Recent News
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Sorry!-
For whatever reason, I am unable to post the pictures associated
with my last few posts. Maybe it's the half-dozen Egyptian sailors sucking
all the bandwidth at this seamans club, or maybe it's this 1997-era dial-up
they have, or (more likely) a combination of the two...all I know is I can't
publish. So,...sorry-read the words and make little pictures in your heads.
*
Your Moment of African Zen-
Chickens &
Guinea Fowl for sale, Grande Marché,
Lome.
*
27 July- Well,
this post is actually supposed to go onto the 'Rainy Season' post from a few
days ago, but I'm just now getting the
pictures. While I was tearing through some of these lakes left over from the
rainy season, my friends in the back of the car were
snapping photos from their point-of-view. The first picture is a little dull,
but the next two show a little of the waves you'll create
when you drive through them. You can see the miniature 'breakwaters' people will
put around their houses during rainy season.
*
Everything Gets Stolen-in West Africa. It's just a fact of life
here. You got to lock up everything,
watch your stuff like a hawk, hire people to watch it for you when you
go away, then hire people
to watch those people. A security guard for Mercy Ships a few years back was
caught stealing fuel
from the generator on the grounds he'd been hired to guard. A manager at the
same clinic stole a
safe right out of the wall. The safe contained $16,000- a fortune to him, no
doubt. African drivers
buy gas almost by the gallon, as full tanks left overnight would be empty by
morning. Below you'll
see just one method of preventing theft-weld cages over everything. From left, a
typical 'pay phone'
you will see around West Africa with a lockable cage over it...the cage is
unlocked at the end of the
day and the phone removed. Next to that is a truck's gas tank, all locked up,
and even turn signals
run the risk of getting ripped off if not properly secured. I've seen cages
welded around everything
from a table-sized generator to the lid of a toilet tank. I've seen more
in Togo than other places.
*
Fishermans Village-
My 'wandering spirit' took me to a nearby fisherman's village recently. This
village, about two
km west of the port, is close to a church that many of us go to on Sunday
morning, and to a beach that many spend
Sunday afternoons at. While I'm sure it has a proper name, nobody has ever asked
what that name is. I got bored of
hanging out at the beach (a restaurant there has free wireless, and I'll go some
Sundays to publish this website), and
strolled down to the village to see what it's like behind the streets and
markets you see up front. What I found was a
maze of thatched-palm walls, dirt streets, and narrow passageways. The picture
at bottom left about sums up what it
looks like throughout the entire village, about a quarter-mile square of this. I
tried to get all the way to the beach, but
there was no straight shot to it-only turn after turn after turn. When I was
about halfway through, some kids-shocked
at my sudden appearance- followed me all the way to the beach, giggling and
daring each other to get closer to me. I
obliged them and played 'yovo-monster'-hiding behind walls, then jumping out &
chasing them, much to their delight.
You can see them in the second photo, daring me to come closer to them, but near
enough to the corner to run away.
I eventually managed to get to the beach, which was as dirty
as you'd expect. I walked along the beach to get back to
my friends, and at the far edge of the village, I found one more dwelling.
Seaside property, as it were, but hardly the
type to inspire envy among us westerners. The close proximity to the ocean meant
that the larger waves and constant
beach erosion cause their yards to slowly slip into the sea, inch by inch.
They had built up a sort of ad hoc wall to stop
this, but a few big rocks didn't do too much against Mother Nature. All in all
it was a great little side trip. People were
friendly- playing with the kids has got to be the easiest way to get the people
comfortable with you in Africa- and the
village, while not a very exciting village visually, was nonetheless an
interesting experience. I love that they had con-
structed an entire village, complete with streets, homes, and 'backyards' out of
nothing more than palm branches and
a few sticks. Some had turned their little 'palm-branch properties' into
stores, bars, and hair salons. And no need to
get addresses- it was small enough that you could ask for 'Moses the mechanic',
and you'd be shown right to his door.
*
Your Moment of African Zen-
Mosque, Kpota
*
24 July- You really need to get out and walk to know
Africa. Too many of us hide behind air-conditioning,
rolled-up windows, and 'hit-and-run' trips to the same old markets and
restaurants. I am finding more and
more that it's not enough for me. For me, it's akin to going to a water
park and staying in the kiddy pool.
These past few months Africa has burrowed deeper & deeper into my DNA and I feel
the need to ditch main
roads and delve into places no yovos ever tread. I step over piles of garbage, I
shout jokes at storekeepers,
I stop off for a Coke in places where I am probably the first white customer
they've ever had. If some kids
stare at me, I get them singing 'The Yovo Song'. When the inevitable zemijdan
driver bleats his horn to ask
if I need transportation ( and why would a yovo be walking if he doesn't have
to? ), I reply with the usual
"PSST!" and wag my finger 'No." As Togo is French, I have
even managed to learn a bit of the language.
'Enough to get into trouble, not enough to get out', as a long-forgotten friend
once joked about his Spanish.
So, after a couple of hours playing with the kids at our
hospitality center (we run a good-sized center near
to the ship for pre-op and post-op patients to stay while waiting for their
surgery to come- I'll write more
about it later), I decided to walk back to the ship the long way- and by long
way, I mean 3 hours instead
of the twenty or thirty minutes a brisk walk straight back would take.
Above and below you see a few of
the pictures I took along the way. From left above, a towel vendor, Togo's
disused railway, motor oil for
sale on the street and a local Auto Ecole, or driving school. From left below,
you see yet another Obama
bar, cold juice for sale, a shop selling wood-working tools and stains,
bizarrely yet appropriately named
'Friend Of Timber', & an 'extra large' photo of me, for those who wonder why I
never post pics of myself.
I have about seven weeks left with Mercy Ships, and
only about three of those will be spent in West Africa.
Come mid-August it's a two week sail to Durban, and after a couple weeks there,
I return home to the land
of the Wal-Marts, Pep Boys, and Chalupas at the Taco Bell. Honestly,
I'll probably be bored within the week.
*
23 July- Togo is swarming with flies. I have never
seen so many of all the countries I've been. You can
not sit and enjoy a drink or a meal without swishing
away the flies. Most places you go give you a coaster,
and it's not for the bottom of the glass-they put it on
top. Some joints have 'permanent ones' ready to use.
The Funny Thing About Goats- is that they need to be on a hill.
They just don't like being down on the same level as
everyone else. Sure, you see most of them walking around, eating every sort of
rubbish that can be found on the ground,
but that's just because they need to eat. Once their bellies are full,
it's back to higher ground. No matter what the 'higher
ground it, the goats will gravitate towards it. They just got to be up high. So,
if you put the concrete blocks in a pile while
you're waiting to build, they're going to climb it. Same with piles of lumber
and mounds of dirt. It's like some sort of pre-
historic behavior that's hard-wired into them. And if there's no hill around,
they will use a nearby grave. It's what goats do.
*
Rainy Season-
Lasts for about 5 months here, and we're coming to the end of it. I don't mind
rainy season,
it beats clear skies and triple-digit temps. One of the side effects is
giant pools of water that cover those neigh-
borhoods to whom asphalt has not yet come. You see a few here below. It is
considered extremely antisocial
behavior to drive through these at anything more than a few miles an hour. The
waves you make ripple into
houses of those unlucky enough to live near 'lower ground'. I made this
mistake recently when I needed to
pass through one of these neighborhoods to avoid the many barricades that went
up during a 'fuel price hike'
in Lome. I drove as little too fast through the puddle, as I was more nervous
about getting stuck in the mud
while the city was in such a state. I wound up causing a minor tsunami
right into someone's home/business,
and before I'd even passed, a youth was at the back of the Land Rover, pounding
on the windows. I needed
to pass through again a couple weeks ago to avoid yet another truck overturned
or something on Beach Rd.,
so BACK through the puddles I went. It was a little more fun without
potential rioting to contend with, and
we all had a blast going through some minor lakes in the area...slowly, of
course. You can see three of these
below. for the record, I drove through the first two, but no way
was I going through the last two. Our Land
Rovers are fitted with 'snorkels' to prevent water flooding the muffler and
stalling them when you go too deep.
The pictures below show the scene in the neighborhood Kpossé
recently. A puddle located on a main road was
so deep that enterprising businessmen lined up their carts alongside the edges
of the puddle and charged a fee
to shuttle people across, mostly older folks or those coming from church. I saw
one motorcyclist stop, take off
his socks, roll up his pants, and tear through the morass. We stayed for about
ten minutes, watching carts and
zemijdans fording the puddle.These little 'impromptu experiences' are what
make living here such an adventure.
Our captain asked one of the port officials back in early
May when rainy season began, as it'd been pretty hot
and dry for the first few weeks we were here. The answer he was given, I
kid you not, was "March 15th". We
got no rain until it downpoured for almost two hours straight at
3:00 in the morning, March 15th, True story.
*
Your moment of African Zen-
Fan Ice vendor, Lome
*
Next Year in Sierra Leone- It's not too often
you get to see the future. When the Logos Hope visited Freetown, Sierra Leone
recently,
so many crew members took pictures of the ship and it's surrounding that those
of us who've never been there got an excellent glimpse
of what things will be like for the Africa Mercy when it visits in February.
To start off with, below at left is an excellent shot of what the
whole setup will look like. This picture is actually this months downloadable
wallpaper, which can be found on Operation Mobilization's
website. Next to that is what it will look like for crewmembers and visitors
walking to the ship, entering from the port. Hopefully, we're
not going to see any long lines like they did. Finally, you see one of the many
hills that make up Freetown, and our view for all of 2011.
On a more technical note, you see the view over the bow of the Logos Hope, a
view we will share when we arrive in February. The port
will create for us a wall of container like they did for them, and if you were
onboard the Anastasis in 2006, you'll remember those small
container walls forward & aft of us. To the right is a view looking aft down the
dock and the entrance to our dock from outside the port.
Collectively, all of these shots make up the dock scheme in Freetown, and give
you a great idea of what we will be dealing with. While
most cities we've been to tend to be flat, Freetown is actually nestled in among
many hills, creating steep streets and stunning views. I
am hoping to be able to be a part of the outreach to Sierra Leone, and the
country, almost a sister to sweet Liberia, is among the top
few of countries I want to see, but I need to take some time off to earn some
much-needed money and take a break from ministry for
a short while. Keep me in your prayers, that I would be able to find a job that
would allow me to earn some money to return, and on
a schedule that permit me to take some of my much needed Chief Officer courses.
God willing, I'll be able to return before they leave.
Ship Murals, port of Freetown-
Walking out of the port in Freetown, Sierra Leone, you'll see a string of murals
depicting the many
ships that have visited that city. Sure, most of the ships that visit Freetown
are there for commercial purposes, but several have come
for goodwill visits or occasional humanitarian purposes. When Logos Hope
was there recently, they found themselves immortalized
on the walls outside of the port along with their sister ship Doulos, the USCG
Cutter Sherman, and, of course, the mighty Anastasis.
'King Hassan' seen at left is the man who painted at least one of the ships, the
Logos Hope. The Hope's Chief Officer, Michael Madder,
assisted King Hassan with some paint and a bit of money for his work. Some
of the paintings have faded, flaked away or have been
painted over, but you can still see them there, enshrined on the walls like past
visits are enshrined in the hearts of the people they've
touched. The paintings fade away, existing only in memories. The Africa
Mercy will plant fresh memories in those hearts and minds
when it visits Freetown early next year. From left, you have the Logos Hope, the
Doulos, the USCG Cutter Sherman, & the Anastasis.
Jesus is Lord- Over Togo.
July 11- I was sitting in
church this morning, waiting for it to begin. We have several different churches
to choose
from, and I decided to go see the Hospitality Center this morning. With as many
as six operating rooms in service
onboard, we simply do not have the bed space for all the patients. What we have
done the past couple ports is get
some sort of housing for the patients near the port. They'll come to the
hospitality center before their surgery and
spend up to three weeks there, sharing a room with other patients, and waiting
for their surgery. We have classes
for the kids but little else. Still, it's a pleasant place and a welcoming
environment, likely more welcoming than the
villages they've come from, where they have probably been mocked and shunned the
past few years. They're given
a bed, three meals a day, and the company of others in the same predicament of
theirs. They hold church services
every Sunday, usually given in French and translated into Ewé,
then English. Every week, about a half dozen Mercy
Shippers attend. It's outside, under a solid steel frame covered by a tarp. The
VVF ladies sit quietly on the benches,
men congregate around the outside, and the kids crowd up front. Many of
the kids have casts on their legs & arms,
post-op scars wrapped in gauze, or crutches they'll hobble around on. The
post-op kids are livelier, having already
spent a week or so surrounded by the yovos on the ward and gotten
over their reticence about white people. Our
nurses sit up front with them and get surrounded on all sides, I gravitate
towards the leaders and other men, as is
my status, I guess. As we were waiting for the service to begin I was
sitting in a pew a couple rows back from the
front, watching some half-grown chickens scramble around underfoot. As people
congregate in the pews, their feet
scratch the dirt, exposing insects and flies that live close to the surface. The
chickens see this as a decent source of
food, I guess, and will hunt down these morsels, easily dodging the sandaled
feet of the worshippers. I watched a
chicken for a few minutes when it hit me what I was looking at- there were
chickens in the church pews...and had
what addicts call a 'moment of clarity'...It hit me how far removed I was from
normal life. A Big Mac at McDonalds,
waiting for an oil change at Wal-Mart, shoveling the driveway before
work...these things could have been a million
miles away for all I felt. I couldn't picture them, couldn't remember them. I
thought about church services back in
the US, with ties and hymnals and parking lots. They seemed like something
someone had once told me about, or
something I had seen in a movie once. There were chickens scratching around
underfoot in the church pews, and
it didn't even rate a notice with anyone, save a bored child or two. They tried
to kick them much like I used to sit
on the floor and scribble cartoons when Pastor Renner spoke. I ducked off of the
street market into a supermarket
the other day for a moment of peace, and the neatly lined rows and
individually priced items seemed strange and
unfamiliar to me. All I could think was how sterile everything was, how foreign.
I walked outside, took a big breath
and began arguing prices with a bootleg DVD vendor stationed by the door. My view
of things has become skewed
and there is no longer a standard for what is now normal or abnormal in my life.
Four dollars for a box of cereal?
Not normal. A goat in a taxi? Normal. Chaos is commonplace now,
What was mysterious has become mundane.
I affect mannerisms and gestures of the West Africans like a second skin, I get
lost in marketplaces and feel alive,
I eat off the streets, I go to places where there are no whites around.
When I take new arrivals around, I wonder
why they are so fascinated by what they see, what to me is just a city street in
Africa. I have been out of America
for most of the past six years, and have been in Africa for more than half of
those six. I'll never not be American-
it's too deep in my DNA- but sometimes it seems to me that the most foreign
country of all now is my own. eric
*
Your Moment of African Zen- aerials in Gbossimé
*
For the complete page of the 2010 Togo
outreach, click here.