an american in liberia or is it malta?

the world i live in is definitely unique. we have both american and liberain phone numbers to the ship. we are docked at a port in monrovia, liberia. we sail under a flag of malta. so, i am in malta and liberia simultaneously...kinda. we had a baby born on the ship (one of the patient's mothers and not expected) so though the baby is liberian and we are in port in liberia, was born in malta? crazy!

mom wanted me to write more about the day to day stuff. so, this weekend we had engine trials (similar to running a car that isn't being driven a lot to make sure things work properly). didn't really affect me much...a bit of diesel smell in the hallway near my cabin...but, my friend ben had to guard the gangway (the stairs leading into the ship from the dock) just in case it was ever unsafe and lucky him, he got drenched. he wasn't very happy about that.

a few of my friends and i walked into the city the other day to a shop. we weren't sure if it would be open being a sunday but the info bit on it in the places to go book said, "hours, daily, the guy lives there". another friend, timon, had said we were about the right height for the store...what?!?! sure, enough, there were places in the store i had to duck and a few spots where i could stand up straight. we were out a little over an hour and despite my slathering spf 50 on, i still got sunburned! we are a bit closur to the equator here i guess.

there is a manual we were supposed to read when we got here. i found out about it saturday. told the person i was chatting with i was sure we didn't have one in our cabin b/c i had just cleaned and not seen it. but i would look again. well, i looked. the only place i didn't clean was on top of the cupboard over the microwave and sure enough, there was not just one manual but three! of course, two were from the old ship but oh well, c'est la vie.

speaking of french...i have to learn it. they speak french in benin where we go next year. i barely can do spanish after 6 years of it. but i can pick it up and read it and somewhat get the context of it. french, they just don't say multiple letters in the words and there seems to be no rhyme or reason to which ones are pronounced. and it seems very flat for a "romance" language. but hopefully i'll at least get some basic bits in before next outreach.

one more thing and then my day to day...we are guarded by lok, chitra, tek and ganesh. these men are gurkha. a specially trained group in the nepalese armed forces (kinda like navy seals i'm guessing). they are great men. but, i wouldn't want to cross them for sure ;-) they guard the gangway and we have to sign on and off the ship if we are going further than the gate of the dock the ship is moored on. on sunday when i was signing out to go to the shop, lok said, "i have called the duty officer." what?!?!? i didn't do anything wrong. that was my initial statement/assumption...don't know why. but then reason took over when i realized that even if i had done something wrong, they wouldn't have waited until i decided i might like to walk into town to talk to me. and the duty officer on that day was my friend so he would have probably just found me. but, i was a bit nervous when lok first said that!

what does my day to day look like? (85% of my non-work, non-sleep hours are spent with my friend amy...in fact, another friend assumed it was her sitting next to me one day and didn't even look to see that it wasn't!)
breakfast 0630-0730.
work (we'll assume days for this. 0700-1500) lunch served from 1200-1300.
after work, a shower.
quiet time and french lesson on computer
then dinner from 1700-1830.
after dinner, out on the dock or deck 7 for some time outside.
then, hanging out doing not much of anything...internet, chatting, watching a movie, reading a book, playing games.
that's pretty much my day. i try to work out on my days off or when i work evenings or nights.
mondays i have a healthcare service devotionals at 0730, ward nurse devotionals at 1600. tuesdays are community wide meetings at 0745. thursdays i have healthcare service devos again at 0730 and thursday evening is community wide devo time at 1930. thursday evenings are the best...usually good music, a bit of teaching and ice cream to follow!