June 11 and 12

June 11

Today I went with 3 of the ward nurses to one of their day volunteer's house. Abdel and her husband Prince (pictured below) have started up an orphanage in their own home and Abdel invited us to come and visit the children.

Prince and Abdel. Abdel works as a translator in one of the hospital wards on Mercy Ships

We took a public Poda Poda (usually we have just hired them privately) and it was interesting to see how many people we could fit inside. I think that at one point there were 20 people inside the van! While driving along, we were pulled over by the police. I am not really sure what happened because as the officer was writing what we assumed was a ticket the driver jumped back in the poda poda and drove off. The officer didn't seem upset so we don't really know what happened!

The path to Prince and Abdel's house

Abdel asked the driver to pull over and we hiked up a dirt path through a small village down another street and then in between some buildings to arrive at the path to Abdel and Prince's house pictured above. I can only imagine what a mess the streets are when the rain starts!

When we arrived at the house all of the children ran out and started hugging us. We couldn't even walk through the front door because the kids were pushing out to deliver their hellos and hugs. After meeting each child we got a tour of the orphanage. Abdel and Prince take care of 10 children from ages 7 to 12. They would like to take more in but the cost is too much right now. The kids were so excited to show us their rooms and show us their individual beds!

The orphanage consists of 3 bedrooms (one for the girls, one for the boys, and one for Abdel and Prince). There are also 2 "aunties" that work with Abdel and Prince and one of them is currently living in the orphanage. The kitchen is a covered area outside of the house. Water has to be brought to the house for drinking, you will notice that there are quite a few yellow water containers in some of the pictures, that's what they are for!

Prince told us how the orphanage started in 2008. When the civil war ended many orphan children lived together fending for themselves. he started working with an organization that went out and visited these groups of children who were traumatized by the things that they had seen. They continued to visit these children and told them stories of happy times and showed them love to try and help them develop coping mechanisms and to try to begin new lives. Ever since then Prince has had a great heart for children. He has volunteered with different organizations and has even worked with Mercy Ships the past 2 times it came to visit Sierra Leone. Once he married Abdel they decided they needed to do more to help the orphan children in Freetown. He started out the process of becoming an official orphanage. With the help of a local pastor who had moved to Norway Prince and Abdel met some Norwegian people who were visiting in Sierra Leone. They partnered together with MAAO (my African Aid Organization) and were able to find an apartment to rent and take in 10 orphans.

you can check out their website:
http://www.stormposten.com/MAAO/EN_My_Home_Freetown.html

We had a great time playing with the children and just hanging out. They were so friendly and loved taking pictures! Here are some of my favorites!

The little girl in the front is named Mabinty. She was so cute! Apparently on Saturdays the girls all have their hair braided but hers was only half done when we arrived. She didn't care though!

The boys from the orphanage

Hanging out

Abdel cooking a nice lunch for us!

Helping to take in the laundry as the rain starts

Dancing in the rain

Playing games together

Here comes the rain! what a mud puddle!

One of the neighbour children playing in the rain

June 12

Today I went to one of the local churches with a few people from Mercy Ships. It made me laugh when the minister said that the hot hot worship team would be coming up to sing! After the service all of these little children came running up to me and wanted to hold my hand and for me to hold them. I love the children of Sierra Leone, they are so cute and friendly!

The Church

This little girl just wanted me to hold her! So cute!

June 10

A trip to town

Because today was a ship holiday, a group of us decided to walk into town. We started by going through the busy streets trying to make our way to the historic site of the Cotton Tree. Leaving the ship at 9:30 it was already hot and humid and the streets were packed with people and vehicles. For most of the trip we had to walk directly on the streets as the paths along side the road were either taken over by people trying to sell things or there were big holes in the concrete slabs which dropped 3 to 5 feet into what we guessed was the sewer system. Traffic in Freetown is very heavy during most of the day. Walking to the cotton tree took us somewhere between 45 minutes and an hour where as if we had driven the same route, it would have taken twice as long!

On the trek to the cotton tree we passed by the clock tower which I have nicknamed times square of Freetown as it has this huge tv and seems to be one of the busiest places in Freetown. It seems so out of place to be walking by all of these little shacks where everything is so primitive and then seeing this massive TV in the middle of the street!

We finally made it to the Cotton Tree. This is one of Sierra Leone's historical sights. This tree is over 300 years old and was used as the auctioning grounds during the slave trade. We went to the Sierra Leone Peace and Cultural Monument where a man named Peter gave us a tour of the monuments explaining the some of the history of Sierra Leone.

Peter explaining that the country was called Sierra Leone meaning land of roaring lions because of the mountainous coast line and the huge thunderstorms that occur during rainy season.

his picture shows the reconciliation that took place after the civil war in many small towns and villages. The man in light blue is one of the elders of the community. The man begging for forgiveness was a member of the community before the war. He cut off the limbs of many people from his own village, not recognizing them because of the drugs that he had been taking. Peter told us that this story happened the same way in too many villages.

After the memorial we headed to the craft market to do some shopping. When we finished with all of our purchases, we headed to Crown Bakery for lunch.

Lunch at Crown Bakery... sooo good!

After a much needed break at the bakery, we continued our walk back home. It was very hot and muggy out but we made it back to the ship and had a nice relaxing evening :)

A little friend we met along the way

June 7, 8, and 9

The Hernia Queen

So this week I have moved on to the general surgery room. Each day consists of mainly hernia cases so my friend Sarah and I have been dubbed the "hernia Queens" of the week. Monday and Tuesday provided us with all difficult cases (ie. the entire large intestine and bladder in the hernia sac) and with just 2 nurses, Sarah and I worked non stop without breaks stopping just long enough to cram in a sandwich. On Tuesday the list was looking so long and ominous that the rest of the surgical team wanted to continue through the day without a lunch break. For those who are not hospital people, it is really easy the surgeons to take breaks in between cases (while the patient is waking up and while we are getting the room ready for the next case) and anesthesia had enough staff that they were able to cover each other for lunches. So on Tuesday one of the young enthusiastic anesthetists offered to be a nurse and help get us up to grab some lunch so the room could keep running. It was so funny to try to explain all of the charting to him (especially because it is nothing compared to what we do at Sick Kids). He was so nice though and said that he would do his best! I laughed when I came back from lunch and he hadn't managed to do any charting! Oh well... we fixed it all and were able to keep going.

I get so excited when we have pediatric patients, as there are a lot more adults than children having surgery done on the Africa Mercy. So, as you can see from the picture below I take advantage of all the opportunities I can :)

Today (Thursday) we had 2 operating rooms running for the one general surgeon and we were able to keep him busy all morning, almost finishing our list before lunch! Our operating room even managed to fit in an emergency case which was a man who had a big mandible tumour which had been removed on Tuesday. Apparently today they tried to take the drain out and he started bleeding, so back he came to the OR, we cleaned out his wound and put in a new drain!

Here is a picture of the patient before the tumor was removed

I wasn't able to get a great picture post op because of swelling but the difference is amazing!

(posted with permission from Mercy Ships)

Our Friend Aedzer Hellema the Nurse Anesthetist left this morning. Everyone was very sad to see him go as he was very fun to work with. Below is a picture of my tall dutch friend.

This afternoon the sun came out (after a dark and rainy morning) and I was able to spend a little bit of time by the pool! Every six weeks the ship has a long weekend, so this weekend is a three day break for me! I am hoping to go to the craft market, make some other adventures out, and check out a local Church on Sunday!

Hope you all have a great weekend!

June 5 and 6

June 5

On Sunday I was on-call for the OR. There had been word of a case happening on the weekend but I found out that it had gone ahead on Saturday so I thought I was home free. As I sat by the pool deck reading my book I heard a beeping noise. I thought maybe a machine was alarming (there are lots of noises on the top deck of the ship so it is not unusual to hear beeping)... but no, I realized it was coming from my bag. Back to the OR I went. It ended up being a complicated hernia case that we had done on Friday which needed to come back to the OR. What the surgeon had thought was the hernia re-occurring ended up actually being a huge haematoma (blood clot). We cleaned everything up and made it out of the OR right as dinner was finishing up.

One of the plastic surgeons spoke at Church on Sunday night. He played a really good song at the end of his message that I found quite fitting with the work that we are doing here on Mercy Ships. I am posting the lyrics below for those interested. The song is called Break Our Hearts by Vicky Beeching:

It's time for us to live the songs we sing
And turn our good intentions into action
To bring the kind of worship You desire
And move beyond our self-absorbed distractions

The mountains are shaking
Could this be a great awakening

Break our hearts
With the things that break Yours
Wake us up to see through Your eyes
Break our hearts
With the things that break Yours
And send us out to shine in the darkness

It's time to move outside our comfort zone
To see beyond our churches and our homes
To change the way we think and how we spend
Until we look like Jesus again

Here I am send me
To be Your hands and feet
Here I am send me I will go

June 6

Today I was in the general surgery OR with my friend Sarah. It was just the two of us as nurses so we worked non stop all day! The list consisted of 8 hernia cases with patients from 8 months old to 81 years old! We convinced the rest of the team to give us a 25 minute lunch break but other than that it was go go go until 6pm!

This evening we had a farewell party for Aedzer Hellema, one of the Nurse Anesthestetists on the ship. It was nice to hang out with people from the OR, outside where the sun is shining! Tomorrow we have a full list again so I had better go get ready for another crazy day!

June 3 and 4

Friday June 3

On Friday evening I worked until 7 and then quickly changed and met up with some friends to go out for dinner in Aberdeen (which is a different section of Freetown). People who are on the ship long term are able to drive the Mercy Ships vehicles if they have an international license. Our friend Juan from Dominican Republic who works in the surgical instrument sterilization area and is long term offered to drive a bunch of us who had to work late so we didn't have to wait for a poda poda. Traffic in Freetown is quite crazy especially after work hours during the week. It took us almost 2 hours to make it to Aberdeen, we had to take many detours due to accidents and traffic jams. It was quite an experience.

Waiting for our dinner

Sarah, Juan, and I

Finally we made it to the Atlantic restaurant. It seemed like Mercy Ships was trying to take over the restaurant as there were 28 of us! The restaurant was quite nice and was open air, looking out onto the ocean. It was warm but with the breeze from the ocean we were quite comfortable. There seems to be a large Lebanese presence in Sierra Leone and I was able to try a Lebanese cheese appetizer! After dinner we piled back into the Mercy Ships truck and made our way back to the ship through the dark streets. On the way back I sat in the back of the truck which was fun at first, but after a few speed bumps, pot holes, and sudden stops the excitement faded. Juan had to be very careful driving as there is minimal to no lighting on the streets and people tend to walk out in front of you and many cars don't have working lights.

I had to take this picture for you dad. If you look closely the man driving the motorcycle is holding a flashlight in his mouth as a light because his front light is burnt out.

all smiles after arriving safely back at the ship!

River Number 2

Saturday morning my cabin mates and I left the ship and headed out to River Number 2. There were 5 of us so we decided to see if we could hire a taxi for the day. We were going to walk up Bad Boy Lane to the main road and see if we could hail a cab, but as we were leaving the shipping yard a Mercy Ships truck pulled over and Lawrence (the dad of one of the long term families) told us to get in! He drove us through town and made sure that we had a "safe looking" taxi that would survive the trek on the back roads to River number 2. We paid the taxi driver 110,000 Leones to drive us to the beach, stay with us all day, and drive us home (which works out to about 26 American dollars). This would be considered a great day's earning for the taxi driver and he was really happy to take us!

a short clip of the bumpy roads out of town

The drive to River Number 2 was about an hour and a half first climbing winding paved roads up the mountains surrounding Freetown and then onto dirt roads through the small villages of Goderich, Lakka, Hamilton, Sussex and finally arriving at River number 2. This beach is only accessible during the dry season as the roads are very rough and vehicles cannot drive on them when it gets wet.

This is one of the garbage trucks in Freetown

You can see all the locals who have decided to get a free ride

The dirt roads on the way to River number 2. The dirt here is very red

Scenery picture. while crossing a bridge in one of the villages. you can see that people put there houses in very interesting locations. I can imagine that the houses below get flooded when ever it rains

When we made it to the beach we rented an umbrella and some chairs and settled in. This beach is my favorite so far, it was so clean and the sand so nice and white. One of my cabin mates has a guide book to Sierra Leone and we read that before the war, the French tourists would land in Lungi airport and take a helicopter to River Number 2 to spend the day. There is a little market in the village of River Number 2, so after spending some time in the sun we walked around the shops. I bought some fabric and had a shoulder bag made for me while I waited! It was really fun to spend some time with the villagers while they were working away. As the only power source to the village is a generator (which only services the fridge in the little cafe), it was really interesting to watch the men sew with foot powered machines.

The beach is named River number 2 because the river makes its way to the sea here.

you can see the river in behind the huts

The mountains on the shoreline are so beautiful

At the markets. This man really wanted me to buy one of his musical instruments

Sewing a bag for me!

Showing off the finished product

Cabin mates!

The beach is so clean and stretches on for miles. We went for a long walk after our shopping. The only break in the beach is where the river runs into the sea. The water wasn`t too deep so we decided to walk accross. Because the sand is moving so much with the current we sunk in up past our knees! It was almost like quicksand, but we made it accross and had an amazing walk down the beach watching little crabs scurry up and down with the waves! We came accross an abandoned resort on the beachfront. It looked like it had been such a beautiful place to stay before the war. Maybe one day they will be able to restore it for people to enjoy.

In the afternoon, dark clouds started to roll in (you can see them above the mountain in the above picture). Sierra Leone means `roaring mountains`, we were able to experience the roaring mountains first hand as the thunder continued to rumble. We made the long trek back to Freetown and were hoping to stop for dinner at a place called Crown Bakery, but unfortunately it had closed already. Instead we tried our hand at making pizza with the few ingredients we could scrounge up and played Wizard card game and watched a movie! What a great Saturday!

Hope you are all having a good weekend! talk to you soon!

Friday...Yay a morning to sleep in... a bit

Today I am working a 10-7 shift... Which means that potentially I could sleep in. I decided to sleep in a little bit more than normal and then get up and catch up on some emails! We have been very busy in Opthamology this week, helping 28-30 patients a day! It is actually quite fun once to you get into the rhythm, trying to see who can get through the most patients! By Thursday we were moving along so well that we actually ran out of patients by 1:30! I think that if we had kept going we could have made it to the high 40s!

I don't think I have shown you much of the ship yet, so I will try to take some more pictures on the weekend and give you a tour! Here is what a typical Short Term volunteer's room would look like:

Our cabin door

Most of the Short Term volunteers (anything less than 2 years) are 6 berth cabins. There are 3 sets of 2 bunk beds. In this picture I was on the bottom bunk awaiting the arrival of a new cabin member, I ended up moving back up to the top bunk because my new roommate is afraid of heights.

The bathroom. On the ship we have Ship Showers... which means that we have to conserve water as much as possible. No running water while you are lathering your hair haha!!!

Hanna and I relaxing after a busy day at in the hospital

 My cabin mates and I get along quite well and 5 of us are planning to go to River number 2 for the day tomorrow if the weather holds up. If we don't go soon, I will miss out on the opportunity to go to this beach as it is inaccessible during the rainy season. Hopefully I will have some great pictures to show you :) Rainy season is on its way to Sierra Leone and you can notice that it is getting wetter and wetter. The mornings tend to be foggy and damp and the evenings usually greet us with a nice thunderstorm. During the day the sun is still able to peek out!

Hospital Ship...a strange concept

Its strange having been here for 2 weeks now. I feel like I  have settled into my daily routine of getting up in the morning, walking up the 2 flights of stairs to breakfast, walking down 2 flights of stair to the OR to work, then repeat the stairs at lunch and dinner. There are community meetings twice a week as well as other optional in services, trainings, and bible studies to keep oneself busy.

I have a comfortable bed and am being blasted with air conditioning (when the AC machines are working well). The food is good and there are always options (haha I had to add that for all of you who know that I am a bit of a picky eater), and there is clean drinking water. Don Stephens one of the co-founders of Mercy Ships spoke to us last week and was explaining the concept of how they created this hospital ship. We live on a ship that provides hope and healing to the poor and needy of Africa's west coast. The ship is set up in more of a "western" living and eating environment to keep all of the crew healthy and fit so that we can provide excellent care to the people we serve. If you came to Mercy Ships and stayed on the ship and didn't talk with the local people, you would not be able to get a full experience of the culture, the people, the desperate living conditions.

It is through working and talking with the patients and volunteers as well as making excursions off the ship that you can really understand the poverty and needs in Sierra Leone. All around the ship we have Day Volunteers. They are local people who have been selected to help the Mercy Ships Crew, and specifically in the hospital they help us with translating. One girl that I have been able to get to know is Amy.

If you were to just walk into the OR, Amy looks like everyone else in the hospital. She is wearing her blue Mercy Ships scrubs. She has amazing english and has trained to be a nurse at one of the local hospitals. As I have started to get to know Amy she told me more about her life. She is 23 years old and just got married this past year. She lives in a very small home with her husband, sister and 2 brothers. When I asked her what she does after work she told me that they are lucky and have a TV,  if there is electricity she will watch some TV but often the electricity is not working. When she comes to work, Amy takes a taxi part way and then walks the rest. It is neat to hear the stories of the day volunteers as they are so thankful for their lives and for what little they have. There is another volunteer in the recovery room who likes to pray every morning. She starts her prayers thanking God that she woke up this morning. Sometimes all she has to eat for the whole day is bread and tea and again she thanks God for that, knowing that he will provide for her! It is amazing to think about what we grumble about and how little that matters in the big picture!