Stunned, moved, and at a loss for words

Well, I'm lost for the right, fitting and proper words.  To explain, I am a member of PROBUS - and, no, I don't know exactly what it stands for, either, but I describe it as a club for boring, old, retired farts, so you can see where I fit in!  I am not, by nature, one of life's joiners, I am not big on sociability, but they asked me to give them a talk a few years ago and I thought it churlish not to join.  As it turned out, I was glad I did because we only meet once a fortnight in the morning at the local hotel for a cup of coffee followed by a guest speaker.  The variety of subjects is enormous.  As you can guess, alas, some of the most interesting subjects are occasionally made tedious by poor speakers, but on the credit side, some of the apparently dull subjects are illuminated by intelligent and enthusiastic speakers.  So, you pays your money and you takes your chances!  Today's subject struck me, from its title, as being worthy but dull and I almost gave it a miss.  It turned out to be the best talk I have ever heard there in the last 5 years. At the end I was emotionally moved and heartened as I have never been before.

The talk was given by a husband and wife from a nearby village, both very middle-class and both practicing evangelical Christians.  I mention that because so many of the bigots on the 'Trot-lot' and neo-Darwinist sites indulge in the sort of insults aimed at evangelical Christians that would give them apoplexy if anyone dared used it against Blacks or Browns.  The title of the talk was "Mercy Ships".  I had, very vaguely, heard of this enterprise before but I knew no details.  This couple enlightened me.  There is only one ship, a fairly large one now compared to the two older, smaller ones that had to be scrapped.   It is a former Danish ferry and has on board a floating (no pun intended) crew of 400+ which is comprised of doctors, nurses, dentists, teachers, public health experts and so on, apart from, of course, the actual sailing crew.  No one is paid!  Everyone is a volunteer and, moreover, they all pay their own fares to reach the ship in whatever part of West Africa it is anchored - for the last 4 years it has been almost permanently in action in Liberia. 

From the slide show and the descriptions I would say that if West Africa is the slum of the globe, then Liberia is the latrine!  Following a civil war in which the notorious warlord, Charles Taylor, was overthrown, civic society has almost disappeared.  The needs of the people who lack, not just some medical services, but all medical services, are crushingly immense.  When the ship docks it's sometimes necessary to have armed soldiers to keep order because thousands of people, some of whom have walked for days carrying their relatives, instantly form huge queues such is their desperation.  As is the way in these primitive countries, anyone born with a disfiguring condition is instantly cast out as being infected by witchcraft.  We were shown pictures of men, women and children with growths on their faces as big as their heads!  Another picture showed a stick-limbed child with a cleft palate so bad that he was barely able to feed himself and was on the point of death by starvation.  Even worse, if it is possible to draw a distinction in these bottomless scales of misery, was the description of the very many women who had been subjected to multiple rapes during the civil war - rape has only very recently been made illegal in Liberia - and who suffer with the dreadful condition in which the wall between the anus and the vagina has been ripped and destroyed so that all food and drink simply pass straight through them.  They, of course, are shunned by everyone not least because of the constant stench that accompanies them.  The lady told us of one nurse who approached a group of these outcasts who were waiting on the quay by the boat ignored by everyone else.  They wouldn't even speak to the nurse until she put her arm round one of them who instantly burst into tears because that was the first time any one had touched her in years.  There was a photo of a post-operative group of them and after they had been provided with new clothes and given a small farewell party.  Their smiles said everything.

As I said, every one on board is an unpaid volunteer, many of them using up their holiday time to spend two or three weeks on board.  One of our members asked why their publicity was not more widespread and was told, in no uncertain terms, that publicity and advertising costs money which the 'Mercy Ships' organisation simply does not have.  However, happily, Saatchi & Saatchi have recently agreed to act pro bono, so perhaps the word will be spread.

Regular readers will know that I am not exactly one of life's sentimentalists but this ship of hope, this ark of comfort, this ferry bearing the miracles, as the recipients see it, of western medical science is a truly great and generous gift from the rich to the poorest people in the world. Feel free to pass the word by linking to this post, or copy and paste it and send it on to others, then, please, go and read the 'Mercy Ships' link and, to the best of your means and abilities, gift them some money to continue their work ... please!

Additional:  The next time you hear some miserable lying liar responsible for running the filthy, disease-ridden hovels that pass for hospitals in this 'green and pleasant land' telling you that they are taking urgent steps, blah-blah-blah, to cut down on the incidents of MRSA in the wards, remember that the Mercy Ship is tied up in Monrovia, capital of Liberia, for ten months of the year and filled with African patients plus one relative/carer who sleeps on the floor at the bottom of the bed - and they have never had a single case of MRSA.  The entire ship is cleaned twice a day.

Additional, from below decks!  In case you don't have time to read the 'Comments' below, this was posted by Tyrone who appears to be a volunteer cook:

There are also personal website and blog links for people currently working with Mercy Ships, http://mercyshipslinks.blogspot.com/ it is not an official Mercy Ships site, but gives a wide range of links to choose from for several different perspectives of people 'inside' the organization.

Also I keep a menu and food info of the galley on board http://afmmenu.tyroneandstephanie.com/

Thanks for the personal 'promo' thru your blog and generous compliments for the organization.

Comments

[tyronebcookin]

There are also personal website and blog links for people currently working with Mercy Ships, http://mercyshipslinks.blogspot.com it is not an official Mercy Ships site, but gives a wide range of links to choose from for several different perspectives of people 'inside' the organization.

Also I keep a menu and food info of the galley on board http://AFMmenu.com

Thanks for the personal 'promo' thru your blog and generous compliments for the organization.

[Tatyana]

Wonderful people, selfless, generous, kind. Really, best kind of people - and they do provide much needed assistance.
4years only in Liberia; that means there was more someplace else. And before that, I understood, were some time done helping Africans from aboard of two other ships that are now scrapped.

And the tide is never slowing.

Does it tell something to you - or those people?

Oh, I know, I'm an armchair general and these people are the action heroes. True, very much true. Still, we do have brains, to exercise on occasion, if only for as means of blood circulation prophylactics.

Says Paul Theroux:
Almost wherever he goes he never sees any Africans involve in the process of helping themselves. All the projects and programs are funded, staffed and run by foreigners using foreign equipment purchased in foreign countries. Theroux concludes that the Africans see no reason to do anything about their problems as someone will always come and do it for them.

[David Duff]

Interesting point made by Theroux and one that our two speakers were well aware of. They keep their efforts, other than the medicinal ones on the ship, very small scale and to the point. For example, Liberia is filled with amputees from the war so they teach local people how to build wheel-chairs using *locally available materials*, that is, bits and pieces of detritus and local bamboo and so on. Also, they go out to the villages (such as remain!) and *re-teach* local people basic things like how to grow a garden of vegatables - skills that would have been passed down before but so much family life has been destroyed that people simply do not know how to help themselves.

Also, virtually all of the villages have wells but they're uncapped so the water is quickly polluted. One of the main jobs inland is to cap the wells with a bit of cement and fit old-fashioned hand-pumps from India! Primitive - but it works!

[Brandi]

Thanks for this great post! I love the work of the MERCY SHIP and love hearing their stories of how they are working in and ministering to the people of Liberia. Liberians are close to my heart as my adopted son is from there and our week in Liberia was LIFE CHANGING!

Thanks!

Brandi

[David Duff]

On the contrary, thank you and your friends for the excellent work you do.

[Stephanie]

My husband and I are currently on the Africa Mercy and have been involved with Mercy Ships since 2001, we thank you for your heartfelt blog about out work place and home.
tyroneandstephanie.com/blog

[David Duff]

Yes, I heard from Tyrone earlier. Best wishes in all your endeavours.

[Terry Hamblin]

I too have heard a talk about the Mercy Ship recently. A young Chinese evangelical Christian had spent 2 years working on board as an eye surgeon at his own expense. The pictures of the gross malformations, long-standing cancers, suppurating limbs and pathetic children ought to make even the whingeing Brits get back to work. There was no problem getting the audiance lob in the odd £100 as the bag went round.

[David Duff]

Thanks, Terry, and I have ear-marked your site for further inspection.