Charlotte Falls in the rainy season!

Wet, wet, wet! And what beauty!

Chimpanzees waterfalls and 50 Cent

   Thirteen of us piled into a poda-poda yesterday to go exploring .. headed off to the Tacaguma Chimpanzee Reserve in Sierra Leone. The poda-poda (such a fun word to say) is the local taxi, like a minivan, or one of the taxis in South Africa. Lots of fun because it's definitely a bumpy ride, no shock absorbers remaining after being on Freetown roads for way too long, and then our driver was obviously a 50 Cent fan, 'cause it was the only music that would kick in from time to time when the short in the speakers would spark in :-) Loudly. And the four 50 Cent pictures on the dashboard.  So we were all bouncing along merrily to the beat of the music, making me feel like I was back in St. Elmo, where the neighbors are always so happy to share the base-line of their music :-)

  Oh, and Granny, 50 Cent is a rap artist :-) Let's see if i can get this to load, it was way fun....

  The chimp reserve was really lovely, you had to watch yourself around the enclosures because apparently the bored monkeys love hurling rocks at the strangers who come to gawp at them... and apparently have a mean arm and great shot! So cute to watch them interact and bounce all over. 

Then we took a lovely hike to Charlotte Falls - a massive cascade in full splendour due to it being the rainy season... so we were all merrily drenched by the time we walked up there and back... happy to have exercise, for sure! We had to pay the tour guide (some dude who had parked himself there to walk us up the 500m trail) 5000 leones, which equivalates to about a $1.50, or I would have probably been ticked and told him quite properly that i am able to find it just fine by myself, thank you very much. Ah well, no point in getting your panties in a wad around here when they're gonna sheist you out of money. That, and it's probably the only money he's gonna make.

Our poda-poda drove in circles in Freetown trying to get back to the docks, finally wedging himself halfway up a one-way street, with oncoming trucks and half of Freetown deciding he'd done a smart thing bringing up a strong rear. Whereupon three of us piled out, elbowed our way through the crowds and beating the poda-poda riders back by about an hour! My poor roommate dragged herself into our cabin after I'd showered and was enjoying a nice cup of tea.

It was such fun!!!
 

Joyful kid's wards

     So I got to work on a different ward this week, and what's to say. I stepped in and promptly got knocked back by the sheer volume. Ha! There was a full-blown balloon volleyball game was going on, with much egging on and encouragment from the adults in their beds. All the balloons stickered and drawn on, blowing up with huge pops from time to time to give you a heart attack. So i'm already giggling, and notice the little boy (6 years old) in the corner is singing "Waka Waka Africa" - can't get away from Shakira even in Sierra Leone!
  The translators were hollering at the Ketchi (sp?) v. Chelsea game, and of course Chelsea won 4-0, so no worries, the best man won. One kid was hollering through a physical therapy session (burn contractures), and then another nurse steps onto the ward with his ipod connected to a speaker - Madagascar's "I like to move it move it" booming, all games cease, and a general boogey session ensues, with the littlest 5 year old girl breakin' it down like i've never seen :-) What fun. Quite secondary to all that was the meds, dressings, vital signs and the rest of it... ah. "All the kids are singing and dancing to "I like to movie, movie!" I'm afraid I did crack up with one older fella (way into 70s) was mouthing along "Movie movie.... movie movie....movie movie!"
  That settled down into a friendly card game later on (3 patients and two caregivers on one twin bed), while two more kids raced with their little cars that I tied strings to so they could drag them behind them.
  Then 3 of the tiniest ones and I went goose-stepping up and down the hallways - now, I was trying to get some of their energy out, but it backfired - sheesh, I don't know how those soldier dudes do it!  Course, we were kind of half dancing half high stepping up and down. Hmm. Fun day on the ward.

Dronning Ingrid

  Behold the Dronning Ingrid, Danish ferry before being purchased and outfitted as the world's largest non-governmental hospital ship, now the Africa Mercy.

a psalm for Sierra Leone

You Will Shine

a psalm for Sierra Leone

by Paula Kirby

I choose to sing your song O Lord

for if I don't, I shall surely cry, and perhaps, never ever stop.

I'll cry for the evil of powerful men

who dig for diamonds in a soil not their own

and ravage the soul of a people.

I'll cry for a land shell-shocked and tattered

sitting glazed-eyed and squalid, ankle-deep in mud.

I'll cry for the horror of crazed, bedeviled minds

who weld fire into the chests of screaming children.

I'll wail fo rthe girls slapped, tied and tortured

forced to become women before their time

for their bellies stretched and hard some nine months later

and for thier screams, yet again, and again, in the night.

I'll cry for the still-born babies

       for the splintered families

              for forgiveness that cuts deeper than knives

for the severed limbs

       and the ripped flesh

              and the hearts torn and pummeled beyond hope.

I'll cry for you Sierra Leone -

and God in His mercy will turn my tears to prayer -

prayer for your beautiful land, for your lush and rolling hillsk for your people of promise

I will pray that you will rise,

       that the promise of God will prevail

              that love, in the end, will not fail.

I pray that your blood-washed land will be rained upon and showered with His Grace

       that you will know His kindness

              that you will see His scarred face.

For in His eyes all pain dissolves. In His heart all bitterness dies.

For like you, He too, was blood-soaked. Like you, He too, was bound and scarred,

yet sweeping away shame, He overcame and says, YOU TOO, SHALL RISE.

So I'll sing my song for you Sierra Leone. And I'll shout it louder than in truth

God will wipe away every tear. And before the power of His Love no fear can stand.

       Like your beaches, unsullied you will be.

              Like your hills, you will laugh and dance.

And like the diamonds in your soil, once again, bejewelled land, YOU WILL SHINE!

B Ward staff

This is the B Ward staff of the Africa Mercy - this week! Lots of people leaving and coming all the time, but a lovely group of people.

photo by Deb. Louden

Desmond "far far away"

  I've just gotten back to the ship after visiting the Cheshire Home children's school and orphanage. There weren't too many children there today, just a few who attend the local school, but of course they're just adorable, wanting to help and getting in the way of the swinging mallets at inauspicious moments. Some of the children had been taken on holiday, how nice.

  A team of 11 of us went to lay down a pathway from the school's existing sidewalk to the tiny soccer field, so that the school's handicapped children can make it down. This entailed digging ditches down the path, breaking huge rocks with mallets down into softball-sized rock and spreading it out. We'll go back in a few week's time and lay the concrete down.

  I wimped out before the end, several week's of no exercise rearing its ugly head and quite frankly never sat pickin' rock before. I sat in the shade talking to some of the girls there. One girl kept asking for us to take her little boy "far far away". A sweet little thing named Desmond, apparently named after a famous Nigerian actor. One of the girls on the team said that this is a fairly common occurrance actually, to be asked to take children away from here. Breaks your heart. Shame, such a tiny little thing. Darn immigration :-) Ruins all the fun :-)