Reasons I love this place...

Reasons I love this place:

• Hugs.  I get more than my fair share some days, and that's just the way I like it.
• Friends that pop in during a shift, to see/bring something to a patient, to see if I need anything (such as a cuppa tea)
• The patients.  They are soooo incredibly precious.  The visible change in their lives, the thankfulness they have, the trusting vulnerability, how much FUN they are to interact with.
• Magnets.  I can use them for everything.  Need to hang a curtain?  Use a magnet.  Put up a picture, hang an IV bag, put up a sign, attach a fan to the wall, a hook for jackets or for stethoscopes.  There are endless uses for magnets here!!!
• Bored?  Go to midships.  There's always someone around, or check the sign-up binder, you could go on a random adventure with strangers. 
• I'm only a gangway away from Africa!  I don't live in Africa, I live on a ship registered as Maltese, so if anything, I live in Malta, or in a ship on the shores of Africa.  But Africa is on the doorstep, and I can go there several times a day if I want, or even do weekend adventures there. 
• Beautiful African babies that love to be carried on your back, and mamas only too willing to share them. 
• Starbucks.  On the ship.  Need I say more?
• Movie nights with 8 people crammed into a room that's about 7x7 feet square... almost (sometimes literally) on top of each other, but that doesn't matter.
• Text paging friends to come to movie nights, just because I can!
• Using charades to communicate with patients becomes normal.
• Using french so much with patients that I forget to check if they speak english.
• The cafeteria ALWAYS has coffee and boiling water on tap, 24/7 (except that one hour after and half hour before meals when they close the dining room and you stand there at the edge of the cafeteria looking forlorn hoping one of the staff might take pity on you and let you have some water for your cuppa)
• Bargaining for prices in the market, and for transportation.  I love it!
• Zimi rides.  I've been converted. 
• Wearing sandals almost always.
• Multicultural, multilingual friends.
• Friends who live just down the hall.
• Friends who return!! (we'll ignore the goodbyes for now)
• There's always someone you can turn to for help if you don't know/don't understand.

I could go on, but that's all off the top of my head!