Oasis

There has been some encouraging news about Niger this past week.  On Wednesday the Medical Journal, The Lancet published a case study about Niger reporting that there have been significant reductions in the mortality rate of children under the age of 5 between 1993-2009 based on analyzing household surveys.  The authors of the study attributed it to increases in child survival interventions such as the use of insecticide treated bed nets, improvements in nutritional status, vitamin A supplementation, usage of oral rehydration salts and zinc, care-seeking for fever, malaria, and childhood pneumonia, and vaccinations.  The increases in the child survival interventions have been possible because of collaborations between the government and international NGOs to increase universal access of health care for pregnant women and children by building rural health centers throughout the country, reducing the cost for maternal and child primary health care, and increasing or building the capacity of the health care work force.  In relationship to it's neighbors, Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, and Nigeria, Niger is the only country on track to achieve the Millennium Development Goal #4 (reduce by two-third the under-five child mortality rate).  This is no small feat for a land-locked, resource-poor desert country that is often at the mercy of extreme crises such as famine and floods.  Which is why this report from Reuters on the same day was also encouraging.  The Ministry of Agriculture reported on state-owned radio that this year's harvest for millet, sorghum, and maize should be better this year, reducing the rates of food insecurity that plagued the country last year and increasing the rates of malnutrition.

When I was in the desert a month and half ago I experienced my first oasis.  We would be driving along through the sand, struggling to find our way and then out of nowhere, grass would appear with a little water and a camel or two grazing.  In a similar way I find this news about the positive changes in Niger to be an oasis.  For months I have heard, and lately seen, the ravages of the 2011 drought  resulting in emergency-levels of malnutrition, the arrival of the Malian refugees straining the resources of Nigerien rural health centers and staff, and the spillover of Muslim-Christian tension resulting in the burning of churches in the Zinder region of Niger.  This news is an oasis in the midst of a food, political, and religious desert.

As I've been thinking about oasis this past week, I've been thinking about other sources of oasis.  This past week it has often rained in the early part of the morning.  Perhaps nothing is more refreshing in the desert than seeing the sun rise after a nightly rainfall, as I did during my morning run this past Tuesday.  And, I've been attending a small church each week.  Christians are by far the minority in this Muslim country and last week, despite increased threats of security, our small group gathered and found oasis in Romans 8, particularly 31, "If God is for us, who can be against us?"  All of this is a reminder that God has not forgotten to provide oasis for the people of Niger.  He has not forgotten the small child at the mother's breast, He has not forgotten the mother searching for food for her child, He has not forgotten the farmer struggling to harvest his millet, and He has not forgotten me and my continual search for desert oasis.

Indifference

In my ongoing contemplation of how the geography of desert shapes people's lives physically and spiritually, I had a new realization this past week.  It brings about indifference. Since I arrived in Niamey I've been searching for a word to describe the interactions I've had so far with the Nigeriens I meet in the street and in the market.  I think indifferent is probably the best.  Part of this is because I live in the capital city and I am just one of many expatriates that descend and ascend on the city on a regular basis.  Some stay for years, some for just a few months.  We come and go and interact with other expatriates in our own contrasting universe of  air-conditioned homes, SUVs, supermarkets, and guarded offices.  We have little "need" and time to form relationships with the people we are serving.  Part of this is also due to the Muslim/Christian divide.  I have never lived in a Muslim country before and still learning how to greet properly.  And some of this is due to the nature of the land that is Niger.

This past week I went to visit five Health Centers that Samaritan's Purse supports.  We left early in the morning and within minutes of leaving the city limits it is easy to see the barrennes that makes up the majority of the country.  

Every once in awhile we would drive pass a village composed of a few mud huts, a mosque, and perhaps a health center.  Each village rose out of the sand, like a mirage, indifferent to non-arable land desert heat and sun, and proclaiming an insistance to survive.  

I needed to go on this trip for multiple reasons.  Right now I'm in the process of deciding the direction for our health and nutrition program--what projects should be continued and what new ones could feasibly be added.  For practical purposes, I needed to go and see the distance between the health centers, see their infrastructure, review their registration books.  But really, I needed to go and meet the people.  I needed to find connection.

I needed to meet the community health workers we support.

I needed to see mothers with their children and learn how we can better help them keep their children alive and healthy.

And I did.  One of the last stops was at a health center where the community aids were weighing children and giving out supplementary food (unfortunately not plumpy'sup because we don't have any new supplies since the last order was declared contaminated by the World Food Program).  As soon as I arrived as I was swarmed by many women with their young children eager to greet me, displaying gratefulness, not indifference.

And in my heart, I think my indifference to this place is beginning to ebb away. I've had difficult days wondering why God has brought me here when I often feel so useless and disconnected to the world around me.  But I'm learning that God's silence is not the same as indifference. Slowly I'm beginning to see how I can apply here what I learned in school and elsewhere.   And although I would prefer to be living in the community, with opportunities to form deep relationships with the people, by being in the capital city I have the prospects of helping a wider away of people. I guess in this case its quantity, not so much quality.  Thank you for your continued prayers as I continue to discern how to connect and help well.

We long for silence, realizing that our only way out of the desert is to go deeper into it, beyond the breakdown of language to the "still point" where God meets us in emptiness.

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