Touring the Ship

When chatting on the island that Sunday the officers agreed that Monica (Dutch), Gina (South African) and I could bring all six of our kids for a tour of the ship later in the week, even though they're all much younger than 10, the minimum age to board. By the time the day arrived everyone was pretty worked up to see the Big American Ship up close!
As I knew there'd be lots of ladder climbing, we got them geared up in sneaks and shorts (although Cecilia would have much preferred a dress for such an outing).

Once aboard everyone was pretty much in awe of all the machinery and metal everywhere. It was just like being in a movie!
A pretty patient sailor named Purley was assigned to give us a tour of the entire ship, explaining as best he could to a pretty rambunctious audience.

I actually think the moms were more interested in the tour than the kids...
Until we got to the bridge which pretty much fascinated us all. Of course I'd love to explain to you how this here equipent works, but then I'd be giving away national security secrets. Sorry.
And then there were the big-gun-torpedo-thingies (I don't think that's the actual technical name) which shoot out thousands of bullets the size of a shoe in 1.2 seconds. As I looked around I figured the gun must be manned by........
the silent look-out guy standing near by.
We did our own looking-out too while on the ship, but we were just trying to see if we could see the African cockroaches from this high up.As we left we realized we were quite privileged to be given such an opportunity to see this type of ship. I just hope the kids are old enough to remember it one day!

Sailors on the Island Conclusion

After a few days of not being able to access Blogger.com at all (why-oh-why do they do that to me?) I'm back with a final picture and film of our day at the beach with the US Navy!

Here's the group picture of the regular Sunday Island Cabana Team interspersed with officers from the USS Fort McHenry.



And this was the general feel of the day....

Sailors on the Island

During our second day interpreting a very nice Commander Smith (a.k.a Byron to us civilians) inquired if I happened to know of a place he and a few others could get a boat and possibly go fishing over the weekend. Hmmmmmmmm I thought, well, why, yes! We have a boat, and friends with boats, and we have fishing gear, and friends with serious fishing gear, and would they all want to come out to our island for the day and go fishing too?

And so it was agreed that we'd all spend the day together on the island on Sunday. We called our friends and spread the word, and off we were! This is Gina and Emile ready to hop on the boat!

There were so many of us that Olivier made a few trips out to the island and back dropping people off. I was one of the last people to get there, and as I arrived with Noah strapped to me Cecilia came running out to the boat to greet us (while Jourdain and two friends played off in the background). It was very low tide, so we had quite a walk along this bare sand bank over to the cabana to the left in the picture.
As I approached I could see a few more figures in the cabana than we usually have on our Sunday outings, and the BBQ was roaring along, cooking up a fish just caught earlier that day.
Yep. 'Mericans in the cabana! They had even brought beer from the States. It was a very friendly group, and of course for us it was impossible to know at the time that we had some serious Navy bigwigs hangin' with us.

Take a look at this, for example. Byron (in the middle here) tends to look like this when he's working:And when he's taking it easy fishing on the island he tends to look a bit less... um... formal.
Our friend Bo, on the other hand, always looks relaxed, but of course he works in the oil industry.
And when it was time to pack up, everyone pitched in, and it wasn't until later in the week that I realized that the guy rinsing the plates here was the captain of the ship!
As the sun started to set we all headed back to reality, with a lot of fish in our bellies and a good feeling overall about having shared our little island getaway with a group of seriously great people.

On the Boats

I was fortunate enough to be put in the small boats class on the first day interpreting. Before I knew it, the class of Gabonese sailors and I had donned our life vests and were headed out to sea with the US navy! First things first, though, as we needed to climb down a dangling rope ladder (to the right in the picture) to get into the boat we'd be learning to drive. I did my best to put on a face that said "this is sooooo old hat" and climbed down with feigned ease right behind the US instructor. Nobody laughed at me so I let myself believe I had pulled it off like a pro.

The instructors pulled the boats out from the dock while the Gabonese students and I prepared mentally for our first lesson. Although I've been told many African people are quite smiley, I can tell you that this is decidedly not the case with the Gabonese. Their constant poker faces throughout the week made many of the instructors wonder if they were enjoying themselves at all. The Americans quickly taught the Gabonese how to high five and what it meant (which I interpreted as best I could as "cinq dans l'air") so that as each sailor left his position driving the boat he could at least high five the instructor, proving in some small way that he was indeed having fun.
The instructors were all very outgoing and lively, appearing to be genuinely enjoying their job. This is Jason Dean on the right here in the picture below, a nice fella who said "New Hampshire?! Jeeeeeeesh, that's a place you just never hear about" when I told him where I had grown up. Must say I feel quite the same about Missouri (of all the places to be from!), which he pronounces Mizurrah, of course. After many long talks, though, Jason was able to convince me that his state is one that just may be worth my visiting one day. Who knew?
And here is Christal, the kick-butt female boat-maneuvering instructor. Her presence incited numerous questions among the Gabonese sailors for me to interpret for her, including "How old are you?" "Are you married?" "Do you have kids?" and "Why did you join the military?". I won't give you the answers here as it may embarrass her, but I must say she was awfully patient, giving honest answers to everything, albeit with a hint of a blush once in a while.

After a while out at sea we pulled up next to one of the security boats for a chat. Christal told me when not teaching these classes she often works shifts on one of these boats.

This guy was my favorite student. He was a "ship rider" from Cameroon and had this exact smile pasted on his face the whole week. I guess he felt as lucky as I did to be learning to drive a small military boat! Weeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!
We spent the whole day out at sea (save a break for some mystery meat back on board the ship), with the whole class encouraging me to try out all the moves too. We've since learned that the ship and crew will be back in March, and I can't wait to do this all over again!

Interpreters

Pretty early on in the week the team of interpreters got to pose for pictures with the navy men and women giving the courses we were working on together. Quite a change of pace from daily expat life in Port-Gentil!

In the Navy!

A few weeks back I was contacted by a woman in town about working as an interpreter on a US ship that would be coming to town at some point this spring. I had expected the work to take place in March, and calculated that Noah would be a "bottle baby" by then, making things easy on me, but...well...the Navy came to town a couple of months too early for that! Needless to say, I jumped at the chance to work on the ship and started up my first day of interpreting with three other ladies on a Friday in January.
On our first day to the ship it was explained to us that in response to growing US interest in West Africa (oil) the US Navy has embarked upon a new mission dubbed the Africa Partnership Station. From this point forward there will be a US ship (or ships?) somewhere off the west coast of Africa at all times. The ships will be manned with an international crew, and this particular ship has a crew representing many European nations while also carrying a number of African "ship riders" who apparently came aboard at some point along the trip. The goal will be not only to provide maritime security along the African coast, but more importantly, to teach the African nations how to protect their own coasts, maintain their ships, track and stop illegal fishing, react in a medical emergency, and much more. An additional goal for the sailors on board is to carry out goodwill work in each country, including re-roofing schools, building orphanages and delivering prepacked meals to the poor. Looks like an interesting (and welcome!) change in US foreign policy to me.

See here for a military explanation: Stars and Stripes

Each week I drive to the port twice to teach French in one of the oil companies located there, but on my first day driving out to the ship I was very excited to see the outline of the USS Fort McHenry wayyyyyyyyyy off in the distance!


And here she is, right at the end of the road, nestled in among the "traditional" African paraphernalia on either side of the road. What a rush it was to know there was a whole community of Americans visiting Port-Gentil for a week!
The interpreters' job, we were told that day, was for each of us to join a specific training course and interpret between the US navy "teacher" and the Gabonese navy "students". There would be one interpreter per course, and we could decide which interpreter would cover which course. One subject was martial arts (!!), another was about how to manoeuvre small boats out at sea (wooo-hooo!), and then there was tropical medicine (interesting) and computers (no one wanted to interpret for that one).

Ratri (Indonesian), Mary (Nigerian) and I were excited and ready to get the interpreting underway! (Fourth interpreter Elodie from France took the picture, with the USS Fort McHenry behind her back.) As Port-Gentil is a tiny town, we already knew each other and were very happy to be working together on the ship.


Containers had been stacked two high and were being used to protect the ship from any possible danger on land. A little welcome tent was then erected in front of the blockade and used as an assembly point each morning for the Gabonese military men arriving for training.
Out at sea were four well-armed small boats guarding the port side of the ship (I actually learned port from starboard while interpreting). I sure felt sorry for those guys out there day and night under the hot African sun and in the harsh tropical rains! Click to enlarge.

I was quickly asked to run to the head of the line of Gabonese soldiers to interpret between the US sailor signing everyone in and each individual as they approached the table on the first day. While there were seemingly hundreds of Gabonese sailors ready to board the ship for training, the vast majority had brought nothing but the uniform they wore as ID. Most acted quite surprised and relatively offended when I asked them to present proof of identification. "What? Are we in school?" asked one outraged sailor, while another one told me that military men from one country should automatically be accepted by the military of another.

I got so frustrated with their comments that I took it upon myself to break out of interpretation mode at one point and tell the Gabonese sailors that this was a safety measure and that surely they couldn't expect to board a US military ship without ID, could they?!!!!! The bemused young US sailor signing them all in told me the situation had been similar in all other African countries visited so far, although he couldn't understand why. It seems, I responded, that the military is above the law in Africa, and it's only ordinary citizens (and expats) who are expected to carry ID at all times. We had a good laugh a while later when we saw a group of civilian nurses approach the table, each with ID in hand!

Here's a shot of one of the few Gabonese sailors to bring ID on that first day.


And here's one I snapped of the nurses boarding as we were all entering the ship for the first time.
Next post tomorrow!

Small Boats

Not much time to post these days as the Navy is keeping us busy with interpretation during the day and translations at home in the evening, but here's a scene from the Small Boats class I interpreted for yesterday. I was told you could see my smile all the way back up on the deck of the ship. (We were out in the bay with the instructor teaching us how to guard your port.)


This is where they let me try! I was practicing bringing the boat up close to the ship in order to let people on and off. I wasn't posing here, I just couldn't wipe the smile off.

USS Fort McHenry

The US navy has come to town for 10 days and I've been employed as one of four interpreters on board while they're here! So far it's been a great experience, with the crew on board so nice it's like a fresh breath of "back home" here in our little African hide-away. Of course up to now my experience with Navy officers has been pretty...well...non existant, but I can tell you there is nothing nicer than spending a day with such a friendly, welcoming group of people.

One of the many highlights thus far has been eating the American-style canteen lunch in the officer's mess, where things taste just like I remember from hot lunch in high school!! Mashed potatoes with strange meat and gingerbread cake with frosting for desert. WOW has it been a looooooong time since those flavors hit my palate. There seems to be some sort of store on board too and the other interpreters and I are dying to get a peek and see if we might be able to grab a few 'Mercan goodies.

This here is Jerry Mosley, a very funny guy (he is a Chief, whatever that may mean...) who gave a tour of the boat to a group of Gabonese Navy sailors, with me as the interpreter. Pretty interesting cultural experience, I may add!!
Here are three of the four interpreters, with me in the back. This was as we left the boat at the end of our first day of interpreting.
Sailors looking on as we left the ship.I'll write more specifically about what the ship is doing here and what our work on board entails, but in short it seems the US is taking on quite an interest in the west coast of Africa these days (oil!) and will be carrying out this type of goodwill mission regularly up and down the coast on a permanent basis now. Luckily for me very few of these guys speak French! For a bit more info, click on the title of this post to read a military article about the boat's mission here in Africa.

Tomorrow we're taking a bunch of the officers to our island and beach cabana for a lazy day of fishing and BBQing. Will post more soon!

Fishing Village

When going for a walk along the beach past a small fishing village recently I was followed by these three kids who were very excited to get a "bonjour" out of the strange white woman collecting shells in front of their house.
We walked along together, mostly in silence, until one of them asked me if I had any candy. I told them I had nothing with me for them, but if they let me take some pictures of their boats and village I would come back sometime with crayons. They agreed, and I continued on my way, staying until the fishermen came in with their catch...

but leaving with that feeling of despair that hits you often when you leave the comfort of your own neighborhood here.

The Look

This is Cecilia's faaaaaaaaaaaaavorite outfit these days. Pink flowers, pink stripes, pink ribbon, pink, pink, pink. (Note that the lunch box and sippy cup were chosen with care here as she headed out the door.) The outfit was found on the market in the Grand Village in town, and I've been told we must go back soon to be sure we get the next size up.

This is Cecilia's favorite hairdo right now. Once the entire look has been accomplished she can shake her head furiously from left to right, making each squiggly little "braid" flail wildly in the air, making a sort of halo of crazy braids around her head, all while slapping her cheeks and making her feel reeeeeeeal purdy.

Of course it's a process that takes Ines well over an hour to perfect, but that doesn't seem to bother either one of them at all. Cecilia's been getting African braids of all types from Ines since age two, so asking her to sit still for a couple of hours is no big deal, especially when she knows the result will be....


so very, very nice.And the combination of the outfit and hairdo is just so pretty that even her big brother can't help telling her so. (OK, so he is unnaturally nice to her anyway, but let's just pretend it's the outfit)