Finding my way

This has been written over the last few days  January 30 through February 3rd.


Well, I have now been here going on 2 weeks.
I have worked on getting to know the routine of the ship and becoming proficient at my job. Another big part of the ship for me is making friends and "fitting in". I am a very social person and love to make new friends and things are going well. I have met people from all over the world here.

Many are full timers, who have made the commitment of staying on the ship full time and many are short timers such as myself. Ward nurses must commit to 8 weeks on the ship, while operating room nurses can come for as short of a time as 2 weeks. When people have full time jobs back home, this works out very well. I have learned there about 600 people on the ship during the day. Of theses 600, 400 are volunteers and 200 are day crew workers. Day crew workers are people who are hired from the local country or city, can speak English, and have a desire to work full time for Mercy ships. They earn a wage and go to their homes each night. On the surgical wards where I work, we use them as patient care techs, but a large part of their job is translation. The patients all speak Malagasy or French, and I know neither of these.So their job is an important one and it would be very difficult for me to function without them. We have what seems to be 2 day crew for each 10 patients.

There are also many day crew hired for cleaning crew, in the food galley, up on the decks -- ( don't know what they do up there) and all over the ship.

We also have Gurkhas for our security of getting on and off the ship. The are soldiers - I think from Nepal- who monitor the admission door into and out of the ship. They make sure we scan our badges when we go out and come back in. We also must sign out and check ourselves back in. They keep good track of us and keep the ship generally safe. We are in a port at a dock about 1/2 mile from the gate and then the city of Tamatave is right there.


One of the most impressive things that I have witnessed is the wonderful spirituality that is here on the ship. Everywhere throughout the ship we pray. When I start a shift working, the nurses and day crew gather together before we do report and pray. We pray for the general good of the patients and their continued healing. We pray for some of the specific ones who are going through a difficulty in their healing or having some sort of difficulty in their lives. And we pray for us to have the knowledge and outpouring of our hearts for these people who have such difficulties. We also pray for ourselves to stay well and strong and Jesus centered. It is a wonderful way to start out the shift. ( I know this would never go over in the U.S., but wouldn't it be just so great?)

Mid mornings- around 9:30- a Christian worship group of day workers come and sing worship songs with the patients on each ward. The spend about 15 minutes singing, playing the guitar and preaching encouragement to the patients. Everyone joins in and even those of us, who don't know the words sway and clap hands and join in. It is so joyously uplifting.

When we go up to deck 7 each day- often time the day workers sing together - making wonderful harmonies of song.

Prayer and celebration of Jesus is everywhere. It needs to be. These people are so disfigured, it is truly amazing that they have come this far. And I am loving it.

There are also scheduled church services here on the ship- Sundays, down in the patient ward at 10:30 there is a service with music and up in our meeting area at 7 pm there is a church service that is interfaith for all. We also have service on Thursday nights. So lots of opportunity to grow spiritually here, and it is wonderful.

I am currently on a string of 4 night shifts. I haven't worked a night for over 12 years. They are 8 hours shifts and so far, so good. Most of the patients sleep most of the night. Many require pain control and vitals signs. (They all have skin graft sites to their burns and skin donor sites, mostly on their thighs. Many have K wires in place to straighten out damaged fingers and toes. I imagine that their pain is pretty intense. We use the Wong-Baker Faces scale to determine pain, since they speak Malagasy or French. Prior to surgery, extensive explanations are done between nurses and patients with translators.)
 Dressing changes are done by wound care during the day, so not much going on at night, which is good, because my usual patient assignment has been around 7- 10 patients. We do track neuro vascular status closely with these post op patients, but they are here for usually 2-3 weeks, so are generally stable. The small beds are filled with moms and kids all sleeping together in the same bed, or the moms sleep on a small thin mattress underneath their kids. There are many breast feeding babies here, all the kids breast feed. There are 2 nurses here for our ward of 20 patients, and we have 2 day crew with us. The day crew help get people up to the bathroom. They also do all of the laundering of our scrub uniforms at night. tonight they are washing all of the curtains between the rooms. All is well, although I must say the night shifts have been difficult for me. I have thank goodness been able to sleep well during the day. Probably because our cabin has no window and is really dark. My roommate Mary, from England has been great about keeping things quiet for me.




here is a pic of a child using the Wong -Baker pain scale

a picture of the local hospital, about 3 miles from the ship down the beach road

The beach road and some of the foliage around the area. There are many of the same plants that we have in Florida 

And of course Frozen is here!

Here are some pictures of the ship

Besides working, I am making lots of new friends from all cultures. Tonight, I am going with group of people to a French restaurant. Last week we had a class on how to order and so tonight is our big test!
Also, I'm going to a " resort" for the weekend to see more local culture and meet more lemurs. So even though I am working hard, I've been able to have some fun too.
Keeping in touch with my husband has been pretty easy with good wi-fi and facetime. I also have a phone card that is based out of Miami, so I can call the states at only about 2-3 cents per minute. So all is good. Please feel free to ask any questions you may have, and have a good week!