Author: mp.daniel

I’ve been doing loads of laundry… so many guests move in and out of my cabin and they forget to take their sheets to Laundry when they leave, so there was about 20 sheets, 9 pillow cases, and so on. About 20kg in all, I think. I also have given some towels to Charlie.

Anyway, I have added a few more things to my case, and one or two people want me to take things back to Cy for supporters and friends there… so I hope I have room!

Doulos is A.C to about 24 or so, and yet it feels like hard work here! I will go ask about flights now…

I’ve packed, at least mostly. And the main luggage is about 18 kg, w/o towels (which I may leave), and w/o todays clothes (all quite light, which is why I am packing them and not wearing them. Although I may pack my heavier ones since it is so low).

I have not actually re-confirmed my flights, but was told by someone else that the pursor may have done that. I was going to ask her today, but the office was shut. I hope it all turns out OK. Anyway, if the meals are meat, I shall just eat less (ie, that which is not meat) , and drink more fruit juice, which may be a good thing anyway.

I’m so tired today. We went out to a Zulu village/tourist thingy. Very cool, I guess, but living in Larnaka has made me so skeptical of Tourist things of any sort at all that I enjoyed it less than the others. Oh well.

There was a crocodile park there as well… they have well over 50 crocs, in various places, and we had dinner there as well. They had this thing they called “The Fear Factor Challenge”, which was basically they put out some tables in one of the croc. compounds, and the people who wanted to could sit at the tables and eat crocodile kebabs with nothing between them and the crocs, and 1 guard standing there with a stick to point the crocs in the other direction.

Not really my thing.

So I just stuck to the resturant, and had a quite nice fresh salad and bottled water. Nice to have truely fresh vegitables, again. Doulos ones always seem to have a slightly brownish tinge to them… Anyway. I justtified not doing the Fear Factor with the following sylogism (if that is the right word):

Premise) The park will not gain a good reputation by having visitors lose fingers.
Premise) If it were dangerous, then visitors might lose fingers.
Conclusion) It is not dangerous.

So, therefore, you pay the extra 40 Rand or so just for a “thrill” which is in fact, not dangerous, and rather silly. And also, if it was at all dangerous, then I quite like my fingers, and find them quite useful, at times, and so risking them for the sake of saying I had eaten with crocs is intensely silly.

So I didn’t.

Crocs are such weird creatures. The keeper bloke who was showing us around before hand was down in the compound with them and tapped them, and one of them (100 years old this year) roared at him, and snapped at the stick. They are just so primeval! So totally lifeless until roused, and then totally instinctive until they forget, and then back to domant again. And so big! Weird. Weird. Weird.

Anyway. I’m tired. I’m buring a few CDs of stuff.

Bananas, other fruit, yogurt, just usual stuff is so unusual here. I am looking forward to coming home. And yet I know I will miss Doulos too.

About 10 STEPPERs left today. So it will be very lonely now in my cabin. 10 person cabin, now with just 2 people. Myself, and a German new STEPPER, who does not speak so much English, and keeps totally different hours to me. I am going to bed about 11pm, and getting up at 6, or 6.30am, he is in bed by about 9pm, and wakes up about 7.30 or 8am. So, yeah.

Very good on board Sunday Service, extremely good talk/sermon/whatever by one of the pastor/leader/teachers on board about the book of Job. Then afterwards I was able to help set up for the Doulos birthday party, and then get into a clown costume, makeup, and all that.

At the beginning of the programme (it was raining, so we were all indoors), we did a small sketch, which was fun. About 3 minutes. Then after that, I went outside (it had stopped raining) with the other clowns to do some juggling and other entertaining. I spent the whole afternoon out there, juggling, playing with someones very nice poi, and being funny, making people laugh, etc. Clowning is fun. But tiring.

If/when I come back to the Doulos, I would really like to organize or be part of more regular juggling/ circus workshops, or whatever. There used to be some, but now the people who used to do that have mostly left, and there are only 1 or 2 part-time jugglers on board, with not a huge ammount of motivation to practice, except when there is something coming up…

Speaking of coming back… People who join the Doulos for 2 years join in groups, and first have a 2 week or so training time together in whichever port the Doulos will be arriving at. These groups are called “Preships”, and people will mostly still introduce themselves for on-board events with something along the lines of “Hi, My name is David from the Istanbul Preship” or whatever. Preship training happens every 6 months. The end of January/Febuary, and in August/September.

The last Doulos Preship to join (the most recent one) joined actually in Larnaka, which was why the ship visited then. They are the Beruit Preship. The next one will be Richard’s Bay (South Africa), in less than a month. This is all kind of technical, I know. But the point of it all, was that people don’t really have a whole lot of choice in where they join the Doulos. And I think that if God wants me to join, He is able to provide the money, and also the flight costs, at that time. Some people have said it all tends to be last minute, with crazy things happening, like having people wanting to support them and telling them in their last 2 weeks before they come, all that kind of thing.

Anyway. About joining, the Febuary 2006 Preship keeps coming up in conversation with people here, as there would still be a lot of people I know and have been working with, many of whom are leaving next August, or September 06.

Also the lady who I met in the airport on the way here, and is the Book-Ex manager from Logos told me that the Jan/Feb’06 LogosII preship will be very interesting to join, as it will be right during the LogosII to Logos Hope change over, people would get a year work on LogosII, in time to move to Logos Hope as experienced crew, and be part of setting the whole mood and new Logos Hope scene, which would be amazing.

I don’t know. We’ll just have to see if it is the right time that God wants me back here, or not. If at all. It’s still 6 months away, anyway. Many things can change in that time.

Some of us STEPPERs went out today to the largest Shopping Mall in the Southern Hemisphere… “Gateway” … You can probably find it on the internet (surely).* Huge place. I felt quite intimidated. I think I have more culture shock at places like that than I do from any place in Mozambique! I mean, it is just so BIG. And so posh, and modern, and all of that.

I think I spent about 15 dollars, on getting there and back (we had to go by taxi, and split the cost), and on a meal (veggi lasagna), and a vegetable curry pie. Lovely lovely food. The veggi lasanga was about 7 dollars, the pie about 1 and a half, and the rest was the taxi… It’s odd, I feel quite bad about using the money for this, but some of the people did say “use this money as you want to…”, and I have not spent a lot of money, comparatively.

Money… strange stuff. Yesterday I was helping on my e-day at that orphanage where they had 50-something kids in a tiny little house, with 2 or 3 kids to a bed, today walking around a Shopping Mall where one single concrete column which is for decoration only, and doesn’t even hold up the roof probably costs more than the entire cost of the orphanage building!

The ship did give a gift to the orphanage, but they had to purposely make it small, as a large gift would be overwelming, or something like that, and would actually do more harm than good.

It’s this whole relativistic thing. One person’s poor is another persons stinking rich, and neither of them is right. Particually thinking of stuff like say the Doulos P.M (private money). Crew get 20 USD per month as personal money. In Mozambique, that is a huge ammount, which can go a huge way, and still leave a lot to be donated at the end of the month, but in Cyprus, 20 USD is 10CYP, which is enough for perhaps 3 gyros, if you go to the right kebab shops, which if you were staying in Cyprus for a month, and wanted to go out and see the place, isn’t much.

Being a STEPPER is a bit different, so many people have said, as we don’t have P.M, we have brought money with us to use… Like, one of the others was telling me today, she is American, and all her friends and family and supporters are expecting (explicitly in some cases) gifts and souveneers from her when she returns. So it is a bit hard for her to get all of these and see everything and do everything.

If you are on for 2 years (or more), you can be more relaxed about things like gifts and so-on. I don’t know… I’ve spent a long time today just sitting in the Mall, thinking about all of these things, about what is right and wrong ways to use money and stuff like that.

For instance, if you are living in a richer country, and want to be able to relate to others easily, then giving all your money to missions and to charity, and living on whatever the minimum you can, and never going out to a mall or movie or whatever is not really going to help. And it is not certainly right in the first place.

How can one know what is good or not uses of what God has given us? Things like the lady who spent a lot of money on the perfume for Jesus’ feet. Or the banquets which Jesus attended, and so on… It really is a very big can of worms. And not very pleasant worms, at that. I’d never really concidered the whole thing very deeply before. I have the feeling that it is going to be another of those vastly complex issues with no Right or Wrong answers again, but which many people claim do have Right or Wrong answers.

I dunno.

Many of the STEPPERs are leaving tomorrow. That is why we went out today. It will be very strange seeing them all go. Sunday Monday and Tuesday will probably be the hardest days on board for me. I know for Andrew, from the previous STEP, the days after his group all left were the hardest. For me it is not quite so bad, as another STEPPER is leaving the same day as I, and 2 or 3 are staying on for another month, but they are going to be with their S.P.s, so I probably wont see much of them anyway.

Listening to a CD of Grieg, while typing this letter in the Library. Such lovely music. “Death of Ase” from the Peer Gynt Suite… I’d say “sadly apropriate” but don’t want to be so morbid.

It’s interesting, the group dynamics. When we first came on board, the previous STEP were really togeather, strong, bonded, and all of that, and all of us were slightly intimidated, I think, and most of us are quite quiet people (1 or 2 are not), and so it too a while to get to know each other. But I was rather happy yesterday to actually get punched jovially in the arm by one of the quietest girls in the group, who I would never have thought would punch anyone jovially. If another real STEP had arrived last week, they would probably be rather intimidated too.

I was talking to an Ex-Douloid yesterday, who was on the ship 2 years ago, and I remembered from before. She was saying how she had actually not bonded so much ever with the group of people who joined at the same time as her, but more with her cabin mates, and work colegues.

She said it was very strange coming back to the ship for a few weeks at this time, she was getting to work in her old department, but so many things have changed, and so many new faces. Enough people still remembered her, but she said she remembered other ex-douloids visiting during her time on board as crew, and they had had no-one remember them at all, as everyone had left, and so had been quite depressed and such by the whole experience of visiting, expecting it to be the same, and yet different, and finding it different, and yet the same. No longer being part of the crew in the same way, being an outsider in a place you had been at home for 2 or more years.

“Abduction and Ingrid’s Lament” now playing. Hm.

Yeah. Anyway. I’ll go and do some clarinet practice, or something. Time passes so quickly, on board.

* Yes. Gateway mall in Durban, South Africa

Amazing days. Wow…

Yesterday, for e-day, we only left the ship at 6.30pm. We went to a Methodist Church for the homeless meal they have every week. We did 2 dramas, someone told their story, and they sang a song too.

Just as we were eating (good food. A kind of vegetable soup/thing with some rice, and white bread.), all the lights went out. The church was quite hi-tech, and they had spent most of the time before that setting up their computer-powered power-point lyric projection for the songs they (the church) had planned for the evening.

I was quite glad the lights went off, actually, in the end, as it meant the whole program was a lot more simple. We didn’t use the music for the dramas, just did them straight. Which IMHO is often the best way. The music does make things seem rather too professional, which in a situation like that, you don’t really want. Many of the people there are in fact believers, but many are still struggling with drug addiction, and other problems, which the church is helping them with.

I was able to talk with one guy quite a lot afterwards, his name is Julian, and he had a broken leg. He was talking about his life, moving to South Africa (from the UK) about 30 years ago. He now does not have a job, since he broke his leg he cannot work, but he had such faith, and trust in God, saying “I really am so thankful to the Lord, He has never let me go more than 2 weeks without work.” And was in fact going back to work the next day.

As he did not have a job because of his leg, he had not been able to pay his rent, and so had been sleeping on the streets for the past few weeks. Talking to him helped me to understand a lot more of why there is still anger and racism. He was quite a nice guy, but in his talking was not friendly towards the Black and Indian people in S.A. During Aparteid, he had had a job, and had been safe walking around in the city after midnight. Now, any time after dark is too dangerous to walk around, and he has no job. He believed that it was because now that Black people have more rights, they want to be in charge, and to squash the Whites.

I was able to tell him that it is not just S.A, and nothing to do with people’s skin colour. Like how we in Cyprus are getting increasing crime and less safe, particually in Lemesos, and that there is now resentment in some Cypriots against Russians, because they believe it is them bringing in the crime. There are elements of truth mixed into all of this, but blind hatred and racism isn’t the answer, of course. We just have to treat all others as we believe Jesus would, and pray about what we cannot.

Anyway, it was quite encouraging to be there, and talk with them all. We had some sweet hot drink at the end. It was so sweet, that I still don’t know if it was tea or coffee. We got back about 10.30pm.

Then this morning, we met at 6.30am, and after praying, went to a hosptial waiting room. Not quite what I had expected. It was like a bus station, or train station. Outside, metal roof, london-style benches. There was someone singing when we arrived.

We then did a programme, talked about where we all were from, and then we did the sticky-chair drama. I really enjoy doing that. I did it last night, and this morning. Both times I got to play the main character, which is so fun. Simple, but fun. It is a bold and clownish story, and so you need to overact and be funny. I think I can manage that. So many drama classes and working at Antidote… I can see now why and how things like “The Frog Prince” were useful…

Afterwards in the car, one of the guys said to me “Wow, that was amazing, I’ve seen the chair drama before, but never quite like that!” And both of the English 40+ year olds on the team called me a “Dark horse”, whatever that means. I so enjoy doing drama and acting, and it’s cool when other people appreciate it.

After someone told their story, and someone else told them about the good news, one of the guys then prayed with and for them, doing the whole “Sinner’s prayer” type of thing, and afterwards, the lady who had been singing when we arrived asked for all those who had accepted Jesus to raise their hands. My goodness. You’d never do that in the UK any more! Or Cyprus.

Anyway. About 7 people did, which was quite a shock to me, and then they gave them copies of John’s Gospel, and told them to come back on Sunday. Every Sunday at 10am, they have a church meeting in that waiting room.

Then we got into the Doulos minibus, and went to an orphanage. It was in fact a small house which a lady lived in. She had taken in a few children from the street about 9 years ago, and now had 50 or so children, from 6 months to 13 or so! We helped to carry in some new beds which one of the churches had just brought, and talked with them a bit.

One of the helpers at the orphanage was Deaf. She was very good at lip-reading, and could speak a little. As we were all hanging around afterwards, waiting for some of the others talking about photos, I asked her (in American Sign) if she knew Sign Language. She signed yes! She told me her name D-O-L-L-Y, and told me that her mother was one of the other people working there. I introduced myself, and said I had learned a little bit of sign. We did not have much time to talk after that, but it was extremely cool to be able to sign to someone all the way out here in Durban!

Anyway. We got back to the ship at half ten, and now will be leaving again at 12:15, so I must rush off to get something to eat. This afternoon we are going to a school to teach some students some dramas and things.

Very exciting days!

The last few days have been kind of stressful, and kind of funny. I don’t know wether to laugh or cry, a lot of the time. I figured laughing is more socially acceptable, so have tried to stick to that.

I have had my last 2 working days in Deck, and did hardly any work at all, it feels like. The day before yesterday, we were going to be doing some varnishing on the Starboard prom deck, just outside the mess. However, after devotions in the morning, all the lifeboat teams got called to safety training, and so that meant we didn’t do any work for about an hour. STEPPERs are not envolved in lifeboat or safety training.

Then when we got there, we discovered that it had rained on the previous days layer of varnish, which another team had done, and it looked terrible. So as we were not sure if it would rain again on top of whatever we did that day, I suggested putting up some poles and hanging a canvas over it. We could not just hang a canvas without poles, as the deck above stops right above the railing, and the canvas would be hanging on the railing.

So the (acting) team leader told me, “Good idea, you do that and the rest of us will go and get the varnish and other cleaning stuff for the rails.” So off I went. I found some roller extensions, which would work fine, and also got some rope from the foc’s’cle. Then I set to work, perhaps not in the easiest way, but in the most straitforward that I could think of at the time. I fixed all of the poles sticking out horizontally from the ceiling out to about a metre beyond the edge of the railing, and used the rope to keep them all from falling out. Just using simple hitches all the way along.

When I had finished putting up the poles, which took about half an hour, I went to find the others, who were still not there. They were all up on another deck, varnishing that one. I told the leader that I was finished with the poles, and asked where I should get the canvasses from.

He said, “Well… I hate to say this, but I think this whole thing is just taking too much effort, and if it does rain, we’re screwed anyway, because this rail we are working on now will get wet. So, if you could just take down the poles, and instead pray that it doesn’t rain.”

Thanks.

OK. Well, no problem. So I took down the poles. I was just finishing that, when they all trooped down, to get ready for lunch break. As they were walking past, the leader looked at the ceiling, and asked what on earth the splashes of rather messy water were on it. While attaching the rope, I had unfortunately let some of it hang onto the wet deck below, which was still wet from the cleaning team swabbing it. When I pulled the rope through the loops to make the hitchesto hold the poles in place, it had splattered the surrounding locale with droplets of muddy water. Oops.

So he got out the firehose, and sprayed it all down, laughing his head off the whole time. Which I guess is better than being angry.

Anyway. We spend the afternoon in varnishing that railing, and then we painted the same deck’s gunwhales black again.

At 2.15pm, I had read in my email that I was supposed to go for a final STEP evalutation meeting with our STEP-mum in the dining room. So I got permission from the leader, and went off at 2.15. No one was there. So I checked her office, still no-one. Then I phoned the info desk, and found out that she was not even on the ship! Quite a strange feeling. So I went back to work. After we had finished, I cleaned up all the brushes and rollers and things. Still no sign of STEP-mum.

Then yesterday morning, after breakfast it was lifeboat drills, so again, Deck STEPPERs get an extra 45 minutes off. So I went to her office, and found out it was actually 10.15am I should have been there. I do not know WHY or HOW I managed to misread that, but oh well.

She didn’t mind, and we had the meeting there. Just usual questions “What are some of the challenges you think you have faced during your time on this STEP?” and so on…

She then prayed for me, and I went back to my cabin to practice knots and chill out for a while. Most of the team leaders of the Deckies are doing EDH training at the moment, that is like so they can become qualified deck hands, and so they are all off at training all day, which is why it is a bit disorganized at the moment.

Anyway, so there are knot books and ropes lying around all over the place, and everyone discussing knots in the mess. There are some really facinating knots about. Amazing things.

After drills, our team went and moved down the parts for the quayside stage, as we have a programme on Monday (Doulos’ 91st birthday!) and there will be many things which need a stage.

Then after getting that down, we waved and hugged goodbye to another STEPPER, and one of the 2 year people who had just finished, and then we got the brushes and things ready to do some more varnishing, and went further down the prom deck, to where another team had been working the day before, or perhaps before that.

It was a mess. Terrible! Varnish far too thick on, so it was running and had formed bubbles and drips, and bits running down the side of the ship! So we got the sanding machine, to sand off some of the worst, but as it was so thick, it was still not fully dried, and it just made a worse mess in the place we tried.

So we called the carpenter, and he said “Yuk.” or something along those lines, and we took some deck knives, and also some scrapers, and began to scrape off some of the worst of it. We then left that to dry even more over night, and did some varnishing further along where it was not so bad.

Then it began to rain.

Not a lot, just spitting. We did a bit more work, but the rain meant we did not want to do too much more varnishing, as it really messes it up. Of course, everyone said “Hey, perhaps we should put up some canvases over the top!”. Hehe.

We then cleaned up, painted some more gunwhale, and stood down. I was just half way through eating dinner, when I heard my name being paged. My goodness. They then told me to phone gangway, so I did, and was told, “Hey Daniel, did you know you are on meal relief today?”

No! oops! so I quickly ran to get my security uniform on, and then went on watch again for another half hour while the gangwayman could go and have dinner. Thankfully, she did not mind at all, and spent most of the time by the gangway anyway, eating hotdogs from the stall just across the quay, run by some Christian hotdog salesmen, or something.

Then I went back inside again, to find out I had missed 2 e-day meetings, one at 5.30, and the other at 6.00, as I have 2 edays now. Today, and tomorrow. Weird deckie-schedule. Anyway. They said it didn’t really matter, as most people had not turned up anyway, and we would meet today to figure it all out.

So… I went to bed at about 9ish, feeling exhausted. Some days are good, some days not so good. I have 2 e-days now, which should be good, as I think I will be getting to play clarinet, and do some acting and drama and stuff. Then on Monday, I have been asked to be a clown and do some juggling and stuff for the Doulos birthday party! That will be a lot of fun, I think.

Yesterday we had our last extended deckie devotions, and all the STEPPERs said a short bit about how we had found life on deck, and what we were planning to do after. Then they all prayed for us too.

Oh, speaking of which, the farewell was not too bad, I managed to change the really corny music for something silly, which was not so bad. (The techno-trance version of the Sesame Street Theme… quite funny). I told an obscure joke, which a few people laughed at, and others muttered about for a few seconds, and then laughed at, some muttered at, and a lot just looked blank at.

“I have learned on Doulos that there are 2 ways to do everything. The Easy Way, and the Hard Way. These are also known, respectively, as the Obvious Way, and the ISM* way…” Oh well. Not so good, as jokes go, but yeah.

We have prayer night tonight, which is to be led by the STEP group. Should be good. I have not been asked to do anything, which may be a good thing, as I think I may be out tonight with the e-day. It is all really confusing for me, just this last week, what with finishing watch, not having done deck day work for 2 weeks now (Sabbath week before), loads of people leaving, all the extra STEP things, trying to get done many of the things which I need to before leaving myself, just general tiredness from having a weird schedule with all my e-days and off-days moved around, and so on.

All in all, I have really enjoyed working on deck. Even if it does take a long time to learn, and even if I have messed up a few times, and needed to re-do things. Very cool people, and I will miss the daily deck devotions, singing, and all that before work. I’ll just stop now before I get all emotional and soppy.

Oh. Funny thing happened this evening. I got paged again, went to the gangway, and found this English bloke there. He said:

“Daniel? Hi! Christos Andreou said to say, ‘Hi, Keep safe’, and to check up on you.”

Pause. Christos Andreou? There’s a name I wasn’t expecting to hear. So I started chatting to the guy, and got steadily more confused. I said that Christos and I had been playing in the same town band in Larnaka, and that his dad was my clarinet teacher. He said “Oh, I thought you had just met when Christos visited the Doulos…” What? Why hadn’t he said hello then? He said Christos was staying with him in S.A, and had been for 3 years. What? Then he asked “You methim just last week while on gangway watch, right?”

Oooooh. The light dawns slowly across the face of Daniel. That Christos. A bloke had come up to me on watch last week, and asked “Hi, I don’t suppose you have any Cypriots on board do you?” So I talked with him a while about Cyprus, he was a Cypriot South African, studying here. I found out his name was Christos, but I didn’t remember the Andreou. Funny.

So, after this English bloke and I laughed about that for a while, he told me he had been a sparks in the British Navy for a while, and wondered if he could see the radio room… So we went around to the tours desk, and found that the offical tour would go up to the bridge, but not the radio room, so we went on that. Interesting for me to finally go with an offical tour of the Doulos. The guy seemed very happy about all of that, and afterwards said how much he liked being on a “real ship” again, not a floating hotel, like so many of them were these days. Yeah. So, quite a funny end to that day.

I’m off to breakfast.

*The ISM is the International Shipping Manual. It has a whole lot of rules and so on about the correct way to do stuff. Some of it makes sense, and some of it is just plain obscure.

Lots of people are feeling a bit low. But also most people are really excited to be going home. I am too, of course, but they are excited to be leaving the ship. I’m not.

I am really looking forward to being back in Larnaka, seeing family again, and so on. And I have so many things which I want to do. I want to learn to cook, for instance. If I come back to Doulos, then I want to be able to cook myself some pasta or calzonies or something occasionally. There are pantries which anyone can use scattered about the ship (I think we have 4 or so…).

Part of my feeling depressed though is not to do with leaving, or with missing other people, because generally I’m quite good about that. Because I have been on the Doulos twice before, it’s not a”never see Doulos again” thing, either, which some of the people have (the ones living in the USA) a bit. And as I want to come back again anyway, I hopefully will see quite a lot of the other people again anyway.

I think part of why I am feeling depressed is because I feel like I have not really acomplished anything much. I have had so many wonderful experiences, these last 2 months, and met so many amazing people, and seen such fantastic things (I’m running out of adjectives here), and yet feel as if I have actually contributed very little.

Our STEP-mum says that that is quite normal to feel a bit like that, but not to worry, as (a) she is quite happy with me, and (b) *when* I come back for 2 years, I will have much more chance to be envolved with the Drama Group, music, and so on, as well as more chance to contribute in other ways too… But yeah.

Rebekah is still recovering from malaria, she is fully better, but is still weak, and she lost a lotof weight, and flying is never the most stressless experiences anyway.

The farewell thing tonight has a program of the following:

20:00 Welcome – STEP-mum
20:02 Thank you – Co-Director
20:20 Certificates – STEP-mum
20:30 Step participation:

Parade of Nations (AV-People) – everyone prepares 30 sec of talk – carrying T.A.N.Z.A.N.I.A. S.T.E.P. letters
Slideshow (raffi) Sing a song (nanana – goodbye)
Thank You & read a verse (Jenny)

21:00 End in prayer- STEP-mum

So, yeah. The “Parade of Nations” is a I-night item, where they put on this extremely annoying repetative dramatic music, and all the people envolved go forward wearing their national dress, and get announced by someone far too enthusiastically and everyone claps.

That is the cynical “I’m still depressed and everyone ought to blooming well know about it” version.

Sorry.

I was on watch when they did the meeting about this, and arranged it all, so I have about as much idea about the rest of it as you do. I shall just turn up and do whatever they ask me to. This totally typifies our group though. Some people not at the planning meeting, a few people will not be at the farewell (they missed work and so are not allowed to miss it again tonight), a few people not even sure what’s happening, and 1 person already left. As they say on board: Wunderbar.

I found some pictures of one of the previous pre-ship training weeks on the scratch network drives today. Very cool. But I think I will learn to swim before I come back to Doulos too… one of the training items envolves having to un-capsize an inflatable life-raft in a swimming pool, and learning to put on a lifejacket while swimming too.

I went out to the town this afternoon with 2 of the others. One STEPPER who “needed” to buy a few more gifts for family, bf and so on, and her friend, the SP of one of the other STEPPERs, and myself. We took a taxi to the beach front, and there went to a whole load of various touristy stalls, selling loads of random ethnic-looking-probably-factory-made-oh-so-African things.

My goodness. I just read that sentance again. I must be feeling cynical today.

We walked around for a while, until they ran(d) out of money, (that’s a pun) and so we looked for an ATM machine. We walked until we saw a sign for one, down an alleyway, mostly deserted, heading off into a kind of beach/cafe complex thing.

Very quiet.

Too quiet.

One of them was just starting to walk down the alley, but I called her back. I just did not feel happy about that alley. It was too far from anyone else, not a lot of people, only a few 20yo men hanging around. First time I have ever felt distinctly unsafe, and refused to go somewhere. The girls were joking about me being their Body Guard, and yeah.

So we walked back, and found another more public road which actually led to the cafe with the ATM machine. It didn’t work. Just outside the cafe was a police car, so we went to ask the officer, and he said “Yeah. Well, if you get in the car, I can drive you to a better one. This is not one of the safer areas of town.” So I got to ride in a police car!

Anyway. Cool. Very nice guy, he even waited for her at the ATM machine and then drove us back to the seafront. The police here are really good, apparently.

Later on we met a homeless couple, who made complex artwork things out of dried palm fronds, and were selling them at 5 Rand each, because they wanted to make an honest living, they said. So we bought a few (extremely good), and then later met another homeless couple, who wanted some money to buy some special milk for their age-2 daughter (who was with them) as she was lactose intolerent, they said.

We wern’t that naive, and one of the girls said “If we buy you some, and then give it to you, is that OK?” they said sure, so they (perhaps unwisely) found a taxi, and we went off to try and find some. We did, eventually, and came back, and drove up and down the seafront once looking for them but could not, and so, after praying, gave up, and went back.

We missed the gate at the port, and ended up driving much further than needed. Still, the taxi fare was about 5 pounds (10 dollars) in total, for all 3 of us, which is not too extravagent, I guess.

We are not supposed to leave the port except in cars, as it is not safe. Too many people have been mugged in this area. You have to keep cars locked, even while in them, never open windows more than a few inches while in the city, and so on, because of hijacking being so common.

Anyway. We gave the lactose-free milk power to the taxi driver for his niece, who he said was also lactose intolerant. He said he will try to visit the ship sometime before we all leave. Andrew (my cabinmate) finally left later, once we were back. Quite sad.

Oh, last night, as well as the water-gun Fireround, he took 3 or so black-binliner bags full of old scrap paper he had salvaged from the office departments, and then had put through the shredder, and tipped it out all over the floor of the one bathroom in the girls section. A place totally forbidden to guys to enter, but he said that as he didn’t really want to come back anyway, there was nothing they could do to him, and he thought it would be worth it.

Many of the girls had seen him shredding paper earlier yesterday, and so it was hardly anonymous. Apparently a few years ago practical jokes along these lines, and even worse, were quite common… but the current Captain and Director don’t really appreciate them, and so they are discouraged. (The jokes are discouraged. Not the Captain and Director.)

Things like when a new lot of recruits arrived, after their firedrill training, they would get woken up at about 2am, and told by random people dressed in full fire-gear that there was a drill on, and so when they went to their muster-stations, they would get heartily doused with the firehose. Good, typical, harmless expected types of things. But apparently it might cause people to stop believing real fire drills in the future… I can see their point, but in that particular instance, I don’t think it really does. It didn’t harm the previous recruits…

Anyway. That kind of thing is up to the Captain and Director, and if they don’t like it, fair enough.

Anyway. Us STEPPERs just got paged to go meet up. I think something to do with this
farewell thingy.

I’m feeling more than slightly depressed. It is expected, I know. Less than ten days until I leave.

We have our Farewell evening tonight. The other STEPPERs have organized it. It sounds cheesy and terrible. I hope it isn’t.

The last of the previous STEP is leaving in an hour. He has been in the same cabin as I the whole time, is completely crazy, English, and a wonderful brother. I am really going to miss him.

Last night was my last watch, and I was able to arrange to get myself doing the first FireRound of the night (11pm), which is the one in which you find most of the curfew breakers. So many people have been ignoring curfew lately that my cabinmate (Andrew) who is leaving decided to do a last “goodbye” to the Doulos, and in his small way, to help to remedy the situation.

He bought a water pistol (Super-soakery type of thing. Huge great jets of water.) a few weeks ago. Fireround last night was really fun. There were about 30 people breaking curfew. They got wet.

Anyway. I’m pretty depressed.

Most of the other STEPPERs are leaving on the 21st, My flight is on the 23rd, though. A lot of them are going to fly down to Cape Town, for a weeks holiday or something like that. The STEPPERs with SP are going to stay on until september some time, because their SPs are finishing their commitment on board then, and so they will fly home togeather (and in one case at least, get married! 🙂 ).

[If coming back for a longer stint in future] I know now that 5 pairs of shoes is absurd. I think that I would take 2 or 3 less shirts and shorts, and more trousers and another fleece or hoodie. Oh, and 20kg as an on-ship requirement is not so vital. Only airplane limits really would apply. The limit is (I think) just to discourage people bringing like 80kg or stuff.

I am thinking, if God is calling me back for 2 years, then perhaps it would be better to get a Greenline Buffet clarinet, rather than wood. I will need to try a whole bunch and find a good one, but if I am working on board a ship, and perhaps afterwards going out missionarying, then a wooden clarinet is slightly impractical. I don’t really know.

Anyway.

The youth thing last night was OK. Not really very approp, though, I think. It was a quite large (300+ seater) pentecostal church (Tabernacle), with wooden pews, a raised procenium type stage, and so on. There were about 40 youth, maximum, from 4 or so different congregations.

We arrived at the end of the church’s music group practice, and they were staying on to do some music for us, a “time of worship”. So we all sat down, and they launched into a whole load of very upbeat loud songs I’d never heard before (no lyric sheets), during which time I noticed that (a) what a terrible P.A. system they had. I could barely understand a word said, or spoken, (b) the worship leader was speaking in Christianese, and seemed to be having a hard time connecting with the assembled teens, (c) having an eight piece worship band singing and playing with their eyes closed, waving their hands around, etc, doesn’t really feel very helpful to connecting.

Even the worship leader had her eyes closed, and I saw her at one point waving furiously for the band to make it louder, and bigger, and she asked questions, during the quiet bits between songs, asking why we all were not really joyful, and things.

Anyway. Not really terribly useful, IMHO. Then for our bit. We certainly demonstrated to the youth that not all Christians are up on a stage, off on some other planet.

It was very disorganised.

The STEPPER who was M.C.ing our bit, introduced each item something like “Um, and thankyou for that, and, yes, next we have, um, Daniel, and he will do a, a drama.”

Yeah, preach it, brother! Woo!

About my drama… well, they had put this pulpit/lecturn thingy out in the middle of the floor in front of the stage, and that was where I wanted to act. So I, dressed in my nice black acting shirt, and white Doulos mime-gloves, walked out accross the stage, picked up the lecturn, and walked it off stage, until I heard a crash, and looking down, discovered that it had had a rather nice glass of water in it, which I had just dropped, and smashed to shards, all over the floor.

Great.

What a way to begin. So, appologising profusely, I began to pick up the shards, and they helped, and then I got a chair, and did the drama. They laughed occasionly, which was nice, and I think all in all it went quite well, but I still had the smashed glass in my mind the whole time. Man.

After the whole thing, we had some cake and tea and buscuits and all. I burned my tongue on the tea (Doulos tea is never that hot!) Then we came back home.

We may all be going out to do more ministry things on Monday, and perhaps other days too. Last week will be busy, I think.

So, yeah. I’m going to go and get some food and stuff before my watch again this evening. Oh, I think I may be catching a Doulos/SouthAfrican Accent. Kind of worrying.

And we got yahoo messenger support now on Doulos! Woo! I could only remember Tim’s user and password, so logged on with that. Cool. I am now chatting with JJ. Fun.