Finishing Interviews & Exploring Cameroon

Team dinner for July 4th.

The last three weeks saw us finally settle into a routine, only to reach the end of interviews, and now have to prepare for a whole next task. But let’s be honest, I’m not really a routine person. I love to have new challenges everyday, and can always find something to do with my time. I’m realizing it’s slightly more difficult when you are responsible for 5 other people’s time and need to spend time thinking about what you would like them to do each day. I haven’t quite mastered this yet! This is just one of the many skills I have been learning this summer. Being responsible for when people start/finish work, when they eat, what they do on a given day, managing tensions and problems, making sure people don’t get discouraged – these are just a few of the things that I’m not used to handling each day. I’m a pretty laid back person so my tendency is to just tell people to do whatever they think is best, but I quickly learned that doesn’t work so well in this culture. My day crew approach me to ask if they can answer their phones, if they can go to the bathroom, to explain why they were speaking to someone, they stand the second I enter the room, they always very respectfully call me boss, they sometimes ask permission to speak, they always knock on the door before entering. My tendency is always to say, yes, yes, go ahead, I trust you. 

Celebrating Canada Day! :)

And maybe after over a month, they are starting to believe me. But I’ve also come to understand how hard it is for them to break away from how they’ve been taught to behave, especially in a work environment. When my predecessor, Ben, was training me, he started to open doors and half bow, and say bonjour Patron, every time he saw me. He said he was preparing me for how it would be when I got back on the ship after having hired all the day crew, how they would treat me. I haven’t gotten back on the ship, but I no longer think he was exaggerating. So instead of getting frustrated by the cultural differences, I’ve tried my best to be patient, to encourage them to be more independent, to think critically, to make decisions on their own, and while I may not always love it, ultimately, I’ve learned to appreciate the differences. I think I could learn many lessons from the level of respect they show for their superiors, from the way they think before they act, from the way they put the needs of others before their own. I continue to learn from them every single day.

In the last four weeks, we’ve conducted over 450 interviews and more than 100 driving tests (mostly Manda). This meant working some weekends and many nights to ensure that we would be able to interview and TB test everyone before we begin training. I’m glad we gave ourselves some buffer time because we’ve encountered many challenges: people who went through the whole process, only to tell us they were no longer interested when we called to offer them the job; ladies who we loved and then found out they were pregnant and couldn’t be hired; great applicants who had TB results come back positive; great drivers who couldn’t speak any English (and in one case, didn’t speak French either, just Arabic); requests from the ship for more people in a specific department or for a change in the job description; people who said they had good computer skills yet when we tested them, struggled with basic tasks. One particularly difficult task has been finding D class drivers, but slowly, slowly, it is coming together. The whole Advance team has helped us and asked all their contacts if they know any D class drivers, and every week or so, we test another 15-20 drivers, gathered from church contacts, the security guard down the road, soccer team contacts, ministry contacts, random people in the street that come up to our Mercy Ships cars, friends of applicants, people who see us doing driving tests and ask if they can be tested too. It’s been an adventure, but I know that in the end, we will have the right people driving our patients, the people that God wanted in that position.

Exploring some back roads in Cameroon.

We’ve also managed to have some fun and explore more of Cameroon in the last few weeks. On Canada Day, Manda and I went for an off roading adventure and discovered some amazing places to drive, or hike, around. It was great to get out of the city (although it took a while) and be in all that nature! You haven’t been off-roading until you’ve gone with Manda – he was distracted by every side path (even if they were only meant for people or motos), loved to go up and down hills and through random fields, engage the four wheel drive, and get to the point where the map showed that we were in the middle of nowhere. Being a multicultural team means that we also celebrated the fourth of July, with the whole team going out for burgers to celebrate (I got Indian – I am now addicted). I think I knew the American anthem better than some of them (thanks to watching thousands of hockey games!). They topped off the evening with fancy desserts and sparklers. We also got to celebrate my birthday together, which was a lovely experience, filled with love sent from all over the world, and ending with Liz bringing out cookie cake (second year in a row!), and watching a movie together. I was particularly touched by two videos I received, one from my mom with a whole slideshow of pictures from the last 25 years and encouraging words, and another from the Comms team in Texas, which was absolutely hilarious and so sweet to know they were thinking of me (even though I haven’t met half of them yet!). It made me even more excited for the ship to arrive and to get to meet, not just the new Comms team, but all of the new crew members! 

A beautiful hotel outside Limbe!

We also took a team vacation/exploratory trip to Limbe, which I’m fairly certain will end up being the favourite Mercy Ships getaway destination. I discovered a whole new respect for the Advance team and all the prep work that happens before the ship arrives. In Benin, we showed up and people told us where the best restaurants, the best cultural things, the best beaches, the best everything was. Well that took work! It’s quite different to be in a new country with no one to guide you or tell you where the best places are. But we had an adventure figuring it out! It took us about 2 hours to get there (we left at 6am to skip the traffic), but our map showed us that the place where we booked room was at the top of this insanely steep dirt road, that we had Manda drive about halfway up before getting stuck in a rut and changing our minds and having him come back down (not everyone has the same threshold for risk apparently, who knew?!). So we drove around and stopped at various hotels, asking for prices and checking out the rooms. It was like the story of Goldilocks – too expensive, not near the beach, terrible rooms….ahhh just right! We found a nice place, had a delicious American breakfast (I think it’s considered American if they serve more than just bread…), and spent the day hanging out by the pool and swimming in the ocean (well that was just me). It has been raining a lot here lately, and we were blessed with two days of sunshine!! The next day we drove some more and found the PERFECT spot. A (black) sand beach stretching on forever, ocean, mountains, green winding roads, even a pink flamingo floatie - what more could you ask for? When we asked about the rooms, we were amazed at how cheap and nice they were. I think this is the place! 

Being on Advance means that you also hear crazy stories of how God showed up in amazing, unexpected ways. Some days it’s a phone thief who calls the owner’s mom to tell her that Mercy Ships has been calling to offer her son a job, could she please pass on that message? And then RETURNS the phone. Some days it’s a struggle with the government that is at an impasse and gets lifted to God and then is solved the next day without any further input from us. Sometimes it’s someone who overhears a phone call when you were told you couldn’t see someone and then makes sure you get to see the right person. Sometimes it’s several applicants showing up who happen to have driving licenses that they hadn't previously mentioned. All these stories and many more get shared during our morning devotions and it’s so encouraging to hear how God is with us and behind us and before us in each and every task!

“Now I am about to go the way of all the earth. You know with all your heart and soul that not one of all the good promises the Lord your God gave you has failed. Every promise has been fulfilled; not one has failed." ~ Joshua 23:14

Such a blessing to get to spend some time enjoying nature and going for a long drive.