Ship Holiday
So it was recently a ship holiday. Every 6 weeks they get a ship holiday in which we don’t work on Fridays and get a long weekend so that staff can get off the ship and explore or go away for the weekend.
When I first arrived I saw that someone had posted that they were planning a trip for Friday to head around the Peninsula and to a couple of supermarkets. I thought this would be a good opportunity to get off the ship and explore but under a controlled environment seeing that I don’t know my way around. It was an early start and I met up with Kate and Nellie and we headed to the entry gate. We couldn’t find where we were supposed to go until we spotted some people heading to a bus so we just kinda followed them.
I keep forgetting that we are at the docks and not in the middle of town so the drive to the city felt a lot longer to get to the first supermarket. It was nice to see where the supermarket is and what they look like. I brought tropical juice and a chocolate bar for the rest of the trip as wanted to see what things cost. It must have looked so odd for a bus to show up and all these white people get off at a supermarket like it's such a tourist thing.
From the supermarket, we headed to the beach. I think there was some confusion about how to get there and they ended up having to pay a fee to get through and then the bus wouldn’t go any further so we had to park at a school and walk down. The kids were so excited to see everyone, some of the girls who were staying for the weekend ended up getting a tour of the school, and the children sang them a song.
The beach was lovely, with stunning white sand and not as much rubbish as the previous beach when I arrived. I did bring my togs but wasn’t sure about actually swimming as I’d heard some stories of people swimming and noticing rubbish like syringes next to them, but after putting my feet in and watching the others swim I had to give in and try it.
The last stop on the tour for the day was to Choithram supermarket, again nothing fancy a simple supermarket but was on the other side of the town as he took us home a different way. This was a much nicer supermarket, I brought just food for the next day on call. I did buy something just because I was curious. It looked like a birthday cake in a cup, though it kinda smelt like playdough. There was icing on the top and then what looked like cake underneath but it was super crumbly so not cake. I have no idea what it was and it wasn’t really that good, but now I know better lol.
Saturday I was on call so ship bound. I had to still get up early to pick up the pager from the on-call person, I would have much rather stayed in bed but oh well. I got up and went to the gym for an hour after breakfast and then started the washing. To do the washing here you have to book a set time and you have an hour to get it done and then the following hour for the drying. So it was a matter of running up and down stairs. I also found out the night before that in the galley they had a whole lot of material that was free for use and they had set up sewing machines as well. I thought that I could make scrub hats. I found a big piece and thought that I could make a scrub top… well it was interesting lol. I made a pattern using my t-shirt and then proceeded to attempt to sew the pieces together. I must admit seeing I haven’t touched a sewing machine since high school I think I did pretty well lol however it doesn’t fit me so yay Tessa you get a new dress up lol.
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The nighttime was pretty chill I caught up with everyone else and what they got up to, then as the rugby world cup was on they had set up the TV to watch the NZ vs Ireland game, as always some friend competition because it turns out that the captain is Irish. Such a tight game down to the last second. Arnie made a bet with the Captain that if the All Blacks won he would have to wear the All Blacks shirt at the Monday morning all-hands-on-deck meeting. Good on him he did it lol.
Sunday there were a few of us who were invited to a local church service by one of the local day crew who help out around the hospital. She met us at the top gate to help us catch a taxi to the church. When we got there she was wearing a stunning green dress that looked like she was going to a school formal not a Sunday church service. We stopped at the bottom of a street that I think was Wellington or off a Wellington street. We had to walk up this hill to the church dodging the Kekes and motorbikes and past quite a few churches to get to the one that we were going to. We were told that when we got there we were told that we would get introduced to everyone. We thought we might be able to sneak in the back but they directed us to the very front and then made us stand in front of the group with a microphone to introduce ourselves… my worst nightmare.
The music was very upbeat and there was a lot of dancing, Anna was the only one brave enough to get up and dance, she was dancing with all the small kids and the locals she looked like she was having a blast. The music was actually a lot like from home and I even recognized a few of the songs. The service was as expected, though the tithes and offerings were an interesting experience. They treated it like a competition, with two containers one labeled men and the other women. Everyone went up and donated into their box then afterwards they counted it right there and then and announced who donated the most. Today the woman won so then they gave them a chance to catch up by doing another round of donations. They then counted this again, and the woman still won so then the woman stood in front and asked for more donations. Just felt a bit off taking more money from people who rarely had enough to get through the week. Apparently the last round with the woman the money goes toward their personal woman's group activities but we didn’t get that until after the service.
After church Zaina (The worker who invited us) made a meal for us to share. It was so yummy, I’m not sure quite what it was, there was fried chicken, plantains, chips, and this really delicious noodle thing, which I don’t know what was in it but was the best part of the entire meal. Zaina told us a bit about her life that she is a teacher and she and her husband have set up a school that they both work at for the community that looks after children from the age of 3 all the way to 25 as some people have never had an education and they wanted to cater for those who decided later on in life they wanted to learn. She told us a little bit about her life during the war and that she was grateful that at the time she had no children because then she wouldn’t have to make the same decision that others she knew had to make in order to survive.
They then took us for a tour around the school that they ran before we headed home. We took a taxi home but the main road had been closed off so had to detour. The minivan that would usually take maybe 10 people had fitted 35 people, and we were stuck in the van for around an hour or so. There was not a single breeze through the window however the hole in the floor of the van did provide a little bit of relief but by the time we got back to the ship we were pretty sweaty and gross, in definite need for a shower.I was super keen to keep exploring but the heat made me super tired and I was ready for bed.
