Neuf

Greetings from Guinea!

I write to you from my new home (at least for the next ten months), Conakry, Guinea. No, not Papua New Guinea, nor Equatorial Guinea, it's not Guinea-Bissau - just plain old Guinea. And you know what? Guinea is pretty great. Ok, it's maybe not a tourist destination, per se. The travel blog giant, Lonely Planet, describes Conakry as follows: 

"Conakry doesn't try to please its guests, and yet, slowly, many are eventually won over by its charms. There aren't many sights in this dusty (and/or muddy, depending on time of year) mess of crumbling buildings, pollution, rubbish and traffic jams, but there is plenty of buzz. From the pungent fishing port of Boulbinet and the street kitchens of Coronthie to the containers-turned-shops of Taouyah, this city goes about its business noisily and with ingenuity, proud and unruffled by the visitor's gaze." 

A rooftop view of Conakry

Well, Lonely Planet couldn't have been more accurate. Conakry certainly is charming - despite the poverty, pollution, and heinous traffic (and by heinous I mean soul-crushingly bad). I think that charm is almost entirely due to its inhabitants. The Guineans are lovely people and I can already tell it's going to be a joy and an honor to attempt to serve them this year. 

Work has been busy pretty much from the moment I arrived on the ship, starting with our pre-screening, or our mass screening of patients. This is something that didn't take place last year in Cameroon for a variety of reasons, of which I won't bore you - just know that it was my first time witnessing anything like it. Mercy Ships has conducted these mass screenings before, however. Actually, Mercy Ships has conducted mass screenings here in Guinea before, the last one in 2012. This is actually the fifth time Mercy Ships has visited Conakry, so the organization is pretty well established here - but back to the mass screening. The idea is this; put the word out through posters, radio, and television announcements that Mercy Ships is in town and looking for eligible surgical patients, a 'Come one, come all!' kind of a thing. So, on Monday Aug, 20 around 6,000 Guineans show up to be seen by Mercy Ships' volunteer screening nurses. 

It was nuts. 

It reminded me of going to a music festival where thousands of fans rush the stage, except instead of passionate fans, there were thousands of crippled, blind, sick, and deformed people, most of whom were desperate for medical help. The thing about massive crowds of people is that they can be pretty dangerous - when the massive crowds are comprised of utterly desperate people they can be downright deadly and we certainly had some scary moments. I remember at one point during the day dropping my camera and running toward a crowd of screaming people once I saw limp bodies being pulled out of the chaos. It was really scary, I thought some of these people were dead. Hats off to our security team and the emergency medical team for acting quickly and decisively to avoid that possibility. There were a few people sent to the local hospital but we got word back that everyone was ok. 

Here's a link to a brief video overview of that day: Patient Evaluation Video 

Over one thousand people were given slots for additional evaluation toward surgery so the day was certainly a big one for the organization. Please be praying for the thousands of people our screening nurses had to say 'no' to. I know it was really hard on them. 

On another note..

Most of you may already know this but I got engaged to the lovely Rose Talbot over the summer. She's been a consistent source of love, encouragement, and laughs over the last year and I thought it would be wise to ask her to make this thing official:) Rose and I work together on the communications team here on the ship. It didn't take us very long to move from co-workers to love-birds last year and now we're planning a wedding! From Conakry! On the other side of the world from where we'll be having said wedding! It'll be a challenge - but one we're both very excited to be undertaking.

Rose and I are both volunteers with the organization (like everybody else on the ship) and two straight years without a salary is tricky enough without a wedding to plan so needless to say, we really appreciate the financial support we've received to be able to continue this work.

I could also use a bit more support to take care of some ongoing bills so if you have any interest in partnering with me in this way, please visit my Donor Page

Thanks so much!

Caleb