I love sitting out on deck 8

And here's why.

(Deck = a "floor" on a ship. You should know this by now. And if you don't, shame on you for your nautical-term ignorance.)

Deck eight is the highest deck on the Africa Mercy, and it's a nice place to get some fresh air (ie, non air-conditioned, already-breathed-in-by-400-other-people air). Because you're pretty high up, you get some spectacular views-- of sunsets, of the ocean and the coastline, of the other ships docked in the port area, of dockworkers who are up late at night still loading cargo into their own ships. I've noticed that the sun goes down quite quickly here; once in awhile you'll see a sunset, but you really have to be on the lookout, or else you'll miss it for the day. This particular sunset literally lasted for just 2 minutes. I went around to grab my things, and when I turned back around- poof, it was dark. Just like that. It's really beautiful though, isn't it? Totally worth the five mosquito bites that I got while watching it.

Hello Sunday: Cinnamon rolls... for Jesus.

I love breakfast on the ship, and it's not just because I love breakfast food. (And I do love breakfast food.) But I love breakfast here even more because I usually don’t have to serve it. When I first came to the ship, I thought I’d have to be up at the crack of dawn to make eggs and French toast and bacon and whatnot. But thankfully (very very thankfully), the dining room staff sets out things we don’t have to cook—cereals, oatmeal, rolls, etc.

On Sundays, however, we start work at 6 AM to cook a “hot” breakfast. (It's about half past eight and I just finished a breakfast shift as I'm writing this, in fact.) Usually it’s just eggs and some kind of meat (bacon, corned beef hash, sausages), but a couple of weekends ago, we decided to do cinnamon rolls as well, as a nice extra for the crew. Cinnamon rolls take a fair amount of prep work, and obviously they have to have time to bake, so we started the night before. Steph made the dough and filling, and some of the 8/10 berth girls were amazing enough to spend their Saturday night making over 600 cinnamon rolls with us. (Thanks Bethany for all the pictures.)

(above) Rachael & Aimee

(below) Bethany / me, Stephanie, and Caitlin the Baguette maestro.

Hard at work.

And the finished product... 600 cinnamon rolls! I woke up on Sunday morning to find this picture posted up in the dining hall with "Cinnamon rolls for Jesus" as the caption. From left to right: Rachael, Trina, me, Steph, Aimee, Janina, Bethany (with Caitlin missing).

Ham it up! :)

It's almost June, folks.

JUNE. AHHHHH. What in the world. Why is time going by so fast?!

PS. Completely unrelated, but this article at the Huffington Post made my day yesterday.

Ramblings of a sick person

So, bad news: I’m sick, again. Same as last time— slight fever, body chills, but luckily… no diarrhea! The reaction that I’m getting from people when I tell them I’m sick is definitely reflective of the unique place I’m living— half Africa, half giant floating container box. I told an African day worker that I’m feeling sick, and he frowned and asked, “Is it malaria?” But when I tell other crew members that I’m sick, they automatically assume its diarrhea. With 400 people living in a contained environment, illnesses tend to go around quite rapidly, and bouts of a 24 hour vomiting/diarrhea bug have been going around the ship recently. In any case, I’ve been cooped up in my cabin all day yesterday in order to keep whatever I have to myself. I slept most of the day, ate some PBJs, and checked out some Laura Ingalls Wilder books from the library, as they always make me feel better. I have to say, what a crappy way to spend my two days off. Pardon the pun.

In other news, my brother let me know by email that I got some mail back home: a letter from school, requesting my lab coat size for the fall, and a packet from the feds about financial aid. Baah. Objectively I know that life is still going on without me, but gets difficult to visualize time ahead when you get so caught up in the daily grind that is Mercy Ships. For one, I have no idea what’s going on in the real world—normally I’m a bit obsessive about keeping up on my news, but here? Not so much. For another, I have a ton of things to do when I get back home. My lease starts in July. I have to pack and move all my stuff to Philly. Buy furniture. I still have to plan for the teen department of a week-long camp in August that I somehow agreed to coordinate way back in November. I have ten thousand paperwork things for school I need to get done, including financial aid. I’ve been pushing everything to the back of my mind for the last couple of weeks— because really, what’s the point in worrying when you can’t do anything about it— but those financial aid papers really got to me for some reason. It really shouldn't, I know college debt is a fact of life, but I’m going to be about three hundred thousand dollars in debt when I come out of dental school— at this point, I can’t even fathom that much money, yet I have to sign loan papers soon that bind me to pay that back (plus interest) 30 years from now. You know, when I’m old and wrinkled and have loads of money to spare (ie, never).

Being in Africa… it definitely makes you marvel, in a very odd, very sad way, about how differently we all live. I have never once been asked if I have malaria in the state, but malaria is still a constant reality here. And though I joke about not being able to pay back my loans, I know objectively that I will somehow be able to, because I’ll have the capability to make that much money when I graduate. That’s the way the Western world works. Here, half the Togolese population lives on less than $1.25 per day. To put it in perspective, that’s how much I spend on a cup of coffee. Jarring, to say the least.

Hm. So nothing I say at the end of this post will tie any of that together. Diarrhea, dental school, GNI? Even I can't do that. Which is why this post is aptly titled, "Ramblings," and not "Coherent and conclusively laid out thoughts". Because clearly, the latter does not describe me today.

I hope my lab coat fits me-- I picked the smallest size, but I may not be all that small when I return from Africa because of all the food I eat here on the ship.(Another paradox. This is probably the only place in West Africa where you can go back home fatter, and whiter, than when you first came). That'd be rather embarrassing, to be at your white coat ceremony where your white coat doesn't.. you know, actually fit you. Good way to start the school year.

A very merry birthday to my mom :)

So it's my mom's birthday today. HOORAH! I remember when I told her I'd be leaving for Africa, the first thing she said was, "But... you won't be here for my birthday!". Which is actually pretty funny if you know her because she doesn't care about her birthday at all. My mom is a wonderful wonderful person, she's ridiculously funny, and is by far my favorite person in the whole wide world (don't tell my dad). I took some pictures to celebrate her birthday-- unfortunately I wasn't smart enough to plan ahead and I was working a 12 hour shift in the galley, so all you get is galley pictures where we're all sweaty and gross. YAY!!

(The last one is "Happy birthday" in Ewe, the one of the tribal languages spoken in southern Togo).

Rita, one of the day volunteers that works with me in the galley, wanted to send my mom a kiss. Obviously, Stephen did not. And yes, I am aware that I look super Asian in all the photos (I say this like I don't look Asian in all my photos, but you get my drift). In any case, happy birthday 엄마, 사랑해!!

Life in the 8 berth

(I was really tempted to title this post "Cabins and roommates and bears, oh my!", but lucky for you.. I didn't. Because that would've been lame.)

So after over a month (and almost a half) of living on the Africa Mercy, I've finally decided that it's time to actually take and upload some pictures of the actual ship. I'll start with my cabin.. mainly because that's where I am at the moment and I didn't really want to move all that far. Now I'm typing this up elsewhere on the ship, which basically defeats the purpose of the exercise. But I digress. Pictures, onward!

Like I've mentioned before, I live in the only 8 berth (berth = cabin on a ship) on the ship. If you told me before I came on the ship that I'd be living in a tiny room with 8 other girls, I would've been like.. "Excuse me? Hold the phone." (Not really, 'cause I don't actually talk like that. Well.. sometimes I do). But I have to say, I've really come to love living in the 8 berth. For one, it's convenient: it's the only 8 berth, so I can refer to it as the "8 berth" in conversation and people know which cabin I'm referring to. For another, it's like having seven friends all in one go. (Lonely? Go to your cabin! Do not pass go. Do not collect two hundred dollars). There's also a 10 berth right next to us, which we, naturally, call the "10 berth"-- and we're pretty much one cabin at this point, so it's like having 17 automatic friends. Obviously because no one would want to be friends with me unless they were forced to live with me... right? :P


Proof positive of eight girls. The next photo is our entrance into the cabin: a little kitchenette with a tiny fridge, some shelving, a table... fun stuff, I know.


Hallway to our two bathrooms, and hallway to our bunks.


My bunk-- I'm very lucky to have gotten a lower bunk. I lived with a loft bed for a year in college so I know that it's not pleasant to have to get down from a top bunk in the middle of the night, when you're completely disoriented when you really really have to go pee. In the picture, the top bunk is unoccupied, but since I've been here I've already had two bunkmates-- Jesse and my current bunkmate Aafke, both really really funny, really awesome people. And they put up with me, so a thounsand bonus points for them. The second picture is our little sitting area, which apparently we're lucky to have, because other berths don't have them. But hey, eight girls... do you know how much hair gets on our floors?

Me and some of my lovely cabin mates in the cabin.
Hair affair. Like I said, very lucky to have gotten a bottom bunk, as you can't even sit up properly whilst you're on a top bunk. Yes, I said whilst.
Lounging about in the cabin.
Some of the cabin mates at a goodbye party (from right to left: Cathy, me, Trina, Aimee, Sarah) at the German restaurant. When we decide to... you know, actually leave the cabin.

Weekend in Ghana-- the beaches of Ada Foah.. and chicken poop

The camera had basically died before we got to Ada Foah, but we managed one picture of the Maranatha Beach Camp out of Lisbeth's camera before it finally went kaputz:


Late afternoon, after our morning in Accra, we boarded another van-bus and headed out to the Maranatha Beach Camp. When we got to the bus depot in Ada Foah, we were greeted by villagers who told us that the only way to get to the beach camp was to take a boat— one of those fishing boats carved out of wood that looks as if it’ll sink at any moment— and that took us a good 45 minutes to paddle down the river to where the beach camp was. Night was falling as we paddled along, so we got to see the sun go down while we were floating along the river. It was only about 7PM, but it was completely pitch black by the time we arrived. We were so excited when we got to the beach camp: finally, open air, sand in your toes, smell of ocean water— what could be better than that. We sat down at some wooden beach chairs to some drinks, and though it took over an hour to get, ate some really good food off their menu. I mean, not five stars or anything, but when you offer me chicken sandwiches and fried rice in the middle of nowhere? Deliciousness.The camp owners started a bonfire at 9 PM, and later that night we lay down on the sand in front of the ocean to look at the stars. I have never seen stars that bright before, ever, in my life, or so many at the same time. I’ve had my share of doubts over the years, but staring at those stars… you just can’t help being convinced that something, somewhere is watching.

Johan said he was going to sleep on the beach, but I didn’t want to be bitten by mosquitoes so I went to my hut for some shuteye. The huts were built of strong leaves and had no floors—a single mattress was inside, encased by a mosquito net. “Bathrooms” were just holes in the ground covered with hut walls located behind all the room huts. It rained a little in the morning (which woke poor Johan up); I actually felt cold in the morning. I heard the voice of my mother: "Pack your sweater!", and I remember thinking to myself: How ironic, that even in the middle of Africa, my mother is still somehow manages to always be right. The rest of the morning was amazingly sunny though, and we spent the day eating breakfast food and lounging by the water. When it was time to go, we managed to arrange for a boat with a motor this time, which took us on the most peaceful, serene half-hour ride further down the river, to where we could (hopefully) catch another bus to take us to the border.

That “bus” ride has to be the craziest ride I’ve had so far in my 22 years of living. First of all, it wasn’t even a legit bus, just a jeep that passes through the town every so often, but for just 1 cedi each, we climbed in. Secondly, when we got into the jeep it was just us, but as we went along, more and more people got crammed in, to the tune of twenty (count, TWENTY) people in a vehicle made for at most, maybe nine. We had four people in the front (including a baby, that I didn't even notice until our ride was over), four + luggage in the second row, eight people in the trunk, and four people hanging off the side and back of the jeep. We asked the driver why so many people had to be carried in one go, and apparently the road that leads into town had been damaged by water erosion, so the other cars that tried to make their way into the village kept getting stuck in the sand. The jeep was the only vehicle to successfully get into and out of the village, so whenever villagers saw the jeep, they crammed in because it was their only chance in getting out for quite some time. Oh, did I mention the chicken poop yet? Yep, mid-journey, six giant, heavy garbage bags full of dried CHICKEN POOP were loaded onto the top of the jeep. And the windows were open. I now know that dried chicken poop is quite dusty, and much dust gets out when people are heaving it onto the roof of your car. And when all your windows are down, guess where that chicken poop dust goes? Yes, fun times.

It was an amazing weekend in Ghana, but needless to say, we were all pretty happy to be back. The border crossing this time went really quickly due to laxer Togolese security—zip, zip, zip, and we were in Togo once more. I was thankful before, but after spending a weekend away, I am that much more thankful for the existence of this ship. Especially ship showers… and ship toilets. (And especially the fact that there is no chicken poop to be found anywhere on the ship.)

Weekend in Ghana-- on the road to Accra

Apologies for the lack of recent blog posts. I switched weekend shifts again this past week-- I don't really know why I keep doing this to myself because it really, really sucks (for lack of a better, descriptive word-- and so I've been working the last seven days. I do have to say, it wasn't nearly as bad as the last time I worked for a week straight. Galley work days are tough just because the hours are so long that the day is over before you know it, and as a result you have time to do nothing else. Blog writing takes lowest priority when you smell like sardines/fried fish and are in desperate need of a shower.

In any case, the hard work paid off in the end because I got the next week completely off-- and so I went to Ghana for the weekend with two Dutchies (Lisbeth and Johan), and a Canadian, eh? (David). I'll need to separate the Ghana update into two posts, since there's a lot to write about, and sorry if the pictures seem a little oddly timed (I didn't have my camera charger then, and Lisbeth is the only one who brought her camera. We were trying to conserve camera battery, but it still died on us after the first day. Humbug.) It was a pretty last minute trip, and we had a bit of a run-around with our Togo-Ghana visas at the Ghanaian embassy, but we finally disembarked the ship on Friday afternoon for our weekend away. If you look at the geography of Togo, the country itself is vertically long and thin, so the two bordering countries (Benin and Ghana) are very close-- the border of Ghana is only about a 15 minute taxi ride away from Lomé. When we got to the border, we filled out our paperwork, went through about 4 different booths, and were soon on the other, English speaking side; all in all, we got through with relatively little hassle.

Once we were on the other side, we boarded a “bus” to take us to our destination— a beach camp located along the Ghanian coastline, in Ada Foah. The “bus” is basically a beat-up VW van; the four of us climbed into the back row, and after waiting for about half an hour for them to fill it with as many people as possible, we were off. We paid 6 cedis each (Ghanaian currency, about 4 dollars), which is not bad for a 3 hour bus ride. No air conditioning, but the windows were open the entire way, so a nice, sweaty, slightly sandy, sticky ride. Some of the roads were rather smooth, while others were so bad that I though the van would fall apart because it was rattling so much. Poor Lisbeth got stuck sitting on the tiny jump seat and when we eventually got out, she was walking funny for the first five minutes. You could definitely see the difference between the two countries, even within the first hour of being in Ghana— the security, or pseudo-security, is a lot stricter than in Togo. Every 15 minutes/half hour or so, we’d be stopped along the road by the Ghanian police who would flash their ridiculously bright flashlights in through the van windows. Once, at some checkpoint station, we had to get out of the van to show our passports. What they were looking for, I have no clue, and really, what could you find with a random 5 second flash of light? Who knows.

The plan was originally to stay at the beach for two days, but when we finally got to Ada Foah, our group spontaneously decided to go another 2 hours to Accra, instead. We figured, might as well see the capital city as well, since we’re already in Ghana. Just our luck, when we actually rolled into Accra around 11 PM, we found that there was some sort of conference going on in town, and as a result, all the hotels were full! It was such a hard concept for me to wrap my head around, since hotels are rarely ever full in the states unless they're amazing hotels and it's the holiday season, but we literally walked into well over 10 different hotels and were told the same thing each time. At one hotel, we saw two guys sprawled out on mattresses in the foyer, because there wasn’t enough room for them either. At another, one manager actually asked, “… You all don’t have a Lonely Planet or something?”, which I took to mean, “Wow, for white people in Africa, ya’ll are sucky travelers.” In the end, we resorted to calling someone that Johan knew— Denis, one of the ship’s deckhands who lives in Ghana. Denis actually came out in the middle of the night to take us to a hotel, and then invited us to breakfast in his home the next day. He had golfing plans the next day, but he even arranged a taxi driver to escort us around Accra—and before we left in the morning, we got to see an actual golf course… in Africa. My mom would’ve loved that. Denis is awesome. He now has a place to stay if he is ever in the states, or in Canada, or in Holland. Here’s some pictures of us at breakfast:

Left to right: me, Denis, David, Johan
Me, David, Lisbeth, Johan

Riding a taxi on the nicely paved roads of Accra. Lisbeth in front of the hotel that we were finally able to stay at.

The visit to Accra was nice, if uneventful. Ghana is considered the pearl of West Africa, the hope of what Africa could be—democratic, industrialized. When we first drove into the city, the contrast to Togo was so blatant, especially because we drove in at night and the multitude of city lights made me feel like I was in New York again. And then in the morning, we went to a mall, a completely westernized shopping mall in the middle of West Africa, which was quite unnerving considering the majority of West Africans probably couldn’t afford to buy anything from any of the stores that the mall carried—Birkenstock, Nike, Sony, Swatch, Apple. The rest of the morning we spent wandering around town with our taxi driver. To be honest, since the detour to Accra was unplanned, I hadn’t read up on any of the landmarks/monuments—that, with the combination of the hot and sweaty weather made me severely under appreciate the things I was seeing. I just remember wanting to get to the beach, so don’t judge me on my seemingly air-headed commentary. I’m usually a much better traveler than this.

This is.. some building. And that's us in front of... some important statue thing. And this last one is a photo of the convention that
made us seriously consider sleeping on the streets of Accra. (Note how the pictures are getting smaller and smaller. I don't know why I did that. But it took forever to format, so that way it shall stay. Heh. I rhymed.)

Camera charger = HERE.

My camera charger is finally here!! I got an email from the mail room telling me to pick up my stuff in the office this afternoon. My brother sent it about two weeks ago, so all things considered, it actually got here relatively quickly, as it had to go from my home in Jersey to the IOC in Texas, and then to the ship in West Africa. I'm so excited, as I haven't been able to take any photos for the last 3 1/2 weeks, and I've been stealing other people's pictures to compensate.

Anyway. No more news for you. I thought the excitement of getting my camera charger warranted a blog update.

Three weeks and counting

We’ve been getting a lot of new people lately on the ship. Just after I arrived, a volcano from Iceland erupted and sent ash covers over the skies of Western Europe. The ash caused so many logistical problems for the ship: we had people stuck here who couldn’t fly out and people stuck in connecting cities who couldn’t fly in. Some surgeries had to be postponed as surgeons obviously couldn’t make their way onto the ship either (isn’t it funny to think that a volcano in Iceland would affect surgeries in Africa? Globalization, my friends). We had three empty beds in our eight berth cabin for awhile. The ash has finally cleared, so all the people who were delayed from that are now making their way onto the ship. We have two new people in our cabin: Cathy, who’ll be working in the dining room (on the same shifts as me!), and a ward nurse named Clare, both amazingly friendly people. We’ll be getting our third “missing” person tonight, and then we’ll have a full cabin! Eight girls, two tiny bathrooms… oh my.

Is it weird that seeing new faces kind of makes me kind of sad? Not that I don’t love the new people—because I do, they’re all really nice—but it just reminds me of the high turnover that is Mercy Ships. After just three weeks on board, I’m not the new girl anymore. I’m giving advice for stuff that I’m still not properly familiar with. To hearken back to my previous post, I feel quite like a chicken with my head cut off (not that I’ve ever had my head cut off, but you know what I mean). People who were the first to befriend me when I arrived are leaving, and I know it’s just going to continue. Time is already going by way too fast.

Tenth Anniversary of Maison Bethel

We have a thing called Mercy Ministries on Mercy Ships-- off ship programs with different organizations that crew can sign up for on their time off. For example, we have Mercy Ministries with orphanages, hospices, deaf schools, special needs schools, etc. You aren't supposed to take a camera to most, since we're there to build relationships, and not as tourists. The one exception to that rule that I've had so far is when I went to Maison Bethel a couple weeks back. The orphanage was celebrating their tenth anniversary, and we were allowed to take pictures at the event since it was a special occasion and everyone else was taking pictures too.

All the children got brand new, matching uniforms because of the occasion, and the girls put together a dance program for us.


The whole neighborhood attended, including a choir.

The local "king" was in attendance as well-- next to him is the nun who started the orphanage ten years ago on her own, with no outside support. Now, Catholic churches in France provide educational support for some of the children at the orphanage, but she still relies on local donations for food/clothing/etc. for most of the kids.

The event was planned extremely well. Granted, we were told to arrive by 9 AM and the program didn't really get started until about 10:30, but considering that we're working on "Africa time," that's actually really good. We had FOUR courses at the event, all served to us by the kids, and a bright pink cake at the end of lunch, which the children were really excited about.

My camera battery is now officially dead, so thanks to Cathy, one of my roommates, for all the photos. To see her blog, click here.

Dental clinic / observing surgeries

(Pictures! Of all the things to forget, I've left my camera cable at home, which means I have no way of charging my batteries or transferring pictures until I get my hands on a compatible cable-- either mailed from home or from someone on the ship. But in the meantime, Daniel's been kind enough to lend me his micro SD to USB adapter, so I finally have some pictures to show :).

One of the best perks about working in the galley (aside from the constant supply of free food) is our funky schedule: since we get weekdays off on a regular basis, we can sign up for things that happen during the workday. I’ve had the last two days off, so this past Wednesday I went out with the dental team to visit the clinic off ship, and on Thursday morning, I got to observe some crazy surgeries.

Like I said, the dental clinic is located off the ship, about 20 minutes away. The advance team (the team that comes into the country before the ship arrives) found a really nice, vacant building for the dental team to use. I was so pleasantly surprised to see how modern the dental clinic was: obviously it's no match for a dental office back home, but they had a long table of sterilized instruments, shelves stock full of dental supplies, suction machines, dental chairs, cavitrons! (which I was really surprised about), and of course, generators to power everything. The clinic is even air conditioned (Hallelujah to that).

From what I gathered, the procedures they do in the clinic are mainly limited to extractions and fillings; for obvious reasons, they're not going to be placing implants or bridges anytime soon. The patients are wonderful here though. Someone told me that there are only 27 dentists in the entire country of Togo, so most of the patients have never been to a dentist before in their lives. They're so grateful and extraordinarily patient, and they never complain about anything; they put the patients at home to shame who squeal every time the suction doesn't immediately pick up their excess saliva.

You can't really tell in these pictures (we're only allowed to take wide-shot photos to protect patient confidentiality), but these surgeries were incredible to watch. The first picture is a cleft lip patient-- a little boy. OMFS is one of the specialties of dentistry, so being able to see this surgery firsthand was an amazing opportunity for me. I need to not go woozy though-- I found myself surprisingly queasy (I fancy myself having an iron stomach, but that may just be wishful thinking at this point). So weird to see the surgeon just stitch up a lip from two separate pieces and to think of how much it will affect this little boy's life. And the second picture is of a tumor removal from the face of a teenage girl, not that different in age to myself. This tumor was so large that it literally looked like she had another head. I was so incredibly sad looking at her; it must've robbed her of her entire childhood. But if a fixed cleft lip changes a life, imagine what this surgery will do for her.