’s the norm here.

Most of the taxis and podo podos have their vehicles filled with stuffed animals and other sorts of accessories stacked in the front and back of the car and hanging from the rear view mirror. It’s interesting because most everything has some sort of religious writing. There will be vans with “Trust the LORD” or “God is the only way” and many other things written on it. The Madonna sticker is also a big hit here. It seems about 50% of the cars have a sticker of Madonna on the front or back that has her blowing a kiss with her name on it. Can you say Christmas gifts?!

One of my craziest driving experiences was one night when I was going to the beach with a few friends. After getting out of the city area the roads are relatively clear and straight. This particular night, though, it happened to rain as it was getting dark. It turns out that our driver didn’t have any headlights so he used his emergency blinkers while we drove through the dark and pouring rain, straining our eyes to see the turn we needed to take. 

It's not uncommon for animals to be piled in the podo podo with us.

Virtual Tour

I recently put some photos on facebook to give a glimpse into what my home, The Africa Mercy, looks like.  To give a better idea, here is a virtual tour of the ship.  (Confession: I myself have not seen this so I don't know how it is!  The internet restrictions on the ship don't allow me to view it...)  So enjoy!
Click here to see the 360 virtual tour.
Click here to see my facebook photos of the ship.

Sierra Leone thus far

It’s crazy to think that I’ve already been in Sierra Leone for over two months!  So much has happened, including the outreach portion of Gateway, and living on the ship since July 29 and all that goes with it.

Getting There

I left Texas on July 14 and spent almost two full days traveling to get to Sierra Leone.  The flight process was very stressful because of some drama with American Airlines, not my favorite way to fly.  Apparently they were only going to allow us to check one bag, which resulted in much panic on our part because we each had two bags, and about five large containers of stuff we planned to use for our outreach.  After a long 15 minutes of heated discussion, we talked the employees attending to us into letting us each bring our two bags without extra charge.  My bags were both slightly over 50 pounds, but they let that slide, thankfully.

Gateway Outreach

The first two weeks in Sierra Leone (Salone to the locals) was spent doing a field service in a village called Yams Farm.  Our group of about 25 was split into two and half of us worked with the children in the village doing a vacation Bible school, while the other half worked on a latrine building project in the village.  The reason we chose this village to work with is because the act of building the latrines was pre-meditated by the villagers.  We wanted to work with people who were clearly already taking the initiative in something so that they wouldn’t be dependent on people like us to just give things away.  Needless to say, I wasn’t part of the construction team.  I worked in the school, which doubled as a church, with the children.  The week of VBS consisted of a daily Bible story and skit, teaching them some Christian children songs, having them teach us some of their songs, and playing games that we tried to have correlate with the Bible story.  The final day of VBS we did an obstacle course for all the children age 10-15.  The course consisted of different stations, including a math stations for basic multiplication, a Bible verse station, a football station where they each had to kick a goal, and more activities along those lines.  When each group finished the course they got prizes, such as animal balloons, crayons, and more crafty type objects. We were trying to teach the children that they have to work for what they receive.  We didn’t want to simply hand them toys.  The second week of outreach, the group who had done the VBS moved to the Kissy Eye Clinic to scrape off an old coat of paint and give it a fresh coat, which was a process that took up a couple of days.  
I’m so thankful I was able to do the Gateway portion of Mercy Ships.  It was such a valuable, enriching experience and taught our group some valuable lessons.  Life moves so fast on the ship that sometimes it’s easy to forget the beautiful country we’re in.  The outreach portion of Gateway actually allowed us to slow down for two weeks and experience what life is really like in this country, and also gave us the opportunity to build relationships with the beautiful people in Yams Farm.  In fact, we are still in contact with Pastor Mark, the principal of the school and pastor of the church we worked with in Yams Farm.  We are planning on having long standing relationships with these people; we have gotten involved in an orphanage project, working to raise money for the 30 orphan children in the village.

Reception

My job on the ship is to work as a receptionist, a position I’m so thankful I got!  Many times when people come to the ship they think they’re coming to do one job, but end up getting bumped to a department that needs them more, such as housekeeping.  Needless to say, I’m so happy I didn’t get bumped from reception to cleaning the ship.  Reception is a job with shift work, a morning shift (0700 to 1400), evening shift, (1400 to 2100) and night shift (2100 to 0700).  They make the schedule so that they have us do the same shift in a row for three or four days, give us a few days off, and then have us work the next shift in line.  We work four days a week and get three days off.  Unfortunately, the job has to be a 24-hour job because the fire panel, the 911 phone, and other emergency situations get sent to reception first. 

I love my reception team.  I have two bosses, Tim from Australia and Murray from South Africa, holding the positions of purser and assistant purser.  I have five coworkers: Tori from California (who did Gateway with me), Michelle from Maryland, Heather from Colorado and James from Benin. The thing about reception is that even when you’re not working, you tend to gravitate toward the desk to chat with whoever is on duty, which I love.  It’s a great group of people to work with, and we all get along very well. 

The tasks to be done during reception vary depending on the shift being worked.  Morning shift is normally the busiest part of the day, usually consisting of answering phones, emails and crazy questions the crew members come up with, updating the noticeboard, etc.  Evening shift is a little less hectic, usually only consisting of answering and transferring calls.  Every binder with every bit of information imaginable is stored at the reception desk, so it’s basically our job to know everything.  Another important task that happens during day shift is disembarking people.  This means that they hand us their key, we punch a hole in their badge, have them sign the ship articles, and update the key log and phone list.  Disembarkations are always a little hectic because everyone is at reception either leaving or saying goodbye to their friends who are leaving.  Reception needs to be kept generally quiet because of the phones, fire panel, etc.  so we get the lovely task of dinging a little bell if the crowd is too noisy.  Everyone knows about the bell though, so usually if you just set it on top of the desk people will quiet down because they know it’s about to be rung.  Going along with disembarkations are the embarkations.  People usually arrive during the night shift, 2100 and on, but occasionally they will arrive during the evening shift.  Embarking crew members includes taking their photo for their badge, informing them of procedures in case of emergency, updating muster lists, and paperwork with emergency contact information.  The other night shift duties are laminating, printing phone lists, updating car boards, and other menial tasks.  However, we are permitted to have our computers with us during night shift so we can watch movies, listen to music, or do whatever else.  After 2300 we are permitted to have one guest behind the desk who is not fire panel trained.  Reception is a very relaxed job.  Often there’s not much to do so I spend my time behind the desk playing solitaire, reading, making friendships bracelets and other things to pass the time.  It’s a great place to work though.

Ship Life

The ship is such an interesting environment to live in.  The crew consists of about 450 people, including all ages and 31 nationalities (I know that because I update the noticeboard slide weekly as a part of my job.  I was place in the 10-berth living space, meaning I have 9 roommates max, but the room is not always full.  The turnover rate on the ship is huge so there are always people coming and going.  I’ve only been on the ship for a little over two months, but I’ve already had 17 roommates.  I recently became the senior member in the 10-berth, seeing as I have now been here the longest.  Even though I’ve been here longer than everyone else, I’m still the youngest.  My room is actually rather spacious for holding so many people.  There are five cubicle areas, each with a bunk bed and two closets.  Some include a desk and some include drawers.  In the back of the room we have a living space with a couch.  Our room has two windows, which are rare and valuable commodities.  We also have two bathrooms, another lucky strike!

The ship has been blessed with a Starbucks café and snack line, which are open in the evening times and during the week they are open in the morning and afternoon.  There is also a ship shop that sells snacks, toiletries, African jewelry and figurines, and anything else we might need.  I’m not as deprived from American snacks as I thought I would be.  The ship does a pretty good job keeping the shelves stocked with an abundance of treats.

All for now!  More to come soon, I promise ;)

(I didn't add any pictures to this post because it would have been too hard to summarize 3 months into 3 pictures-- sorry!  I will try to coordinate pictures to my blog posts in the future.)

General Texan goings-on

Unfortunately not a lot has been going on during the past few weeks.  Basically we have class from 8am-4 or 5pm with a few snack breaks and a lunch break in between.  Two weeks ago was our BST week and we did all sorts of fun stuff like CPR, fire fighting, and a swimming practical in a very public pool where we got many stares because of our ridiculous red gumby outfits.

Fire fighting practical

A break for a very needed snack

Those in charge try to get us out and about on the weekends, although our resources are limited.  We got to go to Tyler on one Saturday where I got my third and final rabies shot and I went to the mall (first time shopping in I don't know how long!), which was very enjoyable.  My roommate, Amy, had her parents visit that weekend and the following week.  After church on one Sunday they treated Amy, Jillian (my two roomies), and myself to lunch and a trip to the Tyler zoo.  After another long week of classes, the following weekend I got to go out with a few girls to a club called the "Electric Cowboy" which played a compilation of country and hip-hop music, very interesting combination.

The Electric Cowboy dance floor

We still had to go to class on July 4, unfortunately, but we spent the evening at Father's Heart, a home for single pregnant girls and women.  Every year they do a fundraiser.  It was fun, but not the same as the usual Fairfax City celebration which I missed!

Fourth of July fireworks

Graduation, etc.

Relaxing salt water pool

Eating watermelon at the pool

My graduation celebration!

This past week was the first official week of Gateway training, starting with orientation on Saturday and Sunday.  It's like being in school again, which is unfortunate because I thought I just finished school.  Class starts at 8am every morning and ends at 5pm for dinner, with an hour for lunch in between.  They feed us well and often here, although the food isn't great.  Just preparing me for college dining I suppose!  There's a lot of information crammed into each class session so I think my brain is sort of on overload at this point.  Days are long and exhausting and I'm finding it harder to wake up every morning!
On Wednesday evening some girls all got to spend sometime at a leader's house in her awesome salt water pool!  It was so relaxing a nice break.
Every Thursday is the weekly trip to Walmart, which I'm finding is very needed!  I never once in my life thought I would be remotely excited to go to such a place, but I have noticed that there's a lot of little things I need or miss having so it was nice to pick some stuff up this past Thursday.
Thursday, the 16th, was FHS graduation back home and I wasn't able to be there for that, so on Friday everyone surprised me with a celebration!  I walked into class and there were balloons pinned to the whiteboard and on the walls and pillars, a "congratulations" banner hanging from the whiteboard, and roses, a certificate, and chocolates placed at my seat!  I was then made to stand in front of the class while a sash was placed on me.  Afterward one of the speakers had me pull my chair up to the front of the classroom and everyone gathered around and prayed for me.  It was very sweet and touching and made my day!
Yesterday night we all piled in the vans to go to a cook out at another leaders house, and that was so much fun!  It was just nice to spend time with everyone, the Gateway crew, leaders, and more in a casual environment.  While we were there I had another certificate and gifts from the leaders.  So sweet.
This morning we spent four hours at Tyler State Park to have quiet time.  It was very peaceful and the nature was beautiful.  Plans for this evening include going out to dinner (it's been so long) and a music venue with some girls.  Can't wait!