Changes

Some people are leaving or have left, like my roommate Elizabeth from England, and my friend John, from San Francisco. John was one of the navigators who came for the actual sailing, which is now over. So he went home. Elizabeth worked in the dining room and was hear for 2 months, which happened to fall while we were in Durban, Cape Town and then on the sail. When people leave here, they are asked to carry mail with them to the states (or England, as in Elizabeth’s case) and drop it in a mailbox when they get stateside. That is how mail is delivered for the most part. When I first got to S. Africa I sent my postcards from S. Africa with their stamps. As far as I know they all arrived at their intended locations. I didn’t necessarily want to take that chance with the real mail and packages. When I leave, I’ve already planned to leave a little space in my luggage for other peoples’ items. So, if you receive something from me and it’s strangely postmarked from some place in the US that you don’t know, that’s why.

Elizabeth was a sweetheart and I loved to listen to her talk. I told her the story of how, when I was in high school, my mom tried to ship me off to a private girl’s school in England, called the Rodean School for Girls. Thank God by dad put an end to that idea! Anyway, I will miss her. Before she left, we went for a small walk into town after dinner, but not too far. It was strange. My first impulse was to be very sad for these people. There are large, concrete drainage ditches with no protection from falling into them and they are on either side of every large street. They smell horrible of course, and are filled with trash and Lord knows what else. I’ve heard that it gets way worse in the rainy season when the ditches fill up with rain water. On the outside of the ditches are peoples’ businesses and small homes – often the same buildings. They are selling whatever they can and sometimes cooking things on a small spit or small fire, and want pedestrians to buy the food they are cooking right there, accompanied by a roll or something like it, and wrapped loosely in tin foil. The space between the ditch and the buildings is often barely enough to call a sidewalk, but if you try to walk on the other side of the ditch any manner of car, bus or motorcycle could take you out at any time. There are no rules on these roads, for vehicles or pedestrians. It’s amazing anyone gets anywhere. There are police officers walking around on the streets also but I have no idea why. Maybe it’s worse when they are not there. The strange thing that we encountered was that so many of the people seemed genuinely happy, or at least content, and especially the children, who played in the (smaller) streets, insisted on greeting us with big smiles, and even wanted to do high fives with us. It was all rather difficult to process, really.

Also leaving and taking some mail for me was Carolyn, who is from Coronado Island (San Diego). I wanted to climb into her luggage and go home with her instead of just giving her some of my mail. Elizabeth is on the left, with Carolyn and Lou (who is staying). Lou is one of those who lives for the sea. He has a ton of history and qualifications, and they all have to do with big boats.

That leaves just me and Janelle in the cabin but not for long. One showed up last night and another 2 are arriving tomorrow, if not tonight. The cabin has 3 small sections and each section has accommodations for 2 (notice I didn’t say room for 2), so when the new girls show up I will be sharing a tiny area with another person.  I hope to God she doesn’t snore; that’s the one thing I cannot handle (right, Larry?). Also, I don’t sleep well here. It is very common for me to wake up in the middle of the night and read or cross stitch for a few hours on my bunk until I can get back to sleep, if I can get back to sleep. I’ve always had sleeping issues, but I’m worse here. I hope the little light that’s next to my bunk doesn’t bother the person on the top bunk too badly. Wish me luck.

Also different are the “day workers” that board the ship to work M – F. They are from Freetown (where we are docked) and are paid a tiny amount which is not tiny to them. They are all over the ship to help and we have a bunch in the kitchen and dining room. The galley gets pretty crowded and there’s so much chopping going on it’s amazing that we are not all deaf and that we still have all of our fingers. They are lovely people and we enjoy very much having them and their assistance. Of course, that means we are also cooking for more mouths…

These are some of the day workers, Sierra Leoneans, plus Erin, Carole, Michelle and me, being goofy on a little break.

That’s Josh making some French fries. He doesn’t like being in pictures much. I tell people it’s because he’s in the Witness Protection Program and Josh (if that’s his real name) is on the lamb. The day workers haven’t decided yet whether I’m serious or not. He’s a good kid and reminds me some of my own 2 boys, whom I miss (but don’t tell them).

I received some requests for food photos and info so I will get to that very soon. I did the mixed steamed veggies in citrus/basil tonight (got photos) and will do the stuffed bell peppers on Friday. We’ve got some tortillas so I’m thinking of trying fish tacos with a lettuce/slaw combo and a mango salsa next week. The produce here is killer! I’ve been collecting seeds from some of them for Julie’s garden. If I can get my hands on some graham cracker crumbs, I want to try a sheet cake version of my infamous cheesecake. I also want to conspire with the baker, Oretha, to make a sheet cake pecan pie, but I’ve never been very good at hand-made crust. And I would need a lot of crust – those roll out things would never do in a case like this. I’ve been told that finding an actual grocery store (as we know it) is impossible here but I’m wondering into town tomorrow on my day off to see what I can find!