But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose.
—1 Corinthians 12:18
I made it to Conakry!
Here’s a view of the port from the ship:
I arrived at night, and haven’t been off the ship to take a proper photo yet. I’ll get one eventually…
Even though I got in yesterday, it feels like I’ve been here for a week. There’s so much I could write about. God has really been showing His hand in my journey so far, starting as soon as I left. The flight was pretty smooth, and I met a few friends. My seat-neighbor Kelsey on the way to Paris worked for the humanitarian organization International Rescue Committee and was on her way to Cameroon to do economic training. My seat-neighbor Rosie and seat-behind-neighbor Natia on the way to Nouakchott and Conakry were both Mercy Ships volunteers as well! It was just really encouraging to hear from people who were in similar situations and equally eager to reach out and just share a moment.
The sunsets are beautiful.
Ship Culture
There’s a certain camaraderie that comes in a group of people who arrive on the same day to the ship. About 12 of us arrived on the same day—and we all seemed to find each other pretty quickly. Either at the airport, or at the mess hall, or at orientation. I’ve made quite a few friends among them already. And there’s also this same understanding of “caring for the newbie” among the crew. Many of the people here have served with Mercy Ships for months, years—decades even. But they all remember what it was like to be new and are all extremely welcoming to the people who are clearly new. People would just walk up to us and welcome us as if we were old friends but just in a new place.
I think something that has been interesting was the various places people are in their spiritual lives. I’ve noticed that some people are way more open about their faith, whereas others are a bit more private or may not be believers, but still believe in the “doing good” portion of the mission of Mercy Ships. As my new Aussie OT friend Trancy put it, we’ll probably spend a good amount of our initial time on the ship exploring this aspect from people that we meet. Prayer and devotional are integrated at various levels of everyday life (probably more on that later). They’ve already decorated the ship with Christmas decor, and it’s probably the first time I’ve been super excited for the Christmas season. Since the crew comes from over 30 nations, crew members bring their home’s Christmas traditions to the spread with the ship. We’ll be doing a ship-wide Sinterklaas Day, where everyone puts a shoe outside their cabin and Sinterklaas’s “helpers” come leave gifts in them. The next morning everyone can go to the mess hall to watch for Sinterklaas. The Mercy Ships Dutch team sponsors it since it’s a Dutch (or all of Europe maybe?) tradition, and they provide gifts for the children in the Academy.
Either we have a ton of Aussies or I seem to gravitate to them. They’re just so chill and rambunctiously fun.
Things to know:
- Mercy Hips: kind of like the Freshman Fifteen, it’s the unavoidable weight gain that supposedly happens from eating the kind of ship food we have here. People also make baked goodies to sell to pay for their crew fees, and that apparently doesn’t help.
- Containerized: the level of degradation of an item from its original, fresh state from being packed in the shipping container and stored/shipped with variable conditions for months. “Your Snicker’s bar, does it taste like soap?”
- The B Team: All four lab techs (including myself) are all blood type B+, which is apparently one of the most needed blood types for surgeries on board, but we only seem to have a good supply of O+ and A+ donors.
- Lots of Aussie slang. “Wanna cuppa with yah avo for brekkie?”
Ship Accommodations
The ship is huge. It’s 500 feet long, and it has 8 decks (or floors). I spent the most of my first day mapping out the ship in my head, running around getting lost and then finding my way and getting lost again. Mostly it’s just the fact that there are doors where you don’t expect to be doors and stairs don’t always go all the way up or down. As a former rail (train) ferry ship, it has a lot of airtight doors in lower decks that separate the halls that just appear to be “restricted” or lead to closets or dead ends. But then you open it and it leads to a whole other hallway of cabins. Or a staircase. Whaaaat!
My room is a 4-berth cabin with a small common space in the back with a small porthole, which is probably one of the best accommodated rooms that single crew can get. Small number of beds, common space with a fridge, and a porthole. Each crew member gets a bunk, a closet (quite roomy), and shares a tiny desk space in between. Each double bunk gets a blackout curtain for light/privacy. I sleep on the top bunk.
The ship mess hall (dining room) is pretty big. It’s got lots of seating and a view of the sea on one side. They serve both hot and cold food—the hot line is usually a carb, a protein with a sauce, a cooked vegetable; the cold line is usually salad, sandwich-making materials, and soup (I know, I know, soup isn’t cold). Aside from water, you can make your own tea or hot chocolate with the tea bags or hot cocoa packets, or get a cold beverage (milk or two juice/fruity drink choices). There isn’t a lot to choose from always, but it’s good enough that it doesn’t really matter to me (for now… ask me again in a couple months). The menu is on an 8-week rolling schedule, so it seems like there will be enough variety. Yes, I’m eating my vegetables.
The ship also has a Starbucks café, small convenience store, a library, a crew galley, laundry room, a hair salon (intermittently staffed), a pre-K through grade 12 school (for children whose parents are serving on board—typically long-term), play areas, and even a small swimming pool! I haven’t had a chance to take a swim yet, but I hope to incorporate it into my normal routine.
We also can receive mail and packages on board! Ask me to find out the rules/complicated ways I get mail.
The Hospital
What I learned was that Mercy Ships has “surgery seasons” which can dictate how things tend to go in the lab and what kind of staffing they have around the hospital and recovery. The current season is orthopedic surgery (correcting a lot of defects like bow leg, windswept legs) and max/fax surgery (maxillary-facial surgery: facial tumors, cleft palate). Because of the ortho season, there’s a lot of physios staffed right now (of which I also seem to find easily) for doing PT rehab with patients who are learning to walk again. Lots of max/fax surgery means we get a lot of histology (which is sent off the ship). After the Christmas season, we’ll be back into plastics (plastic and reconstructive surgery: a lot of large-area burn patients). Plastics brings a lot more microbiology (which is why I was staffed the time I am), as a lot of these surgeries have open wounds that can get easily infected.
I’m doing okay over here. It’s still very novel and there’s a lot to do and a lot of people to meet and talk with. I’m trying to take it slow and not get too overwhelmed. Tonight is contra-dancing. I hear it’s popular.
—Jasmin
If you’re not interested in nitty gritty lab details, you can basically stop reading here. If not, keep reading!
THE LAB!!!!
So here it is: THE LAB! And Sarah, who is from central California.
From left to right:
Hematology (2 little CBC babies), Sebia protein electrophoresis (hemoglobin analysis), serology (Vidas), computer, microbiology (it’s two mini incubators below the table, and a ductless hood in the corner), blood bank (were Sarah is standing), and chemistry is on the middle island towards the right.
It’s one room, and sort of an anteroom where we have a desk and two fridges for reagents. (It looks pretty big here because of the way the pano distorts everything, but it’s probably the size of the mycology anteroom.)
All of our resulting and reporting is done on paper by hand. When a specimen comes in, we get a requisition with our test menu on it with checks by the tests they want. Then we grab little result “forms” for each department and fill them in with the patient information. When tests are done, we handwrite the results onto the form, enter them into a spreadsheet for digital record, and then walk the paper back to the ward. If they’re an off-ship clinic/screening area, the day crew couriers will pick them up.
Patients are identified by name and a GND number (similar to a medical record number). GN for Guinea, and D since it’s the fourth field service that Mercy Ships has served here. Patients “sign” forms with their thumbprint. Patients who have type and screens done for surgery also get a “blood band,” a secondary identification wristband that is associated with their type and screen and blood bank paperwork.
Microbiology is a bit different. We have 2 incubators—a 37ºC incubator and a 42ºC incubator, both non-CO2. They’re both the size of the campy incubator back home. All of our “special environment” plates are stored in bags with tiny gas packs. The gas packs are about the size of a packet of sugar that you get at a restaurant. Campy plates also get a damp paper towel for humidity.
Other things that are a bit different… Blood cultures are incubated “manually” and blind-subbed and Gram stained at day 1, 3, and 5. We draw one pediatric bottle per patient. Non-fermenters on stool cultures are worked up by prompt to a MicroScan ID/MIC panel (no screen). They also use MicroScan panels but don’t have a MicroScan. All panels are incubated and read and interpreted and cascaded manually.
It seems a bit crazy to think about running a lab this way, but it works. The volume is much lower here (although I’m told it will pick up once we get to plastics surgery season).