Africa Mercy - We're here! One Nurse's Journey

Madagascar at last! You can really sense Marilyn's excitement as she shares her impressions. A very interesting post. 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).

"We're here!"
26 Oct 2014

At long last, we have arrived to the port city of Tamatave, Madagascar (also known as Toamasina...). The sail from Cape Town was rougher than the previous sail. We never did hit a storm, but some of the rolls reached a tilt of more than 30 degrees, and seas were rough pretty much the whole trip. Restraining straps broke, food splattered, the ship creaked and groaned, and 20 barrels of paint got loose in the paint locker (I hear it was quite a mess in there--very colorful). Fortunately, none of the medical equipment seems damaged, and the crew escaped major injury. We were glad enough to arrive after eight days of "fun" on the high seas.

The captain knows "tricks and shortcuts," and he got us here at
exactly the time we were supposed to arrive. He made up more than 18 hours of delay somehow. The presidential celebration happened pretty much on schedule, and I think it was a good success.

Certainly, we got a lot of publicity out of it, with live TV
coverage as well as news media reports. Hopefully, his "Year of
the Volunteer" received the spark that it needed, too. I saw the
president and prime minister as they came onto the ship for their
tour, but of course, security dictated that most of us had to stay
away from their path.

Today (Sunday), the deck crew are unloading the vehicles, but most of the crew have the day off. Many have walked to town to explore our new surroundings. I got as far as the port gate but turned around and came back. It is HOT and HUMID out there! Next time, I'll set out in the early morning if I want to walk. First
impressions from yesterday and today, though, are of a friendly,
hospitable people who are glad to have us here. Perhaps they won't be as reluctant to come to an unknown ship as they were in Congo when we first arrived.

This first week, we will all be busily working to get things set up
as much as possible. Day crew begin with a general orientation on Friday and will be available to us after that, so we'll spend our second week training our eye team day crew in all the things they need to know. Screening for patients starts November 8, not quite two weeks from now, and the eye program will be underway. Our eye clinic won't be ready for occupancy for at least three weeks, so we have some puzzles to solve on how to get things done. I think that life will remain unsettled and full of surprises and adaptations for yet a little while. But at least, we begin!

Have the last 2 1/2 months been "wasted," since we couldn't begin field service in Benin as planned? Not at all. In waiting and planning, we've developed some new strategies for screening that should serve us well in the future. The era of a big screening
day, involving hundreds of crew and thousands of potential
patients, is past. This year, we will have a screening clinic,
screening about 300 potential patients each day for a month. The
clinic will then relocate to the capital city and screen for a
period of time. After that, we'll see. If the model works well,
they may screen in other cities as well.

Moreover, we heard multiple times yesterday that although the
government and people of Madagascar are delighted that we are here, if we had asked even a couple of months earlier, the answer would have been "It's not the right time." The political situation here is pretty unstable. The current president has been in office for only a few months, and the former president is apparently trying to get back into power. I'm sure there's more to the story, but the point is, thanks to all the twists and turns in our journey, we are here at "just the right time."

I am attempting to learn a few words of Malagasy. Manahoana touku (sp?) means hello to folks in the capital, but manakouri touku (sp?) means hello here in the port city. If you pass in front of someone, especially an older person, you are expected to be polite by saying azafady touku (sp?) while bowing slightly and extending your right hand in the direction you wish to go. Malagasy uses a lot of vowels, and a lot of syllables. The capital city is Antananariva, at least one syllable longer than I seem to be able to pronounce (people call it Tana for short). The president's last name has 19 letters. I'm not even going to try! Patient names are likely to be a challenge, don't you think?

The Madagascar adventure has begun!

Marilyn Neville


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

Africa Mercy - Madagascar, Here We Come! One Nurse's Journey

Finally up to date on Marilyn's emails. The Africa Mercy is Madagascar bound and likely in rough seas. Pray for the crew's safety and that Marilyn can handle the sea sickness! 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).

15 September 2014--Monday

"Madagascar, Here We Come!"

We are at sea--literally, instead of figuratively, which is a
pleasant change. We left Las Palmas Saturday evening, headed for Cape Town. The sail should take about 18 days, more or less,
depending on sea conditions. So far, we've had excellent sailing.
We got out of the Canaries ahead of a storm, and we have both sea current and wind pushing us along faster than we could otherwise go. They say the calm waters should continue for at least another day...but they predict rough seas further south.

I, for one, am easily troubled with seasickness. I'm faithfully
taking medication, yet I was borderline queasy yesterday morning, on these almost glassy seas. Oh, boy. What have I gotten into?

I'm going around the notorious cape in a boat? Me? This ship used to be a railroad ferry, traveling in protected waters. It has a shallow keel, so it bobs and rolls more than a ship designed for
open seas... Well, it will be "interesting."

We still do not have a dry dock birth in Cape Town, and we need
one. It seems that every "motel" is booked already--no place for
us to stay. We are praying that something will open up by the time we get there. And, I assume, the leadership is working on yet another "Plan B" in case there are no cancellations. So, any and all plans for what we do in Cape Town are still very much in the "fluid" stage.

On the other hand, plans for the field service are beginning to
solidify. We're going to Madagascar. Madagascar is a big country: 250,000 square miles, larger than California, almost as large as Texas. It once was reasonably developed, but not any more. I hear that even the main "highways" are often dirt roads. The people are extremely poor; health care is as scanty as in West Africa. There are 18 tribes, with racial origins as diverse as Polynesian, Indonesian, Arabian, Moor, and sub-Saharan African, but Madagascar is no "melting pot." Tribal rivalries and prejudices make governing very difficult. As elsewhere in Africa, corruption is rampant, making economic development difficult. In other words, its "our kind of place," a place that needs a lot of assistance.

Toamasina, where we'll be, is a small port city on the eastern side of the island. Open to the Indian Ocean, it experiences cyclones with some regularity. The rainy season starts about the time we get there, and lasts until about the time we leave. Sigh. That always makes things complicated--dirt roads, travel difficulties, people not coming for appointments. The city itself is quite small, which means that most of our patients will probably be found in the surrounding rural areas. Travel is likely to be one of the major hurdles we face, both for ourselves and for our patients.

We have an advance team in country already, working to gather
information and to set as many things in place as possible before
we arrive. I hear that they are doing very well--lots of meetings
with all levels of government officials, and the meetings have been quite productive. Information that the eye team needs is on the list of things to be done when time allows, but we don't have much feedback yet.

Meanwhile, work in the dining room continues. We've switched to an every other day schedule during the sail, which I think I will like even better than the two on, two off, and work every other weekend schedule that is the normal one. Yesterday was a work day for me, and apart from some seasickness in the morning, it went smoothly.

I tend to sleep for an hour or two between meals; it is enough to restore my energy for working the next meal. Today, I'll probably spend the afternoon on the deck, just watching the ocean. It is such an odd sensation not to be able to see land anywhere. We are a very small cork, bobbing alone in a very large bathtub. Of course, in this day and age, we are still connected to the world electronically. What must it have been like to be a small ship with no engine, no maps to guide, no information about "country next," no connection to the known world, and no rescue possible? Now that was adventurous!

Marilyn Neville

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