Mercy Ship log. Ship date 05-06-11.
(yes, I'm formatting the date of my journal entries like Captain Picard does)
Things that surprised me on my first day of Mercy Africa:
- How humid it in Freetown.
- How cool it is in our, surprisingly big, cabin. Fridge, bathroom, curtain separating our bed from the main part, window overlooking the gangway.
- How cheap everything is here. Chocolate-covered Waffles with whipped cream: $0.75. Jay Swanson bought Liz and me waffles. He is a wonderful guy who is writing a cool sounding sci-fi book. He also plays the guitar and loves restaurant style salsa.
- Gurkha warriors guard the gangway.
- There’s a lot of sick people Mercy Ships heals. The Hope center was teaming with adults and kids, one child of which stood as tall as my hip and pluckily asked me, “Hey white man!”
- Krio is awesome. “Kuche” means hello, as told to me by Alie at lunch.
- There’s a lot of unused, expensive equipment on board, at least equipment related to videography. TWO Manfrotto tripods? A Mac tower that runs Final Studio just sitting under a mound of boxes in an unused office? Really? (Though it makes me feel wanted. “Yeah! We have a videographer!”)
- Mercy Ships crew, especially long-termers, are extremely reluctant to throw anything away. While this is a good habit all around (we should be frugal, especially with resources that are donated), the amount of unused batteries (dead), boxes (empty and breaking), and office equipment (outdated, long-replaced) is astonishing. While cleaning my office, I gave serious thought to how much fuel Africa Mercy wastes toting around garbage.
- Volunteer organizations are tough. Several meetings and orientations today were ‘missed’ by the very ones who called them (and these aren’t locals who are used to third-world-country-time, which is understandable. These are industry specialists!). I waited 45 minutes in the café for IT to wander down so they could register my MAC address for Wifi here. Can one fire volunteers? Yes. But not when that volunteer is living next to you, she’s paying to be here, and she’s stuck in the middle of Africa.
- Mercy Ships is extremely Christian. There was a Eye Celebration gathering outside on the dock. The people whose cataracts were removed had to be shushed because they all wanted to stand up and sing Jesus’ praise and thank Mercy Ships.
- Cell phones are nice to have. I need a SIM card desperately, just to get a hold of Liz. Yes it may seem like an unneeded luxury, but if they’re cheap and available then heck yeah I’m gunna get one!
- How comfy these mattresses are.
