After one full day here in Sierra Leone, I am . . . amazed. Seriously - in the Caribbean there were so many breathtaking beaches/waterfalls/forests/flowers/natural phenomenons, but here the beauty is in the people. I never expected to ever go to Africa and I never understood what caused people to love it so much - I mean, dirt and poverty aren't so exciting, are they? But - I've heard people say it before and never understood - the people are so beautiful.
During the whole voyage we had training from a South African couple, and one thing I noticed that he said frequently, when he was trying to emphasize a point, was, "Do you hear me?" or "I hope you're hearing me." In other words, "I hope my words are doing more than existing - I hope they are really penetrating your heart and mind. I hope you hear me."
Similarly, people want to be seen - their existence confirmed, their humanity and worth acknowledged. That's something missing in many western cultures - certainly in my own. I know - I've waitressed for four years - how easy it can be to look at a person, to speak to them and interact with them and even serve them, without ever seeing them.
After supper tonight my ship family went for a walk to get into town a little bit - but we got no more than a quarter of a mile past the ship, because first one, then another of us would hang back talking to someone and the whole group would have to wait. :-) Always people were trying to get our attention in various ways, and the kids! My ship sister, Miriam, started talking to one of them when we left the ship, and by the time we had walked down the street and back, there were at least 25 of them walking with us. They wanted to talk to us, meet us, hear our names and tell us theirs, hold our hands - when we ran out of hands, they'd hold our arms, my skirt, whatever they could just to be close.
If I was sitting at home hearing someone else tell about a similar experience, I would nod and smile and think I understood because I had heard things like it before. And I would have been (and have been for many years) completely missing the point. Because it's not just about a nice "missionary" story, it's about real people, created by God, who look in your face and ask you to see them.
Water, water, everywhere . . .
I don't think as quickly as I used to. I used to have all kinds of ideas flowing in and out of me so quickly, but now the deluge has been reduced to a trickle. Mostly I'm more interested these days in what I am doing, rather than what I am thinking, and I'm pretty sure that's good. I'm pretty sure that for me, it is progress in a good direction. I'm studying in James, where in the first chapter he emphasizes the importance of not just hearing truth, but actually applying it practically and living accordingly. It's important, yo.
Anyway, I thought it might be interesting to provide a description of our Atlantic crossing – maybe it's interesting. :-) We left from Dominica after some major complications regarding a tax that Customs threw at us at the last minute – basically they were just trying to gouge us, but they were insistent and we couldn't leave until we had reached a conclusion and been cleared. We had planned to leave mid-afternoon, but instead there was a high-drama meeting on board that lasted all night. Finally at almost midnight, they reached some sort of a temporary consensus and I watched on the webcams from my bed as they left the ship and we were finally able to leave.
We have had wonderful weather for the most part – so many people have been praying and I am so thankful to them and to God, because bad weather in the middle of the Atlantic would really have been traumatic for me, I think. We have also been generally spared from seasickness, which is fantastic. My friend Elly, who usually gets really sick, bade us “goodbye” the day we left – not expecting to see much of us for the duration of the sail, since she usually just spends sails curled up in her room. But the next morning, and every morning since then, she's been up and around, feeling fine. Many other people are the same. Whether due to good medication, the ship's constant movement in Dominica which sort of prepped us for the sail, or sheer providence, I couldn't say, but it's definitely a blessing.
I've been working in the pantry, washing dishes. It's been great – it is overall so easy and we have fun. For me it doesn't even really feel like work because for me, work is equated with being in the book fair and dealing with lots of emotional stress – working with difficult people, etc. Hanging out in the pantry with happy people still feels kind of like vacation for me – it's such a nice break!!! Sometimes it turns into a complicated juggling act, though, thanks to the ship's rolling. I generally unload and sort the clean dishes, and it's entertaining. Today I was there by myself, so the big game was timing my steps in between the rolls. For example, do I have enough time to slide across the dish pit, put away this silverware tray, and hurry back in time to catch this tray of dishes before it goes careening backwards into the wrong side of the dishwasher??? Slippery floors + lots of wheels + constant tilting back and forth = a CHALLENGE. :-D
The stairs are another fun place to deal with the motion. In addition to walking into the walls and handrails, you also get to deal with significant changes in gravity depending on whether we are moving upward or downward. If you start when the ship is headed up, you just FLY up the stairs, no problem. But six seconds later, suddenly your feet turn into lead and the effort is just hardly worth it any more. Initially when walking around the ship I tried to act normal – walking in straight lines, not varying my speed, etc. But it's much easier actually when you just make friends with the movement and work with it. So when climbing the four flights of stairs up to the dining room (or the six to the top deck, or whatever), I usually RUN . . . and then stop. RUN . . . stop. I know I look like a weirdo, but it takes a lot less energy, which is a hot commodity when we are sailing and every normal daily function becomes more difficult.
A highlight for me was the night I had a Southern breakfast with the other U.S. Southerners on board – scrambled eggs, cheese grits, cornbread muffins, chocolate chip pancakes, hamburger steak (okay, leftover hamburgers from the night before), and sweet tea (its appropriateness for Southerners outweighed its inappropriateness for breakfast). :-D It had kind of an off-kilter feeling to it all, because of course it just wasn't the same as a big breakfast back home, but for the ship, where everything comes from the Netherlands, has to be gathered by creative means, and frequently requires substitutions for the key ingredients that we don't have, it was pretty impressive. Many people here hang out with people from their home country a lot – the Latinos have their preferred table in the dining room, as do the Asians, the Dutchies, the Russians, the Brits, etc. - but the Americans don't really hang out together. I don't know about others, but in the beginning I avoided being in a group of Americans because Americans already have their own stereotype and I didn't want to fuel it by becoming cliquish.
Other things I've done while sailing across the Atlantic Ocean:
- slept under the stars (didn't get much sleep, but it was still AWESOME)
- sewed a skirt - long enough that I can wear it in Muslim countries
- helped cook a Russian meal, and
- eaten raw fish – twice. (and NO, I didn't like it!)
Anyway, I thought it might be interesting to provide a description of our Atlantic crossing – maybe it's interesting. :-) We left from Dominica after some major complications regarding a tax that Customs threw at us at the last minute – basically they were just trying to gouge us, but they were insistent and we couldn't leave until we had reached a conclusion and been cleared. We had planned to leave mid-afternoon, but instead there was a high-drama meeting on board that lasted all night. Finally at almost midnight, they reached some sort of a temporary consensus and I watched on the webcams from my bed as they left the ship and we were finally able to leave.
We have had wonderful weather for the most part – so many people have been praying and I am so thankful to them and to God, because bad weather in the middle of the Atlantic would really have been traumatic for me, I think. We have also been generally spared from seasickness, which is fantastic. My friend Elly, who usually gets really sick, bade us “goodbye” the day we left – not expecting to see much of us for the duration of the sail, since she usually just spends sails curled up in her room. But the next morning, and every morning since then, she's been up and around, feeling fine. Many other people are the same. Whether due to good medication, the ship's constant movement in Dominica which sort of prepped us for the sail, or sheer providence, I couldn't say, but it's definitely a blessing.
I've been working in the pantry, washing dishes. It's been great – it is overall so easy and we have fun. For me it doesn't even really feel like work because for me, work is equated with being in the book fair and dealing with lots of emotional stress – working with difficult people, etc. Hanging out in the pantry with happy people still feels kind of like vacation for me – it's such a nice break!!! Sometimes it turns into a complicated juggling act, though, thanks to the ship's rolling. I generally unload and sort the clean dishes, and it's entertaining. Today I was there by myself, so the big game was timing my steps in between the rolls. For example, do I have enough time to slide across the dish pit, put away this silverware tray, and hurry back in time to catch this tray of dishes before it goes careening backwards into the wrong side of the dishwasher??? Slippery floors + lots of wheels + constant tilting back and forth = a CHALLENGE. :-D
The stairs are another fun place to deal with the motion. In addition to walking into the walls and handrails, you also get to deal with significant changes in gravity depending on whether we are moving upward or downward. If you start when the ship is headed up, you just FLY up the stairs, no problem. But six seconds later, suddenly your feet turn into lead and the effort is just hardly worth it any more. Initially when walking around the ship I tried to act normal – walking in straight lines, not varying my speed, etc. But it's much easier actually when you just make friends with the movement and work with it. So when climbing the four flights of stairs up to the dining room (or the six to the top deck, or whatever), I usually RUN . . . and then stop. RUN . . . stop. I know I look like a weirdo, but it takes a lot less energy, which is a hot commodity when we are sailing and every normal daily function becomes more difficult.
A highlight for me was the night I had a Southern breakfast with the other U.S. Southerners on board – scrambled eggs, cheese grits, cornbread muffins, chocolate chip pancakes, hamburger steak (okay, leftover hamburgers from the night before), and sweet tea (its appropriateness for Southerners outweighed its inappropriateness for breakfast). :-D It had kind of an off-kilter feeling to it all, because of course it just wasn't the same as a big breakfast back home, but for the ship, where everything comes from the Netherlands, has to be gathered by creative means, and frequently requires substitutions for the key ingredients that we don't have, it was pretty impressive. Many people here hang out with people from their home country a lot – the Latinos have their preferred table in the dining room, as do the Asians, the Dutchies, the Russians, the Brits, etc. - but the Americans don't really hang out together. I don't know about others, but in the beginning I avoided being in a group of Americans because Americans already have their own stereotype and I didn't want to fuel it by becoming cliquish.
Other things I've done while sailing across the Atlantic Ocean:
- slept under the stars (didn't get much sleep, but it was still AWESOME)
- sewed a skirt - long enough that I can wear it in Muslim countries
- helped cook a Russian meal, and
- eaten raw fish – twice. (and NO, I didn't like it!)
