Packing FUN

Our dock



OR 6 is packed wall to wall

I’ve joined the ship at a weird time, at the end of a 10 month outreach.  People are leaving & we are packing things up to move on soon.  Surgeries ended last week & the hospital is supposed to be closed the end of this week.  As each OR finished, we started packing things up.  The OR beds are bolted & strapped to the floors.  The OR furniture & equipment has been packed tightly, wall to wall, in one OR.  Everything has to be secured, because if something gets loose during the sail, it could cause major damage to other things or even put holes in the walls.





Glenys demonstrates how to properly tie down the OR bed



Tying down the equipment room

One of our long time crew members in the OR left this week.  A sad, sad time.  She was also the go to person for all OR packing needs.  She spent the last 2 weeks trying to pass on her knowledge to me, which is a scary thought- now I am the packing princess.  We will hopefully have everything done up by the end of the week.



My bed

My wardrobe

When I came on board, I was in an open 4 berth cabin with 3 girls from my Gateway group.  It was nice, but lacked privacy & was for short term.  Last week, I was given the opportunity to move into a typical 4 berth cabin.  A 4 berth has its own bathroom, followed by 2 cubicles with 2 beds each & a nice living room in the back with a window.

Life on ship keeps me pretty busy.  One Saturday, I walked to the craft market, experiencing what life is like in busy Freetown.  The streets are very crowded, with people selling things on the sides of the road & car traffic & foot traffic negotiating between it all. Often times, the safest & easiest place to walk is down the middle of the street between the cars & trucks.  You can find almost anything on the streets, food, toiletry items, clothes, fabric, hardware, anything.  Everything is on a barter system, & as a white person, we often pay a lot more for our items, but even then it’s still pretty decent.  I bought some African fabric for 10000 Leones a yard, which is roughly $2.25.  I plan on getting a skirt & some OR hats made.

The upper building brick work is complete

Last Friday was a ship’s holiday, meaning that it was a 3 day weekend!  I got the opportunity to go back to Yams Farm & see the progress on the school.  The walls were complete & we helped them prep for putting the roof on.  Once the roof goes on, the floors can be poured & the retaining wall, that will allow the area between the school buildings & the church to be level.  Hopefully, things will be finished before we leave Sierra Leone.

Life is going well here.  Things are winding down & in a couple weeks we will be leaving Sierra Leone & heading for Ghana.  Thank you so much for all your support & prayers.

Blessings

Field Days & Boat Rides

Working hard on the foundation

Another week at Yams Farm flew by.  The lower school building was getting window blocks put in, they are small square blocks with a hole in the middle.  The blocks allow air & light to enter, but doesn’t require shutters to lock.  The upper building was still getting the floor leveled as the walls were going up.  We moved a lot of earth. 

The weather didn’t help much, it would unbearably hot & humid at our work site.  We often could only work for a short period before we needed to go find a shady spot & rest.  The local guys we worked with were amazingly strong & hard working.  They made everything look easy- mixing cement is very hard, but they did it so quickly that it was effortless!



The winning team's structure

Poor Bekah gets "robbed"

We also spent a lot of time in the school with the children.  The younger kids were learning about colors & spelling.  They would sing songs to us & just love on us when they were on break.  We acted out skits like the Good Samaritan for them to show how God wants us to care for each other.  The teachers had told us earlier that they were looking for new ways of teaching & had asked us for suggestions.  One day we took the older kids out to the football field & gave them an engineering challenge.  They had to build a tall structure using the materials we gave them; 4 pieces of rope, 3 large sticks, 9 medium sticks & 9 small sticks.  Before hand, they were learning about bridges & structural design.  The kids were divided up into 4 teams & soon their creative side came out.  The basic design throughout all the teams were about the same, but 2 teams got very competitive trying to out do each other.  The other 2 teams went with a more creative, decorative approach.  The winning team won a bag of oranges.  An activity like this wasn’t something the kids were used to, but they seemed to enjoy it.

Go Team Green!

Our last day at Yams Farm, we took the older 3 classes & had a fun field day with them.  We divided up into 8 teams of 8-12 students & 1 team leader, we then went around to 8 different stations where we had challenges.  Some of the stations were an academic quiz, a Bible quiz, jump rope, kicking soccer goals, & even a dance competition.  The team with the best overall score won.  My awesome Team Green tied for first, but we had the most fun.  It reminded me of my camp counselor days of leading a group of kids, singing & dancing around the village. 

 

Everyone getting on the boat



On the boat



As a special treat, we gave all the kids popcorn & then went down to the local beach.  Earlier in the day, we had worked it out with the headman to hire out the large sand canoe & take the kids out for a spin on the water.  The kids were so excited, never before had they ever gone on a field trip.  The canoe was brought close to show & everyone waded out to get in.  The canoe is quite large, big enough to hold 60+ students & 10 adults.  There were some moments of uncertainty when we were too heavy to push off the sand beach, but after the bigger boys got out & pushed, we were on our way.  One of the teachers stood up at the front of the boat & led the kids in singing as we motored our way down river.  We passed many other villages & the people were very happy to see us go by.  I don’t think they have ever seen a boat so full of singing children!  What a way to end a fun day.

The lower building complete with window cross

The upper building

Before we knew it our 2 weeks were over.  We had worked hard, had a lot of fun & made new friends.  I’m back on the ship now, living with 3 other girls from my Gateway group.  I will soon be moving to another cabin, as the cabin I am currently in is for short term crew.  We are in air conditioning, we have internet, drinkable water, flush toilets, electricity that works all the time & won’t shock you through your computer.  All the comforts of home. 



Blessings