Sunset Club

 There is an insistent breeze that lifts off of the water, dancing in the gray-gold of sunset and the cloudless dusty blue of harmattan sky.  It whispers poetry to me, cool and steady, weaving between my bare toes, wildly fluffing the skirt I try to hold down, and teasing the wisps of my damp hair.

A small tug sails by slowly, low in the water from fish caught that day, or a few scattered holes. It looks more like a child's bath toy than a seaworthy boat; rust-covered sides make me wonder if it will soon join the other shipwrecks scattered along the sea wall.   Wooden canoes paddle by constantly, and there are a few patched sails of other boats in the distance.  The larger ships leave long wakes in the water, reflective trails there long after a ship has gone, a path of promise to open oceans and distant lands.  I follow their calm wakes out past the rocks and into the sea until they are lost in distant ripples.

When I was a teenager my family would trickle up to our open gazebo rooftop just before maghrib and watch spectacular displays of color surround us as the sun set over rice paddies and red-tile roofs and the call to prayer echoed off the mountains.  Here on ship,

Sunset Club is a tradition that carried over from our outside "family" picnics in Sierra Leone and into the early weeks of the Guinea outreach, one of my favorite evening activities even now.  Almost every evening at the beginning of September found groups of nurses and most of the ward team leaders in a row along the deck facing the ocean sunset.  It was a quiet time away from the busyness of the hospital deck, a taste of fresh air and sunshine and beauty.  Some days the books and ipods came out, while other evenings were filled with lively discussions and back massages.  Attendance began to decrease as life picked up pace, and some days I had sunset club alone with Jesus on the narrow, netted walkway next to lifeboat 3.

 A peace is here, where seabirds wheel and dive, or wing their low way home across the water.  A peace that draws me up to settle with friends every free night after dinner, for chats or chocolate or silence.  No sunset is ever the same, and I marvel at God's endless creativity when the lightning storms crackle through the pink twilights and touch the early stars.

Photos courtesy of Jenny Darvas and Heather Klassen, who documented this amazing beauty while I put my feet up on the railings and drank it all in.