First days upon the Africa Mercy

Hello,
This post will cover what my first 2 days have been like upon the Africa Mercy! Upon arriving to the ship, I was given a short tour of the ship and a lot of paper work to sign and go through. I was actually given the ship orientation via a lady from Vancouver, British Columbia. It was nice to see someone from British Columbia for the first time since my departure to Tamatave. I was introduced to the crew that I would be working with, and a lot of them are hired via the ship from Madagascar. They are all extremely nice people and even taught me some of their language-Malagasy. I believe I can say " Hi, my name is Jesse Spooner.  I am from Canada. I am 21 years old". My colleagues/friends from Madagascar are not only nice people but extremely hard workers as work starts early in the morning and some have to travel more than an hour to get to the ship.

Aside from the working aspect of the ship, there are plenty of times to sign up for activities off the ship to which I signed up to go see the local children's hospital. In fact, A group of us went tonight to deliver gifts to the children that are stuck in the hospital. I forget the name of the organization that sends shoe boxes full of gifts, but it was amazing to see the kids eyes light up when they received toys such as a stuffed Snoopy (from Charlie Brown). The next trip will be to an orphanage to visit with more children.

All in all, this is an amazing ship doing amazing things. I will definitely have more to write about after a few more days. Thank you very much for reading this post, and I will write again soon!

Thanks!
Jesse