Burrell

Today my heart is unexpectantly heavy. I didn't expect this. I knew that we would make many friends amongst the long and short term crew. Some of these would be fleeting and others would be deeper. But most crew are on Facebook and thus it is possible to remain connected. And we know we will travel and many of our good friends will travel so often it is not good bye but rather "au revoir".

However in addition to long and short term crew the ship also employs about 250 local day crew. Twenty two of these guys were employed in Engineering. They were employed as assistant watchkeepers, tank cleaning and preservation and general engineering assistance. Whilst proficiency in English was required a couple of them had very limited English but surprisingly the two who had the weakest English were the best workers - Lionel and Burrell.

The majority of day crew finished two weeks before the end of the field service but a few continued right up to the end of our time in Congo.

Initially I had limited interaction with the engineering day crew as I was busy learning my job and my French was not up to explaining technical things in French. Luckily Steve Henderson, the Fourth Engineer who had been onboard in Guinea took the lead. Anyway about mid field service as I got more comfortable with my own work responsibilities I started to interact more with the day crew and found that they had a thirst for learning.

Interestingly the guy I connected with and started to work with regularly had perhaps the weakest English which forced me to improve my technical French. Together we changed water filters, conducted the annual service on the Oily Water Separator, conducted sewage system maintenance, rebuilt pumps and compressors, replaced and rebuilt valves. Looking back as I write this I am amazed at how much we did but I look back regretfully and wish I had taught him more.

But on Burrell's last day we ran main engines, removed two sewage plant air blowers, fitted a spare air blower, removed and overhauled a valve and overhauled an air blower. Whilst I was busy running main engines, he did most of the rest of this with limited supervision from me. 10 months ago he could not have done this and I realise that I did teach him quite a lot.

What blind sided me is we came to Mercy Ships to serve the poorest of the poor, to bring hope and healing and to support the hospital onboard in doing this. However I can now see that we will have the opportunity to train others and every field service there will be another 22 day crew that I will have the chance to help improve their skills.

We have now sailed from Congo and our day crew are all looking for other employment. However we visited the Primus Brewery two weeks ago and the Manager mentioned he was always looking for good technical guys as frequently the oil industry poached their best workers. We were able to send the contact details of our day crew and recommendations so hopefully they will get a call and an interview.