Fatu (faw-two)

So....it's been super busy here on the ship.  We had a huge disembarkment group today including two long term families that had been here more than 2 years each.  There was lots of tears by many and will be missed by all on the ship.  We are especially short on OR Nurses right now.  There was an all-call e-mail sent out to the alumni a couple weeks ago asking for some help.  We got a pretty good response and are getting some short notice crew members on board this week.  The Academy let out last week also, so the 5 moms that were working in our department get to stay 'home' with the kids full time now, but do see them once in a while which is great because we have a pretty heavy load now after losing all that help.  Judith and I have become experts in speed learning and our department is getting closer and closer to being more efficient as each week passes.  We (my HR team) got to sit in on a demo for a new HR system that should, maybe, possibly get implemented before year's end.  It would hopefully encompass all the manual spreads and stuff that we do now into one system that generates a lot of the stuff we do by hand and do for others who do not have access to our current system.  I am super excited to give my input and feel privileged to ask questions and participate in what I believe will be a monumental step in the department's history and progress (especially if it helps us not put in overtime...but is it really considered overtime if I'm not getting paid? hmmm...lol)  I have definitely been stretched a bit while being here.  My fearless HR Manager asked me to lead the New Crew Orientation tonight.  It went pretty well.  I didn't turn too red according to the other HR team members, so that's good.  People are usually pretty gracious when it comes to public speaking things anyways, especially in environments like this. 
I am also stretching myself personally to work out at least 3 times a week.  I made a schedule that will (if perseverance stays in my vocabulary) allow for me to be running a certain amount by the time I return home in December.  This will allow me to possibly run a race with my goal achieving brother, Matt, who is currently inspiring others with his blog about running 30 races in his 30th year.  Don't hold me to it though, but I am balancing things pretty well so far. 
There is always something going on here.  Last Tuesday marked the first of three consecutive weeks of Trivia.  Last Wednesday was Salsa dancing night at Atlantic in Aberdeen...it only took us about 2 hours to drive what should have been a 30 minute drive.  Traffic, I tell ya.  Being in bumper to bumper traffic at home is nothing like being wedged between an ominous gutter full of who-knows-what and traffic that have no logical rules (or so it seems).
I got invited to stay the night off-ship last weekend with a group of 8 (including myself).  We had a great time at the Chimpanzee reserve at which we stayed in huts there and got a tour of the facilities there.  Chimps are pretty amazing animals and I actually learned quite a bit.  We walked to the dam near the Chimp reserve and once we reached it, I was pretty disappointed so suggested that we walk on the rocks up/through the river bank for a bit.  Totally reminiscing when my family used to wade up the creek in the summertime with our dog Molly to go 'exploring' and cool off of course.  After a while we came to the actual dam, which was not disappointing at all!  We spent some time relaxing and hanging out on the dam wall in the sunshine and after a while decided to head back to see if our last two group members had joined us yet.  We made dinner that we had bought at the supermarket on the way to the sanctuary and all hung out in the 'big hut' together for quite a while, played some games and got to know each other some more.  The next day we went for a hike to Charlotte Falls.  VERY beautiful.  If you have facebook, those pictures I'm tagged in are from the falls and it was SUper fun.  Although, I'm pretty suPER sore today but loved every moment of that outing.
I'm guessing you are wondering about the title of this blog.  Fatu is the African name I was given by some of the locals while we were sitting the taxi waiting for our grocery shoppers to buy food in the store.  The other girl that was sitting with me in the car, they named her Jebbe (Jeb-uh).  We had stayed in the taxi to make sure it didn't take off with all of our belongings and naturally a crowd of people started gathering curiously around the car.  Luckily the shoppers were pretty quick and came back just in time before we got too big of a crowd.  Oh West Africa....  :-)  Thanks for reading!