Adventure!

Last weekend my roommate Hilary, a friend Sondre and I went on an adventure that was unlike anything I've ever experienced before.

We set off at 7am on Saturday morning. Destination: N'digbe- a remote village in the mountains north of Lome. Mission: Paragliding off the mountains. It was a rainy/misty morning when we left the ship, which made for a perfect traveling temperature. The heat and humidity is often a lot to handle here.

We set off in a taxi to the "bus station" where we proceeded to barter with the "bus station attendant" for a fair price of 3000 CFA or $6.00/person for the 4 hour ride to N'digbe. You can pretty much barter on prices for anything here.

THEN, we got inside the "bus" which was basically a narrow 8-person van with 14 people smushed inside. This was bound to be the least comfortable road trip of my life.. yes, I think it was. I was practically sitting on the lap of a random Togolese man the entire way... oh man. But I am proud to say- I survived this part of the journey.

When we were nearing N'digbe, after a long, sweaty, smelly ride with many stops to buy plantains and water off the side of the road, we met a guy named Raw, who spoke a very small amount of English. He ended up inviting us to stay overnight at his place in a different village if we couldn't figure out a place to stay, but we turned down the offer, as we were on a mission to paraglide... An African inviting you over within the first minutes of conversation is not an odd thing though. In the states, if a random guy in a bus invited me to stay at his house overnight, I would be weirded out, but here it's really normal. The Togolese are extremely hospitable and this sort of thing has happened to me on several occasions here.

Anyways, Raw decided to take his day off and help us find the place that we were supposed to stay at in N'digbe anyways. We were a little skeptical of his motives, but he ended being a nice guy and got us safely to the Inn.

Raw

So.. we found N'digbe! It took forever though. We were definitely on African time.

N'digbe basically has two small streets that cross. In the middle of it is a well, there are goats and chickens running around everywhere, no electricity, no plumbing, etc.

Random Texaco in the middle of the smallest most remote village.. this seemed out of context

The town's church

We stayed at this small Inn owned by a woman named Paulene. Hilary and I shared a room.

We road zimmijons (motor bikes) around the area...

Saturday night, we had a giant African feast by candlelight in town. We had met up with some other friends from Mercy Ships and with the people that were running the paragliding- this French couple who come to N'digbe every year for 4 months at a time to teach and take people paragliding. The meal was fantastic and I ate a really common Africa dish called "fufu" (pronounced foo foo) which is a mashed-up type of root and yam, made in to a mushy ball and you dip it in some sort of broth/meat sauce. Sounds gross, and a lot of westernized people hate it, but I kind of liked it.. I mean, it is called "fufu".

A plate of fufu accompanied with peanut soup

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fufu

Annnd we woke up on Sunday morning, waited around for a couple hours to be picked up from the inn by the french couple (they were running on African time). They finally came and took us to go paragliding!!

This is Sondre getting ready to take off..

I'm pretty sure this is me

In the air!

I think this is me too

Annnd, there was this clan of ridiculously cute children in the village who followed Hilary and I around chanting "Yovo! Yovo! Yovo!", which is the West African way of saying white person. And then they came and pinched our hands and sat on our laps.

Love,

Caitlin

Easter and a familiar place.

It seems like there’s always a shift from foreign to comfortable that happens when you live somewhere for an extended period of time. The shift may happen overnight or it may take months or even years for a new place to start feeling more like a home, depending where you are. Here, on the ship and in Africa, it’s hard to completely reach a full shift from foreign to home because people are constantly coming and going (and the people are so often what make up a home), but in spite of this fact of Mercy Ship life, recently, I have begun to sense a bit of that shift to feeling like this place is more familiar than unfamiliar.

Last weekend was definitely one of several small catalysts for this changed perception. Easter was a beautiful day even though I was full of doubts as my family back home celebrated their usual traditions (including throwing eggs at a tree off my and aunt and uncle’s deck- weird family, I know:) Anyways, I anticipated a difficult time, spending Easter here on the ship and in Africa apart from my familiar settings at home. I was proven wrong, however, and my weekend was really a comforting and joyful time.

Easter morning began with a sunrise service on the top deck of the ship. Miraculously, a couple roommates and I managed to get out of bed at 5:30am. We sang worship songs while looking out on to the Atlantic Ocean. Afterward, I went on a really nice morning walk on the dock (I love walks), and after that we had and 8am service in our community area (the International Lounge) where everyone dressed up and we had communion and this congressman from Texas who was visiting gave a great message.

At 10am we were surprised with a huge brunch that was put on by the galley and dinning room crew. Some of them had stayed up until late hours just to prepare this for us. We had tons of fruit, eggs benedict, hashbrowns, sausage, French toast, etc, etc. It was such a blessing to be served in this way!

There was this massive fish that they were cutting up and serving and my roommate stephanie had to pull one of it's big teeth out the night before. grosss.

Little lamb cake

This was the fruit and bread table they had out for us.

Then, the highlight of my day. My roommate/friend Lyndsay and I decided we were going to go for a walk- potentially to the beach and or the craft market. Lyndsay is one of those people who is incredibly flexible and if plans change, she is eager to discover a new adventure. I love this about her and I also am very laid back about plans (in Africa, it seems like almost everyone is laid back about plans, time, etc). Love that. But anyways, Lyndsay and I ended up spontaneously going to the hospitality center which is a site off the ship ship where patients go for longer recovery after they have received surgery on the ship.

We spent the afternoon/evening playing with the kids at the Hospitality Center. It was awesome! And, luckily, I had brought my camera along and the kids were thrilled about that. One kid took my camera inside an older patient's room and took a picture of him in bed.. he looked really confused. They took probably about a billion pictures collectively. We played games and sang. It was just a really great way to spend my Easter Sunday here.

Wild kids :)

After our time at with the kiddos at the hospitality center, Lyndsay and I took Zimmy’s (these sweet motorcycle taxi’s) back to the ship. I'll have to post pictures of those later.

Yea, Easter was a great day here.

Love,

Caitlin

Expectations..

Sitting here at my laptop in my 10 berth cabin. I have been trying to get to a computer to blog for the past hour.. went to the internet cafe, just couldn't write with 20 people sitting within a 6 foot radius of me. Came in to my cabin, found some solace for about 6 minutes before my bunkmate comes in the door and starts chatting me up (by the way, I love my bunkmate, Rachael :)). So here I am, crammed in the back of the cabin, after telling the girls in my room that "i neeed to blog". Space.

It is difficult to find space to write here. But today, I felt compelled to write in my blog and so here I am.

I haven't been blogging much, and finding the space is one of the reasons why, but there is another reason that I want to write about that has held me back from writing a lot here.

Expectations.

Before I left for my adventure here on the Africa Mercy I told myself "Ok, you are not going to have any expectations for what you are going to experience over the next 6 and 1/2 months". And truly, I thought that I had none. People asked me "Are you excited for your trip?" and I would say "yea, but I am also not sure what to expect".. which I though was pretty much true. Friends and family members said things like "your life is going to be changed, you are going to see amazing things that you won't forget"..

Expectations.

It's easy to think that when you start something new, your life will be completely changed. I mean, you think that if you start a new job, move to a new city, go to Africa for half of a year, you can somehow escape what you are struggling with at home. That's not to say that the reason I came to Mercy Ships was to run away from struggles. My intent for being on the Africa Mercy is rooted (I pray) in a desire to serve God with an openness to being changed, but what that looks like here is different from what I maybe subconciously thought.

I definitely don't want to downplay my experience here. I cannot deny that being in Lome, Togo is certainly different from anything else I will ever do in my life. The Togolese people are beautiful, the mission of the Africa Mercy is beautiful, the opportunity to serve through this organization is truly a blessing, and getting to live on a ship in a close (sometimes what feels like too close) community for 6.5 months.. well that's cool.

But I also want to say that, here on the Africa Mercy, life still happens. There are tasks that at times become monotonous, there are things that I have to do in my job that I am not always particularly excited about, I still have to do my own laundry (weird, i know), clean the bathroom, yes, even buy toilet paper. As a hospitality hostess, your job is to serve the people who directly serve the African people, so it's sometimes harder to see the impact that your work has. This is humbling in many ways. I am often working to see God in the small things of my day, some days with what feels like little success, but every once in awhile the sun breaks through and I am reminded of why I am here.

"We can not to great things, we can only do small things with great love"

This is a quote from Mother Teresa that I have liked for a few years now (I saw it on someone's facebook and stole it for my own). I need constant reminder of this, especially while I am here serving in Togo. I know that I will get to do and see things that I wouldn't otherwise get to at home, but I also know that there will be many times when I will be struggling to see the bigger purpose in being here. I want to know what it truly means to serve without expectation, but with a hope of something being done that is bigger than what I can conceive in the moment.

Anyways, I have actually been trying to get this posted for a couple days now (with a lot of interruptions haha). But now my roommates are coercing me to walk to the beach (I actually have yet to walk to the beach nearby because its supposedly really dangerous at night and I haven't had time to go during the day). I plan to post some more specific updates when I get the chance and thank you to those who are following for bearing with my slowness and thanks for reading my honest post.

Off to the beach!

Love,

Caitlin

Togo!!

Hey Ya'll!

It's been a busy week in hospitality, hence my lack of blogging. Since we arrived in Togo 1 and 1/2 weeks ago, there have been new arrivals coming non-stop, and hospitality (the department I'm in) is in charge of welcoming and preparing rooms for new arrivals. It's really fun to watch the ship fill up with new people. We just got a new roommate last night. She's from North Carolina and her name's Stephanie and she and I bonded about how we have both been to Malibu, the Young Life camp :).

We are in Togo! And the city is so interesting. Women carrying bowls of fruit on their head and baby's on their hips, African men ask you to marry them on the street and people drive crazy here! It's also ridiculously hot and humid here. You go outside for 5 minutes and you are drenched in sweat.

There is a small market near our ship and here are some photo's I took when we were out the other night-

My photo's uploaded backwards- but here is the sunset near the market

Me and some of my roomies at the market

People carry stuff on their heads everywhere!

And babies on their backs. African babies are cute.

Mom, I took this chicken picture for you- there are chickens everywhere here and they are really really scrawny

The Togolese drive these little bikes called zemidjans (pronounced "zimmijon") everywhere and they are crazy drivers!

More to come soon (ish)!

Love,

Caitlin

Getting to Togo.. slowly but surely!

Hello blog readers!

Today we are still at sea. We have about four more days until we arrive in Togo and I am very ready to be there! Initially the sail was really rocky, almost to the point where it was just funny. I was on the internet a couple nights ago, facebook chatting with a friend, whilst my computer keyboard and the chair I was sitting on swayed back and forth.. haha.

Well, now things are much calmer and the sail is actually quite peaceful. The work load for hospitality (which is the department I work in) is really light during the sail, so I've had a lot of relaxation time, spending time with friends, reading, getting to know the ship better, etc. When we get to Togo the work load is supposed to really pick up, which I am excited and also nervous for!

Here are some pictures that I've taken over the past week and a half: Beginning with the airplane flight to Tenerife:

On the dock in Tenerife- The Africa Mercy behind me: Here is the town, Santa Cruz, it was about a 20 minute walk from the ship in Tenerife and we had to walk about a mile down the shipping dock to get there: Some friends and I went to a city up further in the hills of Tenerife called La Laguna: Leaving Tenerife for the big sail: Some pictures of the beautiful atlantic: Me and two other girls in hospitality made cards for random people on the ship and we delivered them with bags on our heads to be "anonymous" Here are some of my roommates about to watch a movie- my bed is the top bunk: Ok, well that's enough for now! Hope to keep you posted more often! Love, Caitlin