Last Friday we had our last laser eye surgery day and it was a doosy! Usually we've done between 30 - 60 patients each Friday morning and we've gotten pretty efficient using a two tent system where we funnel the patients through a series of stations both inside and outside the two tents that we use. Well - for some reason several weeks worth of patients were scheduled to get as many done so the surgeon we've trained is not inundated with too many of the 6 week post op laser surgeries. It was not until I was in the midst of putting drops in patient's eyes that I was told we had 120 patients scheduled! WHAT!? So, this made the snafu from yesterday all the more upsetting. Snafu is standard military terminology - sorry if you don't know acronym. It's probably on google. Anyway - the guy in charge of pack up decided to take down the tent we used for the actual laser surgeries. I wandered outside to ask my team leader a question and saw them yanking the innards out of our tent and thought - hmmm, this will not go well. Wandered into the big tent and informed our leader and that's when it got fun. Fortunately there was enough time to run in between all the remaining tents and negotiate enough room for the following day to get the laser surgeries done of the 100 patients that did show up. So - it wasn't a disaster, fortunately it didn't rain on people waiting outside the tent and things moved reasonably well given the added wrinkle and the addition of way more patients than usual. Needless to say I'm glad it was the last time for all of that!
In addition to the pack up there have been going away get togethers for this and that official work group, as well as for multiple groups of friends that will soon be saying good bye. Last night my little group that put on Godspell for Easter went out to a local Chinese restaurant. It was nice to get off the ship, go to a restaurant we've never been to before and think about something besides the 20+ folks we said good bye to during the usual Monday night airport run that left at 7pm. Two of the women I worked most closely with on the eye team went home last night so it was a hard "kiss and cry" for me.
Since we've not had our usual hard work to keep us occupied and this WAS my old knitting blog I feel like I should confess to at least my fellow yarn-o-holics reading this and exclaimed when I said I'd only brought 14 skeins of yarn with me regarding "what would I do when I ran out''? Well, I wondered, too frankly. I have been long collecting various skeins of gorgeous Noro silk garden that I'd planned on knitting into the famous Lizard Ridge afghan from Knitty. So, I was quite excited to get started on this as my Africa project.
Here are just four of the squares I made from this lovely pattern. I enjoyed it alot but had gotten down to the very last skein about three weeks ago and was starting to panic wondering where I could score some desperation yarn as I've done during past trips when my planning was not the best? We even went to the Grande Marche in hopes that we'd run across someone, somewhere with a few skeins of something I could play with. No luck.
What I did run across during one of my late nitht forays on the internet was a free pattern from an online magazine called Craftsy that was a Entrelac scarf pattern using - Noro's SILK GARDEN!!! Get OUT!! Not only did I have 14 skeins of silk garden waiting to be liberated from their wavy Lizard Ridge existence but I am insanely IN LOVE with Entrelac. OK - for the uninitiated, entrelac is a knitting style that is oh so addicting since you build and knit in little squares and triangles to make gorgeous patterns. Here are a few squares I've made since losing my mind to the Entrelac song that never ends.... After just a few rows it was clear to me - and I think that you will agree with me, this yarn was begging me to turn it into entrelac. Peter thought this was quite bizarre that I would rip out square after square of knitting I'd spent hours on, but I explained to him that I am what is known as a "Process" knitter vs. a "Product" knitter. Meaning I'm sort of addicted to the act of knitting and couldn't care less if I ever see an end product or not. After likening it to his lack of desire to really improve his golf game vs. just enjoying the act of being out there - he sort of got it. 
So - there you have it - the Knitdoc part of the ancient blog writes again. And I now have enough yarn to get me through our last three days in Togo, four in days in Paris and the long plane rides until we touch down back in our beloved San Diego. 140 days into the 143 days total that we have been here! Yes, sadly, we were counting the days and each time we entered a new month we were ecstatic. We're extremely grateful that we've had the chance to be here, to be a part of this awesome mission, to get to know the wonderful people of Togo and West Africa. We're amazed at the spirit and resilience of the people here. Stunned by the lack of very basic medical care and attitudes toward the sick. We are proud to be a part of a ministry like Mercy Ships and the loving, selfless way the organization gives to all in the sacrificial manner of Jesus Christ. We have really grown and learned and met people we want to be in contact with for the rest of our lives. They are part of us now and we never want to lose what we've gained here. We're hopeful that we will continue to have some sort of role in the future of Mercy Ships as they evolve and grow and pray that we and they will recognize God's call for whatever He deems is next for us.
If any of you ever want more information regarding our time in Africa or our time on board the Africa Mercy, please don't hesitate to e-mail or ask us in person. We pray everyone has the opportunity to do exactly what God has created them, and prepared for them to do in this world. We look forward to our next adventure.
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