end of week one!

well it is the end of my first week here and it has been one good week. full of so many changes, meeting so many lovely people and adjusting to my new ship home.

life on the wards is GOOD. yes i am getting to know the actual job, working on a busy surgical ward; but the joy, love and change is so evident on the patients and mammas (caregivers). one evening this week we had a toe nail painting session - here are my toes, i wouldnt normally choose pink, but thats the colour that we had! other moments have been turning the music up loud and dancing around - african dancing! watching films every afternoon, playing games, making wool pompoms, having cuddles with the toddlers, drawing on balloons - so different to the whole idea of 'work' that i am use to. its good to be part of all that is going on here. i wish i could capture some of those moments on camera - but you know and i know that it is not allowed for obvious confidentiality reasons!!

time away from the ship is good too. today i signed up for a 3 hr boat trip to Ganvier, a village on stilts. these are some of the photos. we left from a local hotel and went up river/on a big lake passing some incredible sights; it was fishing area, so lots of people living on the waters edge on rubbish. rubbish stacked so tightly it became the around that they built on. humbling to say the least.

the stilt village was rubbish free, a huge expanse of wooden buildings emerging from the water - with little passage ways between for the boats to pass. buildings for school, telephone, maternity clinic, churches, mosques, restaurants, new buildings, smoky buildings, buildings that soon will fall into the water they are leaning over so bad. we certainly were the spectacle for the day - i felt like an intruder, and the people were not impressed by cameras and picture taking!

this afternoon i spent time at the local hotel swimming pool. it was lush just to relax and catch some sun - i fell asleep on the sun loungers, thankfully with my factor 50 on!! the pool was busy with lots of people from mercy ships. tomorrow i have a ticket for the benin vs ghana local football match! will share all.
here are some of the photos from today. ...... ok there are no photos - its taken 45 mins to upload nothing!! will post this and then try and post some pictures separately.