My 4th Newsletter!

Greetings from Ghana, West Africa.

Yes, I have been here just over 2 weeks now and thought it was high time I sent a newsletter out again. Sorry for taking so long in doing this.

At the Africa Mercy (AFM) we have seen them lift the lifeboats up, which is quite a procedure. You can visit my blog and watch video’s of it.

As you are already aware, I received a week and a half’s notice in coming to the Anastasis (ANA) - the other Mercy Ship. I was very excited at this news, as there were many friends I wanted to see on the ANA. Of course, this meant also that I have to leave my friends from the AFM behind and also do not get to do the 2 week sail from England to West Africa. At least I will sail from Ghana to Liberia in February or March 2007 (not sure of the exact date).

On Friday, 24 November I took my flight from Newcastle, England to Amsterdam, Holland, 1 hour at Amsterdam to find my connecting flight and board it and direct to Accra, Ghana. The flight went well. I almost had a problem with my luggage in Newcastle, but God is good and I was able to take everything through without extra costs or further problems.

When I left Newcastle it was icy cold, my hands were freezing, because I have packed my gloves into my check in luggage. In Amsterdam it was also cold, but in Accra it was really nice and hot. I arrived on time in Accra (19:15), went through customs with no problem and without waiting very long. Then, when it came to collecting my luggage, I waited very long as it was a big flight and mine was on one of the last loads they took off the plane. I went through the rest of the airport till I got outside and were met by fellow Mercy Shippers (Andy Cowie and Lisa Swan).

When we arrived at the harbour where the ship is docked, I saw many many many containers and trucks. I was informed that the drivers sleep under their trucks and I could see that there is always movement in the harbour. Finally we arrived at the ship, and what a beautiful ship she is!

On board the ship there is nice air-conditioning, so that cooled me off after the hot air outside, although I must admit, I am so grateful for it, for I do not know how much longer I could go on in the cold English weather. I am really a South African girl who likes warmer weather rather than cold weather!

That night I saw some friends I haven’t seen in a long while and it was great!!! I already joined into one of the games they play on board sometimes, called the name game. It was lots of fun. My cabin is a 3-berth cabin, where for the 1st week I had to sleep on the top bunk. The one girl in my cabin, Katrina has finished her time with Mercy Ships and left, so I got to move down to the bottom bunk. Soooo much better. Now it is just me and Helen Jackson (a teacher) in the cabin and funnily enough, she was my roommate for the 3 weeks she was with us in England before transferring here a couple of days before me. We do get along very well and she always reminds me to take my malaria pills (THANK YOU!!!)!

The next morning I received my own personal tour of the ship. I believe I found my way around pretty quickly. Obviously here and there I did get lost, but it did not take me very long to find my way around again.

The rest of the weekend I stayed on board the ship exploring it and just settling in. That Sunday I went down to the ward to the church service they hold there. The week I had many orientations and such things to go to and also did some office work, getting to know the way things get done here, quite different to how I am used to doing it on AFM, but I don’t mind. I say CHANGE IS GOOD!

The next weekend (last weekend), we celebrated Penny’s birthday and the Saturday 9 of us (girls) left for the day to go to Cedi’s Beads World and to some waterfalls in the area. We were out the whole day and came back after supper was already over. So, we dropped most of the girls off and went for pizza at the ice cream shop (yes, the ice cream shop also sells pizza’s, crazy, but cool)! These pizza’s are soooo much better than England’s pizza’s (no offence my British friends)!!!

The Sunday I went with different people to the Liberian Refugee Camp (which does not look different from the rest of Ghana) about 1½ hours drive from the ship (depending on traffic). We went to the service there, stayed for most of it, and because of how far it is and us wanting to go to an orphanage on the way back, we left before the service ended.

So, as mentioned, on the way back we went to an orphanage and played with the children for a while. It was good fun and the girls loved it. Then, we made it back to the ship with 15 minutes to spare before supper time. It was a long drive back and we played a word game called GHOST, where each person gives a letter of the alphabet trying to spell a word without it ending on yourself (if it does or you make up a word and your bluff is called, you get the letter G and the rest of the letters till you spell the word Ghost, and therefore losing). After quite some time, it was decided we will play a very similar game. This time we make up our own word and whenever it is decided the word is a good enough word, then we make up the meaning of the word. That was very funny what we ended up with. I will have to ask one of the people I played with for those words (he actually wrote it down for the fun of it).

Monday - Wednesday during the whole morning, we had New Crew Orientation, where we learned all sorts of cool & interesting things to help us live on board the ship. Things like community living, health & safety, the history of Mercy Ships as well as the culture and things.

Now, here is some cool things I learned:

A good book to read (so I heard) is Foreign To Familiar by Sarah A Lanier.

Culture in Ghana specifically (but mostly West Africa):You get hot or cold cultures, I am definitely a cold culture person - task and time, etc. orientated, and West Africa, Ghana too is definitely hot culture places - people orientated.

Greetings: Handshake, right hand only, If people are sitting in a row, you start with the person sitting on the other people’s right side (your left).

Sitting: For women, we mostly have to wear long skirts or skirts that ends below the knee (including for when you sit down. So, no crossing of your legs when you sit.

Meals: You do not get invited to meals, you just go to people houses (no appointments gets made here…). You also join when asked to join in (a meal for instance). The people in Ghana are very friendly. Even when they have not enough food, they will still ask you to join (if you are there over a mealtime).Then also, do not finish your whole plate of food, it is polite and also better to leave a little food on your plate. If you do finish off your plate, they will think you have not had enough and put more food on your plate. NEVER smell food before you eat. Don’t blow your nose when eating with people.

Male/Female relationships: Do not be too nice! Opposite sexes don’t show affection in public. Can show affection to kids. Same sex holding hands - ok (I.e. if you see guys holding hands, they are not gay, that is what they do here).

Respect roles: Don’t use older people’s first names… use titles. Auntie or Mama and name for older ladies. Sister for younger ladies.

Church: Can go on for hours… Sundays belong to God, not us. They give offerings 2 or 3 times (1st one done by pastor, 2nd one for those who came late). Don’t give under compulsion or manipulation.

Dress code: Dress nice & decent for Christian women. No see through clothing. No thighs to be shown. Be wise!

Money: Community/relation oriented people. Give as you are lead, do not be manipulated or come under compulsion.Hawkers - don’t’ give eye contact.Shopping - bargain with them…

Photo’s: ask permission before taking people’s photograph. No government or security stuff.

Smells: Don’t criticize, but ignore. Don’t show it smells bad. They may not have money to buy deodorant or soap, etc.

People oriented culture. People do run late. People are more important than time. Important to greet when greeted!

That is some of the things I learned about culture here!!!

We have a book at reception where we can sign up for different things to do (what we call Mercy Ministries). Mostly it is to go out to different sites, to see what has been done, also to go to churches, orphanages, women’s prison, etc. We also have a program called: Adopt A Patient.
So, the week before last I signed up for the Adopt a Patient program. On the sheet you can state whether you want a male/female or child. I stated child/female. So, I received a note on my message board that my patient is a 52 year old lady called Comfort and she’ll be arriving on Monday, Dec. 4 and her operation is the next day. So, the Monday evening I went down to the ward and Helen came along (wanting to know more about it before she signed on herself). We went to see Comfort. Now Comfort do not speak English, but 2 of the languages in Ghana called Ada and Ga. So, we had the patient next to her Sabena, that could and wanted to translate for us. We were very grateful to her for that and she joined in on our conversation. It was a little awkward at first, but good to know and at this stage, I have only learned about the hot and cold cultures (and not the more detailed things about the Ghanaian culture). So, I tried and used a bit of the information to help with my visit, like asking about her family and so on. So, after a while, also because it is difficult when we do not speak the same language we basically ran out of things to say and ended our visit, also we did not want to tire her out.

The next evening we went again and our patient translator wasn’t there in the bed next to her. So, we got one of the translators and visited for another while. Every time Comfort said she is grateful for our visits. Then, the evening after that when we went to visit her again, we were told they moved everyone around and we found her next to our translator patient! Very cool, because we got to see Sabena again. So, this time we came armed with our photo albums (after asking for suggestion from fellow crew members on what to do/talk about). This was a great hit and they loved looking at the photo’s! Then Comfort informed us that she was to be discharged the following morning, but that she will come back for dressings and she wants to see us again. Sabena asked that we must keep coming and visiting her. We agreed to it and also organized with the nurse that we must be informed when Comfort comes for her dressings and checked it was fine that we can visit Sabena.So, the next evening I came to visit Sabena and one of the other very short term crewmembers were also there visiting her. Unfortunately she (the other crew member) was leaving the next day and told Sabena. Sabena was so sad at this and started crying. We tried to comfort her and I told her I will visit her everyday until she gets discharged, and not to worry, that I will be here and she‘ll be leaving before I do. She was happy about that.
Then, last night I went to visit her again, and it is also the start of our Christmas festivities on board the ship (they were going to show a Christmas movie on aft deck). The nurse suggested I take her up to see the movie with me (which I gladly did) and Sabena was grateful to get out of the ward for a while.

So, after the movie I took Sabena back with a promise to see her again today.

This morning I went to the Save Them Young Children’s Home. We played with the kids and made Christmas cards and angels and had lots of fun.

So, as you can see from this newsletter (I hope), I am having a good time here and trying to get involved with things, but trying to not overdo it either.

Hopefully I will have more wonderful news for all of you soon! I will try and keep everyone updated regularly!

Till next time.
God bless,
Mathilda