I am an African vampire

Cool title, right? This entry is about last night, which I spent driving around looking for blood in Lome.

I was watching a movie with some friends last night at around 9pm. This is a pretty common thing. We all decide at dinner that we are too tired to do anything active and too 'missionary broke' to go out into town. Someone suggests a movie and we all jump on board. We overturn some tables in a conference room, gather our best pillows and blankets, and pack tightly together so we can all see the 15" laptop screen. We are still in selection phase when my pager goes off.

The number says '1700' and I start getting a little nervous because that's the extension for my boss's office. He's the hospital manager and he usual has far better things to do than page me on a Tuesday night. I tell my friends to shut up and pick up the nearest phone. My boss sounds a bit rushed as he says "I need a cooler to transport blood." When I inquire further he explains that we have a patient in surgery that has tumors all over her face. She has already used 13 units of blood and she's only half done.

I hang up the phone and walk briskly down to the hospital, which is only two decks down from the conference room/movie theater. I find a suitable cooler and pack it with ice, using a method taught to my by friend Tommy who used to be a professional blood cooler packer for the Red Cross. When it's all ready I swing by my boss's office and offer to go with him to help out. He gladly accepts. We grab a Togolese surgeon to show us the good spots to get the blood and we all hop in the car with me in the driver's seat. The surgeon directs me to where to go. The further we get from the ship, the more I'm feeling like a blood cell myself. I start at the heart and get pumped down roads, which at first are like wide well paved arteries, but gradually narrow like capillaries the further we go.

We turn around a corner in the middle of nowhere and the surgeon instructs me to pull over. I ask him where he means and he points to a small run down building with a 25 watt light out front. We jump out and wheel the cooler through the door and the surgeon has a brief dialog in the local tongue with a woman there. The only phrase I'm able to make out is 'B positive' and I realize that this is in fact a blood bank. 'B+' blood is a big problem on the ship. This is a common blood type in Africa, but unfortunately most of the crew is not from Africa and our 'A' blood doesn't do much good. The poor 40 or so crew members who are from West Africa get bled as often as is allowable. I'm told that the face is very vascular which means removal of tumors from it requires a lot of blood to be given. Our mission is to get as much 'B+' as we can.

The blood bank lady disappears for a moment and then produces a black trash bag. We look inside and find a single bag of cold red blood marked with a giant 'B+'. Success. However, one unit of blood isn't enough. We load the cooler up again and start off for some other destination that my Togolese friend has in mind. We drive over the worst roads I've ever been on. Far worse than mud ruts during a Vermont spring. We pass over the worst of it and the surgeon turns to me and tells me that I've become a real Togolese man now. Double success. We eventually get to an area that the surgeon finds familiar. We pull along side a random man and after a flurry of words I don't understand I'm told we have to turn around and go down an alley. This process is repeated three times before we arrive at a second blood bank.

This one is well lit and well kept. The attending blood banker invites us inside and we are made to sit on some chairs and wait. When the guard sees the sweat pouring down my head he smiles a bit mockingly and flips on a nearby fan. I utter 'merci' to the best of my ability and that same smile flashes again. After a long time, the blood banker reappears with a promising looking trash bag. We peer inside and discover 4 blood packs. We are thrilled. 5 units of 'B+' is a mighty haul. When we are all packed up, I drive back to the ship a little too quickly. The bumps are bad at slow speeds, but at fast speeds are quite painful and I think I may have lost my newly gained status.

I carry the cooler up the two flight gangway stairs onto the ship and then down two flights to the hospital, muttering about the inefficiency of all that. I bring it straight to the lab for testing before they send it coursing through the veins of the woman under the knife. They are 10 times more thrilled to see it than we were. The three lab techs had already worked a full day and they knew they would be in for a full night too. They used all five units that night and successfully removed the tumors from the left side of the woman's face. Surgery lasted until 2am. She is doing well and will recover for a while before they attempt the right side of her face.

I have never had a job more fulfilling than this one. Yes, I know that if I didn't answer the page last night my boss would have found a cooler and gotten the blood anyway, but that doesn't really matter. What matters is that I had some small part in the healing of a person. I witnessed the partial restoration of a human back to the way she was created to be. So thanks to all those who enable me to be here. And thanks to those who are here with me. And thanks to Jesus who loves Africa more than I could imagine.

Life in Lome

Living on a ship with 400 other people makes one crave solitude. I was jonesing for some real bad about a week ago.

I thought "Deck 8? Nah, there's always someone up there. The dock? Nah, people pass by there all the time. Town? Sounds great." So I grabbed my laptop and and a good book and begin walking through the port away from the ship. The Africa Mercy enjoys a private dock with gates and security guards. It hardly feels like a busy port in Africa. But after walking for two minutes you remember exactly where you are. People are everywhere. In the port it is all young men. They work 12+ hours a day unloading cargo ships. Well, in reality they are just in the port for 12 hours a day. Everything shuts down from 1-3pm for a siesta. It's too hot to work during those times.

Within 5 minutes of walking I escape the port. There is a fleet of Zemidjans (small motorcycle taxis) waiting for a fare. They all stare at me hopefully. Probably planning exactly how the haggling process will proceed. I approached one and manage to communicate my destination. The Boulevard. He instructs me to sit down, but I wasn't born yesterday. You have to decide the price before you get moving. I ask him "How much?" in the worst French imaginable. He wants 2000 CFA ($4). I haggle him down to 1000 CFA. A local man would've paid 100 CFA for the ride, but I'm white, so that's just how it goes.

The ride is long and dusty. The Togolese government is borrowing money from Nigeria to pay for the reconstruction of the beach road. By the time we get to AKIF, you can barely tell I'm a white man under all the dirt on my face. AKIF is a cool place. It sells the best burgers in town. A little pricey, but it's worth the occasional taste of beef. I order this huge monstrosity that I can barely finish. The meat is spicy and every burger includes a fried egg and a lot of cabbage. While I'm eating and reading my book a man approaches me and offers some bootleg DVDs. I politely refuse, but he is persistent. He is convinced that I must be interested in a pack that contains every Angelina Jolie film ever made. Eventually I just ignore him. I stay a while longer and then remember that I brought my laptop and I decide to head to my favorite spot. A reasonably priced restaurant with free wifi.

I should mention what the 'Boulevard' is. It's a busy divided road that encompasses the downtown portion of Lome. It's the best place to go for local life. Always crowded, always open, and full of shops and restaurants. AKIF is on the eastern end and my favorite place is on the western side. Walking down the Boulevard as a white man is like being a worm lowered into a fish hatchery. Everyone wants a piece of you. The vendors hiss to get my attention and they shout "Grand Blanc Joe!" (big white Joe). I bump into people and manage to dodge the open sewers and Zemidjans rushing by. It takes me about an hour to reach the restaurant and I soak up all the local color along the way. One man stops me and informs that he is diabetic and that he has just run out of insulin. I point to a lit red cross (pharmacy) a few blocks away and say "If we go there, I will buy you some insulin." Just then he remembers that he left a few vials at home.

The waitress at the restaurant recognizes me now and she is always trying to teach me some French because mine is awful. She knows very little English so we don't get far. I pop open my laptop and immediately begin downloading some music. We can't do that on the ship, so when I get a chance I like to catch up on the latest albums. The customers at most restaurants are a mix of richer Togolese and white people, usually French. The people watching is superb. There are a couple of young attractive white girls a few tables away and I listen as some young Togolese men ask for their hands in marriage. I can tell they haven't been here long because they are shocked and embarrassed. A nurse friend of mine has counted 50+ proposals since February. The men know that white fathers don't require a dowry.

After I pay my bill I wander around looking for a Zemidjan to take me back to the ship. It's late and we have a curfew. I'm about 15km from the ship now, so I just offer 1000 CFA straight away and the driver tries to hide a smile. The ride home in the dark is easily the best part of my day. We zoom down the beach road, the wind blowing my thin hair and evaporating the sweat on my skin. On the right there are palm trees swaying with the dark ocean as a backdrop. On the left there are people, hotels, shops and Africa. On the long ride I think about why I'm here. My job is to make sure that the hospital has everything they need to provide the best care possible. My goal is to love every person I come into contact with. My heart is for the poor and needy. My vision is the redemption of relationships between people, nations, earth and Jesus.

By the time I'm on board again, my focus is restored and I wonder how I ever lost it to begin with.

A bit of bad news

Me and some friends got mugged today in broad daylight on a busy beach. No one was hurt, but they took my camera. I know I haven't been too punctual with my video blogs but now it looks like they will cease altogether. I think it was good while it lasted. I hope you all can muster the resolve to read a text blog. I will try to get some pictures from friends so it won't be all words from now on. I definitely have some stories I've been meaning to write about so you can expect those soonish.

How am I doing?

I'm feeling great. I'm back at work and back to my normal self. I'm grateful for all of the prayers and kind thoughts.

Update 5 - Deck 8

More illness

My video blog is quickly becoming a sickness reporting blog. I've been down for the last 5 days with what I just found out to be amoebic dysentery. I'm on some antibiotics now and I'm doing ok. I think my body is finally starting to win its intestinal battle. Thanks for all your thoughts and prayers. I'll be posting a video update as soon as I can.

Adventures in malaria pills

I don't want to get malaria, but I'm starting to think that the preventative medication is worse than the illness. I've been taking one kind of pill called Doxy for the last month. I guess the little bacteria in my intestines are very fragile, because they immediately die off with every dose. No bacteria=no digestion. Need I say more? No more Doxy for me.

So yesterday I started taking a different kind call Lariam. Google it. Read all about the side effects. They weren't exaggerating. Last night I had nightmares the likes of which I had never even imagined. When I woke up at various times I found myself hallucinating zombies and terrible things. It's funny now, but last night I wasn't laughing. I was praying and sweating. I was even singing to try to keep the fear at bay. I slept with the light on all night. No more Lariam for me.

Today is a new day though. There aren't any zombies around that I can see. I'm about to go to the first meeting of a small group I started. God is good. If you are willing and able, please pray that I will have a better night tonight. Thanks.