pink nails

I must thank my grandmother - who gave me a bottle of bright pink nail varnish that I brought with me. Every woman/child/baby in B ward now has pink nails! I started off offering to paint Belvida's nails - she is still waiting for surgery and the weekend was getting very long and boring!
well all the other woman decided that they would love their nails to be painted too, so an hour and almost half a bottle of varnish later everyone was happy admiring their fingers and toes!
it was a great fun time interacting with everyone - nail painting is universal and the language barrier just fell away as we ooo'd and ahhhh'd and had a good pampering time!

the rest of my weekend was busy, but that just ment that the two 12 hour shifts just flew by! lots of dressing changes and visits to deck 7 - the outside deck ment that all in all we had a good weekend on B ward!

as an aside - if you pray, please do for a miraculous healing of the wounds. there are lots of plastic patients on B ward and so there are lots of graft and donor sights that are still healing - but the ship is sailing in about a month and there are no facilities here in Benin to take on the daily dressing changes.

at the moment i am having a relaxing day off, sitting on Hotel du Lac's terrace, enjoying the use of their wifi and feeling that i could be in any other hotel in any city of the world! and likewise on the ship; if you spend days onboard without going onto dry land, you can forget that you are even in africa!
But it never ceases to amaze me that i am here; as soon as you walk down the gangway and along the port I am struck time and time again...the heat; so oppressing and thick, sweat just dripping off you the moment you step outside! the smells; some nice, some not so nice - only made worse by the temperature. the bustling streets, with everyone going about their daily business - colourful stalls selling everything you could imagine; women with towers of goods on their heads - their neck muscles pulsating under the strain. the cars driving wherever they want - the zimijeans (motorbikes) weaving in and out of the cars, on and off the pavement, stopping starting, picking up passengers, dropping off passengers; one thing i have noticed - there are no stray animals - not a cat or dog in sight. only a few pigs and goats scavenging down by the edge of the big river that flows through the centre of Cotonou. kids shouting yovo yovo (white person) and waving frantically; only to be even more excited when you wave and say hello in reply!
the light is intense, the sunsets stunning and the friends diverse - to think that this is going to be home for the next year is both a daunting and exciting thought.

It is difficult to try and convey in words everything here - to try and give a good representation of all that is going on...but i hope that this kinda helps in imagining where i am a least.

If you have ever been to Africa; just imagine that and u'll be very close!