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Weekend Escapes: Life Beyond the Ship

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On weekends off, I try to take the opportunity to leave the ship and join crew excursions to explore destinations near Tamatave.  Cruising the Historic Pangalanes Canal On one recent trip, I visited the famous Palmarium Reserve.  Getting there requires a 3-hour boat trip along the Pangalanes Canal, which stretches for more than 500 kilometres and links a series of freshwater and brackish lakes, rivers and man-made channels built in colonial times to provide a safe route for river traffic away from the rough Indian Ocean.  Today, the Pangalanes Canal is still an important transport corridor for the local communities living on its banks as well as a popular route for visitors and tourists who share the waterway with barges full of charcoal, timber and other goods being transported between villages and towns for sale in the markets. Transporting goods along the Pangalanes canal Fishing is the main economy for villagers living on the canal banks and tilapia is the main catch ...
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On Board the Africa Mercy

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Mercy Ships was founded in 1978 by Don & Deyon Stephens to  deliver life-changing surgeries and medical care to children and adults who would otherwise go without treatment.  The first ship, MV Anastasis, was purchased from a scrap yard in Greece for US$1 million before being transformed into a 40-bed hospital ship with 3 operating rooms. Almost 50 years and a total of 5 ships later, Mercy Ships now operates a 2-ship fleet: the Global Mercy currently in Ghana and the Africa Mercy docked in the coastal town of Tamatave, Madagascar, which is where I am.  A Historic Ferry Transformed The Africa Mercy (AFM) was  originally built in 1980 and called the   Dronning Ingrid (Queen Ingrid). It functioned as a  train and  passenger ferry operated by the Danish State Railways and for nearly 20 years c arried passengers across the Great Belt strait in  Denmark. Although heavily restored and fitted for its new purpose, there are still signs of the origina...
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Salama (hello) Madagascar

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As I start my 3-month volunteer placement as a pharmacist in Madagascar, I wanted to share some background on this incredible country and why Mercy Ships is needed.  The island and its people Madagascar is the world's fourth largest island - 2.4 times as big as the UK - located in the Indian ocean due east of Mozambique. The people of Madagascar are known as the Malagasy and the official languages are Malagasy and French following independence from France in 1960. The country is home to approx. 32 million.  The country is probably best known for its unique biodiversity and its amazing flora and fauna, 90% of which is found nowhere else on Earth. There are 100 species of lemurs alone, alongside lesser known endemic species like the fossa and the tomato frog.    The fossa: Madagascar's top predator The ring-tailed lemur Economy and daily life  The majority of Malagasy people earn their income through subsistence farming, supported by mineral mining, fishing and fo...
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Namaste Nepal

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It is almost 3 months to the day since the 7.8 magnitude earthquake rocked Nepal killing more than 9000 people, injuring 22000 and leaving 2.8 million displaced. There have been 350 aftershocks since then, 16 within the first 3 hours and the latest one at 10.14pm last night. The room shook more violently than in any of the aftershocks I've experienced and there was a sound like a deep rumble. Or maybe it was completely silent and the noise came from inside my head, I can't remember. The roads were empty of traffic and quiet except for the sudden barking of stray dogs and within 7 seconds it was over. Some of us had grabbed our passports and emergency kit bags, some had gone outside looking for the relative safety of open space. For me it was a reminder that I am in Nepal and less than three months ago an earthquake with 63000 times more energy than the one I felt last night wiped out whole villages, entire families. Seven weeks ago I arrived in Kathmandu to be part of...
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