Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation to be content.

–Philippians 4:11

Last week, I went out every day to explore Guinea. This week, I’m on call so I’m ball-and-chained to the ship. Things are picking up now that we’re through the holiday season and the “typical” medical season is ramping up again. The ship is full again! We had over 100 people come to the ship over the last week, both people returning from Christmas PTO and new arrivals. I also say bye to two dear friends, Miriam and Melissa. Harmattan is here, I got to see the dive team in action, the finance team served ice cream from a color-coded bowl tower, and I found some funny notes here and there on the ship light switches. I still snuck off ship (thanks to Caitlin for taking the pager!) for yet another Filipino party at the US Ambassador’s house(!!), which was awesome as always.

This post is a lot shorter for once because I don’t have many things to report on! Enjoy it while it lasts.

Harmattan, schwarmattan.

Harmattan is basically “dusty season.” Trade winds blow dust down from the Sahara Desert, and it coats the region in this dusty haze. Humidity drops immensely; instead of the typical 90-100% relative humidity, it’s closer to 10-15%.

The air quality is pretty bad now that there’s just this thick dusty haze in the air. It makes it really hard to breathe, so I haven’t been able to hang out as much on the decks. :( I can’t imagine what it’s like for people who have asthma and other respiratory issues, it’s already hard enough for me when I don’t usually have trouble breathing!

I snuck out

I got invited on Sunday to the US Ambassador’s house to have yet another Filipino party celebrating another birthday and Monce and Stella’s going away. Monce is nearing the end of his term aboard the Africa Mercy, and Stella (along with the US Ambassador) were recently reassigned to Mali.

Caitlin was kind enough to hold the pager for me so I could go to the party, as not every day you get to see the residence of an American diplomat. The ambassador was not present; apparently he’s in America preparing for the move to Mali. But his house is super nice!

The food provided by Stella and crew, per usual, was amazing.

I ate so much, per usual. We also sang a ton of karaoke. It was a lot of fun and I lost my voice. But that’s apparently how you pay for your Filipino meals.

The adorable palette of taxis

All the taxis in Guinea have their own personality with custom body paint jobs. Every single taxi is unique, and it’s really cute because they all have their own personality. I LOVE IT. Some have just simple extra colors, but then some have stars, some have flames, racing stripes, you know. I sat on the roadside and took pictures of each of the taxis that passed by for about 5 minutes and got a nice spread.

Tower of bowls

The finance team served ice cream after the global gathering on Thursday, and they arranged their bowls in a manner that was most satisfactory, so I wanted to share the fruits of their labor.

We have community gatherings every Thursday, but once a month that meeting is a “global gathering,” which is a gathering that is connected to the Mercy Ships International Support Center (ISC) in Texas. We get some updates on how the ship’s mission is going and some stats and updates on the organization. It’s also streamed to alumni and donors who want to tune in.

This past Thursday was the first global gathering of 2019, and we got some statistics of what Mercy Ships accomplished in 2018.

Mercy Ships…

• Had 1,204 volunteers from 46 nations serve as part of the Africa Mercy crew.
• Performed 2,200 free surgeries.
• Gave sight to 1,100 people through cataract removal (I’m not entirely clear if this is included in the surgery statistic).
• Treated 8,998 dental patients (almost 9,000, but not quite).
• Mentored 1,456 local medical professionals in things like safe surgery, the Ponseti method, pediatric anesthesia, and neonatal resuscitation.
• Consumed 274,310 eggs.
• Used up enough toilet paper to stretch from Conakry to our next field service site of Dakar, Senegal. That’s over 1,000 km.

Ship party

Kathy’s birthday was this week, so the department celebrated at tea time with the coolest inflatable hat ever. We also welcomed Shaleeni, a Malaysian-Australian pharmacist. WooOOow!

The thing about light switches

I keep forgetting to mention this, but our light switches are “backwards” in the sense that they’re on when the switch is flipped down, but off when they’re flipped up.

There’s something in the water…

Did you know we have a dive team? It’s true! They clean the bottom of the ship, the intake thingy and whatever is down there because people here tend to throw a ton of garbage in the water, so it can clog up the ship’s machinery. The dive frequency is dependent on how dirty the water is. In Cameroon (the previous field service), it was so dirty they had to go down twice a week and water visibility was probably only about a foot (gross…). Here, it’s not as frequent, which is great. I managed to catch the dive team as they were going down this week and they look super cool! I think anyone who does SCUBA could technically be part of the dive team.

THIS IN FROM THE LAB

I’m on call so I get to do the microbiology! I think I found some anaerobes, but we can’t grow them so there isn’t really much to go off of except the Gram stain (suspiciously anaerobic looking—Fusobacterium?). We did have a tiny ppt look like a Propi (sorry, a Cuti). I threw it back in the incubator just to see if it’ll grow bigger but I think it’ll just end up being some mixed aerobic/anaerobic culture.

We’ve also got a very sick patient named Amadou (unrelated to the case above). He’s an orthopedic patient, but all the ortho physicians have left since we finished ortho season at the end of December. He had infections in his surgical wounds, had to go into the OR several times over the holidays for washouts. His infections are supposedly cleared (the cultures are negative now), but he’s suddenly developed critical neutropenia (extremely low white blood cell count). It’s becoming more apparent that there are many deficiencies in the medical care and handoff here, especially with patients who are inpatient after the season for their surgery is over. It’s one of the many challenges of having limited resources, a staff that’s constantly turning over, and the lack of proper documentation accountability. My friends on the ward say there isn’t really any place for them to take proper charting notes, and the lab doesn’t have access to anything other than previous lab results in our electronic “database.” It has been a point of frustration for a lot of my friends who work on the ward who feel like there must be a better way. Likely more on this later.

Goodbyes to friends

The ship is full, but it doesn’t stop people from leaving… I’m saying “see you later” to my dear Kiwi radiology friend Miriam and my “encouraging personal schoolteacher” friend Melissa.

Miriam is my sweet Kiwi friend who teaches me all sorts of Kiwi things. She likes nature, reading books, and diplomatic but sassy remarks. She visits me when I’m on call and I visit her when she’s on call and it’s a wonderful quiet time. I think one day I will visit her in New Zealand. It won’t be the same working on the hall without Miriam’s glowing presence around. :(

Melissa is a high school teacher in Australia. She’s extremely honest and says what’s good for you.

“Jasmin, do you want some pineapple?”
“Ah, I don’t really like pineapple…”
“What, do you want scurvy? Have some pineapple.”

[while cleaning the ship security officer’s office, noticing a thing of snuff on his desk]
“You know that’s not good for you, right? You ought to get rid of that.”

She also has tried to “profile” me and my “hidden talents.” Anytime I mention something I’ve done before or enjoy or whatever (like dance, or swimming, or art, or whatever), she’ll tilt her head back and look at me through her glasses and respond with, “Huh, that’s just one more of your hidden talents, isn’t it, Jasmin? You’re just at treasure trove. I’ll have to add that to the profile.”

I actually don’t have a photo with Mel. When I asked for one for the blog she kindly refused (“What you need that for?”). I’ll need to sneak one before she leaves for Thailand for her week of massages before she goes back to work.

Not much to update this week, sorry. It’s been a bit tiring mentally this week rather than physically like last week since the ship is full and I can’t find as many quiet spaces (and even less outside with Harmattan!). I’m learning to adapt and adjust to being in close quarters with so many people, and the lab work is picking up again! Prayers are appreciated for that end.

I hope you’re all doing well!

With love,
Jasmin