I was inspired to write this blog by something that a friend of mine here on the ship posted a few weeks ago. He was able to sum up an aspect of life here on the ship that is not always easy to convey (unless of course you have spent any period of significant time on the ship before) but is such a central facet of our reality that in order to fully understand what it means to live and work on this ship - it is something that needs to be shared.
I so often hear, as I remember saying to others myself before I came to Africa, that what we are doing here is 'amazing' work, 'life changing', 'living the dream' and all of those other well meaning phrases - which for the most part are true. Sharon and I have to regularly stop and take stock of just how fortunate and blessed we are to just have the opportunity to be apart of this vision, to be apart of something that is so much bigger than ourselves. That big picture dream, those very beautiful broad brush strokes are the life line that keep us going and got us here in the first place - and it is those stories that we so often send home.
However, there are also the fine brush strokes, the delicate details which make the picture what is it, the subtle nuances that often don't get talked about which make up so much of life here on this ship - and we have been finding to an increasing degree over the last few months that these fine details, the difficulties of living and working and playing and learning and eating and chilling and crying and laughing and so many more things, all within a tightly confined ship that we call home can really drag a person down.
We live in the constant tension of never being able to escape from where we are. If you've had a bad day, if something is getting at you, if you just need to be alone, away, isolated......then this 500 foot ship is all you have. Yes, you can get off the ship and walk, or get a taxi somewhere - but for any of you who have been to West Africa, i'm sure with a wry smile you remember just how relaxing, freeing or isolated you can be as a westerner out here.
I'm not all that sure why I am writing this? I guess to help you all understand a little more of what life is like for us here. Yes, we are part of a living, moving entity that changes lives. Yes, we get to see things which shake the foundations of a persons worldview and re-direct a purpose for living, and yes, for all of our frailties and faults, we can often forget that. We can lose our sense of direction and purpose and focus on things which, even as I write them I cringe at, but nevertheless are so very true for so many people who have been here for so long. We can focus on the fact that for 98% of our time here, we have no choice in what we eat, we can focus on the fact that there are only so many movies a person can watch in a week to pass time in an evening, or so many card games we can play. We often remind ourselves that if we do want to go out to one of the 5 or 6 ok restaurants in Freetown, it is more than likely going to take us 2 hours to get there, but 20 minutes back. And yes, we can always remember how so many friends have come and gone in the time that we have been here. But to top it all off, we remember how we should feel a lot more grateful for this opportunity that we are.
I guess I write this to help you to see that no matter where you go, there you are. That no matter how good things can be, human nature is to so often want more. And I guess I write this to help you to see that the life that we live out here on our floating home is not easy, it can be messy, it often is painful and it is still life.
In a matter of weeks it will be 2 years since I left England.
As I wrote that sentence above, I had to stop and ponder on it. 2 years......
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