Dzinye le Africa

We’re sailing the big blue open ocean… soon to arrive in Durban, South Africa. We said goodbye to Togo and the ocean has been our home for two weeks now…

friends made along the way in Dapaong, Northern Togo

My life chapter with Mercy Ships is about to finish. We will soon be in port in South Africa- where we will disembark and all go our separate ways. And I am excited for what is ahead, I feel very alive and very hopeful about the future. I believe good things are in store, but it is quite bittersweet… sad to say goodbye to the amazing people I have met and the memories I have made on this continent, but I am quite excited to see what the next chapter holds….

Jolene (another Africa Mercy nurse) and I- I don't know how we ever convinced anyone to let us take care of patients...

I’ve been thinking back over our time in Togo, remembering my time working on the wards… I came across something my friend and co-volunteer Melissa Davey wrote, a wonderful nurse who works on the Africa Mercy… it basically puts our job as nurses on board in a nutshell…

You know you are a nurse on a ship in West Africa when…

1. You walk down the hall or down a flight of stairs to get to work in the morning.
2. You realize none of your patients speak English, and your French is atrocious.

3. Charades is how you can communicate best

4. Between you and your coworkers 4 different countries are represented on this shift.

5. Some of the donated supplies for the ward are in Dutch. What does that say?

6. Give medical instructions to patients using 3 different people using 3 languages. English to French to whatever dialect is spoken up north :) Sometimes one patient needs to interpret for you to another.

7. IV catheters are 3 inches long, how can you expect me to insert that on the first try in a child!

8. There are picture instructions on how to use the toilet in the bathroom.

9. Have to give PRBC to a patient, no problem just call your roommate because she is the patients blood type and insert a 16g canula into her arm for phlebotomy. Then transfuse it directly into your patient. Now that is fresh blood!

10. You are the nurse, respiratory therapist, pharmacist, and nutritionist for the patient.

11. Mama's and Papas sleep under the patient’s bed and this is normal.

Photo courtesy of: Tom Bradley (http://tombradley.wordpress.com/)

12. Recycle, Reduce, Reuse everything. After sterilizing it. If you throw it away you very well might never see another one.
13. You have become an expert Jenga and Memory player in 2 weeks.
14. Sometimes all you want to do is grab the patient and run them back home because you know there is more care available then a ship can provide, and death is not inevitable.

15. You feel heartache and joy at the same time for little patients on the ward.

16. You get to see lives transformed from hopeless to hopeful.

17. You get to love and be loved.

18. Praying with your patients is encouraged not discouraged.

19. It hurts just as much if not more when a little life passes here then it does at home.

20. TIA becomes a quote when there is nothing left to say. "This Is Africa." How wrong is that?

21. For all the good, bad, ugly you would still rather stay, than leave...If not you then who, and if not now then when?

Jolene and I with Bella. Photo courtesy of: Tom Bradley (http://tombradley.wordpress.com/)

It’s true… Living and working on the Africa Mercy I have learned to make big use of the little that we have, to use and reuse, and to be ashamed of all the wealth and supplies I have seen wasted and have wasted myself back home… I’ve learned a little bit of MANY languages (including some European languages from using donated supplies and from the multicultural staff I worked with)… I’ve learned more about the realities in this world that are so painful to face sometimes and I have been lead to question the way I live and the things I believe…

And I must say, although I have not wrote much about this before, one of my favorite parts of working here in Africa has been my time with the day volunteers…
The day volunteers we have worked with have all been from Benin, Togo, Ghana, Nigeria, and a few other West African countries… They are brilliant people who usually speak several local languages along with English and French, and their own language of parables… Many of them have gone to University for Bachelors’ and Masters’ Degrees and are well educated and very aware of what is going on in the world around them.
Day volunteer farewell party
Most of them know what it is to be hungry, to experience living in nations that are politically unstable, or to lose family members, sometimes before their very eyes to a civil war… and they are some of the happiest most loving people I have ever met…
Dancing in the International Lounge
I remember one time I was really touched by our Togolese day volunteers. I was helping take care of a post-operative child who got part of his jaw removed from a tumor that would’ve suffocated him. We had to feed him with a feeding tube that went into his nose to his stomach. He was not tolerating the feeds very well and got up one evening from bed after his feeding and started having projectile vomit (sorry for you non-medicals that find that gross…) He vomited and vomited until nothing was left in his little belly- everywhere- on himself, the floor, the bed sheets, his dad, his neighbor in the next bed over. Soon the room was full of the pungent smell of vomit.

We got the boy some medicine to settle his stomach and I was about to gather cleaning supplies, but I could not find them. I looked over and the day volunteers were all gloved with the supplies, cleaning the vomit, cleaning the boy, making his bed, and settling him in… They are not medically trained, are not required to clean bodily fluids (and even though I pride myself on not getting grossed out easily, vomit can sometimes do the trick), but they all jumped right in, no one asked them to, but they happily did it. I was really surprised, even working with nursing students back home it was sometimes hard to get them to help clean up yucky messes. I thanked all of them, but they did not seem to think it was a big deal- they were just doing what they thought anyone would do… I truly felt like we were all a team that day, to work with and serve one another…

I miss them… they are truly great people and many of them have told me if I come back to visit, I have a place with them as long as I like, and I know they really mean it….
They have taught me to slow down, to focus on the things that are truly important, and to consider my neighbor and the things he does not have- and they have taught me all of this by example… They own a piece of my heart, a part that will always belong to them. Dzinye le Africa.

Ben- always at someone's bedside cheering them up. He always seemed to know who needed encouragement for the day

Ericvi (little Eric)- always had a smile on his face and had the heart of a wise old man

Christine- accepted me as family right away- told me I was going to stay in Africa and marry one of her brothers so I could be her sister :)

Kokou- always a friend to everyone and happy to help even when his shift was over

Jean- one of the first friends I made in Africa. Knows West Africa well (I traveled a lot with him) and likes to laugh... Ogblenachan!!!

Baloukiyem- name literally means "the enemies are fighting for nothing". Has a heart for God and the Togolese people

Amele- a beautiful woman with a lot of patience. She speaks little English, but has taught me a lot of Ewe

Dzinye le Africa