the weekend

It is a holiday weekend here so surgery was not scheduled for Friday or Monday so census is low on the ward. I actually got cancelled for 2 shifts. The first one was a nice suprise. Now I actually miss being on the ward so I wouldn't have minded working tomorrow. But that is ok, there are always other adventures to be had.

Today I went to Monrovia Central Prison. I went with a group that goes every Saturday. The prison holds over 800 people. There are only about 22 women and that is the section I visited. It is difficult to describe. The condition of the women's section was acceptable, I guess. They had several rooms with bunk beds. I hear however that in the men's section there is not enough room for them all to lay down at the same time so they have to sleep in shifts. The women were complaining they were hungry. We found out that the prison ran out of cornmeal so they were not serving breakfast for about a week. They are only eating one meal a day at about 4pm.

Several of these women seem to be completely innocent. One woman said she is there because her brother did something and since they couldn't find him they took her instead. The system seems corrupt. I think people wait excessive amounts of time for a trial. Mercy Ships works along side Prison Ministries or Prison Fellowship? I think it is. This organization is an advocate for some of the prisoners and fights for justice for them when they can.

I then went onto deck 8 and got some sun this afternoon. Tonight I went to the Jesus Film. I think this was lead by a local Liberian pastor. We went to an open area outside a church and set up a white screen and showed the movie outside. A lot of people showed up. The movie was based on the gospel of Luke. I thought it might be difficult for the Liberians to follow but somehow I think they followed it better than me. They would clap and cheer when Jesus performed miracles.

I got a new bunkmate last night. She is a recently retired Army nurse from Alaska. Her and her husband traveled Europe for the past 6 weeks, then he went home and she came here to work as an OR nurse for at least 8 weeks. We also got a new roommate 2 weeks ago. Andrea from Holland who is working as the admissions nurse. Another roommate left Friday, and one is leaving Monday, so it's like musical beds around here. Speaking of beds I think I'm going to go jump in mine. I'm tired. Goodnight all.