Hi, my friends!

I hope all is well with you! Today I will share some personal, totally none-medical thoughts with you and try to put into words how my time here has been so far and how my days are.

I have been living and working on the ship for already four weeks now (that is one whole MONTH – wowza, there must be some kind of time-warp hole here somewhere, as time is flying by)! And I am seriously just beginning to get a hold of how ship life works and how to manage and organize the spare free time I have – getting my blogging and laundry done, socializing with fellow ship/cabinmates and also managing to have some “me-time”.
I know it may sound weird, but there is always so much going on on the ship – so many places to be, people to meet and chat with, things to do, meetings to attend that I truly have to actually plan when to spend some time alone and reflect or simply read and relax (which involves sketching out an escape route to a quiet place, which isn’t always easy to find on the ship). So what I am trying to say is that in all of the wonderful companionship and bumping into and chatting with people time my alone / quiet time and space of reflection (which I at home have all the time naturally) are a rare thing. Although I LOVE being around people the whole time, I strongly feel I need to have time to process all the impressions – so this has proven to be one of my greatest tasks so far. Writing this blog actually helps me sort through my thoughts – this is one of the reasons why it sometimes takes me some time to write – the mind of a woman can be complicated 🙂

So let me take you into a normal day / week on the ship ….

My mornings begin early with some kind of morning routine, which can either be “Scotts exercise class” at 6:15 in the morning (which is a real killer and I am still not sure if I will survive if I go on starting my days 3x a week this way and having muscle ache the rest of the week), or a short morning read. Followed by breakfast in the big dining room (shared by 400 people) and some sort of morning meeting – the only morning that there is no meeting is on thursday, because on thursdays we have our mandatory evening meeting 🙂 . Apart from the two mandatory weekly meetings there are almost daily morning / evening meetings you can attend to voluntarily – like morning OR devotions, anesthesia education, program reporting, evening church worship services, bible studies or the weekly medical in-service meeting, where you can learn a lot abo
ut different people’s specialties or experiences. So here’s a lot going on already.

Also SOMEONE is always doing SOMETHING – so if you like meeting new people, you will end up having to make decisions, decisions, decisions on whom to join and what kind of activities to take part in. A lot of activity opportunities however are  eliminated due to my working schedule which is from 8 a.m. until basically your OR (operating room) is finished. Most of the time this is somewhat around 4-5 p.m., but last week for example we had a lot of scheduled surgeries and also some emergencies we had to take care of, so I got out late 4 out of 5 evenings. And then there are the on-call du
ties, on which I am today for example. Meaning you have a pager and stay available on the ship, in case you are needed (for emergencies on the ward or ICU, if help is needed sticking an i.v. or if a patient needs emergency surgery). Luckily this isn’t often the case, so it is also a day that can be planned perfectly for doing laundry or writing your blog 🙂
Next friday though there is a special day coming up, where we get an additional day off to the weekend. We have this extended weekend every six weeks on the ship – and I will seize the opportunity to take another trip to a place 50 km up the coastline. I love to “get out” once in a while, because living on the ship we are quite isolated. You don’t get the “Madagascar” experience, since we live in our own little town – protected, comfortably, air-conditioned and fed. 🙂

Speaking of fed, I must brag a little about the food. It is amazing. Totally unhealthy, carb-loaded, but very tasty. The other morning you could choose between different types of donuts for breakfast ( I will spare you the pictures). And if you feel the need to pimp your donuts or whatever you like for breakfast, you can also add additional things like chocolate sprinkles, jams, cinnamon-sugar or nutella provided on the breakfast side – table. Lunch is always tasty (luckily there is also always a salad bar for lunch / dinner) and dinner is great, too. Today we had a BBQ on the dock – it was amazing (especially because of the atmosphere). Dinner is always warm food and you can always eat bread with cheese / ham or other spreads from the mentioned side – table. Local fruits like bananas and mangos are also provided. The good food is the reason btw. that the official phenomenon “Mercy Hips” exists and is also one of the main reasons why I peel my butt out of bed in the early mornings to go “move it” 🙂

Living in the six bed cabin with only one bathroom has been way nicer and more fun and easier than ever expected (maybe because I have the BEST roomies 🙂 ) – of course you don’t have a lot of space, it can be noisy and it’s tight using the shower, but it really works very well. I feel really comfy and I love to meet my cabinmates in the evenings (which is mostly between 8 and 9 p.m., we all behave like grannys and go to bed VERY early each night).

Also, living on a ship in general is really exciting.

Those of you who know me a little better know I’ve ALWAYS had a thing for everything that swims or flies…. The first three weeks I felt the vessel moving the  whole time. That suddenly stopped last week sometime, now I only notice when I look across the dining room outside the window on the other side and see the horizon bobbing up and down.

And then there are these continuous, almost military-style drills I am getting used to, for example fire and evacuation drills and Cyclone drills (yup, Cyclone – you heard that right). Also I want to mention because I don’t know if you are aware of the fact that I officially am a seafarer now – Arrrr! I am under protection of our Captain (meaning I also have to obey him in everything 🙂 ) and we have almost a diplomat status when moving in the country because of the contract between the president of Madagascar and Mercy Ships / our Captain.

Coming back to the ship after a trip to the town also always feels like coming home. Before being here I always wondered what fuss people were making about the ship (to be honest I wasn’t very impressed from the pictures and I didn’t even like the vessel that much). But now I always approach the Africa Mercy in awe and admire her beauty. She is a home to me, a safe haven in Africa.

So far from me for now! I would love to hear from you!
Is there anything you would like to know more about?

Be blessed!
Silke

Fun fact of the day: the M/V (motor vessel) Africa Mercy used to be a danish rail ferry and her name was Dronning Ingrid 🙂