1st July

Today I was on cleaning duty. That means to be up on deck at 6am, scrubbing (with brooms, not handbrushes…).

“I haven’t seen a deck this terrible ever” said Glen. Yeah. Nasty. Loads of scrubbing.

Then after breakfast (8.20am) we (the STEPPERs) had our “K-Group”, officially a Bible study or something but because it is organized from within the group, today it was basically just sitting around everyone saying “oh, i am so tired, I don’t even know what I’m doing today. do you? Oh, you don’t either”.

Then us new deckies went for sailor-knot and other training, and then went to put out the paint-raft (8 foot by 12 square floaty metal thing… you put it in the water, attach a long rope the whole way around the outside of ship in the water (took ages) and then sit in it, or float around the ship and scrape off rust, put on new paint, or whatever.) until lunch.

After lunch, we went back to the raft, floated around the ship, and started knocking off rust, and then later they will paint it, and seal it again. Endless task.

Then I had to rush off at 2ish or so, get into a kilt, shirt, sporran, and socks, and scottish dance for the hoards of Mozambiquans who are outside on the quayside. Went well, I think.

There are loads of tiny wee canoes which are in the bay, with guys fishing in them, and they keep coming up and asking for money, shoes, or anything. Very friendly, and don’t really expect to be given anything, which is a good thing, as we are forbidden from giving them stuff, it encourages them to beg, and try and steal stuff from ships, apparently.

A few months ago another ship in port about 500+ meters out or more had an entire mooring line stolen during the night! They are HUGE! I have no idea how anyone could steal one in a canoe, they are about 100+ ft long, and around 2/3 of a foot in diameter. Expensive, too. Funny, the canoeists seem to speak a little english, but NONE of the volunteers in this port speak any! They have to have translators, which is making it ather difficult for them, working on deck, in the book-ex, and so on.

Tomorrow is my “e-day”, going out into the city to work, I don’t know what we will be doing. One of the teams today was building a fence for some people. The line-up team here had to buy their house, and build it themselves out of bamboo rods! Very… simple.

The currency here is 50000 to 100 Doulos units, which is about 1 dollar, or so.