Today was the captains dinner, like a special programme for high up local port officers, VIPs and so on, and I was asked to play background music while they were eating for 20 mins or so. There is someone I have played with before a few times, doing guitar/voice/ clarinet French songs, which seems to work really well. So we were going to play, but then today at about 4.30 I found a note in my workshop saying "Sorry, I can't play tonight, but this STEPper will..." I'd never heard the guy play before, except once when he came around playing Christmas Carols with a few others (who couldn't sing...). So I was moderately terrified. I'd rather not play at all than play badly. Not everyone else feels that way, alas.

To continue, I went for the sound-check at 5.15, and he said he could play classical guitar, and went and found one, and played a few classical pieces (I'm sure he could be good, but I think is very out of practice...), stopping and starting all the time, and I improvised around him. Also a few old hymns and stuff (Greensleeves...). Then tonight we went and performed, and it in fact was not so bad at all. Nothing too amazing, but they were all eating anyway, and so it doesn't matter too much the few mistakes there were... we kept going and it sounded kind of OK though our monitor, anyway.

Tomorrow I will be MC for a programme in the morning, for 200 or so 12 to 20 year olds. Then in the afternoon/evening it's I-night again, and I'll be playing a small part in a drama. It's possible that I may be in the Irish cultural dance as well. I went to the practice today, just to watch them prepare for tomorrow, but one of the guys didn't show up, and they muttered a bit about if he didn't turn up tomorrow... I've only been to 3 practices now for that! And it's really quite complicated! Anyway. I don't think so tomorrow.

Slightly weird news is that I'm going to be waterman. Means no more work outside really, hardly any physical work either. No more gangway watch either, mind you. I start right after sabbath week. It's the job I didn't want as it means being on call in evenings, but for the next lot of ports, as they are quite developed, we should always have water from a main, rather than trucks, which is better. So I won't be on call all evening.

There are two watermen, the old one is leaving and I know the new one requested me about two months ago already. Then today I was told to work with him for the day, so I did, and then this evening the chief mate told me that as soon as sabbath week is over I will be the new waterman. It's a job I know I can do, and some of it will be interesting. Like doing all the key-repair/locksmith stuff, but yeah. I dunno.

The chief mate knows I don't really want to be waterman, and he knows I want to move to another department as well eventually. So he could have given me the job because they need someone, and it actually isn't that hard, and I'll be able to fill the second position until they find someone who wants the job. I'll enjoy the locksmithing part, as long as I can find some good books about it, and can get enough work time to do it in. I'll learn how to pick locks. And I'll have a slightly more flexible schedule than now.

Also I have the go-ahead to make the Doulos intranet computer system, which should be a fun diversion. So I will kind of have full internet access sometimes for a while, to do research and get the software I need and stuff.

Oh, and I'm playing tambourine with the gospel choir. Kind of fun, but utterly exhausting in the right arm after playing solidly for six minutes straight.

As waterman, I'll be able to play clarinet in my office, which is far away from everyone. I don't like playing in my cabin, as there are always watchkeepers in next door cabins asleep, or in my cabin, and it's hard to find other places which are free. I'm currently playing a lot in hold 1 which has so-so acoustics.

GREAT day 2 days ago... Plan was for morning planning/preparing, afternoon teaching drama and creative stuff to teenagers, a kids' programme after, and then a café on board in the evening where we would be waitering and stuff.

The drama was really really good. I got to basically run the whole thing, teaching drama, basics, games, etc. Kids loved it, really joined in, did so well. I hadn't realised how much I miss drama/theatre work though until then. I miss it a lot! Teaching drama is so wonderful.

Then the kids programme after that was v. disorganised, on a street corner. ok. kids enjoyed it, I think. Did the usual dramas, silly songs, etc.

Then as we got back to the ship to prepare for the café, (which I was not looking forward to. Normally I end up sitting at a table with two people who dont speak English, I don't understand their names, music is too loud for me to concentrate or understand anyway, and when after half an hour or so we begin to get a conversation going, before I can say anything they both leave. I dont enjoy...) one of the line-up people said to me,

"Are you free to come out? I need musicians!"

I said I was in the cafe, he said no problem, went and got me out of the café, and told me to get my clarinet. So I did, and we went to a café run by some local people. They are trying to make a new safe cafe/restaurant, where it isn't all cabaret and sex and stuff, but friendly, good music, and so on.

So we set up music stuff, and played for 2 or 3 hours. The other musicians were amazing too. One of them was a bassist who went to music college to study bass. Between sets, he started playing
"Amazing grace" ... he's THAT good! We did a bunch of Christian songs, English, French, etc. Then after that the bassist brought out "The jazz real book" and we played a few songs from that: Georgia on my mind, Moonriver, etc.

Lovely, lovely. Clarinet and bass go well togeather, I think. He said he may be able to teach me some jazz theory before he leaves (2 or 3 months!!), whcih would be really good. and also maybe I
should teach a standard music theory course, as many musicians on board have no theory at ALL.

So that was a really really really good day.

I'm working on a puppets script at the moment, for tonight's practice. We brainstormed it last week. Someone else wrote the first draft, and I should have sent it back to them before. But now I have fixed many things, and re-written a few scenes, so I hope it is OK.

I will be BUSY tonight.

6.28: drama performance
6.30: Scottish dance practice (I'll be late though)
7.00: puppets practice
9.00: jazz dance practice
10.00: clarinet practice in foc's'cle
11.00: sleep

The drama will probably actually be nearer 6.40. I still don't know if I'm definitely in the official drama team! One of the other drama team people who is in this drama tonight (which I already knew, and so taught them) told me he thought I was. But who knows? I'm waiting for them to tell me.

Funny thing is, in deck work I am totally NOT busy. There is far too little work for us all to do at the moment. So we're doing silly things, and spending as much time as we can on them. Like cleaning the aft mooring station. Totally pointless, as in three days time it will be filthy again from the coal dust, and takes just as long to clean now as it will in three days, whether or not we clean it now.

We also spent about half an hour re-whipping a rope for the canvas cover for one of the bridge compasses, and then stood down two hours early.

But that's good for me, it means I can finish this script now!

We're now in Oman. Last week was kind of down, I was really busy, and still tired after watch and all.

The voyage was very nice, I was kind of hoping to be on sea watch, but wasn't at all. During long voyages, they often arrange special tournaments, so we had a table tennis championship, which was enjoyed by all. It was per- k-group, so each k-group chose 2 people to represent them. It was all kind of rushed though, if they had told us a few weeks in advance, then I think it would have been better.

One of the other k-groups had someone who had been top in her country as a child, or something like that, but because her English was not so good, and she had not understood/replied to an email until too late, and so other people in her group played instead of her... which was kind of sad.

I didn't play, by the way. :-)

Anyway. This week looks as it if will be more fun. Tomorrow is I- night, the big programme off on shore somewhere. I'm in the Parade of Nations (bah), Scottish Dance (grand!), and a drama (whoo!), then on Friday, I'm doing a puppets sketch with one of the other Daniels in the service (yah!), so all in all, quite busy.

Today will be a bit hectic though... we have 3 containers of books arriving. Probably in various Indian languages. So our deck team is "stood-down" until they arrive, and we will be working with those. Possibly until quite late.

BUT... I have a drama practice tonight at 6, and scottish dance practice at 6:20! Also the Dutch dance have asked if I would be interested in joining, they need more guys, apparently. Next week... maybe. ;-)

About the drama thing. Although I'm not in the drama team (still don't know why), I think the creative ministries people still kind of like me (they know that that is where I would like to work, eventually), and want me in dramas, I just wont learn the more complicated long ones that the drama team prepare.

So yeah. And when we go visit schools and so on, I'll still be doing drama at most of them, I think.

I should probably go now... I have many things to do. I need to listen to the audio of the puppets sketch (we are just doing lip- synch), and one of the school teachers wants me to play my clarinet for her students (4 year olds, I think!), maybe I will do that today. But I need to prepare the puppets more importantly.

We had three containers arrive yesterday! Almost all foodstuffs.

In the morning we went and did a presentation about the ship at a local Indian school, about 300 kids were there. We did a drama about being friends with others, no matter how different they are, taught the kids some silly songs, and so on. It went quite well, I think. Afterwards, they generously decided to feed us, lovely Indian food. I enjoyed it very much.

In the afternoon, I thought we were off until 4.45, but then the team leader came and told me I had to give a tour of the ship for some people on for a programme, and then do "parade of nations" in their programme at 3 o clock. Parade of Nations is something they put in many programmes, basically you get a whole bunch of people to walk up, say where they are from, and smile. So I quickly went and met the people, chatted for a while, gave them the tour, ran and got changed into my moderately smart clothes, ran back, did the parade thingy.

Then I ran back to my cabin, grabbed my mug and a tea bag, ran back up to the dining room for our meeting at 4.45. We were going to visit a group in the evening, and had to plan for it. So we planned for it, half the group of us to do a kids programme, and the other 3 of us to talk a bit about the ship, and how we joined, and so on. Once we'd done planning, we found that we were supposed to be at the port gate at 5, to meet them, so we managed to find a Doulos driver to shuttle us there.

When we got there, no one was there to meet us, so we drove to the parking lot (about 5 minutes away), drove around there a bit, met no one, drove back, and still no one. So we thought we should try phoning.

None of us had a phone.

So one of the guys went to try and get the port security officer to lend us his mobile. He succeeded, and was just dialing, when a big red land cruiser drove up, and it was our hosts. So we left with them (after giving back the phone, I think). They apparently had only asked for a kids' programme... So we said OK. Then they said since we were there anyway, we might as well show a slideshow and stuff as well. So we did that, and a drama.

Now, about the containers...

They had been working on unloading them, and getting the foods into the holds since about 9am when they arrived. At about 9pm, when we got back, they were still going. So I offered to help, and was sent down into the dry food store.

I love when containers arrive. The atmosphere is wonderful to work in. It's great.

You work like mad tossing boxes of noodles or cereal around, or push heavy ol' bags of flour around, getting the lift empty, and then send it up again, and try and get it all packed away into some part of the hold. Everyone is tired, but working togeather. I arrived at about 9.30, after getting changed and all, and started working. We finished work at 1.15 AM. I loved it. I wouldn't miss it for anything. Well, I would, depending on what the anything was. But it would take quite a lot.

The people who had been working since 9am were a lot more tired, of course, but still many of them would not take up the offer to let us work for them, but were determined to carry on til the end. At the end you feel great.

We have various different spreads to put on bread, but somehow I guess the order got confused, and instead of "enough jam for every day, and chocolate spread once a week", we got mountains of chocolate spread, and virtually no jam... Odd. So I guess we will now have a lot of chocolate spread on bread. yummy. Not so very healthy though. Jam isn't either.

Today is my off-day, so that's cool. Next week I am on 4-8 watch, from tomorrow (saturday) morning, until the next saturday evening, I will be working from 4 til 8 in the morning, eating breakfast, doing drills, etc, sleeping for an hour, or perhaps working out, or playing clarinet, depending how I feel, and then eating lunch, sleeping for a few more hours, working again from 4 until 8 in the evening, and then sleeping until 3.30 the next morning when I get ready to start work again. Work is security duty. Mostly gangway watch, but also sea-watch (lookout and being at the helm) for 2 days, occasional fire-rounds (walking about the ship checking for fires, problems, intruders, etc). So not too strenuous, but not very fun hours.

man.. so busy. we leave here at 8am on saturday. The Logos2 people leave at 5am!!! flights. evil. so gotta pack and do last laundry and stuff tonight probably. tomorrow there is no early afternoon session, so i plan to do some more packing then.

hey, about the weight allowance, God is good, and we have a nice miracle. we can take 30 kg each! cool, eh? Mind you, we are supposed to take not quite so much hand luggage (mine was about 12 or something before, I think?) so what I will do, I think, is leave my sleeping bag to come with the next container (March), and perhaps a few things like that, and then put my old clarinet in my main luggage. That will help a lot.

Arrived safely, at last. The flight was uneventful, which is good. Only problem was that they were playing Christmas songs throughout the whole flight. And they only had about 15 minutes worth of recorded songs, so they repeated, and repeated, and repeated...

Frankfurt airport is huge. Kind of confusing too, you have to go miles to find things, like baggage collection. And You see a big sign for it, follow along for a while, and suddenly all the signs are gone, you ask someone, and in fact you are on the right path, but there are just no signs. Everyone spoke good English though.

I found the Fernbahnhof (long distance train station), got my ticket and all. At the actual platform, there was another train sitting there, which had loads of officials wandering about it, and firemen, and so forth. So we stood around, 70 or so people who wanted the train, and I, for about half an hour or more waiting. Eventually, there was some kind of announcement, and we all got told to go to the next platform (up an escalator, along, and down), and get on a different train. My bag is so heavy! I may try and lighten it for the flight to the ship, by wearing heavier clothing and all.

This train got us there, and when we got to Manheim, where I had to change trains, I followed my ticket instructions, and went to the right platform no, and waited. The train turned up, a bit later than it said on the Ticket, but I thought "OK, so everything is delayed today". I got on, and off we went.

About half an hour later, or perhaps more, I started thinking that the station names looked wrong. So I tried to find a map. I found one, on a wall, and examined it. Indeed, we had been going in the right direction, but were now on the way to Worms! So I got off at the next station, found another map, found which train I needed, and headed back to some place which was on the right route. Then I changed trains again, and was now avidly checking the map and the "Näschte Station" sign things.

After a while I heard some people talking in English. Then I heard them mention a conference, and when I was sure they were also coming for this, I went and said hi. One of them is just here for the conference to help cook, and the other is going on to another part of the world. We all got off the train at the right station, and it was a good thing I went and said hi, as neither of them had a map of how to get from the station! So we headed off together, found the right place, and checked in. It turns out we were all staying in the Youth Hostel, which is about 5 minutes drive from the base. We met a few other people who had already arrived, and had dinner.

The rooms at the youth hostel are really good. There are four beds to a room (two bunk-beds), and so far there are only two of us in here. More may turn up later, I guess.

I went and explored the base today as well. It is also very beautiful. The whole of this town is really lovely, with a river, many paths to walk, lots of countryside, and trees. There is a little snow on the ground in places, but it is not everywhere. Apparently it is going to snow this week. That would be really cool. Literally. And I haven't actually seen any snow in so long.

I've met quite a few more people so far, but most people have not arrived yet. I haven't met anyone who is going to join the ships, actually. Hopefully I will soon. The conference all looks like it will be good. There is Wireless internet access in the whole base, which costs €5 euros (for the whole conference). There is also a "internet café", which costs €1 euro per 15 mins. Apparently they introduced this because before many people were blocking the actual computers for too long.

This afternoon I will do some clarinet practice, work a bit more on my German fluency (ha!), and then go back to the base to send email. I'll probably then come back here to leave my laptop, and then go back to the base (again) for the meal and start of the conference.

It is quite cold, outside. Enough that I am glad of my hat, coat, and gloves. The hat is really good.

Mum told me I had never posted any pics of my new clarinet, or some new ones I just got developed from the ship. So here they are (you can guess which is which):





I'm thinking of doing a bit of a redesign of the look of this blog... It's kind of boring, and I wont have a chance to do anything really to the look of it for the next 2 years so...

OK.

So, now I'd better start getting this blog on the road again... "why?" you may ask, well... heres the news:

I'm goin' back! Yeehaw! and so on.

I went for my interview with OM UK, and have been accepted to go back to the Doulos in February, so, God willing, I'll be leaving Larnaka sort of middle of January for the conference and pre-ship training.

It's actually all quite complicated. Yesterday I went and reserved a air-ticket to the conference. I need support for 2 years on board, and am just this week discovering how complex that all is. Some people had already offered to support me, and I met up last week with a church elder and treasurer and parents to discuss it all. They were all very supportive and encouraging, and said they don't think there should be any problems raising it all. I was supposed to be getting up in church last Sunday to tell everyone about what I'm going to be doing, and how much I need and all. But... I was struck down by some kind of virus or something, and instead spent most of Sunday throwing up. I couldn't even take a sip of boiled water during the morning. I'd have much rather got up in church and asked for support! I'm still not totally back to normal, but working at it. I guess God is telling me to rely on Him, not on my amazing oratary skills, or something. heh.

As well as the Doulos costs, I also have to raise money for their medical/travel/etc insurance, which equals more than another 2 months normal Doulos money. Also envolved are travel costs to and from the conference, and the cost of the conference itself.

I wanted to get my clarinet insured too. This is all quite complicated, as I need insurance worldwide, traveling, etc. I looked at various possibilities, like joining the British Musicians Union, as you can get good insurance with various agencies in the UK through them, with a discount. But... The agencies in the UK all require permanent residence in the UK, which I and my family do not have, as we live in Cyprus.

I misread the policy of the normal Doulos company, and thought they said in order to get "business items" cover (ie, expensive clarinets), it was another 500+ pounds a year, which utterly shocked me, as for that price I could almost buy a new clarinet intirely after 2 years of that... but happily, I was wrong, and I'm now emailing them getting my poor ol' brain to actually understand it all. It's well complicated!

As well as all this, there are more vaccination type thingys. I need to be vaccinated against Hepatitis B, according to the docs. Which is the troublesome one from before. There is, apparently, a super-accelerated one which takes 21 days. (1 jab, another after a week, and another after another 2 weeks). Anyway, I phoned my friendly doctor here in Larnaka, and she told me that they don't have this type in Cyprus, only the 3 months variety. OK... So I told the UK office this, and they said they would check if I could have the vaccinations on the ship.

Then...

Yesterday evening my friend at the theatre company told me his sister had telephoned him (His sister is the friendly doctor), and that she had found that this Hep.B vaccine IS available in Cyprus after all. I love how Cyprus works!

So I will phone her today, and ask how much it costs, as it may be cheaper on the ship anyway, and I need to check about her schedule too, as Christmas is coming up, so I may not be able to get it within the time before I go.

It's really complex! there is just so much stuff to do!

Our landlady wants the house we are renting back soo, so my family are probably going to be moving house sometime during the 2 years that I am away, which means I have to pack up all my stuff here really really well, so that it can be taken to the new house well. Besides that, other people will probably stay in my room sometimes.

Stuff. There is too much of it!

We cleared out our house in the UK, as my parents are FINALLY selling it, and we had (we thought) a few boxes left in a cupboard there to bring back here. Anyway, it turned out we had about 7 cubic metres of stuff, so we packed that all up, shipped it here, and now our house here is even fuller than before.

So I'm starting to clean my room out at last. I had about 2 cubic metres of old cardboard and kitchen roll-inner tubes, empty plastic milk bottles, empty tissue boxes, and so on, on top of my wardrobe, which I was going to use for crafts and construction, which all have been there for about 5 years now. I actually have used bits of them occasionally. Like I built a lens-camera a few years back using a bunch of old washing-powder boxes and a magnifying glass and some string, it's so hard for me to throw anything away... So I got rid of 2 black binliners of stuff yesterday, and have another 3 to sort out today. I wish Larnaka had paper recycling.

I've also been doing video editing and poster design for the theatre group, as well as occasional performances. We have a rehearsal tomorrow for the Christmas Special production of "The Little Man's Best Friend". It should be fun. I hope.

(WARNING! CLARINET GEEKY PARAGRAPH!!!):

I'm trying out some new reeds, my new teacher says that I was playing on too hard reeds, and so I've been trying out some Vandoren 2.5 and (V12) 3s. She also got me some Vandoren 56-series 2.5 reeds, which is what she uses. I've had them 2 days, and they are driving me mad! I can't get my top octive in tune! I'm practically biting through my lip, and yet they top G is about 20 cents flat! And then the reed stops responding, and gets squeesed shut totally. It's crazy. Also the tone is so edgy and has no depth to it. The Vandoren trad. 2.5 is much better, and I think if 2.7 would be even better, if such a thing existed. Anyway. these 56-series 2.5s are so hard to sound nice on. Mind you, I can flinger/lip glissando from clarion D up to C on them with barely any effort at all. That's kind of cool... Normally I can only manage from G, and then its very hard. I dunno. I kind of wish I had tried a bit harder to play on those Lomax and Walter Grabner mouthpeices in the UK. Oh well.

Anyway. That's all the news I can think of at the moment.

I think I need to go finish off the last of my science and church history. I need to be finished by Christmas. There is so little left!

*sigh* Perhaps I'll just go get some herbal tea.

Dan

I'm back! So finally...


The epic clarinet adventure.

My teacher had been telling me that I needed to buy a new clarinet for years now. For the last 9 years I have been playing a lovely old Boosey and Hawkes Regent clarinet.
My teacher's son is studying clarinet in the UK, and plays a Buffet RC. So of course, my teacher believes that the only Real Clarinets (tm?) are wooden, made by buffet, and have "RC" written on them.

Seeing as how I live in Cyprus, I'm a bit wary of buying a wooden clarinet, as with the high humidity and so forth, and air-conditioning, I felt that a crack would be more likely than I feel happy with.

Anyway. So read through all the klarinet archives and decided to try out a RC Greenline, when we next visited the UK. So. We came to the UK for a month, my family and I, and I had been in contact with Howarths, in London, and they said they had no RC Greenlines, but did have wooden RC and R13 instruments which I could try out at their Worthing showroom, they also had a professional-line Howarths clarinet which I could try out, which was made from ebonite, which would also appease the humidity concerns.

The people at Howarths were extremely helpful, very patient, and had contacted every available source looking for RC Greenline in the UK, and were even willing to order one from France for me to buy. Unfortunatly, if I ordered one from France, it would arrive after we had left the UK, and also, I would have to pay a non-refundable deposit on it, which, if I didn't like it, might be a problem. Anyway. I tried out their RC and R13 and their own clarinet.

I didn't like the R13 much at all. The sound seemed to me a bit more shrill than I liked, and I also had trouble playing it in tune. I could probably have become used to it, but things like the 12ths seemed too stretched without lipping quite a lot.

The RC I liked more. It seemed to be more in tune (to my ears) than I could play the R13, and the sound seemed less shrill, and more solid. Nevertheless, it didn't grab me particually, and although a good clarinet, I didn't feel it was really special for me.

The Howarths Ebonite instrument was a bit strange. I was expecting to like it, and wanted to like it too, I quite wanted to buy a non-Buffet instrument, just to be more individual, you know. :-) But, I didn't like it at all. The tone seemed shrill and harsh, the scales didn't sound in tune when I played them, and I couldn't play it consistantly well. Sometimes it played quite sweetly, but other times I felt like I was fighting it. My dad commented that it almost sounded like an oboe in timbre, which when I told him about Howarth's being originally more oboe oriented, he thought quite interesting.

The Howarth's employee was extremely helpful, and said that I could phone her back at the end of the week and it would still be in time for her to order for me an RC Greenline from France.

When I asked her about an oboe she was repairing, she gave me freely a bag of 10 or so barkless cork pads!

While we were there, I also tried out a Lomax mouthpiece on my Regent, wow, that made a huge difference, a much more pure and (appologies to Mr. Leesen) rounded centred sound. Even on a plastic instrument. My family were very impressed by it. But as I still did not have a better clarinet, we thought I should not buy until perhaps later.

Anyway. Good shop, very helpful people, but I didn't really like the clarinets.

I had also been briefly in contact via email with Alistair Hanson, asking about their clarinets, as I had seen them online, and I was thinking of perhaps buying a medium/advanced level instrument from them, in their Ecowood or Ebonite materials, as a step up. He told me about their new compressed-grenadilla/composite material, which he said is totally resistant to humidity and temprature problems. He told me I could stick one of these clarinets in a freezer for 6 months, leave it in boiling water, or treat it with as little care as plastic and would have no problems. I told him I was thinking of buying an RC Greenline, and he said no problem, if I tried out one of their clarinets, and didn't like it, I could of course send it back, and that if I wanted, they could find me an RC Greenline from a dealer they knew in Edinburgh. I asked to try out one of their T-5 instruments in this new material, and Alistair said they didn't have any T-5s at the moment, but they had an ex-display model T-6, and if he sold it me without a proper T-6 case, then he could sell it at a reduced price. And of course, if I didn't like it, I could send it back. So I waited (not very patiently) for it to arrive.

Later in the day that I had ordered it, we drove past a small music shop, and so popped in to see if by some random chance they had an RC Greenline which I could try out. They did have an R13 Greenline... so I tried that out, and thought it actually very good. I much preferred it to the wooden R13 which I had played the day before. The sound was still a bit shriller than I liked, but overall the sound seemed slightly solider, more stable, and I could control the tuning without too much effort. My dad suggested that this clarinet, combined with the Lomax mouthpiece would be a good combination, in case I could not get the other.

The next day the Hanson clarinet arrived! I was really excited, of course. I opened the cardboard package, expecting to see the clarinet packed up in bubble wrap or something, but in fact it came in a great sturdy compact backpack type case! Also included was a Vandoren 5RV 88-Series mpc, and Vandoren Optimum lig!

The clarinet itself was beautiful. Smooth and shiny as the best of plastic instruments (bore and outside), but with unstained grenadilla colouring. The keys were all well laid out and elegant. It included a detachable alternate Eb key, and all of the left pinky leaver keys contain rollers at the end (I'm slightly doubtful of the actual effect of these), but apparently it makes the action smoother. There are no flat bladed springs anywhere on the instrument. They use normal pin type springs, and coil springs. The pads are only slightly odd looking bit, as they are yellow (except for cork for register and c#/g#). This is not such a big deal. I asked them about this, and they said it is so they can tell easily which pads they put on, and which have been replaced by other people, later.

I tried playing it, and was blown away. Lovely sound. The lowest notes are much richer and fuller than on any of the other clarinets I had tried, and the tuning seemed to be bang on right the way up to altiss. G and above. Except... for the throat A and Ab notes. They were WAY offscale sharp. More than 50 cents sharp, when I checked with a tuner. The throat G was slightly sharp, but easily manageable with "resonance" fingerings.

Also, that evening, while playing, I heard a strange click, and found that the coil spring on the throat A key had popped out, and no longer would it spring down.

Before actually dismantling the instrument, I bethought myself to phone them in case by doing so I was invalidating the warranty, or something.
It was about 8pm, but Alistair was still there working, and before I mentioned that I knew what I was doing, offered to walk me through it on the phone! He was quite apologetic, this never having happened before. Anyway.
The coil springs are very nice, in some ways, but when putting them back on after taking a key off, be careful! Some of them have to be aligned the right way around inside their sockets, so that when they compress, or expand, they do so in the correct direction, to stop them from touching other pads! Thanks to Alistair, I got it all sorted though. No problems since (4 weeks ago).

A few weeks after that, I was able to go and visit them up in Marsden, and spent the afternoon at the workshop, learning about clarinets, how they make them, and practising stripping down and rebuilding an old flood worn clarinet. Alistair also fixed the two sharp throat notes for me, with some tiny stuck in rubber patches, that sorted them out fine, and I can now play them well in tune. They also lowered the register key a bit for me, rounded off the cork pad on it, and so on.

I have had no troubles with it since then at all. I think I may need to make the left pinky C key cork a little larger, and perhaps add a since layer of paper to the low E/B crowsfoot mechanism to hold the low F/C pad down slightly firmer. I forgot to mention these when I took the clarinet up to them. Anyway, it's not complicated.

Man, I really have abandoned this poor blog, have I not?

I spoke at church, last Sunday. Seemed to go OK. I was quite nervous, but managed to make people laugh a few times, and a lot of people have said how much they liked me talking at church. Thing is, I don't actually like the whole "Sunday Morning Church" thing. Particually having a 30 to 45 minute "Sermon" or lecture shoved in the middle. I talked for 20 minutes, and feel kind of guilty for taking so long.

I've got the OM application form, and thus far have not yet filled it out. I really need to. We're going back to the UK in about a week, for an entire month. I wonder if they can post the next set of forms to me there? Hm.

One of my friends from the STEP sent me some photos of my cabin! I'll see if I can put some online over the next few days. Here is a picture of the bathroom of our cabin...


I was going to go on a 5 day woodwind repair course in Wales in about 3 weeks, but 2 days ago I phoned them because they had still not sent me the accomidation details, and they said "Ah, yes, well, you see, the tutor we have hired just told us that he cannot come until a week later. We were just going to phone you later today to tell you..." Well. A week later than the course is the week we come back to Cyprus! So not a whole lot of use! The guy says we will get a full refund, and he is trying to see if he can find a woodwind repairer friend of his to take me on as an apprentice for a week... Who knows.

This is one of those things, you know, when all your plans just jump right out of the window, and there is nothing you can do at all. I just have to trust God again in this. I know that He can change dates and things, like He did with the Doulos when I joined, with them having a place for me in June rather than later in the year. So I know He can do the same now too. Both ways. If He wants me to do this course, He can change the dates back again, and provide the accomidation. And if He does not want me to do the course, again, the same thing. So this could be His way of saying "Not this time, boyo" (He'd say "boyo" because the course is in Wales). So yeah.

On a lighter note, it looks like I will be able to buy my new clarinet in about 2 weeks! Woo! There is a shop in Worthing which is right close to where my Grandmother lives, and we will be visiting her for a while, and will try to visit then to go clarinet shopping. Yeah! I'm currently planning to get a Buffet RC Greenline. We'll see. I think a greenline would be best for being on the Doulos, with all the crazy humidity and other conditions and all.

So. Signing off...

Some of us STEPPERs went out today to the largest Shopping Mall in the Southern Hemisphere... "Gateway" ... You can probably find it on the internet (surely).* Huge place. I felt quite intimidated. I think I have more culture shock at places like that than I do from any place in Mozambique! I mean, it is just so BIG. And so posh, and modern, and all of that.

I think I spent about 15 dollars, on getting there and back (we had to go by taxi, and split the cost), and on a meal (veggi lasagna), and a vegetable curry pie. Lovely lovely food. The veggi lasanga was about 7 dollars, the pie about 1 and a half, and the rest was the taxi... It's odd, I feel quite bad about using the money for this, but some of the people did say "use this money as you want to...", and I have not spent a lot of money, comparatively.

Money... strange stuff. Yesterday I was helping on my e-day at that orphanage where they had 50-something kids in a tiny little house, with 2 or 3 kids to a bed, today walking around a Shopping Mall where one single concrete column which is for decoration only, and doesn't even hold up the roof probably costs more than the entire cost of the orphanage building!

The ship did give a gift to the orphanage, but they had to purposely make it small, as a large gift would be overwelming, or something like that, and would actually do more harm than good.

It's this whole relativistic thing. One person's poor is another persons stinking rich, and neither of them is right. Particually thinking of stuff like say the Doulos P.M (private money). Crew get 20 USD per month as personal money. In Mozambique, that is a huge ammount, which can go a huge way, and still leave a lot to be donated at the end of the month, but in Cyprus, 20 USD is 10CYP, which is enough for perhaps 3 gyros, if you go to the right kebab shops, which if you were staying in Cyprus for a month, and wanted to go out and see the place, isn't much.

Being a STEPPER is a bit different, so many people have said, as we don't have P.M, we have brought money with us to use... Like, one of the others was telling me today, she is American, and all her friends and family and supporters are expecting (explicitly in some cases) gifts and souveneers from her when she returns. So it is a bit hard for her to get all of these and see everything and do everything.

If you are on for 2 years (or more), you can be more relaxed about things like gifts and so-on. I don't know... I've spent a long time today just sitting in the Mall, thinking about all of these things, about what is right and wrong ways to use money and stuff like that.

For instance, if you are living in a richer country, and want to be able to relate to others easily, then giving all your money to missions and to charity, and living on whatever the minimum you can, and never going out to a mall or movie or whatever is not really going to help. And it is not certainly right in the first place.

How can one know what is good or not uses of what God has given us? Things like the lady who spent a lot of money on the perfume for Jesus' feet. Or the banquets which Jesus attended, and so on... It really is a very big can of worms. And not very pleasant worms, at that. I'd never really concidered the whole thing very deeply before. I have the feeling that it is going to be another of those vastly complex issues with no Right or Wrong answers again, but which many people claim do have Right or Wrong answers.

I dunno.

Many of the STEPPERs are leaving tomorrow. That is why we went out today. It will be very strange seeing them all go. Sunday Monday and Tuesday will probably be the hardest days on board for me. I know for Andrew, from the previous STEP, the days after his group all left were the hardest. For me it is not quite so bad, as another STEPPER is leaving the same day as I, and 2 or 3 are staying on for another month, but they are going to be with their S.P.s, so I probably wont see much of them anyway.

Listening to a CD of Grieg, while typing this letter in the Library. Such lovely music. "Death of Ase" from the Peer Gynt Suite... I'd say "sadly apropriate" but don't want to be so morbid.

It's interesting, the group dynamics. When we first came on board, the previous STEP were really togeather, strong, bonded, and all of that, and all of us were slightly intimidated, I think, and most of us are quite quiet people (1 or 2 are not), and so it too a while to get to know each other. But I was rather happy yesterday to actually get punched jovially in the arm by one of the quietest girls in the group, who I would never have thought would punch anyone jovially. If another real STEP had arrived last week, they would probably be rather intimidated too.

I was talking to an Ex-Douloid yesterday, who was on the ship 2 years ago, and I remembered from before. She was saying how she had actually not bonded so much ever with the group of people who joined at the same time as her, but more with her cabin mates, and work colegues.

She said it was very strange coming back to the ship for a few weeks at this time, she was getting to work in her old department, but so many things have changed, and so many new faces. Enough people still remembered her, but she said she remembered other ex-douloids visiting during her time on board as crew, and they had had no-one remember them at all, as everyone had left, and so had been quite depressed and such by the whole experience of visiting, expecting it to be the same, and yet different, and finding it different, and yet the same. No longer being part of the crew in the same way, being an outsider in a place you had been at home for 2 or more years.

"Abduction and Ingrid's Lament" now playing. Hm.

Yeah. Anyway. I'll go and do some clarinet practice, or something. Time passes so quickly, on board.

* Yes. Gateway mall in Durban, South Africa

The last few days have been kind of stressful, and kind of funny. I don't know wether to laugh or cry, a lot of the time. I figured laughing is more socially acceptable, so have tried to stick to that.

I have had my last 2 working days in Deck, and did hardly any work at all, it feels like. The day before yesterday, we were going to be doing some varnishing on the Starboard prom deck, just outside the mess. However, after devotions in the morning, all the lifeboat teams got called to safety training, and so that meant we didn't do any work for about an hour. STEPPERs are not envolved in lifeboat or safety training.

Then when we got there, we discovered that it had rained on the previous days layer of varnish, which another team had done, and it looked terrible. So as we were not sure if it would rain again on top of whatever we did that day, I suggested putting up some poles and hanging a canvas over it. We could not just hang a canvas without poles, as the deck above stops right above the railing, and the canvas would be hanging on the railing.

So the (acting) team leader told me, "Good idea, you do that and the rest of us will go and get the varnish and other cleaning stuff for the rails." So off I went. I found some roller extensions, which would work fine, and also got some rope from the foc's'cle. Then I set to work, perhaps not in the easiest way, but in the most straitforward that I could think of at the time. I fixed all of the poles sticking out horizontally from the ceiling out to about a metre beyond the edge of the railing, and used the rope to keep them all from falling out. Just using simple hitches all the way along.

When I had finished putting up the poles, which took about half an hour, I went to find the others, who were still not there. They were all up on another deck, varnishing that one. I told the leader that I was finished with the poles, and asked where I should get the canvasses from.

He said, "Well... I hate to say this, but I think this whole thing is just taking too much effort, and if it does rain, we're screwed anyway, because this rail we are working on now will get wet. So, if you could just take down the poles, and instead pray that it doesn't rain."

Thanks.

OK. Well, no problem. So I took down the poles. I was just finishing that, when they all trooped down, to get ready for lunch break. As they were walking past, the leader looked at the ceiling, and asked what on earth the splashes of rather messy water were on it. While attaching the rope, I had unfortunately let some of it hang onto the wet deck below, which was still wet from the cleaning team swabbing it. When I pulled the rope through the loops to make the hitchesto hold the poles in place, it had splattered the surrounding locale with droplets of muddy water. Oops.

So he got out the firehose, and sprayed it all down, laughing his head off the whole time. Which I guess is better than being angry.

Anyway. We spend the afternoon in varnishing that railing, and then we painted the same deck's gunwhales black again.

At 2.15pm, I had read in my email that I was supposed to go for a final STEP evalutation meeting with our STEP-mum in the dining room. So I got permission from the leader, and went off at 2.15. No one was there. So I checked her office, still no-one. Then I phoned the info desk, and found out that she was not even on the ship! Quite a strange feeling. So I went back to work. After we had finished, I cleaned up all the brushes and rollers and things. Still no sign of STEP-mum.

Then yesterday morning, after breakfast it was lifeboat drills, so again, Deck STEPPERs get an extra 45 minutes off. So I went to her office, and found out it was actually 10.15am I should have been there. I do not know WHY or HOW I managed to misread that, but oh well.

She didn't mind, and we had the meeting there. Just usual questions "What are some of the challenges you think you have faced during your time on this STEP?" and so on...

She then prayed for me, and I went back to my cabin to practice knots and chill out for a while. Most of the team leaders of the Deckies are doing EDH training at the moment, that is like so they can become qualified deck hands, and so they are all off at training all day, which is why it is a bit disorganized at the moment.

Anyway, so there are knot books and ropes lying around all over the place, and everyone discussing knots in the mess. There are some really facinating knots about. Amazing things.

After drills, our team went and moved down the parts for the quayside stage, as we have a programme on Monday (Doulos' 91st birthday!) and there will be many things which need a stage.

Then after getting that down, we waved and hugged goodbye to another STEPPER, and one of the 2 year people who had just finished, and then we got the brushes and things ready to do some more varnishing, and went further down the prom deck, to where another team had been working the day before, or perhaps before that.

It was a mess. Terrible! Varnish far too thick on, so it was running and had formed bubbles and drips, and bits running down the side of the ship! So we got the sanding machine, to sand off some of the worst, but as it was so thick, it was still not fully dried, and it just made a worse mess in the place we tried.

So we called the carpenter, and he said "Yuk." or something along those lines, and we took some deck knives, and also some scrapers, and began to scrape off some of the worst of it. We then left that to dry even more over night, and did some varnishing further along where it was not so bad.

Then it began to rain.

Not a lot, just spitting. We did a bit more work, but the rain meant we did not want to do too much more varnishing, as it really messes it up. Of course, everyone said "Hey, perhaps we should put up some canvases over the top!". Hehe.

We then cleaned up, painted some more gunwhale, and stood down. I was just half way through eating dinner, when I heard my name being paged. My goodness. They then told me to phone gangway, so I did, and was told, "Hey Daniel, did you know you are on meal relief today?"

No! oops! so I quickly ran to get my security uniform on, and then went on watch again for another half hour while the gangwayman could go and have dinner. Thankfully, she did not mind at all, and spent most of the time by the gangway anyway, eating hotdogs from the stall just across the quay, run by some Christian hotdog salesmen, or something.

Then I went back inside again, to find out I had missed 2 e-day meetings, one at 5.30, and the other at 6.00, as I have 2 edays now. Today, and tomorrow. Weird deckie-schedule. Anyway. They said it didn't really matter, as most people had not turned up anyway, and we would meet today to figure it all out.

So... I went to bed at about 9ish, feeling exhausted. Some days are good, some days not so good. I have 2 e-days now, which should be good, as I think I will be getting to play clarinet, and do some acting and drama and stuff. Then on Monday, I have been asked to be a clown and do some juggling and stuff for the Doulos birthday party! That will be a lot of fun, I think.

Yesterday we had our last extended deckie devotions, and all the STEPPERs said a short bit about how we had found life on deck, and what we were planning to do after. Then they all prayed for us too.

Oh, speaking of which, the farewell was not too bad, I managed to change the really corny music for something silly, which was not so bad. (The techno-trance version of the Sesame Street Theme... quite funny). I told an obscure joke, which a few people laughed at, and others muttered about for a few seconds, and then laughed at, some muttered at, and a lot just looked blank at.

"I have learned on Doulos that there are 2 ways to do everything. The Easy Way, and the Hard Way. These are also known, respectively, as the Obvious Way, and the ISM* way..." Oh well. Not so good, as jokes go, but yeah.

We have prayer night tonight, which is to be led by the STEP group. Should be good. I have not been asked to do anything, which may be a good thing, as I think I may be out tonight with the e-day. It is all really confusing for me, just this last week, what with finishing watch, not having done deck day work for 2 weeks now (Sabbath week before), loads of people leaving, all the extra STEP things, trying to get done many of the things which I need to before leaving myself, just general tiredness from having a weird schedule with all my e-days and off-days moved around, and so on.

All in all, I have really enjoyed working on deck. Even if it does take a long time to learn, and even if I have messed up a few times, and needed to re-do things. Very cool people, and I will miss the daily deck devotions, singing, and all that before work. I'll just stop now before I get all emotional and soppy.

Oh. Funny thing happened this evening. I got paged again, went to the gangway, and found this English bloke there. He said:

"Daniel? Hi! Christos Andreou said to say, 'Hi, Keep safe', and to check up on you."

Pause. Christos Andreou? There's a name I wasn't expecting to hear. So I started chatting to the guy, and got steadily more confused. I said that Christos and I had been playing in the same town band in Larnaka, and that his dad was my clarinet teacher. He said "Oh, I thought you had just met when Christos visited the Doulos..." What? Why hadn't he said hello then? He said Christos was staying with him in S.A, and had been for 3 years. What? Then he asked "You methim just last week while on gangway watch, right?"

Oooooh. The light dawns slowly across the face of Daniel. That Christos. A bloke had come up to me on watch last week, and asked "Hi, I don't suppose you have any Cypriots on board do you?" So I talked with him a while about Cyprus, he was a Cypriot South African, studying here. I found out his name was Christos, but I didn't remember the Andreou. Funny.

So, after this English bloke and I laughed about that for a while, he told me he had been a sparks in the British Navy for a while, and wondered if he could see the radio room... So we went around to the tours desk, and found that the offical tour would go up to the bridge, but not the radio room, so we went on that. Interesting for me to finally go with an offical tour of the Doulos. The guy seemed very happy about all of that, and afterwards said how much he liked being on a "real ship" again, not a floating hotel, like so many of them were these days. Yeah. So, quite a funny end to that day.

I'm off to breakfast.

*The ISM is the International Shipping Manual. It has a whole lot of rules and so on about the correct way to do stuff. Some of it makes sense, and some of it is just plain obscure.

Most of the other STEPPERs are leaving on the 21st, My flight is on the 23rd, though. A lot of them are going to fly down to Cape Town, for a weeks holiday or something like that. The STEPPERs with SP are going to stay on until september some time, because their SPs are finishing their commitment on board then, and so they will fly home togeather (and in one case at least, get married! :-) ).

[If coming back for a longer stint in future] I know now that 5 pairs of shoes is absurd. I think that I would take 2 or 3 less shirts and shorts, and more trousers and another fleece or hoodie. Oh, and 20kg as an on-ship requirement is not so vital. Only airplane limits really would apply. The limit is (I think) just to discourage people bringing like 80kg or stuff.

I am thinking, if God is calling me back for 2 years, then perhaps it would be better to get a Greenline Buffet clarinet, rather than wood. I will need to try a whole bunch and find a good one, but if I am working on board a ship, and perhaps afterwards going out missionarying, then a wooden clarinet is slightly impractical. I don't really know.

Anyway.

The youth thing last night was OK. Not really very approp, though, I think. It was a quite large (300+ seater) pentecostal church (Tabernacle), with wooden pews, a raised procenium type stage, and so on. There were about 40 youth, maximum, from 4 or so different congregations.

We arrived at the end of the church's music group practice, and they were staying on to do some music for us, a "time of worship". So we all sat down, and they launched into a whole load of very upbeat loud songs I'd never heard before (no lyric sheets), during which time I noticed that (a) what a terrible P.A. system they had. I could barely understand a word said, or spoken, (b) the worship leader was speaking in Christianese, and seemed to be having a hard time connecting with the assembled teens, (c) having an eight piece worship band singing and playing with their eyes closed, waving their hands around, etc, doesn't really feel very helpful to connecting.

Even the worship leader had her eyes closed, and I saw her at one point waving furiously for the band to make it louder, and bigger, and she asked questions, during the quiet bits between songs, asking why we all were not really joyful, and things.

Anyway. Not really terribly useful, IMHO. Then for our bit. We certainly demonstrated to the youth that not all Christians are up on a stage, off on some other planet.

It was very disorganised.

The STEPPER who was M.C.ing our bit, introduced each item something like "Um, and thankyou for that, and, yes, next we have, um, Daniel, and he will do a, a drama."

Yeah, preach it, brother! Woo!

About my drama... well, they had put this pulpit/lecturn thingy out in the middle of the floor in front of the stage, and that was where I wanted to act. So I, dressed in my nice black acting shirt, and white Doulos mime-gloves, walked out accross the stage, picked up the lecturn, and walked it off stage, until I heard a crash, and looking down, discovered that it had had a rather nice glass of water in it, which I had just dropped, and smashed to shards, all over the floor.

Great.

What a way to begin. So, appologising profusely, I began to pick up the shards, and they helped, and then I got a chair, and did the drama. They laughed occasionly, which was nice, and I think all in all it went quite well, but I still had the smashed glass in my mind the whole time. Man.

After the whole thing, we had some cake and tea and buscuits and all. I burned my tongue on the tea (Doulos tea is never that hot!) Then we came back home.

We may all be going out to do more ministry things on Monday, and perhaps other days too. Last week will be busy, I think.

So, yeah. I'm going to go and get some food and stuff before my watch again this evening. Oh, I think I may be catching a Doulos/SouthAfrican Accent. Kind of worrying.

And we got yahoo messenger support now on Doulos! Woo! I could only remember Tim's user and password, so logged on with that. Cool. I am now chatting with JJ. Fun.

Still deck work to do, but not for watch keepers. I get the whole afternoon free, which is very cool. I hope to go out tomorrow. I bought some more at the book-ex today. A study bible (slightly 'damaged', it got wet or something while sailing), NIV, basically the same as my old one, for aprox. 2 CYP (equiv.), a new bible-cover, and a book of knots and rope work. I am wondering if I perhaps will run out of space to take things, or luggage allowance. I was under when I came out, right? And I will be leaving some shoes behind. So...

Strange life. Random happenings, on watch. A man walked through the gates, wandered around the quay for a while, went to our book-ex packing equipment, and started pulling a loading-trolley, and heading back towards the gate again. Not a port worker, just a random person. So I went up to him and told him "Please don't take our trolleys", took it from him, and put it back. He wandered around a bit more, and then left.

I met a family of home-schoolers today. They arrived an hour early of opening time, and so I chatted to them for a while. Christians. Very nice people. We talked about schooling, and from there into evolution vs. creationism, and from there into end-times, and he then told me that, by the way, the AntiChrist is alive and well, is English (sorry), 51, grey-haired, and just got married recently (again).

When I looked puzzled, he then told me the name of the AntiChrist, which adds up to 666 when the letters are counted, or something like that, in both English and in Hebrew. He is decended from royalty, and one day will be King of England, if his mother leaves the post. Hmm. I hadn't concidered him before... hmm.

Oh well. I have a hard time taking seriously all this eschatology stuff, I'm afraid. It's a major failing, I know, but... well... what happens happens, and I don't think we can know exactly who will do (or be) what, and when it will happen. One day, perhaps, I will learn to take it seriously. Perhaps. Maybe I will end up knowing who the AntiChrist (if there is _one_) will be. Perhaps I will write books and hold seminars decrying the evil hidden deeds of whoever I know for certain the evil incarnate is... Perhaps not.

Anyway.

This guy also gave me a CDROM of some pastor doing some teaching about evolution, I think. I also met a teacher of an A.C.E school here, which is being forced by the government to switch to using it's curriculum, which she is upset about because it is so secular humanist, evolution and all, but she says is OK, because they will screen all the stuff before they teach it.

The volunteers all speak English here, which is cool, and are all quite sociable, so I have got to know some of them, and talk about stuff with them. Also SO many South Africans on board have family coming to visit and stay, and I got to chat with one family, so friendly, and talk about much.

Anyway. I'm off to do some clarinet, again, and then get ready for watch tonight.

Saturday 6th August

This week is "Sabbath Week". This happens once a year, and is a week of (comparative) rest and restoration and all of those sorts of things. Just good fortune for us STEPPERs to be here for it this time!

The book-ex is closed totally, and all workers from there are spread out about the ship, and all duties of all departments are cut down, so this means that (say in the deck department), we only have to do 8 hours each in the whole week, plus one day of being on duty (hardly any work, but cannot leave the ship for 24 hours), and one day of doing the garbage for 1 hour in the afternoon, and then done. So pretty light duties.

Every morning there are devotions/teaching/whatever from a special speaker, who this time turned out to be Dale Rhoton (one of the co-founders of O.M). Very cool. The STEPPERs, though, are running the childrens programme every morning, so we have not actually been to any of the devotions. Very good kids, all of them younger than 12, and seem to be very happy with the programme, organized by Jordan.

Yesterday was the ship outing to a waterpark and ocean-world, which I decided not to go on, as I had not had an off-day in 12 days, and my next off-day is on the 15th! So I needed an introvert day, and so stayed on board. There were only about 25 people on board, in all, which is about minimum to keep the ship going, plus a few extras (like me). Good day.

One of the STEPPERs from another of the overnight teams has malaria... she started getting ill during the overnight, so I guess must have picked it up a few weeks ago. She had to be brought back to the ship, and yesterday was taken to the hospital. Apparently she is doing much better though, now. My Big Brother bounced back from malaria after about a week, in total, before being back at work. But he is like that. Rebekah is not so hardy. It would be nice if folk could pray for her, as it is most difficult for her, only being here a few months, and yet getting malaria!

Also the day before yesterday some of the people went out to the city, one group was John (a Malaysian STEPPER) and a group of 5 girls. They were stopped on the road somewhere in the city by a whole group of men, who grabbed John, put a knife to his throat, and forced him to give them his camera, they also tried to get at his wallet, and sliced up his trowsers.

We are all very thankful that they did not hurt him at all physically, although of course he is rather shaken emotionlly. There really was nothing he could do, other than give them what he had. Apparently, from what the South Africans have told us, this is quite a rough area of Durban, and there is quite a lot of crime, and John being the only man in a group of girls was also more likely to get picked on.

Also, he looks ***very*** innocent. He is a very very lovely trusting guy, and doesn't look like he would hurt a fly. And he looks Asian, and there are quite a lot of Japanese seamen here, who are all rich, and totally un-streetaware, as also, John is, and the muggers apparently can't tell the difference between Asian-Malaysian, and Asian-Japanese. None of the group knew even the first thing about watching people around them, keeping distances, eye-contact, and so on, either, so in a way it was not really something totally unexpected, but it is very sad, anyway.

Anyway, I'm off to try and get some coffee, and perhaps read a bit, or play clarinet, or drums, or something. I'm on duty and so cannot leave the ship for 24 hours.

11th July

In Beira now. Amazing city. Yesterday was my last day of watch, I was so happy! I was expecting to sleep in today, and did. I woke up at 8am. Shocking.

So I got up, had breakfast, and then read for a bit, before some of the other STEPPERs asked if I wanted to go out to the town with them for the day, this being monday, and so the off day for most of the ship, including, thankfully, me.

So we got into the Doulos minivan, and drove out to the port gate. People are not allowed to go to and from the port entrance (about 9 minutes by minibus) by foot, and so ALL visitors to and from the Doulos, and all Douloids (strange word. better than people calling us doul-oy though. Silly ungreek pronunciation...) must be shuttled by the Doulos minivans. Amazing. Very tiring for the drivers though.

We walked about the city a bit, and after waiting about 45 mins for one of us to finish changing some money at the bank, we went to get lunch. We split 3 going to a cafe, and the rest of us to a "resturant". which turned out to be just a bar which sold food. Not very good. We had to wait almost 2 hours for the food to arrive, and even then it wasn't very nice. I had spagetti and tomato ketchup. Yum. We then met up with the others, who had spent the same as 2 of us for all three of them, and had had mountains of really nice food. Junk food (hamburgers, etc) but really nice, they said, anyway. And lots thereof.

So anyway. We went then to the cinima, and watch "The Pacifier" with Portuguese sub-titles, rubbish typical Holly-wood junk, but nice cinema, HUGE, but only about 15 people in it. Big stage, round concave screen, and so forth. Very old. Then we walked back, some people wanted to go to the supermarket, and so did, the rest of us got back in time for dinner on board. And now I'm here, reading email.

I want to go now, perhaps see if I can get some clarinet practice in. I played yesterday for the Doulos Sunday service, people keep on saying how much they liked it... they only normally get "usual" stuff: drums, guitar, piano, bass. The pianist is really cool, jazzman, music school trained, and keeps on sticking in weird jazz chords in the middle of songs. A bit disturbing at first, but once you get used to it (normal harmonys don't work! You have to use jazz ones :-) ) it sounds fantastic. He even wrote out some instrumental clarinet/piano solo intro and break stuff. Funky. We did "The Spirit of the Lord is within my heart" (I will dance as David danced) in a very cool latin jazz / samba type way.

PS - computer time is unlimited, providing that not all the computers are in use, and that no-one is waiting for yours.
PPS - Internet connection at 33k this port.

3rd July


I asked if he would be working on the deck for the whole time, or whether they changed areas. Dan said:

Same area for the whole two months, unless I apply for a transfer, but I don't think I will. Kitchen would be cool too, you get such LOVELY smells. We were scrubbing the prom deck two days ago, and the smell from the bakery was what made the whole morning really worth it. :-)

Yesterday was my first e-day (On shore work). Digging a huge 4 meter by 4 meter by 3 meter deep hole for a missionary family here, as a water reservoir. Partly also to teach the locals that you can collect water rather than havign to walk 2km each day for water. Very hard work. I'm so tired. Back ache. Today I am supposed to be juggling and perhaps doing poi in an interval in the quayside program. I can barely bend down though if I drop. Hmm.

I asked if he had been able to play his clarinet every day, as he had hoped

yeah. not every day, but about every other day. there are a few places i can practice, but the music room (isolated from the rest) is only free at 6am each morning...

I have been getting up at 6 though pretty much every day. Next week I am on gangway and fireroundsman from 4 til 8 (both am and pm) for the whole week. That will probably be quite tough.

Anyway. Must go. I want to practice the juggling or whatever and do a bit of stretching.

PS - I am remembering to take the anti-malarials.