First impressions

When we arrived in Cotonou, I met someone that was heading to the ship that teamed up with me to get through customs. It wasn't the hardest task because some people were walking back and forth between the customs booth and the baggage claim. There were people just inside the door from the terminal that had signs held up for rides. The belt at the baggage claim was completely packed with people stacked on top of on another with their brightly colored fabric wrapped around them. We had to become more aggressive to get towards the front of the belt to catch our luggage before we had to wait for the next cycle. After getting our bags we fought our way back through the crowd to find who was taking us to the ship. We found our group that started to gather. There were people from Australia, the UK, the states and Poland there. After we had everyone we attempted to take our things out to the car. I almost immediately got hit by a motorcycle after walking out the door. We make it to the car and then a man walks up serenading us with his guitar and the song he is making up on the spot about Mercy Ships. It took us about 30 minutes just to make it out of the parking lot. It's free for all driving here. There were people trying to sell us Michael Jackson CD's and other things while we were waiting in line to leave the parking lot. Driving down the streets there were people hanging out in the street everywhere... lying down, sitting on the paved median waving at people. Motorcycles everywhere. We finally arrived to the port just passed the people selling from their stands by candlelight and squeezed through the line of trucks that were heading in to get more loads from the ships in port. We turned a corner and there it was. This ship that I've been waiting to come to work in. And then I almost cried.