England Musings #2

originally sent 9 April 2005
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hiya,

Just thought I would blanket everyone with another email (for some it is your first one - see below for intial email). Sorry it is kind of a mass mailing but if I were to say hello individually my computer time would be extravagant - and, in any case, my emailing regularity is poor to nonexistent historically speaking, so I suppose even one email to a general audience is way above my historical average.

In any case tonight (Friday night here) marks the end of the 11th day here in England and the end of the first full work week. I am not attempting to count the days, rather it is interesting just how quickly this first week has flown by - I didn't imagine it would go this quick.

Last Saturday (2 Apr) there were a group of us that took the minibus up to a town called Morpeth, approx 9 miles north of Newcastle. There we took a walk along a "public footpath" along a river (of which I have forgotten the name - not an easy name to remember anyway) out four miles or so and then took a path in some fields and roads back to the town - 8 miles total roughly, so a good afternoon walk. The countryside was rather pretty. We had a nice day for a walk with some typical (?) England haze which they say is a winter occurrence here for reasons I have yet to find out. I got some pictures which I hope to send in the next week or as soon as I figure out the modem connections needed for a British phone line... One of the things that struck me as odd about this walk or hike (especially coming from Alaska I suppose) is that much of this "public footpath" is in private fields where there were steps for crawling up and over fences and signs directing the public along this trail. It just seemed odd to have a trail along a agriculture field.

Saturday night I had the opportunity to visit a pub with some other folks here and then go to a movie. The pub food was great and this particular pub was located on a beach in South Shields (check out link below) where we could sit at a window table and look out east over the Atlantic Ocean (well, whatever the strait is called between England and Europe). It cost £6.99 for the meal of Sausage & Mash that I sampled - this is about $14 with today's exchange rate. I had to ask what mash was (wanting of course to make sure) and had heads turning at tables across the pub as I was told that it was simply mash potatoes - why they can't just say that in the menu I don't know. Anyway the pork sausage (really good) and mashed potatoes was served in a Yorkshire pudding (think bread bowl but with more of a pastry look/taste) - good stuff I thought. There are other strange names for food - a meal of ham was referred to as "gammon" and potato chips are referred to as crisps - there are many other examples.

map: (removed - too long of a link!)

Following the meal at the pub we attended the movie where I had a hard time shelling out £5.70 (over $11!!!) for a ticket - I thought $8.50 or whatever it is in Alaska now was expensive! Needless to say the novel thing about the movie tickets is that they had assigned seating which made elbowing your way in for a seat hardly a challenge. Something I found to be rather a nice idea in spite of the ticket price. Oh, and a lot of American movies play here, although I believe there are British movies produced.

Jet lag continued to be a problem up until Tuesday night or so. I really didn't think it would be such a tough thing to adjust to, but the time change and traveling sure played havoc with the body. Of course, the success in trumping jet lag may have been due to the sleeping aid (I finally bought sleeping pills cause waking up all night just wasn't fun).

The past week and a half have been fairly involved with getting adjusted to work and surroundings. Haven't done much traveling outside of the group trips on Saturday and it doesn't look like weekdays will accommodate much in the way of getting out of town. The work is such that ever after an eight hour day I do feel tired and I suppose this has to do with the fact that work is physical in nature (as opposed to my previous experience with four years of paperwork and computer time). So, there are a good couple hours in the evenings after work showering up preparing dinner after which not too much time is left before bedtime. In any case there is certainly time to explore some of the local area with evening walks. It seems to me that the weekends will have to hold the time for more serious out of town explorations, but we'll wait and see how it goes.

However, much enjoyment has been found in just visiting with some of the folks that are also here serving with Mercy Ships. Just last night I was invited over to a young couple's house for dinner. They are both from South Africa having been born and raised there and just had a baby girl a few months ago. They were both born and raised in South Africa (they are both white by the way - I know you were wondering...) and have spent a good portion of the last five years outside of South Africa in various countries working. The last year and a half they have been with Mercy Ships - he is a the 2nd Officer (deck officer) and she is staying at home most of the time with the baby.

Anyway, the point is that it has been terribly interesting to visit with folks from different countries - Netherlands, Philippines, West Africa (Ghana?), South Africa, locals from Newcastle and others from greater England area - even a couple from New Hampshire that arrived just a week prior. Visiting with all these folks and learning of their backgrounds and current involvement/motivation/servitude makes me think of just how small a world this seems to be - a novelty for me not having experienced such interactions before. There is certainly a common thread among us all with respect to serving the Lord in the current endeavor, however, the similarities and differences are apparent and accepted - in any case I find this to be a very curious aspect.

Right now I am emailing into the wee hours of the morning as I attempt to prepare for the next four nights serving as night watch aboard the Africa Mercy. 24/7 there are at least two people aboard the ship for purposes of performing a monitoring and security function. This around the clock monitoring is more to keep an eye on the ship for anything out of the ordinary that may be to the detriment of the ship and such monitoring has been going on for some time now. I am to fill in for one of the crew members over the next four days taking the watch from 11:30 pm to 7:30 am. My partner will do the watch from 3:30 pm to 11:30 pm and will then rest while I perform the watch over the night. My rest time is 3:30 pm to 11:30 pm and so I hope to try and sleep some during that chunk of time. We'll see how things work out. I will do four rounds over an eight-hour period with a round of the ship taking about 45min-1hr over the span of eight decks. After the four days are over (Tues morning) I will get a day off (Wed. I think) and then will also not have to do night watch again till sometime in May. Nor will I have to work during the day on Monday and Tuesday - so, needless to say, this won't be a typical work week.

The Africa Mercy has been in dock undergoing repairs for six years this past Monday (it is around 25 years old I think). Right now things are beginning to take shape. The ship was originally a Dutch train ferry such that one of the decks was literally cable of holding numerous trains cars that were driven (or pushed) right onto the ship. The train tracks are still present in the floor of deck 3. A new deck has been added above this old train car deck - you can imagine that there was certainly space for it as the clearance required for trains cars is easily the height of a two story building. Anyway, once complete the ship will hold around 450 crew members including an expected 40 or more children, most of which will attend an on-ship school. Deck 3 will contain the hospital functions including ward, CT scanner, locations for eyes surgeries, pharmacy, and other hospital functions that I am not yet familiar with. Two of the original six main engines are in the midst of being converted to generators that will be used when in harbor and the hospital is up and operating (I don't recall the power output of the generators). The remaining four main diesel engines will obviously be used to convey the ship from place to place. These main engines are 4,500 hp and require 1600 liters of oil in the sump - that would be about something like 422 US gallons of oil - big engines anyway.

Well I suppose that I have rambled on enough for one night. Sorry to go on forever but I figure that writing such emails will help me remember and I can save them for many years down the road when I am old and forget stuff - actually, that already occurs regularly.

Hope all is well with you - cheers!

love,

matt