Well for those of you who haven't heard, I arrived safely on Sunday after a very long flight. My first experience of Togo was to have my suitcase and bag searched by a burly security guard. He proceeded to take my cardigan out of my bag and accuse me of trying to smuggle a 'cadeau' into the country without declaring it. After I managed to persuade him that I had been wearing it, he then asked me to take him back to England! It was such a relief to see my good friend Gemma and her husband Todd as I walked out of arrivals to collect me!
The ship itself is an old converted Danish ferry. It holds around 400+ crew who live on board along with the hospital, clinics and operating theatres. As you can imagine, it is very cramped with little personal space. The only way of being on your own is to sit in a corner and look engrossed in a book/whatever you are doing! My cabin (which I share with 3 others) is also about 15 steps from the office where I am based and about 15 steps in the other direction to the hospital. If I was going to work on the ship the whole time, I think I may go stir crazy!
My work role is possibly about 1000 times more challenging than I was expecting. It became apparent when I arrived that there is no set way of running my caseload, no paperwork and not many rules including being able to decide which pain killers to give to patients. As you can imagine, after the rigidity of the NHS, it is quite a daunting prospect! I am working with a non qualified volunteer, Alex and our local translator, Sylvie.
The biggest challenge that I am going to face is how to communicate with the African patients. It seems that fear is a massive stronghold here and breaking bad news is not done directly. Africans like to make positive light of everything, which is fine until you have to tackle such major life and death issues! Apparently it can take up to a day to tell someone that another person has died! The acceptable way is to chat generally first about family and build up a relationship first before tackling larger issues. Even then, it is difficult to get a straight answer! Having a translator is also a challenge as they can often change the meaning of your question or tell the patient something completely different if they don't understand or agree with what you are saying.
I didn't expect to see patients until next week but we are off to see our first tomorrow who has uncontrolled pain and needs to be seen asap. Talk about being thrown in at the deep end!Despite being so overwhelmed and feeling so under qualified, I am trusting God to do an amazing work in me. I have no alternative at this time but to trust that he will guard and guide me. These first few weeks will be a hugely challenging time whilst I get used to the culture shock, work load and finding new friends but I am expecting to be changed as a person through Gods love and grace for me.
(P.S. Sorry for the lack of photos at the moment. It is not culturally appropriate to take photos of people until you have built up a relationship with them, so it may be a while before any of people appear. I will try and get some of the ship on asap)
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