At last.

Janine Boyes
M/V Africa MercyFebruary 2010 update
Well, I finally managed to put pen to paper so to speak and give you an update of where I am and what I’ve been up to.
At the moment we are at the beginning of a 6 month field service. We arrived in Lome, Togo, West Africa on Wednesday the 10th of Feb. Wow, what a welcome.

There was a band playing, people singing, clapping, dancing. Just amazing. We finally docked and had the gangway attached, speeches made and all the formalities done by about midday. There wasn’t much work done that day by most of us. We spent most of the morning up on deck 7 and 8 watching the proceedings and just enjoying arriving in Africa after a 10 day sail, 6 weeks in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, and for me, 26 days in N.Z. and 9 weeks in Texas and the Dominican Republic. It was quite a moment of reflection for me - a moment of thinking “this is it, I have finally arrived at the place that I been called to”. It seems like forever since I applied to serve with Mercy Ships (it has actually been about 6 months or so) yet in some ways it seems like yesterday because so many things are still so totally new to me. I’m sure that that will change.

I haven’t had much of a chance to go off-ship yet - I hope to get into town this weekend. It takes something like 45 mins to walk into town and its really hot so I will have to catch a ride in one of the ship’s vehicles. So, I haven’t really seen anything of Togo - only what I can see on the very busy dock. At least we have our own space cordoned off on the dock which we only share with the ship’s vehicles, a tent or two, a big mini-skip for our rubbish and also at night with heaps of cockroaches, rats, flies and, no doubt, a few mozzies.
As far as the field service goes there have been some medical screenings this week with more to come in the weeks to come - because of the general elections coming up in Togo soon there are not allowed to be large gatherings of people so we are doing smaller

screenings but more of them I think. Also, we are in the process of recruiting a couple of hundred day-volunteers to help us out while we are in Togo e.g. translators, cooks, housekeepers, engineers etc. so our numbers will swell significantly during the daytime. Instead of having around 400 of us in the dining room during the lunch break there could be up to 600 and its pretty crowded already.


As far as my job in the finance department goes I’ve gone from not having enough work to fill in an hour let alone the whole day to being way busier and not finishing until 9 sometimes. Also, just when I think I’m getting the hang of it something new comes along;D As everyone says “Welcome to Mercy Ships”. I only managed to get 2 hours training for the job before the previous Accounts Payable person left on leave so I was working blind for a while - no major disasters though. I really love the job and the crew and get to share my office with a lovely lady from Texas - might even end up with a Texan twang ;D

The sail from Tenerife was mostly enjoyable (no seasickness for me thanks to some wonderful medication that they gave out and I also did what I was told) except for the first few days - we were rolling heavily - about 25 degrees - and walking in a straight line was a real challenge until we got our sea-legs. Quite a few people were very sick. Once the sea calmed down it was really nice - every now and then there would be an announcement like “there are dolphins off to starboard” so heaps of people headed up to deck 7 to catch sight of the dolphins or the whales, flying fish or whatever. Made a nice change from being in my office all day with nothing much to do. We also had a session of praise and worship on the bow. When it was calm enough the captain would announce that they were opening up the bow so that the crew could hang out there. It was pretty awesome - singing with an african sunset as a backdrop.

I got asked to play guitar in the worship team at our Thursday night community meeting when we were docked in Tenerife - my guitar hadn’t even arrived in the container shipped from Texas so I had to borrow somebody else's. I only had two days notice so my fingers were ready to drop off after the meeting. It went great and was quite different to how we do things at home. Have been involved in worship teams several times since then and am also involved in the choir as the guitarist - and I sing along. We had our first choir practice on Sunday afternoon and 40 people showed up. Wow. And we sang/played that night. Talk about last minute. Everyone sounded great though.

My time in Tenerife was really nice. We got to check out a few places around the island e.g. Puerta de la Cruz and La Laguna and went to the South Tenerife Christian Fellowship church in Los Christianos a few times. The STCFchurch is english-speaking and is run by mostly poms and other westerners so we could understand most of what they were saying - most other churches are spanish-speaking. Mercy Ships even got to take the last service and I was part of the worship team - I played guitar for the congregational songs along with a pianist and two vocalists. Then came to nerve-wracking part - I had to play piano to accompany Marty (the ex-opera singer) who sung a solo (Marilyn and Chris back home - thanks for your help, encouragement and persistence with the piano). Man, was I glad when that was over. Of course, I had practised it heaps already on the ship but I do get nervous.

In Tenerife the Africa Mercy was docked way down at the end of the dock and it was about a 30 minute walk to get into town - just as well there was almost always some gelato as an incentive. Yummy. It was a great way to spend an evening after being cooped up in an office all day long with not alot to do. We spent Christmas and New Years there, of course, and alot of effort was put into celebrating these special times. It was also great to experience some of the traditions that other nations have. Because we were all in the same boat (excuse the pun) i.e. we were all away from home for Christmas - we all just made the most of our days off (we had FIVE days off over christmas and FOUR over New Years) and relaxed and ate heaps - we do get treats in the dining room every now and then. On Christmas night we ended up going to a free concert in town that started at 10 p.m. (its a spanish thing) and finished at about midnight - it was fantastic although we nearly got blown away and froze our butts off.

It was wonderful already being in Tenerife when the ship arrived. I got to Tenerife very late on the Thursday night after travelling for over 48 hours (I think) and nearly fell into bed when I reached the hotel. Had a wonderful day on the Friday - spent it with Audrey and Pete from the US who were joining the ship at the same time as me but were only going to be on the ship for about 5 weeks. They were and are wonderful and will probably be back on board some time in the future. So, the ship was going to be arriving at the dock at about 8 on the Saturday morning so we grabbed Pete and Audrey’s luggage and dragged it for 30 minutes to where the ship was going to dock - of course, it was going to dock at the furtherest end. The ship did beat us to it but we could see the ship from a long way off so that was OK. It was great to see heaps of the crew lining deck 7 and 8 for the arrival and we heard lots of “Petes” and “Audreys” and “Janines” - of course nearly half of the people that I did my training with in Texas and the D.R. were already on board - what a welcome from my Gateway family!


Finally getting on board, once the gangway was in place, was pretty amazing - greetings from my Gateway family, meeting Mike - my new boss - being told that I could actually stay on board the ship from that day instead of waiting until Sunday, then heading off with Audrey to go and collect my luggage from the hotel. When I returned I officially became a crew-member of the M/V Africa Mercy, dumped my luggage in my cabin (I had a guest cabin for the first night) then went to work - this is when I had the 2 hours training for my job - I don’t think I absorbed very much.


The next day I shifted into my proper cabin, which is the one that I’m in now. I am in a 3 berth with an english nurse that I roomed with during Gateway and a south african nurse - a very international cabin. That’s all working out very well so far. I continue to meet new people all the time - there are short-termers passing through constantly. I also get to experience a whole melting pot of cultures, languages and personalities all living inside a bubble beside Africa. Ain’t it great.


So, its been challenging, rewarding, frustrating, confusing, enlightening and feels like I am where I’m meant to be - for the next two years at least. I do miss home though - the food, the weather, the green grass and trees and, most of all, of course, all y’all (toldja I was turning into a Texan)


A big thank you to everyone for your prayers and support - I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for you.
We are starting our first surgeries tomorrow. Things are gonna be jumping around here. Will keep you updated - hopefully sooner rather than later ;D

Blessings

Janine