So as per usual time has run away with me so my good intentions of doing several blogs have gone down the pan! It is so difficult to sum up in words all that I experienced over this time. All the emotions, seeing people at their best and worst and working through the exhaustion each day with (hopefully) a smile on my face were hurdles to be jumped. Our team drew closer together as a family and I was totally blessed and supported during this time by people willing to both laugh and cry with me. It was amazing to begin to form lasting relationships with those whom I know will be around to support me over the next few months and to move on to the ship with a family who have seen me at my best and my worst!
The second challenge was our room. We arrived to find that the air conditioning promised was not working. So followed a week of sleeping without fan, moving from bed, to mattress on floor to just floor with a sheet in an attempt to stay cool. We were finally moved to a different room with a/c only for the plug socket to start overheating and become unusable! Finally we were provided with a large fan which proved very effective and a total relief! But our room dramas were not over - then Malcolm appeared. Malcolm was our rodent friend of unidentified origin (small rat/large mouse?). Trouble was he never stuck around long enough for us to get a good look. He made a nice snack of my roommates granola bars before he was discovered. Problem was once the food source was removed he continued to come and visit us, accessing our room through a very large hole in our bathroom wall (and through the slats in the door, once when I was on the toilet). Bizarrely he became a bit of a fixture in our room. Its funny what you can start to normalise!
After working for all that time I think that I have discovered my new calling - as an electrician. Wiring plugs is strangely therapeutic! Some of the jobs I was involved in:
Our first challenge was our hostel. My first experience of living on land in Africa made me appreciate all that we have on the ship. I thought that the ship was noisy - how very wrong I was. On one side our windows looked straight out onto the national stadium in which there were regular football matches, gatherings and general playing of loud music. On the other side a meeting hall attached to the hostel which was the venue for many late night (one all night) parties and a 3 day Pentecostal praise and worship conference!
The Stadium
View from the hostel windows
View to the sea from the hostel
The cemetery (very common in Freetown) viewed from the hostel
Our luxurious room
The bathroom with Malcolm's hole (he was not that big)
Each day we would leave the hostel early, cram into the poda-podas (below is the interior, you can fit 4 people in each row with 4 rows and 3 in the front, that's 19 people!) and travel through the busy streets (more on the traffic in a future blog) to the hospitality centre.
Riding in the poda-poda
The Hospitality Centre is a building at the entrance to the port where patients who live too far away from the ship to travel will stay both pre and post operatively. The building also includes the dental clinic. Last year in Togo the centre was a good 20 mins drive from the port if traffic was good so this year it is a huge blessing to have it within walking distance with a view of the ship from the balcony. The building is also right on the ocean so has great views and a good breeze.
The patient entrance
Looking over the port to the ship
Looking to the centre of Freetown
Our job as a Gateway group was to build and paint wooden framed walls to make 3 wards, re-wire the electrics and make mosquito net frames for all the windows. Here's what it looked like:
Before,
During,
And after
Cutting and marking tracking for wiring the electrics
Building frames for mosquito nets
Drilling holes for the wooden frames to make wall panels
Some of us also went to a local hospital to clean and repaint the rooms that will be used for the ship's eye clinics. These rooms have been used to house patients overnight from up country so were in a bit of a state (unmentionable bathrooms though sadly I don't have a photo!). However after 2 days of hard (and very sweaty) work in the airless rooms we left them in a much better state!
Mopped and painted
Can you see the area still to be mopped?!
It was surprisingly satisfying to finish our work at the end, stand back and see all that had been accomplished in such a short space of time. I definitely learned patience and to be joyful in so many situations that could have turned out much worse. We really grew closer to God as a team at this time, realising that we could not face all the challenges on our own. And that I think is the most important lesson that has been drummed into me time and time again that whatever the situation, however it seems at the time, give it to God and wonderful things will come from it.
Proverbs 3: 5-6 Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.
(Many of the pictures in this blog are courtesy of Liz Cantu, photographer extraordinaire. Thank you Liz!)
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