Sierra Leone

Well, I'm here!
My camera is full, and believe me I have found no time to take download those pictures so I can take more, so you'll have to live without for a bit.

Anyways, it is absolutely beautiful here. The city of Freetown is basically crowned by mountains and water. People have built their houses all the way up the mountain, and the two are so close together, that we can see the individual lights of the houses up the mountains. I haven't been here long to gain a general outlook on what the people are like, and what the atmosphere is like here. I took one walk from the port to one of our houses, which took five minutes. Still the walk was somewhat adventurous, considering how friendly people are here. Everybody stopped to say hello and ask how we were. There are little shanty shops all the way up the road but people aren't grabby about getting customers just a friendly hopefulness.
I think I'm glad we are here.

Work itself has been a tiring, long process. I can't complain. Most of the time we have little work in comparison with everybody else. Still, work has been non stop busy. On monday I must have worked for twelve hours all together and stayed up till one am embarking thirty new crew members. The next day was quite the challenge. Its been good though. I feel useful, and like I know something. Just tired. God is good though, and he has provided the strength I've needed.

Well, I hope all is well. Don't forget about us here in Sierra Leone.
Thanks,
Heather

@ Sea

Once again we are sailing. This will be my... let's see... my fourth and last time sailing. That is a somewhat depressing thought. In August I am planning on leaving (unless God says differently) for home, making a few detours to Swaziland and Europe along the way. Yes, it's six months from now and I'm already starting to think about it. Humph. That's probably not a good thing

Ok, so sailing. Its been fairly relaxing. Sailing is the period of time that I have more days off reception than on. I also don't feel as obligated, as its my fourth time, to do all those things one does while sailing (going to the bow, looking at the stars from deck eight, sleeping on deck eight), which is also nice. That is not to say that I am not keeping busy in my own way. As those who know me, already know (bad sentence structure there but oh well), I want to be a writer, so I've been studying on that. I've been reading a book called Self editing for fiction writers and taking notes. Its a good book. I've also started a blog up on my life as a newbie writer (as a sort of advertisement: http://insignificantwriter.blogspot.com).

Yesterday was busy in the fun department. One of my good friends on board just had a big birthday, so I attended her potluck lunch (had really good chocolate cake). Happy Birthday to Kathy!! One of the families on board had an open cabin (there are no houses so its kind of like an open house) and I hung out with them (popcorn). For dinner we had cake once again, as one of the babies on board turned one. Happy Birthday Lily! Yes I know this is getting listy (no, that is not a word). We then had worship on the bow (the bow is the most forward part of the ship and in this case is outside with the waves - think Titanic), which is always amazing. I love having worship in the middle of nature with the sun setting and the water splashing - purely magnificent. The last mass crew event was sock golf. Now, I'm a nerd when it comes to any type of sporty event, which means I'm terrible, even at sock golf (sad, very sad). Ok, so explanation: think Frisbee golf except with socks rolled up and on a tipsy ship. Hah! Oh well it was fun anyways... that is until I got annoyed with myself.
Ah well it all rolled up and got sleepy when my normal group of friends (they call themselves the nerd herd for some strange reason) and I watched Eureka in one of the family on board's cabin. Its something we do almost every day, and is a good way to take a breather before the end of the day - watch a few television episodes than go to bed. After this horrendously long day (started at twelve pm but don't tell anybody), I curled up in my bed, finished my book, read a bit of my Bible, and fell asleep. All in all, it was a good day.

Ok so yesterday was busy in the fun department, but that isn't to say I haven't been working, wasting my father's valuable money (he's supporting me). When I have been working, works been a lot. We have badges to do, packets for the forty some odd arrivals boarding when we get to Sierra Leone to make up, emails to answer, questions to direct, phone calls to answer, notice board stuff, and a host of other piddly but time consuming and much needed stuff to do.

In all, after my bout of not bearing the seas to well (not quite sickness but discomfort for sure) I have had a nice sail. Hope your having a nice week too.

God bless
Heather Out.

Cape Town

There are some days where I feel extremely blessed. After a three day journey, the Africa Mercy docked in Cape Town for twenty-four hours. Cape Town is a beautiful city, being enfolded by large, oddly shaped mountains, and the crystal sea, but that is not why I felt so blessed. A good friend of mine is from Cape Town, and is at the moment going to school there. She picked me up from the ship, and we went to her house where her family was having a get together. The family immediately incorporated me into the group, and made me feel at home. Even though my friend had to go to band practice at church, they chatted with me, and hung out, though I was a completely new entity in their environment. I went to church with them, talked with them, and later after church, had junk food with them. Its strange how nice junk food can taste after being on a ship where the meals are made from scratch most of the time. I went to bed at their house, comfortable and welcome.
The next day, I was dropped off at the ship at around nine am, and I got to do more the touristy thing. We road a bus where we put on earplugs to hear the automated tour guide, and heard about the history of the city. Cape Town, for being so young, has a lot of history. A lot of it is racial problems, but it does seem that they are repenting from that scar. It is a beautiful city and faintly reminds one of California. The rest of the day, we went up the mountain in a cable car (I'm not a hiker), ate schwarma, and went to a bookstore. So, maybe I didn't get to wander the streets, but still it was memorable. Its always the little blessings that seem to stay the longest.

Pool and Other Important Matters

Guess what! We now have a pool. Yes that's right, they filled it up with clorinated water and I have swam in it three times! So my griping about it is over.
In other news, we are hoping, praying, and crossing our fingers, that we will leave tomorrow, and get to Cape Town in a few days time. That is even more exciting than the pool as I have friends down there who I hope to see again.
The plan is to only be in Cape Town for one day then to set sail for Sierra Leonne. The next part of our sea voyage will be the interesting part, as I'm sure you can imagine. We are to cross through the cape of storms. That's what the sailers named it. Hah! Well last time God protected us, and I trust he will do so again. Still, pray for us and our journey. Still, I'm excited. The crew happen to be very good at keeping themselves entertained during a voyage. There are numerous games, movies, and other various entertainment to keep oneself busy, not to mention the marine life that occasionally pops up to say hi as we sail the Atlantic.
Yep, I'm excited.

The Sound of Children

Once again, there is the sound of children's laughter. I didn't really know I missed it until I heard it again. Two things are back on the ship: the crew who went to Appelsbosch and air conditioning. The air conditioning I had realized I'd missed. It's hard not to when one wakes up to the puddle of one's own sweat in the morning. The thing about ships is that they are metal, and being so they tend to radiate heat. I tended to go outside just to cool off. But now we have both the crew and the air conditioning and I don't really know which I'm more happy about.
It's nice having my little friends come up to me just to say hi, or be pounced by one of the teenagers on board. The ship has about fifty kids on board, ranging from six months to eighteen. During shipyard faze we did have little Lily, who was too young to trip over wiring, or go where she'd get hurt, so stayed and became our mascot. Still, there were no other children. Yep I'm glad they are back.
Actually things are beginning to regulate once more. The academy is back on board, the ship shop is starting, if not now, than soon, the reception is at full steam ahead, and the hospital is slowly becoming spotless once again. I just ran into a few people hard at work getting black marks off the hospital floor. Home is becoming normal again.
I like that.

Reception again!

As I sit here, on the first night shift reception has had in months, I had the epiphany that I it has been a while. Do to setbacks in the engine room, we are still in Durban, and most of the crew is still in Appelsbosch, a place about an hour and a half from here. At the moment it is beautiful, with just enough of a breeze to make me slightly sleepy and the lights from the harbor glancing oddly off the water. There is something very beautiful about a harbor at night time.
We have become a bit of a tourist attraction, we and our boxy hospital ship. During the day and certain times in the evening, tour boats chug slowly through the harbor as they tell their human cargo about the different sights around the port. We happen to be one of them. It is fun to wave and see how many participate and wave back. I am sure I am on a few cameras by now. How is that about getting famous?
At the beginning of the field service, before I went home to see my family for two months (Jessica was beautiful in her wedding gown), I left reception to work as a steward. What did this envolve? Well, every morning we had a meeting in the psudo auditorium on sixth deck, the international lounge as we call it, at seven thirty. After a half hour of singing much rowdier tunes than we like in the morning and getting the daily update, I go down to the fifth deck for yet another meeting, and the day starts. For a few hours we cleaned the ship. At normal times at field service there is usually about four or five people (not sure here) who clean the ship top to bottom for eight hours every day. As there was only four of us working for a couple hours on a good day, we only got the most necessary places cleaned. There was an amazing amount of dust build up after such things as sand blasting (using sand to get rid of paint) and needle gunning (using an interesting appliance to get rid of paint or rust or something). Still we had to get onto the next thing, which was dining room. That job pertained to setting up, mopping the floor, cleaning surfaces, and dishes for a hundred crew. It’s larger than you would think. I’ve known two people who have done dining room their whole time in field service and I respect them greatly. Sufficient to say I think I lost weight by all this extra exercise.
Thankfully, I am back in reception. Reception is a lot of work, but it tends to be all at once with quiet moments in between. I have moments of being overworked with the huge desire to go to the bathroom, when I can’t leave the reception desk, to moments of extreme relaxation writing. I like it that way. At the moment I’m on night shift talking to you. We are hoping to be setting sail too. Next stop… Sierra Leone!

Hard Work!

Because of my kicking and screaming tendencies in writing a blog, I did create a blog which was about the Africa Mercy but with a sci-fi twist. I was thinking, maybe that would cut it and I'd get my need to use my imagination more at the same time. Then I realized, some people would rather the real thing with the real updates, so I suppose here I go. :)
We are currently docked in Durban, South Africa. Because of the need for generators - having to do with too much noise being created by the old ones to operate in the operating room - we are in dry dock. This means the ship is currently sitting on blocks of wood and men are moving under it, beside it, and over it, twenty-four hours a day. We now have a huge hole in the side of our ship.

As for me, well there are about ninety people on board of which eighty percent are men. This is new considering its usually the exact opposite with a crew of four-hundred people. The ship, these days is very quiet in the sense of there is no engine sounds to create white noise and less people talking. Then again, it is very loud with the noise of machines everywhere. The other day I had to wear ear plugs in the dining room because they were ripping the stairs apart leading to the galley. Huh.
It is funny how God can and will answer our prayers. I was complaining, as you know from the previous blog, that I was not useful enough. Yah never say that to God. First, God has a sense of humor. It's a wonderful great thing that makes me happy, except when He uses it against me! I am now working as a housekeeper/hospitality/dining room attendant. Every other week I work for seven days straight! This is actually not as terrible as it sounds, because while God gave me a job where I work a lot, he also gave me the strength to deal with it. Plus! I'm getting muscles. Seriously, I can lift heavier things now. He also gave me several friends to fellowship and relax with after hours. Lourens Lessing has been a great friend, and gets me off the ship more than I would otherwise. Annie I can talk to and watch movies with, and Gabriella is great for a laugh and chatting with. How good God is in providing exactly what we need. Its also nice being around so many conveniences like supermarkets again.
anyways, God bless
Heather