The phone isn't working!!!

Hello all! I have pictures to upload but unfortunately my phone isn't working and won't let me upload anything.  Hopefully tomorrow the phone is in a better mood.
I am slowly but surely completing my Africa Check List! Yesterday we went to a restaurant (wish i knew the name).  It was a REAL African restaurant! yay! Tom (our day worker) took me and Roxane (my new roommate).  You know it's off the beaten path when there's no white people and they don't speak any English.  We had Fufu which is a VERY West African starch.  It's made out of either Yam or Cassava.  Both are a type of root looking thing.  The yams here are not like the yams in the states.  So our Fufu (pronounced foo foo) was made with Yams.  It's a lot like mashed potatoes.  You eat it with some kind of sauce (which ever you order).  I had some kind of spicy tomato beef sauce.  I think i burned my tongue from the spiciness of it and not from temperature.  It was really delicious though!  I would totally do it again.
I have pictures of this wonderful adventure on my phone! but my stupid phone is being uncooperative.
Hey look at that! I just tried to get my phone to work again and it's working now!

Walking to the market :)

Roxane washing her hands before eating African food

Tom and I eating fufu

I have no idea what this was...supposedly it was beef but i've never seen beef like this before.  It was rubbery and weird...

So guys that's all for the day!

Another day, another story!

Hello all! I don't have much to write about but i figured it's time for an update.  For those who don't know, my time with MercyShips is slowly drawing to an end.  My service here is up the middle of March.  I'm so excited to come home! But i'm also really sad about leaving Africa.  I've really grown to love the markets, the taxi's, the people and the relationships i've formed here.
I've started a list of things i have left to accomplish before I leave:

1. Ride on a Zimmi -COMPLETED
2. Stay the night off the ship - COMPLETED
3. Donate blood to the ship
4. Befriend a patient 
5. Eat at a side of the road food vendor (African style!)
6. Observe a surgery

Currently i've done the first two.  I rode on a zimmi (motorcycle) and it was awesome! However, i did take the precaution of riding on Ken's bike. 

It was lots of fun...but i prolly won't do it again. It messes up my hair to much.

Staying off the ship i completed last weekend staying at Kpalime. I already posted about that trip and i don't want to double post pictures.  that would be embarrassing.

I've signed up to "befriend a patient".  It's a program where you get matched up with a patient.  You visit them, encourage them, pray with them and in general just be there as a friend.  I got assigned two different patients.  So tomorrow I'm going to go make some new friends!

As for the donating blood one...I signed up to donate blood.  In Sierra Leone I donated blood to a local clinic.  The Aberdeen women's clinic came onto the ship and a lot of crew donated blood to them.  So i guess that counts if i don't actually get to donate to our on board hospital. 

I've been thinking a lot about coming home.  I feel like i'm in a weird transition period.  I've been having a hard time focusing on being here.  I'm ready to come home.  I miss home.  

Oh! before I sign off a quick prayer request.  Our ovens in the galley are on the fritz.  Two of them are completely broken which leaves us in a very tight spot.  Please pray that we will be able to get the necessary parts ASAP.  Love to all!

KKKKK PALIME!!!

Time to hear about the trip to Kpalime!! We (Julie, Ben, Josh and I) had a fantastic time!  So sorry that the pictures are not in the right order.  I had a really difficult time trying to figure it out... :(

We took a taxi to the bus station and piled into a mini bus (above)

Any trip in Africa wouldn't be complete if it we didn't get stopped on the way! The police stopped our bus and we all had to pile out.  We really have no idea what was going on because it was all in French and no one spoke English.  But we took a picture to commemoration the event :)

Back on the bus! Surprisingly we weren't that cramped.

One of the first things we did (after getting a fanmilk) was to go to this church.  It was huge and beautiful.  Lots of stained glass windows.  

We wandered around the town a lot just to see what Kpalime  looked like.  Eventually we were really hot and sweaty and just wanted to sit down and eat out lunch.  So we stopped into a little restaurant and ate our lunch with soft drinks

A man came buy selling what we call 'street meat' street because you buy it on the street and meat because we have no idea what kind of meat it is.  It was really spicy but pretty good.  I think it had at least 3 different kinds of meat on the same skewer.  

At the market we bought fresh pineapple and mango for breakfast in the morning.  Josh tried to buy some fabric as well but we had a really difficult time with the language barrier.  None of us spoke French (Julie spoke the most but still rather difficult to have a conversation).

We took a Taxi up to Mt. Agou YWAM base.  

The base had one large main building.  It had lots of rooms in it and a  lovely wrap around porch.  While we were there  the sky opened up and it poured rain for about half an hour.  We sat under the porch and just watched the valley get drenched.  It was amazing.

We went hiking around the base (just to see what was there) .  We found some fruit trees and the boys found a long stick and knocked some of the fruit down.  We opened one of them up and couldn't figure out what the fruit was.

The weird fruit....any ideas?

There was also a catholic shrine.  It was pretty interesting.

In French it's called the JEM base.  Luckily we knew that before hand 

We hung around the base and played card games and other silly games when it was to dark to be outside.

The lovely main building and it's wrap around porch

During the storm the electricity was pretty dodgy.  It kept going out so we ate part of dinner by candle/flashlight.  It was really an adventure! Aimee (the lady who ran the base) made us fish and casava fries (sort of like potatoes).  It was delicious!

We went hiking and had some lovely views...sadly...the pictures don't really do them justice.

Hiking! (yes mom i really did hike)

One of the two little villages we had to go through to get to the peak of the mountain.  In this village some of the kids showed us the way.  We paid them in trail mix   On the way back down we happened to come across a woman who had lived in Ghana and had learned English.  She guided us through the town and introduced us to her entire family (and in laws) and took us to her house.  This is Africa people.  

The first village we went through.

This guy (in the tree) really wanted us to take a picture of him... i have no idea why. 

It was such a good trip! Unfortunately I can't figure out how to put these pictures in chronological order.  Sorry :(  The hike was really sweaty but really enjoyable.  The only thing that would have made it better was a lake at the top.  Oh! About the top! We got to the top and there was a security guard there who wouldn't let us through unless we bribed him.  We decided we didn't support corruption so we sat down ate our lunch and hiked back down the mountain.  Slightly disappointing to not get to see the view from the top of the mountain but well...life goes on and there were lots of views as we were hiking up.  Since we were hiking on a Sunday, all the churches in the villages we passed were going on.  We heard singing and worship for almost the entire hike.  Pretty cool!
So folks, that's our trip to Kaplime! My first and only night i've stayed off the ship.  Totally worth it.

aaah!

Hello my devoted readers! I so apologize for not posting more often :( I took a trip to Kpalime this last weekend and I've been meaning to post about it.  Unfortunately (as seems to always be the case) i don't have the pictures.  I promise to make it a point to get them tomorrow and write a nice long post about how the weekend went.  It was my first night off the ship...and i went on a hike.  Two things i'm not very comfortable with.  But i had a lovely time.  More is soon to follow.

Another birthday party!

Today i have to things to talk about.  The first is very short.  Below is are the key words to put into Youtube to watch a video from the big screening we just had.  I highly recommend that you watch it to see what the Africa Mercy is doing in Togo.

MercyShips Togo screening 2012

Please be praying for our equipment on the ship.  things are getting old and they break all the time! It can be really frustrating.  So please pray that equipment will hold together so we are able to continue to do what God has placed us here to do.

And the second thing i have to talk about is my African birthday party!  we had a birthday party with the dayworkers! It was so much fun! We made African food in the morning and I made a cake.  We all ate together in the Cafe.

It was a really fun 40 hour birthday! Thank you everyone!

Happy Valentines day!

Today I became an adult.  Finally! hehe.  Last night at 11 PM Joshua informed me I had an hour to get rid of any childlikeness left in me :)  I highly doubt the childness is completely out of my system.  Sorry Josh.   Thank you to everyone who wished me a happy birthday! It's kind of interesting having my 21st birthday on an international ship.  Turning 21 is only big in the states.  Everywhere else the drinking age is much younger.  So all the Americans on the ship were like "CONGRATS!!" and everyone else was like "woohoo."  I had a fantastic day though! I slept in, opened my presents with my roommates.  went and talked to Carol and found out i had presents that had been stashed away as a surprise.  It was so wonderful! I sat down and found a new knitting project, watched MONK (which i got today) and drank a lovely cup of coffee (which i also got today).
Later in the day we went out to dinner at a really delicious restaurant called Cote Jehardine ( i think that's how you spell it...).  It was really delicious.  Enjoy the lovely pictures :)

Getting ready for out big dinner! (notice the lovely shirt i'm wearing...i had it tailored here)

All the girls dressed up and ready to go (notice the skirt...also tailored here)

First glass of  'legal' champagne!

Bronte and Becca

Me and Julie

Marilyn (Left) carol (right)

I'm legal baby!

We ordered pizza and it came with this huge knife to cut it.

Julie got a delicious espresso and i thought it was really cute, it came with steamed milk on the side and two sugar cubes . Africa, I love you.

Happy Valentines day all! And thank you so much to everyone who helped make this birthday special for me.

Another picture day! these are pictures from a while back that i have meant to put up. 
We had a thank you party for the nurses that helped in the dinning room and galley over Christmas.

Julie and Tina

Roses and me!

KEN!!

The hospital had an 'open house' where they played games and showed the hospital to everyone before it opened for patients.  One of the games was a race of putting on all these hospital items (gloves, hat, mask, gown, glasses) and then emptying a urine bag.  It was really fun (and it wasn't real urine!)

learning how to find veins for an IV.

Thank you all for keeping up with me and this blog.  I really appreciate all the comments.  Please continue to pray for my return home.  I'm looking for a place to live so if anyone knows of anything let me know :) Thanks