When you live on the Africa Mercy...

This is just a little bit of the nonmedical side of my life here. Sorry no photos this time. I will get some for the next blog.

You ascend and descend hundreds of stairs in a day between going from the hospital on deck 3 to the warehouse on the dock.

You have 10 -12 roommates in 4 months.

You are able to enjoy several different and common tropical fruits...lychee, pineapple, two different types of mangos, jack fruit, passion fruit, corasol/soursup, star fruit, bananas are the ones most recently.

You can have supper with a surgeon, nurse, pharmacist, and engineer

You can sit down for supper around 5:15 at an empty table and not leave until after 6:30 as different "shifts" of people come sit and eat.

You look forward two minute showers at the end of a sweaty day at work or of fun.

You are reminded frequently to pour the toilet juice in the toilet twice a week to help keep the pipes flowing and system working well

You are not surprised to hear of another water pipe bursting somewhere on the ship

You look forward to Mondays and Wednesday nights to go the the "Boutique" This is a thrift store of sorts that crew leave things and other crew get them for free.

You look forward to Thursday nights for the ice cream after community meetings

You enjoy getting a book from the library and reading it in midships.

You have 6 or more people crammed into a little bay in the cabin to watch a movie on the laptop

You learn about different cultures, diets, holidays, words for all the crew

If you forget something in your "house" you can go home to get it in less than a 3 minutes anywhere on the ship.

You plan a weekend getaway on Wednesday for the coming Saturday.

This is just a little bit of the nonmedical side of my life here.