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.