Sharp Hide

“Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’ “

John 7:38

Wow… four months have gone by since I came onboard! Sixteen weeks. This week started off a bit bleak with a bit of a depressive episode after my sickness last week, but the support of the community on board has helped me make a strong recovery. A short documentary about the Kiwi crew came out, Kailee left early to surprise family and friends, I went out to so many dinners, did some art, and saw some PORCUPINES!

KIWI TV!!

My first few weeks here in Guinea, a media group from New Zealand came to film some of the Kiwi crew on board for a short documentary. It was recently released and I finally remembered to share it!!! Watch it, it does a pretty good job and it features a lot of my friends. :)

You can see a lot more of an overview of the ship life, medical and beyond, as well as a view of Conakry, the city we’re ported in. You can see for yourself just a glimpse of the warmth of the culture in West Africa as well as the culture of the ship.

The Kiwis on board are all such special and beautiful people. You’ve already seen plenty of Esther (SEE HER COOL PILOT SELF IN THIS VIDEO!!!!), but I’ve worked with everyone featured in some way or another—Dr. Neil, Robyn, Emma (who cut the cast), and Miriam (radiology). I’m so glad that I have the chance to meet and work with them all. xx

Cheese board minus the cheese board

Esther went out to the fancy supermarket and bought some nice crackers so we had a cheese board party… minus the cheese board. Rachel and Esther went out to all the supermarkets to find cheese for the cheeseboard and man they went all out on this party!

SooOOoOoo good! We had all sorts of fruits and crackers and cheese and some sort of cured meat slices like prosciutto but not exactly prosciutto and chips and nuts and chocolates and pineapple juice and bissap (a type of sweet hibiscus drink) from the agricultural site out in the countryside.

Bye Felicia

Just kidding we don’t have anyone named Felicia onboard but we did have to say bye to Kailee last week :( She’s my tall upstanding Australian friendo. She’s really sweet and caring and I had to wait to blog about her departure because she actually left two weeks early to surprise her friends and family back home! She was originally going to leave the same day as me which I was really looking forward to, but that wasn’t the plan in the end.

I’m really grateful for the time that I did get with Kailee. She’s a good listener and gives these heavenly back scratches that just put you under this spell because it feels so nice and relaxing. I tried to learn her technique but I don’t think I can imitate her touch as well.

Kailee is the oldest of ten in her family so she’s quite mature and proper and has a really caaaaaalming voice and very persuasive gaze. Her favorite word is “delightful” and her habits alone have increased my winking frequency by 10,000%. She is tall and gives wonderful warm hugs even though touch isn’t her love language. I’m the perfect small friend height so her chin rests nice and snugly on top of my head when we hug hahahaha it’s very nice.

Depression

Anyway, that’s one more friend that’s left the ship and left me in shambles. I had a pretty tough mental health week this week dealing with the aftermath of last week being super sick and isolated and low energy. It’s been kinda difficult to connect with the newer folks because of it which led to feeling more isolated and not having much of a support.

Spiritually, it’s been increasingly difficult for me to feel a part of the spiritual community because I feel like sometimes the messages are a bit too surface level and not necessarily theologically sound in their implications. I’m hearing a lot of “what can God does (for you) if you have faith” type messages and a lot of the kinds of “self-help” messages of hope rather than the deeper conviction of sin and salvation through Christ. Messages that are self-reflecting rather than self-glorifying. I wish there was more encouragement to focus less on me as a volunteer and more on Christ.

Earlier this month we had a sermon that was almost a slap in the face of a sermon. The speaker was a previous chaplain of Mercy Ships and was invited to lead the men’s retreat so I was really looking forward to his message. But his talk had points like how all us volunteers are his heroes and things like that. And if we struggle with something, to think about someone who does really well in that area and “just do it.” It is a nice sentiment and all but in a way, it’s almost affirming that my motivation to come volunteer for Mercy Ships should be because I want to feel like a good person. I realize that some people may need to hear this affirmation that their sacrifice of time and money are making a difference, but in a message meant for a spiritual time, I’d rather it be focused on God and learning more about His character that would naturally incline us to serve Him. The messages have been pretty similar in tone my entire time here (though perhaps not as shocking as this one). In a lot of ways, this allocation of words and time have left me actively avoiding most Sunday services on board. I walk away from them feeling empty from having to remind myself to look back to Christ because God isn’t always going to reveal to you the fruits of your labor. And that’s totally fine.

I find it almost discouraging sometimes when people point to what I’m doing and compliment me for doing it. I wonder if that’s how military feel when people thank them for their service. Perhaps to some it’s a job, to some it’s a sacrifice, but to many I feel like it is just the natural inclination that they had to “serve their country” — the same way a lot of health professionals, teachers, first responders, and the like serve their community through their occupation (though I recognize military has a much higher occupational hazard). When God does amazing things and you get to witness it, that alone is such an incentive. I wish more people would ask more about why I volunteer so I can tell them about how amazing God is rather than make it something about myself. It’s the opposite of humbling in a lot of ways.

In any case, things were a bit rockier in terms of how I was feeling. Just overall unmotivated and uninterested in most social interactions. I still tried really hard to make and keep plans. It was definitely useful knowing what depression kinda looks like and to recognize the difference between needing rest and just wallowing in an unmotivated puddle.

Our department’s morning devotionals this week was a bit of a craft day. The focus was on the verse John 7:38, “Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’ “ Carolien (not a typo) from radiology led and brought a lot of paper and pens and coloring supplies to do some creative processing of Scripture.

I tried my hand (aha, get it?) at some hand lettering since it’s been quite a while since I’d done some. The verse was a litttttttle too long to get all on the paper so there’s the [ • • • • • ] to include the rest ahahaha. ;;;;

It was really helpful to have some quiet time to refocus and time set aside to mediate on Scripture. I’m admittedly very not-disciplined in that area… places to improve.

Encouragement

I still commit to going out with friends and again with the department and again with the cabin to force some social interactions. I wasn’t really feeling like going most of the time but each time I felt more encouraged and reminded that I wasn’t alone. I’m really grateful.

The department went out to a Chinese restaurant and I was tasked with translating (oh boy…!) and choosing/ordering dishes.

“What does that say?”
“I dunno.”
Selma (biomedical engineering), Martha (radiology), Kathy (lab), Caron (pharmacy), me, Carolien (radiology), and Pam (pharmacy)

Because I spoke Chinese, the waiter gave me the “secret menu” (what a compliment)—in other words, items that you can order that aren’t on the printed menu. The main problem is that the whole secret menu was handwritten on a scraggly piece of paper completely in fancy loopy cursive Chinese so it was actually impossible for me to read and the waiter disappointingly had to explain what the dishes were.

“Order this beef dish, all the white people love it.”
Some eggplant dish that was off the secret menu! It was spicy though so I didn’t eat any.
Sweet and sour pineapple fried shrimp thing.
Dumplings. Half eaten.

SCALLION PANCAKEEEEE

Overall it was a really good meal though, much better than the first Chinese place we went to. Martha said that she had been to so many Chinese places and never had food like what we had which made me glad that we had some more authentic choices to choose from. Not pictured: cong xin tsai (water spinach?) — a veggie that’s quite popular, even I ate some. It was a simple dish cooked with some garlic and everyone loved it.

Destroyed.
In case anyone can read this and wants to know exactly what we ordered.

I also went to Korean… twice.

Once was with peeps for Liz’s farewell:

dumplz

And once with the cabin—our first cabin dinner since I got here!

Me, Christine, Heather-Ann, and Mary (all of them are nurses).

Our cabin also acquired a new pet aloe vera plant. It’s greener than both mine and work-Eileen’s plants combined, but significantly droopier. We’re hoping some TLC will perk it up in no time. It’s nice to have some green (and to see a familiar face—who knew an aloe plant would remind me of home so much??).

Also in the cabin is an awkwardly large cube bar of soap that the café was giving out for free so now it’s our hand washing soap.

It’s huge as.

Everyone has different ways of using this really strangely proportioned bar of soap, including rubbing two sides carefully, holding it and rubbing only the top to get the soap, or rolling it like a a ball in both hands. It smells really great and I actually got another bar that I’m bringing home because the large cubical nature serves as a really nice tactile experience when I’m washing my hands. I can’t wait until all the corners wear down and it’s this uncontrollable ball of soap.

Blood

Our cabin also has a new goal, which is to have everyone donate blood before I leave. Everyone is on the blood donation list (including me for a partial unit, but then I got deferred because of my antibiotics last week, sad face), and we drew Christine this week for one of our big B+ cases.

Coltan our fireman WHO IS ALSO A DECK OFFICER also donated, and he was so excited that he brought us three bags of popcorn.

“Is it a coincidence you always call me for blood on Popcorn Tuesday?”

He was so excited for his baby.

We also got to stick my pharm-gurl Caron for some blood too!

It’s quite fun to be a part of the donation experience. Everyone is always really enthusiastic to get the call to donate blood and it makes an otherwise possibly stressful aspect of lab life quite nice.

Do you like waffles?
Yeah we like waffles!!

This is what I’m referencing to:

Anyway every Friday is waffle day so I got to share one with my buddy Lara since I had a day off.

Also check out how many seeds this watermelon has. This is why I don’t eat watermelon here you spend more time taking all the seeds out than actually getting to eat it.

Saturday adventures

Saturday was a great adventure though, a wonderful end to a week that started a bit bleakly. A few of us went to brunch at La City and then wandered around to a few local shops.

First, we went to a shop called Wakilaré which a fair-trade social enterprise that sells crafts made by people who have disabilities. They sell shoes, bags, clothes, etc. Laura got this really amazing pair of pants because she tried them on and they fit perfectly. I got a headband made from local fabrics and Esther also got one. #twinning

Then we went to a wood crafts store that’s got all sorts of amazing sculptures!

The big statue thing is called a nimbah. It’s the symbol of Guinea and is based off a mountain in the country. It’s the diety of fertility or something.

They also sold raw gemstones. Rachel and Laura bought some rubies.

But the BEST part was that they kept a whole family of PORCUPINES!!! I also had absolutely no idea that porcupines were S O . B I G . I guess I expected porcupines to be the size of maybe a large rabbit or something, but they’re actually closer to the size of a wild boar. WHAAAAAT. The porcupines are kept because their quills are used for some of the wood carvings, specifically things like fangs for animal sculptures. Pretty neat, hey? Especially since the tips are white. I’m sure they’re used for other things as well, since skinny things are hard to carve with wood, for sure.

They were quite riled up because one of them had recently had BABIES!!!! Just two days ago, actually. But they were so small that they fell through the cage floor into the ground so they had to herd the adults into one side of the pen to be able to retrieve them and put them in a separate box for feeding. They were really small still, with eyes and ears still closed and muscles not quite developed well enough so they were still trembling a lot when tottering around the box.

They also had a bunch of chickens running around and you all know how much I love chickensssss!

Anyway, a roller coaster of a week, but it ended with a good landing. It’s crazy to think that four whole months have passed since I arrived on board. This upcoming week is my last week and I’m really interested to see how it will pan out. I’ve not quite finished processing my time on board and I haven’t really gotten anything lined up for when I go home just yet—a few leads on things I find interesting and all, but no solid plans to pursue one thing over another.

Looking forward to what’s next.

—Jasmin

One thought on “Sharp Hide

  1. Love the NZ documentary. It shows what it’s like to serve the local people on the ship. Heartened to see how resilient the local people are! And how disappointed it must feel to be turned away from treatment…. Yet life goes on. Also surprised to see such beautiful Chinese calligraphy that hangs on the wall of the Chinese restaurant and the authentic food there (that it appears…)
    (◕‿◕✿)

Comments are closed.