Carols on the Dock

One of the Christmas traditions that I really enjoyed was singing carols on the dock.
I guess this tradition comes from Australia, where they spend the day enjoying picnics in the park.
It's summer in Australia-just like it's pretty hot here!
The kitchen staff fixed us a great picnic on the dock.
They set up stages, and have entertainment for the children in Australia-so we did, too!

Chuck's boss, Ernest, being Santa.

Ernest was a great Santa.  He wrapped up presents of candy for the kids on his own.

We had some great musical entertainment.

Do you recognize the guy in the red shirt?

Then we all got to sing with our candles and glow sticks.  One of my favorite little girls was still holding on to her glow stick the next morning at breakfast.  So I think everyone had a good time!

Debbie

Some Thoughts on Guinea Culture

We have been learning a lot about culture.  With over 30 nationalities on the Africa Mercy, one hears a lot of different accents from all around the world.  It seems  there is always a conversation taking place in Russian or Dutch.   In the hospital wards, we have translators.  The languages that the patients speak is posted with their names above their beds:  French, Susu, Fulani or English.  There are lots of interesting languages and conversations take place all day long.

But culture is much more than language.  One of the ways to describe cultural differences is using the terms hot climate cultures vs cold climate cultures. 

I come from a cold climate culture.  I tend to be task oriented and value accuracy and efficiency.  I’m concerned about time.  I want to respect others time.  Guinea, however, is a hot climate culture.  The people are relationship oriented.  Communications must create a feel good atmosphere.  People always take priority over time. It is considered inappropriate to talk business upon arriving at a business meeting or making a business phone call.   

Honor or respect is very important in West Africa.  Trust has to be earned.  It is never assumed.

If you go to the market place, you always have to negotiate price.  This could be a taxi or an African Drum.  It is disrespectful not to negotiate.  There are some places with set prices such as a supermarket, but on the street, everything is negotiable. 

If you ever need directions, no one will ever say they don't know.  That would be disrespectful, so they will send you on your way.  We also heard that maps are useless.  People don't know how to read maps or want anything to do with them. 

If you ever hand anything to anyone – money or an object, you always use your right hand.  Giving anything to anyone with the left hand is very disrespectful.

Music is also very cultural.  As part of our Christmas celebration, we had dinner on the dock followed by singing Christmas carols and songs by candlelight.  In the west we have verses with lots of words and lyrics and sing in harmony.  In Africa, everything has lots of percussion, repetition and there’s always a lot of dancing to accompany the music. Four part harmony is not part of the culture.  I wonder what our African friends think or our traditions and celebrations?

In a church service, there could be 15 minutes of drums for clapping and dancing as an expression of worship with no words.  Most of the songs are repetition of a phrase or idea, over and over and over again.  There’s tremendous energy that goes into physical expressions of worship.  Services last 2-3 hours.

Traffic is another experience too.  There are no traffic lights in Conakry.  One man said they had some lights once, but people stole them to use for decorations in their homes!  If you enter a traffic circle, you have the right of way.  Once you are in the circle, you give up all rights of ever getting out of it.  We were stuck in a traffic circle for 15 minutes because no one could move, but cars kept entering the circle and would not let anyone continue around.  After some negotiations, we got the cars on the right of us to go move and let us through so we could take that road.

I have certainly developed a greater respect for those who actually move and adapt to a new culture.  It's not easy, but it rewarding.  It stretches us to new levels of understanding and appreciation for the great diversity we have as fellow human beings.

Chuck

The Night Before Christmas

This was written by Claudia, the Senior Lab Tech on the Africa Mercy.
Claudia has been on the ship for two years, and is part of the long term crew.
She's a great tech, and has lots of other talents as well!

Christmas Blood Droplets on the Lab Door

’‘Twas the Night before Christmas… on the AFM

by Claudia Juarez

‘Twas the night before Christmas,

And all through the ship,

No surgeries in progress 

Not even cleft lip.

The crew were all snuggled

And stacked in so tight,

Not disturbed in the least

By a stray bit of light

.

When out in the hall

There arose such a clatter,

They all jumped and muttered,

‘Now what is the matter?’

They opened their doors

And looked out to see,

Then gazed in amazement

And giggled with glee!

The shoes they had left

In the hallway that night

Were filled up with goodies!

Oh what a grand sight!

With candies and cookies,

And even a ball,

Who’d ever expect

Such a glorious haul?

No reindeer were sighted;

No fat jolly men.

But elves must have been here,

Each thought with a grin.

But wait, what’s that racket

Way up on deck eight?

The stomping about

With quite a quick gait?

As they ran to the deck rail,

They barely caught sight

Of a boat heading outbound

With a red and green light.

The driver looked back

And shouted with glee,

‘Merry Christmas my crewmates

And may you blessed be!’

Chuck and I wish you a blessed Christmas!

Debbie

Cookie baking on the Africa Mercy

So how do you make Christmas cookies on a hospital ship?

Well, first you order a kilogram of dough from the kitchen.  It's only $2, and they'll deduct the money from your crew account.

You show up at the appointed time with a rolling pin, some cookie cutters, candy for decorating and a plate.
Or you borrow those things from other people.

Dough, anyone?

You find a table in the dining room to use for your work area, and find some baking sheets.
Cut out the cookies, and add some candy, if you like.
They get baked in the kitchen.

Hard at work!

When the cookies come out, the frosting comes next.  The frosting is also made by the kitchen staff.

Happy cookie bakers

Debbie

Santa Lucia Day - December 13

December 13 is the date that Scandinavians celebrate Santa Lucia (or Saint Lucy's Day).
It goes back to the tradition of a Christian martyr in Italy in the 4th century.  St Lucia is known as the saint of light.  The celebration takes place on the 13th of December as this was considered the shortest day of the year. At the time they were using the Julian calendar, so it was off by 8 days vs the Gregorian calendar.

So our Scandinavian friends on board, put on a traditional celebration.  One girl was chosen to wear the crown of candles (yes we had real flaming candles on board - note the low ceilings), followed by a process of men and women in costumes singing Santa Lucia.  (I think in Italian).  Some other songs were sung and there were some spoke verse about the feast.  We also shared a traditional Swedish roll.

St Lucia celebration in the mid ships lounge

Notice the very stylish cone shaped hats some of the men wore.  They are called star boys  (or stjärngossar in Swedish).  They carry stars and have gold stars on their cone hats.  There were also two small boys who distributed Swedish pastry (some kind of traditional Swedish bun) to the crew.  So no matter where you come from, festivals always include some kind of food for sharing.

Star Boys - perhaps a future rock band

Chuck

From Prison to Pulpit

On December 8, 2012 I went to prison in Conakry.  No, I did not do anything wrong!  I was a volunteer to join with other men from Mercy Ships to visit the local prison as part of the Prison Fellowship ministry in Guinea.  Prison Fellowship built a chapel which comfortably holds 100 people.  There are benches and a roof above which keeps out the hot sun. (For those not familiar with Prison Fellowship, it was started by Chuck Colson after he served time for his involvement in Watergate. It is an international mission to bring the transforming gospel to prisoners. Since there were Canadian flags on two walls inside the prison, The Canadian organization might have been part of working with the African branch of Prison Fellowship to build the facility here).

We started with a time of African style worship.  Drums, singing and dancing.  We also had a guitarist from Ghana.  After a while the men started coming in to join us.  There was a message and challenge.  Some other men also got up to speak to those gathered.
We introduced ourselves and where we were from.  We wanted to offer hope to these men who have little to look forward to.  We wanted them to know that God had a purpose for them being in prison.
About half of the men spoke English (those from Nigeria, or Sierra Leone).  They were so happy to have us come and visit with them.  We talked with them individually for a while.  After a couple hours we left.
There were also a group of women from Mercy Ships who met with the women prisoners.  They come to teach literacy and crocheting, or some other life skills.

I got to know one of our Mercy Ships crew who first learned about mercy ships as a patient with a large facial tumor.  Doctor Gary Parker operated on him.  Today he's working on board as a licensed motorman with a desire to get more training and certification in marine engineering.  So here is an example of some of the fruit of Mercy Ships.  A young man with little hope, come to Mercy Ships, receives a new face, is given hope, but also finds Jesus.  He's transformed in the process, and now is  seeking to serve the Lord while here.  He even goes to visit prisoners and shares his story.  Quite an inspiring story!

On December 9, 2012 I went to church and was the preacher for the day.  I spoke of God's holiness from Isaiah 6: 1-8.  One of my favorite subjects is the Holiness of God and what difference that makes in how we live.  It's a difficult subject in English, but I also had to work with a French translator.  I don't know how it came out in French, but I did challenge the translator.  I felt honored to be able to serve in this way.

Later in the week, we were attending some training on Guinea culture.  One thing interesting in this culture is that trust must be earned.  It is never assumed (as it is in the West).  I asked the speaker why was I invited to speak in a church if trust has to be earned?  I only had a few conversations with the local pastor.  In my country, I would not have invited someone to speak so quickly.  He answered because I was a Christian missionary to Guinea it was assumed I could be trusted to bring God's word to the church there.  Well I hope I was able to communicate in spite of my Western culture and understanding.   It was a  honor, and I was thankful to be able to use my gifts in a way to serve the church here. We have certainly felt welcomed by our fellow believers in Guinea.  We have a lot to learn.

Chuck

Surgeon Santa on Mercy Ships

There is no shortage of traditions and celebrations on Mercy Ships.  Christmas is celebrated in a lot of different ways among this international community.  Since there are a lot of people from Holland, December 5 was the celebration of the coming of Sinterklaas.  There seemed to be a lot of shoes outside the cabin doors containing a raw carrot for the horses.  I don't know where they got the carrots, but I asked the head chef since we had cooked carrots with our dinner.  He only could conclude that the Dutch have taken over the ship!

There is an annual contest where individuals and work groups can decorate their doors.  The supply team, which has no artistic talent, but access to lots of medical supplies, created Surgeon Santa (Gift Specialist) to decorate our door.

Since this Santa is a surgeon, he had to give up the red suit for a yellow visitors gown.  The hat was constructed from a red bio-hazard bag, the hand from nitrile gloves.  My contribution was the beard, made from cloth tape and cotton balls, and the trim on the hat.
Since the original creation, some improvements in the design have been necessary.  The latex glove for the face looses air quickly, so now Santa has a blue nitrile face instead of a white latex one.  Also, the thumb became a nose to better hold up the reading glasses.  I also had to engineer a better way to support the head, so he isn't looking down.  Well, the judging is not until December 22, so I'm sure that we'll have some improvements before then.  Since the original design, Santa has had a rough time.  Santa has gotten tired, lost his face, glasses and most of the beard.  His hands have even shrunk.  So I expect a major overhall on December 21.

Here's sneak preview of the lab's door.  They actually have an artistic person working there, so it's not a fair comparison, but it does welcome potential blood donors and other clients.

These are certainly happy little drops of blood mixing with snowflakes.  You just want to give a pint after seeing this!

One of the things that's great about being in Guinea at Christmas, is the absence of the commercialism and materialism that is associated with Christmas in the West.  It's great to be away from that this year.






Chuck

Winter Wonderland

It's Christmas on the Africa Mercy!

It started with Deck the Halls- decorating the ship for Christmas last Saturday.

I was handed  a box with a Christmas tree in it to set up by the piano.  I opened the box and the directions were in Dutch.  By luckily I had an 8 yr old girl to help me.
Then I helped  decorate the African trees above the Starbucks.  The problem there was that one of the bases of one of the trees was broken, and the superglue that we had only made it sticky.  Then we had 3 plugs for a two plug adapter.  And the plugs were all European fittings, and the ship is UK fittings, so we needed more adapters. One of the strings of lights didn't work, so we had to put one of the smaller trees in front of a bigger tree to share the string of lights.  Then one tree didn't blink, but the others did.  Then we had to move them all around....
So it's just like decorating anywhere else in the world!

The trees above the Starbucks

This week we celebrated the arrival of Sinter Klass- the Dutch Santa.  We watched the academy's production of The Nutcracker.  Tonight we had the Winter Wonderland-tables full of crafts and baked goods.  All you have to do to make a purchase is sign your name-and it will be taken out of the crew bank.  A very easy way to spend money!

One of the tables sold eggnog.  We didn't know that eggnog was so exotic- a new experience for our Dutch friends.  After having eggnog on the ship, our friend Jan tried to buy it at the Walmart in Texas the next time he was in the States.  Unfortunately, he was in Texas in April!
We also had a table to sell the finger puppets I made at home for the kids here.  We sold or gave away almost all of them-a very successful evening!

There's a lot of celebrating here.  Santa Lucia day, the snowflake contest, Christmas movies, the Academy Christmas play.  I know we will miss our own Christmas traditions with our family and church-as will everyone else on board.  But for us this year, it will be an International/ African Christmas!

Debbie

5S and Lean operating systems

After over 30 years in manufacturing, and the last six living in a lean manufacturing operation, it has been great to come on board Mercy Ships and bring that perspective to my job here.  More recently, there have been recommendations made to move towards a LEAN system in terms of hospital supplies.
Since I have lived this, it was great to be able to share from experience and  take some steps to improve the daily operation.
Those who understand 5S, know that everything has a place and every place is labeled.  I've done a lot of labeling and organizing.  Updating our standard work checklists (which did not even exist earlier this year) has helped keep up my excel skills as well as improve the day to day work.  The improvements have cut in half the amount of time required for the daily tasks of taking inventory and supplying the hospital wards, operating rooms and other service areas.  That gives us time to make more improvement and take on special improvement projects.  There's still a lot to do, but it's nice to be able to use my training and experience to support improvements here.

I also had opportunity to apply my chemical background to a specific task which prevented some mishandling of chemicals.  Most people don't know what an MSDS is here, or how to find one on the internet, but that's pretty routine for me.  Reading the ingredients on a disinfectant raised some quick concerns about handling it.  (Chemistry is a wonder thing).

Theses are just a couple small examples illustrating that God does not waste any of our experiences so that we can be ready to serve Him and others in the future.  It is amazing how the skills learned in manufacturing can be applied to a lot of areas of life.

Chuck

Where There is Hope There is Healing

I was able to go with the Mercy Ministry team to the Hope Center on Friday.
Every field service, Mercy Ships renovates a clinic to house patients before or after surgery.
This year they renovated a floor of the local hospital.

Some patients are the orthopedic patients who still need physical therapy or casting.  They can stay at the Hope Center and come to the outpatient tent on the dock outside the ship for their appointments.  Some patients need additional surgery, and stay at the Hope Center because they live too far away to travel to the ship again.  Some patients need to get strong enough for surgery.

These twin babies are at the Hope Center with their mother.  One has a cleft lip/palate. Because of this birth defect, he doesn't nurse well.  He is getting supplemental nutrition before his surgery.

A team goes to the Hope Center twice a week to tell a Bible story, do a craft and visit the patients.
Tiffany, the team leader, told the story of God choosing David to become king.  She would say a sentence at a time, because she had two translators.  It was first translated into French, and then into Susu.  I haven't figured out why the Susu translation was twice as long as the English or French!

The kids and adults loved the craft.  I guess kids everywhere have a fascination with glue.  And stickers.  I was holding one baby when he started to fuss.  His mom kind of grabbed  him, flopped him on her lap, and nursed him, all while continuing to do her craft project. Talk about multi-tasking!

After that was all cleaned up, we played games with the kids.  The memory game and blocks are pretty popular.  A successful afternoon!

Debbie