Everyday we go outside on the deck with the patients who are able in order for them to get some sun and run around.  A lot of times someone will play the guitar for a little bit of entertainment.

This young girl is definitely one of the most inspiring people I've ever met.  She is soo friendly and fearless and is always smiling.  She fell in a fire when she was very young and had severe burns.  Mercy Ships did surgery on her a couple years ago and now she's back for more surgeries.

A Walk To Beautiful

Next month we start taking VVF patients.  This population of women are our modern day lepers.  They are treated as being cursed and a lot of times are for the most part shunned by society and many times are shunned by even their own family.  VVF stands for vesicovaginal fistula and this condition is a lot of times caused by poor obstetric care and early marriage in women.  Many of these women needed to get a cesarean surgery but instead went into labor for days and many times sadly lost their babies.  VVF is very preventable and treatable if help is there.  Many of these women are forced into marriage when they are very young, sometimes as young as 10 or 11.

We watched the documentary called A Walk to Beautiful to give us more insight on these patients we'll be getting next month to know where they're coming from.  This documentary was on Ethiopian women who went to a clinic in Addis Abba which is ironically where our flight originally got re-routed to on our way to Togo.  I remember getting on the plane and we had to ask what country we were going to because we had never heard of Addis Abba.  Mercy Ships also has a VVF clinic on land in Sierre Leon that we were told about.  Sierre Leon's main language is creole which is broken English.

http://fistulafoundation.org/

~~25th Birthday~~

Yesterday on my 25th birthday was spent eating a lot of cookies and brownies that were made by some of the other nurses.  Several of the other nurses and crewmates got together in the Queen's Lounge to watch one of my all time favorite movies Signs.  For some reason watching it this time was a lot more intense and scarier than previous times seeing it probably b/c of the swaying back and forth of the ship and the creepy small windows that people frequently poke their head against to peer into to see whats going on.  My new bunkmate Jill from Indianapolis and other close friend Susanne from Canada wrote me cards and organized everyone to help come celebrate.  They had also made a sign on the door to my cabin that was elaborately decorated w/ balloons and their bubble lettered artwork.  My previous bunkmate Summer had bought brownie mix supplies for the party before her departure a couple days ago and had written me a card for my birthday in advance.  
The departure of several of the crewmates a couple days ago was one of those times that were tough due to the fact that you grow close to and comfortable with the people that you first met on the ship or randomly in the airport in Washington D.C. waiting for our planes, and thats planes plural, to be fixed.  We also spent hours, and thats hours running around Brussels airport trying to get Summers flight changed so she wouldn't have to sleep in a random African country, Dakar, by herself.  (and actually secretly purposefully missed her connecting flight:) You bond with the people you started out with so it is very tough to see them leave.  However, we do plan on hanging out again and running a marathon or half-marathon somewhere in the U.S. and inviting each other to each other's weddings one day.
Its also going to be extremely tough next month with another wave of the people I started out with start leaving.  However, we all do plan on staying in touch and so I thank Mark Zuckerberg for inventing facebook.
Another nurse talked me into going to the special needs school as something fun to do on the morning of my birthday before work.  I was kind of hesitant b/c I really just wanted to sleep in, but I am really glad I was able to go.  The school is connected to the kindergarden so when we first walked into the playground about 20 kindergardeners greeted us and wanted us to pick them up to hold them.
We then went into the special needs school which had music blaring in French that they were all dancing to.  These kids have the most fun.  They seem so happy and full of joy and they really seem to just be living in the moment.  One of our crew members then spoke about gentleness and did an activity that included an egg.  The rest of the morning we spent coloring, play musical chairs, and getting my hair braided and combed with a plastic toy.
We plan on celebrated Part II of my birthday tonight w/ my other friend Erica from Canada who is turning 25 on the 25th of March.  We plan on playing ultimate frisbee and then going out to dinner.  Half of the adventure is finding the restaurant by bartering with the taxi drivers and then trying to give them directions in French or through gestures since most of us don't know French.

Mercy Ships Post Operation

Mercy Ships photo, a photo by lgangstad4691 on Flickr.

Mercy Ships photo from the 2012 Togo Field Service. Credit: "© Jacques-Jean Tiziou / www.jjtiziou.net for Mercy Ships"

Mercy Ships photo

Mercy Ships photo, a photo by lgangstad4691 on Flickr.

Mercy Ships photo from the 2012 Togo Field Service. Credit: "© Jacques-Jean Tiziou / www.jjtiziou.net for Mercy Ships"

Mercy Ships photo

Mercy Ships photo, a photo by lgangstad4691 on Flickr.

Mercy Ships photo from the 2012 Togo Field Service. Credit: "© Jacques-Jean Tiziou / www.jjtiziou.net for Mercy Ships"

 At the market, these dough balls basically taste like doughnuts and are   reeeally cheap to buy, but probably fattening, costing about 10 cents in american money.

                                      Video of the marketplace on market day in Togoville.

                                               On our way to Togoville crossing the Lake.