The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.

John 3:8

THE ONLY THING YOU NEED TO KNOW IS THAT I GOT TO MEET SO MANY CATS THIS WEEK

CATS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have gone so long without my baby at home.

He’s really doing great, including learning some tricks! He can sit, come when called, and he’s learning how to give his paw. I’m so proud! Right now he’s living with my gaming friend Jo (aka Bonchi, her gamer tag). Bonchi has three birbs and a doggo, and sends me funny stories about Tobi’s interactions with doggo Dash.

Anyway, I’ll admit that I’m missing Tobi a lot more than I thought I would. I was usually okay when I went on vacations and such but it was a little different because those were vacations and it’s just a little time away. Now that I’m living the ordinary day to day on the ship, I’m really feeling how much of a quiet presence Tobi is in my life. It’s also a bit difficult to go from a home and community that really loves cats and embraces their personalities to one that is much less so. I feel like I have a lot of trouble expressing that I miss my cat without being eye-rolled at or having to immediately defend myself from the “crazy cat lady” title. Whereas people who miss their dogs are just normal people, I guess. You can miss your family, you can miss your friends, you can miss your dog, but if you miss your cat you’re crazy. I just accepted it and long quietly by myself.

Esther has cats though, and she understands the plight. She’s my only cat-loving friend and we’ve bonded over it after she saw my blog about video chatting Tobi. And Becca, who didn’t relate to my love for them but at least sought first to understand before passing judgement. I thanked her for it.

There are a lot of street animals in Guinea, mostly dogs, and chickens. Dogs spend most of their time sleeping under the shade of cars, and chickens are running around everywhere. I’m not sure if the chickens are wild or if they belong to anyone. It’s kind of hard to tell.

I’ve only seen a couple of cats, and mostly from afar. There’s one in the port that sometimes I see scampering across the way when we’re coming back to the ship late at night.

Then we went to the Les Jardins de Guineé (The Gardens of Guinea). It’s an open bar/restaurant/games place that also has live music every so often. Someone said there would be live music so we decided to go after dinner to check it out.

I went with with a couple of Academy teachers (Lisa & Lisa), April, and nurse Becca, April’s cool bunkmate! There was a bocce ball pit so we played a bit while waiting for the music to start. Some other Mercy Shippers were there as well.

Les Jardins is also the home of a handful of resident community cats! They were just laying around the courtyard when we walked in. Of course I was ecstatic to even be so near to them.

There were four cats in the courtyard. A white cat with some black patches, a calico, and two ginger tabbies. One of the ginger tabbies was SUPER skittish and would run as soon as you got within 10 meters of it.

The people who worked in the kitchen saw me struggling to get close to them, so he whistled and they all came running. Then he threw them some meat scraps and they ate. I took some pictures and then the guy tried to sell me one for 30,000GNF, which is a little over $3USD. Annnnnd I totally would have but that might present some problems here and there. So I regretfully declined his offer. But I did show him pictures of Tobi.

The music was quite good. They sang a lot of French songs and then did some recognizable tunes for the Mercy Shippers. Becca even went up to sing some with French-teacher-Lisa as a backup singer and dancer.

White cat even came by to say hi a couple of times when doing his rounds. I felt warm and fuzzy that it chose to keep me company.

BUT THEN!!! Halfway through the music this gray tabby ran down the stairs by the music stage and then nervously glanced around. You could almost hear it thinking, “Oh my word I made a terrible mistake of coming downstairs and now there are so may people around oh my gosh what have I done how can I get out of here did anyone see me of course people saw me but how do I leave should I go back upstairs or should I just stay here frozen and then maybe people will forget that I’m here ahhhh…” It stood there motionless for several minutes before finally dashing back up the stairs.

As the music wound down for the night, gray tabby came back and darted around some chairs, so I managed to capture a blurry shot of him before he ran off again.

The night was great and stayed as late as we could before heading back to meet curfew. But of course, our taxi got stopped at a checkpoint and then our driver hit a little metal thing pole thing in the road and got stopped by police. It was really telling how much the driver feared being stopped by the police. He was shaking so much when trying to get his registration and papers out of the glove box he had a lot of trouble opening it. It was a really heartbreaking scene to watch.

The police in Guinea can be quite corrupt. They’re used to getting bribes and even try to hustle foreigners to pay “fees” or “fines” which go straight into their pockets. Not complying can lead to a violent consequence if you aren’t a foreigner with a strong government to protect you. There was nothing we could do as Mercy Shippers (French-teacher-Lisa tried to speak to them and Becca tried to flirt with them), and we had no choice but to pay the driver and get out of the car while the he tried to deal with the police. By the time we managed to convince the police to let us go (because we couldn’t convince them to let the driver take us back), it was already past curfew. Luckily, 2nd-grade-teacher-Lisa had a local phone and I had this raggedy safety brochure in my bag that they gave us on the first day with all the local phone numbers for the ship (good job, past me for stuffing that in there). We called the ship reception but the phone didn’t connect and gave us a confusing automated French message, and then we eventually managed to wake up the SSO (ship security officer) to explain the situation and that we were okay but we were coming back to the ship on foot (there were not really any taxis on the road and we were not far).

Not five minutes later, a car honks behind us and the same taxi driver waves us to get in the car. We pile in and try our hardest to communicate our sympathies for the trouble he probably had to go through. He said everything was fine but he was still visibly shaking and drove us the rest of the way in silence. There was a lot of discussion among us whether or not we should pay him extra for the trouble, but in the end we all agreed it was best that we not. It seems almost wrong in a way to not help, but we were strictly ordered by the ship to not submit to bribes or give to beggars because it can promote corruption and breed a culture of dependence. But he was fine with it, drove us to the port and then left without asking us for anything. What a way to end an otherwise good evening of fun with friends (and cats).

Vietnamese Foods

You think that’s the end of the cat update? THINK AGAIN.

We went to a Vietnamese restaurant to show our appreciation to the Sanchez family. We had heard a lot of good things about this restaurant so we decided to check it out.

The food was pretty good, but I think the Korean place is a bit tastier. Perhaps that’s just my personal preference though. Flynn got some super good mozzarella sticks though (that’s right… mozzy sticks. LOOOOOL).

“But Jasmin,” you say, “where is the cat?”

I’m so glad you asked. Here she is.

She was the TINIEST!!! SO cute. She greeted us when we were going back to our car. A great time.

That’s the end of the cat update. There’s more things to this past week than the cats, but that was the most important thing. Just kidding. Sorta.

“Vacation”

Esther, Trancy, and I took a small outing to town last Saturday. It was really one of the most lovely breaks from the ship I’ve had. We started by going to the Camayenne Forest, a nature preserve in the Camayenne neighborhood. We walked pretty far before finding a taxi at a reasonable price. We literally walked up to a huge family eating lunch and asked “Taxi?” and then everyone started shouting and scrambling to get the guy who drove the taxi parked in front of the house. It took a while to explain where we were trying to go, because I now realize that I was using the word “bosque” which is the word for “forest” in Spanish when in French it’s “forêt.” Whoops. Sorry, Esther!

We got stopped by some military-dressed dude at the gate and we somehow managed to get across that we just wanted to walk around the forest. He let us through, but then followed us and explained he would give us a “tour.” I get kinda suspicious about most people in camo because of the military and police’s reputation for being corrupt, but there was already a lesson from God there that I’m still quick to judge. Turns out, most kinds of governmental workers wear military fatigues as their uniform and this guy was just like the equivalent of a park ranger and guide. His name was Mohamed. And he was so cool! He showed us the different trees and cool plants and even taught us about a new fruit called a laré that no one had ever seen before. A bird had pecked it out of a tree and it landed by us and startled us. He explained it was a fruit and that you can eat it, then demonstrated by prying it open and eating it. What a champ. XD

It was really really great to get some green in my life. There’s only so much sand and dust you can take before you miss the refreshing scenery of treeeeeeees. Enjoy these NEAT TREE PICS!

Afterwards, we went to a nearby fancy-fancy hotel to chill out by the pool and have some good food. It was a really relaxing time and I really enjoyed having time with Esther and Trancy in a small group.

Far-reaching ministry

Sunday, we went to a “local” church in Dubréka. I say “local” in quotation marks because it’s not really local—it’s about a 2 hour drive away. Julie, one of our chaplains, was invited to give a message at the church of two of our day crew, Madeleine and Alphonse. Madeleine works as a translator in the screening tent, and Alphonse is an electrician. Julie and Keith (her husband, a carpenter), invited some of us to go with her (and support her!). In the end, it was John (an electrician who works with Alphonse), Trinity (baker), Trancy, Esther, and I.

It also happened to be the same day that Shaleeni left. She got up super early to see us off because by the time we returned, she’d be gone. It was really tough being the ones getting in the car and leaving her alone on the dock. When we started driving away she started crying, and then I started crying, too.

On the car ride there, we saw some typical African sights on the way there—mostly people stacking stuff super high on vehicles, or their own heads.

Before we reached the church, Madeleine met us partway and rerouted us through the village to go to the house of a woman she had recently became friends with. Julie said that Madeleine had previously mentioned that the churchgoers in the village don’t really interact much with their Muslim neighbors, as they were not very open to building relationships with them, even saying that they had felt feelings of hostility. However, this new friend she had become friends with was a Muslim woman who had recently returned from the ship two days prior to our visit! The woman had goiter surgery on the ship and had finally recovered and returned home. The woman’s family and her neighbors were all very excited to see the Mercy Shippers and were so grateful for this woman’s treatment. They even brought out another boy who had a hernia to ask if we could help him get treated as well.

It was really amazing to see that this lady came home from her surgery and how that impacted the community and the church’s ability to reach out to those who previously seemed unreachable. I think it’s definitely something that God has done here, and it’s a privilege to have been able to witness God’s hand so clearly in the communities that Mercy Ships has touched.

Anyway, the church was small (about 30-40 congregants), which I appreciated greatly. The last two churches I went to (both Assemblies of God), were considerably larger, and waaaaaay louder. The small church didn’t have fancy or extravagant decor or equipment, but their hearts were as on fire as the others. There was still as much energy for praising the Lord!

Julie spoke on the miracle of the feeding of the five thousand, with Madeleine as translator. The focus was on Jesus as a teacher for both the crowds and the disciples. I also understood the story in a new light from before—how a small, willing offering can be used and multiplied to bless thousands. I was asked out of the blue by the pastor to pray over the offering! It was a really wonderful way that the Holy Spirit provided the message for the church and immediately tied it back in for the congregation.

Several women who were invited by a sister in the church responded to the altar call and decided to accept Christ as their Savior! What a happy day!

After the service, the church presented Julie and Keith with a little wooden plaque to thank them for the message and for coming out to visit the church (they had been before but this was the first time Julie was asked to preach). It was a really beautiful plaque with a map of Guinea with the name of the church, Église C.I.R.—Chapelle Internationale de Restauration (International Chapel of Restoration Church)… Thanks, Trancy! ;)

And then Keith (remember, he’s a carpenter), gifted the church a wooden crucifix he made because last time he visited, he noticed they didn’t have one yet! It was really beautifully crafted from African hardwood and finished with nice deep stain. The pastor was ecstatic!

After the service, we took a church-wide selfie. So cute!

I made friends with a couple of girls in the choir. I sat in the front row during the service (which is also how I got roped into the offertory prayer), and the choir sat along the left side wall. And because we are fourte (white people), I had a lot of (attempted sly) photos taken of me. Then I just decided we should get regular photos taken. :)

Afterwards, Madeleine and Alphonse invited us into their home to sit and chat for some time. They have a house situated on the hillside in the village. They have a beautiful view from their home.

Remember that Madeleine and Alphonse are day crew. They commute to the ship from their house in Dubréka two hours away just to come to work at the ship. Luckily, their oldest son lives in Conakry, so they stay with him during the week, but go back home on the weekends. Many of our day crew travel for hours each day to work at the ship, leaving as early as 4am to make their 7am shift. They show a lot of dedication, and I think it’s something that isn’t appreciated enough by ship crew who can literally roll out of bed and walk downstairs to work in a few minutes.

Madeleine and Alphonse are a really beautiful couple. They have three boys, with the oldest is a pastor at a church in Conakry. The two younger ones stay at home with Alphonse’s mother when the two of them have to stay in Conakry for work during the week. They also host a radio ministry where they have talks and discussions about various topics, and they’ve even published a book or two as well! At the end of our visit, they gifted us each a bolt of African fabrics as a memento of our time spent in their village. I got a really beautiful white fabric with a black leaves and and red flowers on it. I eventually swapped it with John who had received a very, very flamboyant and lovely blue fabric with a lavender and golden floral pattern stamped on it, because it was probably a bit too feminine for him. We were all surprised he didn’t want to make a full shirt out of it and wear it every day. XD I’m still trying to decide what I should do with my fabric. I still have five weeks on the ship left to figure that out… Or maybe I’ll bring it home and figure out what to do with it. Perhaps a bible cover?

Small happenings

The boat next door

So Ramón, in classic Filipino fashion, yelled some Tagalog across the port and then made friends with all the Filipino crew from the boat next door.

Then they invited them aboard for a tour and we got to meet them! Ramón introduced April, Trancy, and I saying, “these are our daughters” and it made our hearts super full. :) They were super cool and we wanted them to stay for karaoke on Friday, but their ship left on Friday during the day so they were gone. :( You could barely tell that they had just met. That is just how the Filipino do.

Gone fishin’

I used to keep a 20-gallon freshwater fish tank at home, but I had to give it away when I left for the ship. :(

But! There are fish that come to play around the ship at night. With the lights from the ship shining into the water, you can find them among the rubbish that floats by in the port. I like watching them swim around and go about their fishy lives.

There was this one reaaaaaaaaaaaaaally s l o w fish that would swim super super super slowly. Like if there was a fish version of ambling, it was doing that. We’d throw some bait and it’d take foreeeeever for the fish to notice and make its way over. Anyway, someone onboard randomly has some fishing poles and a tackle box so I borrowed one and tried to catch slow fish.

Partway through the night a Russian boat pulled out of the port and tonnnnns of fish swam away in it in waves. It was really cool! Here is a photo of me fishing patiently for slow fish while the Russian boat goes in the back.

I didn’t catch slow fish (or any fish for that matter). But it’s okay I had a great time and can appreciate that slow fish is happier in the open sea than hooked on my line for a photo.

We found the only traffic light in all of Guinea

But who cares though because no one even pays it any attention, amirite?

Happy birthday, Buck!

Saturday was Buck’s birthday. Buck is our Starbucks coffee machine.

The café went all out with the decor and celebration.

It also happened to be one of the Academy teacher’s birthdays. We were talking about how we didn’t see too many decorations outside her cabin compared to how the café decorated. An undisclosed person said, “I mean, Em really is a truly wonderful person and all, but I think Buck has touched more people in its lifetime.”

The baker supports you

Marina came into the lab with a sheet of banana bread a note from Harry the baker:

I don’t even really like banana bread that much but man that banana bread was pretty good.

Exciting blood banking

This week’s lab update is focused on the blood bank! Even though I was on call doing microbiology a lot, there wasn’t anything that cool from it.

How to draw a donor unit

I took a unit from Laura (aka Clapdog), and being the doctor NERD she is, she recorded it! So here’s how we do the unit donation…

Step 1. Iodine scrub + alcohol wipe to sterilize the site. She complimented my meticulous technique and I felt so good about myself.

I’m wearing rainbow tie-dye scrubs because it’s Friday and we wear funky scrubs on Friday. I didn’t bring my own scrubs but I found this set in the scrub room so here I am.

Step 2. Tie the tourniquet and find yourself a nice good vein, then stick it! The bottom gif has some blood. And a big needle. Don’t look at it if you’ll get woozy.

Step 3. Tell them to pump it out.

We use gravity to collect the unit, and it goes on a rocker-scale that mixes and measures how much blood goes into the bag. The bag has to collect 450 mL of blood (400 mL minimum) to be usable. People have about 20 minutes to donate a full unit before we’ll stop them due to clotting worries. The scale clamps the tubing with the little gray thing on the side when the unit reaches 450 mL.

Step 4. Remove the tourniquet, then the needle from their arm. Put copious amounts of gauze and pressure on it. Make the donor hold it while you process the unit.

Step 5. Mix the blood.

I use the little can-opener-looking thing to clamp the tubing and “roll” the blood into the bag a few times. I clamp it between the two circular metal rollers and squeeze the blood from the tubing into the bag. It’s to mix the blood with the anticoagulant in the bag since it’s not in the tubing, and we don’t want clots to form in the tubing.

Step 6. Clean it up, snap a pic, then have them sign the donor map on the wall!

Then, a few days after I drew the unit, I got to deliver it to the OR! I got to gown up and don a mask and go into the OR while they were still operating.

The only time stabbing the Captain is not considered mutiny

We had to call someone to replace it, and so of course we called none other than the Captain!

I wanted to draw him because my first draw was the Chief Engineer and I feel like now it’s a goal to draw the whole maritime department. I even got Octavian (our Chief Officer) to sign up while Captain Milo was donating (I also asked Milo if he wanted Octavian to come hold his hand). When people are donating, the door is wide open and then people who pass by will stop and heckle the donator.

Milo bled too slowly (didn’t donate fast enough which presents a clot risk for the bag) so we couldn’t use his blood and had to call in another person to donate. We had to burn Milo’s blood. Womp womp. It’s a sad day when blood gets burned. :(

Rare blood types and trusting God

Anyway, that’s not even the wacky part of blood bank this week. We had a big surgery case where the patient was A₂B and had an anti-A₁. People are usually familiar with ABO and Rh bloodtyping, but may not know that there’s actually many subgroups of A antigens. Most people have A₁, though at times people will have an A₂ antigen instead and those people can produce antibodies against A₁. ABO groupings are the most important because antibodies are naturally occurring at an early age, and would be the first cause for a hemolytic transfusion reaction (in other words, blood “rejection”).

The occurrence of the anti-A₁ meant that our patient could only receive packed red cells. See the photo of me with the blood bag in my OR garb up top—the bag is yellow at the top because the plasma and cells have separated out. We have to squeeze the bag to push the plasma off the blood and transfuse only the red cells of O or B donors for this patient. We don’t know who of our crew is A₂ (and it’s not worth our resources to draw and test), so we had to rule out all of our A and AB donors for this patient. The problem with the “packed-cells only” rule was that we can’t have someone donate fresh blood to the patient because we have to wait at least a day or two for the cells to settle enough for us to pack the unit. O and B donors can’t donate fresh blood because they would have anti-A and anti-B antibodies, and the naturally occurring anti-A in type-O and type-B donors would react with the A₂ on the patient’s blood.

In a pinch, if a patient is bleeding profusely, we can and will do fresh whole blood donations (after appropriate testing of course)—but this is not an option for this patient, because we have to have the blood beforehand to allow it to settle properly in order to pack it. They asked for 3 crossmatched units because this surgery was expected to bleed a bit (in other words, they wanted three donors pre-matched the patient so blood will be ready to issue as soon as it’s needed). To make matters a bit more anxiety-inducing, we had a second large case AB+ patient that asked for 2 crossmatched units with surgery scheduled the same time on the same day. We have 3 eligible type-AB donors on the ship. So we put one of them on call to donate for the second AB patient in case they needed blood, but after that we’d be taking from the “settled” stock of blood—only 4 units total. If our A₂B friend started bleeding acutely (whether in the OR or in recovery afterwards), we’d only have so much blood on hand available for them before we’d run out of options.

I think cases like this are a bit anxiety inducing because we don’t have full control and someone’s life is at risk. But it’s times like this that I have to really, really, REALLY remember that God is in control (cliché, I know). We can’t control if the patient has complications. We still do what we reasonably can to prepare or ensure that the patient has the best odds, but the rest is out of our hands. Along the same vein (pun not intended—or was it?), I feel like sharing the Gospel is the same. Do I feel like I have the same urgency, that someone’s eternal soul is at risk, and do I do whatever I can to give people the best odds of knowing God and accepting Christ? In both inspiration and proclamation. It’s also not in my hands whether or not they’ll be convicted of the truth, and I need to accept that.

How are you even alive

We also had a (different) patient walk in the door with a hemoglobin of 3.4 g/dL (normal is 12-16 g/dL—anything below 5 g/dL is considered life-threatening and requires an immediate phone call). The patient’s blood was almost a watery consistency, and you can see how little blood they have (usually the blood takes up a little less than half the total blood volume).

Apparently the patient was ambulating and functioning, which was very surprising. When we phoned them urgently with the results and asked how the patient presented, the screening team just said, “he says he gets tired easily, and he is a bit pale.” He was in screening for a bunch of strange bumpy growths for removal.

The people here are so resilient and amazing. It’s crazy how much the human body can compensate when the body is under such stressful biological conditions. We’ve admitted him for pre-transfusion to get his blood indices up a bit before he has surgery on Thursday.

Bittersweet Goodbyes

I’m starting to have to say goodbye to some of the close friends I have on the ship. Each week it seems like someone important is leaving. I had to bid Shaleeni a goodbye earlier last week and this week April departed.

We did karaoke the night before for her and so many people joined; even the captain sang! It was such a grand old time (as karaoke always is). Many good song selections here as well, including Wannabe, Bohemian Rhapsody, and I Will Survive. Many people came out to celebrate with April her time here.

April’s car was scheduled to leave at 5am so they could beat traffic and make it to the airport. She told us all to not get up to see her off because it was so early. Needless to say, when someone touches your life as deeply as April does, it doesn’t matter what the circumstances are, you get up and you see her off. I think the number of people who got up before the butt crack of dawn to see her off alone is a testament to the deep and wide impact she’s made on the people on the ship here.

I wanted more than anything to jump in the car with her and ride with her to the airport (she didn’t have anyone else flying out at the same time), but I was tethered to the ship because I was on call and didn’t think of it in time to hand off the pager. I’m sorry, my friend.

It’s such a whirlwind of emotions when someone you’ve grown close to has left. You know you’ll see them again. You know that their time has come to depart. You know God has other things in store for them. As much as I know these things, it still leaves an emptiness. Watching the car drive away and waving at it until it disappears and not knowing when you’ll see them again is so difficult. You’re so used to seeing them throughout your day and meeting up with them. And when you look around the dining room at meal time and can’t find them and then you finally remember they’ve left, it’s a bit sad.

Colton (the guy in charge of fire drills) asked if I could cry on command. I told him no, but I think in these few weeks I might be able to pull it off.

—Jasmin