30 Days of Africa - #22

Mangosteens! A friend bargained for these along the road and introduced us to this fruit. The outside looks strange and hard but the inside is soft, juicey and sweet :) 

30 Days of Africa - #21

Sunset at the break wall...the other side of Africa Mercy's dock is a break wall to the Atlantic Ocean with beautiful views and soaking wave sprays:

Africa Mercy's end of the port dock

 

Break wall made of huge rocks

 

Soaked by a random gigantic wave...

 

...but the sunset was totally worth the effort

 

Did I ever mention how much I love the beauty of Africa?

30 Days of Africa - #20

Introducing the newest member of the Mercy Ships dental team! One of the Congolese day crew from the dental clinic is off for maternity leave and she recently brought her newborn baby to the clinic for all of us to finally meet him. The baby is super cute so I have to give you the opportunity to meet him too...I haven't mastered the technique of tying a baby on my back yet, if I find a willing mother and not screaming child who is a little older I might give it a try and definitely post some photos.

 

30 Days of Africa - #19

Just a short but useful lesson today - how to correctly sit on a folding dental chair:

Start by sitting on the middle part of the chair...

 

... then put your feet on the foot rest like this

 

Never sit on the foot rest...

...or this will happen to you!

 

Believe it or not, the above scenario is actually a serious problem at the dental clinic...and signs with these pictures were posted by each chair today for intensive patient education purposes, an aspect I definitely didn't learn in dental hygiene school :)

 

30 Days of Africa - #18

Denis Sassou Nguesso, the President of the Republic of Congo visited the Africa Mercy yesterday for the first time! The entire event turned out to be a big deal and actually quite the show. First of all, the event was moved up from Tuesday to Sunday, sending the preparation teams into chaos. Then the entire port area had a face lift with side walks being finished, walls newly painted, huge shipping containers moved out of the way. The day of the actual event, the whole port area was closed 2 hours before the president arrived until after he left, mid afternoon to evening. As crew on the ship we could watch his arrival from the dining room or upper outside decks and then listen to the program speeches from the dinning room tv screens...unless you were lucky enough to get one of a few seats in the international room where the president was speaking. After the program, there was a short tour through the hospital area, then down the gangway and President Nguesso was gone. It was a short visit considering all the preparation involved, but the Mercy Ship crew and the city/port of Pointe Noire did a great job to make the whole experience very memorable. I have a few pictures to share, but we were restricted in coming and going from the ship, where we were allowed on the ship, what we could wear, and most of all where to take or not to take pictures...pretty much no photos allowed. So enjoy :)

Watching from the "safe zone" through the dining room windows

 

Crowds wearing President Denis Sassou Nguesso tee shirts with his face on them...

and a live band with entertainment

 

Presidential motorcade arriving

 

Congo president greeting Mercy Ships founder Don Stephens

 

Watching the president's speech on one of the dining room screens...

30 Days in Africa - #17

Camping on the beach this weekend! Returned to my favorite place this weekend - the gorge beach, but this time for camping overnight. The camping trip started with pouring rain and we actually left the camping area to return to the ship. After eating our packed lunches at a local restaurant, the rain started to let up and we decided to go camping after all. Everything was soaking wet and the dark clouds were threatening for the rest of the day, but camping on the beach was so worth braving the wet sand and mud. The beach was completely deserted and we could chose to set up camp anywhere. The tent was completely built from market materials and our fire-starters had amazing skills to convince wet wood to actually burn as a great campfire. The sunset was beautiful, crashing waves on the beach were soothing all night long, and when the stars came out I think we even found the Southern Cross constellation. And of course, the campfire food was epic... chocolate bananas directly from Switzerland, crabs caught from the hundreds carpeting the beach at night, and freshly caught fish cooked in foil for breakfast. Also the standard Mercy Ship fare of peanut butter sandwiches, hardboiled eggs, and apples... not quite so epic. All 6 of the campers survived the African night creepy crawlers and morning brought the sun back again. Definitely one of my favorite camping trips and a highlight of my time in Congo. Unfortunately, pictures don't show all the natural beauty of the area, but maybe they will give you a good idea :)

Pity party about the rain...that did stop eventually

Choosing the perfect camp site

 

                                                     Campfire cooking with Mitch...

The 6 African camping survivors!

30 Days of Africa - #16

Ok, so the last few days have been very busy around here and I've missed a few posts... to catch up I'm just going to do a short post with the Congo flag. The port area where Africa Mercy is docked has been worked on all week long in anticipation of the Congo president's arrival today. So there are Congo flags along the streets, the roads are repaired, walls are newly painted and ugly stuff is generally gone. There are even tee-shirts made for the occasion and passed out to all by-standers to show unanimous support for the president or something like that...

 

 

30 Days of Africa - #15

The CONGO River!!! Several weekends ago, my friend and I traveled to Brazzaville, the capital city in the Republic of Congo, to attend a wedding. I'll try to share more about the trip later, but the Congo river was something that definitely had to be experienced while we were there. This river is the deepest in the world and second largest river after the Amazon. Since I've been swimming in the Amazon River, I also had to get in the Congo River...although only to put my feet in this time. In the first picture, you can see the Democratic Republic of Congo or DRC on the other side of the river with the DRC capitol city of Kinshasa directly across from Brazzaville... also a world record for the closest capitol cities of 2 different countries. Otherwise, it was a beautiful, huge river that felt really great to my feet on a hot day.

 

 

30 Days of Africa - #14

Working on ship in the operating room today instead of the dental clinic... or at least observing surgeries there :) Crew members can request to watch a surgery during their service with Mercy Ships and this morning was my assigned observation time slot. So I dressed for surgery in hospital scrubs, surgical cap, and covers for my shoes, then went into the operating theatre area on hospital deck 3 for the first time ever. My first surgery to observe was a bilateral cleft lip repair done by Dr. Gary Parker on a 7 month old baby boy. Being in the dental field, I've always been interested in cleft lip/palate surgeries and Dr. Parker was amazing to watch performing the surgery. The baby also had a cleft palate and will need surgery again when he is older to repair the palate along with rhinoplasty for his nose after the cleft surgeries are complete. After the baby's surgery was finished, I went into another operating room where the removal of a mass on the neck was in progress. This patient was a teenage boy with several lumps between the size of a golf ball and tennis ball on the right side of his neck, and the surgeons were removing them to determine whether the masses were lymphomas or not. The surgery took me back to anatomy and physiology classes in hygiene school as the surgeon pointed out the internal jugular vein and different layers of tissue surrounding the clump of growths. This surgery was also fascinating but sad at the same time, because if the lab results return positive for cancer there is no chemo therapy treatment available in Congo. So please pray for the boy to be healed through the surgery and have his results show the tumors to be benign. Thanks!

30 Days of Africa - #13

The promised follow-up photo with our African dresses and very own seamstress! The fabric and dress styles are super cute and it was really nice of our day crew member's sister to have the dresses made for us... Now Karen and I look like twins or maybe matching flight attendants or something. Overall an amazingly African experience and a great memento to take home :)

30 Days of Africa - #12

As the perfect ending to a busy Sunday, four of our fantastic dental day crew friends who live in Pointe Noire came to visit us on the ship. All of them have been to the Mercy Ship before, but they came to hang out with us this time and we had lots of fun playing table soccer, eating dinner in dining room together, watching the sunset from the deck, looking at photos from home, and joining the Sunday evening church service on the ship. Each one is an important part of the dental team and getting to know them so well has been a special blessing to me. I will definitely miss Max, Rogacien, Benedict, and May when I leave Congo in a few weeks...

30 Days of Africa - #11

Congo has so many beautiful places, but one of the most popular Mercy Ships weekend destinations (and my personal favorite) is called THE GORGE. The day trip usually includes a crowded taxi bus ride out of town, a steep hike down one side of the actual gorge, then an easier hike through African jungles and tall grassy plains, finally ending at an amazing beach with safe swimming. After hiking the gorge you can almost imagine how David Livingstone felt when he was exploring Africa...ok ok, I know that's really stretching things but the thought has crossed my mind each time I've been hiking there. Anyway, I spent today at the gorge with friends unwinding from the week and getting in some good sun and water time. The photos are from a different weekend, but the place hasn't changed :)