Deck 1!

So the ship that i live on has 8 decks, now on a normal day i would visit between 3 and 5 decks, maybe upto 6 or even 7 if alot was going on, but never 8, in fact until about 2 weeks ago i had never in fact ever been on all of the 8 decks ...

That all changed 2 weeks ago!

But first lets have a little "low down" on the decks so anyone that reads this gets a little more of an idea of where im living!

So ...

Deck 1 - Will come in the story!

Deck 2 - Now there is an old school type gym down on deck 2, but i have to admit i would be more on deck 2 for work purposes, this is where we have 4 huge freezers, 1 hugs fridge and 2 dry storage rooms.

Deck 3 - Would be hospital land! So if i ever have to go down there, for numbers of reasons! also a few friends rooms are on deck 3

Deck 4- Would be where i live! just alot of cabins really!

Deck 5 - Would be the dinning room, the cafe, offices and some more cabins

Deck 6 - Would be where i work, also midships (the place to hang out) and also my sister and her family's cabin

Deck 7 - Is a place for the kids to play outside so end up there with my nephews sometimes, also a few rooms to watch dvd's in

Deck 8 - Is outside! so also a place to take kids to, but also a nice play to get away and get some reading done!

So anyways ... Deck 1 ... so not really sure what exactly is there, but its engine room, and stuff like that, and well your not allowed to go there ...

So being on the emergency medical team skips this rule :) So we got the call that on the fire drill 2 weeks ago there were 2 victims, and we had to go and get one of them, and was showed down some stairs, carrying our stretcher ... and it then hit me, as i saw the sign ... "DECK 1" ... WHOOOO i had finally done it! Deck 1! So it was a nightmare carrying a man on a stretcher from deck 1 to deck 3 up some pretty tight staircases, but very worth it!

This is a little pic of another one of my fire drills from last week ...

Porto Novo

So this weekend not only brought the start of the football season but a trip to the captain of Benin, Porto Novo!

So 4 teachers, 2 nurses, 1 pharmacist, 1 photographer and myself set off on the hour journey with the biggest stretch of roundabouts in Benin! (that is not a true fact, it just felt like there were alot of roundabouts!)

(L to R - Back Teacher, Nurse, Me, Teacher, Teacher)
(L to R - Front Nurse, Teacher, Pharmacist)

Our main aim was to feed the monkeys ... now i think we soon all discovered that we didn't really even know what this actually meant, or even what kind of monkeys they were, but the people that had been before us had enjoyed it enough to convince us to go, so gone we had!

Now what else that day had in store was left up to impulse!

Firstly we decided that it would be best to go to the market to get some bananas for the monkeys, which i have to admit was a very clever plan, and after negotiating though the small walkways we made it out the other side and was very much on our way to the monkeys.

Now there was one slight problem ... we didn't actually at any point while in the market stop to get any bananas ... so the 2 i had brought with me was just going to have to do ...



So the monkeys seemed rather interested in us as did we with them so it all seemed nice enough, well until one of them told a little pee on PJ :) But we still gave them our only 2 bananas and that was about that

Well there was a little time for us to do some monkey impressions ourselves ... here be cabin 4336 and myself up a tree :)


So we just took in a little more of Porto Novo after our monkey time, a few of the group went in a local museum (which by the sounds of it was pretty shocking!) and then it was time to come back to the ship in time for me to catch the 5pm showing of Wolves V West Ham :)

Bonfire on the beach ...

Yup that's right ... about 8 mercy ships car loads of people (that's about 70 people) took to the local beach ... strangely named "Obama beach" and well after a little beach volleyball action we had a rather lovely bonfire on the beach ... using only the best wood ... ok it was part of a boat they had pulled out of the ocean but when your in Africa you just have to work with what you have :)

Knee pain ...

So we are very lucky to have the access of the local police academy to use for sporting things throught the week ... its a sand football pitch, however there is sand that is hard and compact within cm's of sand that is beach like! So running on it is quiet a challenge ... and kicking a football is something else completely!

So i somehow managed while running through a beach like patch of sand to go over on my ankle and scrape all the skin off my other knee when landing on some rock hard sand!

This i thought was bad enough, however returning to the same venue to play frisbee on friday with a plaster like thing on ... well within 30 seconds i was high in the air and suddenly brought straight to the earth! and yes of course i landed straight on my knee ... and oh did i scream!!!

So with the other 33 players all gathering round i think there was a fair bit of concern ... the plaster strangely looked like it was my skin hanging off! Thankfully it was alot of instant pain and the pain was alot less soon enough! So playing with a whole host of medical people is always handy and after getting a proper bandage i was able to return ...

And this isnt even the most significant thing that happened this friday frisbee ... We were being filmed by a proper TV film crew!!!

They are on the ship currently filming something for norwiegen tv featuring a child that is on the ship, and well came to frisbee!