The Young Man and the Sea

My favorite time of the day is bringing the patients up to Deck 7 in the afternoon to catch some rays and gaze out to sea. The patient wards are located on Deck 3 and have no windows. I'm sure Florence Nightingale would have something to say about this. Without windows, patients can become disoriented and lose track of day and night, when to rise and when to sleep. One afternoon I kneeled down so my patient, 8-year-old Pere could slide off his bed and onto my back. In true West African style, I carried him and his full length leg casts piggy-back style up the flights of stairs to Deck 7.
Pere is from northern Togo and I soon learned that this would be the first time in his life he would see the ocean. What an honor! I placed him down in a plastic picnic chair. At first he was very timid and frightened about approaching the edge of the deck but gradually he allowed me to scoot him forward until he was gripping onto the bars of the deck, looking straight down to the ocean below. He was perfectly content sitting there for an hour, watching the swallows dip and dive, fishing canoes sail by on the open ocean and members of the Togolese Navy working on their boats docked next to the Africa Mercy Ship.

What a precious moment it was for me to share my love of the ocean with my new African friend. Once again I was reminded of why I love being a nurse in Africa.

"Now is the time to think of only one thing.

That which I was born for."

The Old Man and the Sea

Ernest Hemingway