Where in the world am I now..

Ok.. so we've had the personal update, now time for the professional update.

If anything this last while has taught me that life in on the Missions field is never what you expect it to be, there are no 'normal days'.

First things first in August we finished out Outreach in Togo. If it seems we were only there for a short while.. that's because it was shorter. The ship normally spends 10months of the year in a host nation, sadly we were only able to spend 6 months in Togo as we had to have major maintenance done on the ship.. Which smoothly brings me to where I am now.

As I type this I am sitting in Appelsbosch, KwaZulu Natal, South Africa. No longer located on the ship but an hour inland from Durban.  The ship itself is currently in dry dock, sitting on piles of bricks 6 feet off the floor. The main reason for the work is to replace our 'Harbor Generators'. These are the main generators that supply our power.  The downside is that because they are older and not designed for the Hospital, they generate not just electricity but and awful lot of noise and vibrations.. the wards onboard are location just above them, making it very uncomfortable there and almost impossible to use some of the operating theatres.. This means we spend a lot of time using our quieter, smaller frigs (I think that's how I spell it) generators. These were originally designed to only be used at see, and we run them 24/7 months on end, see the problem.

Our engineers have literally been miracle workers but at last we are replacing the generators with modern, more efficient, more reliable ones. This does involve cutting a hole in the ship to get the old out and new in, hence the prolonged time in dock.

It is always a strange mix of feelings, being away from home but not actually in our allotted field, but we're all seeing this as essential maintenance hat will allow the Africa Mercy to keep serving for years to come.

And that Ladies and Gentlemen is how the Academy,  the family's,  the long term crew, and myself found ourself in rural South Africa.

Pictures from the shipyard:

Entering drydock

Real inner city.. leave your ship unattended and it ends up on blocks..

Now usually a hole in a ship isn't a good thing.. it is when a noisy generator is leaving!

Introduction to Appelsbosch following soon..