Semi-jan Siesta

With a violent abundance of rip tides on Cotonou beaches (locally used for fishing and ablutions), Mercy Ships crew take a walk to swim in hotel swimming pools on their off-day. It was on such a walk that I spotted the impressive art of the Semi-jan Siesta.

Siesta in Cotonou is from noon to 3pm and it seems that many don’t go home to enjoy it in comfort. People sleep on the pavement, on the ground near their shops and the yellow clad semi-jan taxi drivers sleep on top of their bikes. They lie flat on their backs with their heads propped up on the petrol-tank-pillow.

Last week an 18 year old girl called Ruth Esther arrived at the Africa Mercy with her mother all the way from the Ivory Coast. Mercy Ships had provided her with a successful bilateral cleft lip repair 17 years ago. She had been a favourite patient of the doctors at the time – and some came to personally finance her school education and a childhood heart surgery. I happened to be on the dock as she arrived and filmed their happy reunion. They had arranged that she return to ship for a heart check up even though it is not part of the services offered on board. The next day she collapsed in a local market and was rushed to the ship via a semi-jan driver, possibly practiced in balancing the unconscious on his bike. That night as I was asleep in my cabin Ruth Esther gave her last breath. It was just strange to be at the dock when her mother walked past me. This time she was leaving the ship without her daughter. There was a hole in her heart.

The following day my great aunt (who has been my marvellous stand in grandmother) passed away back home in South Africa. She died in her favourite chair while watching cricket.

The Africa Mercy has begun its first surgeries of this field service. I’m often working on the dock and people pass me by. Some have their sight restored, others have their cleft palates closed so they may speak and there is a set of twin toddlers in the ward who've just had their bowed legs straightened. They're alive and a lot more comfortable.

Life and death seems to be a balancing act even when we sleep. The end of the act is guaranteed. When that happens is a little uncertain. How we enjoy and spend that time is luckily entirely up to us.



Please Pray:


For Ruth Esther's mother Bernadette.
For word to continue spread to those needing surgery that it is freely available.
For more Operating Room nurses to volunteer.