My hometown newspaper in Invermere, British Columbia, has invited me to be a guest columnist. So I write a blurb for them every month or so. For those of you who are not readers of the Columbia Valley Pioneer, my articles are posted here.

To see more photos of my life with the Fulani, visit the photo gallery http://impactniger.org/Gallery/Life-with-the-Fulani

Lisa Rohrick

 

May 2008
A Truckload of Goats

This was a big week. I bought one hundred goats! Twenty-four of them were paid for by the Pioneer kids club at Lake Windermere Alliance Church and were given names like Spike, Princess, Big Horn and Doug (which I am assuming is in honour of Doug Hagen, the lucky man!).

What am I going to do with a hundred goats? Let me try to explain.

The Fulani people, with whom I work in Niger, West Africa, have a cultural practice in which they lend animals (usually cows, sheep or goats) to the poor in order to help them establish their herds. The recipient cares for the animal until its young is weaned. Then they keep the young and return the adult to its owner. Or in my case, the animals will be passed on to someone else.

As part of our community health program in my favourite village, we've had a vet do some training on animal health. In connection with this, we asked the village committee to choose twenty-five women to whom we would lend four goats each (three females and a male). The women were chosen, and given training sessions with the vet.

We found out about a hardy breed of goats, bred locally, that thrives in this country's heat. They normally give birth twice a year, and frequently have twins. Plus they give considerably more milk than the other local breeds. And this week one hundred of these goats arrived in the village.

Everyone turned out for the big occasion. Men and boys gathered as the delivery truck rolled into town, and peered curiously when the back gate was opened. The twenty-five recipients chattered excitedly under a tree, holding the ropes they were instructed to bring along to tie up their goats. The old men gathered under another tree to watch the proceedings and there were children everywhere.

The first woman on the list was called. Four goats were taken off the back of the truck and we recorded the numbers of their ear tags. She signed the official sheet while a young man tied her goats together for her. She posed for a picture and we carried on to the next name on the list.

None of the women on the list read and write, so it was quite interesting to watch them sign for the goats. One's "signature" is a horizontal line, another a vertical line, another an 'x', another an 'o'. The more creative women signed with an assortment of squiggles, but most signatures were very simple in light of their writers' obvious awkwardness at holding a pen.

In a few weeks the women will receive further training, including how to make yogurt and cheese from the milk, and how to establish a small business for the sale of these products. The goal is to help these women get on their feet financially and to improve the health of their families. We will encourage them to give their children milk and cheese, and then to sell the excess.

As I mentioned, twenty-four of the goats were paid for by folks in the Columbia Valley. The money for eighteen more goats (and a tail!) came from students in grades 4-6 at Huntington Hills Elementary School in Calgary. The students did a popcorn sale and a bake sale, and had a few generous parents and teachers who paid an awful lot of money for their muffins and brownies! The rest came from church groups in Edmonton and Ottawa.

As I finish up a four-year term in Niger and head to Canada for the coming year, I want to say, "Thanks Invermere!" for your encouragement and support of my work over here. See you soon!

 

April 2008
Faces Behind the Statistics

These days I am feeling some of the weight of the poverty in which my Fulani friends live. Niger is one of the poorest countries in the world--it topped the UN's 2006 list of "least livable countries." I've seen all sorts of statistics which paint a bleak picture of the economic, health and educational state of this country.

Statistics have their place, but they're lifeless numbers on a page. Let me introduce you to some of my friends, real people who add flesh and blood to the dry bones of statistics.

Meet Boubacar. For the past four years he's worked for me part time as a guard at my house. (I look at this more as a contribution to the economy than a need for my personal safety!) A year after I met him, his wife, who was eight months pregnant with their first child, died suddenly. When I went to offer my condolences, it was the first time I saw Boubacar's humble home--a grass hut on a windswept hill a few kilometres from the city. A lopsided bed took up about half the floor space (which was just sand). A rope stretching from one side of the hut to the other, draped with clothes and assorted household items, served as a closet. A few bowls hung from the straw roof. Two clay water pots by the door completed the furnishings.

Boubacar has since remarried and has a baby daughter. Aside from a few cooking pots and other wedding gifts, the hut looks about the same as it did on that first visit.

There is a field beside the hut in which Boubacar and his two brothers plant millet each year to feed their small families and their widowed mother and old aunt. Last year their field produced only four bundles of millet. I asked how many they usually get: 80-100, or even 120 in a good year.

I visit Boubacar and his family often. This week he told me that there's not enough grass for their cows which are losing weight. Two calves died because their mothers didn't have enough milk. Boubacar planted melons in his little garden by the river. Birds came and ate his seed. We've had some strong winds in the last week which blew the flowers off his mango trees. Translation: no mangos this year (or very few). Add to that the fact that I will be returning to Canada for a year at the end of June, leaving Boubacar without work. How is he going to feed his family?

I went from there to visit friends in another village. Aissa welcomed me into her hut along with our friend Fadima. They said it was good to sit down because they were tired. I asked what they'd been doing.

"The one who doesn't pound grain doesn't eat," they reminded me. It's true. For hours every morning the village echoes with the pounding of millet or sorghum in large wooden pestles, as women prepare the grain for the day's meals. They all have large calluses on their hands from this never-ending chore.

Another task is to get water from the well, about 300 metres from the village. Women and girls skillfully balance buckets of water on their heads, rarely spilling a drop on the dusty path. Aissa and Fadima spoke of their aching shoulders and backs from this work. Most women their age (early 40s) have children to help share the work. But Aissa and Fadima are both childless. Not only do they bear the shame of not having given their husbands a child (grounds for divorce in this culture), but they must do all their household chores alone.

As they talked, I wanted to tell them to stop. I couldn't take any more. My heart was breaking and for the second time that day I was fighting back tears. These are not statistics. They are my friends.

Why am I telling you this? I'm not sure. I am not proposing solutions, nor am I expecting them from you. I know there are no easy ones. I can't begin to meet all these needs, and my work feels like a drop in the bucket. Maybe I just wanted to get some of this weight off my chest.

This morning as I read my Bible, I was struck with the little phrase, "Never tire of doing what is right." And so I shall press on, adding drops to my bucket, hoping that they will make a difference for some.

 

March 2008
Vet School in the Village

I am sitting in the "community hall" of my favourite little village, about an hour from where I live. This is a great place for group meetings, in the shade of a big tree with fantastic spreading branches. Grass walls around the circle of shade provide a windbreak, keeping out clouds of dust and preventing animals from parading through the meeting room.

Thankfully the walls aren't airtight and are allowing a life-saving breeze to stir the air. It feels a bit like I'm sitting in front of a big hair dryer, but know it would be much worse without the breeze. My thermometer is dead (a serious case of heat stroke I think--it's stuck at 42.5 C), so I can't whine about the temperature with accuracy. However, I'm guessing it's over 40 C (105 F) here in the shade and around 50 (122 F) out in the sun.

But the heat doesn't seem to be troubling anyone else. A group of animal herders are listening intently while a vet from the city is teaching them about animal care.

This is part of the community health program we're helping the village to establish. When we discussed the problems they face, animal care was high on the list. This wasn't surprising since the Fulani people are known across West Africa as animal herders, valuing highly their cattle. Cattle are central to Fulani culture and livelihood, thanks to the sale of milk (both fresh and sour), as well as small-scale production of cheese, yoghurt and butter. And when someone really needs money for something important, he will consider selling a cow. A man's herd is also his bank account and his RRSP. And there's a joke around that Fulani men love their cattle more than they love their wives.

During the hot season, which is just beginning, food for the animals is hard to come by. So young men lead the herds to other places where the rains have come and they can find grass and water for the animals. They go into Burkina Faso, and some as far as Togo and Ghana, traveling hundreds of kilometres on foot.

These young men plan to hit the road this week. They are keenly interested in keeping the animals healthy and thus are peppering the vet with questions and paying close attention to the answers.

I confess that I'm not too interested in the treatment of ringworm in calves, so my mind is wandering. I thought it would look better if I'm writing than nodding off--maybe they'll think I'm taking notes?

I really shouldn't be struggling to stay awake since I had a good sleep last night. I came out to the village yesterday and planned to pitch my tent in front of my friends' hut as is my habit (I usually spend one night a week in the village). The man of the house informed me that his wife was away and he would be spending the night at the mosque for a night of prayer in honour of Muhammad's birthday. So he invited me to sleep in their hut instead of "building my house."

I couldn't think of a polite way to get out of it. So at ten o'clock last night I found myself in a hot and stuffy hut that smelled like leftover millet paste. I shared the place with a hen and her chicks, a few frogs and a cat. It was a toss-up between leaving the door open and thus extending an invitation to the family goats, or closing myself in with the heat. I opted for the heat.

Closing the door also decreased the volume of the Arabic chanting coming from the mosque. They had rented loudspeakers for the holiday. As I stretched out on the uncomfortable bed (thankfully with my own sheets and pillow), I was thinking that is wasn't looking too good for a restful night.

That's when I remembered the sleeping pills in my backpack, left behind by a recent visitor from Canada. I got up and took one. Between that and the ear plugs, I was gone for eight and a half hours, and woke up this morning ready to face the day.

Here I am six hours later ready for a nap. Must be the heat! A nap would be pretty rude though, so I'm "taking notes" while the vet talks. We've moved on from ringworm and are now discussing how to clip hooves . . .

 

February 2008
Change That Will Last

In a barren, rocky field sits a small, two-room building, constructed entirely of sticks and grass. Brittle leaves clinging to the branches which once gave them life lend a deep purple colour to the walls. A door in each windowless room is the only source of light.

In front of the building, on a crooked pole, Niger's flag snaps briskly in the morning breeze. A large area swept clean behind the building serves as a playing field for soccer and other sports. In a nearby tree hangs an old bent metal wheel. Every morning a child runs to the tree, picks up an iron rod (also bent) and clangs it against the wheel. This is the village school and the child rings the bell to call the other children to come and study.

Sixty-one children are registered in this tiny school. According to the 2007 UN Human Development Report, only 40% of Niger's elementary age children are in school. That's not very good, but it gets worse: only 8% of older children are enrolled in secondary school. The teacher in this village and his assistant are working hard to change these statistics, talking with parents and trying to help them see the value of educating their children.

My colleagues and I recently hosted eight visitors from Alberta. We went to several villages and did some teaching on nutrition and malaria prevention. One afternoon we visited the school and handed out some basic school supplies. Each child received a pen, two pencils, a pencil sharpener, an eraser and half a pencil crayon. We didn't have enough pencil crayons to go around, so the teacher suggested we break them in half. He then produced a razor blade with which to accomplish the task. We put erasers on one of the broken ends and sharpened the other, so there were enough coloured pencils for all.

About half the class sat quietly at their desks, four or five children squashed together on a bench designed for two. The other half of the class weren't fortunate enough to have a desk, and sat on the sandy floor. They eagerly reached for their gifts, saying thank you and clinging to their new treasures.

It was a sobering experience. What a contrast to Canadian schools, where sharply dressed students complain if they have to wait their turn to use a computer! It's just not fair! Why must Nigerien children wear the same worn out clothes seven days a week and do without pens and pencils?

No, I am not soliciting funds. It's tempting though. Part of me would love to raise money and build a cement school for the village, equipping it with desks for all, chalk boards, notebooks, and other necessary supplies. But that's not the answer. The West has been dumping billions of dollars into Africa for decades, and it's done little to ease the poverty on this continent.

So what is the answer? I'm afraid it's not simple. But research and experience show that it doesn't work to arrive on the scene, tell people what they need, and proceed to provide it for them. Such projects make the donors feel good, but that's sometimes the only benefit. They frequently require expensive upkeep and maintenance, creating an unhealthy dependence on the West and robbing people of dignity. And when the budget runs out, yet another project is left to rot in the hot African sun. I can't tell you how many wells are unused because of broken pumps, how many clinics have been taken over by bats and lizards because the Western doctor went home, how many generously donated vehicles lie rusting in empty lots. On and on the list goes.

There's a African proverb that says, "The person who lives in the house knows where the roof leaks." We may think we have the answers to Africa's problems, but at best, our solutions are incomplete and uninformed.

Africa is littered with dead development projects, and yet my colleagues and I are daring to attempt a community health education program. How can I be hopeful that this might actually make a difference? First of all, we're starting small, in just one village. While we are providing some guidance and training, it is the village itself that is running the program. They have chosen a committee who will decide what needs will be addressed, and we will push them to find local solutions.

For example, the first concern they identified is the high rate of child mortality (nearly a quarter of Niger's children die before the age of five). We have a doctor on our team and could send him to the village every week to treat malaria, diarrhea and the like. That would be easy for us, it would be appreciated, and we would see child mortality drop. But in the long run, little would change--as soon as the doctor leaves, everything would revert to where it was. Instead, we are helping them to look at the causes of these diseases and things they can do to prevent them. The process will be long and slow, but we are hoping it will bring lasting transformation that will continue to spread long after we are gone.

And so I'm not going to build a school--or any other buildings for that matter. But I do plan on staying here for the long haul, building relationships of trust, and helping my African friends to make changes that will last.

 

November 2007
Sharing the Gift of Sight

Have you ever wondered what happens to those old eyeglasses you drop off in the cardboard collection box at the optometrist's office?

Let me tell you where some of them have ended up. My coworkers and I in Niger, West Africa, recently spent two weeks hosting six people from Calgary who were here to distribute eyeglasses. They trained us to do simple eye examinations and fit glasses, and off we went to some of my favourite villages to share the gift of sight.

In two of the villages we had the use of school buildings with cement walls on which to hang our eye charts. In another village we "built" our own eye clinic, lining up three vehicles to which we tied tarps to give us some shade from the relentless sun. Patients sat on folding chairs and pointed in the direction of the 'tumbling E' on charts held to truck windows with duct tape. In yet another village, the people had put up a circle of woven grass walls under the shade of a cluster of trees. This shelter served as eye clinic by day and hotel by night.

My job was a fun one. I had people reading eye charts, then we played the game played by all people who need corrective lenses: "Which lens is better, A or B? And again, A or B?" When I was satisfied that I'd found the best lens that I could, I then dug into two suitcases of donated eyeglasses to find ones with a prescription that matched as closely as possible what I'd written on the patient's chart.

The team brought with them about 1100 pairs of glasses, most of them used ("previously appreciated" would be a more politically correct term, wouldn't it?). The glasses are gathered from collection boxes around Canada and shipped to Calgary by the Lions Club. They are taken to a Calgary correctional facility where inmates take on the job of sterilizing them all, reading them with an instrument called a lensometer to determine the prescription, labeling them, and putting each pair in a small bag. From there the glasses are delivered to the organizations who distribute them. The batch we received came via Samaritan's Purse (the same organization that does Operation Christmas Child, distributing gift boxes to needy children around the world).

The highlight for me was putting a pair of glasses on an old man who'd had poor vision for years. A huge smile crossed his face and he exclaimed over and over, "I can see! I can see!" It was a beautiful moment.

Another old man told me he'd had to give up selling mats in the market because he could no longer see to count money. He was one of many folks we saw whose eyes were clouded with cataracts. I knew our help would be limited, since we could do nothing about the cataracts. But we could offer glasses to improve what vision remained.

I was working with a young Fulani woman who happened to be walking in front of this man when I held different lenses in front of his eyes. When I asked him which was better for him, he replied quickly, "Your friend is much prettier with these ones." So we left behind the "A or B?" question and had him look at her and tell me when she was most pretty. He laughed with joy when he could see her eyes. Then I pulled out a handful of coins to see if he could distinguish between them. He leaned over my hand and with great concentration proceeded to correctly identify each coin.

While that man left our clinic with far from perfect vision, he thanked us over and over for his new glasses. He can now see to go back to selling mats in the market. We couldn't help him as much as we would have liked to, but we made a difference in his life.

When we left that windswept and dusty village, the chief and elders (many of them sporting their new glasses!) gathered to thank us. And they presented us with gifts of hand-carved stools and colourful, hand-woven mats, as well as two chickens and two guinea hens, which one of the local school teachers cooked for us for lunch (school was cancelled since we had taken over the classroom!). They thanked us again and again for coming and helping their village.

So, let me encourage you to dig out those old glasses from the back of your junk drawer and get them to a Lions Club drop box. They may be of no value to you, but they could make a dramatic difference in the life of someone who will never be able to afford new eyeglasses.

 

August 2007
"Your Feet Show Your Love"

I recently bought a package of dates from one of Niamey's countless itinerant merchants. Affectionately referred to by the Westerners here as "Walking Wal-Mart," these guys wander the streets of Niger's capital city balancing an assortment of goods on their heads, or pushing them in wheelbarrows. The date man was of the wheelbarrow variety.

We spoke briefly in French, I handed him a few coins and he handed me a bag of dates. A friend of his walked by and they greeted each other in Fulfulde (pronounced full-full-day), the language of the minority Fulani people. It's also the language that I spent two full years studying. So I switched to Fulfulde and joined in the conversation, much to their surprise. That was likely the first time they'd heard a white person speaking their mother tongue (or at least trying to!).

The street vendor rummaged through his dates as we exchanged greetings. Then he handed me another bag, fresher and plumper than the originals, which he reclaimed. It was a small but satisfying reward for all those hours spent memorizing verbs and trying to sort out grammar rules.

Learning a new language is a humbling experience. In my former life, I could express myself readily, explaining abstract concepts and ideas, and understanding when others expressed theirs. Suddenly I was at zero. After "hello," I could say nothing. I returned people's questions with a blank stare, having no idea what I'd just been asked. Someone would holler at a dog. It responded. I understood nothing. It's not fun when the neighbourhood dogs understand more of the language than you do! Or when people impatiently put words in your mouth because you can't put them there fast enough by yourself.

I remember a day, early in my language study, when I was talking to a man who had just got new eye glasses. I learned the word for "glasses" and then he said, "You know 'eyes' don't you?"

I responded by pointing to my eyes.

"Good," he said, nodding. "And where's your nose?"

Again I responded by pointing.

"Where's your mouth?" he continued. "Where are your ears?"

As I correctly answered his questions, I started to laugh, remembering the last time I'd had this conversation. Then I was the one asking the questions while my 23-month-old nephew pointed to the features of his face in response. The tables had turned, and there I was in an African village being quizzed like a toddler. It felt like any minute we might break into a spontaneous game of "peek-a-boo"!

Sometimes language study was simply tedious work, and I didn't realize how much it was getting me into the lives and culture of the Fulani.

My official job title is "development agent." I am working in a few Fulani villages, helping get some projects off the ground that I hope will reduce some long-term problems faced by people caught in poverty. The possibilities for development are abundant here in the world's poorest nation, which topped the UN's 2006 list of "least livable countries." We have some grain banks, where grain is sold at cost (as opposed to the grossly elevated prices of grain at the market), to help people make it through the lean season until the harvest. I've trained a few Fulani women to make cook stoves out of clay which burn much less wood than the open fires over which most Fulani cook. Burning less wood saves women money, as well as helping to preserve this precious resource which is growing more and more scarce with the continual expansion of the Sahara Desert.

I also own a few cows and goats, which are on loan to widows, following a wonderful Fulani cultural practice of helping those in need. The recipients look after the animals until they have young. When the calf (or kid) is weaned, the recipient keeps it and the mother is returned to the owner. Or in my case, the mother is passed on to another widow. The idea is to help them establish a herd, and thus a means of improving their children's diet (with milk) and giving them an income (from the sale of milk and butter).

So, why did I spend my first two years here learning the language instead of jumping right into these projects? Couldn't I work in French and simply use translators when necessary? After all, many relief and development workers do it this way.

If I were planning to be here for a short term, I would have skipped the language study and started work as soon as possible. However, my goal is to be here for the long haul, to get to know the people with whom I am working, and to be involved in their lives.

My desire is to follow the example set by Jesus. Doctor Luke, one of Jesus' biographers, summed up his writing as an explanation of what Jesus did and what he taught (see Acts 1:1). Jesus fed people, healed people, drove out demons, and taught the ways of God. That's what I want to do, to meet physical, emotional and spiritual needs of people. For this to happen, they need to trust me, something they won't likely do through an interpreter.

And so I have spent long hours memorizing vocabulary I could hardly pronounce, sitting around cooking fires lost in a whirlwind of words, and doing what I call "the ministry of hanging out."

Hanging out is not always a lot of fun--in fact, I was frequently very bored by it. As I began following conversations more and more, things improved. But, being a product of a time-oriented, work-producing culture, I could only enjoy so much sitting around discussing the happenings of the village. It was an act of sheer determination to keep sitting and concentrating on when to use which of the seventeen Fulfulde words for "the." For people who have such a simple lifestyle, they sure have a complicated language!

I normally camp one night a week in the village where our development projects are getting started. As I was packing up my tent to leave after a recent visit, an old man walked by and stopped to chat. "Your feet show your love," he said.

I understood all his words, but wasn't sure of the meaning, so I asked him to repeat himself. One of my friends jumped in to explain what he meant. "He means that your coming here shows that you love us."

"Yes," the man agreed. "Where you don't like, you don't go. Your feet come here often. That shows us that you love us."

Three cheers for hanging out! I have earned their friendship and trust, two things that will go far as we work together in development projects that we hope will bring lasting change to some dusty little villages in Niger.

 

July 2007
A Wedding in the Rain

Last Saturday was a big day for Gazoul, the young man who cleans my house every Wednesday morning. It was his wedding day. As his employer, I got the job of transporting the bride in my car.

Try to erase your mental images of a decorated church filled with family and friends, and my car pulling up in front with the bride in her gown. That's not quite the way it works here.

The religious ceremony actually took place around 8 o'clock Saturday morning, with neither the bride nor groom present. I wasn't present either. But I can tell you what happened, since I've been to a few of these. A crowd gathered at Gazoul's older sister's house, the imam (Muslim leader) said some prayers and that was it--they were married. The whole thing takes about five minutes. Every time I've gone to one of these, I've wondered why I bothered!

The bride spent the day hiding out at the home of a family member in a village just out of the city. The groom spent the day hosting friends and family at his sister's home. People came and went, dressed in their best robes, visiting and drinking tea. The atmosphere was festive. I stopped in for an hour or so. A big meal was served to whoever happened to be there in the middle of the afternoon when it was ready.

Gazoul confirmed with me again that I would be there at 8 p.m. to go get the bride. Several vehicles would go, but he wanted her to ride in my car. I told him I planned on bringing my motorbike instead, to give her a memorable wedding night. The poor guy looked horrified until he realized I was joking!

Our plans were interrupted at 7 p.m. when the skies opened and let loose a torrential downpour. I called Gazoul at 7:30 and asked him what we were going to do. He said he'd call me back when the rain stopped.

Around 8:45, the rain slowed and he called and said the caravan was going. So off I went to meet with the others. Four vehicles finally left around 9:15 to go get the bride (my colleague Daniel's and mine being two of them). It was still raining, but more gently. The roads were a terrible mess, with monstrous lake-like puddles everywhere. We arrived where the bride had spent the day, and waited around in the rain, getting totally soaked. Daniel and I stood talking with while everyone else was rushing around doing whatever they were doing. An old lady came by waving her flashlight and yelling at us. Apparently we had committed the big offense of walking on her bean plants! Finally the bride's baggage was brought out (including the traditional bed mattress--the bride can't arrive without her bed, even in the rain). It got tied on top of one of the vehicles--at least it was partially wrapped in plastic!

Then, at last, came the bride, entirely wrapped up in a sheet, being carried by one of the guys in our bridal-search party. He put her in the back of my car, two other women got in with her, and off we went. The bride cried all the way back to the party, which is also tradition, whether she feels like crying or not. We arrived around 10:30, with lights flashing and horns blowing. I felt a bit sorry for the neighbours until I got out of the car and heard that the party was already well underway. They'd set up a big tarp under which a well-known local band was playing very loud music, so the car horns probably didn't disturb anyone after all!

Some guys came running and carried the bride (still all wrapped up) into Gazoul's sister's house. She was taken into the bedroom and laid on a bed, where she spent the rest of the party with her girlfriends. I never did see her face.

I stood around outside for awhile watching people dance under their umbrellas. And then Gazoul showed up, being escorted by some friends. He was wearing traditional robes and turban, and I wouldn't have recognized him except for his voice! Daniel and I followed the guys into the house. They went into the bedroom, saw that the bride was there, then sat down in the living room.

At that point I went home. The party would go well into the night. I imagine the couple were eventually left alone to do what newlyweds do, but I'd had enough. I was wet and tired, and my duty was done.

 

 

 

June 2007
Grain Banks

Imagine a truck rolling into your town loaded with sacks of wheat. It pulls into the parking lot of the community hall. The caretaker jumps on his bicycle and takes off to find the mayor who drops what he's doing and comes running. He welcomes the driver and they sit together and drink water under the shade of a tree while they wait for the town councilors to join them before the grain is unloaded. In the meantime, a large crowd gathers. People are running around town announcing the arrival of the grain. Men, women and children flock around the truck chattering excitedly.

Not a very likely scenario, is it? Trucks of food arrive in our towns all the time, and for most of us, our only reaction is that they slow down traffic.

Imagine again that you go for groceries and come home with nothing but grain that you have to pound by hand into flour before making a gruel for the evening meal, cooking over the open fire. You stop on the way home to pull a bowlful of leaves from a tree, with which you will make a simple sauce to accompany the gruel. And this is on the menu day after day after day . . . until there is no more grain.

This is life here in Niger, the world's poorest country, which holds the #1 spot on the United Nations' list of "Least Livable Countries." And this is where I live.

Millet is the staple of the diet here. Some wealthy people buy up lots of millet when it is plentiful (as it is right now), and then when the supplies run low (which is already happening in some areas, and will hit my area in another few weeks), they sell it at three or four times what they paid for it. People can't afford it, but they are given "credit" at exorbitant interest. The system isn't fair and people cannot get caught up.

One solution to the problem is grain banks. Two of the villages I visit asked for my help in getting grain banks started. So I did some research and was able to help them both get a stock of millet.

Here's how it works. The village stocks up on millet when the price is low (let's say $25 for a 100 kg sack). The price will soon climb as high as $75 for that same sack, and the creditors will be selling it for $100. But the villages that have grain banks can sell it for $30, making it affordable for their people while at the same time bringing in enough money to cover the cost of managing the bank plus a small profit so it can grow.

Do some imagining again and come with me to the village of Lambounti. It's only thirteen kilometres off a main road, but it's thirteen torturous kilometres of four-wheeling through the sand. Several months ago we hosted a group of Canadian doctors and nurses and held a three-day clinic in Lambounti. The Nigerien government requires that we charge for medical services, so it's about a dollar for adults and fifty cents for children to see a doctor, which includes all their prescriptions. The money we collect goes back to the village.

A few weeks after the clinic, I returned to Lambounti and met with the chief and village elders to discuss where they wanted this money to go. They reached a decision quickly: a grain bank to help them through the lean season before the harvest.

I did my research and went back to them with my list of requirements. First, they must build a hut with a cement floor and a solid door with two locks. Then they must choose three people who will share the responsibility for selling the grain. Two of these people will keep the keys. They both must be present before grain can be sold--this decreases the temptation they may experience to give grain to friends or family members without receiving payment. The third person is the treasurer.

The chief readily agreed to these requirements. "We need to have a part in this too," he said. "It is not good if we ask for help and then sit and wait for you to do everything. We will work together to have a grain bank."

As promised, they made mud bricks, dried them in the sun, and built a circular hut. They bought cement and made a floor. A grass roof topped the structure and a sturdy metal door was put in place.

Then came delivery day. Four young men from Lambounti came with me to do the lifting. The excitement and anticipation in the village was palpable--a bit like the day of the Christmas parade in my home town. It took three trips in a Toyota Hilux to get the grain to its new home. Each time we pulled into town, a cheer rose from the crowd. People were tripping over each other trying to help unload it. And I can't tell you how many times I was thanked.

I wish you could all have as much fun at work as I do. I am so privileged to be able to bring life-giving grain to the poorest of the poor in the world's least livable country.

 

May 2007
Serious about Exercise

With another birthday just around the corner, I must admit that the days of my youth are history. I have moved into the box labeled "middle age." (Moving day was actually quite awhile ago, but it's taken me a few years to realize it.)

The other day I was at the pool at the American rec centre, where four or five times a week I swim lengths for an hour. My goal is partly exercise and partly a carefully guarded escape from interruption, time when I am free to think, plan and pray. In the cool season it's also a refreshing break, allowing me to temporarily forget that I live in the dust of the Sahara Desert. But it's hot season, and the pool is far from refreshing. It's a bit like swimming lengths at Fairmont Hot Springs (in the hot pool!) on the hottest summer day. But for some reason I persevere.

Back to the other day. I finished my lengths and was panting in the corner of the pool when a twenty-something gal, in Niger with the American Peace Corps, started a conversation.

"I really admire your swimming," she said.

"Thank you," I gasped.

"It's so good to see an older person serious about getting exercise."

An older person?! Me? We were the only two people in the pool, so I knew she wasn't talking about anyone else. At forty-two, someone else has already moved me into the box labeled "older people." I'm having an identity crisis here!

I'm barely passed thinking of myself as a kid. It feels like I've just finished university and got started into my career. (Maybe the fact that I went to school until I was thirty contributes to this feeling!) I know many people my age are well on their way to having their mortgages paid off. But I've yet to even qualify for such a thing. And I've often referred to having a mortgage as a sign of being a "grown-up." Surely I can't really be an "older person"!

Okay, I admit that I have more grey hair than my grandmother did at eighty. Someone told me it's a bad sign when the grey matter starts coming out on top of your head. So I'm letting my hair grow. I dare not risk cutting off any grey cells!

I live between two worlds. My home culture worships youth. The above nattering is evidence that I am a product of that culture.

My host culture honours and respects age. Life expectancy here in Niger is only forty-four, so at forty-two I've practically got one foot in the grave. Yikes! Maybe I really am an older person.

Maybe it's the African influence, but I have no intention of hiding my age. God has looked after me for forty-two years and I want to give Him credit for the full shot!

The day after my troubling discussion in the pool, I was on my way home from an evening at a friend's house. I was buzzing along the dirt road on my motorbike when the engine started to sputter. No problem! This happens all the time. I simply need to reach down to the fuel switch and turn it to the reserve tank, which I usually manage to do before the engine stalls.

When my hand hit the fuel switch that night, my heart sank. The switch was already on the reserve tank. Apparently my escaping grey cells forgot to flip the switch the last time I bought gas.

The engine sputtered to a halt and there I sat with no gas. I was just over a kilometer from home, and it was a nice night for a walk. So I set off, pushing my bike. I was glad the heat of the day had subsided, but at 10 p.m. it was still 35 degrees!

Patches of that road have very thick sand, so it was hard work pushing the bike. My clothes were soon drenched, and sweat was stinging my eyes. And I was enjoying a chuckle, thinking what a good thing it is that I am an older person who takes exercise seriously so that this little adventure wasn't killing me!

The next day I was back in the pool!

 

April 2007
Heat Wave

Today was hot! My thermometer had the nerve to announce a high of 52 degrees Celsius (that would be 126 degrees for those of you who think better in Fahrenheit). Whichever scale you choose, it's just too hot.

So, bear with me while I whine a little! I feel a bit like the candle sitting on my bookshelf. Last week it stretched to its full height of twelve inches. This week it bends sharply just above the candle holder and hangs its weary head six inches below the shelf!

I suppose this is what one should expect living next to the Sahara Desert. After all, Niamey (where I live) is documented to be the world's hottest capital city. And the Lonely Planet traveler's guide warns that Niger has two seasons: "hot" and "hotter than hell." I'm not sure how they actually measured that, but they're definitely on the right track.

The heat has become part of every conversation. After, "Good morning, how are you?" comes, "And how's the heat?" (meaning, "How are you surviving the heat?"). Even the Africans are complaining. And I have noticed that productivity is inversely proportional to the rising temperature. Hot season is not the time to have a contractor do any repair jobs.

I was out in a village the other day when a breeze came up. Normally this would be good news, bringing a bit of cool refreshment. But sadly this breeze gave me the impression that I was standing in front of a large hair dryer.

That evening I stopped at my colleagues' house to drop something off. As we stood outside visiting, we commented on how nice and cool it was. It was 34C! When it gets over 30 in Invermere, everybody complains about the heat. Here it gets down to 34 and I think it's cool! My internal thermostat is definitely messed up!

I recently found out that in 50-degree heat, a car's seatbelt buckle can be transformed into a branding iron (not that I actually needed that branding!). Once buckled, I learned that one really only needs two fingers to steer a car. And those two fingers need only dance lightly on the burning surface of the wheel.

So, since driving the car is so miserable, I usually take my motorbike. It's not much better--the hot air literally stings my arms and legs as I buzz along. I hope I don't crash, or I could cook to death lying on the pavement.

The swimming pool at the American rec centre now feels like a bathtub. There's something not very nice about swimming in dirty bath water shared with a dozen other tired and sweaty pilgrims. Yet I still go, since the water is a few degrees cooler than the air. It's not so much real refreshment as it is a mental massage, trying to convince myself I'm cooling down.

This week I pulled out my last line of defense against the heat. I have a teddy bear with a red rubber hot water bottle in his tummy, and another hot water bottle that I inherited from my grandmother. Every morning I drop them both in the freezer. Every night I cuddle my frozen teddy, while the other ice block, wrapped in a towel, rests against my back. It's not exactly comfortable, but it takes the edge off the heat enough that I am able to get some sleep.

I haven't checked on my cows lately, but I bet they're giving evaporated milk!

I once heard someone say that he had the desire to take off his skin and just sit in his bones. He had the right idea. Now if I could only figure out how to do that . . .

 

March 2007
So You Think Getting a Passport is Tough!

My team here in Niger has recently completed the process of getting registered with the local government. Now we can obtain residence cards as opposed to continually renewing our visitor visas. In as much as my visa had the earliest expiration date (February 31, 2007!), that made me the first one to go through the process of getting the residence card. So I'm either the team trailblazer or guinea pig, depending on your perspective!

This week's project was to run around town getting the list of necessary items before applying for the card. First on the list was a "certificate of residence" to be obtained at the police station. The policeman behind the counter asked me if I live in Niger. I told him I do. He asked for no further information, but filled out the form and stamped it all over with red ink. I paid him the $4 fee and off I went as a certified resident of Niger.

The next step was to visit a photographer to get four ID photos. Easy.

Then I psyched myself up for the dreaded medical exam and went to a clinic to get a "medical certificate." This step appears to be quite complicated because you have to have a "rigorous medical examination" followed by a repeat visit to a different doctor for a second opinion. Both doctors have to sign a form declaring you are in good health. I made my request to the clinic receptionist who took me to see a doctor who was sitting at his desk playing with his cell phone.

After we exchanged lengthy greetings, he said, "Are you healthy?"

"Yes I am."

"Have you ever been hospitalized?"

"Well, I had my gall bladder removed."

"That's nothing. Is your father still alive?"

"Yes."

"How old is he?"

I answered his question, and that was the end of my rigorous medical exam! He signed and stamped the paper and sent me out to the receptionist to pay my $12 fee. In the meantime he got the bottom half of the paper signed by a second doctor and voila! I am certified infectious-disease-free! The paper actually says that I do not have TB, leprosy, or any illness of the blood or the nervous system. How he discerned all that from my father's age is beyond me! The advances in modern medicine are astounding! My Canadian doctor colleague admits that his diagnostic skills are not yet that strong.

The next step was to the courthouse to get a "judicial certificate" (which I think means that I have no criminal record). Someone else told me that they were asked if they'd done anything illegal and that was all it took to get the official piece of paper. But I didn't even get that question! I just chatted and joked around with the friendly courthouse ladies for a few minutes, told them my parents' names and the info on my passport. Oh yes, I also handed over the obligatory $14 fee. Then the lady wrote "NOTHING" across the big part of the form listing my potential criminal offences. I had to return to the courthouse the next day to pick up my dutifully signed and red-ink decorated form and now I am certified criminal-record-free.

I also needed proof of my employment. My team leader happily wrote me a letter saying that I do, in fact, have a job. He warned me that he wasn't sure if he was saying the right thing in the letter, but I assured him that if he pulled out his stamp pad and decorated the letter well, it would no doubt be fine!

This morning I went to the "Department of Territorial Supervision" (that's the literal translation--I'm sure we have an equivalent in English, but I'm not sure what it might be!). There I handed in all my important red-ink-stamped papers only to find out that I was missing one. I needed to go to city hall to pay a road tax. This one makes complete sense. With all the running around I've been doing to get all these forms, I have been using the roads an awful lot! So I happily went off to pay my $4 road tax.

I returned to the Department of Territorial Supervision, dropped off my road tax receipt, paid another fee of about $125, was fingerprinted by a very tall policeman and that was it. Four hours later, I picked up my temporary residence card.

I realize one could question the integrity of this process. But they've got my money, I've got my residence card, and we're all happy.

 

February 2007
Cows for the Poor

"You're really Fulani now!" my friends told me after our trip to the market.

And what did I do to deserve that comment, you ask? I bought two cows.

And what am I going to do with two cows? I'm glad you asked. Let me explain!

The Fulani people, with whom I work here in Niger, West Africa, have a wonderful cultural practice of lending animals to those who are in financial need. The recipient keeps and cares for the cow until it has a calf. If the calf is female, the recipient keeps the calf, and the cow is returned to its owner. If the calf is male, the recipient keeps the calf and also keeps the cow for a second year. After the second calf is born, the cow is returned to its owner.

I heard about this system several months ago, and talked about it with Ruga, the head cattleman in the village I visit most often. That wasn't the time to buy, he cautioned, because the prices were too high. "Wait a few months."

A few months went by and it was time to go cow shopping! Off I went to the market with Ruga and two other men. Normally a trip to the market is an exhausting experience, with every merchant calling out to direct my attention to his wares. "Madame! Madame, over here!! I'll give you a good price!" "Madame! Look here!" "Madame, buy from me!"

But going to the market with Ruga, a respected elder in the area, was different. I walked along behind him, receiving nothing more than polite greetings as we passed the various vendors. When we arrived at the animal department, he and I stood in the shade of a large tree while the other two went off to do the negotiating, returning to the tree from time to time to report on their progress. It wasn't long until they'd reached a deal, and Ruga and I went over to join them. A crowd formed as I handed over the cash (it isn't every day a white woman, speaking their language, shows up to buy cows!).

Later that day the cows were delivered to Ruga's village, having walked the four kilometres from the market. The next step was to name them. I thought of Moo and Spot, or perhaps Harvey (after a man in my childhood who had a dog called Lisa!). But instead, I asked for suggestions from my Fulani friends. They offered some names and I chose on the basis of how easy they were to pronounce (and thus hopefully remember). The dark brown cow is Nayil, and the white one with a few dark spots is Amaril.

The next morning Ruga invited me into his hut to discuss the recipients of the cows. Poor people are not hard to find in Niger, which is listed at the very bottom of 177 countries in the United Nations human development index for 2006. I had already told Ruga I most wanted to help women who were in need. That morning we talked about the village widows. I asked him how many children they each had, if they had other animals, how their health was, if they are likely to take care of the animal, etc. Based on his responses, I chose the two widows who would receive my cows. He made sure I had their names right and knew which cow was going to which woman.

We then went out to the field where my cows were tethered, followed by a group of witnesses who were awaiting my announcement. As soon as I told them to whom I was lending my cows, Ruga's wife took off running down the path back to the village. Ruga chuckled and said, "She wants to be the first one to share the good news!"

As we walked back to the village, Ruga said, "Thank you! You have given to my village, which is as if you have given to me. And we thank you."

So my two cows have become loaner cows, and are already in the possession of two widows with children. The idea is to help them establish a herd, and thus a means of improving their children's diet (with milk) and giving them an income (from the sale of milk and butter). Apparently several development agencies across West Africa have adopted this Fulani custom of helping people with the loan of animals. I hope that Nayil and Amaril will be the first of many animals I am able to lend to people caught in poverty's deadly trap.

 

January 2007
Life's a Beach!

"Life's a beach!" You've probably heard the expression. It's one we use frequently out here in Niger. But here the sense is different--for us it's a commentary on the vast amount of sand everywhere in this land-locked West African country, over half of which is covered by the Sahara Desert.

Between Christmas and New Years my Canadian colleagues and I had a "beach holiday." We saw miles and miles of clean sand, rippled by the wind. The only thing missing was water! Yes, we made a trip up to the desert.

Late one afternoon, I sat atop a sand dune watching the sun sink below a range of dunes to the west. The dunes aren't nearly as high as the Rockies, of course, but there was enough similarity to remind me of the many times I've sat on peaks and ridges in British Columbia. As far as I could see, there was a vast sandy sea of peaks and valleys. No snow. No trees. Only sand.

That was also the day I experienced all four seasons in twenty-four hours--or at least the temperature of all four seasons. That morning, in a village a couple hours away from the dunes, we sat huddled around a fire toasting stale bread for breakfast. It felt like spring in Canada, crisp and fresh, with temperatures in the single digits. I was grateful for the jacket I'd picked up at the used market the previous week.

We spent the morning at a traditional festival of the Tuareg people (also known as the Tamajek). Nomadic "lords of the desert," the Tuareg have guarded their cultural history and come together annually to celebrate with poetry, song, dance and various displays of their mastery of the camel, including races and dancing. We watched the dance of the camels. Men in turbans and flowing robes, sporting long swords in leather sheaths, and looking as if they'd stepped out of a Lawrence of Arabia film, skillfully guided their decorated camels around the "dance floor" (a field of sand). A group of women gathered in the middle of the field singing and playing drums. Camels came and went from the circle, some running, some trotting, all of their riders perched proudly on elaborately decorated leather saddles. The climax of the dance was the camel who danced on his knees to the cheering of the crowd.

At the end of the dance, the camels and riders arranged themselves behind the crowd like a line of centurions overseeing the next event. While the women continued to sing, the men took to the dance floor, stomping, jumping and twirling to the crowd's applause. It looked to me like a cross between what I've seen of traditional First Nations dancing and break dancing. And I think they intentionally kicked up sand with their leather flip-flops, leaving clouds of dust in their wake.

We left the festival and returned to our "hotel" for lunch. (To call the place a hotel is too complimentary--in reality it was a two-room mud house with no furniture, and an outhouse about two blocks away!) We sat in the shade awaiting our meal, but I put my thermometer in the sun--it registered 47 C! Definitely the "summer" part of our day!

After lunch we headed out to the sand dunes, stopping on the way to gather firewood with which to cook our evening meal. A biting autumn wind cut across the plains of sand. If there had been any leafy trees around, their leaves would have been long gone I'm sure. The only vegetation in sight was thorn bushes and some tufts of dry grass.

Bouncing across the barren and desolate land, we saw a few nomadic families traveling with their herds. One man was leading his camel with his wife following behind riding on a donkey. They looked like Mary and Joseph on their way to Bethlehem. Then we came across a camel train--at least fifty camels loaded down with grain and other supplies for isolated Tuareg camps.

That night we slept under the stars at the base of a sand dune. We snuggled into our sleeping bags early and gazed up at the stunning beauty of the night sky, picking out familiar constellations and enjoying a display of shooting stars. Sometime in the night winter struck! It was -2 C! And we were a very chilly bunch, joking that we don't even go camping in Canada when it's that cold. And there we were freezing to death on the Sahara Desert after a drop of 49 degrees in one day.

Not every beach holiday offers this much variety!

 

December 2006
A Lot Like Christmas

This morning I was at the market stocking up on fresh fruits and vegetables. As I was deciding how many carrots I needed, I was distracted by the ring of a nearby cell phone. Its song was a poor quality, synthetic version of "We Wish You a Merry Christmas"! I smiled as I looked over at a sharply dressed man in an African robe answering his phone. I'm sure the song meant nothing at all to him, other than it possibly being a melody he likes. But it brought a lot of thoughts rushing into my head.

I carried on through the market realizing that Christmas is only a few days away. I saw no evidence of Christmas in the hustle and bustle of the market. I live in a country where Christmas isn't celebrated. Yes, it is a national holiday, but I'm pretty sure that's just a leftover from the days when Niger was a colony of France.

This will be my seventh Christmas in Africa. Celebrating without all the trappings of Christmas is growing on me. No turkey. No decorated shopping malls featuring visits with Santa (no shopping malls at all for that matter, with or without decorations!). No snow. No Christmas lights. No Christmas banquets. No manger scene at the local church. No Christmas music on the radio. No "silver bells" to remind me that "soon it will be Christmas Day."

I was going to say that there is nothing here that is the least bit Christmas-like. But I had to delete that line. Because there's a lot here that I'm pretty sure was like the first Christmas 2000 years ago.

Last week I was visiting in a rural village. When I'm in a village, I spend a lot of time just sitting around visiting and taking in scenes of village life. Women coming from the well, balancing buckets of water on their heads (and rarely spilling a drop). Men taking a break from repairing their mud brick walls to share a pot of strong, sweet tea. Girls pounding millet into flour with which to prepare the evening meal. Babies crying. Little boys running around with homemade cars made from sticks, with wheels that turn, cut from dead flip-flop sandals.

Sheep and goats lazed in the shade of a big tree. Chickens strutted back and forth across sandy paths between huts. A donkey brayed. If we were to add a bunch of visitors coming for a census, I think the village would pretty closely resemble the scene in Bethlehem that first Christmas.

As I sat enjoying my friends' company, a young woman with a newborn baby on her back came over to join us. She sat down on the straw mat beside me and handed me the wee tyke, wrapped in a thin cotton cloth. Is that what the old King James Version of the Bible meant by the "swaddling clothes" in which the virgin Mary wrapped the infant Jesus?

I held that precious little one in my arms, swishing flies away from his face. Yes, that tiny child was nice and clean, but the same sure couldn't be said for the older children running by. There was sand and dirt and squalor and poverty. Soon enough that little baby will be playing in the same sand where sheep and goats relieve themselves. Soon enough his little tummy will be losing battles to worms and infections.

Jesus was born into similar poverty. He was God himself, and he left a home so beautiful that we can't even imagine it. And he was born in a stable into a poor family. Why did he do it? To show us how to live a life that pleases God, because none of us can do it on our own. And to make the way available for us to get to God, because none of us can get there on our own. That's what Christmas is all about.

And that's why I'm in Niger, to share the good news of God's Christmas gift to the world. And as I look around me on the dusty streets and hear a donkey braying next door, I have to conclude that it really is looking "a lot like Christmas" around here!

 

November 2006
Ready for an African Hurricane

A question I am occasionally asked is if I feel safe living in Africa. In a word, yes. In a few more words, allow me to ramble about that a bit.

The truth is that Africa is a pretty volatile place. Wars and rumours of wars abound on this continent, and I don't want to make light of that. For the time being, Niger is a stable country that welcomes foreigners, and I feel in no personal danger. Yet that could change pretty quickly. For years Côte d'Ivoire (the Ivory Coast) was the model of progress and development in West Africa. And then someone got mad at someone else who held an important position, they led a coup, and started a civil war. (Obviously I'm not a political analyst!) The ongoing skirmishes have done incredible damage to their infrastructure and economy (not to mention claiming how many lives). I suppose Niger is not immune to such chaos. So I am thankful for the peace of this land.

I do hear of robberies from time to time. But does Niamey (the city in which I live) have more theft per capita than Invermere (my home town)? I doubt it. Plus I have a 24-hour guard at my house. This sounds horrific I realize, and makes me feel like I rank second only to the Queen of England. I look at it more as a contribution to the local economy than an essential service for my safety. It's the norm for foreigners (and wealthier locals) to hire guards, and it does provide work for three guys who would otherwise be unemployed.

In addition to chasing off thieves (which they've never had to do!), my guards wash my car, water and trim the plants, rake the yard, run errands for me and sleep! They are especially skilled at raking the yard--two or three times a day, I find fresh designs in the sand (I have no grass). I have also learned that if they hear no sound coming from inside the house, they assume I am sleeping and don't allow my visitors into the yard. I have asked them to please knock before reaching that conclusion, but we have a bit more work to do on this.

Perhaps a more imminent danger is found on Niger's roads. Donkey carts and bicycles cause havoc, especially on the roads where the traffic is actually moving--they are less of a problem downtown where they are among the faster vehicles. Motorbikes weave in and out of traffic, avoiding potholes and racing to the front of the line. The majority of their riders are not wearing helmets. I am the exception to the rule, faithfully donning my helmet before joining the race. Here it's expected that motorbikes do not stay in their lane and behave like cars. Instead, at stoplights we (yes, I must include myself in this) pass the line of waiting cars, trying to avoid pedestrians in the process, crowd in front of the first car and await the green light (or simply a break in the traffic, since motorbikes are semi-immune to traffic laws and thus treat red lights like stop signs). Vehicles are frequently dangerously overloaded, and it's not uncommon to hear of vans and trucks tipping over, losing their loads, or even collapsing under the incredible weight piled on their roofs.

Another threat to my safety here is the heat. Can a human body melt? Sometimes I fear that may happen when the thermometer dares to announce temperatures in excess of 50 degrees Celsius. In the hot season, I literally sleep snuggled up to a block of ice!

I took another safety precaution today when I went to the market and bought a cheap lantern for use during our somewhat frequent power outages. It's made in China and promises to be of 'superior quality' of which I have no doubt, since it cost a whopping $3. I removed the cellophane wrapping and read the instructions, which assured me that I most definitely bought the right brand. This one is "for emergency use during any power outage such as a hurricane or earthquake." It's true we have frequent power outages, but never anything so exciting as hurricanes or earthquakes. But you just never know when such a thing may strike, and I'll be glad for my hardy, weather-resistant, superior quality Chinese lantern! So if you should hear of a hurricane in Niger, don't worry about me--I'll be just fine!

 

September 2006
Learning from a Village Elder

I'd like you to meet Ruga. That's not really his name, but it's what everyone calls him. Ruga is actually his title--it's the word for the head cattleman in an area, the one who settles disputes between animal farmers and crop farmers. It's a highly respected position. And I'm guessing he's also the oldest man in town, adding to his respect. He's not actually very old at all. He's 63, more or less--his identity card gives his date of birth as "around 1943."

Ruga lives in a village called Teppe (pronounced TEP-pay), where I often go to visit and spend the night. It seems he is the self-declared president of my hospitality committee. I set up my tent under the big tree in front of his hut. One of his two wives and another lady take turns feeding me. One day I was visiting in his hut and his wife pulled out a bowl of sour milk--seriously, solidly sour. She whisked it back into a thick liquid, added a bit of sugar and handed it to me. That was a simply disgusting challenge, giving a whole new meaning to the phrase "sweet and sour"!!!!

Even when I'm sitting in someone else's hut visiting, Ruga will often send me a bowl of milk (warm, of course!) or a glass of tea. Every day that I'm there, he rides off on his bicycle to a larger town a couple kilometres away where bread is available, and he buys me a scrambled egg sandwich.

One morning Ruga and I went for a walk so he could show me the calves he recently bought. For most of my life my only interest in cattle has been dodging them on Westside Road (where I grew up--a road with open range cattle). But now I am working with cattle people and I am learning about cattle. So off I went to visit the calves. When we'd gone only a short way out of the village, he stopped and pointed and said, "Here's where we'll give you land so you can build a house and live here." That was an interesting thought! I didn't have the heart to tell him I have no intention of moving to the village, so didn't give him an answer at all.

As darkness fell that evening, rain fell with it, forcing us to move inside. I went into the smoke-filled hut where Ruga's wife was cooking the evening meal over an open fire. He joined us. I asked him to tell me a story. He thought for a few moments, then drew a map with his finger on the sand floor of the hut. He then told me of his ancestors coming from Mali, through Burkina Faso and into Niger. It was pretty interesting, and he went slowly enough that I actually understood most of it.

The next evening, several people sat outside under the big tree by my tent. Again I asked for a story. A few people offered various proverbs and riddles, which got us laughing. Then came a traditional Fulani fable. These are told by the elders to their grandchildren as a means of teaching them morals. In the pitch dark of that African evening, I heard the story of the elephant and the tortoise.

Long ago, when animals could speak, an elephant and a tortoise were good friends. Their friendship grew to the point where they shared everything. But their friendship led them into trouble with some of the other animals. Some of the animals were jealous of their friendship, especially the big snake, who decided to separate them. But, in spite of his efforts, the friendship between the elephant and the tortoise continued to grow closer.

One day, the big snake said to himself, "I've got an idea that will end that friendship. I will eat one of them." But the elephant was too big for the snake to eat. So he decided that he would eat the tortoise.

The snake began to follow the tortoise everywhere he went until finally one day he came upon him alone. The tortoise was polite and respectful to all the other animals, even the snake, who he stopped to greet. The snake didn't respond. Instead, he swallowed the tortoise whole.

At that moment, there was a lizard up in a tree who saw the snake swallow the tortoise. He ran as quickly as he could to tell the elephant what happened. When the elephant heard the news, he was angry and he chased the snake. He didn't even go around the big trees of the forest, but knocked them over with his chest as he ran.

When the snake felt the ground tremble, he knew that his days of causing problems were over. The elephant caught up to the snake, stepped on his tail, then squeezed him until the tortoise came out. The tortoise was still alive because the snake didn't bite him, but swallowed him whole. After rescuing his friend, the elephant killed the snake.

What is it that the younger generation is supposed to learn from this story? It has at least two lessons. First, be a good friend. Choose your friends wisely and they will stick up for you.

The second lesson is that "causing problems between others is like peeing on cement." When you pee on cement, you get wet. In other words, what goes around, comes around. If you try to cause problems between others, you will end up being on the receiving end of what you've caused.

The people gathered under the tree that night voiced their agreement with Ruga's story, acknowledging its truth. With that as the last word, we bid each other goodnight and I was quickly lulled to sleep by a chorus of crickets.

 

August 2006
A Village Party

I spent a couple days out in the village this week. And I got in on a baby-naming ceremony. I've been to several of them in and around the city, but this was my first one out in a village, where the people hold more firmly to their cultural traditions.

The party was actually in another tiny village about two kilometres from where I was staying. My friends were concerned about my ability to walk that far down a muddy path. I assured them I am used to walking and that distance wouldn't be a problem. Off we went. They were right about the mud. There had been a heavy rain in the night and long sections of the path were under several inches of water. At times we were mid-calf in water (I tried not to think about what other creatures may have been swimming along with us!).

We could hear the music from the party for several minutes before we actually got there. City people may have radios, but the villagers have a live "band." Two men were playing the hoddu, a traditional Fulani instrument along the lines of a guitar, but only having two strings. A third man, the group leader, was both the percussion section and vocalist. He was playing an inverted calabash bowl. He hit the bowl with the heal of his hand to produce a sound somewhat like a bass drum while, at the same time, tapping various rhythms with his fingers. A ring on the middle knuckle of each finger enabled the rhythms to be heard at quite a distance.

Many (if not all) Fulani songs tell stories. Most of them I wasn't able to follow, but my ears perked up when I heard my own name. He was singing about my coming, and how I brought my "house" with me (a tent), and walked all that way to come to their party. They were obviously having fun making up the song as they went along, and I was having fun listening!

Another major difference between a party in the city and one in the village is the way the women dress. City women have Western style jewelry. The village women, in contrast, were all decked out in traditional Fulani beadwork and coins. Each woman had several strings of dark orange beads around her neck, many of them decorated with triangles of hammered silver. They also had chokers of small multi-coloured beads. Strings of silver coins are tied into their hair, crossing their foreheads and hanging from their braids. Other beads and cowry shells are also hung from the strings of coins. Silver bracelets around their wrists and arms above the elbow complete the jewelry.

Then there is the make-up! Most Fulani women have their faces permanently made up with scars and tattoos. Intricate patterns are cut (with a bare razor blade) into their foreheads, beside their eyes and beside their mouths. Other designs can be added by tattoos on their chins, often blackening the entire lower lip. For the party, they added more black make-up to their eyebrows and eyelashes. Many of the Fulani women in the city have the traditional scars, but fewer have the tattoos and other make-up.

The aspect of the party that generated the most excitement among the women was the gifts. In the city, the gift is money, and there's nothing to see. But in the village, they give traditional gifts. We squashed into an overcrowded hut to see them counted and displayed. There was one little shirt for the baby, an assortment of strings of beads and coins for the mother, a bowl of milk, a bowl of butter, and eighty-two bars of soap! No, I am not exaggerating--the soap was all carefully counted. Talk about duplicate gifts! I think I'm the only one there who found it funny, wondering what on earth one would do with that much soap. (I think I would become very generous with it the next time someone I knew had a baby--I'd give it away by the handful!)

After about four hours of the party, I'd had more than enough. Some very large black clouds and a clap of thunder came to my rescue signaling it was time to head for home. We splashed our way back to where I was staying as quickly as we could, and happily made it before a torrential downpour. It was another one of those days to remember.

 

July 2006
Camping in an African Village

It's the season for camping. Mind you, it's always the season for camping here in Niger, the land of perpetual summer. Anyway, there's a village about an hour away from my place where I've made some friends, and they invited me to spend the night. I decided to take them up on their offer.

The villagers gathered around to welcome me when I pulled into town. "Town" consists of about twenty-five round huts made of mud brick with straw roofs. In the culture of the Fulani people, hospitality is very important. As a guest, I was escorted into one of the huts of an elderly village leader (he has two, one for each wife!). I sat on the edge of a bed visiting with my hostess and her friend, exchanging polite greetings and questions of each other's health, work, family, etc. They reminded me that I'd said I would spend the night. That was my cue to tell them that I had brought my "house" with me (a tent). "If you will give me a place to build my house," I told them, "I will spend the night."

They hurried outside and chose a flat place between a hut and a storage shed, where there wouldn't be much coming and going. When I approved, they swept the area clean while I went to get the tent.

A crowd gathered as I pulled it from its bag. They watched silently as I laid the tent out on the ground, put together the poles and fed them through the loops. But then when I bent the poles and the "house" took shape, the crowd gasped with amazement. Never before had they seen such a thing!

After all that work, I returned to my friend's hut for a lunch of hard boiled eggs and "chobal" (sour milk with millet floaties--a constant challenge to my digestive system!). While we dined, I became very grateful for my tent. The hut I was sitting in was seriously infested with mice. They were running around in the straw roof, swinging from the bedposts and scurrying through the cooking pots! I would not have slept well in that hut, with tiny feet running all over me!

I was also glad for the tent because I prefer not to have an audience when I sleep. On another visit to that village, they set up a cot for me under the shade of a mango tree so I could have an afternoon nap. There's something less than restful about trying to nap with a group of children lined up beside you to watch (they don't have much to do for fun in this town!).

I tagged along as my friends continued with their activities of the day. I was reminded that guests are not expected to work when I picked up a heavy wooden pestle to join the women pounding millet for the evening meal. Honestly, I was just as glad to be relieved of that chore, since my hands lack the calluses that my African friends have, and I would develop blisters pretty quickly.

Then I went off to the village well with another woman. It is probably about 200 metres from the edge of the village--not far for a walk, but a long ways to carry a pail of water on your head! As we headed down the path, I put the empty pail on my head. An older woman jumped up and took it away from me, making it very clear I was not to carry water. I assured her I had no intentions of trying--the pail would be half empty by the time I got back to the village if I did!

After a number of hours had gone by, it was time to ask an important question: Where's the outhouse? My hostess got a nervous look and confessed, "We don't have one." That's actually the answer I was expecting. What I really wanted to know was which path to go down where I wouldn't be followed by a small army of children. Sleeping isn't the only thing I prefer to do without an audience!

Hours passed and the busyness of the daily routine gave way to quiet chatter around lazy cooking fires. The evening meal was shared (men and women eating separately) under the splendour of a star-lit sky. At last, conversation dwindled and people wandered off to their huts for the night. I, too, took my leave and snuggled into my mouse-less, mosquito-less "house" where sleep came quickly.

I hope this was the first of many African camping trips to come.

 

June 2006
The Incredible Journey

I am currently home enjoying the Kootenays for a couple months, so I'm not generating more African stories. But I have an old one I've been asked to re-tell a few times since I've been home, and decided to share it with the readers of the Pioneer. The following incredible journey took place about four years ago when I was living in Benin, West Africa.

I left my home early one morning for a town about 375 km away, where I was going to lead a seminar. I started out on the Africa Lines bus that boldly declares in large letters that it is air-conditioned. Lies!!! All was well (though warm) until a couple hours out of the city when the bus broke down. Never fear! Africa Lines travels with a mechanic, tools and some spare parts. After spending half an hour or so snuggled into the engine compartment of the bus, the mechanic had us rolling again. Another hour passed and we pulled over again--dead! Weary passengers tumbled out of the bus and found refuge in the shade of a nearby mango tree to watch the mechanic at work. Ninety minutes later, I tired of the show and flagged down a taxi, leaving my fellow pilgrims in the hands of Africa Lines.

Do not confuse this taxi with its North American counterpart. Bush taxis are the cheapest and least comfortable mode of transportation in Benin. So I was quite surprised to find myself on a reasonably comfortable seat in a five-passenger car with 'only' eight adults in it. Not bad! Taxi #1 took me over half way to my destination, where I waited for about an hour until there were enough people continuing on to satisfy the next driver, and off we went in taxi #2.

This car was something to behold. I have seen junkyard cars in better shape. To help you picture this mechanical wonder, I noted a few of its technical challenges:

- The dashboard was stripped to gaping holes, but still boasted a speedometer and gas gauge, which read 'zero' and 'empty' respectively.

- Underneath the steering wheel was a nasty-looking tangle of bare wires. To start the car, the driver carefully chose which ones to twist together. He then got out and pushed the car, jumped in, let out the clutch, and the jalopy shuddered to a start.

- There was a three-inch hole in the floor by my feet. I was thinking that if it were a little bigger, I could have helped the driver start the car Fred Flinstone style!

- I was beside the only door that actually opened from the inside. Everyone else had to reach around to the outside handle to open their door (I guess I had the privileged spot!).

- Three of the wheels were held in place by only three nuts each.

- The windshield was badly cracked.

- We stopped three times to add water to the radiator.

- The tires were bald (and we had a flat along the way!).

- The car rattled, pinged and jerked along as the driver fought the shimmy of the steering wheel.

I could go on, but you probably get the picture. We were stopped twice by the police because, of course, we did not have the correct papers (there's no way that rattle trap would pass the annual technical inspection 'required' for all vehicles on Benin's roads!). No problem! The driver just paid a bribe of about seventy-five cents and we continued on our way. We picked up and dropped off passengers as we went, so the number varied. But for most of the way, we were eleven adults, three chickens and a pile of baggage inside the seven-passenger car. One man rode on the roof with the rest of the baggage and a goat!

Buzzing along, I was glad for a window seat so I could at least breathe. I hung my arm, shoulder and head out the window and tried not to think of the likelihood of the door flying open. I thought of the Scripture, "Do not put the Lord your God to the test" (Matthew 4:7), and had the distinct feeling that I'd gone too far! I was picturing angels holding the doors shut and keeping the wheels on.

My angelic thoughts were interrupted when a liquid poured off the roof onto my arm, into my hair, down my back, etc. I tried to pull myself back into the car, but there was no escaping the flood. Yep, the goat on the roof was making himself comfortable! My fellow sardines were very apologetic, especially the old man in the back seat who owned the goat. He didn't speak French, but kept motioning for me to forgive him. I assured everyone that I was not angry, and was actually struggling to get my laughter under control. The whole situation was so ridiculous! I was most relieved to unfold myself from that horrendous vehicle after nearly four hours of its torture. I arrived at my destination twelve hours and fifty minutes after leaving my house (it's normally a five- or six-hour drive).

Papa Beria, a joyful, white-haired man with a beautiful smile, attended the seminar that I team taught that week with my colleague Tim. And he also showed us some local hospitality. We went out for lunch one day to a small restaurant that specializes in pounded yam. While we sat at a table under a thatched roof gazebo, he hovered over the cooking fires, making sure our meals were prepared correctly. The yam was accompanied by a tomato and spinach sauce and a piece of goat meat. My piece had quite a large chunk of bone, which I left on the side of my plate. Tim did the same with his somewhat smaller piece. Seeing that we were done eating, Papa Beria wasn't about to let all that flavour go to waste, so he helped himself to our bones and started chewing. In amazement, I watched him crunch the bones, leaving only a small nugget from each piece.

The next day we went back to the same restaurant, once again accompanied by Papa Beria. This time he hand picked the meat for us and proudly presented us with boneless morsels in light of our obvious difficulty eating bones. Tim was honoured with a piece of chewy goat lung. But I was clearly the preferred child, winning the prize of an eight-inch chunk of intestine! It was like gnawing on a garden hose, but I am proud to report that I ate every last gristly mouthful!

It's unlikely, but I would like to think that I ate the intestine of the same goat that was on its way to market a few days earlier on the roof of a taxi.

 

April 2006
A Gift of Light

On the United Nations Human Development Index for 2005 (measuring health, education and wealth), Niger, West Africa was at the bottom of the list of 177 countries (compared to Canada which is at number 5). Surrounded by staggering needs, my team mates and I in Niger want to help. But we want to provide help that truly is helpful, fostering neither laziness nor dependence on Western money.

Meet Mamane, a cattle herder in a small village in southwestern Niger. Mamane is Fulani, a nomadic people who depend on their herds for survival. When sickness hits and animals die, the Fulani suffer. So Mamane and some of his fellow cattlemen took it upon themselves to learn how to better care for their animals. They organised an animal breeding co-operative, called Walde Pottal, which has been operating since 2000. They have sent representatives to conferences where they have learned about feeding and caring for their animals, and have taken steps to improve their herds' overall well-being.

In 2005, Mamane met my colleague Barry, a farm boy from Manitoba who was able to converse with him about cattle breeding and related topics. As their friendship developed, Mamane and other co-op members shared with Barry their plans for improvement and where they needed help. They talked about education being like turning on a light in the darkness, and they wanted to learn new things so that they wouldn't be left behind.

A need high on their list was vaccinations for their animals. Before heading off to the US for a year, Barry recruited the services of a local veterinarian to train Mamane and three other members of Walde Pottal in para-veterinary medicine. The co-op paid for their transportation into the city of Niamey and their food while they were taking their training. We paid for their tuition, some equipment and an initial stock of vaccinations and other medications.

The four men studied diligently then went back to their villages ready to get to work. They have already vaccinated several hundred animals. The idea is that animal owners must pay for the vaccines, enabling the para-vets to replace their stock and keep the ball rolling. So far it seems to be working well.

The para-veterinarians completed their training in March 2006, and I went along with another colleague and the vet to a meeting of the Walde Pottal co-operative to present their certificates. We also presented them with some more equipment to be shared among them. Then a group of us trekked around a village finding cows whose hooves needed trimming so the vet could show his students how to do it and let them practice. They also castrated a young goat under their teacher's supervision.

A week later we were able to give Walde Pottal a young Azawak bull. Bred in Niger for the severe heat of this country, the Azawak breed makes for excellent beef and produces up to five times the volume of milk of many other local breeds. The bull belongs to the co-op, to be shared around the seven member villages with the goal of improving their herds. The co-op will charge a stud fee to pay for the bull's food.

Two members of Walde Pottal came to Niamey for the occasion. We went to the farm just outside the city to pick him up. It was quite the operation getting a 700-pound bull into the back of a Toyota pick-up truck! But we made it safely out to their village, the only casualty being a tail light on the truck.

Villagers excitedly gathered around to welcome the bull to town. The head of the cattlemen told us his heart was very joyful. The chief also thanked us and repeated his appreciation of our involvement in the village.

Mamane gave the bull a name: Leelal, which means "moonlight" in Fulfulde (the language of the Fulani people). The moon doesn't actually have any light of its own; it simply reflects the light of the sun. We are praying that, like the moon, Leelal the bull will be a reflector of light, shining God's love in Fulani villages.

 

February 2006
The Spice of Life

I remember finishing my final exam in Grade 12 English at David Thompson Secondary School. I strode from the classroom and proudly declared, "Yes!! I am finished with English for the rest of my life!"

"That's what you think, Rohrick!" came a voice from behind me.

I turned around and found myself face-to-face with Murray Johnson, my high school English teacher. He had heard my cry of victory and felt the need to correct it.

Mr. Johnson, of course, was right. I went on to study biochemistry at Simon Fraser University and, to my dismay, I had to complete not one, but two courses in English to complete my degree. A few years later, I actually got a job in the editorial department of a publishing house, evaluating and correcting other people's writing (but that's a whole other story). And to top off this tale of irony, I've even written a few books!

Now I find myself in Niger, West Africa, speaking French (which I entirely avoided in high school!), and learning an African language called Fulfulde (pronounced full-full-day). So the bits and pieces of language that I tried to avoid learning have actually become quite important to me (though I still couldn't tell you what the past perfect tense of a verb is!).

I thought of Mr. Johnson a few weeks ago, wishing he could see what I was doing. I spent two and a half weeks as a substitute teacher at Sahel Academy, the local school for missionaries children. And what was I teaching? Grade 7 and 8 English! There I was, with my degree in biochemistry, waxing eloquently about the features of poetry as if I knew what I was talking about! Good thing the real teacher left me with good lesson plans, or I would have been in big trouble.

But that was two weeks ago. Last week I put on a different hat.

I visited one of my Fulani friends, to find out that she had had an accident. I don't really understand how it happened, but as she was getting out of a truck, it started going again before she got out of its way, and it ran over her foot, tearing open the inside of her heel. She went to a clinic where a doctor stitched up her heel and gave her a tetanus shot. But in spite of the stitching, the wound is very ragged and wide. She asked me how she should take care of it.

The challenge is to keep her foot clean to ward off infection. She lives in a grass hut with no water or electricity. The floor of her hut is dirty sand, and the place is swarming with flies.

I sent a quick email to a doctor friend of mine in Canada. On his advice I am now washing the wound with a saline solution, applying antibiotic salve and keeping it covered.

This morning I went to leave my house and my motorbike wouldn't start. It wouldn't even try. I played around with a few connections. Still nothing. So I changed the sparkplug. After its minor surgery, the engine fired first try, and off I went.

Variety, it is said, is the spice of life. Mine is among the spiciest, coated in Tabasco Sauce. Two weeks ago I was a teacher. Last week I became a nurse. This morning I was a mechanic. All the while I'm trying to be a language student, memorizing verbs and forcing out crazy combinations of foreign words in an effort to make myself understood. Any guesses what I might be doing next week?

 

January 2006
Travelling with the Circus

As a beat-up African taxi van bounced its way through the dust, I sat in the front seat holding my shirt over my nose to decrease lung damage, and reviewed the events of the week.

The team of missionaries in Niger, West Africa, of which I am a part, hosted eighteen guests for the week, most of them medical professionals from Alberta and Texas. With four doctors, three dentists, and six nurses, as well as translators, and non-medical people to look after crowd control, meals and other such tasks, we held clinics in five different villages and treated almost 1,000 patients.

Hauling a mobile clinic and supplies for nearly thirty people (who need to eat three times a day!) over dusty African roads to villages without plumbing or electricity was a logistical nightmare. I lost track of how many times our caravan had to stop either to re-tie a shifting load or to get out and push one of the taxi vans we were renting that was once again stuck in the loose sand. One of these vans provided us with extra entertainment when the driver spent a night in jail for not having a license for as many passengers as his van held!

As we rolled into each village, we were warmly welcomed. You'd think the circus had come to town. Come to think of it, we did kinda resemble a circus. After greeting the village chief and elders, we looked at the area we were given in which to work, made a quick plan, and got busy setting up, each one doing his or her part.

Tickets to the circus were available under a large shady tree at the village edge. For a dollar a ticket, villagers became participants in the show.

Ring One featured four doctors and their translators. One day they were set up in a house made of mud bricks, another day in a shelter of millet stalks, and yet another they were simply lined up outside in the shade of a mango tree. So much for patient confidentiality, as people walked through the examining areas. Minor surgery was done with the patient lying on a mat in the sand.

Ring Two featured three dentists and their assistants, pulling teeth under a tree in the centre of the village. A rope boundary was set up to keep people back, but spectators watched and commented on nearly every move. One elderly woman watched with concern as two dentists patiently extracted the roots of a broken tooth from her adult son's mouth. She asked me if he would have any teeth left when they were finished!

Ring Three, under yet another tree across the village, attracted the biggest crowd. It was the pharmacy, stocked with thousands of dollars of donated medicines. Even those who didn't require a prescription were given vitamins and an anti-worm treatment.

We spent three nights camped out under the stars in different villages. When the day's work was done in the clinic, the show carried on for the villagers. They watched with great interest as we set up cots and mosquito nets, unrolled sleeping bags, brushed our teeth and headed off to the well to wash. I went to bed being watched, stuck in ear plugs to dim the chatter, slept soundly and woke up still being watched. I assume the audience actually did wander off to their own huts for the night, but they didn't want to miss the exciting morning routine of breakfast and packing.

My job for the week was translating for the three dentists, as well as some sterilizing of instruments. A couple days were pretty slow in the dentistry department (we wondered if having a table full of forceps and other instruments on display scared off perspective patients?!). That's when I became tour guide, asking the Fulani people to show our guests some of their lives. They happily showed us different grains and how they are stored, and demonstrated how to pound millet with a large mortar and pestle, inviting some of us to give it a try. One woman gave us lessons on cooking corn porridge. Three elderly ladies demonstrated the art of making a "mattress" out of millet stock. Little boys showed off their cars made of sorghum stocks, with rotating wheels cut from dead sandals. We were invited into their homes and welcomed to take pictures.

It was an encouraging week for me language-wise. I felt like I was able to more or less translate everything the dentists needed to say, as well as the general conversation when I was acting as tour guide. I still often stumble and search for words, but it's coming along. I was feeling pretty happy with my progress when, at the end of the week, a Fulani man asked me if I am still studying Fulfulde, since I don't speak it very well yet! Okay, so maybe I'm not doing quite as well as I thought!

Exhausted and filthy, we tumbled out of the vans at the end of the week with a feeling of satisfaction. Unfortunately many people were turned away, but we made a difference for many others, extending their lives and alleviating their pain. I believe it was a life-changing experience for our North American guests, opening their eyes to part of the world so different from their own. I, too, thoroughly enjoyed our days together, but one week of travelling with the circus was enough for this year!

 

December 2005
Christmas in Africa

This year I will be spending my sixth Christmas in Africa. Sure, I miss being home for Christmas, but I am learning to appreciate the season here. It's hot and it's dusty, and very few of the traditional reminders of Christmas are here. My little tree looks out of place. But I'm celebrating anyway!

Last year I was rather slow getting into the Christmas spirit until a few days before Christmas. I was driving along, not paying much attention to the cassette that was playing, when a song barged its way into my thoughts. It was not a Christmas song, but it became one in my thinking. "Love found a way," sang the artist, referring to the love of God finding a way to redeem humankind. And it dawned on me that the "way" is Jesus. He came to earth. His name is Emmanuel, God with us--and that deserves a celebration, whatever the weather!

The highlight of the season last year was Christmas Eve. I went with about fifteen other Westerners to a place called "the plateau," a rock outcropping overlooking the Niger River about ten kilometres out of the city of Niamey. We watched a spectacular sunset over the river, lit a bonfire, roasted wieners (not quite a traditional Christmas Eve meal!), and wrote a new song: "Hotdogs roasting on an open fire, ashes zipping up your nose . . . ." (Who needs Jack Frost?)

When we finished eating, we pulled out song sheets and sang Christmas carols. A handful of children from a nearby village came to listen to our "choir." There was a full moon, and it was bright enough to read without flashlights. One of the guys read the Christmas story from the Book of Luke, interspersed with carols. It was easy to imagine a similar scene with a group of shepherds gathered around a fire when an angel interrupted their peace and quiet with an amazing announcement. "Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Saviour has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord" (Luke 2:10-11).

When we'd sung every carol on our song sheets, there was one final activity to end off the evening: fireworks! One of the guys had visited the local market and picked up quite an assortment of inexpensive fireworks of questionable quality, which he proceeded to send off. Remember that little crowd of children that had gathered for the concert? Well, they fled in screaming terror at the first "pop" and shower of light. They huddled under a tree, watching the rest of the show from a distance, probably wondering about these crazy white people!

As midnight approached, we headed back to the city. Driving along a sandy road under the full moon, it wasn't hard to pretend that the fields we were passing were covered in snow (they were quite bright in the moonlight). Then someone said, "And if we look really closely, we just might see a sleigh and eight tiny reindeer." At that moment, two fat donkeys ran onto the road, and lumbered along in front of us. Rather clumsy looking reindeer, but good for a laugh.

Later, as I reflected on the evening, and the comparison of my Christmas Eve with that of the shepherds so long ago, I considered what it was that made it special for them. That night wasn't special because of the heavenly music, the angels, the manger or the star pinpointing its location (though any of those experiences would no doubt stand out as memorable). That first Christmas for them was special because they had an encounter with the living God. His name is Jesus. And that is also what made last Christmas special for me.

May this year be a special Christmas for you for the same reason!

 

December 2005
An African Snowman

I recently had another one of those memorable experiences. I went to the town of Tera to visit a team working with Samaritan's Purse, with whom we are partnering here in Niger, West Africa. (They are the people who do the "Operation Christmas Child" program, sending shoeboxes of gifts to needy children around the world.) This team is working out of Tera in several surrounding villages, where they distribute food to malnourished children.

One of their distribution centres is in a Fulani village, twelve torturous kilometres from Tera along a rutted dirt road. I wanted to join them for a day there, since the Fulani are the people with whom I am working and whose language (Fulfulde) I am studying.

I spent the morning weighing and measuring babies. Happily many of them are gaining weight thanks to the food they've been receiving. Some have "graduated" from the program, having reached normal weight for their age and height. Unfortunately, a few are not doing so well. Part of the problem is that the families don't understand that all of the food they receive is for the children. In their culture, it doesn't make sense to feed a child well if the father's hunger hasn't been satisfied.

Between weighing and measuring children, I had lots of time to chat with their mothers. It was a good day for Fulfulde practice.

While we were there, working in the yard of the village health centre (don't read too much into that phrase--it's just a room with a bed and some very rudimentary medical supplies), a young woman gave birth to a premature little guy. He weighed in at 650 grams (about a pound and a half). Right from the start, it was questionable if he was going to live more than a few minutes. But the midwife massaged his tiny chest and his heart started beating. And then he started to breath. And he kept at it!

When we left the village that afternoon, we took the mother and baby with us to the hospital in Tera. The midwife there said his only chance of survival was to get to the hospital in Niamey (the capital city) immediately. That's when I decided to cut my trip short, transform my car into an ambulance, and return to Niamey a day before planned.

The midwife bundled up the baby in cotton batting to keep him warm for the trip, earning him his nickname "Snowman." (He didn't have a real name--babies aren't named here until their eighth day.)

The trip from Tera to Niamey is about two and a half hours on a very good road, including a short ferry crossing on the Niger River. We pulled up to the ferry about fifteen minutes before departure time. My heart sank when I saw the line-up--there was no way we were going to get on that little boat, and would have to wait another hour for the next sailing. I told my story to the ticket man in the ferry office, who sent me to the police who look after the ferry. An officer took one look at Snowman and sent me to the front of the line--we were the first ones on!

As we continued our journey, Snowman made a weak effort at crying. His great grandmother, on whose lap he was lying, said, "He's saying that the white lady is his friend." I liked that comment, and was glad that they saw it that way.

We went straight to the National Hospital. The doctors weren't very hopeful. They referred us to the Maternity Hospital. When I left there that night, Snowman was in an incubator on IV, and the gynecologist said he might make it.

I went back the next morning to find out that Snowman did not survive the night. I felt so sad, especially for Nafissa, his mother. She is young, her husband died four months ago, and she'd never been to the city before--I could only imagine her bewilderment and grief. Thankfully her mother, grandmother and uncle came with us, so she was not here alone.

I know he is safely with his Creator, and yet I cried for Snowman. I'm sure there weren't many of us who did, considering what an "insignificant little sparrow" he was. Yet God saw this little sparrow fall, and caught him in His loving hands.

 

November 2005
Sharing Laughter and Tears

The first week of November was a memorable one for me. My Fulani friends here in Niger, West Africa looked forward to it with great anticipation, since November 2 was a day of celebration to mark the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

During Ramadan, Muslims worldwide fast from sunrise to sunset for thirty days. Morning prayer calls echoing throughout the city (at 4:30 a.m.) told people it was time to shake themselves from sleep in order to have breakfast before sunrise. I too was wakened, but rolled over for a couple more hours of rest. Not so my Fulani friends who were up and at it to start their day.

All month, they did not eat or drink anything all day until the evening call to prayer announced supper time. Strict Muslims spit every few minutes, since swallowing saliva would be considered drinking. I was with my friends a few times for the breaking of their fast. They had a drink and a quick snack at the first crackle of sound from the loudspeakers at the mosque, then said their prayers and ate a big supper, followed by a trip to the mosque for evening prayers.

Is it any wonder the end of the month is cause for celebration? Everyone gets new clothes for the occasion, houses are cleaned and feasts are prepared. I visited my friends down the street the day before the holiday and they were cleaning everything in sight. They emptied out the grass huts in which they live, washed everything, hung decorative cloth on the walls, and spread clean sand on the floor.

The day of the holiday I showed up at 10 a.m. as I had been instructed, wearing my new clothes. The meal was ready, all spread out on a mat under the shade of a mango tree. There were at least four different dishes--couscous, rice, noodles, and millet paste, each with a different sauce. Chickens and goats had been slaughtered and we ate the biggest meal I'd had in weeks. According to Fulani custom, men and women eat separately. Eight of us women sat on the mat and passed around bowls of food, eating with our hands. The atmosphere that morning was joyful. It reminded me somewhat of Christmas Day in Canada (if I used my imagination!).

We sat around and talked until early afternoon, when I was sent home to change into the family "uniform." A few months ago, about twenty women of the extended family got new clothes, all made of the same fabric. As an honourary Fulani, I was included in the "uniform" selection. Five of us, dressed alike, spent the afternoon touring around the city visiting other members of the family--one's mother, another's sister, another's cousin. And at each stop we ate again! It was truly a celebration.

The next day I expected to see "Bob," who works in my yard one day a week. But his neighbour came instead, and told me that Bob wouldn't be coming since his wife had died the day of the holiday. I couldn't believe it! They'd only been married about a year, and his wife was eight months pregnant. Everything seemed to be going fine with her pregnancy.

I went out to Bob's home village to greet him and offer my condolences to the family. Though only a few miles out of the city, the village feels like it's at the end of the world. The "road" is really a wide river bed, with about an inch of water flowing through it. Thankfully a few Fulani people came with me to show me the way. We followed the river a kilometre or so, and then parked in the shade of a tree (still in the river bed), and continued on foot along a path climbing up a hill of sand and meandering through a field to a gathering of straw huts.

Greetings were exchanged in low voices. I was led into a hut where several women were gathered, one of them a young woman with tears streaming down her face. (Fulani people do not readily show their emotions, so this was an unusual sight.) Bob's mother and grandmother were both there, and they offered me a bowl of sour milk (I drank only enough to be polite!). Bob came in a few minutes later and greeted me. Pain and sadness filled his eyes. He has no assurance of life with God after death; he has no hope of ever seeing his wife again, or their unborn child. His pain cut my heart.

In one twenty-four hour period, I had the joy of sharing laughter and celebration with one group of friends, and the privilege of sharing tears of grief with another. Our cultures are miles apart in many ways. I am thankful for the opportunity to cross the bridge that spans the gulf between these vastly different ways of life, sharing the common human experiences of laughter and tears.

 

August 2005
A Sack of Riches

Yesterday I spent the day out in a remote village with my Fulani friends. The occasion was a family work bee, along the lines of the old "barn raising" parties. Only this time the task was to weed the millet fields. There were over thirty men there, and they spent the day working under the hot sun, weeding between rows of millet with their hoe-like tools.

I spent the day with the women, whose job was to feed the work crew. Not only was I given my usual task of peeling the garlic for the sauce, but they also trusted me with mixing a big bowl of chobal. Chobal is a dietary staple of the Fulani people here in Niger, West Africa. Its a combination of pounded, uncooked millet and sour milk. As the grainy mixture was oozing between my fingers, I was having a mental conversation with my breakfast, urging it to stay where I had put it!

When a dozen bowls of chobal were ready, we delivered them to the men in the field for their lunch break. Yes, I was included in that too. One of the women lifted a heavy bowl onto my head, instructed me not to spill it (!), and I joined the line-up of the delivery brigade. I went along pretty slowly, but happily delivered my cargo without incident.

As we returned to the grass hut that was our headquarters for the day, walking through fields of 12-foot millet plants, I was thinking that this does not look like a country where there is a famine. But then we did a detour past the family granary, which is where last year's millet is stored. It's empty! They told me it's never been empty before. And there's still another month or more before this year's crop will be harvested.

As we walked, I was also thinking about my summer holiday, which I spent in England. One thing I thoroughly enjoyed was eating multi-grain bread and a large variety of fresh vegetables and seasonal fruits that we can't get in Niger. And while I was there, feasting on broccoli and peaches, Niger's famine was the lead story in the news for several evenings.

My last day in England I walked along the Thames River through a wealthy village, passing mansions surrounded by meticulous grounds, with an abundance of restaurants and well-stocked supermarkets down the road. Two weeks later, I trekked through a "tunnel" of towering millet plants, past grass huts in the middle of hand-weeded fields with an empty granary down the path. What a contrast! And here I sit somewhere in the middle, trying to figure out how God wants me to use my money.

A question I am often asked when I'm at home is, "What's the hardest thing for you about living in Africa?" This is it. I live in tension, going back and forth between being poor in a rich world and being rich in a poor world. In reality, I am not poor at all, but Revenue Canada says that I am, and they kindly send me GST rebate cheques to prove it.

Move me across the Atlantic Ocean to Niger, which is classed by the United Nations as the second poorest country in the world, and I become filthy rich!

One day last week I was grocery shopping and I decided to buy a 50-kg sack of rice for my friends. These are the same people I went to the village with. The women of the extended family take turns cooking and share all their meals. I stopped by their collection of huts on my way home to take them the rice. All the women were there, sitting on mats outside their huts, braiding each other's hair. The rice was still in the car and I hadn't said anything about it when they told me they'd met some white people who are giving away food, but (if I understood correctly) my people didn't qualify because their children aren't sick. So that's when I told them to come over to the car, where I gave them the rice. They literally jumped up and down and cheered, hugging me and jumping on my back. They were all over me for the next ten minutes. Never before have I seen such a display of gratitude for a gift I've given--all that for a boring bag of rice. Seeing their empty granary a few days later helped explain their excitement.

There is definitely a food crisis in Niger. It is isolated, and many people have enough to eat. But there are villages in which the children are starving. The organization I work with (The Christian and Missionary Alliance) is partnering with Samaritan's Purse, who are here to do a six-month feeding program in needy villages. Things are just getting started, but I'll likely write more about it as we get going.

 

July 2005
An African Wedding

Last week I went to an African wedding with a twist. The twist was that the couple getting married aren't African. The party was for my Canadian colleague Barry and his American bride Terry, who will be married in Georgia in August. Barry has been working with the Fulani people here in Niger, West Africa, and his Fulani friends wanted to put on a traditional wedding for him.

Sunday afternoon five of us Westerners pulled up to the settlement of Fulani huts where the party was to be held. We were greeted with great enthusiasm by a crowd of people, led by Barry's friend Abdoulaye, our host for the afternoon. He directed Terry and the women off to one grass hut, and the men went to another.

Out came the traditional Fulani wedding blanket in the women's hut. It is made from strips of woven cloth sewn loosely together. Each six-inch strip alternates between squares of black and white design and splashes of vivid orange, green and blue stripes. The overall effect is very striking.

The women wrapped Terry mummy-like into the wedding blanket so that she was entirely concealed, with only one eye peeking out. She was then escorted through a cheering crowd to Abdoulaye's hut about thirty feet away. Hand-woven mats lined the walls and floor, and gifts hung in calabash bowls from the roof of the otherwise empty hut. Terry was settled into a spot on the floor to await her groom.

A few minutes later the cheering began again--our cue that the men were on their way. Barry was escorted by Abdoulaye and another friend, the three of them under another wedding blanket. They looked like a hybrid between a dragon at a Chinese New Year celebration, and a crazy animal costume at a masquerade party! The six-legged "creature" circled the hut three times before coming in and sitting down.

The next event was the verification of the bride's identity. Barry was asked to pull back the wedding blanket to confirm that the concealed woman was in fact his bride. What he didn't know was that Terry had been coached by the women not to let him succeed until he'd tried at least three times. So there he was tugging gently at the blanket over her face, while she held it tightly closed. He later admitted that he was beginning to wonder if it really was Terry under all that fabric, and how he was going to respond if he uncovered another woman!

Abdoulaye was wearing several pieces of hand-made beaded Fulani jewelry, which he then proceeded to remove and give away. A multi-coloured headband for Barry, matching necklaces for Barry and Terry, bracelets for her, and things for each of the rest of us Westerners as well. I guess we were the honourary wedding party!

He then presented them with the rest of their gifts--all hand-made traditional Fulani items. Painted calabash bowls, a ladle made from a gourd, woven bowl covers (to keep the flies out of the food), and a symbolic suitcase--a round basket with a lid, woven from straw and about big enough for a pair of shoes!

During all this time, there was a mob of children crowding the four-foot door of the hut. Another of Barry's friends took on the job of village policeman, standing in the doorway with a stick and literally smacking the children away! Finally the youngsters were allowed in, two at a time, for a three-second glimpse of the bride and groom.

Then came the wedding banquet, featuring the staple food of Fulani life: millet. The first course was millet paste (about the texture of dry porridge), with okra sauce. This is quite good, something I am often served in Fulani homes. Everyone sits around the serving bowl and digs in. Usually we eat with our hands, but for this occasion there were hand-carved wooden spoons, shaped like the soup spoons in a Chinese restaurant, but with longer handles, each one with a different design.

The next course was bita, a thick millet drink. Think of it as a warm millet milkshake without the milk. This we drank from a common ladle that was passed around the circle from person to person.

The third course was chobal. A ubiquitous dish in Fulani homes, this grainy drink is a constant challenge to my life here. Uncooked millet is pounded in a large mortar and pestle and a bit of water is added to form it into a ball. The ball is then placed into a bowl of sour milk into which it is stirred. "Yuck!" is my kindest commentary!

Dessert, on the other hand, was a pleasant surprise. It was millet couscous, mixed with fresh milk, sugar and a hint of mint. That's the way to eat millet!

This was a neat opportunity for us to witness the "inside story" of a traditional Fulani wedding. There were a few modifications, not the least of which was that the bride and groom got back into the truck afterwards and went home with their friends. At a "real" wedding, they would have stayed alone in the hut after the departure of their guests.

It was a fun afternoon with lots of laughter--an experience that Barry and Terry will no doubt treasure.

 

June 2005
Golfing Beside the Sahara

Not long ago I received the April 1 edition of The Upper Columbia Pioneer and read that golf season was underway in the Windermere Valley. I am not a serious golfer, but I do enjoy the game and usually manage a round or two when I'm at home. I didn't want to miss out on all the fun this season, so recruited a couple Canadian friends to join me at the Rio Bravo Golf Club, the one and only golf course in the whole country of Niger, West Africa.

I lack the words to adequately describe this astounding course on the edge of the Sahara Desert, but I shall put forth my best effort. Let me start by saying that I don't believe there is one blade of grass on the entire course! It's on a large piece of land known as the plateau, consisting of flat-topped rocky bluffs overlooking the Niger River. The course ranges from sand, to fine gravel, to wind-swept, cement-like rock.

I'm getting ahead of myself here. We were somewhat distressed to see that the green fees were around $25 for nine holes, which was more than we were willing to pay. How much would eighteen holes cost us? Also around $25. When we turned around to leave, the green fees started dropping rapidly, and we settled on about $15, which included club rental. That's more like it! (How dare they call them "green" fees anyway, when there is no green to be seen in miles?)

Now to choose our clubs. They had about five beat-up, incomplete sets to choose from. My colleague Nathaniel shoots left-handed. All they had to offer him was a left-handed driver and putter, and several right-handed irons. That called for a re-negotiation of the green fees down to about $12.50 each.

Equipped with clubs and accompanied by our mandatory caddies (and a few other bored golf course employees, since we were their only customers of the day), we headed out to the first tee box. The tee boxes are rubber mats, about four feet square, on which the caddy places a round "tee" for the ball to rest. They only had one tee, which the three of us shared the entire way around the course.

On the terrain described above, how does one distinguish between the fairways and the rough? Very simply. Rows of green painted rocks line the fairways. If your ball lands outside the rocks, you're in the rough. If it lands between the rows of rocks, you're on the fairway. The course also has "water traps." Entirely devoid of water, these traps are indicated by painted yellow rocks.

Not only do the caddies carry the clubs for the golfers, but they also carry an invaluable piece of equipment for this course--one square foot of green astro turf. If you land in the rough, its seriously rough. But if you land on the fairway, your caddy lays down his piece of astro turf and carefully sets your ball in place.

And then there are the greens! "Blacks" or "dark grays" would be more accurate. They are crafted from a mixture of sand and used engine oil. I was surprised that their "feel" quite closely resembles that of real greens. Oh yes, in our entourage we also had a mandatory green sweeper. On about the third hole he started playing with us, but as we approached the greens he ran on ahead, carefully swept the remains of the latest sand storm from around the hole, and planted his club in the hole to serve as the flag.

Something my colleague Nathaniel and I have in common is that we have both golfed Fairmont's Mountainside course. As we walked down one of Rio Bravo's dusty fairways under the heat of the African sun, we couldn't help but compare the two courses. I'll let you guess which one came out ahead! We also compared some of the real estate around the courses. Some of the most beautiful homes in the Kootenays lie on the perimeters of our golf courses. In contrast, the Rio Bravo is dotted with a handful of straw huts and mud houses.

My set of clubs was lacking a driver, but I somehow smacked some decent drives with the 3 wood. At least I didn't have to hit my second shots with the wrong hand like Nathaniel did! A couple of my drives started out not too badly, but bounced off huge rocks on the fairway and went in crazy directions! I'm not going to tell you my score, but I will say that I did manage to par one hole, and got a couple bogies. And I dont believe I have ever laughed so hard in a round of golf.

At the end of it all, we paid the fee we had agreed upon. Then my caddy tried to tell me that I owed more--for the rental of the astro turf! I told him that since it was the only thing on the course that was green, it should be included in the green fees. He reluctantly agreed!

Are you bored with the predictability of your graphite clubs and the neatly manicured fairways and greens of the courses of the Columbia Valley? Or perhaps the beauty of the mountains and trees around you distracts you from your game? If that's the case, let me suggest a golf get-away to the Rio Bravo of Niger!

 

April 2005
African Wisdom

This week in language study I had a fun homework assignment. My instructor gave me a few Fulani proverbs (in the Fulfulde language), and my homework was to find out what they mean.

So off I went to visit the ladies down the street. They don't speak French (Niger's official language), so that left us with Fulfulde as our only common language. And mine is very limited, so they had their work cut out for them to make me understand these bits of African wisdom. They really got into it, going on a great length. I missed large amounts of what they said, but got the gist of several proverbs.

Allow me to share with you some of my newfound wisdom.

He whose mother falls in a well doesn't see the price of a rope. There is no one more important to a Fulani than his mother. If something happens to her, he will help her at any cost. The proverb means that if something is very important to you, you won't be concerned about the cost to get it.

He who hasn't crossed the river doesn't laugh at the one who drowns. This one is pretty clear, isn't it? Don't mock someone for failing at something you haven't even tried to do.

The foot doesn't go where the heart doesn't want to. This proverb reminds us that we must take responsibility for our actions. It doesn't work to admit to having done something, while claiming that we didn't want to do it.

He who doesn't have money doesn't "eat" the market. "Eating the market" is the expression for going shopping. And if you don't have money, you don't go shopping. (Credit cards don't work here--I haven't used mine since arriving in Niger!) In other words, if you can't afford something, you do without it. Pardon me for stepping on toes, but I think there are an awful lot of Canadians who have never heard this bit of wisdom!

The owner of a mouth doesn't get lost. In other words, don't be so proud. If you need help, ask for it! When there are others around who can help you, you have no excuse to be lost (or in whatever trouble you've got yourself into). You've got a mouth; use it!

Gossip is urine on cement. A lovely image, isn't it? Let's face it, if you pee on cement, you'll get wet! And gossip is like that--it comes back to us. This is just a much more fun way of saying, "What goes around, comes around."

All who follow a sorcerer will eat fresh meat. Sorcerers in West Africa are greatly feared, since it is believed that they are able to eat the souls (and bodies) of people. The proverb means that we become like the people we spend time with. If you follow a sorcerer, you too will eat what they eat. My friends gave several examples of this proverb. If you have good friends, you will do good things. If you befriend a thief, you will become a thief. "And," one of them declared with a grin as she slapped my knee, "If you have Fulani friends, you will become Fulani!" I've got a long way to go before that happens. She has no idea of the huge cultural gap that separates us!

To run and to scratch your rear end don't go together. Another fun image! The proverb means that you need to prioritize your tasks because you can't do them all at once. You can't go to the market while you're cooking supper (crock pots don't count--these people don't have electricity, and they cook over a fire!). You can't get water from the well while you're pounding corn. One thing at a time. This reminds me of my favourite proverb from Benin, where I worked for four years before relocating to Niger. It says, You don't put two fingers in one nostril.

One foot can't be on two paths. Or, you can't follow two masters at the same time. Interestingly, Jesus said this same thing. "No servant can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money" (Luke 16:13).

That brings me to the end of my collection of proverbs. Back I go to the more mundane work of memorizing verbs.

 

March 2005
The Naming of a Child

I continue to plug along at language study, and my Fulfulde is slowly improving. (That's the language of the Fulani people of Niger, West Africa.) On top of my lessons and time spent memorizing vocabulary and grammar rules, I spend a lot of time hanging out with the ladies down the street.

Spending time with the gals also enables me to learn Fulani culture. My friends (three of whom are co-wives who take turns cooking for their husband!) invite me to join them in whatever they're doing. I've pounded corn with a king-size mortar and pestle; helped them dig sand with which to put new "flooring" in their huts (no washing and waxing for them!); had the soles of my feet dyed with henna; stirred a giant stew with a spoon the size of a snow shovel; and even had lessons on how to carry a baby on my back. And, of course, I'm learning the words for each activity as I go.

Today I went to a baby naming ceremony. We set out at 7 a.m. and went to a small village on the Niger River about 30 minutes from the city of Niamey.

We were among the first people to arrive, so we had front-row seats, lined up on a straw mat on the sand floor of the new mother's hut (she sat on the bed). While we awaited the ceremony, the guest of honour, an eight-day-old boy, was passed around for all to see.

An elderly woman came in with a basin of water, washed the baby's head and then set to work shaving him with a bare razor blade. It gave me the shivers to watch, as I tried not to think of what could happen if she slipped.

By this time, the hut was full of women, and many more were sitting on mats in the sand of the courtyard outside. A crowd of men gathered out on the narrow street. While the town "stylist" carefully removed the baby's hair, the ceremony took place. It consisted of the imam (Muslim leader), standing in the circle of men and saying some blessings on the baby. He didn't even see the child. The entire thing lasted less than five minutes.

After the ceremony, at about 10 a.m., we went to another hut where we were served "brunch." Eight of us women sat on the floor around a big bowl of food and all dug in with our hands (right hand only!). It was corn couscous, mixed with cooked cabbage, peanut butter, hot peppers and raw onions. It actually tastes quite a bit better than it sounds!

Then my friends and I headed down to the river. They proceeded to strip down to their underwear (or less) and do the laundry they had brought with them, beating it on a large, smooth stone at the water's edge (the original Maytag, and the instigator of the lonely repairman commercials--this thing never breaks down!). After hanging their laundry on a nearby fence to dry, they all went back into the river for a bath. I sat on the edge, enjoying a cool breeze off the water ("cool" being a relative term--the air temperature was already about 40 C, and the refreshing breeze was probably "only" 35 C!!).

They were surprised that I wasn't anxious to join them in their bath, and reached the conclusion that I was afraid of the water. I didn't bother trying to explain that I swim at least 5 km each week (a habit leftover from my days working at Fairmont pool), and I could easily cross the river and back. What I was afraid of, however, was the crowd of onlookers that would gather if that much white skin were to be exposed! I had no desire to be parading around in my underwear, giving the village children a story to tell for weeks to come!

Our "beach party" was followed by an afternoon nap on straw mats under the shade of a huge mango tree. And then it was time for lunch (I never did figure out who supplied it). This was rice and goat meat in some kind of tomato sauce--very good. Once again we gathered around the huge bowl and ate with our hands, with much talking and laughter going on.

At 4 p.m., we went back to the new mother's hut to say good-bye, then packed up and came home. And, after all that, I never did find out what the baby's name is!

 

January 2005
Tooth Extraction African Style

I spent six days last week travelling to various Fulani villages in southwest Niger with a visiting medical team, most of them from Texas, accompanied by two Canadian doctors.

My official title for the week was "Assistant to the Dental Assistant," which came with a rather broad job description. I sterilized the instruments between patients, shone a flashlight in mouths, held heads steady while the dentist yanked their teeth, swished flies out of patients' mouths, and did very basic translation in my broken Fulfulde ("Open your mouth," "Where does it hurt?" "Spit," "Close your mouth," etc.).

One day the assistant was sick, so I got a "promotion." I learned the names of many dental instruments as I handed them to the dentist. I mopped blood from the holes left in people's mouths (don't worry, I was wearing gloves!), and snipped the tails from sutures. And I saw enough rotten teeth to renew my commitment to regular brushing and flossing!

Each day we set up our clinic in a village school. One day that meant a very basic structure of sticks with a low thatch roof. I frequently hit my head on the roof, causing dust and twigs to fall into my sterilization bins! That was the same day that a scorpion scampered through the clinic, which someone neatly pegged with a stone. Then while we were working, a small lizard dropped out of the roof onto the dental assistant's head. She jumped, and the poor patient's head she was holding went with her (good thing the dentist wasn't giving a shot at the time, or the poor guy may have had a frozen nose!). The lizard jumped onto the table, ran across a tray of instruments and out a hole in the wall. The dentist just laughed, declared that the people have had worse germs in their mouths, and went back to work!

In villages without electricity and modern forms of entertainment, a travelling medical team is a big attraction. Four pick-up trucks carrying over twenty people (most of them white) and piled high with supplies and medicines is not an everyday sight. You'd think the circus had come to town! The doors and windows of school buildings filled with living curtains of tight black curls as children and adults vied for spots from which to watch doctors examine patients, a dentist pull teeth, and volunteers dispense medications.

The Texan dentist began compiling a list of new experiences. It included such things as a fly landing on the tooth he was trying to extract; women in the dental chair breastfeeding diaperless babies while having teeth extracted (I won't elaborate on the consequences of those bottoms being diaperless, but you can imagine what that may have entailed); and seeing teeth so severely abscessed that the patients had oozing sores on the outside of their cheeks.

Late one afternoon we began work on the last patient of the day, only to find out she needed to have five teeth extracted. The first three went quickly, though the light was fading and the batteries on the dentist's headlamp died. I held a flashlight in each hand, trying to keep the patient's mouth lit well enough for the dentist to see what he was doing. By the time the fourth tooth was out, and he was digging for the roots of the fifth, the flashlights were no longer able to do the job. That's when we decided to move the whole operation outside where the last rays of sun were still lighting the schoolyard. But their efforts were insufficient. So we sat the lady on a camping chair in front of a pick-up truck, in the path of the headlight beam, and recruited a volunteer to keep the gathering crowd from blocking the light. Between that and the flashlights, the dentist was able to fish out the offending roots, suture the gums and send the woman happily on her way.

One day we had fewer patients than usual so I was able to take more time with each one. I gave them brushing lessons, using "Cat in the Hat" toothbrushes and "Bob the Builder" toothpaste we had been given for distribution (I didnt bother explaining to the village elders that these were intended for children!). Their gums bled as they brushed, having never before met a toothbrush.

By the end of the week, hundreds of people had received treatment at our medical and dental clinics. Sadly, many were also turned away. There is so much that we couldn't do, but we were able to make a difference for some. And that makes it worthwhile.

And thank you, Mom, for making me brush my teeth!

 

December 2004
Joy to the World

In a few weeks I will be celebrating my fifth Christmas in Africa. Sometimes its hard to be away from home for the holidays, but I hope I won't soon forget what I learned a few years ago.

It was Christmas Day. More correctly, it was very early in the morning of December 26. My second Christmas in Africa was by then only a memory. I sat in my living room with all the lights out, except those of my little Christmas tree making a bold attempt at flickering Christmas cheer into my lonely heart.

I was lost in thought, recalling past Christmases in the snow of the Windermere Valley. Days spent skiing, coming home to Mom's homemade bread, shortbread cookies and a cup of hot chocolate. Afternoons skating on the frozen lake. Or making a snowman, complete with a carrot nose--just like Frosty himself. Or taking long walks through the woods, pausing to flop in a mound of snow, changing it into a snow angel under my thick winter jacket. Or cutting down our Christmas tree in the forest outside our door. Or visiting with friends over cups of hot apple cider in front of a crackling fire. Or participating in the Christmas Eve service at Panorama Resort.

My mind continued to leap from memory to memory as I let the tears fall. Singing carols around the Christmas tree. Playing games well past my bedtime. Building a jigsaw puzzle.

Christmas that year had none of those things for me. I sat gazing at my tree wearing shorts and a t-shirt, sitting in front of a fan. At home I had the same habit, spending a few moments alone at the end of Christmas Day. But there it was in front of the fire, dressed in fuzzy slippers, flannel pajamas and a fleece housecoat. Somehow Christmas in the summer just doesn't seem right.

My parents had called that morning to wish me Merry Christmas. I could hear Mom's voice crack as we said good-bye. An e-mail from my brother told of my then two-year-old nephew looking at my picture and asking, "Auntie Lisa will be here next time?"

Normally I'm a pretty cheerful person, an optimist who sees the bright side of things. But that night, I simply couldn't pretend that everything was okay. I knew it probably would be in the morning, but then, it wasn't.

I turned on my CD player, and enjoyed the soothing sounds of favourite Christmas melodies. One of them interrupted my reverie, as the words pounded their way into my heart: "Joy to the world, the Lord is come."

I suddenly felt convicted.

The song does not say, "Joy to the world, there's a Christmas party every night this week."

It does not say, "Joy to the world, the turkey is in the oven and the freezer is full of cookies."

It does not say, "Joy to the world, the gifts are under the tree."

It does not say, "Joy to the world, there's lots of snow on the ski hill."

It doesn't even say, "Joy to the world, the family is home."

No, it says, "Joy to the world, the Lord is come."

It's not that the traditions of Christmas in and of themselves are wrong, but nor can they be the source of my joy. My focus that day was wrong. It had been on me, and on all the traditions that I was missing.

The angel said to a group of shepherds that first Christmas night, "I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all people. Today in the town of David a Saviour has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord" (Luke 2:10-11).

That's the reason we celebrate. The Lord is come. That little baby, who grew into a man, became my Saviour. It's not about pretty wrapping paper and delicious meals. It's about the greatest gift ever given, who wasn't wrapped very nicely that first Christmas night--swaddling clothes with no ribbons or bows.

Jesus came for all people, including those of Niger, West Africa. And that is why I'm here. Yes, it still hurts to spend Christmas so far away from the people I love most dearly. But the "good news of great joy" brought joy to my hurting heart. The Prince of peace dried my tears. That night I turned out the Christmas lights for another year. And I slept soundly. I was okay again.

This Christmas, don't settle for good meals and fancy presents. Seek real joy! The Lord is come!

 

November 2004
Counting Cows in Africa

Remember those captivating storybooks that followed the lives of the fictitious Dick and Jane, and their dog Spot?

"See Dick. See Dick run. Dick and Jane are running. Spot is chasing Dick and Jane." The plot was riveting!

I feel like I'm back in elementary school, only this time it's a living Dick and Jane book. And I'm the author!

I've now been back in Africa for three months, am more or less settled into my house, and am officially into language learning. I am studying Fulfulde (pronounced "full-full-day"), the language of the Western Fulani people of Niger, West Africa. When I'm not memorizing grammar rules and vocabulary, I'm seeking out victims on whom I can practice my new words.

I just came inside after a deep and intellectual discussion with a man who was fixing his bicycle in front of my house.

I started with the greetings, at which I'm getting quite comfortable. "Good afternoon. How is your household? And the children? And the cows? And your health? And your work? And your tiredness? And the heat?" The answer to each question is, "There are no problems," whether there are problems or not. It's not unlike our, "How are you?" "Fine, thank you," even when things are far from fine!

The greetings behind us, we were free to start into a real conversation.

"You are working," I observed.

The man responded with a chuckle, "Yes, I am working." He continued to explain, likely telling me what he was doing, but I didn't understand a word. I just nodded and repeated, "You are working."

Gaining confidence, I branched into more complicated sentences. "I am also working. My job now is studying Fulfulde." I had his attention! Chances are he's never seen a white person trying to speak his language before. For the next hour he forgot about his bicycle and became my private tutor.

Here's where Dick and Jane entered the picture. Only their names have been changed. They are now "Boubacar and Fati" (very common Fulani names). And Spot has been replaced by the family cow.

"Fati is also working," I offered. "She is working inside. She is dusting. Boubacar is also working. He is working outside. He is milking the cow."

I had introduced an important topic. Cattle are central to Fulani culture. Traditionally the Fulani are nomadic cattle herders. Many have settled in cities and have learned other trades, but nearly every family still has at least one cow. And so, because cattle are important to the Fulani, I am learning cattle vocabulary.

My informal language lesson continued and I learned the numbers from one to twenty. And what did I practice counting? Cows, of course! They were walking down the road, and since they were in my "classroom," they became part of the lesson!

I live in the city of Niamey. It's the capital of Niger, but in no way resembles Ottawa! The other day when I opened my gate, I was met by a camel enjoying his breakfast of weeds. Next to the taxis, the vehicles I see most often on my street are wooden carts pulled by donkeys, often loaded to the sky with hay. Last night on the way to a friend's house, I had to stop and wait for a large herd of cattle to cross the road.

While I was counting cows, my language informant finished the repair job on his bicycle and it was time to move on. I thanked him for his help. I didn't understand his answer, but I got the impression he was happy to help me "hear" his language. Another person I had thanked for giving me some words gave me his response in French (Niger's official language). "Thank you for walking the Fulani road."

That about sums up my life these days--"walking the Fulani road" with Boubacar, Fati and the family cow!

 

September 2004
Meeting the Fulani

I carefully followed my friend along the wet path, planting my feet between mud puddles and cow droppings. I was on my way to visit a Fulani settlement.

The Fulani are a proud people scattered across West Africa. Because many of them are nomadic, moving with their cattle herds, their population cant be determined with precision. But it is estimated that they may number in the range of thirty million, making them Africa's largest nomadic group.

The growth of the Sahara Desert, with the accompanying reduction of grazing land, has driven many of the Fulani to settle more permanently in cities and villages. While most still own at least one cow, many have been forced to learn other trades in order to make a living. Still, it is said that if a man doesn't own a cow, he's not Fulani, and that Fulani men treasure their cattle more than they do their wives.

It is the Western Fulani of Niger among whom I will be working, studying their language and learning their culture. I was glad for the opportunity to visit a settlement of a few dozen huts on the outskirts of Niamey, Niger's capital city.

Children came running to welcome us as my friend called out greetings in Fulfulde, the language of the Fulani (pronounced full-full-day). I continued to watch my step while trying to take in the scene around me. The settlement consists of a few dozen round huts, with woven straw walls and thatch roofs, strung along between a dirt road and a field of millet. Most huts boast a cow or two, and maybe some sheep tethered out front.

We went into several of the huts. The very few Fulfulde words that I have learned (my vocabulary consists of about twenty words!) were met by the smiles and laughter of the huts' occupants.

Each hut has a diameter of about fifteen feet. We ducked to enter through the doorway of an elderly woman, kicking off our sandals according to their custom. As my eyes adjusted to the dim light inside the windowless structure, I did a quick survey of its interior design. An iron-framed bed sat on one side of the hut, covered with a straw mattress on which our hostess invited us to sit. The floor was sand, neatly swept, with a plastic woven mat beside the bed. A rope strung across the other side of the hut served as the closet, draped with clothes and a blanket. A few pots and other cooking items sat on a small table. A calendar on the wall completed the decor.

After a few moments with our wrinkled hostess, we continued on to other huts, greeting people as we went. I met a young mother who offered me her three-week-old baby to hold. Children gathered around to touch my white skin. They laughed and cheered as I stumbled my way through the few Fulfulde phrases that I know.

I was surprised to see the modern furnishings inside the huts of some wealthier families. Beds with "real" mattresses and large headboards. Cupboards filled with dishes, and decorated with family photos. Shelves holding piles of neatly folded clothes. But still the ever-present sand floor and plastic mats. I wondered how they got all that furniture through the three-foot door of the hut. Perhaps they built the hut around the furniture?

In the chief's house, we sat on a mat on the floor. The old man shook our hands and welcomed us with a broad grin. I couldn't help but notice his need of a dentist. When he found out I am planning to learn his language, he nodded his pleasure. He walked over to the wall of the hut and picked up a large gourd covered with a small, woven circular mat to keep the flies out of the gourd's contents. Uncovering the gourd, he offered me a drink of chobal. I lifted the ladle that sat in the lumpy, off-white liquid and took a sip. Chobal is a favourite drink, made from leftover millet paste and sour milk. I can't say it's the best thing I've ever tasted, but it wasn't as bad as I was expecting!

The chief invited me to return to his settlement. "Sit with us, and you will learn to hear Fulfulde," he offered. I plan to take him up on his offer. I may never enjoy the taste of chobal, but I will enjoy the company of these hospitable people as I learn their ways and train my ears to "hear" their language.

 

August 2004
Shopping West African Style

I am back in West Africa!

After spending four years as a missionary in the small former French colony of Benin, followed by a year back in Canada, I have relocated to Niger, Benin's neighbour to the north.

I'm not settled in yet. I'm still looking for a place to live and am beginning to learn my way around Niamey, Niger's capital city.

One day last week, I decided it was time to go exploring and took a taxi downtown to the market. African markets provide a shopping experience unlike any I've had in Canada.

Niamey's market probably has as many merchants as West Edmonton Mall. Each shop is about half the size of an average bedroom, separated by crowded, narrow, uneven pathways dotted with mud puddles from the previous day's rain. For many, the market is both workplace and social hangout.

The grocery section features booths overflowing with canned goods (tomato sauce, kernel corn and sweetened condensed milk being three of the most common items), bags of pasta and plastic bottles of vegetable oil. This spills into the bulk department where uncovered bins of rice and other grains are sold by the kilo. The merchants in the produce department are the most aggressive, waving fruits and vegetables under the noses of perspective buyers. The butcher shops are not for the weak of stomach. Tables of meat teaming with flies. Butchers rapidly filling orders, whacking away at fresh beef with machetes.

I wove my way through the housewares, cosmetics and shoe departments, merchants calling out for my attention and promising the best prices. I then stumbled upon the large clothing department, with aisle after aisle overflowing with used jeans, dresses, and shirts. There was even a t-shirt from Banff! My favourite sight was several stalls full of used bras. Imagine buying a used bra from a Muslim man in an overcrowded African market, with no place to try it on! (I resisted the temptation!)

I was still in the market when I heard a clap of thunder. People started scurrying here and there, bundling up their goods before the rain came. I took that as my cue that it was time to find a taxi home.

Shortly after I got into the taxi (front seat), it started to rain. The driver stopped and came around to my side of the car to put up the window. There was a hole in the door where the handle should have been. He reached into the hole and pulled out a tangle of wires, fiddled with them a bit, and voila! The electric window went up!

There was no windshield wiper on my side--just the metal frame for it, which the driver pulled up to prevent it from scraping the windshield. On his side, the wiper made a streaky mess through the water. On my side I couldn't see much of anything other than the frame of the dead wiper jumping back and forth a foot in front of the window.

It got terribly hot in the car with five people and the windows closed (it was nearly empty-there was plenty of room for at least another four people!). And all the windows steamed up. So the driver was wiping the windshield with one hand and directing the car down rain-swamped muddy roads with the other. When we got close to the house where I am staying, I had to lean over to look out his side of the windshield in order to see to give him directions.

How fun! I am definitely back in Africa!