Trip Up Country to Bo

Fixing dinner.

Fixing dinner is a family affair

Market in Bo

Interesting quote on the bathrooms!

Saturday we left the ship at 8 am and took a hired to taxi 3.5 hours to Bo. This is the hometown of Alyssa's friend Lamarana. She had not been home to visit her family for over 2 years. The drive through the countryside was beautiful. Sierra Leone has lush vegetation and rolling hills. The roads are in amazingly good condition.

It was fun to see Lamarana's reunion with her family...her father, mother, her two step-mothers and 9 brothers and sisters. We also met Emily, her son's other grandmother, who is raising her son. Her sister-in law also lived with them and is working as a seamstress. We saw her complete at least 3 dresses while we were there.

There was a sudden rainstorm that turned the dirt roads into temporary rivers. But life goes on and the girls continued to wash dishes in the rain. Lamarana's mother cooked us fry fry. It was steak and potatoes fried and served in a wheat bun.

Local home in Bo

Visits to a Local Family in Freetown and Thanksgiving

On Thursday, Thanksgiving Day, we worked all day. Alyssa had an invitation from Titus, a Day Worker from A Ward, to go to have African food. Titus is from Liberia and worked as a translator on the ward. So we took two poda podas and walked a bit to the neighborhood where he lived. Every transportation takes forever as there is so much traffic in Freetown. We get to the restaurant and find that they are out of food! So we go to plan B and find another restaurant. Their African dish of the night is Potato Leaves. Which means it is a sauce made with potato leaves, spices and chicken and you eat it over rice. Everything here is pretty spicy!

Friday was a big day as the ship said Thank You to the Day Workers. Here is a picture of our crew on the dock. Tim is behind the camera...so unseen.

We left the ship at around 4 pm and traveled with one of Alyssa's best friends among the day workers. She led us to the home of a family that Alyssa has visited several times as a former patient lives there. It is amazing that so many people live in one small house. Elizabeth is the head of this household that includes 13 children. Some are her grandchildren and some are just neighbors or children that need a home.

All the cooking is done outdoors as is the washing of clothes with soap and a washboard. The children are being bathed outside also. There is no running water, so it is hauled from some local source for everything. There is also no electricity to most of these homes. We sat outside on their porch by the light of a battery powered LED light and the lights from their cellphones. The children are all so sweet and fascinate

d by us white people. Some

of the older ones played music on their cellphone and the little ones danced!

More Cleaning and a Soccer Game

We have been busy all week cleaning the ship! Here are a few photos of scenes from the upper deck as we watch the colorful boats go by. It is quite fun.

Mercy Ships hires many local people to work on the ship. This was the last week for these Day Workers and many good-byes and festivities were held. Alyssa has developed good friendships with these workers. One of the activities was on Wednesday after work. It was a Soccer Game between crew and the Day Workers. The first two photos are of the local people coming to watch the game at a local field.

First Day of Work

We have no pictures for you today, however, I thought about showing images of the bathrooms, hallway floors, and stairways! Those items pretty much filled up our day today.

Kathy was on Deck 2 and 3 and I worked Deck 4. We were each paired with a long term day worker to show us the ropes. Mondays and Thursdays involve a little higher volume of work. Kathy swept, by hand, the stairwells that went from decks 3 to 7. My floor has 12 public bathrooms and miles and miles of hallways. All the touchable surfaces must be disinfected to keep everything as germ free as possible. It is all a well thought out system and is very efficient. For tomorrow, I think we will work on the same floor, but with different items on the list.

After dinner we had several more orientation meetings on security, safety, policies, etc. All very interesting and well presented. We connected up with Alyssa again and she escorted us to the patient wards where she works. It was very neat to meet those who she has been working with. The nursing staff builds such great relationships with the patients and family members who are staying with them.

We are off to bed early, so we are fresh for work tomorrow.

We love you all,

Tim and Kathy

Weekend Off!

We have arrived in Sierra Leone and our work schedule does not begin until Monday morning. This has allowed us to get settled in and do a few things with Alyssa before we start our duties in the Crew Services department. As it turns out the greatest current need was in the Crew Services so both Kathy and I will be working together to keep the public areas clean. We will each be assigned to a particular deck and will work initially with someone else to learn the ropes. Our first full day (Friday) we were committed to meetings with the Mercy Ships staff to get oriented. We will have additional meetings on Monday. Alyssa was off on Friday and traveled inland to the home of one of the patients. She came home with food they had taught her to make.

On Saturday Alyssa set us up with the local day workers to travel with them to the beach. This meant a number of hours on a bus that kept getting fuller and fuller as they added people, supplies, and sound equipment. Once we arrived is was a great to enjoy the beautiful beach with the local people. The children that live in that beach area are very friendly and love to get acquainted. It was also great to meet more of the friends that Alyssa has made while here.

We left earlier than the rest with the goal of getting back in time for dinner on board the ship. Transportation was not available at the beach spot, so about a dozen or so of us walked a couple miles to the junction to catch a van to get us back. Great walk along the highway followed by a typical overly packed van ride!

Sunday (today) Kathy, Alyssa and I traveled with Simeon, another of the local day workers to worship with him at his church. This meant a short walk, a drive in another overly packed van and a climb up a long hill weaving through the villiage to where the church was located. A wonderful experience with these wonderful and very colorful people. We met with the pastor for a short time after the service to get acquainted and share a cold drink. They speak the Creo language which is basically English with different pronounciations. With lots of concentration, we could follow. The pastor was very complimentary of Mercy Ships and delighted that we made the effort to come. It is such a joy to see how Alyssa has built these relationships with the local people. It seems that wherever we go, people recognize her and come up to greet us. When they discover we are her parents, they simply light up and speak so highly of her. What a blessing for us parents!!This afternoon after lunch, we ventured back to town on foot to purchase some fabric. This will be washed tonight and we will take it to a tailor the first part of the week. Kathy will end up with a new skirt and I, a new shirt. Very fun and very inexpensive.

Thank you to all of you who are praying for us. We appreaciate it so much.

Tim and Kathy

Mercy Ships Preparation

Here we are again preparing for another adventure! We leave next Wednesday to fly to Sierra Leone, West Africa to join Alyssa on the Africa Mercy. Tim will be working with Crew Services, which we understand is housekeeping oriented. I will be in Hospitality and I don't really know what that entails, except that I need to wear a white shirt, black pants or skirt and black dress shoes. If you are interested in finding more about Mercy Ships go to their website or Alyssa's blogsite:

www.mercyships.org

http://myadventureswithmercyships.blogspot.com

We are excited to be on the ship and be a small part of their work with the people of Sierra Leone. Seeing Alyssa will also be a joy.