The Beginning of Togo in Summary:)

Bonjour! We have been in Togo now for just a little over a week. I have to say I am so excited and it is so beautiful here! The sail went smoothly except for a few rough days at the beginning. I only lost my cookies once, so I feel blessed;) They galley sure did become a mess though with things falling and spilling ALL over.

We are in a busy port, but the Lord has blessed us with our very own dock space this year..along with bees, cockroaches, and BIG rats, but that is another story. We have a great view from port side...trees, beach, ocean, and you can even hear birds!!!!!!!!!!!! The port traffic on the main road is not nearly as bad as Benin and the air and land is much cleaner. It is about an hour walk into town, but there are many taxi's so it shouldn't be too bad.

My cousin is working in the northern part of the city with a different NGO so this past Saturday and Sunday I was able to hang out with her and her local friends. It is so random and fun that we are here at the same time!

I have never been on the ship for the very beginning of the outreach so it has been crazy, yet fun unloading the ship, stripping/waxing floors, and setting up the wards. They look so great...we are all getting excited and anxious for the patients to arrive.

We had our first day of screening this past Tuesday. Because of the elections at the end of the month we could not do one big screening because of crowd control so we are doing 3 a week in different locations for 10 weeks. The heat index was 105 on Tuesday, but the patient line was under trees so it was not too bad. And as everyone knows, I love heat anyway:) I helped prescreen patients at the gate, so it if was something obvious that we could not help with I sent them away. That is the hard part of the job. It was SO fun seeing all the potential patients though and so joyful to see the looks on their faces when I was able to send them in for more screening! I can't describe the joy and feelings I had. I really cannot wait to see them on the wards! It was fun to tell some of the shy/scared kids that I was a nurse, talk to them, and tell them they may see me in the hospital. :)