As many of you may know, I had the greatest privilege to volunteer with Mercy Ships in Dakar, Senegal for 8 weeks in 2022. For those of you who aren’t familiar with Mercy Ships, it is a non profit organisation that deploys state of the art hospital ships to some of the world’s poorest nations, delivering free surgeries to qualifying patients. The people in these countries have minimal or no access to timely, safe, and affordable surgery. In addition to providing these surgeries, Mercy Ships works alongside the host nation and equips them with the training, tools, and infrastructure needed to enable them to care for their own once the ship leavesTheir work really goes beyond healing and comforting the sick, It provides a sense of hope.
In African nations specifically, children and adults live with conditions that if left untreated, can be fatal. Living in a nation such as NZ, if you for example badly broke a limb, developed a cancerous tumour or if a women had a challenging time giving birth, would be eligible for free and timely surgery through our public health system. The consequences of not having surgery in circumstances such as these can be catastrophic or even fatal. With only two doctors per 10,000 people in African countries, even basic healthcare is out of reach.
An estimated 70% of African adults live on less than $2 each per day to meet all their needs; Therefore affordability for surgery is also a significant factor. Thanks to Mercy Ships, over the last 40 years, volunteer medical teams from all over the world have removed tumours, given sight to the blind, corrected cleft lips and pallates, treated severe burns, straightened crooked limbs, and that is to only name a few. Over 105,000 free surgical procedures have been performed.
Volunteers range from doctors, nurses, engineers, deck hands, teachers, housekeepers and the list goes on! It is truly incredible to witness a community of diverse people working toward the same goal.
The Africa mercy Ship that I volunteered on is similar in size to the interislander ferry, 7 stories high and the length of 2 football fields. It has beds for 480 people, including 25 family cabins. The Africa Mercy was based on was in the city of Dakar, in Senegal, in West Africa. The ship spends 10 months of the year docked in the port of countries before spending the remaining two months in Tenerife for repairs and maintenance and planning for next field services. I was there for just over two months in June and July of this year.
My role on the ship was working as a nurse in the Paediatric (childrens) ward- this including orthopaedic, plastics reconstructive and general surgeries. I cared for patients in the hospital after they had received these surgeries until they were well and stable enough to be discharged to the ‘Hope Center’- a rehabilitation centre in Dakar for the patients. We worked a rotating roster- morning, afternoon and night shifts to provide 24 hour care.
The Mercy Ships mission statement is to bring hope and healing to the world’s forgotten poor. Hope is truly palpable in every interaction I had with the patients onboard. One of the Ships long time volunteer surgeons, Dr. Gary, I think says it best: “For hope to be credible (believable) in the future, it must be tangible (experienced) in the present.” It is hard to articulate what a beautiful and life giving experience it was to have a front row seat to so many lives being transformed! It was the biggest privilege to play a small role in loving the patients, and ensuring they know they are not forgotten and are worthy of a life filled with joy, respect, and hope. During my time on the ship I not only saw countless physical transformations, but I also witnessed emotional and spiritual transformations in patients who had previously been shunned from their communities due to their medical issues. I was able to witness them experience an environment where they were celebrated and cared for.
The first few weeks onboard the Mercy Ship passed so quickly. Just as in any unfamiliar environment, it took time to get oriented. It took time to navigate the ship, to commit mealtimes to memory, and to figure out the ins and outs of “ship life”. It took time to figure out how to be a nurse in a different country, how to effectively work alongside our local crew to translate to their local language, also how to communicate love across the language barrier. It took time to settle into any sort of a routine and to choose the activities in which I should invest my time. Hardest of all it took time to find quiet spaces on the ship. During all of this, new friendships were built and I am so thankful for the amazing group of nurses I got to meet from all over the world.
One of the very first things I noticed of the Senegalese was their joy in suffering. “Life is hard” was a statement that I had heard many times throughout my first few weeks, but what really stood out to me was that I would have never known that had I not inquired.
I will never forget the patient’s smile that I saw on my very first day in the ward. It was radiant. In the weeks to follow that day, I had the opportunity to hear more of this patient’s story. She hadn’t left her house in years due to being shamed from society. She had been deeply wounded by those once closest to her. And she had lost hope that she could ever be physically healed. Yet her smile glowed. Even more than that, she encountered post-surgical complications on our ward. However her smile remained and her laughter filled the room. She will never know how much I learned from her, nor will many of the other patients through whom I witnessed joy in suffering, but each and every one of them has surely left a mark on my journey.
As appealing as my adventures in Senegal looked from my posts on social media on my days spent off the ship, I was constantly reminded of how fortunate we are at home through seeing how little these people do have. The true joy and generosity I saw in these patients, both before and after their surgeries despite not having much was the most impacting of all. At every mealtime, they would call me over to share their meal with them, constantly making sure I had been fed. During a ward gathering, one of our patient’s parents raised his hand to speak. Though I do not remember every word that he said, I vividly recall this statement; “It took a lot to come here. We left our home. I quit my job. We left everything to come here hoping that we could get help.” Moments later, another woman chimed in. “I did not know what to expect in coming. I heard about the ship and I came in hopes of receiving medical help, but this ship has met all my needs. They have provided food, a place to sleep, and this medical care. Everything I needed has been provided.”
Precious moments. Precious moments. Precious moments. These two words echoed in my mind so frequently throughout my time on the ship. Each day passed by in the blink of an eye and the next seemed to come and go more quickly than the last. With a clear departure date drawing nearer and nearer, my hope is that time could slow down and even that it would just stop altogether, allowing me to live in certain moments for just a little longer. I just wanted to soak up every moment I have with these beautiful patients.
A few more moments of holding onto the little girl who fell asleep in my arms.
A few more moments making friendship bracelets and playing countless games of Uno with patients before settling off to bed each night
A few more moments of listening to the contagious giggles of a particular little patient.
A few more moments of chasing a soccer ball down the corridor.
A few more moments of an evening shift hallway dance party.
A few more moments watching the rising and the setting of the sun on the ship.
A few more moments in the joy and laughter of community created by our Senegalese crew.
A few more moments gathered around the local dish “ce bon” on the beach
A few more moments spent with many who were strangers to me just 4 weeks ago, and are now incredible friends.
Just a few more moments.
I was reminded by these words that I can be still and simply soak in my surroundings. It is in those moments that I can step back, record the details, and be thankful for being placed in that space in time.
Amidst the many adventures that I had been led on, the 2 months spent on the ship was undoubtedly the most difficult to articulate. Friends ask me to summarise my time in Senegal in one sentence. As you can imagine, that proved to be quite difficult and even the best sentence failed to snap a picture of the moments I had experienced while on the ship. Not being one to create a set of expectations before heading into a new adventure and instead going in with a completely open mind, I did however know that I was going to learn a lot through this experience. I had been warned that I would come back as a completely different person, but I didn’t realise how much I needed to learn about myself and my worldly perspective.
Throughout my time in Senegal, I was shown what it looks like to be joyful in suffering, to be content in today, to forgive even in the most difficult of circumstances, to give out of a need rather than from an abundance, and to love one another without conditions.
I feel so proud of what I have done and since leaving the ship have constantly reflected on the moments I spent with patients- the ortho kiddies walking down the corridor with their frames and straight legs, the overjoyed and thankful fathers seeing their hernia surgery sites for the first time- all full of smiles! They are full of appreciation for the work we were doing. For those of you who don’t know me, I’m usually not the most expressive with my emotions and tend to demonstrate a very calm manner but there were multiple times where I got overwhelmed with emotions and wanted to burst into tears.
I missed my home comforts. Having my own space, wearing the clothes I wanted to wear due to the country being very conservative, my car, friends, family, own food. One thing I struggled with the most was losing my sense of independence and having to rely on others to do simple things like walk to the grocery store or go for a run around the streets due to the safety aspect and crime rates in Dakar. Little things we really take for granted here. Despite all this I reminded myself of how grateful we are to live in such a free country, feel safe and secure feel entitled and enjoy the niceties of life. Returning home from Africa I experienced a perspective shift, and felt a real sense of privilege for the life we have back here.
Before I left for Senegal, I felt a sense of burn out, purely from the constant demands and pressures I felt within the nursing environment at home- I questioned myself several times if I wanted to continue my nursing career. But Mercy Ships has renewed my love and passion for nursing. It has truely reminded me why I became a nurse. Needless to say I have fallen in love with the mission of this organisation and what Mercy Ships do, and I just know that one day I will definitely return!
