I've been on e-day/overnight for the last three or four days. When I got back, people told me that the entire section 6 (girls) had been truly flooded! Like a foot of water in some cabins. But that wasn't me, it was the other (senior) waterman. He was filling up one of the ballast tanks (from empty) which has no pumpconnection, so we have to fill it up byusing a couple of hoses and the ventilation pipe, and a tiny little domestic pump. Takes about three days.

Anyway, he set it going, checked it the next day and it was fine. Next day he was out, then came back and heard himself being paged... there was water all down the steps! It was Monday, so most people were off the ship and no one had noticed it all day.

We think the water must have got to the top, and while slowly filling up the ventilation pipe found a crack in the pipe which happens to fun through section 6. We don't really know, though.

It's been a cool weekend. On Saturday I worked until 1pm, and then went and showered, and went to do a 'mini inight' programme all afternoon, and got back at about 1am. One of the benefits of the waterman's job: I can take time off like that.

On Sunday we left at 6.45am for my kgroup brother's church, with our whole kgroup. We did a simple programme, and then went to a shopping mall in KL [Kuala Lumpur], then stayed overnight in an apartment rented for us by his dad. We spent the day chilling out in KL. Then today was another e-day, painting panels/walls for a Sunday School in a new church.

KL is about an hour's drive from where our port is. Even the city to which our port is attached is about 30 minutes' drive, so it's really hard to get out at all here. You have to hitchhike to the train station (about 10 minutes' drive) and then get a 30+ minute train to Klang (this town), and then from there it's another half hour or 45 minutes to KL. And we're at this port for 5 weeks! It's so long.

For the weekend, the brother from Klang has his own car and we borrowed a Doulos van. Then as some people had to go back to work, the rest of us just piled into his car or took the trains about KL.

People visiting the Doulos here come in cars. We get about 18,000 at weekends. It's amazing.

The glued part I mentioned yesterday didn't quite work. The glue seems to be strong enough, but unfortunately I didn't quite check how it all fits and works before gluing it. I glued it as it is when you insert it into the lock... but once it's in the lock part of it gets pushed into another position by a spring. So tomorrow or something I'll try with another broken part and see if I can glue that into the already sprung position instead.

Yesterday I was in a programme as well in the evening, it was a programme for the local churches, to thank them for all their help this port, and show them what kinds of things the ship does. So
stories from one of the nurses, about her work with the ship in India at a leprosy home, and so on. I was asked to be part of the "parade of departments".

Basically go up the front with my work clothes on, with people from the other departments, and they had to guess where we worked on board, and what we did. I don't think the programme organiser thought about which people she asked though too much... or maybe she did. I was the last person in the line, and when we introduced ourselves, it sounded something like this:

"Hi, my name is Daniel, and I'm from Ireland."
"Hi, my name is Danielle, and I come from Malaysia."
"Hi, my name is Daniel, and I'm from Cyprus."

So all I had to do was say my name, pause slightly and look ironic, and the whole audience burst into laughter. Nice. I dressed up for the occasion. I wore my normal work clothes, but raided the workshop, so had about 3 screwdrivers in a pocket, a tape measure on my belt, pliers, a sounding rope and weight on a nice harness thingy, and perhaps 80+ keys on various jangly rings.

Waterman's job... So far, I quite like it. It seems like a good job, many things to keep busy with, but not too much stress, and quite a flexible schedule (will be more so, once I've got everything mastered). Sort of quite senior. Quite "elite" and all that (being only 2 of us, and no-one else actually knows what we do, how to do it, or anything. Apparently people get "chosen" for it rather than choosing it. Bit weird... one of the other ex-deckies came to me and told me "yeah, all the watermen just get chosen, no one actually ever wants the job. It's totally unromantic, unlike "fireman" or "team leader" or something. But everyone who becomes waterman seems to really enjoy it." And loads of other people keep saying stuff like "you're the new waterman? oh good! It's JUST the right job for you!!". I feel like I'm missing something...)).

Strange thing is, a lot of knowledge about the job seems to be passed on by word of mouth, apprentice style, but then it looks like a lot of it has kind of disappeared in the last year or so. So like the lock situation, for instance. As far as I can tell, about 2 years ago they replaced the entire lock set on the whole ship, then about a year ago bought a whole load of new / replacement locks & padlocks. But they have *never* ordered any spare parts for them. Which means that about now, we are very short.

There is this stupid little brass bit right in the middle of *every* lock on the ship, which has the entire weight of the lock on it when it gets opened, and these snap quite frequently. So far, what the watermen have done is to swap the part for one in one of the unused locks, or swap out a lock from elsewhere, or something similar. We're kind of short of spare locks now. So I'm trying to find solutions to this. They have been talking about ordering or even trying to order new parts for ages, but have never done it. So I keep reminding the other guy, and it looks like this week we should order them. But until they arrive (could be months away!!) we still need solutions.

So I first went to the engine room machinists, and asked if they could make replacement parts, with their lathes, etc. They said yes, but it could take a whole day just to make one! So that's not really a solution. Then I thought about maybe glueing/ soldering a fix, (it's far too small and delicate to weld). So I asked the electricians, and they gave me some very strong epoxy mixing glue stuff, which I tried out today on a part. (Today is my first day working alone...) So far it seems like it may work! Monday is our off-day, and then on Tuesday I will hopefully get some time to sand/buff off the excess epoxy cement stuff, and build a new lock to try it out with. I really hope it does work.

I really enjoy the working with locks, but SO much of it is trial and error. We only have maybe 3 booklets on basic lock picking, but no real books on lock maintainance, theory, or whatever. Some things I am just curious about. The way they "grease" the locks to keep them working smoothly is by adding graphite dust. Why? I don't know! They don't know either. It's just the way they were taught. Sometimes the graphite dust gets too much and blocks up the lock, and it all needs taking apart. Why not use liquid wrench or something like that? Or some kind of oil?

Hopefully I will get a chance to go on the net sometime this week, and then I can look up this stuff. Also try and find spare parts. Part of the problem with the spare parts is we don't even know what the correct technical term for the parts are! So some jobs I want to do is to (once I've got it all worked out), make proper drawings / blender diagrams of how all the locks work, how to build/ rebuild them, etc, and then to make a small manual. Like as far as the locks go, I know about as much as the other waterman now, because it was the OTHER waterman before him who always did the locks before, and he never really got a chance to learn it all (he only started the job himself about 4 months ago). Anyway, it's all quite interesting.

The other waterman is a really nice guy, friendly, etc. It will be very fun working with him.

Fixing shoes is not particually interesting, but it's a good way to make everyone love you. :-)

We get our own "workshop"/office. Which is cool. And also access to the deck officers/workers computer, to which is quite nice. We have to fill in spreadsheets of all the water readings and so on every day.

About the Doulos intranet thing, apparently the other IT bloke who is coming back from furlough in a week or so wants to make it all with the microsoft groupware thingy so it all links in with our exchange system. So that means I don't have to do any of it. Oh well.

So thats about all really.

We're in Port Klang, Malaysia now. Sabbath week has started, so no deck work - 8 hours watch tomorrow only, and that's it! Probably that's my last ever gangway watch. They still have me scheduled for watch with my team, but my new teamleader is trying hard to get me off that week of watch and straight into the job as waterman.

Sabbath week means we have seminars etc in the mornings, then afternoons are free. Monday is sports/general madness afternoon.

The speaker this morning gave away free books to everyone! He told us about the most important emphases in his life, then recommended about four books about each one . He had a table up the front where at the end each person could take any three they wanted. But there were quite a lot left over, so he said take as many more as we wanted. So I got 7!

I have the go-ahead to make the Doulos intranet website. We're getting new computers soon, and one of the old ones will be converted to a Linux server.

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.

This is lovely lovely lovely Thai fruit, "rambutan". Tastes kind of like grapes, but without skin (once youve taken the outer layer off). So peeled grapes. One huge seed, but you dont eat it.

I'm spending a lot of this week on watch using my swiss knife and some twine to whip and finish lots of the book-exhibition ropes. They are all in horrible condition, although some have been finished off with back-splices, but not beautifully. Since the ropes have to be pushed through small holes in the stanchions to make lines for the people to walk, having them all thicker at the ends doesn't make it any easier... they look so much better whipped off. Some of the ropes have
frayed though some of the strands, so I'm having to re-lay them, and then perhaps tonight I'll splice the frayed ends togeather. It's something to do...

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.

We're in Phuket now (pronounced "poo-kett", in case you were wondering). It is SO beautiful. Both ports in India were coal ports, so the ship got really dusty and black, but here it is a tourist berth, and the landscape is like a tropical paradise from some Caribbean movie or something. Lovely. The people are really friendly too. I have not had a chance to go out yet, being on duty and really busy with dance practices and so on.

Yesterday we had an actual fire! Someone left a laptop on their bed coverings, and it overheated and started smoking and sparking. She had left the cabin, but one of her cabin-mates woke up because of the smoke, grabbed it and threw it on the floor. Someone phoned the ship's internal emergency number, and all of us in the control team came running to the firestation. We sent in the attack team dressed in full gear and everything. But thankfully someone had already put out the fire with an extinguisher. They reckon they may be able to rescue the hard disk, but I dunno.. We're just glad they were not injured.

Today was a pretty good day.

Not many deckies working'; many people are seasick, and so extra deckies are taking on other's seawatches, and so on, so not many day-workers. Tomorrow there are only 3 of us!

Anyway. The Bosun asked me to wirebrush/clean/paint one of the compass stands on the bridge, which was a good job. Went well too. Hopefully the rain the rest of the day wont have messed it up too much....

Then in the afternoon we had fire attack-team training. Which basically envolved learning about how the breathing-apperatus worked (BA-sets). Then putting them on, and going about the ship, all of us getting shut inside a small compartment/fan-room togeather (to make sure we could cope with such spaces, and not get claustrophobic), crawling along mainstreet (the main corridoor of the ship) using only hands and feet (knees not being protected enough) and then we went up to the funnel, climbing down through inside of the funnel structure inside the engine room, (very very hot! while wearing heavy BA-sets too...) to give us an idea of how it is like inside a fire, then we had to go out along the propellor tunnel shaft (small, hot, and with the propellor axel/pole spinning half a meter away from you the whole time) and climb up the emergency escape shaft.

Then our instructor (one of the ship's firemen) went and lay down somewhere in the lower engine room, and we had to go in to find him, and carry him out as a casualty, the whole time wearing our BA-sets. The normal cylinders we are using here for air give about 45 minutes, so the whole thing didn't take THAT long, but it sure felt like it, as it was so hot, and carrying a human body about while wearing a set is quite hard. One of the people on the training mis-attached his BA tube to his mask, and so had to stop half way through, and go on the rest of the time just breathing normal air, with his BA-set detatched, and one of the others ran out of air 10 minutes before then end, as he is less fit or something, and so was using up air faster. But we got out in the end.

I enjoyed it a lot. For some reason many of the others didn't. Most of the others got burns on their hands while we were climbing down through the smokestack funnel, -- it was that hot. I didn't. Family asbestos fingers coming into play, I think. Anyway. They ended up walking around the rest of the day clutching plastic bags of icecubes. One of the others as well was feeling too sick to participate. But one of the other guys, from Germany, was really really good. Very competent, and good to work with. I'm sure he will be on the attack team soon, and good too.

So yeah..

We left India yesterday. Kind of sad. I will miss India a lot. A lot of people on board are glad to leave, as it has been very stressful for them, what with many of the visitors being so pushy and all. For me, I didn't get so stressed by it, even when on gangway watch, with many people coming and asking for tours, and for permission to walk about the ship and stuff like that.

I was thinking about it, and many of the cultural traits which ship people were finding hard to deal with, and much of the culture are pretty similar to Cypriot culture.... just imagine a Cypriot culture that had continued for 3000 years without being invaded every 100 years like Cyprus has.... then imagine their religion teaching that they were spiritually better than others, and that the others were trash, lower than dogs, because of bad stuff they had done in previous lives, not even to be pitied. But the aspects of everyone being out for himself, but caring about his family, or family image. Not wanting to look bad, trying to get the best for himself out of every situation, thinking he knows best, and so on. Very similar to Cypriot culture. Maybe that's why I didn't have such a problem.

Two days ago we got the new deck schedule for this month. no news about jobs or anything, BUT, I found I had an extra 2 days of 12-4 gangway watch this week, as some people are on re-entry training. That's not good news. So I did 12-4 today. I'm SO tired. I wasnt ready and so didnt get enough sleep or anything, and I still have tomorrow to do.

BUT the good news: one of the other blokes wandered into my cabin just now, we were chatting, and he said, "just 2 days of 12-4? That would totally wreck your whole sleeping pattern. 1 day is fine though. How about we swap tomorrow? I'll do your 12-4 tonight and tomorrow afternoon, and you can do my cleaning team." He just phoned to say he confirmed it with the bo'sun. COOL!!!!!

He said he quite likes gangway. So many people tell me that. I just dont get it.

Re-entry training is brief 2 day training about getting ready for going back home. We have about 8 or 9 deckies leaving in the next few months, so it may be quite unlikely that I leave deck any time soon. I hope I'll get the lifeboat job and that it works out as well as I hope.

I spoke with the bosun, and he knows that Im quite practical and good with my hands and stuff, and so he would quite like me in lifeboats, but the watermen want me to join them too (specifically asked for me). And he knows I'd quite like the lifeboat job. I told him that I am interested in moving from deck into creative ministies or AV or videographer job in the future, so if it is better for the deck to get someone who doesn't want to leave deck ever (which would be good if there was someone to do lifeboats for 1 and half years! very good for the department), then maybe is better I stay in normal deck work. He was happy I told him. unhappy that I may not stay a deckie, but he really appreciates openness.

Watermen job is (in my opinion) not fun. Others think it sounds great. Basically no hard physical work at all; they are in charge of the ship's drinking water, so when trucks come, they have to come and get it attached and coming to the right tanks, moving water from one tank to another so the ship doesn't get lopsided, checking the water making sure it's OK, testing the depths of each tank. There's also a bunch of other random jobs (like looking after the baggage locker, making the new keys for the ship, repairing shoes, etc) mostly it doesn't require too much work, but not exciting.

AND... many times they end up being "on call" all evening, and having to rush off to do water trucks at all hours, which would be really really is bad for me, as I'd almost never be able to totally confirm with a programme organiser, "yes I can be in a programme to do a drama" so they would not want me in dramas at all, as I might have to keep rushing off. So you can see how some people like the job. No hard physical work.

Sometimes they don't ask if you want a job, though, they just assign. It's the chief mate's decision in the end. Apparently what happens is that all the department heads meet up to discuss what people they want, and then negotiate it all out, and then after that each deparement head assigns jobs out within the department according to which people they have left, and so on.

According to the AV people I'm almost certainly on the list of people they will request, but because of me being quite strong and a guy, I will almost certainly stay in deck for the first year. The thing is, AV will be SO short staffed in the next few months. I know I could do the AV job, and many people could not, and so I dont want to commit to the deck department of getting the extra training and stuff of the lifeboat job, if I will then end up having to dump them in a few months if AV cannot find enough other people. Its not fair to the department. So it's all quite complicated. That's why I told the bosun.

At the moment, though, I'm just glad about not having 12 to 4 again tomorrow!

I missed lunch today as I had to give a tour for my "little brother"s family at 11:30. So I went and brought an icecream from the book-ex shop, then made a chocolate spread and jam sandwhich and put the icecream on top. Scrummy. Then I had some dinner too, but not much. I put the rest in the fridge for later. But i'f I'm not on watch I wont need it...

Gangway watch is so bad for eating too. You never feel hungry at normal times, and then need energy quickly at random times, and waking up at like 2 am, and so end up eating really bad stuff, chocolate spread sandwhiches, choclate bars, tea with loads of sugar,cereal with sugary squash juice stuff as the Doulos milk is not nice.

We were supposed to go on an extra trip on my off-day, all of our group, to do a special programme at an old peoples home. But the driver didn't turn up, and so we were waiting for ages. Then when he did turn up, we got taken off to the wrong place - the same place where we did some building. They wanted us to start building again, but none of us were in building clothes. All the girls were in punjabis and all . I remembered the house of a local guy we had met before, so we went there, and phoned to the real guy, and explained the problem ... and then it began to totally chuck it down with rain. So we hid under the veranda and played music and sang songs with the local slum kids, which was really cool. They sung us their Sunday school songs. Really nice.

Then somehow the guy turned up, found us a jeep, and drove us back to the ship. On the way we stopped at a really nice cheap Indian fast food/resurant place and had lovely lovely lovely Indian food. A whole huge meal. The whole meal, plus drinks and dessert, and auto ride home cost us 50 rupees each!!!! 50 rupees is about 50 CY cents [approx $1 US].

It was too late to go where we were supposed to go - everyone had gone home.

Today has been pretty good. Sunday service music practice at 7am. I went early, to warm up, then we practiced until 8:20, service started at 8:30, so about 5 minutes for breakfast. Then after the service cleaning duty, so went outside to start cleaning. Barely started when an absolute torrent of rain started. So we ran around lashing down all the canvasses, lowering the engine room hatch, etc. Got totally soaked. Totally!

Ship seems SO clean now. It's lovely. Everyone said "God is on cleaning duty today!"

Yesterday was i-night, at an outside quasi-amphitheatre venue, a 4000 seater. We packed it!!!!! We were praying for no rain on Saturday for the last 3 weeks or so. So it was really great getting soaked today, and thinking, "This rain might have come yesterday, and ruined all our equipment, and wrecked the whole night, but God made it rain today!" so we didn't mind getting wet at all.

Then after lunch I did the rubbish, had a 10 minute rehearsal for a drama, finished the rubbish, had a shower, went and performed the drama, played guitar for a few minutess, got some props from creative ministires, practised with 4 others for a drama tomorrow. Then I got ready for gangway relief, went and did relief for half an hour while the watchman (watchwoman) went for dinner. Then I put the lights on on the ship, lowered the flag, ate dinner myself, then came back to clean up my bunk a bit. It was covered in random stuff from i-night and all.

I was in two acts in the i-night. Scottish dance, and then TWO minutes later, the "parade of nations" as Cyprus, so very rushed to change. I wear the closest I can find to Cyprus costume: black trousers, white shirt, and a black "Spanish" waistcoat from the costume locker. Looks kind of silly to me, but (a) no one in the audience knows any better (b) if it really looked stupid, they wouldn't keep assigning me to parade of nations (c) most of the costumes look a bit "made up" or fake, so yeah.

Oh, and i've got jazz dance practice in 15 minutes.

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!

Fare from the firefighting. Fair food for free! Fantastic...

I'm finished watch, but feeling kinda sick/queasy, possibly bad fruit. I did eat four apples just before watch in one go; the fruit had probably been sitting in the backstage of the theatre getting hot and stuff all day. Not serious.



Visak port is even dirtier than the last one but it's rained twice! Lovely. Huge massive torrents of it, with thunderstorms like in Colorado. Lightning hit one of the port floodlight towers, and so the port lost lighting for about 6 hours.

Then we got a page from the book exhibition, "Attention ship's company, we are in need of volunteers to come to the book-ex deck to help save the books."

So of course loads of us charged up there. Water was coming in all the sides, as it wasn't prepared for 45 degree torrents. All the cash desks got soaked too. So I was running around tying canvases down all over stuff. Because it was a sort of i-night last night, most of the ship's company were off-ship, so only about 40 people were on board. A lot of books got a bit wet, but not wrecked.

I spoke to the bosun about the lifeboatman job. He says he wants whoever does it to start working as soon as possible so they learn the job really well before September, when the current guy leaves. When I spoke to one of the firemen, he said that with the lifeboatman and fireman jobs, you can basically work what hours you want to, as long as you get jobs done. So it would be very cool.

Lifeboatman does maintenance of all lifeboats, emergency equipment and so on, also repair of all canvases on board, and nets, ladders etc. They can get as many deckies as they need when they want them. But if just checking rations and water supplies, no others are needed. If I did this, I'd be able to do more dramas and programmes easily, and sleep more at night! Also because I'd be working on my own frequently, I'd be happier socialising during off-time.

It sounds ideal, but then again, the grass is always greener and all that. Heading for almost 4 months on the ship, almost the whole of my preship is a bit fed up with their jobs and want to move/change etc, which is expected. In about 2 months' time, most will probably be happy again.

I don't know if I will do it; they must have this week's team leaders meeting first and see what happens. They will probably decide then, but who knows? Some things happen on board so fast and other things take forever! I still haven't been told definitely that I'm in the drama team...

Here is a poster they showed us in our fire-fighting "training". I'm quite glad we didn't have to actually put one of these on...

Last week has been kind of slow/busy/confused etc. One of the creative ministries people is on an away-team, we had an i-night, I went on an overnight, and am on watch this week (12 till 4), and so on. Also I learned a new mime/dance and performed it the next day. Tomorrow we sail to the next port.

The overnight went well, it was a very good experience. I'm so glad to have gone on an overnight in India. Some of it was not such fun, but very good to have experienced it. Hole-in-the-ground type toilets without toilet paper, for instance...

The book-ex has closed for this port. We were going to be open today, and pack down tomorrow, but today is election day so the local people (port authorities) told us it wasn't a good idea to be open. So we closed today and are doing major clean/pack down. A major, major clean. This is a coal port, so there is black dust caked onto EVERYthing. Horrible. Apparently the next port is even worse...

One of the team leaders asked me yesterday if I would consider the job of lifeboat man!! More flexible hours, I'd be pretty much my own boss, as long as I got the jobs done, no gangway watch or firerounds and so on! I'd have to look after the lifeboats, clean them, make sure all ropes/equipment are correct and good, learning more about how they work, and helping to direct during drills and when using them etc. It should mean I could have more flexible hours as I'd be working on my own most of the time and so I could work around performances/practices with drama and stuff. But I'd still be a deckie, which would also be good. And, I'd get a special letter/chitty/thingy from captain and mates, which would (apparently) pretty much get me a job on any ship anywhere!

"I'm on a church team tomorrow," said I.

"Cool. Who's your team leader?" said he.

"I am."

"My goodness? What is the teams co-ordinator smoking to make you team leader?"

... or so (approximately) went a conversation on Saturday.

Yeah. I was a team leader. So, what does that mean? well, basically, a church asked for a team of us to go do a short programme/presentation in their service today, and my job was to find out (a) what they actually wanted, (b) what we would do, and (c) how we would do it. Another question was also (d), who "we" are.

I was told that I was a team leader on Wednesday.

I thought it was Thursday, at the time. So I went to the board, and make a notice that my team should meet on Saturday evening, in the dining room. 6.20pm. Why this time? Well, the sheet of paper they had given me told me we would be collected from the port gate at 6.20am, the next morning. And I thought it kind of appropriate.

I phoned the pastor as well, and found out what he wanted (songs, drama, mime, a couple of testimonies, and a short presentation about the ship. nothing too challenging).

So...

SATURDAY :

18:20 - I was in the dining room. Waiting for 2 fairly experienced Douloids (both had been on the ship longer than I have), and 2 STEPpers.

18:30 - I phoned the info desk to ask if it was allowed for me to make a page for them to come. They told me no, only on the actual day itself could I page.

OK. No problem. I'll just wait then.

6:35 - one of them turned up! Whoo! One of the experienced Douloids. We chat for a bit about what kind of things we should do. I'd been given one good idea earlier by someone else. As the STEPpers probably don't know any dramas, and probably don't know how to give a good (ie, short) testimony, I could ask them to sing a song in their own languages. Most westerners are horrified at the thought of being asked to sing solo in front of a church, but many Indians don't seem to be. Also, although some don't sing so well, most seem to sing very well indeed.

7:00 - I ask info, and apparently one of the STEPpers is actually out today, with some other team, and hasn't returned yet!

7:30 - no one else decided to turn up. oh well. the both of us leave. I have some work to do, I need to stick some adhesive sandpaper-type tape to the steps to Hold 3, so they are safe to walk up without slipping over. The trouble is that the self adhesive isn't strong enough to hold it in place, and the contact glue I have to use should really be left overnight to dry, that's why I am doing it tonight.

8:00 - My K-group (fellowship/family group) "parents" are leaving, and it's now time to say goodbye, so pretty much the whole of the people who joined the ship at the same time as us are there. Quite sad.

9:00 - I get dressed in work clothes to go do that work. On my way, I pop by the book-exhibition up on deck, as one of the cabin mates of the other STEPper (not the one already away from the ship) told me that he should be working there. I found him! I told him we're meeting at the info desk at 6am, and he says he can sing. Jolly good.

9:45 - While working on the steps down to hold 3, Andy (from the previous pre-ship group to mine) brings the other STEPper down to see me! I ask her if she can sing, she says yes, and although she doesn't like the idea of a 6am start, thats OK.

10:00 - Finished. Bedtime.

SUNDAY:

6:10 - At info. We're all there! Wow. Pray, discuss briefly what we will do, and head for the port gate.

6:25 - We're in the bus heading for the church!

8:00 - Service finished already. Didn't really go as planned at all. Very short simple baptist style service, which I enjoyed. Old hymns and everything. Not 200 people, as my paper said, but more like 30 or 40. The CD played didn't work properly, which disrupted us a bit, as a mime/dance kind of relied on it. But! One of the STEPpers sang very well, and the other one... could be professional! Lovely voice. Amazing. So, yeah, it all kind of worked.

10:20 - The pastor took us out for an indian breakfast (lovely), and we're now in a taxi on the way back to the ship. Wow...

11:20 - I find my "little brother" port volunteer, and gave him a tour of the ship (I'd been on watch when he joined, and kept missing him, so he hadn't yet had a proper tour! Not so good of me. But he liked the tour.).

And that was it!

It all went well. Afterwards in the team "de-brief" in the mess, while filling out the form about how it went, one of the experienced Douloid team members took the form and in the extra comments she wrote how she liked my leading style, as I was so relaxed, and asked peoples
opinions rather than being a dictator, and how unusual I was. *blink* hm. Thanks!

But maybe that means I'll have to lead many teams in the future! Oh stress!

So, yeah.

Doulos life is still pretty hectic.

We've been having many inspections and stuff this port, so yesterday I was helping to clean up the lifeboatman's office, and in the back, we found an old guitar (without strings), which belonged to one of the lifeboatmen of ages past, and the current one didn't want the guitar, and so said I could have it! Wow! So I now have my own guitar! Today hopefully I can go and buy some strings. I'd just been talking with God a few days ago about not being able to practice guitar so much, so yeah! Doesn't often happen like this, but a nice present. It's even a classical guitar! Whoo!

A new picture! OK, so now all the bloglines people will actually visit my blog. that's cool.

So... meself in a kilt, after Scottish dancing in the international night programme last week.

I've been asked to consider if I want to join the drama team or not. One of the guys left, went home. He decided to leave about 3 weeks before he left, and had been discussing it with personnel for some time. Id still have to do deckie job full-time and then drama team a few evenings a week, during free time.

In deck department, apparently in a few months some of the carpenters are leaving, and if no professional carpenters join, they may be looking for normal deckies to start learning that job. The carpenter's job does have slightly better hours... basically normal deckie, but no firerounds or gangway watch! Yes, it would be hard, giving up firerounds. It's so fun getting my sleep pattern all messed up, feeling depressed and never knowing what time it is, waking up terrified that I've missed the watch, and wanting to go home, but I think I could handle the disappointment of not
experiencing it.

If I try really hard.

One of the other deckies told me he thought it would be my kind of thing, as I like doing stuff with my hands, and am quite perfectionistic, and so on. I'd love to learn more proper carpentry.

We've been doing fire-fighting training this week. Went to the Chennai technical college of maritime, for 3 full days of lectures, plus one practical day, and one other day when the time was kind of confused. We've been hearing loads on board about the training course the previous preship went to in Sri Lanka, I think, and how it was fantastic, real loads of training, having to crawl through cargo containers set on fire, put out loads of types of fires, and so on.

We didn't learn ANYTHING in the lectures, nothing we didn't have in preship. We didn't even touch a fire extinguisher, or see a match get struck. But we get a certificate, just the same as the other people!

About the malaria tablets... they seem to perhaps be causing restlessness and sleeplessness, in varying degrees and forms. But many many people on board are finding it hard to sleep at night, just lying awake wanting to walk around or get up and type, or work out, or whatever. Particularly on Sundays, when we have to take the weekly extra pills. But we're not really tired in the day. Everyone is so hot and sweating so much anyway. We take 2 tablets daily, and another 2 extra on Sundays. so many and we must all take salt tablets as well, as we sweat so much.

We're going out this evening to eat (our k-group) as the k-group parents are leaving this week, for good. They only joined the ship for 3 months. K-group is sort of family or fellowship group, all from our preship. There is one set of "parents", one of the married couples on the ship, so each kgroup has one married couple as parents. Ours are from our preship (which is the ideal), but many are not, but ours leave this week.

One of the older couples on the ship are on furlough right now, but come back in a week or so, and they will be the new parents for our group. They were also at the preship training. Each week we have a time together, for an hour or so, and generally it's in the parents' cabin, so they host it, generally provide drinks and buscuits, and so on. Also they make sure we're all ok, and not hating our jobs too much, or whatever.

Food here is very cheap. Like a whole meal for one person can be 4 dollars. For good meal, that is.
Fast food can be a dollar, or less. Mostly veggie. Many places have "veg", and "non-veg" on the back page.

I was so tired this week. My last off-day was right after watch, and we went out for the whole day,
so I'm just having a quiet day today. I read in the morning, had long lunch, chatting, and some music practice, perhaps clean up my cabin a bit, maybe start scripting a new film project or something this afternoon.

Just got back from the town. So many contrasts, so much poverty, so much deception, so much weird stuff. Several million people, bigger than London, and this is nothing like the capital. Huge numbers of beggers, homeless, etc. and the other people just shoving them out of the way, not caring, or worse. And so strange seeing thousands of idols everywhere.

Traffic is insane here, there are so many auto rickshaws. Imagine a 2 wheel hand cart, attached to a motorbike, and its slightly less posh than that. All metal.

Weather is pretty hot. Not too bad, for me. But if outside a long time in sun, for the Finnish, or whatever, it's bad.

We're in India! Whoo!! etc.

We arrived yesterday, on the 11th April.

I'm kind of tired, in a general way, but also kind of excited and awake too. Jumping to the firerounds schedule (11pm to 7am work time!) really messed up my body clock, and so I got very little sleep the first few days. And I know I need sleep soon. But I'm going to stay up til lunch, and then sleep from lunchtime until 8 this evening, as one of our k-group is going on a team away from the ship for 2 weeks, and we are going to have a goodbye lunch for her.

So I was filling up time until then.

I've been part of a group learning a jazz/modern dance since pre-ship, and had wanted to make a "training" dvd for the dance, with each section (verse, chorus, rap-section, finale, etc) able to be played, and explained on the dvd, so that if people miss learning sessions, they can catch up faster, but also so that we can review on our own parts, and also to allow the dance to be kept going if key people leave the ship.

So I went just now to the photography/graphics office, and looked through their video collection to see if they had any tapes which had the dance on, with the right kind of tape that I can play on my camera, so I could start working on making the dvd (or at least a demo of the dvd,
which I could then use to persuade the dance leader to schedule a few sessions to properly record it).

While I was talking to the photographer about this, she (first of all she wanted to talk about my toaster video -- apparently her machine didn't play it right, so she watched it about 4 times trying to get to the ending, but it didn't work, and she was getting angry because she wanted to see how it ended! rather cool!)

.. anyway, she told me maybe I should apply for job of videographer, which is a post they have been looking for someone for for quite a while. I knew they wanted someone for the job, but thought they wanted a professional videographer, someone like dad. But she said no, in fact she had never even seen Adobe Photoshop until 2 weeks before they came to the ship, and had basically to learn on the job!

It's kind of weird... Like, all during firerounds this morning I was thinking about my job as a deckie.

I love the job, doing all the physical work and all, all the painting, scrubbing, chipping rust, and so on, but a lot of the attitude of some of the other deckies really annoys me, and I find hard to work with.

For instance, on the fire-rounds, there are these little red strips on the walls in different sections. What you are supposed to do is go to each section, make sure there are no irons plugged in, or whatever, check the bilges, and so on. Then scan the strip, and go on. There are some strips which are outside a hold, or other room, and you are supposed to open the door, check inside the space, and then close it and go on.

When talking with one of the other watchmen, I mentioned that I really didn't like going into one of the holds, as it's so creepy down there... always sounds like someone is walking around, and hiding from you. And he couldn't understand why I would go down there anyway, as the strip is outside the door, and "no-one ever bothers" to actually check inside. I dunno. Like some people are trying to get away with doing the least possible, but it seems like such a bad attitude to have, since we are here to serve God, and it's not like the jobs are enormously strenuous anyway.

Yeah, I've been kind of feeling a bit fed up with deck department for a week or two now. I was expecting it, of course. Most people go through a "down" cycle after about 3 to 8 months of their first department. And I've done 4 months of deck work now (including my STEP). So I know that it's just part of Doulos life, and that in 6 months more, I'll probably feel a lot better about it.

But anyway, I was thinking for ages this morning during my watch, if I was to move department, where would I go? I am even feeling engine room might be better, and was so tired with the attitude that if IT asked me to join them, I might even do that. Not too happy. So quite a surprise to hear someone tell me about this position needing filling, like the same day I'm really thinking about this.

Right now, I'm thinking it would be so cool to do this job. I'm pretty tired, and going through a not too happy week with deck dept, so I'm probably seeing it brighter than it is (the grass is always greener, and so on). I dunno. That's what I'll be praying about for the next while, we'll see what happens.

I won "Pioneer" DoulOscar !

I thanked the toaster, said how great it was to work with, and how generous it was, etc, and then told everyone not to grow up. Stay as children. Its much more fun. We had 2 mintutes max for speeches, then they started playing snoring sound effects. Only one person got that though.

One of the creative people told me I got the pioneer award partly because I'm the only one doing short videos. Most people are trying to make whole long things.

our preship has a lot of techie/AV/media people, which is cool, and we're all (except I think 3) staying for 2 years, so hopefully we'll get the Doulos media quality going up and up. I was the only one in our preship to have made anything for the DoulOscars though!

I just got nominated for the DoulOscar "Most Creative" and also for "Best Actor". I have to prepare speeches in case I win... for the video I made about the Doulos toaster.* I was camera man, director, gaffer, editor, cutter, best boy, tea lady, actor, pyrotechnican, etc...

I want to make it again. Its kind of rushed in too many places but I learned a lot.


* note - to understand the significance, see the blog entry about the toaster

We've been doing India orientation training. It was good, though quite long, and nothing too new: mozzies, be careful of drivers, no physical contact between men and women in public, no tight jeans, etc, knee length shorts at minimum, etc, etc, and be careful about what water we drink.

We all started malaria pills yesterday: dailies and weeklies. Apparently less nasty ones than last time, as there are hardly any resistant strains or anything here. The dailies are proguanil, and weeklies (as well!!) are chloroquinine. It turns out all of the people who got malaria last time were not taking their pills.

I think the biggest worry is crowd control. Apparently we will probably be doing no deck work for most of India, just crowd control. They're expecting at least 12000 visitors a day, maybe more.

One thing makes me very happy in India orientation: In most of the world, they talk of normal food, and veggie food. In India, they talk of normal food, and non-veggie food.

Food on board is very good now. Much pasta these days, the new chef Glenn is v. talented, and he has a hatred of "one each" signs. Most meal times there is fruit now, and also some at other times. Many times now we have signs up "ask galley staff for veggie option..."

It gets very hot now here... apparently we will have no visits to schools, as all the schools are closed for the next month, as it is too hot!!! And then we will start hitting monsoon season, I think. for most of Malasia, islands, etc. But we have teams out every day, loads of a-teams (2/3 weeks away from ship), and so on. One deck team per day is probably going out on visits too. We have only 5 teams, so maybe much more extra days out! whoo! Also the on board programme/conference schedule is up, and it is totally full. Like every morning, afternoon and evening, almost.

They had a couples night a few days ago, for all the marrieds on board. They interviewed over the last few weeks lots of them, talking about their families, pets, dogs, etc. and then mixed / edited them up. So they asked questions about the husband/wife, and then put in the answer about the dog, or something. eg: "what was your first impression of him? " "well, he has a really big nose, like this... " Funny.

i'm on firerounds or something next week, so I dont know what times I will be awake.

We will sail (in just a few days time) for Chennai, India. It is quite a long voyage, about 10 days. Hopefully not many people will be seasick.

I'm getting to do more dance on board, which is something I've wanted to learn more of for some time. I'm in the Scottish dance group, am learning a jazz/ modern piece with a bunch of others who joined at the same time as I did, and may be learning joining a Dutch dance group in a few weeks as well (time permitting). I'm also in the puppets workshops/teams thing.

Yesterday we did the big "International Night", which I was involved in (3 items! I was changing costumes all evening!), and then from about 11.30pm when we got back, I was helping to unload the 3 book containers which arrived yesterday. We finished the unloading at about 4.30am this morning. I'm kind of tired, and also have a cold, have been coughing and all for the last 2 days. Poor ol' me, whinge whinge, moan moan, etc, etc. I actually love days like this, it's kind of unusual, but staying up crazy hours heaving heavy boxes of books about is really rather satisfying.

So, I'm still quite busy.

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.

I'm sitting in the dining room, typing this, after a children's programme this morning. We went to visit the school at 11.30, and were told we had a 45 minute or an hour long cultural programme, they wanted. No problems. One of the other team members is a teacher from oz, and so she was voted to "MC" the time.

The kids enjoyed it a lot, as did the teachers, but one of the teachers _kept_ coming into the room, like, every 2 minutes, and calling for another kid to come because their parents were there. We should have really started the programme at about 11 o'clock, or 10 thirty. Eventually the whole thing dissolved at about 12 o clock when pretty much all the kids left as their parents were there to collect them. Oh well.

We taught them some (fairly) silly songs, performed a drama about friendship (they gave me the main character, which was fun), did a song about Doulos work (also quite silly, but impressive. Basically a short chorus about "if I was not upon the stage of the Doulos, I would be..." and then each "verse", one of the people stands forward and pretends to be some job; captain, carpenter, laundry, etc, with a short chant, and actions. and each time through the song another person stands forward.

So it starts off with one person standing forward, next verse two people, the verse after that 3 people, until all of us stand forward. and the actions to each persons chant include standing up, bending down, stretching arms up and down, etc, which are choreographed so that each person ducks out of the way of the next person just as they do something. IE, the carpenter stretches out a measurement, just as the painter ducks down to stir paint, and so on.

The last character to stand forward is... a ballerina. and they are supposed to be a really strong masculine macho deckie, and so guess who that was? yes! me! wearing my deckie clothes (really grubby looking and "work" ish) and also a ballet skirt thingy on top. it always makes the kids laugh, seeing someone so tough and manly pirouette and leap across the stage... yeah. pretty fun anyway. this evening we are going to help up at the bookshop, and give tours and chat to people. but until then is time off, which is quite nice.

Yesterday was my off-day, and I went out to see the town with some of the others. we visited the souk, I wanted to try and find a new watch (analogue, with alarm and backlight, but not big and heavy, and nice looking. I'll be using it on deck, so just simple and stuff.

heh.. anyway, I didn't find a good one. I found lots which were almost right, but none I really wanted to get. the guys at the shops always started off prices of about 8 to 12 dinar, but by the time i'd looked at them all and decided I didn't want to buy, were all talking off special offers, me being their friend, and 3 dinars only.

oh well. Perhaps I'll see one in India or Oman.

We then went and had lunch at a place called "Hardees", which is an American style fast food resurant. I had a salad burger. Then we walked to one of the malls about, walked around it for a while, went to a Haagen Daaz icecream place, each had an icecream thingy (v. nice. I had a waffle with icecream on top) and then walked a bit more, and went home. Over all, fairly relaxed day not doing very much. Then in the evening I played Rummikub with some others, and then hung out in one of the families' cabins with them and just chatted and looked at photos and such. They are a really friendly family, and have people drop round many evenings, and have their door open. They were making a sign to put on their door, with "hi! come in!","we're busy, sorry","not in!","go away we're sleeping" or something like that on it, which they can then put a blue-tacked arrow at the approp. label, on the computer. So I helped with the design of that for a while as well. v. friendly.

anyway. I'm off now. It's nice to have had these two not so busy days after the last 7 days of watch. Normal day deck work tomorrow, we'll probably be starting to get ready to sail in 2 days, so finishing off paint jobs, perhaps loading some of the vans and stuff...I don't know.

I'm pretty tired. drills today, after watch. and my cabin mate wakes up at 11.30, so by the time drills were over, it was too late for me to go to bed during the daytime, really, as I'd get woken by his alarm after half an hour.

And yeah. this evening is a birthday party for one of my group. this is a looong day.

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.

I'm on fire-watch in 10 minutes (making sure no fires start from welder), and probably i'll do some needle-gunning (heavy duty rust chipping) too. auditions went ok, i think. dunno if am in group til some time next week.

Today was more training, I'm on the fire-support team, and so have to know where spare aqua-film-foam- forming fluid is kept, how to help teams get their fire fighting breathing suits checked and set up, etc.

Went to visit the American run hospital here, 2 days ago. I did a drama, and then an application mixed with story. Afterwards, some young school teachers invited us out, and we went (about 25 of us) to the seafront, played frizzbee, they brought us pizza, and a local ice- cream sales man made friends with some of us, and then gave us ALL free icecreams! So generous :-)

I've been on board for 3 weeks now. Last week I was involved in quite a few dramas, which is really exciting for me.

In my day work, I have been working on doing a lot of painting and wire-brushing, on the aft mooring-line cleats, and also the last 2 days on the "paint raft", which is a rather ugly floating box which is used for going around the water around the side of the ship, and painting and working on the hull. I'm making a lot of mistakes though in the deck work, forgetting to put on a coat of thinner before painting on bare metal, breaking a drill bit, and so on. Nothing major, but kind of wearying. This week I'm quite tired, perhaps trying to get involved in too many things at once.

In about a week there will be auditions for the official Doulos drama team. I'm really excited about it, and in some ways it would make it a lot easier to do dramas and stuff, as I would then get proper times to do it, rather than having to try and get personal time off work for it.

Yesterday we had a big program in a park, I was a clown for most of the afternoon. I enjoyed it a lot. I love clowning, but it was fairly tiring.

We are in the port of Doha, and today I am planning to go out to see more of the town with some friends.

two days ago I met up with another juggler. we played quite a bit, and he is going to form a juggling group, and we will be making sketches and stuff using juggling. this is v. cool :-)

While we were meeting tho, it was my duty day, which means I can't leave the ship, and if there is a problem, I have to go help with it. The duty people kept getting paged because of someone ironing and cooking at the same time in one of the pantries. There was no fire, and it was quite safe, but it's better to be safe than sorry, and the fire/smoke detectrs are quite easily excitable. Better that they are too active than not active enough, of course.

Still. it's kind of funny.

Then later that evening, someone happened to knock a detector off the ceiling! that set off the alarms again, so again we all went running. heh.

Whenever there is an announcement for duty people to report to the right place, suddenly about 13 people all drop whatever they are doing and sprint off towards the control station. as soon as everyone else hears the announcement, they all flatten themseleves against the walls and laugh as deckies wearing anything from full coveralls to tshirt and shorts, to full dress coat, tie and tails race about. We train and do drills every week, and everyone knows exactly what to do. It's just funny seeing it happen.

Good morning world, this is radio dan blogging at 20 past 10 from the good ship Doulos. I'm tired, folks, and the reason is this: I got up at 3.30 this morning to go on watch. Was quite a good watch, did one fireround in the middle. Followed the paper list, and finished in 35 minutes, so could spend almost half an hour in the mess getting something to eat and drink. Nice break.

This week has been quite busy, with many different things rather than just solid work. I had 3 days of "fire watch" which everyone in deck assured me was the most boring job on the planet. Basically, whenever someone (an engine room dude) is doing welding, there must be someone watching, from the other side of what they are working on (so sometimes a whole different deck!) to make sure sparks and heat don't transfer into something else and start a fire that they can't see. So I took my tenor recorder (blockflute) and some juggling balls expecting a day of relative quietness.

Wrong.

About an hour was sitting watching, but then after that the guy needed me up with him on the sun deck (top of the ship!) actually helping. What we were doing was removing an old air-vent cover from up there, so that there will be space for a new satellite communication dish tower thingy.

So I was hammering, chipping, scrapeing, jumping up and down on top of the air vent trying to make it fall off while the guy hit it with a hammer, pulling on chain blocks trying to get the thing to move, and then eventually I was in the coffee bar below, with a hydraulic jack and 2 metre long metal pipe and a few empty book pallets pushing it upwards, while on the deck above the other guy was using a chainblock and pulling it upwards. I got slightly worried when the ceramic tiles on the deck I was standing on started buckling and cracking everywhere, but he said not to worry. Occupational hazard of being a floor tile, I guess. We got it shifted in the end though.

Ah. I need to go. Some friends want to play Carcassone. Cool.

I was the fire watch man today again, for the same welder/engine guy. We're working on building the new platform/deck for the new satillite internet connection dish thingy. It is really big and has to be really high up to get a good line of sight above the funnel and stuff. Fun.

I spent most of the afternoon chipping off paint so that the welding torch could work properly. This morning was bible study groups, drills and deckie devotions, and because of various things didn't actually get a chance to work until after lunch.

I'm involved in a music cafe programme tonight! Sound check in half an hour! We're doing a live percussion jam/jazz session that I started (whoo!!!) yesterday. I hope it goes well.

Today I swept the decks, helped loading cargo from a new container (food, books, etc), I love doing this. Ropes and the crane and all. Then after lunch I was helping an engine room welder with removing a large air-vent from above the book ex deck. This involved standing below making sure no sparks caused a fire, pushing and shoving on a large piece of metal trying to make it move, pumping something like a car-jack to try and lift this air-vent, jumping up and
down on top of it while he hit it with a hammer, attaching a block and tackle metal chain type affair to whatever random bits of deck or railing we could find, attaching the other end to the air vent, and pulling, and then stopping when the railing started to bend too much, and then finding another railing to try. Yeah. Fun day.

I've also been introduced to a really cool board/stratergy game called carcassone (possibly wrong spelling). It's about building cities, roads and so on, and is for 3 to 5 players. Cool game, and wonderful for strange conversations about word meanings, work, and all kinds of odd topics. Very cool.

We arrived 3 days ago at the ship, and have been mostly doing training so far. I'm enjoying it. I'm working in the Deck department again, so will spend 40 hours a week as a deck-hand. Cleaning, scrubbing, painting, chipping rust, and making this ship look beautiful. Also today we had watch-keeper training. So 40 hours a month each of us will be on gang-way watch, crowd control, and keeping order. We are currently in the port town of Sharjah, in the UAE.

I bought half a kilo of cashew nuts yesterday! For about 1 CYP, I think. I'm still having problems with converting the numbers.

Today I finally saw the doctor, and got some anti fungal cream for my feet. The athletes foot problem has appeared again...

I love cashew nuts.

I hate athletes foot.

I love chocolate too. In the fireroundsmans training today, we learned: accept bribes of chocolate from curfew breakers, eat it, and then write their names down anyway.

Oh! Yeah, and I also got a nice new sun hat for around 80 cents as well yesterday.

Text message receieved Saturday night:

Just told us now our departments, I am a deckie! Whoo!

Another text message from the pre-ship training:

Survived practical water survival. Floating using trousers as lifejacket, for 2 mins, etc. Fun.

Text messages arrived:

Training is going well. Please pray for my Japanese brother who has much trouble with English.

V. tired. So many sessions. Culture adapting, safety, did practical firefighting today. Extinguishers and all. We are in amazing holiay resort. Lovely food. Huge chalets. Is good but all just want to get to the ship. We need to do this to get our seamen crew certificates though. 3 more written exams. Did 1, was not too hard. Need sleep. Good night.

Text messages received Saturday 11pm:

Arrived. One girl had accident w/ escalater and luggage. Sprained ankle, bruised ribs. German esclators take trolleys. her brakes were dead. Will be fine by end of week. otherwise safe.

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.

We've been doing a lot about personality type and working as a group and all this week, using mainly the "4 temperaments" system. I scored highest (surprise, surprise) as "Harmoniser". A lot of this is very well known to me, because of doing so much Myers-Briggs type stuff at home so many times. But it has been good, and many others are learning loads of stuff and realising a lot about team dynamics and all. Yeah.

We're all beginning to get even more excited about leaving in a few days time. There are quite a few juggler type people (stilt-walkers, and all sorts!) so it will really be cool on the ship, and at pre-ship, with all the stuff.

It snowed! Germany is so beautiful, and snow makes everything look
lovely.

Conference is going well. It is amazing meeting all these people, and learning so much about what God is doing around the world. Meeting people from every continent going to every other continent.

Had a time today looking at all the different places where they need workers, seeing what they do, and met up with some people from a training centre in the UK who are praying for a drama person to come along and start doing full time drama ministry, teaching sessions with their students, but also putting together professional level productions, and taking them to schools and churches around the country.

It's a place we visited in October, and I didn't really feel very inspired by them then, as it seemed to be training all just by lectures, but speaking with the guys today, they said they are slowing trying to revise the system there and make it more interactive, not so lecture oriented, and really want to make the arts a priority. That could be interesting to do in a few years time, after the ship, maybe. I have their contact information, and will be praying about it. We shall see.

The group from Germany had a whole load of juggling equipment and stuff lying around too at this time, everyone was milling around, looking at different places like a market. Many people were playing with the juggling stuff, so I picked up a set of balls, and did a bit of practice, and then the German rep asked if I could be bribed not to go to the ship, and if they gave me lots of German chocolate, would I stay in Germany! Rather cool....

This evening we had a long session looking at the history of the organisation, seeing how it all began, and had phone-calls with some of the longest working people. Amazing.

God has used and is using so many people to do so many things, it is kind of mind-blowing.

Anyway, it is a very busy schedule, so I do not know if I will get time to post much during the conference. The first session starts at 8:45am, and the day ends at about 9:30pm. Although there are breaks, there is not enough time to get back to the hostel and back.

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.

Messages recieved from Dan's mobile, German time:

3pm: Arrived safely. Have bags, am going to train station.

5.30pm: Late trains. 1 more hour. i think. Weather not too cold. And trains are warm.

8.30pm: Am safe at hostel, after food.

Waiting in the queue for 'Cyprus Air' to check in the baggage, before flying from Larnaka airport to Frankfurt.

In 12 hours, I shall, God willing, be on the flight from Cyprus. Scary.

It kind of feels unreal, and weird. Last summer, it all happened so suddenly, and it felt much smaller. This time, many people will have left the country by the time I get back in 2 years, so I am saying goodbye for perhaps the last time, or at least the last time in years and years.

My cat is sitting on my lap as I type this. She knows I am going away. Has been very disturbed all week, with me packing and all. Doesn't know what to do. I hope she is OK.

My digestive system is all messed up, I feel all squirmy inside my stomach area, and just generally feel weird. Exactly how I feel before the premiere of a new show.

Ach well. Today was a good day. Said my farewell in the Sunday church gathering. God prayed for (whoo!!), and said goodbye to so many people. Had so many people shake my hand and say how happy they were to see me go. So many people hug me and say they would miss me.

Met up yesterday with another friend who juggles, we hadn't met up for months, and did some juggling and diabolo on the beach. Then went for coffee and beer on the seafront. He will be in the Cyprus army (they still have conscription here) while I am on the ship, and will be coming out a few months after I come back, so we can meet up again then.

So many things. I dunno.

I need to go get some sleep.

Please pray that the airport people are not too strict about luggage weight. And that I get there correctly and safely.

The nurseries in Cyprus have cartoon characters painted on their walls. I was quite surprised when I saw this though:


The inescapable tux!

I changed the background slightly, made it a bit lighter, mum said it was too distracting while reading long posts.

I forgot to mention I'm learning to cook now. Yesterday or so did spagetti, which I love, and which is hardly ever served on the Doulos. And tonight made a lemon merengue pie with mum. I love those too. And again, didn't see many of them while on the ship this summer either. So for all you people thinking about following my bold example and setting sail, learn to cook whatever really lovely foods you want, so that occasionally you can cook them in one of the mini-galleys on board. And because I gave you this hint, you can share it with me. Remember I'm vegetarian, though.

PS - I'll post a picture of the merengue tomorrow or something.

Today I had the last of the vaccinations I am having here in Cyprus. I really don't like vaccinations. I also found out that I am blood group O+, apparently. Kind of strange, as we all thought I would be A+. Some friends of ours introduced us to the "Eat Right 4 Your Type" bloodtype/diet theory a few years ago, and our family seemed to fit it. My dad (O+) prefers meats, and seems to do well on them, and my mum (A+) prefers veg, and white meats, and seems to do well on them. My brother and I, we didn't know our bloodtypes, but as he is a meat person, and I am a vegitarian, we guessed perhaps he was O+ and me A+. Anyway. All rather confusing.

I also went and got my eyes tested, and my old glasses fixed. One of the "arms" had fallen off, and although Dad had glued it back, the spring was gone, and they kept falling off my face. Also one of the rubber feet things for the nose had fallen off. But they are fixed now. The optician will have a new pair of glasses ready for me this evening, as well as a new hard case for my old glasses, and a spare hard case. To join the ship, I need to take 2 pairs of glasses, according to one of the random pieces of documentation they gave me.

That's about all the news at the moment...

Dan

Well, less than 2 weeks to go. Scary, wot?

I've done quite a bit of sorting on my room, now it's a total mess again, as it was a week ago that I sorted it. Trying to spend as much time as I can with family, and all.

Here is a picture of my bag "proto-packed", with all the clothes in that I think I will need to take, as you can see, there is still some space, so I will fill up the rest with sheet music.



God is providing everything amazingly. I have not got all the financial support I need yet, but He is quite good at surprising me with things. Yesterday when I went to get my ticket, He got me a ticket for about 50 CYP less than I had originally reserved it for. Cool, eh?

Anyway. People keep telling me I should post more often, so I won't post any more now, and perhaps I'll remember tomorrow.

OK... The new design is pretty much done, unless I get some brilliant ideas or suddenly decide I hate it or something. Anyway. What do you think?

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