Week One Highlights

The days fly by too quickly living on this huge ship. So many told me I would have all this down time without grocery shopping and bills to pay and errands to run, but thus far, no such luck. Life here on the Africa Mercy is proceeding at an alarming rate, and I’m learning that I need to be more intentional with my time. So for now, just a quick re-cap via photos.

The Gates family has arrived! The “Gates family” is my Gateway fam - all the people with whom I spent the last month in TX, learning and growing in numerous ways. As of this week, the majority of us are here, with a few stragglers making their way in the coming months. It's so nice to have these folks around as we share the newness of ship life together. Ahhh community living - only gets better from here!

I visited the hospitality center this weekend. This is the equivalent of an out-patient clinic just down the way from the Africa Mercy dock. It houses the pre and post-op patients as the Africa Mercy hospital beds are at a premium. A mattress sits underneath each patient bed so a care giver can sleep next to the patient, and the mosquito nets are above.

Mercy Ships had a local group come in and paint fun themes above each bed space - usually fruits, animals, and such....except for this very kid-friendly hatchet! Supposedly, it was painted to chop away the sickness.

Eating ice cream. While this may not seem like quite the momentous occasion, I share this point only because as Jesse and Jamie and I are enjoying our milky desserts this past weekend the power goes out. All the employees just get up in the dark and walk downstairs, leaving us to sit and eat our ice cream in the pitch black stillness of the African ice cream shop.

As I continue on into my pistachio milkshake, the power returns. But no, just a few sweet seconds later it goes out again. Pure third world electrical goodness.

Hotel Du Lac - where many Mercy Shippers relax on their off days, was our Saturday excursion. As you can see, I unfortunately was a bit early in the group flip effort. We had a group diving board effort as well.

That's a recap of some fun tidbits from the past week.* Now, off to French class. While many of the Africans speak the local dialect (42-plus dialects in Benin alone) French is the official language of both Benin and Togo (the 2010 Mercy Ships location)…and just in - the ship will be spending the second half of 2010 in South Africa. Now, I’m really late for class. Au revoir!

*Of note, I actually am working here in Africa despite what my current blog updates may depict. More on that soon.