Saturday, November 21, 2009

Saturday rolls round again

I seem to have 'chatted' quite a bit online with both Daniel and Tim in the last day or two. It's great that they both like staying in touch, even while far from home.

If anyone is interested, you can now read the official FAQ about the Doulos which explains rather more about why the ship is going to be decommissioned at the end of the year, and what may happen to the 300 or so people on board. Since Daniel and his girlfriend were due to leave in about April anyway, they may both come to Cyprus mid-January, for an unspecified time. Or they may not. It will be wonderful to see them whenever they do arrive here, but of course they need to do whatever is right - and if that means being deployed elsewhere temporarily, that's fine.

It's much harder on the people who only joined in September, expecting to stay on the Doulos for two years. And also very hard for the people who were due to join a short term programme about now, some of whom were en route when the news broke. I see that one of the possible options mentioned in the FAQ is that a new ship may be chartered, to continue some of the current work. That sounds like an ideal solution to me, but whatever happens there are immense logistical problems to sort everything and everyone out in the next six weeks.

So my mind continues to churn, and it's hard to concentrate on anything much. I slept well last night but woke with a headache, which hasn't really gone all day. I did get out to the Froutaria earlier to buy some fruit and veg, but that's about my only constructive activity today. Oh, and some laundry, since it's a mains water day. Richard has been at King Malu all day. If anyone wants to know in great detail how the work is progressing, he has a new blog about King Malu.

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