Well, I suppose it's about time I filled you in on where I am now. This is going to be a post geared at people who love statistics and such. As I mentioned before, we finished up our field service in Sierra Leone, and sailed to Ghana for Christmas. Except I didn't spend Christmas in Ghana, I went home for Christmas. It was good. Anyways, once I got back to the ship this week, it was already in a new port, in Lome Togo.
As with many African flags, the main colors of the flag are yellow, green and red.
The Currency in Togo is the CFA franc --- current value is 1 Canadian Dollar = 497 CFA
Official language: French
Population estimate: 6, 619, 000
Capital city: Lomé
Religion: 29% Christian; 20% Muslim; 51% Traditional/Tribal beliefs
And now for some more sobering facts taken from the Human Development Index. ( http://hdr.undp.org ) The Human Development Index is used to calculate the health, wealth and economic stability of a nation, based on figures that each nation supplies. I decided to compare Togo to Sierra Leone, where we were last year, and to Canada for some perspective. (as an FYI, when I was looking these up, I compared them to the US, and if we just compare health stats, Canada's health system works quite well!)
Sierra Leone is currently rated 180 on the Human Development Index out of 187
The average life expectancy is: 47.8 years
The mean number of years of schooling is: 2.9
The expected number of years of schooling is: 7.2
Gross National Income is: 737
Population living below $1.25/day: 62.9%
Under-five mortality rate (per 1 000 live births): 192
Adolescent fertility rate (births per 1,000 women aged 15-19): 143.7
Maternal mortality ratio (deaths of women per 100,000 live births): 970
Togo is currently rated 162 on the Human Development Index
The average life expectancy is: 57.1
The mean number of years of schooling is: 5.3
The expected number of years of schooling is: 9.6
Gross National Income is: 798
Population living below $1.25 PPP/day: 38.7%
Under-five mortality rate (per 1 000 live births): 98
Adolescent fertility rate (births per 1,000 women aged 15-19): 65
Maternal mortality ratio (deaths of women per 100,000 live births): 350
Canada is currently rated 6 on the Human Development Index
The average life expectancy is: 81.0
The mean number of years of schooling is: 12.1
The expected number of years of schooling is: 16.0
Gross National Income is: 35,166
Under-five mortality rate (per 1 000 live births): 6
Adolescent fertility rate (births per 1,000 women aged 15-19): 14.0
Maternal mortality ratio (deaths of women per 100,000 live births): 12
So as you can see, Togo is significantly better off than Sierra Leone, but still struggling and in need of help. I haven't been out in town yet, but from everything I've heard, it's quite obvious that we're in a different country, and things are in better shape here. We will be here until the end of June 2012.
If you have more basic questions about where I am, like about the ship itself... here's a picture of the Africa Mercy that I took off of the Mercy ships Canada website:
The ship is 152 meters long, by 23.7 meters wide. There are 8 decks. It has a capacity of 474 berths, though we're rarely full. The draft is 6,00m. Cargo capacity 1724m2. Originally built in 1980 in Denmark.
Finally, if you're wanting to send me mail... (I love mail!) My address is:
Heather Klassen
Mercy Ships -- Africa Mercy
Hospital
PO Box 2020
Lindale, Texas 75771
*if you're sending a package, please add a final line "Via Container"*
It will take a few weeks to get here, but better than making me pay exhorbitant prices for the international mail. Also, container packages cannot contain anything that might remotely be considered hazardous, such as nail polish, hairspray, deoderant, batteries, bugspray, laundry soap, or anything corrosive or flammable. Etc.
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