Africa Mercy - Cape Town: One Nurse's Journey

What a breath of fresh air Cape Town appears to be. Marilyn's observations about the end of apartheid in the area are really encouraging. Sharon

(This is a running email post written by a volunteer nurse serving on the Africa Mercy, a hospital ship that travels the African coast).

Cape Town
4 Oct 2014 Saturday

The rolling seas of my last email are now an ancient memory. We arrived in Cape Town last Monday; it was exciting to see land again...but tantalizing, at first. Due to immigration issues, we weren't allowed off the ship for almost 24 hours after arrival. I heard a rumor--I think it's probably true--that at one point they threatened to put all 350 of us in jail because we moved the ship from the immigration dock to our appointed berth when they quit work for the day on Monday, even though we were all still quarantined on board awaiting their pleasure.

Ah, well, that would have made a news splash, wouldn't it?

On the other hand, the government and the port authorities are certainly rolling out the red carpet for us. The berth they gave us is right on the waterfront, the tourist center of the town. A huge shopping mall, as nice as any mall I've ever seen, is practically on our doorstep.

Outside, there is a beautiful, clean, well-lit promenade all along the waterfront, with little shops and restaurants, street musicians, a ferrous wheel, and crowds of tourists just strolling along. It feels like a carnival, and it's safe enough to wander at will, day or evening.

Plenty of pickpockets, of course, so normal prudence is required. I can certainly see why this is a favored vacation spot for the rich and famous...and for much of Europe, too.

It feels like we are on vacation, but in fact, we are still working as much as ever. I did my last two days in the dining room on Wednesday and Thursday--exhausting, as always. I have the weekend off, and then rejoin the eye team on Monday. I'm not sure what all we will find to do, but I have a feeling that we will stay busy planning the details of the impending outreach in Madagascar and developing the training program for the day crew. At least it will be sit-down work for a while.

Meanwhile, folks higher up in administration have done a terrific job in organizing a whole bevy of tours to increase our footprint in South Africa. For the first several days, we have had invitational tours--one for 150 local pastors, one for Mercy Ship alumni, one for donors who attended a $1000/plate fundraiser luncheon, one for government officials, and some for groups I don't know who they were. Next weekend we will have three days of public tours on a first come, first served basis. They expect a crowd of thousands. There is a lot of publicity and a lot of interest. Everywhere we go, people stop us to ask about Mercy Ships. Is this what it's like to be famous???

Yesterday I had a real vacation day. A friend and I took a bus tour of Cape Town and the surrounding countryside. The buses run on a regular schedule, and you can hop off at any stop, look around, and hop back on the next bus. We spent a couple of hours in the botanical garden, one of the more magnificent gardens of the world. This region has had its own indigenous ecosystem, plants not found anywhere else in the world.

Much of it has been lost through lumbering, but now they are making a concerted effort to preserve and restore. At another stop, we watched seals swimming in the harbor. The bus drove quite a distance along the coast--spectacular beaches and ocean views. The rich and famous live there...

The most interesting and heart-warming stop, though, was to take a walking tour through the Township of Imizamo Yethu, one of the slum settlements that sprang up during apartheid as black people tried to live as close as possible to their jobs in the white community. I think the guide said that 20,000 people live there now. In some ways, it is like West African slums, with crowded ramshackle dwellings, high unemployment, and little material wealth. What is exciting, though, is what has been happening over the last twenty years, since the end of apartheid. This community, made up of multiple tribes, has learned to pull together to improve their lot. The streets are free of rubbish and of the smell of urine. Many houses have running water and electricity, even if the whole house is about the size of a large bathroom at home.

One house he showed us was a very nice home built by a volunteer group from Ireland, I think it was, in 2005. It had tile floors, a refrigerator, it's own bathroom, a TV, a kitchen. What stunned me was this: It had been nine years, and it hadn't been trashed. The guide showed us a school built by some German volunteers. The playground was clean, the equipment was functional. We saw a small library with clean floors, books carefully cataloged and available, children reading.

Again and again, I saw evidence that the people were taking good care of what they had been given. The churches in the community had banded together to build a community center. All sorts of ministry went on there: counseling, drug rehab, sewing projects, micro-business enterprises, job training. In the hour or so of walking through the community, not one person approached us to beg (unless you count the wee girl who asked for a sweetie...). People smiled and met our gaze. You could feel the sense of pride they had in their community--and well they should be proud of the progress they've made!

There is still a huge gap between the very wealthy and the extremely poor people, and their neighborhoods are in close proximity. Of course there are problems with crime. We are advised not to travel anywhere in Cape Town outside the tourist waterfront, except in groups. What is so encouraging, though, is that the country seems to be making a frontal assault on corruption. There are signs everywhere asking people to report it when they see it, and officials aren't asking us for bribes.

It seems to me that if a country can keep from civil war, have their tribes learn to live together in peace (which takes even-handed justice), and stamp out corruption, progress like I saw in Imizamo Yethu can happen, and the nation will be transformed. (There, that's my philosophy for today.)

Time for dinner. More another day.

Blessings, Marilyn

[Click here to learn more about the nurses and doctors on board the Africa Mercy.]

Africa Mercy - We Have a Plan...Fluidly Speaking: One Nurse's Journey

This from Marilyn on the Africa Mercy, the first week in September, the week of her 70th birthday! And here she goes again, off on another adventure in a very "far-away land." Sharon


(This is a running email post written by a volunteer nurse serving on the Africa Mercy, a hospital ship that travels the African coast).

8 Sept 2014
"We have a plan...fluidly speaking"

It seems odd that I've been here for only a month--so much waiting and wondering, so many plans changed, and changed again.

Let's see...Since I last wrote, our leadership finalized their
decision not to go to Benin at this time. The situation was just
too precarious, and there was too much chance that we would make the situation worse by inducing people to travel and congregate.

Next, we considered returning to the Congo, where we had our last field service. Unfortunately, the situation in neighboring DRC was also precarious--sources told us that it was much worse than was being reported. The government of Congo preferred that we not come into their port at this time, for the same reason--we are a magnet, and people will travel to get to us.

So, where are we going? The latest plan is...________(I'm not
allowed to say just yet). I must admit, this country wasn't even
on my short list of possibilities. Looking at the map, I discover
that it is very far away! The sail will be long indeed--all the
way down the west coast of Africa, a stopover in South Africa to
refuel and replenish our supplies, and then another sail up the
eastern side.

Usually, it takes months to get a protocol signed with a host
country, even a country where we've been before. For last year's
field service, it took a year to hammer out the details of the
protocol with Congo. It took two months to finalize the protocol
with Benin, a country where we've been five times previously.
We've never been to "country next" before, but with them,
negotiations began one weekend and were finalized and signed one week later. Seems like God has opened a door for us, doesn't it?

Dates...are quite tentative at this point. The target date for
arrival in country next is October 25. We will deploy an advance
team to work with the government and with the port authorities so that at least the legal stuff (protocols, visa waivers...) will be
done and essential services (water, sewer, trash...) will be
available. Much of what the advance team traditionally does will
not be done, of course, because they have only 40 days. It means a slower, more gradual start-up for the field service. We probably won't have an eye clinic building waiting for us, or day crew hired, or screening sites located. Other departments will be
similarly impacted. But, I hear that this is the way we used to
operate, so this is a return to old patterns of arrival, not
complete chaos.

Meanwhile, work on the ship continues. The engineers successfully replaced the O-rings in the propeller shaft, but unfortunately, sea trials to test that repair revealed a second problem, something with the side thrusters. I'm not sure what they will do about that. The delay to fix the propeller allowed time for other repairs, too. They've been working on something electrical--we've had several blackout periods while they worked--and other less critical repairs. Other departments are working on special projects of various sorts, too, so the extended shipyard time has not been wasted.

We are also awaiting the arrival of two containers. We shipped
containers to Benin, our usual procedure...but it takes two to
three months to get a container, and we didn't know what country
next would be in time to send containers there. 

When it rains, it pours. Now, our massive freezer went on the
fritz. That repair is likely to cost $100,000 and take eight days.
Even paying the shipyard workers extra to work the holiday
weekend, this will delay our departure for another two days. So,
our proposed departure date is now September 13--if all goes well.

Once repairs to the ship are sufficient for sailing and the
containers arrive, we'll leave the shipyard in Las Palmas to sail
for Cape Town, South Africa. In Cape Town, the plan is to do some PR work--lots of tours of the ship, etc.--while we wait for the advance team to do their thing in country next.

We may also need to go into dry dock for repair of the side
thrusters. That is a bigger deal than just shipyard repair. You
have to lighten the ship of fuel and water and relocate all the
families with children to somewhere off the ship. We can't do it
here because we've already taken on too much fuel. The problem is, we're having trouble finding a dry dock with space for us in Cape Town. So, as you can see, plans and dates are still pretty fluid, developing and changing daily.

Faced with the prolonged sail, many people who came to help with the beginning of field service in Benin are going home early. Lots of goodbyes, and lots of rearrangements of staffing to cover the holes. I expected to work in the dining room for 2 weeks before transferring back to my "real" job on the eye team. I'm still in the dining room, and probably will be until late October. It is hard work, but not as hard as working in the galley or on deck crew. I get exhausted, but it is a good team to work with, and others do the really heavy lifting and mopping so I don't have to.

I appreciate their consideration!

All these details are not as fascinating as patient stories, but
perhaps it paints a picture of just what a complicated operation it
is to deploy the Africa Mercy to do those surgeries. Usually, all
that preparation happens smoothly in the background and doesn't get noticed, even by those of us who serve on the ship. Watching as these changing plans develop has made me appreciate all the more how many issues must be resolved to make a field service possible.

Now, if all goes according to the latest plan...I will celebrate my
70th birthday on the high seas, on my way to South Africa. My
chair might be rocking, but its not a "rocking chair." I'm on my
way to adventure in a far-away land. How crazy is that?

Marilyn Neville

[Click here to learn more about the nurses and doctors on board the Africa Mercy.]