I'm going home!

This is basically a really long blog to tell you that I'm going back to Africa and to say Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and Happy New Year!!!! I will be serving with Mercy Ships again, this time the boat will be in Conakry, Guinea. I am excited to return and meet new friends and see some familiar faces! I leave February 23rd and return June 2nd. I am currently working in Houston until about February 10th, then I'll travel the US seeing friends and family before I go. It's a little too early to plan a job for when I return, so I will likely fly back to the US and figure it out then!

I stay in contact with my favorite friend, from Cameroon, Zidane and his Papa via WhatsApp. His dad sent me this picture last week. It was the greatest Christmas surprise! He has grown SO much! Of course, I'm sad he doesn't have his cheeky Zidane smile but it made my day! I sure miss him!

Once again, I have saved up over the past year and I plan to cover the costs of my trip but I know people want to help so I've set up a funding page again! Last year my friends and family donated enough money to cover my crew fees, I can't thank them enough! As this is a volunteer commitment I am responsible for my flight, medications/vaccinations, and crew fees while aboard. Anything will help offset my costs to go serve the people of Guinea! 
The website is https://mercyships-us.donorpages.com/crewmates/SierraStout

My first Christmas with my family in three years! But I sure did miss the festivities aboard the ship!

The title of this blog is actually a joke because I recently did 23andMe genetic testing. If you are unfamiliar with 23and Me, it's a really cool process. They mail you a test tube, you spit in it and mail it back to them. Once they have it they test you for over 50 genetic abnormalities that would potentially lead to diseases(Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, The BRCA breast cancer gene, muscular dystrophy, etc). Luckily, I do not have any of the genetic factors for the previous pathologies.  They also test your DNA for your ancestral heritage. No surprises here, I'm 99.7% European, but there is a teeny tiny .1% of my DNA that has been traced back to Senegal/Guinea! Therefore, my .1% is going home! I included some of the screen shots of my ancestry DNA information if you're curious what the other percentages are!

                            

 

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I can't wait to share this experience with you all!! Thank you for being a part of my life and supporting my decisions! 😘 Love you!

I hate goodbyes!

I'm not sure what I expected leaving the ship to be like, but definitely didn't expect the goodbyes to be THIS hard.

Over the years as a travel therapist I have said good bye hundreds of times. I've gotten pretty good at good bye, but because I also stay in touch with a lot of people I know its not goodbye it's "See you Later".

I think that's what makes this goodbye particularly difficult, I know it's Goodbye...like forever. Goodbye, not see you later.  Finite

I think that being in rehab we have the best job in the hospital. We see the patients from before surgery, throughout their recovery, then we get to see them 1:1 in rehab, and we are usually the last ones to see them before they leave the hospital. Getting this much time with our patients gives us the opportunity to build meaningful relationships with them over the course of their treatment.  All of this time and these sweet relationships that develop make saying goodbye an arduous task.

I started to tell patients that I'm leaving last week, I've cried tears thinking about leaving but I wasn't prepared for the tears others have shed over my departure! I feel so loved! I'd forgotten that this must be difficult for them too. Building relationships and seeing so many crew go home, all the while yearning to go home themselves.

I think for my last blog while in Africa I will reminisce about the amazing things I will miss!

I will miss my patients! This week I had an extra day off so I got to go to the Hope Center to craft and dance with the kids. It was so fun to be able to just sit and enjoy them vs. making them work or working on them!  We sang Bumbalea, heard a Bible story, and did a craft to go with the story. I'm so thankful for this extra time with my adorable little kiddos!

Oh man, check out how hard Zidane is laughing!! Love that guys laugh

Bumbalea

My sweet gal Assiatou

"Hold somebody, tell them that you love them, put your hands together, and praise the Lord"

Assiatou, treasuring the last moments with this silly girl

I got roped into doing someone's craft for them

So excited to see us at the Hope Center

I hope that the love this gal has felt here, has changed her for a lifetime.

I will miss opportunities to volunteer, and get involved in the Mercy Ships ministries. My last weekend here I signed up to go to the New Destiny orphanage again, what a change in 2 months! The kids clothes were new, they all had good shoes, they all looked taller/healthier, I'm so grateful for the people of Mercy Ships supporting these children. They are almost done with building a new home for everyone, once it's done they'll be able to live rent free!! We heard this weekend that their building should be done before Mercy Ships leaves Cameroon.

Matis speaks English and was really proud of his school work!

Oh baby Isaac was so sad this visit

Teaching Matis how to take a selfie, valuable life skill

Teaching the boys some new moves 😅😂

1,2,3, WEEEEEEE

The babies have grown so much since last visit

Football with Jovan

Group Photo!

I will miss these beautiful friends! We've started a tradition(for the last month) of getting schawarmas for lunch on Saturday. We went to the craft market then got lunch as a group, it was delicious. We'll probably go twice before we go too!

Cheers to Schawarmas!

I will miss being a part of this inspiring life saving hospital. Before I go I want to share some incredible before and after photos of some patients I got to interact with! They weren't rehab patients but the pictures demonstrate a bigger picture of what Mercy Ships does.  I want people who have supported me along the way to be proud of their contributions because it has literally saved lives. Tonight I went to an inservice and Dr. Parker, who has a ton of great quotes, said "Don't do this operation unless you have the Africa Mercy with you." This is such a true quote-this ship does AMAZING things :)

Djenabou Before

Djenabou After

Kaltoumi Before

Kaltoumi After

Baby Paul a cleft lip patient, had to work with the infant feeding program for quite sometime  prior to surgery to increase his weight for surgery. 

Paul after surgery, whoaaaa look at that fat baby!! SO cute- hard to believe its the same child!

My favorite little friend Ousmane went to the Hope Center last week, I have seen him in the rehab tent almost every day since then and he is getting SO much better!! He's almost ready to go home and is a changed boy!!

I just learned this week that my favorite baby Marimou is being re-admitted. Pray for this sweet baby as she is re-admitted, that if surgery is an option she will thrive!

I am excited to go home but I will miss this place!  I have had the joy of working with extremely talented/God fearing surgeons, wonderful/loving/caring nurses, and an incredible/fun/loving rehab team! The purpose, the patients, and the people! I love working with likeminded loving professionals, what an easy work atmosphere! I think it will be a shock to return to western medicine/working with people with various personalities, away from the Mercy Ships love bubble. 

The last thing I will miss is the daily language learning! I committed to learning a french word a day, I'm not sure if I know 120 French words but I gave it my best effort! And I learned so many words in tribal languages along the way, all taught to me by patients! I've had an ongoing list of words in my phone I want to share, you never know when you might need to know Fulfulde, Bamoun, or Mafa :) I have no idea how they're actually spelled but I spelled them phonetically on my list so I would remember how to say them.

Fulfulde

Aboo-ey:  POOP 

AFuutie: fart 

Asilly: Pee

Adanina: sleep 

Lumo: walk

Usoko: thank you

Saiyeso: Later 

Bow ojay: good bye 

Me eed demah: I love you 

Useku: shoe 

Budum: good job 

Bamoun 

Poutsana: how are you

Pokari: all is well 

O’yama: good morning 

Mushashu: salut 

Poket lienju: have a good day 

Poshina: bye 

Mafa 

Sayama: bye 

Baling guy A: good morning 

amba: good job 

How are you: Kan Sa ging AY 

Cameroon slang 

I learned this one because a child fell in therapy the other day and about 4 adults turned and said-

Ah-see-ya: it’s ok 

Goodbye for now!! I'll be back in Guinea!

Right now I miss all of you at home! I can't wait to see you all!

I fly out Saturday evening and I arrive back in the US Sunday and 2:20 PM :) So happy to see my sisters and their families! 

Twin Lakes of Muanenguba

SO many of our patients are progressing and going home! It's so exciting for them! When they get discharged we sing songs and do a discharge dance the last day. Recently we discharged Maeva! I've written about her before, she had a burn contracture of her foot and just wanted to wear pretty shoes! She got her wish- I think she wore a different pair of cute shoes each time I saw her last week. It's such a blessing to watch them go through their surgeries and healing process. They are with us so long that they grow up before our eyes! Maeva has lost teeth, grown new ones, and she seems to have grown so much taller! I sure will miss her!

Maeva before

Maeva at Discharge- looking ALL grown up

This Past weekend four friends and I went on a weekend trip to hike the twin crater lakes of Muanenguba. We took a car service to Nkongsamba, then drove a little further up to Villa Luciole. The villas were so cute! We were given the option to stay in the main house or in a traditional little hut. We obviously chose the hut!

Our hut

The hut across the path

The Villa cooked us dinner, then we headed to bed. The next morning we woke up early and hiked into the crater. It was so beautiful! We hiked through small villages, lush fruit and coffee farms, through goat shepherd's fields, through the jungle, then finally to the edge of the crater!

Sunrise on the way up

small village on the way

Through some corn fields

Someone's pet goat. Oh HI friend

The twin peaks of Mount Muanenguba

Really remote school yard

Goats!

Cookie break!

This was called the doorway to the stars, it was a hole in a tree in the jungle. It was close to the  border between the Littoral and South West regions of Cameroon.

Terraced hills along the way.

Taking a breather!

Jungle

Resting at the edge of the crater. 

The edge of the crater

Once at the edge of the crater we ate lunch. Then walked to the twin lakes in the middle of the crater. The middle of the crater was mostly barren grasslands and it was HOT!

Panorama of the two craters

Female lake

Male lake

We hiked to this little hut where we took pictures and met some of the local people who live in the crater.

It's not an adventure unless there's a jumping photo

Us with our guide Alain, there were so many twists and turns we would've  never made it without him.

Alain with the local guys

I convinced the local guys to take a jumping photo

Some of the local kiddos

I realized when I took this photo that these kids aren't used to having their photo taken so they don't know what to do! 

Such sweet, shy, adorable guys, they really enjoyed seeing their photos. 

This week I printed off these photos and laminated them. My roommate on the ship is going to do this same hike next weekend and she said she would take them their photos! So much better than getting a carrier pigeon to drop them.

We went to bed early that night after HOT showers, what a luxury! We woke up the next morning to go home and stopped at Ekom Falls on the way home. It was the filming location of Tarzan. It is dry season but still so beautiful, and since it was dry season we were able to get pretty close to the falls without getting drenched. 

Ekom Falls

The group!

 We got home early in the afternoon after a crazy car ride home! The drivers here don't follow any rules and seem to think that oncoming traffic is merely an inconvenience.

One of the rehab day crew is leaving Douala to return to school to finish her nursing degree. I'm extremely happy for her but she will be missed! Tonight we went out to ice-cream tonight as a farewell to Cristabelle.

Group Selfie!

Only two short weeks left. Geez how time has flown. I'm not ready to leave yet, but I do miss my family and friends and I'm excited to see them again!!