Spending time with the patients

Yesterday was the first day I got to spend time with the patients outside of Ward church. It was so much fun. I went to the hospitality centre and played with the kids and tried to learn a little more french from one of the guards who knew a little English. I learned how to say "what is that" or "how do you say" in French! I'm so excited. I'm also planning to start practicing French with the Rosetta Stone program the ship has.

The Hospitality Centre is a building set up for patients that live far away and are either waiting for a surgery or have finished their surgery and are waiting for post ops. The Hospitality Centre houses and feeds them. The crew can go there any time to visit.

I also adopted a patient (this is a program on the ship where the non-medical crew can "adopt" a patient to visit through their stay on ship for surgery. usually 7-10 days). She is a 17 year old girl who just had a contracture surgery yesterday on one of her hands that was burned. I went yesterday evening to see her for the first time. It is so frusterating not knowing the language. Like many other Beninese, she speaks Fon, the local language. So even if you know french you are still cut off. So basically I just sat with her on her bed for a while. I was able to tell her my name and ask hers in french. she understood enough to answer that. And thankfully 2 of the patients beside her understood some english. One was from Nigeria where the national language is English. The other guy also spoke french and fon. so he was able to help me ask her age. At the end of the time I had him tell her that i would visit her again tomarrow. Though as I said it I was thinking I don't know what I will do or if it is even worth it if we can't even communicate and all i do is sit there and smile. It was probably just as awkward for her as it was for me. A little to my surprise her eyes lit up and he translated, "she wants to know if it will be in the morning or at night." I told him probably at night because I work in the morning. He translated and she smiled and shook her head in understanding. Then i left processing her response which i somehow did not expect... God has put such love and acceptance in some people. And that translates beyond the barriers of culture, or language.

So today I will go again. And maybe we will just sit. But maybe that's ok..

Today in reception I got to go around with Tim (the assistant purser or one of my superiors) to put up the Muster lists (these are the lists of emergancy teams for all the crew). I got to see all the places, I don't normally get to go: the bridge, the generator room, the fire lockers, etc. The only place I have yet to go is the bottom of the ship, all the greasy, hot dirty jobs. The whole reception team will take a tour down there with one of the engineers soon.

So that is whats new! Sorry I don't have more pictures of the patients or other things. I'm still learning when it's ok to take pictures, the best rule of thumb is if you don't know don't take. We have to be respectful of privacy. I always try to think how I would feel if there were a bunch of strangers from somewhere else always snapping their camara's in my and my friends and families faces. No one is a circus, everyone is a person. Also if you're not careful some people will want you to pay them for taking their picture. :-o But I will have pictures when I can ;)

Signing off for now!