I bet you are wondering how I spent the last couple of days, eh? Well, I'll tell you!

On Wednesday I went out to visit one of the agricultural farms that the Mercy Ship team helped set up.  We rode out there with a couple of the Academy classes. It was pretty impressive what they had accomplished in the 10 months that the ship has been here for. They had diverted part of the river to irrigate the plots. They had lots of plants growing already. And they did everything with only a few shovels and other hand tools. And, even more impressively, most of the workers were elderly women! On the way back to the cars we stopped by a school to say hello to the class and introduce the Academy kids briefly.
I am really glad I didn't have to work that day because the ship had a function with the 'important people' from Sierra Leone as a good bye. There were some ambassadors and the Minister of Health came as well. They had a special lunch set up and the galley and dining room were going crazy trying to make sure that everything went smoothly.


Thanksgiving was...odd. Maybe what I mean to say is the lack of build up to it was odd. No Black Friday commercials, no sales on turkeys, nothing. My cabin-mates are all Americans so we talked about it, but we all were pretty busy with other things so it wasn't a huge deal.
We had an ice cream party for the day workers since it was their last day. For dinner we had a traditional Thanksgiving meal, but I was feeling a bit down so I ate really quickly and didn't linger over it. Then I went on a engine room tour of the ship. It was pretty neat! The ship is a refitted train ferry, so it's not built like a normal ship. They also have all the water filtration equipment down there along with the sewage system.
Our water is  probably the safest not only in Africa, but pretty much any ship anywhere since it goes through three filtration systems and, according to the engineer who was giving us the tour, most ships only have one or two.
Right after the tour ended it was time for the Thursday community meeting, and then they had apple pie for everyone. I went to watch How the Grinch Stole Christmas with a bunch of other people in the Queen's Lounge and ate pumpkin pie! (Pumpkins are not easy to find around here, just so you know) So at least the day ended well.

Yesterday we had the big farewell to our Sierra Leonean day workers. We had a big African lunch set up, and I did have to work that day so...We had 200 day workers come on top of our 250ish regular crew members eating. Pretty tiring. I managed to stay awake until 10 (which is the time I was going to call home) by watching The Office with one of my cabin-mates, Jenny. (SHE fell asleep though)

Today I am going to Regina's wedding. I'm pretty excited to see a African wedding. I'll have more to write about tomorrow!