Uncategorized - MadProf.net

Overnight Update part 2.

So, where did I leave off…

Ah, yes. The story thus far left our trustworthy hero in the hands of a local, with his fellow companions and he not knowing whence they should then depart to, and whatfor they were about to be occupied…

So off we went, the dear companions, our volunteer helper/translator, and I, off down the dusty mud-lined prickly hedged alleys of sub (very sub) urban Maputo.

Most the houses are made of cheap concrete breese-blocks, or from bamboo or reed thatch. The rooves are generally from corrigated iron, or occasionaly from more thatch. Floors are just cold concrete, if at all. Many are just mud, like the church building of the compound. There are often bamboo/reed mats on the floors, kind of like the ones we might use at the beach, just a little bigger, and rougher, probably hand-made.

No running water, but with electricity, so you get a television in every house. I hate televisions, now. We visited a few houses, but every one had a T.V in it, and it was on. We talked to a few people, but with the T.V. on it was quite hard! We went to one man’s house, a friend of our translator/volunteer, and sat down in his living room, to talk. He went to a different church, but apparently both pastors are good friends, so that’s all right.

Anyway, he began to tell us (via translation) about his plans and work that he is starting to begin a youth/young-people programme in an area not far off, where there is a lot of poverty, and unimployment, and so on. He was asking us for what kind of things we had been envolved with, and some of the others shared about some of their experiences, and gave him advice, along the lines of how to get it going, how to make sure it didn’t just stay as talk, but actually became something.

This is one of the things that the line-up teams have been emphasising to us the whole time in Mozambique. The Line-Up team is a team of 3 people (or so) who get sent to a port a few months in advance of the ship’s arrival, and there they do all the negotiations of getting a berth for the ship, telephone lines, etc, as well as working with the local churches, and municipality, and so on, to find and work out the programme that the Doulos will have when she arrives, in order to be of greatest benefit.

There are currently 2 or three line up teams out there, one in Richards Bay, and one in Madagascar. In some ports they will decide that the greatest need is practical work, so much of the effort of the Doulos will be in that sector. In some ports (like the last ones), a massive problem is HIV/AIDS, so we have had many programmes on board which are talking about this problem, as well as orphanage visits and work.

Monday 1st August

We left port quite early this morning, so I have an extra hour or so this afternoon, so I will try and write at least some of the detail of the overnight…

Our group was to meet at our STEP-mum’s office at 3pm, and then leave, so I had most of the day (Friday) free to pack, write email, clean up, and other things that I needed to do. I wrote down some notes for a sermon, because I had been told I would probably need to do at least one. My first ever sermon, fun.

I chose Psalm 13, the one which goes something along the lines of:

How long, O Lord, will everything terrible happen to me?
Life sucks, I’m sick, I’m going to die,
Mine enemies shalt triumph over me,
I’ve got such a headache,
Yet will I praise the Lord,
For He has been good to me
Amen.

I picked it as it is one of my favourite psalms, many of the early ones sound too righteous for me to really be able to associate to, and the later ones are too long, and I hate jumping about from verse to verse to make a point.

Anyway, I figured I needed a story as well to go with it, so randomly looked about the New Testament for a good story to use, and found about Jesus and Peter walking on the water.

Cool, I thought, and found a way to link the two passages, talking about faith, and thinking “Well, if it needs to be a sermon to non-Christians, then I have plenty of room to maneuver it into an altar call (Don’t worry, I’m not getting that holy. heh.), and if it turns out the whole audience, er, sorry, congregation, are Christians, then I have something vaguely encouraging to say, ie, that even when life sucks, God is in charge, and will catch us if we fall.”.

So that was all O.K. I knew I would have a translator (probably), and so that would make it all longer too (I hate long sermons, but have been told repeatedly that culturally long sermons are required. I feel too tired to bother speculating on reasons why. Maybe some other time…).

Anyway, then after that, I put my notes somewhere safe, and then went to borrow the sailmakers thread and a needle. I could not find a good needle, but my shift leader lent me one of his, and said “hey, no worries, it’s too thick for anything I ever use, so if it breaks, cool.” or something like that.

Which is a good thing.

My beloved rucksack (backpack) had become unstitched quite badly where the armstraps are attached to the bag, and I wanted to repair it. So I got the needle and thread, put the needle through the material once, pulled through, fine! This was great! I could have my bag nice and fixed before going. I had 2 hours still.

I put the needle through again, and pulled… and pulled… and pulled… nothing. It would NOT come through! Odd… So I reversed it, and tried again, and snapped the needle at the eye. Wonderful. Now what?

Just a very very quick update.

Survived the overnight (2 nights). Amazing. Lovely lovely people. Bucket-of-water showers, no running water at all, tin roof, no glass in most of the windows, mud streets and floor, concrete breeze-block walls, loads of prayer and singing, I preached once, told stories (preaching without directly quoting scripture), and slept benethe a mozzie net.

They killed a duck for us yesterday to eat, happily I was able to avoid eating more than about 1cm cubed of it (Thanks, Tim, for school “I did eat food, really” hints (smearing sauce)), but still…

Anyway. Amazingly cool. They got loads of photos, and a few videos, I hope to have them on CD.

Friday 29th July

The Prayer & Fasting was focused about the STEPPER OverNight (2 nights) trip away from the ship. We will be going out in groups of 5, so three groups. The only ones praying were STEPPERs, Our STEP-Mum, and possibly some of the SPs of STEPPERs.

SP stands for “Social Permission” or “Special Permission” or “Special Person”. Ship policy is that we are not to engage in (for lack of a better term) romantic relationships in their first year of being with them, this is so that they can focus on God instead, and, if God does want them to get married, they will anyway, and are by then less likely to be distracted and over-attracted by possibly cross-cultural traits which are not fully understood in the first year.

After a year, couples can apply for SP from the personnel office, which means they are allowed to pursue a more in depth or possibly romantic relationship. Some of the 2 year Douloids already had fiances (spelling?) or girlfriend/boyfriends, and some of the STEPPERs in our group (about 4!) came on the STEP firstly just to see them, a 2 year absence is quite a lot… So they all have SP, (the personnel office has the policy of 1 year, but is not inhuman).

Anyway, enough about SP, already. Today we will be leaving on the OverNight. I think we have got 5 church services planned for the time, and will all be doing preaching, praying, singing, acting, and other stuff like that, as well as probably some practical work in the village or wherever we get to, and other things like that. People who come on board for 2 years generally get to go on 4 “A-teams”, that is, week long or more trips away from the ship, with a small group of others, to do various work.

As well as A-teams, there are other random OverNights which pop up, whenever people are available, or have 2 E-days next to each other.

We had another drama training session with the Creative Ministry team yesterday, they showed us how they perform the Chair Drama, but said “learn it like this, but when you perform it, do it however you want. Improvise! Change stuff! Go mad!” So that’s cool.

At the end they were talking about the different things, and one of them said “I hear you are going on an OverNight, which is why we were asked to do this session with you. If you have a theme which you cant think of a drama for, come to us, and we will tell you about some others. We have one for every thing you could want.”

So OF COURSE, I had to ask a question. Dead serious face, oh woe is me, I know not what to do, I am but a puzzled confused young STEPPER… “Um, we have a pastors conference on our overnight, and have been asked to give a session, can you think of a good drama for Pre-Millenialism…”.

27th July

Pasta and Basmati rice are the things I am missing most. When I get back, I hope we have pasta. Or Lasagne. Or Spaggetti. Or all of them ;-) And Cheese! Lots of Cheese! And Parmasan! Mmmmm….

To get rid of all the anti-biotic rubbish Deets (one of my cabin mates) suggests a 2 day fruit fast, or similar when I get home.

The fast finishes today, and I am not feeling too hungry or anything. I have not taken the anti-malarials, as I guessed after a month, my system should be fairly well swimming in them (as I have been faithful to them), and I have not gone off the ship the last 2 days, and there are no mozzies on board, and I shall go back to them tomorrow when I start eating again.

(Has he found another hoodie?)

Not yet. I haven’t had a chance to go out yet, and charlie is pretty well empty. We had deck cleaning today, which means being up at 6 on the deck to work… very very cold. But that wouldn’t really be solved by a hoodie, as we wear deckie overalls. They have the A.C. down quite low, always. And even at 18 or so which is what it feels like (rationally… it really feels about 10, but I know it can’t be), it is cooold.

(Did the doctor say anything about the churning stomach?)

No, I haven’t had a chance to see him yet, but will try to arrange an appointment once we get back from the overnight. Or tomorrow, it depends. It also depends on if it starts churning again tomorrow.

(Is there any juice or squash to take ginger in for queasiness?)

Yeah, we can buy fruit juice packets (1 litre) from the shipshop, and also there is revolting koolaid type stuff in the canteen. I had been taking it just with water, on the voyages.

Tuesday 26th July

I have not been able to find yoghurt, other than occasionally with breakfast, but then that is probably not local, but doulos yog. Sometime I must try to get some local. Many individuals are buying masses of cheap African fruit, but I don’t think that the ship officially can do so quite like that. I don’t know how all these things work, what with regulations and all.

About Sunday’s day in the AOG church….

On the board was listed our group, and the time to meet up and discuss what was happening at 5.30pm on Saturday. I did not manage to get there, though, but when I spoke to the team leader later at supper, he said no-one else had either, so no big deal. We would meet up at 8am on Sunday morning, and then leave at 9.

So at 8am I went to the room we were meeting at, and no-one was there. Eventually, at about half past, the rest turned up, gradually, and we said what we would do, the numbers presentation (a whole bunch of cards with numbers on them, one of them the year the ship was build, one of them the number of visitors so far (18 million!), one with the number of book titles, one with the number of nationalities, etc), one girl would give her testimony, we would do a drama, which one of the others had just written (very simple), and one guy would preach. Cool.

So we all then went and waited for our lift at the gates. At the gates, we found another team who had been waiting since 8am there for theirs. Ours turned up after about 8 minutes, suprisingly, and was an escort, not a lift. Very tall thin smartly dressed suit-and-tie-and-glasses type. He spoke good English, and made witty jokes occasionaly, as we walked though the city.

After a 10 minute walk, we then took a chappa (local bus). A typical 11 seater type mini-van. With 19 in it. The pastor/escort said he wanted us to experience local transport. Cool.

So we bounced along for quite a while, and eventually got to the destination. A big main street of the city. No pavement, no sidewalks, but brown/red Troodos-coloured dirt. And a big road too. About the width and lenght of Larnaka’s main street, I would guess. Then we walked for another 10 minutes, I guess, through various back allys and sidestreets, made up of mud-brick and concrete bungaloes/houses, with corricated iron roofs. Loads of kids playing out in the streets, and quite a lot of people greeted the pastor.

Eventually the house! We went in through a swing door, and into a tiny courtyard/ally, and then from there into a small room, with quite nice furniture, an ancient computer (about 25 years old or so), and a table/kitchen area at the far end. We sat down, and then were introduced to the ‘real’ pastor, who did not speak any English he said (not quite true. He did speak some. And understand more.)

Monday 25th July

About those 3 people who got Malaria, I don’t know how they got it, but as the clinic is still saying, “… so take your tablets!” I guess that means that they forgot, and/or just stopped taking them. Everyone seems to hate them so much, it is not really suprising.

I think mine may be having some side effects, though, too. For the past 2 weeks or more or so I have been having a very churned up stomach feeling, and the last 2 days even more so. I had not thought that it might be the tablets, but thought it was the change of diet on board, or type of bread, or something. But I have tried not eating bread, or the “milk”, or tea, doing the proper “isolate 1 food at a time” type of thing, but to no avail.

I will try to speak to the clinic about it tomorrow, when they are open (they are closed on Sundays and Mondays). Hopefully they will tell me something like “ah, just eat more fruit. Here is a paper to tell the galley to let you have more…”. That would be really nice… I miss having fruit and cheese aplenty. We ran out of cheese about 2 weeks ago, but today had it again. Fruit is also quite low, with a 1 - 2 piece limit per meal. Next time I get to go out to the city I will try and get some more. We don’t have personal fridge space, sadly, although some cabins have fridges (ours doesn’t).

Back to Malaria… AFAIK the victims have not been sent home. My Big Brother, for instance, was not. There is a ‘hospital’ on board, which I have not seen, but is part of the clinic, I think. Anyway, with 1 full time doctor, quite a few nurses, sea air, and so forth, being on Doulos may well be more healthy than sticking someone on an airplane and shipping them home to whatever.

I have not personally seen ANY moquitoes in my entire time on board. As most of my time has been on board, and so in a salt water area, this is not so suprising, but even on days out, and off-days, I have not seen any. Other people have, apparently, but not I. Odd.

It was not so cold today, nice and warm outside in the sun. Again over the side work, but I was not. I was just sitting on the deck, occasionaly taking the paintbrush from the person over the side on a bosun’s chair, and putting fresh paint on it, and giving it back. In the evenings, and pre-dawn mornings though, it is cold. (Sun rises at about 6:30am, and sets at about 6pm). I have not yet managed to get a new hoodie, although maybe I can soon. I hope so.

The whole family atmosphere on board is very cool. Yesterday I was spontaniously declared to be a twin of someone else, because they had always wanted a twin (very-non-identical!).

Saturday 23rd July

The last few weeks, I seem to have spent almost all my working time sanding off some of the wooden handrails and putting new varnish on them. There are so many to do and it takes so long. We have proper equipment though, so it is at least Good Work, it feels satisfying. Nice big solid power-tool electic sanders. Real Tools for Real Men (People), and all that kind of rubbish. Fun.

We have to keep a thin line from each tool to ourselves, in case we drop them overboard, as they are quite expensive. It is a very satisfying experience, because the wood looks so bad before, and wonderful afterwards.

We end up spending a lot of time getting stuff wrong though, due to bad planning. We spent about an hour lowering a gangway out of the way, as no-one on our team is in the gangway squad, and none of us knew how to do it quickly, so we could get at an area of wood to work on, and then had to move it back again because it turned out there would be lifeboat drills in an hour, and the lifeboats had to drop right past where we had put the gangway.

We arrived 2 days ago in this port of Maputo, the capital of Mozambique, I think. We arrived at 9am or so, which meant that as my normal deckie work, we were doing unloading of the gangways, vans, and so on. I really enjoy this work, it is probably my favorite work of the whole deck dep.

What we do is attach slings to the gangways, then the crane op swings it into position, and we then attach it, attach “messenger lines” (a rope which goes from the object being craned to the deck, so that it can be controlled, for instance, if there is wind, or if we put on 2 messenger lines, we can rotate the object) swing them out, lower them down to the quayside, and viola, done. I just like it. Getting to mess around with ropes, pulling stuff all over, it’s like real sailing. Almost.

Yesterday I was on the cleaning team, which means getting up for 6am. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then scrubbing and washing down the decks, ready for the hoards of people. Then for an hour before lunch, and then the afternoon I was hanging down off the side of the ship on a bosans chair (with a safety strap, don’t worry, Mum) chipping off rust by where the anchor is.

A Bosun’s Chair is kind of like a wooden swing seat, with the ropes meeting above the swing at less than a metre. You then attach a nice long line from the top of this swing rope to the deck above, with some complicated knot thingy, so that the line is doubled up, and the remainded drops down below you to the sea. You can then lower and raise yourself “easily” by lifting your weight up on one side of this rope, by sheer arm strength, and pulling the other half of the rope though the knot, which allows you to change the length between you and the deck.

A brief text message arrived today:

Arrived safely in Maputo. I’m teaching myself to splice rope.

Monday 18th July

I hope to be going out to the town today, it is my off day, and I want to go visit, perhaps get another hoodie, and if possible, some obscure musical instrument :-). Apparently Durban will be amazing for shopping, and the next port (which I have forgottent the name of) has a cool outdoor market.

Anyway. Enough about shopping. Boring subject.

Most of the previous STEP have left now, only 2 left, one of whom is joining us for the next month and a bit. Seems amazing that time passes so quickly here… 1 guy on the STEP has done half of his time already!

Tomorrow afternoon we will set sail for the next port, sailing time 3 days, inclusive of arrival and departure. It’s still strange to me how many people really dread the sailing, and still get seasick. Many of the longtermers do every time. One would have thought that they would get used to it, and for it to no longer effect people so, but apparently not.

I found, in the book-exhibition, 2 greek new testaments, one in modern greek, the other with 1 page of original greek, the opposing page with the same verses but modern. Very cool, and 25 units each (about 25 cents, I think?). I am still having problems getting used to the currency, something like 35000 meticas to 1 USD… and 50000 meticas to 100 doulos book-ex units… Very confusing.

The port here is very boring. Containers as far as the eye can see, and one must take a shuttle bus to get to the port gate, and then 10 minutes walk from the gate to get to the town centre.

There is music everywhere on board, quite a mixture. From CONSTANT worship CDs in the book-ex, to michael w. smith in the foc’s’cle, occasional dire straits, P.O.D, other various Christian heavy/death metal bands, trance, rap, classical, rock, and so on. Oh, and light piano jazz from fire station 3 at all hours.