Again, I know it has been a very long time with my last post! It's been very busy!!! But that's really no excuse...
I spent the last 4 days in Ghana... We went on quite a last minute trip! It was an epic adventure... Through Togo... 4 boarder controls. It was a crazy experience! It was an amazing experience to see two other West African countries... Ghana is so different to Benin obviously! But having driven for 7 hours of so, it was amazinig to see the difference... it is far more developed, the air was cleaner as we weren't living in a port! We stayed at the YWAM (Youth With A Mission) Base and woke up to the peaceful sound of birds singing! Something I haven't heard for a long time!
Anyway it was a fantastic trip, and it feels strange to be back on the boat again!
I'll try and keep this post as brief as possible as well as filling you in on everything that's happened!!
I have another new part time job!! I now work in the starbucks cafe in the mornings to help out as they are short of staff... So that's another new job!
The weekend before last I went to an orphanage... Having spent a lot of time in Romania in orphanages I was intruiged to see what it would be like. We didn't get to see a lot of the facility... though I don't think it was very extensive. I guess from what I saw that all the children just sleep in one room... and their ages range from babies older teenagers of 16-17... It was a lot of fun singing and dancing with them... and I chatted to some of the older girs... in very limited French... But overall it was a great experience!
I visited a different Benin church a few weeks ago... and one in Ghana at the weekend... One thing that struck me was how loud they are! I guess they want to make it as loud as possible so that everyone in the neighbourhood can hear what's going on! I found this particularly liberating, due to the fact that we have to think so much about how loud we are being at home! The one thing I love about all the African churches is the music... they are all so musical, singing dancing...very loudly! And sometimes a random person will just get up and start singing a song... a few seconds later everyone joins in! A few times there has been nothing more than a drum accompanying them!
to be continued...
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Dental Clinic, Weekends, Easter...
Firstly, I know it has been a while since I updated the blog! So I apologise for that...
Since the last post I have started my minor job as a dental steriliser, this week was my third week in the job, and I love it! Thursdays has now become my favourite day of the week! We travel for about half an hour to a nearby village called Abertrou, The clinic is a very modern building for the area; we work off a generator and have some fans as well!
This weekend is of course Easter weekend... I am in fact on duty today (Saturday) and tomorrow, which means I can’t leave the ship... but I am still having a brilliant weekend so far. The celebrations started for us on Thursday evening.... we had our community meeting with the room decorated with an Easter feel and one of the other rooms on the ship was decorated as an upper room, where you could visit with your friends to pray or partake in foot washing... Yesterday morning we had an amazing service in the morning, the atmosphere was amazing and it was a very powerful meeting. We also watched the passion of the Christ last night. The atmosphere of the weekend has been truly amazing... I think it has been the best Easter I have had so far!
Yesterday I went on a little adventure with a friend... we took the zimmy’s (motorbikes) to the local airport where we knew there were some beaches nearby.... and basically went for a wander along the beach! We bought some amazing local food, and had such a fun day!
I hope everything is well in England! In case anyone didn’t know I have extended my time here and will in fact now be coming home on the 1st of June instead!
Since the last post I have started my minor job as a dental steriliser, this week was my third week in the job, and I love it! Thursdays has now become my favourite day of the week! We travel for about half an hour to a nearby village called Abertrou, The clinic is a very modern building for the area; we work off a generator and have some fans as well!
These are a few pictures of the dental clinic...
My job is a dental sterilizer, the work is not particularly hard or challenging however, I have decided that this is the case with quite a few things in life, it’s not about the exact work you do, it’s about the people you work with, the place you work and your attitude towards it... In these three areas I think I have come up trumps... I work with some amazing people from all over the world, New York, Norway, California, England, Germany, not to mention all the local day volunteers who are trying to teach me French, I work in a village in Benin, in Africa , if I go just outside the door, I can play with the local kids, buy the local food and ice cream (known as fan ice, which is delicious) and I am so excited to go to work every week that not much tends to get me down once I am there!
The amount of dentists varies as they tend to only stay for a few weeks at a time... But with 3 dentists they saw over 100 patients in the first day I was there... the next week two of them saw 78 and pulled out 137 teeth, 2 days ago there was only one dentist and he managed to see over 50 patients by himself in one day! So we are kept pretty busy sterilizing all the instruments, we have 3 machines called autoclaves which sterilise the instruments and two out of three of them have now broken, which makes life interesting!
I have spent the last few weekends exploring the local area somewhat... We went to the big market a few weeks ago, called Dantopa, it is so enormous you get totally lost, and it sells everything you can imagine! I bought some flip flops....and quite a bit of African material. Last week I made myself a skirt, and today a bag! I love just hanging around in the market area, it is such an intense atmosphere, full of so many people, and it is amazing.
Last weekend I visited a place called Bab’s dock... it is basically a lagoon area. Some Belgians one day decided that they should up and leave Belgium, and move to Benin. This they did and built a house and little resort area, with a bar, hammocks, sun loungers, canoes and even a sailing boat! You have to take a little speed boat to reach the lagoon. It was a fantastically relaxing day!
The amount of dentists varies as they tend to only stay for a few weeks at a time... But with 3 dentists they saw over 100 patients in the first day I was there... the next week two of them saw 78 and pulled out 137 teeth, 2 days ago there was only one dentist and he managed to see over 50 patients by himself in one day! So we are kept pretty busy sterilizing all the instruments, we have 3 machines called autoclaves which sterilise the instruments and two out of three of them have now broken, which makes life interesting!
I have spent the last few weekends exploring the local area somewhat... We went to the big market a few weeks ago, called Dantopa, it is so enormous you get totally lost, and it sells everything you can imagine! I bought some flip flops....and quite a bit of African material. Last week I made myself a skirt, and today a bag! I love just hanging around in the market area, it is such an intense atmosphere, full of so many people, and it is amazing.
Last weekend I visited a place called Bab’s dock... it is basically a lagoon area. Some Belgians one day decided that they should up and leave Belgium, and move to Benin. This they did and built a house and little resort area, with a bar, hammocks, sun loungers, canoes and even a sailing boat! You have to take a little speed boat to reach the lagoon. It was a fantastically relaxing day!
Some photo's of Bab's Dock
This weekend is of course Easter weekend... I am in fact on duty today (Saturday) and tomorrow, which means I can’t leave the ship... but I am still having a brilliant weekend so far. The celebrations started for us on Thursday evening.... we had our community meeting with the room decorated with an Easter feel and one of the other rooms on the ship was decorated as an upper room, where you could visit with your friends to pray or partake in foot washing... Yesterday morning we had an amazing service in the morning, the atmosphere was amazing and it was a very powerful meeting. We also watched the passion of the Christ last night. The atmosphere of the weekend has been truly amazing... I think it has been the best Easter I have had so far!
Yesterday I went on a little adventure with a friend... we took the zimmy’s (motorbikes) to the local airport where we knew there were some beaches nearby.... and basically went for a wander along the beach! We bought some amazing local food, and had such a fun day!
I hope everything is well in England! In case anyone didn’t know I have extended my time here and will in fact now be coming home on the 1st of June instead!
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Medical!!
The last week or so has been a lot slower in terms of work in Hospitality.... therefore I have had the chance to work in some other areas which has been super fun!
I spent monday and tuesday morning in Hospitality, and both the afternoons I worked in the galley helping prepare the dinner for the crew. You may not think this would be the most exciting job, but working with new people, in a different team was so much fun. There is such a great atmospher in the Galley, and many local Beninese are working as day volunteers... this happens in most of the departments on board the ship. Many help in general areas such as housekeepers, transportation, galley, dining room... but there are also a lot working in the hospital as translators cleaners and many many other jobs. They are vital to the work here and we couldn't do it without them!
So my time in the galley was spent with a lot of fun people, some african music.. and so inevitably there was dancing!!
This morning I went out to the eye clinic, with the eye team, We were at the 'hospitality centre' where there are 2 'wards' and the eye clinic, patients go there if the are having an operation and live very far away, and there are some post op patients that stay there also. It is basically just a warehouse, where they have built in 2 hospital wards and the eye clinic is a tent inside...
The clinic I was helping at this morning was seeing patients that have been through the screening process and are having their surgery this afternoon so we gave them pre-op checks... we also saw lots of the patients that had their surgery yesterday. It was so exciting and the first time I actually got to help with something medical!
I have also managed to get a minor job for the rest of my time here, so I will be working as a dental sterilizer for one day a week... I cannot wait to start that!
It has been a real blessing, from a situation last week where we were getting a little frustrated with lack of work, I prayed about it with a friend and this week so many oportunities have opened up!
I spent monday and tuesday morning in Hospitality, and both the afternoons I worked in the galley helping prepare the dinner for the crew. You may not think this would be the most exciting job, but working with new people, in a different team was so much fun. There is such a great atmospher in the Galley, and many local Beninese are working as day volunteers... this happens in most of the departments on board the ship. Many help in general areas such as housekeepers, transportation, galley, dining room... but there are also a lot working in the hospital as translators cleaners and many many other jobs. They are vital to the work here and we couldn't do it without them!
So my time in the galley was spent with a lot of fun people, some african music.. and so inevitably there was dancing!!
This morning I went out to the eye clinic, with the eye team, We were at the 'hospitality centre' where there are 2 'wards' and the eye clinic, patients go there if the are having an operation and live very far away, and there are some post op patients that stay there also. It is basically just a warehouse, where they have built in 2 hospital wards and the eye clinic is a tent inside...
The clinic I was helping at this morning was seeing patients that have been through the screening process and are having their surgery this afternoon so we gave them pre-op checks... we also saw lots of the patients that had their surgery yesterday. It was so exciting and the first time I actually got to help with something medical!
I have also managed to get a minor job for the rest of my time here, so I will be working as a dental sterilizer for one day a week... I cannot wait to start that!
It has been a real blessing, from a situation last week where we were getting a little frustrated with lack of work, I prayed about it with a friend and this week so many oportunities have opened up!
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Pictures of Church Last Sunday
This is the church building from outside
Inside the church
Inside the church
Afterwards we were invited to the local pastors house with loads of kids!
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Dress Ceremoney, African Church
Just to let you know I'm struggling with uploading photos at the moment, but will try and get some up as soon as possible!
On Friday morning I went to a dress ceremony for one of the VVF patients, VVF stands for Vesico Vaginal Fistula, this is a condition that occurs when a woman has a difficult labour or something goes wrong and they have no medical assistance. The result is a whole in the bladder and the woman is left incontinent, these women are often ostracised from society and feel a lot of shame because they quite often not only loose the child but are left constantly wet and smell quite bad. On the ship the surgeons are able to completely cure them, which consequently brings them a whole new hope and reason for living...
Every time that a woman is discharged that has just had the VVF surgery they have a dress ceremony, which is what I attended last Friday. A new dress is bought for the lady and they have their make-up done so they look and feel beautiful. It takes place in the ward, singing and dancing are followed by the gospel being shared, and the ladies give their testimony. It was such a great atmosphere down there, and was my first time in the ward since it has been up and running. It was the first time that I actually experienced firsthand how these people’s lives can be changed so dramatically, and the new sense of joy and hope that they experience.
This morning I went to a local African church, it was an Assemblies of God church that one of the crew planted in 2005 when he was working for YWAM in Benin, when he left it there were 15 people and today there must have been at least 150 people in the church. As you can expect from a typical African service there was a lot of brilliant singing and dancing, there were about 16 of us from the ship and we all got up to dance at the front during one of the worship songs, which apparently they thought was brilliant! Though I’m not sure we have quite as good rhythm as they do!
The lively worship was followed by about 10 minutes of singing from the children’s choir, which there is a video of below, the sermon was incredibly short for an African service... bearing in mind that it was said in French, then translated into Fon (the local dialect) and then English it only lasted just over half an hour!
We were invited to the pastor’s house after the service, he is actually the director of YWAM for Benin, and was so excited to have us, displaying his generosity with food and drink for us! There were loads of children around and we played with many of them up in the YWAM base. Our car actually broke on the way home and we had to sit in the Landrover for about 45minutes holding the door shut because the door wouldn’t close!
I had Friday off and therefore have had a very long weekend! I took the chance also to go to a local swimming pool for most of the day on Saturday. I went with one friend and it was a great chance to relax and rest after such intense community life on the ship. It was a slightly strange experience, you walk for half an hour along a dirty street, typical of Benin, seeing plenty of poverty which you almost get immune to walking round every day, and then go into the hotel, which is completely westernised and feel like you are on holiday! It is strange to see such diverse levels of wealth so close to one another...
On Friday morning I went to a dress ceremony for one of the VVF patients, VVF stands for Vesico Vaginal Fistula, this is a condition that occurs when a woman has a difficult labour or something goes wrong and they have no medical assistance. The result is a whole in the bladder and the woman is left incontinent, these women are often ostracised from society and feel a lot of shame because they quite often not only loose the child but are left constantly wet and smell quite bad. On the ship the surgeons are able to completely cure them, which consequently brings them a whole new hope and reason for living...
Every time that a woman is discharged that has just had the VVF surgery they have a dress ceremony, which is what I attended last Friday. A new dress is bought for the lady and they have their make-up done so they look and feel beautiful. It takes place in the ward, singing and dancing are followed by the gospel being shared, and the ladies give their testimony. It was such a great atmosphere down there, and was my first time in the ward since it has been up and running. It was the first time that I actually experienced firsthand how these people’s lives can be changed so dramatically, and the new sense of joy and hope that they experience.
This morning I went to a local African church, it was an Assemblies of God church that one of the crew planted in 2005 when he was working for YWAM in Benin, when he left it there were 15 people and today there must have been at least 150 people in the church. As you can expect from a typical African service there was a lot of brilliant singing and dancing, there were about 16 of us from the ship and we all got up to dance at the front during one of the worship songs, which apparently they thought was brilliant! Though I’m not sure we have quite as good rhythm as they do!
The lively worship was followed by about 10 minutes of singing from the children’s choir, which there is a video of below, the sermon was incredibly short for an African service... bearing in mind that it was said in French, then translated into Fon (the local dialect) and then English it only lasted just over half an hour!
We were invited to the pastor’s house after the service, he is actually the director of YWAM for Benin, and was so excited to have us, displaying his generosity with food and drink for us! There were loads of children around and we played with many of them up in the YWAM base. Our car actually broke on the way home and we had to sit in the Landrover for about 45minutes holding the door shut because the door wouldn’t close!
I had Friday off and therefore have had a very long weekend! I took the chance also to go to a local swimming pool for most of the day on Saturday. I went with one friend and it was a great chance to relax and rest after such intense community life on the ship. It was a slightly strange experience, you walk for half an hour along a dirty street, typical of Benin, seeing plenty of poverty which you almost get immune to walking round every day, and then go into the hotel, which is completely westernised and feel like you are on holiday! It is strange to see such diverse levels of wealth so close to one another...
Sunday, March 1, 2009
6 Weeks!
So I have been here 6 weeks already! It is amazing how fast time is flying, so many new experiences in what seems like such a short period of time. It doesn't feel like i've been away from home that long at all, but I really feel at home here, and am still having an amazing time!
We'd prepared a meal for him and all the other guests, which was about 70 people in all, but unfortunately the president didn't actually stay for dinner! We still served lots of other guests, but it was a long evening.
At the moment we have quite a few guests on board that from a vision trip, where they are coming to see what we do. They are leaving today, so for their last evening we had an 'African Dinner' All the crew from West Africa were invited along with all the vision trip guests. They ate traditional West African food and there was some singing and dancing aswell. It was a really fun evening and a friend Judi and I had some African clothes made by a local tailor during the week which we wore while we served.
Earlier in the week the American Ambassador also came on board, so this week was a realy week for guests!
American Ambassador
This week was pretty exciting, it's sunday morning as I'm writing this and this is my only full day off this week... On friday evening the president of Benin came on board, it was a hectic day because we didn't actually know when exactly he would arrive... and he was only 3 or so hours late! There was a ceremony where we welcomed him and showed him what we would be doing while we were in his country, he also said a few words, within which he invited us all to go and have a meal with him at his palace!
We'd prepared a meal for him and all the other guests, which was about 70 people in all, but unfortunately the president didn't actually stay for dinner! We still served lots of other guests, but it was a long evening.
At the moment we have quite a few guests on board that from a vision trip, where they are coming to see what we do. They are leaving today, so for their last evening we had an 'African Dinner' All the crew from West Africa were invited along with all the vision trip guests. They ate traditional West African food and there was some singing and dancing aswell. It was a really fun evening and a friend Judi and I had some African clothes made by a local tailor during the week which we wore while we served.
Our African Outfits!
Earlier in the week the American Ambassador also came on board, so this week was a realy week for guests!
American Ambassador
The first surgeries also started down in the ward, so the real work is underway down in the hospital, in a few weeks we should be able to go and watch some surgery which will be amazing!
There will be more photos to come of the president, and African dinner, they were taken by the photographers on board so just waiting for them to become available!
Photos of Screening Day
Inside of the Stadium, and the queue at 3am, when the security guys arrived.
The queue outside and the stadium
Some of the patients
Don Stephens, the founder of Mercy Ships, is on board for a few weeks
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Screening Day!!
The major event of this week was the screening days; we spent 2 days at a local stadium about 20 minutes from the ship and screened everybody to see if we were able to help them.
They queued up all down the road outside the stadium, some of the guys on security had to get there at 3:30 in the morning to start ‘crowd control’ trying to work out a queue system that people might try and follow, people had travelled from miles and stayed overnight to be there.
It is a long process, and on the first day we screened just fewer than 2000 patients. Basically each patient has to go through certain stages... First there is a pre-screening outside the stadium, where they try and immediately spot people who we can’t help, for example we can’t help any patients with cancer as we have no way of doing any follow up, and there are certain types of surgery we don’t have the ability to do. We also have separate screenings for eye patients, so the eye patients were sent off with information about those. Those who got through the pre-screening then went inside the stadium, where they were registered, then waited in line to have their history taken, they would then be send to the appropriate queue to see a surgeon, whether it be orthopaedics, max-fax, plastics, general surgery or VVF etc. Once they had seen the surgeon, if it was decided that surgery was to go ahead, they would have a physical done, and then they would wait to have an appointment made either for surgery or for x-rays and other scans on the ship...they would then be sent to either have bloods taken or to the pharmacy area to get vitamins etc to make sure they were fit for surgery.... finally a picture was taken of them as a ‘before’ photo and they then got there appointment card!
It was an immense process and once inside the stadium the patients were queuing for hours... everyone there was helping out in different areas, such as giving out water to make sure no one was dehydrated or escorting the patients to make sure they went in the right queue next. We also set up a play area in the middle for kids where we entertained them for the day!
There were obviously people that we couldn’t help, which was tough...but we also had prayer stations where if the patients wanted prayer before they went people prayed with them.
I absolutely loved both days and it really inspired me a lot, it was sometimes tough escorting people off the premises because we couldn’t help them... but I saw some amazing people. I’ve been thinking a lot recently how it was quite scary that I pretty much have the next 7 years of my life accounted for in terms of being in medical school, but in the last few days I have had a new found inspiration and maybe one day I’ll get to come back and work with these people from the hospital side of things!
I’m sorry there are no photos at the moment, we weren’t allowed to take photos at the screening but the communications team did so I’ll try and find some of theirs and put them up when I can.
Much Love
Jen
They queued up all down the road outside the stadium, some of the guys on security had to get there at 3:30 in the morning to start ‘crowd control’ trying to work out a queue system that people might try and follow, people had travelled from miles and stayed overnight to be there.
It is a long process, and on the first day we screened just fewer than 2000 patients. Basically each patient has to go through certain stages... First there is a pre-screening outside the stadium, where they try and immediately spot people who we can’t help, for example we can’t help any patients with cancer as we have no way of doing any follow up, and there are certain types of surgery we don’t have the ability to do. We also have separate screenings for eye patients, so the eye patients were sent off with information about those. Those who got through the pre-screening then went inside the stadium, where they were registered, then waited in line to have their history taken, they would then be send to the appropriate queue to see a surgeon, whether it be orthopaedics, max-fax, plastics, general surgery or VVF etc. Once they had seen the surgeon, if it was decided that surgery was to go ahead, they would have a physical done, and then they would wait to have an appointment made either for surgery or for x-rays and other scans on the ship...they would then be sent to either have bloods taken or to the pharmacy area to get vitamins etc to make sure they were fit for surgery.... finally a picture was taken of them as a ‘before’ photo and they then got there appointment card!
It was an immense process and once inside the stadium the patients were queuing for hours... everyone there was helping out in different areas, such as giving out water to make sure no one was dehydrated or escorting the patients to make sure they went in the right queue next. We also set up a play area in the middle for kids where we entertained them for the day!
There were obviously people that we couldn’t help, which was tough...but we also had prayer stations where if the patients wanted prayer before they went people prayed with them.
I absolutely loved both days and it really inspired me a lot, it was sometimes tough escorting people off the premises because we couldn’t help them... but I saw some amazing people. I’ve been thinking a lot recently how it was quite scary that I pretty much have the next 7 years of my life accounted for in terms of being in medical school, but in the last few days I have had a new found inspiration and maybe one day I’ll get to come back and work with these people from the hospital side of things!
I’m sorry there are no photos at the moment, we weren’t allowed to take photos at the screening but the communications team did so I’ll try and find some of theirs and put them up when I can.
Much Love
Jen
Sunday, February 15, 2009
We've Arrived!!!!
I’m in Africa!!!!
We finally arrived in Benin on Tuesday! After 9 days of sailing we were in sight of the port when something went wrong with the engines, because of the nature of the dock the captain didn’t want to sail in without the ship in full working order so the engineers worked all night to fix the engines so we could sail in safely.
Mercy ships has been to Benin 3 times before, and each time there have been difficulties with the docking, last time in 2004 the ship crashed into the dock, before that we hit another ship and took out all the life boats on the starboard side... so it was pretty important that everything was working before we tried to dock! However we were a day late and we missed our own arrival ceremony! There are some pictures below of the dock when we did arrive though!
The Ship from along the beach
Us waiting to dock...
The Gangway coming down
The people waiting for us to arrive on the Dock
I haven’t been to West Africa before, but a lot of people here that have say that they can’t believe how clean it is here. When we walk along the street we get called ‘Yovo, yovo’ which basically means ‘white person’ 
These shanty towns are literally on the beach next to the port...
We finally arrived in Benin on Tuesday! After 9 days of sailing we were in sight of the port when something went wrong with the engines, because of the nature of the dock the captain didn’t want to sail in without the ship in full working order so the engineers worked all night to fix the engines so we could sail in safely.
Mercy ships has been to Benin 3 times before, and each time there have been difficulties with the docking, last time in 2004 the ship crashed into the dock, before that we hit another ship and took out all the life boats on the starboard side... so it was pretty important that everything was working before we tried to dock! However we were a day late and we missed our own arrival ceremony! There are some pictures below of the dock when we did arrive though!
The Ship from along the beach
Us waiting to dock...
The Gangway coming down
The people waiting for us to arrive on the Dock
Benin is a crazy place! Hundreds of motor bikes everywhere, they call them dzemi-djans and apparently there are traffic laws but no one takes any notice, and I’ve already seen 2 crashes on the road! Crossing the road is also pretty interesting!
There are some pictures below of Cotonou which is the city that we are docked in. Yesterday I went to do a little exploring with some friends and we reached the main market. It’s absolutely massive and totally crazy, absolutely everything and anything is sold...and there are so many people it’s unreal.
I haven’t been to West Africa before, but a lot of people here that have say that they can’t believe how clean it is here. When we walk along the street we get called ‘Yovo, yovo’ which basically means ‘white person’
These shanty towns are literally on the beach next to the port...
We are right next to a fishing dock, and they sail out at all times throughout the day and night...
From the market
As for work on the ship we’ve been busier lately, we had a media and civic reception on Friday, there were about 150 people here and we set up food and drinks for them, it was actually quite exciting, we were all dressed in our uniform looking smart! I also had my first evening of being on duty for arrivals, we had 20 people coming in, and they didn’t arrive on board until about 11pm, it was a bit hectic, and we weren’t finished until about half midnight! So Friday was a busy day!
I’m absolutely loving being here, exploring a new country is amazing, I’ve never been to Africa either so the first time off the ship was pretty exciting, I’m hoping to do some more travelling to the neighbouring countries, probably Togo, Nigeria and Ghana... which will be really exciting!
The screening for the patients is on Thursday and Friday, where we will all be going to the local sports stadium and a few thousand people will come to see if they can have surgery, this is going to be an amazing day, I’m told the things we will see will be shocking and it can be emotionally draining to say the least.
On Friday night they had an open house in the hospital to allow the crew to see everything down there. It was so much fun and there was such a buzz, the surgeries start the day after the screenings finish so I think everyone is getting pretty excited to finally start the ministry that we came here to do.
Below is an extract from a humanitarian news website...
COTONOU, 12 February 2009 (IRIN) - The 150m-long mobile hospital called “Africa Mercy” has docked in Benin’s economic capital Cotonou and is expected to provide free surgeries and other medical care until December.......
As of 2004 there was approximately one doctor to cover every 27,000 residents and 12 dentists for the country of more than eight million, according to the government. The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends at least one doctor per 10,000 residents to ensure basic care. Mercy Ships is expected to set up a dental clinic in Akpakpa, on the outskirts of Cotonou, equipped to provide up to 20,000 procedures. Health screenings will be held in Cotonou on 19 February, required for patients seeking care from Mercy Ships....
to read more click here: http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=82905
The article gives a good outline of what we are trying to achieve while we are here.
So that was a pretty long blog! And just for anyone who is interested I’m going to be updating it at least once a week to try and keep to up to date...
Hope England or wherever you are is smashing..... Oh yes and the other piece of exciting information this week... Kathryn got engaged!! So this was genuinely one of the most exciting weeks of my life!!
Massive Love
Jen 
I’m absolutely loving being here, exploring a new country is amazing, I’ve never been to Africa either so the first time off the ship was pretty exciting, I’m hoping to do some more travelling to the neighbouring countries, probably Togo, Nigeria and Ghana... which will be really exciting!
The screening for the patients is on Thursday and Friday, where we will all be going to the local sports stadium and a few thousand people will come to see if they can have surgery, this is going to be an amazing day, I’m told the things we will see will be shocking and it can be emotionally draining to say the least.
On Friday night they had an open house in the hospital to allow the crew to see everything down there. It was so much fun and there was such a buzz, the surgeries start the day after the screenings finish so I think everyone is getting pretty excited to finally start the ministry that we came here to do.
Below is an extract from a humanitarian news website...
COTONOU, 12 February 2009 (IRIN) - The 150m-long mobile hospital called “Africa Mercy” has docked in Benin’s economic capital Cotonou and is expected to provide free surgeries and other medical care until December.......
As of 2004 there was approximately one doctor to cover every 27,000 residents and 12 dentists for the country of more than eight million, according to the government. The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends at least one doctor per 10,000 residents to ensure basic care. Mercy Ships is expected to set up a dental clinic in Akpakpa, on the outskirts of Cotonou, equipped to provide up to 20,000 procedures. Health screenings will be held in Cotonou on 19 February, required for patients seeking care from Mercy Ships....
to read more click here: http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=82905
The article gives a good outline of what we are trying to achieve while we are here.
So that was a pretty long blog! And just for anyone who is interested I’m going to be updating it at least once a week to try and keep to up to date...
Hope England or wherever you are is smashing..... Oh yes and the other piece of exciting information this week... Kathryn got engaged!! So this was genuinely one of the most exciting weeks of my life!!
Massive Love
Jen
Here is a picture of my room-mates and I Barbara on the left is from Germany and is the pharmacist, next is Sarah, from California and she is the hair dresser. Then Lauren who works in HR is also from California...San Francisco, and finally me! This is us on the last day of the sail watching the beautiful sunset below...
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