So now it has become true. I have actually been aboard the MS Africa Mercy for almost a week now.
Sorry for not getting back to you earlier – the WiFi was down on the ship for a couple of days and to be honest, I also needed a little time to settle in – there was A LOT going on these last couple of days ….

First of all let me tell you some about my actual journey to the ship. I took the late afternoon flight from Basel – Frankfurt – Johannesburg – Antananarivo (Capitol city of Madagascar). Arriving there, my first adventure already began.
Entering the building I was told that I have to pay for a visa, without which I obviously wouldn’t get into the country. So they offered me a police escort to the ATM located in the building. Standing at the ATM I knew that the Visa was going to cost 55 Euro, but the ATM only offered me local currency. Having no idea of how much money to choose between 10.000 MGA (Madagassi Ariary) and 150.000 MGA I chose 80.000 MGA – something in-between. Arriving back at customs (with my police escort) I asked how much the visa was in Ariary. 140.000 MGA. Well, you can guess what followed. Another police – escorted round to the ATM with people waving amusedly and watching. Luckily the officers were also more amused than upset so I returned back to customs and payed for my visa. Phew. All done. So I got back in line at customs to wait for my passport to be processed only to be pulled put of the line by a wonderful (and very helpful) Mercy Ships volunteer who was picking us up at the airport. She told me that I should have had a letter from the president (!) confirming my working with Mercy Ships and allowing me to enter the country.

Meanwhile customs was already closing their booths until the arrival of another plane. So we went back to customs, explained everything, had them re-open their booth and got my money back – all whilst the other Mercy Ships volunteers from that flight waited very patiently for me to get all my stuff done – great first impression  🙂
Luckily they are all great people here and we have been getting to know each other better on the following day of traveling to the ship.

That night we stayed in an Auberge called Chez Jeanne – if you ever visit Antananarivo, I can highly recommend it!
Early the next morning we got into a bus and traveled to Toamasina, Tamatave – which is the port where the ship is located. As it is the beginning of the rain season now, our luggage was strapped on top of the bus and covered with plastic sheets to keep it from getting soaked. Also Cyclone season is coming up in November, the weather promises to be quite adventurous as well.

All in all we were on the road for almost twelve hours, but it was beautiful to see the countryside.

Traveling to the port, we got a better impression of how the people here live. Madagascar is a developing country and one of the poorest countries in the world, approximately 69 percent of the population lives below the national poverty line threshold of one dollar per day. Clothes are washed in any kind of water to be found and laid out to dry alongside the road or traintracks to dry. Transportation is often powered by muscle power as you can see in the pictures below.

We finally arrived at the port at approximately 8 p.m. in the evening – all excited to finally see the ship. The moment was so overwhelming to actually finally be there, that I totally forgot to take a selfie (I know, I know – totally unusual for me 🙂  ). But you will get to see a lot of the ship and life on it the next months, I promise.

Early next morning I already started in the OR for orientation – getting to know my co-workers (or co-volunteers, I might better say), getting to know the equipment and facilities, the procedures, how everything works, schedules and so on – the days were kind of crazy – working in the daytime and in the evenings meetings to attend, forms to sign, people to meet, orientation, orientation, orientation.

The people are awesome though and very helpful in any situation. I love being here and seeing faith in action. We get together every morning in the OR, each team introduces itself, discusses every case carefully and prays together for patients and the day overall. Some mornings we get together in the OR and sing praise songs and have a short input. It is amazing for me to see these two worlds (the very professional and highly skilled work world and faith – invisible and sometimes inexplainable) collide and work together so well.

I will tell you some more of the procedures we do here, the patients and so on – I mean, I can’t already write EVERYTHING in my first blog, right? Tomorrow I will have my first day off and will take a tour with three co-volunteers from the OR to see some of the countryside and we will even stay overnight. If I take some nice pictures, I will make sure you get to see them 🙂

So for now I will leave you with two pictures of my cabin which I share with 5 other wonderful, beautiful women from all over the world (and one is even from switzerland 🙂 ) and with the view from our dining room – I couldn’t imagine anything more wonderful.

Thank you so much for your support and for reading my blog!
I would love to hear from you – feel free to comment! What would you like to know more about?

Be blessed! Much love from the beautiful island of Madagascar
(/ˌmædəˈɡæskər/ or /ˌmædəˈɡæskɑr/; Malagasy: Madagasikara), officially the Republic of Madagascar (Malagasy: Repoblikan’i Madagasikara [republiˈkʲan madaɡasˈkʲarə̥]
in the Indian Ocean!
<3  Silke