Renovation, Pirates and Braai's

We bartered with a few local fishermen to take us across to Bunce Island

First project under the belt.
So I was given my first mini project this week. The week before the ship arrived in Sierra Leone one of the advance teams tacked together an additional room on the porch of our team house. It was built behind the mosquito screen closing in the porch out of 3mm ply wood which was nailed onto a timber frame. It was pretty roughly put together, the windows are just openings with mosquitoe screens over them and there is no light inside. The only functionality gained from it was a sense of privacy and a false impression of security.
Tracy, our team leader left to go on holiday and just after she left one of the first heavy rains of the rainy season fell and was being driven by a strong wind. As a result the room was flooded and we decided this would have to get sorted out before Tracey's return. In addition to the leaks, there is no air conditioning or lighting and the room is not painted properly.
My Mission:

• Seal the room so water doesn't get in and cold air doesn't get out
• Install airconditioning, lighting and a new fan
• Repaint the room so it looks decent
• All this at minimal additional cost

Upgrade Complete! Our team leaders room now has AC, Lights and keeps out the rain

I was able to get a local carpenter to help me out for three days. We sealed up the gaps between the boards using duct tape and subfloor adhessive. We then placed timber strips over the duct taped joints. For the windows we used a piece of perspex I found lying around and the carpenter made a new bed and a cloths rack out of some timber we had left over from a previous project. I installed the fan, AC and light and wired it up from a plug outside the room. We repainted the room and all in all it looks really good and ready for the return of our manager. Mission accomplished.

Ship Orientation
In addition to the revamp I have been attending a new crew orientation on the ship. One of the topcics was about integrating with the local culture. The lady doing the lecture spoke about how our western culture, the culture which is the base for the opperation of the entire ship, can be a barrier to the people we are here to reach out to. She also spoke about how when we are reaching out to people we must do it from a position where we consider ourselves better than them and giving them something. It is rather better to come from an equal footing where we have something to learn from them and at the same time we can share what we have with them. She suggested a few ways in which we can break this barrier and create relationships where we are not coming from behind a barrier, pressenting a surprise attack and then retreating back into our safe places. It was really interesting and motivated me to start going out of my way to develop friendships with the local people arround me as well as imersing myself in the Sierra Leonian culture.

Weekends of fun
A good South African Braai

Flame Grilled, a good South African Braai

Last week end I was feeling a bit down. While I was enjoying the ship and the team house was great, Freetown had been a real disapointment. I know that the country has had a really rough time with their civil war which only ended about ten years ago, however I was not expecting Freetown to be in the state of Chaos that it is today. The road infrastructure in the city is overloaded and in disrepair, the sewerage system largely consists of open stormwater chanels and rivers and the trash just piles up in the street. The combination of this and the fact that I felt like I was back in the first week of highschool where you don't know anyone, as well as being away from South Africa and what was familiar in terms of people, place and culture for over a month left me feeling a bit home sick.

Fun in the Sun in the team house pool

In order to get to know a few people and to have a reminder of home, I organised a South African Braai with a lot of help from Penny (a fellow Durbanite living in the off ship team house). We invited all the South Africans on the ship around to the team house and sat around the pool enjoying a good barracuda and chicken braai, a fun game of Marco Polo, and a good bit of socialising. Other activities included mosquito swatting, explaining to English and American Mercy Shippers why a Braai was not the same as a Barbecue (although those of you using gas braais are dangerously bluring the line) and throwing left over meat to the kites and vultures circling over head. It was a lot of fun and was just what I needed. It was surprising how after something so simple, the traffic didn't seem so bad, the sewerage didn't smell so terrible and the prospect of finding someone to sit with at meal times didn't seem so daunting.


Bunce Island

On the canoes to Bunce Island, an old British slave trading fort.

This last weekend I joined an expedition to Bunce Island. Lourance , the Mercy Ships Carpenter and a fellow South African, had been there before and was leading the expedition. We loaded up three Landrovers with fellow MS adventurerures and headed out with Chris (one of the ships electricians),Lourance and I driving. Lourance  headed out of port and straight up a steep dirt track. We were just outside of central Freetown, so the fact that I had to engage low range took me a bit by surprise but became apparent after I had to charge over a big bump which sent the girls sitting in the back hurtling into the roof of the landy and my popularity as a driver plunging. This was not the last hill and Lourance purposely picked a route that involved as much 4x4 that he had found in the area.
After driving for about 2 hours through mountains, highways and palm lined tracks we a rrived at a small fishing village where we bartered for tthe hiring of four canoes after which the owners paddled us over to Bunce Island. This Island was turned into a fort and a slave trading post by the British in the 1600's. It was a gateway for great wealth, as well as great sorrows. It is estimated that 30 000 people were shipped out from here as slaves. The fort was attacked numerous times by the French and pirates and was rebuilt six times.

Our self appointed guide in the ruins of Bunce Island

Today you can see the broken down walls of the last fort built in the late 1700's. Walking around the ruins we found/were shown a number of pottery shards, cannons, graves from the 1700's and the old well. The most exciting thing Laurence showed us was the old amunition store. This was underground and was full of bats. A few of us crawled in to check it out. The air was thick with the stench of guano and there was a deafening whir as thousands of bats flew around the chamber. With our little flashlights we could not see how many bats there were and after snapping a few photos and having a few bats flying into our faces we escaped to the fresh air and light outside.

Bats in the forts old ammunition store. I got hit by one or two in the face. 

On the way home, we drove through a down pour. Where three hours before we were wondering how Top Gear could have rated the Landy as the worst car ever, now we understood. With water pouring through the doors, windows and airvents and the wipers not really doing much we crawled back to the ship much refreshed by the coolness of the rain.


Conclusions
This week has been alot better than the last week and I am settling in well and am understanding more about what is expected from me in terms of work. While I have had alot of fun and intend to continue to do so I am also excitedly looking for opportunities to start ministering to those around me and the community which I am in.


Prayer needs:

• Smooth operations of the hospital. The cooling system of the ship keeps getting clogged with the trash in the water. This negatively effects the ships ability to operate effectively. The divers who are clearing this a
• Wisdom for the application and continuation of what was taught in the last to pastors conferences.
• Guidance of the hands of the surgeons, doctors and nurses on the ship.
• Protection of myself and my team in terms of physical and spiritual health and safety.
• Health of the ships crew. There are two crew members in ICU at the moment.