I Have Arrived!!

After a long, but fairly uneventful flight I made it to Sierra Leone!  It is quite hot and humid here, thankfully the ship is air conditioned.  The airport is across the water from the main town of Sierra Leone, so we had to take a water taxi to get to the ship.  This was quite an adventure.  They had sent a smaller boat for the people going to Mercy Ships, because we go to a different port than everyone else.  Unfortunately our boat came first, everyone else waiting for their boats thought this was unfair, because they had been waiting longer.  They argued with the water taxi workers for about a half hour until the next taxi came.  They all got on their boat then we got on our boat.

The Saturday after I arrived I had the opportunity to go on a hike with some people from the ship.  We walked up this hill through town to get some views of the city below us as well as a view of the ship.  The pictures above are from this hike.  It was very nice to get out and see the town.  We seemed to walk through the slum area of town, which was very interesting to see how they live.  The poverty is hard to comprehend.

Things have been going pretty well on the ship so far.  I have had 2 orientation shifts on the ward and just finished my first shift on my own today.  The dynamics in the ward are so different from how they are in the states.  The people here are not concerned with privacy in the same way that we are.  They have men, women, and children all in the same room.  Everyone knows whats going on with everyone else.  It is quite chaotic really.  Culturally the people here prefer that over being in their own room, where they would feel isolated from everyone else.  Just a different way at looking at personal space.

I also need to reorient myself with old school nursing.  We have no IV pumps so we have to calculate the drip rates by hand, mix our own IV medications and we have all paper charting.  There are also a few kids on my ward overflow from pediatrics, so I need to calculate their drug dosages as well.  Thankfully they are all pretty healthy and are 15-30 days post-op.  The kids are quite fun though.  Otherwise I am on the general surgery ward, which is a lot of hernia repairs and things like that.  I feel like I am just slow at everything at this point, trying to figure out their equipment and charting.

That’s all for now!