A Lesson from Africa and Memories of Benin

I never imagined that Africa would prepare me for driving in Boston and New England, especially in winter. As I dodged the potholes and frost heaves during my drive around towns this weekend, however, it dawned on me that I honed my skill of pothole dodging on the city and country roads of West Africa. Likewise, driving through a market area with people crossing the street in various directions provided ample practice at pedestrian dodging, a talent that now benefits the jaywalkers in Boston.

I traveled the tunnels under the medical center today and saw a reminder of Anastasis life: a ceiling leak above a pipe created numerous small-scale stalactites. It even felt like walking down B-deck, with overhead pipes exposed.

Can't believe the Africa Mercy is waiting off-shore, sailing into Cotonou, Benin tomorrow (according to a friend's Facebook status update). Benin was the first West African country I visited with Mercy Ships and remains my second favorite West African nation. Sierra Leone will always be first because I've spend to much time there, but there are fun memories, adventures and patients from several trips to Benin. Here are a few:

• Justine, who came after she learned that a man with a tumor had survived surgery and returned home;
• Hugues, whose pre-op photo caused a translator to exclaim three years later, "This is bringing hope and healing!"
• Cavilla, who didn't survive, but whose story and experience brought transformation to a village and touched the hearts of hundreds;
• Riding my motorcycle through the villages with a friend on the back and stopping to play with the group of children who called out to greet us. Yes, I know motorcycles are dangerous, but they are so much FUN!;

• The man in northern Benin who refused to come to the ship for his cleft lip repair because his parents had already died and he was afraid they wouldn't recognize him when he died if he had it repaired. If Sonja had accepted his proposal, she'd be married by now!
• Touring a 'castle' style barn on the same trip to northern Benin;

• I LOVE screening days...lots of babies begging to be held and a chance to wear the uniform :) Oh, and the fact that for years I always said "Yes" to potential patients and rarely or never said "No." Though in recent years I usually said, "No," I still loved screening days.

• Worou (above with Jean Browne) and Sidoine (below with Jean C), infants with cleft lips;

• Symplice seeing for the first time after his cataract surgery.

• Brigette (above with Dr Gary) & Houeyi, little girls with horrific tumors. When I tell people why we had a CT scanner on the ship, I tend to tell Brigette's story and how we agonized over whether or not to operate, because we didn't know how deep the tumor went. Houeyi went to the US for surgery.

Back to Sierra Leone

I flew back to Sierra Leone yesterday morning. Fayah, a Mercy Ships driver from the fistula center picked me up and took me across Freetown via the hillside route in order to avoid traffic. The road travels through villages whose names recall the British connections: Bathurst, Charlotte, Leicester, Regent.

I noticed things as though seeing them for the first time because I realize it could be the last time. In two weeks I'll leave West Africa.

Twenty years ago, when I first landed it Sierra Leone, it was also rainy season. Coming down the steps from the plane, the humidity assaulted me. Rain often made conversations difficult if not impossible...nothing like trying to chat when a downpour plays kettle drum with the corrugated zinc roof over your head. On the road I remember the kids filling potholes with rocks and asking for a dash to reward them for their work before allowing us to pass. I remember sitting at the bottom of a hill contemplating whether it was better to stay to the right or left of the rut or straddle it and cross where it turned at the top. And I remember my first trip to Mattru with Michelle, when a rock struck our windshield, shattering it...and THEN the afternoon rains began. We ended up replacing the windshield with a sheet of plastic, on which the windshield wipers were of course useless, and she drove much of the way with her head out the window while I shifted according to her instructions. A friendship was born on that trip.

Yesterday I found myself wishing I had learned a lesson from my friend Ann and carried a notebook for recording observations and thoughts. Would I remember the zinc roofs covered with tarps and held down with rocks so the tarps would help keep out the rain and the rocks would keep the tarps from blowing away? Brooks that were often invisible from the road during dry season, now waterfalls and rapidly rushing streams visible from a distance? The sight of kids and parents washing laundry and themselves as the water dashed over rocks beside the road? Red clay rutted roads? Men, women, and children carrying usual and unusual loads on their heads (15' pipes, baskets of cassava leaf, bundles of charcoal or yams)? Men and women sitting beside a rock pile, hammering rocks into gravel to sell?

Fayah stopped at one point and backed up a bit, looking to the stream beside the road before continuing. When I asked what he was looking at, "there's a crocodile down there," he replied. That was a a little ways after the entrance to the chimp sanctuary. "It's open again; the chimps are under control for now." A few years ago there had been an attack on people and a massive chimp escape. These chimps were ones that had been kept illegally as pets.

Will share more thoughts and observations later.

Diligence of Duty and Other Observations

Just three brief updates on previous posts:
Wednesday night I ran out to a downtown restaurant for takeout and on the way home I turned on the radio. I was amused to hear that someone was on trial for "diligence of duty." It will be a while before Liberia is back on its feet if diligence of duty has become a crime :)

When I checked the Liberia news alerts, I read that a UN helicopter crashed on landing at Greenville. That's where we flew last month to screen for patients and where I had been uneasy enough about the trip that I wrote out a revised will the night before leaving. The good news is that none of the four crew members on board at the time were injured.

Meanwhile, neighboring Guinea (it circles around Sierra Leone, so it is north of Liberia along the coast, but east of Liberia inland) continues to experience unrest, with a military revolt this past week over the issue of back pay. The trigger for this latest event was the President's removal of the Prime Minister. This doesn't strike me as the stablest of West African nations, but Mercy Ships has decided to go there in 2010. Alimou may have trouble getting home if the flights are interrupted this week.

Final Photos

One more chance this evening to grab some photos of the Anastasis before she sails away. I have never seen the cargo holds so barren! While on a final walkthrough, I decided to take this frame from my office. I'd had it made in Ghana, but it didn't meet the specifications, so I had planned to just leave it behind. On my way back to the ship, I walked down the dock to grab some pictures of the two ships together, carrying the frame with me. A few people gave me a hard time about it and I joked that I would use it to frame the Anastasis. I took pictures of them holding the frame and then posed for a picture of my own. I did also get a few photos of the Anastasis and Africa Mercy together, some while standing atop a Land Rover and a few from the guardhouse. Annie's facing shore while the Africa Mercy shows her big backside.

Old Ships online

Decide to Google the Lloyd Triestino Victoria tonight to see what I could find. That was the former name of the Anastasis when Mercy Ships purchased her. Here's the link to a page about the Victoria and sister ship Asia. The brochure called it a 'small but complete floating city.' Today when we show people around the ship, we mention that it is a floating village or town. On the Africa Mercy we even have an open, two-deck area that is called town-center.

Going back a bit earlier, I also sought pictures of the ships on which my ancestors emigrated from Hungary. OK, Hungary is landlocked, but they travelled over to Fiume, Italy and caught the ship there. My then 12-year old great-grandmother arrived at Ellis Island on the Cunard Pannonia in 1909. Her father had traveled over two years earlier on the Cunard Ultonia. A few years ago I discovered that the Ultonia was built in the Swan-Hunter yard on the Tyne, right next door and across the river from the A&P Tyne yards where the Africa Mercy underwent her refit. Both ships (toward bottom of the linked page), slightly shorter and smaller than the Anastasis, had capacities of 40 first-class passengers and 800 third class passengers. Those could NOT have been pleasant transatlantic journeys.

Speaking of the Africa Mercy, here are some earlier pictures from her years as the Danish rail ferry, Dronning Ingrid. There are a few that show the bow open and the rail deck visible. The rail deck now contains the hospital as well as offices for Community Development and Church Empowerment plus accommodations for many short-term crew. A new deck just above that houses cabins for more crew.

Anyway, I initiated tonight's searches because I just started reading Bob Welch's American Nightingale, about Frances Slanger, a US Army nurse who died at Normandy. She was a Polish Jew who immigrated to the US after World Ward I. I wanted to look up information about the Liberty ships that transported troops, some of which were built in as little as two weeks. Given the history of the refit of the Africa Mercy, I was curious. They emphasized function over form. President Roosevelt's observation about the Liberty could have been made about the Africa Mercy: "She isn't much to look at though, is she? A real ugly duckling." (pg. 6).

Back to the book...

Africa Mercy in Blyth; End of Era in Monrovia

I created this blog a month ago, thinking I would use it to send brief updates while I was in northeast England moving equipment aboard the Africa Mercy. Didn't happen! I've been back nearly a week and this is the first time I've had a chance to even revisit it.

While in England, we moved a lot of the hospital equipment on board. It was like Christmas opening packages of monitors, defibrillators, racks for the washer/disinfectors, operating microscopes, phacoemulsifiers, scales...the list goes on. Many people, foundations, churches, clubs, companies, and governments have given generously toward the equipping of the ship. One goal was to have some of the operating rooms and wards ready for media visits on April 24. We succeeded in making the operating rooms, intensive care unit, recovery room, disinfection room, and CT-scanner and x-ray rooms look pretty decent.

I did a few interviews for paper and television while there. The local BBC1 news did a short feature in the midday news and a longer feature in the evening. Another show will be the BBC Heaven and Earth on Sunday morning.

Today was the final day of surgery on the Anastasis. Bittersweet...they performed a record 20 ophthalmic operations today. Tomorrow we will hold a screening here in Monrovia to select patients for the July-November surgery slots on board the Africa Mercy. So, one era ends and merges gently into the next.

Forgot to say that although I work for Mercy Ships and have for ten years, the opinions expressed in this blog are mine and mine alone, not the opinions or official stance of Mercy Ships. This blog will contain my opinions, thoughts, reflections, and adventure and the photos will be ones I've taken unless otherwise credited.