It's been another slow week on the ward, we still only had one OR running, but I'm told it's gonna get busier starting this week! A plastic surgeon arrived on ship today, so I will start taking care of kids who require skin grafts due to burns or other issues. I'm excited to see a new type of patient and be a little busier!

The highlight of the weekend was I got a full tour of the ship. One of the deck crew took me around. We walked the whole ship- bow to stern on each deck (note my nautical language!). It took about 25 minutes! The tour ended in the engine room and the engineer on duty proceeded to give me a tour of all the inner workings of the ship! It was a spur of the moment tour, but they were very welcoming- a common theme I've found in Africa. Even if it's an imposition, they will go out of their way to welcome you/help you with what you need.

they had me pretend to do work!

more pretending

It was very hot and noisy down in the engine room!

me and the engineer on duty

  Let's see, here are some other random things from the week...

I sat one evening watching these guys pull in fish with this huge net

it was neat because you could hear them singing the whole time to keep them working in sync

The ship got some pet birds! I guess vendors cram lots of birds into a small cage and sell the birds for people to make a wish on. They often break their wings so they get eaten by cats when they are released. This didn't sit well with the crew so they bought 29 of them and built a cage for them on the ship

the mean dock cats 😂 they are everywhere!