Ganvie Stilt Village- Africa's Venice!

On Saturday we took an InCreDibLe little trip out to GANVIE Village. Its a village of 30,000 people in the middle of a lake who built a whole society on stilts about 2 meter above the water. Its an amazing African "Venice".

This is an excerpt from a Human Development website that explains it well.

"The meaning of the name Ganvie "we survived", is a reminder of the historical events that brought the village into existence. In the 17th Century, the Kingdom of Abome was waging war against neighboring tribes, on a mission to capture prisoners of war to supply the transatlantic slave trade. The chief of this tribe conceived an ingenious plan to shelter his people in the middle of lake Nokoue where enemies and slavers could not capture them. From rafts and canoes, a village system on water emerged, including markets, and today schools, restaurants, churches, clinics, etc."

On the boat ride out we traveled past many fisherman in the reeds, diving for their trap's catch, canoes crammed with children returning home from school, women bringing their produce to the markets..paddling with babies ON their backs still, young boys pulling balancing stunts to impress us (indeed it did!), children standing with on a piece of fabric and holding it in their hands to create their own windsails, and even 3 YEAR OLDS no joke paddling around the village to pass the day and visit neighbors!!! I would like to come back for a weekend of exploring and hanging out. Our tour went way to fast. Its incredible what these people have built. The pictures don't begin to capture it.

In true Steph fashion... once again.. lost my photos. I accidentally deleted ALL instead of ONE when I got home trying to edit them this time. I was so excited to capture some really great moments yesterday but Thankfully we have lots of great photographers onboard, so thank you Michel P. for letting me borrow yours!

Record Night

By Day 7 of sailing we started to get a little bored, so in good ole' Mercy Ship fashion we made our own "Record Night" fun with lots of random activities. What else to do on a Friday night but see how many people you can fit into our tiny ship bathrooms??! .. we broke the record from 13 to 18 people! (thats me in the upper right corner) ;)

Healthcare Reception

On Thursday the Minister of Health and U.S. Ambassador came to check out our Hospital Ship. All are hard work scrubbing and cleaning had shining results!


On Monday we held a Healthcare reception for all the local Healthcare organizations/Hospital officials to come and get to know us so we can hopefully partner with them during our 10 months in Benin. My job was to be a dining room greeter. Luckily, it fit the extend of my French to simply smile & repeat.. "Bonsoir and Bienvenu!" A good time was had by all :)

A Walk to Beautiful

This is a BEAUTIFUL cinematography/documentary on the Vesico-Vaginal fistula clinic in Ethiopia. You can watch it at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/beautiful/program.html

It is a total of 55 minutes and broken down into 6 chapters. These are some of the kinds of patients will will see on our ward soon :)

Watch it. It will change your life.

Hospital Open House

Scrubbing IN


Learning how to suture from the OR nurses!



Red being a difficult patient for the kiddos!





Future Surgeon checking out the X-ray machine & CT



Vital Sign station

Ward Preparations

This week the nurses spent most of the time our time on our hand and knees, scrubbing and scrubbing some more.. Yes.. we learned how to stip and rewax floors. The whole hospital area had to be redone. Every surface from top to bottom had to be bleached, cleaned and organized. We have large three wards and one ICU.

The U.S. Ambassador and Minister of Health came about 5 mintues after we were done. Our achy backs and bruised knees were all worth it when we got great feedback of the officals "petting" the beautiful beds and commenting on our beautiful clean floors :)

To celebrate the reopening of the Hospital we held an "Open House" for all the ship's non-medical staff to come down and see what its all about. Each room and medical department had their own games and activities. The OR had a cataract removal simulations and suturing lessons from Dr. Gary Parker staff could try out, as well as rooms to "scrub in" and put on the whole costume.

The Ward made enough sweets to send send everyone into a diabetic coma! I helped create a "Digestion System Maze" that had lots of funny surprises to simulate the digestion process starting from the mouth, down the tongue (slide), through the esophagus (climing through a tube), churning in the stomach (hula hooping- with water squirt guns shooting "acid" into the stomach lining, small to large intestines(winding through bed sheets), finally into the rectum( through a tube, pressing a whoopie cushion) and out the anal sphincter (where you had to squeeze between 2 chairs alarming a toilet flush sound from i-tunes and handed a "tootsie roll" after displaying your best constipation face!

We had lots of laughs as we had everyone from 2 years old to 92 maneuver through it! Quirky fun?? maybe... ha. but thats what ya do when your stuck a ship with limited supplies and nurses active imaginations. Other rooms included lots of crafts & activities set up on the patients beds for people to see the activities they could do with the "Adopt a Patient Program." We also had a station where shipmates could learn how to take vital signs (BP, pulse, etc) and where they had to fully take care of nurses "acting" as patients. Yes, we pulled out all our favorite annoying tricks patients like to try to pull on you and made it as difficult and humorous as possible! These were just some of our many activities. I could time was had by all and got all non-medical staff more comfortable with visiting us downstairs when the patients come! soon!!!

Outside the Port Walls....

We finally made it into port about a week ago, but not before the engines gave out right outside the port entrance. We had to float around one extra day to be able to fix everything that had beforehand been working just fine. This is not the first time our ship has had trouble entering this VOODOO capital of the world. We had trouble with crash landing incididents both in 2000 and 2004 I believe. Only in this country... Coincidence???


Well I can definatly tell you it lives up to being "the armpit" of Africa as temperatures outside the ship, with humidity, come to around 100 degrees F daily. I was surprisingly a bit timid to step out of the ship again and begin exploring, but after several good adventures venturing block by block until I finally got to town and beyond, I feel my love and excitment for all the magic Africa holds coming back again. I have to brace myself not to pick up and kidnap every stickin CUTE kid i see. Not speaking a lick of French is a bit aggrivating as it really keeps you from being able to participate fully in the culture, but a handful of English speaking locals or Liberians have come and greeted us warmly. I feel very safe here, besides the hundreds of mottos zooming by in unorganized chaos :) We have seen families up to 5 people on one tiny moto zipping around town! No helmets, crashing here and there... a nurses nightmare. We have been asked not to use this form of transportation if at all possible so that means we are all getting out our walkin' shoes! I will try to put Google Earth of our Port on here. If you zoom in you can see quite a bit of the area that was taken before our ship came, including the little fishing canoes that neighbor us :)
Just outside the Port gates I have already run into a woman with a cataract, a boy with a facial tumor, and a little girl with rickets. The rumor about Mercy Ship's arrival is starting to spread and it is exciting to actually walk past poverty and illness and be able to say "We CAN do something about that". Its more exciting and refreshing than I can even express! I keep papers in my pocket that have information about our screening days coming up this week. On Thursday and Friday of this week we will hand out hundreds of free surgical appointment dates to the canidates that fit our visiting surgeon's abilities. Since the last time I was onboard, a Pediatric Surgeon has come that can do some Gastrointestinal surgeries that we in the past had to say NO too.

My job was to take the lab work off the future patients after their assessment, but I have been asked to switch to being in charge of water management in the long waiting lines, making sure everyone is well hydrated and not passing out. It is very hot and chaotic on these days. Please pray that God gives me wisdom in how best to manage this task and the people on my team. It is however an answer to prayer, because handing someone a cool glass of water and a smile is a universal communication, that even fluent French cannot touch. P.S. I was told they do NOT like to stay in lines so PLEASE pray for our security teams and for organization; Also please say a prayer for those whom we have to say NO to because of medical problems that are beyond our ships specialties. These people are desperate and will repeatedly get back into line after beeing seen by a surgeon and told there is nothing we are able to do for them. It is a crazy emotional day!

Sailing

We are currently on 6 out of 9 days on our sail from Spain to Benin. We are just about 30 miles off the coast of Liberia now. Gorgeous, calm, deep blue water.. about 1 mile deep. There are flying fish everywhere! A few days ago when checking out the bow of the ship, about 200 dolphins surfaced in the dear distance for a breathtaking show.... i had no idea they hung out in groups that big... and NO i am not exaggerating! My video camera is bad luck as everytime I bring it out, no dolphins show up to race the front of the ship like they often do. Last night I even managed to drop my 1 GB card with all my recent photos into the ocean, so sailing photos to come again later! This photo is one I found on google when looking up what a flying fish is?? The record for flight is 42 seconds.

Every morning when I step onto the deck I can feel the weather becoming more and more humid and hot. Benin is known as the armpit of Africa with us arriving at one of the hottest times of the year! I slept outside on the top deck last night and got an amazing glimpse of the stars. Woke realizing I too can have curly hair with over the top humidity!

I finished my time working in the kitchen this past Sunday. Left with a "bang" almost literally as it was the first of our sailing days with some rough waves. Plus I put myself on seasick meds so the swAyIng back and forth with huge stacks of dishes I was carrying from the dining room to the washer and being drugged proved to be an interesting combination that luckily is mostly blocked b/c of the meds :) I am highly sensitive....forgot that! It is now calm and beautiful so I am just saying "NO to drugs" :)

I am attending nursing orientation this week as well as learning how to knit....yes... i said knit. We do it everyday between 1-2pm so we can be able to spend time with the patients teaching them who are on the ward for an extended period of time. They love it. I am going to try to take it a step further since outside the ship there really isn't much "wool yarn" in Africa, and learn how to rip up old lappas (their clothing) and knit it into a sleeping mat, purse etc. A skill they might be able to use to make things for the market place with materials they have sitting around at home or use to sleep on instead of the dirt floor.

To be continued...

Camping in the clouds

My last free weekend I got out of the kitchen and went camping up high in the rocky green coast with many other Mercy Ship friends. We had quite the adventure looking for a campground that no longer existed as the "old" map said it should! After hours going up and up looking for it in the rain and clouds, it was clearly explained the next morning when three Forest Sheriffs found our damp, rainy pathetic souls gathered by the last of our firepit. Luckily we had some cute grandmothers with us to charm them into pathetic genuine plees of being lost :) It definately wasn't the kind of camping I'm used to, but it was stunning in a murky, fungus kind of way ;) With good company you can't go wrong, We all had a great time.

Birthday Fun

Spent my 26th birthday hiking between the rocky coast and black sand beaches. Found a little authentic Canary Island resturant built into the cliffs to enjoy my first Barraquito~ I hope to make it for you next time were sitting in my Chicago apartment trying to survive winter ! :)

It was a splendid day of fresh air and good conversation. I got a good feeling about this 26th year :)

BARRAQUITO

Barraquito, also called barraco is a coffee speciality from the Canary Islands, particularly popular on Tenerife and La Palma.The coffee speciality is served in a glass and consists of three layers; sweet condensed milk (minimum 10% fat), espresso and milk froth.

First fill approximately quarter of the glass with sweet condensed milk, not less than 10% fat. Now put hot, fresh espresso on top of the condensed milk. At last top everything with milk froth.

P.S. I think you can add a flavored Liqueor layer too. Irish cream is a good one :)

walaa! enjoy! I hope it warms you up. Cheers