Amazing Race - Pointe Noire

Due to good timing I managed to be part of the the Africa Mercy Amazing Race for the second time! After doing so amazing last year (read: second last and not really amazing at all with our fair share of mishaps) I felt it only made sense to join again. And so the other weekend I devoted my Saturday to frantically running around Pointe Noire with my lovely team mates (Mercy's Angels), completing an array of random challenges.

Mercy's Angels

After donning our lovely team outfits found in the ever trendy boutique (read: the place people dump the stuff they no longer want when the leave) we were pumped and ready to take on the other teams. And so we hit the ground running, madly waving down the first taxi we saw. Which may not have been the best strategy as he was probably wondering what those crazy white girls running towards him wanted and if maybe it wasn't worth the money to figure out. But we managed in our small small French to point him in the direction of the airport, our first destination. We were pondering the exciting notion that maybe they were going to send us off on an airplane like the real Amazing Race, until one of us pointed out that perhaps the little amount of money they gave us wouldn't get us too far. In fact that challenge turned out to be finding some locals to pay us to shine their shoes.

Notice our lovely team outfits.

From that point on there was no stopping as we ran around from the beach, to the grande marche, to the fish market, to the Hope Center, to the craft market, to the soccer field, to the off ships team house. All the while sweating as we solved riddles, cooked an omelete, looked for various items, paddled a canoe in the ocean (which I didn't tip this year!), bought some fish, made a fire and cooked the fish, made a wood carving, played soccer with some local kids and caught some chickens. We briefly entertained the idea of "Guys what if we actually won this thing?!," which, while being way off base, proved that our morale was high. Though by the end of the day as we ran over to the very Amazing Race-esque mat at the finish line we quickly queried "We aren't last right?!" And no! We were not! Tenth out of fourteen, not bad for three girls who didn't really know the city or French. But we had a blast! So thanks Mercy's Angels for being awesome team mates! And who knows, maybe I'll be around for next years third annual Mercy Ships Amazing Race as well...?  

Shining the police man's shoes

Math. Takes way to much concentration.

Scored a hat trick!

Let's just say my wood carving skills leave a little to be desired.

Searching in the prickly bushes for chickens to catch.

Out on the choppy sea.

Hitching a boat ride across a "small river" which came half way up our wastes.

Our more-then-one-box-of-matches-smoked-fish-is-okay-right? fire.

Keeping it cool all the way to the finish line.

Snapshots of My Life

So here is a brief glimpse of my recent life in pictures. A more informational blog to follow (hopefully this weekend!)

Before our hike down the gorge

Hiking through the gorge

Enjoying a meal at the beach after our hike

View from port side

View from starboard side

Ah, pit "toilets"

Agricultural site

   

Destination of our beautiful hike

Dancing village kids. So cute!

Amazing Race Pointe-Noire (more to follow in later post!)

Italian naval aircraft carrier off port side of AFM

Partial Guinea reunion with pizza on the beach!

Rooftop patio sunset. Gorgeous.

Blood Donation - Round Two

"Michelle Wallace to the lab, Michelle Wallace to the lab." I was just getting up from some chatting and games in mid-ships to head to bed last Wednesday evening when I hear myself being summoned to the lab over the loud speaker. And so to a chorus of clapping and cheers I head down a couple decks to the lab to donate my blood. A patient who had been in surgery for about ten hours with a neurofibroma and had depleted our small supply of O+ blood needed another unit and I was the lucky donor. So my fellow lab tech did the honours of collecting, for her first time since she had been in Guinea, while I walked her through it (and a lovely job she did).

 

This past week saw a couple of large surgery cases. We were scrambling to keep up with our blood supply for the OR. As soon as we would collect a unit it would be requested for a patient. Due to not having the 6-8 units of B+ blood (which is hard to come by on the ship) requested for a surgery scheduled on Thursday the OR had to postpone the surgery until the next day. And after a long day full of collecting many generous donors we had enough blood to go ahead with the surgery. So it was a busy week down in the lab, a little bit stressful too but in a good way. And it's very encouraging to see all of the people (especially so many who are afraid of needles but were willing to put their fear aside) willing to donate their blood. Because there can be no "Oh someone else will if I don't" mentality when there is such a limited supply of people to donate. So to all those reading, both on the ship and at home in their own country, go be a blood donor! You can save a life!    

A Brief Overview

        Here is a bit of an update on some of the statistics for this field service so far. Thanks to so many different volunteers a lot of different kinds of surgery can be accomplished. Here is a list of some of the surgeries that have been and will be done while Mercy Ships is in the Congo:

• Maxillofacial surgeries – cleft lip and palate, large facial tumors, and facial deformities
• Plastic surgeries – skin grafting, burn scar contracture releases
• General surgeries – hernia, large benign skin tumors, goiter removals
• Orthopaedic surgeries – correction for club feet, bowed legs, knocked knees, and other deformities
• Eye surgeries – primarily cataracts
• Obstetric fistula surgeries – repair of VVF, RVF, and UVF

        The beginning of this week saw the first of the VVF (brief explanation here) patients being brought on board for this outreach, with surgeries beginning on Tuesday. As I mentioned before these are some of my favourite patients. Unfortunately there were only a small number of ladies who made their way to the ship on Monday. Due to poor road conditions between Brazzaville and Pointe-Noire the means of getting to the ship are fairly limited. And if you will notice on the map, Pointe-Noire is almost as far down south in the country as you can get and is quite a distance from the northern part of Congo. The government kindly agreed to fly patients from Brazzaville for free. There was supposed to be a flight with some of these patients arriving on Monday but for some reason or another it has yet to arrive. Please keep these ladies in your prayers as well as praying that more VVF ladies who could benefit from the surgery might be able to find their way to the ship. In fact prayer for all of our patients and volunteers would be much appreciated.
       

http://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/map/congo-administrative-map.htm 

Winter Olympics, Africa Mercy Style

     Living on the Africa Mercy, as I've said before, is a very unique experience. A mix of nations and backgrounds all represented on a ship registered in Malta working for the same purpose off the coast of Africa. And all that has come together to make this, in my opinion, the most interesting place to watch the Olympics. Getting to watch one of the most international sporting events surrounded by (at the moment) thirty-three other nations has made this past week of watching the Olympics a memorable one. You are cheering for you country along with a handful of other while there are multiple others urging on their fellow countrymen.

     When I realized that I would be in Africa during the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics I became a little disappointed that
I probably wouldn't be able to watch them. Last winter Olympics was the first time I really became interested in watching and was looking forward to this years. But much to my delight a satellite station has been tuned to a South African (a country who I don't believe has any participants in this Olympics but hey why not have an entire channel devoted to it anyways? And also this makes for highly entertaining commentary along with all of the sports) broadcast of the Olympics. Sure there are times when it is a bit laggy (which is very annoying whilst trying to watch a hockey game) or just doesn't work at all but we are in Congo after all so to see coverage of it at all is great.  

     An entire section of midships has been dedicated to those of us who enjoy cheering on our own, or other's, countries. A number of flags have been brought over from the International Lounge to make it a bit more festive, a schedule has been posted for the whole Olympics with something on at every hour, and a medal count leader board is hanging on the wall. All in all I think this is a fantastic and exciting place to watch the Olympics and I'm going to continue cheering on Canada (with my Olympic Canada gear and my flag) from my ship home in Africa.

Alberta!

     And speaking of my country we had a fantastic get together last Monday for all the Canadians on board, just because. There happen to be thirty-six of us from various places across Canada and we all enjoyed some Timmy's coffee, homemade donughts, Quebec sugar pie and 100% Canadian maple syrup. Afterwards a number of us went down to watch some Olympic coverage only to get there in time to see Canada take the gold and silver in men's moguls. Good timing and a great evening. Since I've been confined to the ship most of this week and weekend due to having the pager I haven't been able to get out much so the Olympics occupied a large part of my week. Hope you are all enjoying the Olympics wherever you happen to be!

Posing as beavers

Facebook Famous

Well as I'm sure most people know it was Facebook's 10th birthday just this past week. And to mark the occasion Facebook made a couple videos about some of the the things it has been able to do in the past ten years. One of these videos featured Mercy Ships and how people have been able to connect with and help via Facebook. Here's a link to the video: http://www.facebookstories.com/stories/53770/anchored.

And here is a link (www.sevenly.org/MercyShips1) to Sevenly's website. Every purchase over the next 3 days will give $7 to Mercy Ships.

Back to Ship Life

As many of you well know I enjoyed my experience so much when I was in Guinea that I signed up to return almost immediately upon arriving back home. Well, almost eleven long months have passed since then and here I am, back on the ship.

Bridge full of locks put there by couples. Kinda adorable.

On my way here I had a lovely long stopover in Paris (not by my choosing but it worked out great!) so I decided I couldn't sit in the airport for 14 hours while one of the most famous and loved cities in the world was just outside. My brief little solo adventure was amazing. May I just say that Paris is definitely a beautiful, old city. I could have spent a lot more time then I already did wandering through the streets.

View of the city from the Eiffel Tower.

                  

Statues everywhere.(Notre Dame in background) 

Any way, back to Africa. After almost a week on board it feels like I never left. Sure there are some changes, furniture switched around, new people to meet, oh and a new city to explore, but on the whole it feels very similar. I'm excited to discover all the little differences, make some new and strengthen existing friendships, and get to know the new patients.     

My living arrangements are quiet different. Which at first I wasn't to pleased about but have come around and decided they are actually pretty fantastic. I was put in a ten berth cabin this time round which was a bit of a change from my six berth of last time. But there is a great group of girls in that cabin and there is actually a lot of living space (and two bathrooms... still only have the two minute shower though!). And really how blessed am I to be able to volunteer in Africa and have a very safe and relatively luxurious place to live. So with that thought I have cut whatever complaining that I had been doing short and decided to be thankful instead.

My own little piece of home.

I managed to get off the ship a couple of times this week. One big difference from Guinea is the long walk through the port where the taxis aren't allowed to take us. Made my way over to the beach twice, both times in the evening. And one trip even included a bonfire! Bonfires on the beach (which I think is one of the greatest things ever!)! 

Life in the lab is pretty same old, same old. Thankfully I have been able to remember almost everything and have gotten right back into the swing of things. Collected my first bit of blood in over 10 months too, which went very smoothly (which I'm sure the person was very thankful for, though I thought it best not to tell them I hadn't done it in a while...). 

Anywho, that's a brief glimpse into what's going on here this first week as I resettle in. I'll go into more details about everything as they happen in posts to come!