Ann's-Mercy-Africa-Service-Trip

I am one week from leaving on my Mercy Ship Adventure! I am so excited and also, of course, nervous. I have only traveled anywhere near this far once, when Terry and I went to Japan in 1992. I have never travelled this far on my own. I will fly from Burlington to JFK, then to Paris. From there I will fly to Antannavario, the capital of Madagascar, then from there one more flight to the port on the east coast of Madagascar. I will take a total of 4 flights to get there over 3 days.

My living room is full of stuff that I need to bring for a 3 month stay on a ship and then a safari for 10 days afterwards. This means I need a 3+ month supply of the supplements and medications that I take/use, a 3+ month supply of contact lens solutions, soap, shampoo/conditioner, lotion, sunscreen, bug repellent as well as things like an extra towel, extra blanket, travel guitar and music, capo, picks, books to read, paper and writing utensils, headphone, computer, phone, clothing, etc, etc.

I am looking forward to the adventure of living on a big ship; seeing a totally new part of the world; the community that comes with being with a bunch of people doing meaningful work far from home. I last experienced the latter after going to Haiti after the earthquake in 2010. There were people from all of the world in Haiti to provide medical care to the thousands of people injured in the earthquake. It was an amazing experience to be in a place where the skills that I had were just what was needed. I came home committed to trying to be is such a place at the right time again to make use of my skills as a physical therapist.

I would love to return to Haiti but it is simply too dangerous to travel there, now due to political instability. I hope to be able to return again some day. Last year I went looking for other opportunities, and I discovered the non-profit Mercy ships.

Mercy ships is an evangelical non-profit organization which has been featured on the news show 60 Minutes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4rmbcU9Jxo for its good work in the poorest places in the world. One of those places is Madagascar, where I will be going.

Patients are chosen a year in advance to have life altering surgeries for things like cleft palate, pelvic fistulas, orthopedic malalignment associated with birth defects, polio or malnutrition. Many of the patients are children.

Additionally Mercy ships works in countries where it is deployed to build capacity to provide medical care within the country. This means teaching surgeons how to do surgeries, & teaching nurses how to care for post-op patients. It is not clear to me if physical therapy exists as a profession in Madagascar. (There was no PT in Haiti before the earthquake.) I hope that I will be able to make a difference in the lives of some of the people from Madagascar while I am there. I hope that I will meet some amazing people, and I hope to see some of the amazing wildlife while I am in Africal

I will be writing once a week while away. Click the link to sign up to follow my blog.