This is Africa

 This is Africa (TIA)  This saying can be applied to any of the many different circumstance and situation in Africa.  When I first got here I thought it was more of an excuse people used, but since living here I have learned otherwise.

 Chad the center of Africa, the “dead heart” of Africa was voted the 3^rd most corrupt country in 2007 and not much has changed since then.  Money and guns are what “talks” here.  The more money and fire arms you have the more powerful you are.  Bribing an official is thought of as a common curiosity here and is expected if you want anything accomplished when dealing with a government official. TIA. 

You love Africa but just as equally you can hate it.  Hate it for the death, corruption, witchcraft, sickness, depression, poverty and loneliness that is everywhere here.  But you also love it for the people, the children, the wilderness, the beauty, and wild heart that beats in this place; making up the rhythm that is Africa.  There is something about this place that pulls you in and once you’re hooked it won’t let you go. TIA.

The children of Africa are beautiful.  Most of them are dirty with clothes that look like they are hanging on by a thread. Some are bare foot and naked.  Some of the little ones have snot running down from their nose into their mouths. Their arms and legs are tiny but their bellies are big and round with malnutrition. They run around unsupervised by their parents or adults.  Most of them are carrying their younger siblings on their back. Young children taking care of even younger children.  Their chanting, laughing, singing and dancing can be heard long into the night.  Their voices, the pounding of the drums, the buzzing of gigantic bugs, and the wind moving through the trees, makes up the music that I have began to associate with Africa.  The nights when I don’t hear chanting and drumming I find it hard to sleep.  I know that I will miss the sounds of an Tchadian night. TIA.

Africa has its own time.  Things here are done at a much slower place.  The rush that I’m used to isn’t here.  The people here are content to sit for hours visiting.  Making time for people is more important than the “to do list” you have for the day.  At times it can be frustrating when people show up at my door wanting something but they sit there in silence for a good 10- 15 minutes not telling me what they want.  I sit there waiting for them to tell me why they are here. We got through the usual, how are you?, how’s your family?, your house?, your village?, but not what they want.  And people here don’t show up on a Nasara’s door step without wanting something. But what I have began to realize that the sitting in silence is them just showing respect, and that they are willing to invest into a relationship before asking something of me. TIA.

But how do you pick who to help and which one you tell no too?  Most natives here see a white person and instantly think “money”.  So even though they might be able to help themselves they still come to you.  You can sometimes pick these people out by their nicer clothing, jewelry, and shoes.  But when three different mothers come to you in one day with their sick children wanting you to pay for the hospital bill, what do you do?  Which child do you pick to help?  Do you pick the one that looks mostly likely to survive?  The child that is healthier?  Or do you pick the sicker child, hoping that the healthier looking children will be fine?  I am not God, and I hate feeling like I am deciding who will live and who will die.  Athens and I don’t have the money to help everyone who shows up on our doorstep.  But where do you draw the line? How do you weed out the truly needy from the deceivers?  How do you choose?  What gives me the right to decide?  I can’t help but feel selfish when I look around me, and when I buy something in the market for myself.  I have so much compared to them.  If I am unwilling to pay for their child’s hospital bill, will they have to go home and sell their cow, goat, or horse?  Or will they go hungry for a whole week just to pay the hospital bill? Or maybe in the end they won’t go the hospital, instead just except that their child will die.  Who then is to blame for the death of the child?  Me for not paying the bill?  Or the parents for not trying to exhaust every resource to save their child?  The more I tell myself that I can’t help everyone, the more it sounds like an excuse. TIA.

Not much has changed in Bere Chad Africa since bible times.  It’s like the world kept turning but left Chad behind.  There are no paved roads in Bere or Bendale.  No street lights, stop signs, or cross walks.  Instead you have road that turns into a river in the wet season, and a sand trap with huge holes in the dry season.  People cook over open fires, grow their own food, and sleep on mats on the ground.  Their houses are made of mud brick mixed with straw, with a grass roof.  The tools they use to weed their fields are nothing like what you can buy at Home Depot.  Instead it’s a crude flat piece of metal that is somehow tied onto a curved looking stick.  The stick is only as long as your hand to your elbow, so working in the field is back breaking work.   Transportation here is limited.  Horses and donkeys are ridden.  Cows are used to pull carts and occasionally ridden by the young boys.  Motorcycles are owned by some people that have money, and are also used as a taxi service for others.  There are only about 5 cars that are owned in this area and three of those are owned by white people that work at the Adventist Hospital. The only people who have electricity here are the white people, the hospital, and anyone able to afford a generator (which is only some of the Arab store owners).  When night falls here in Bendale and Bere it’s like a black blanket has been pulled over your head.  You don’t know what pitch blackness is until you have been in a place with no electricity.  Your only source of light being the moon and stars in the night sky.  The darkness can be overwhelming, making you feel small and alone, until you look up, and realize you have never felt this close to the stars, and just maybe if you reach a little higher you can hold one in your hand. TIA.

I know people wonder why we choose to come out here to be nurses, so far from civilization; to a place where death, poverty, despair, witchcraft, and sickness are so prevalent. There are days that I wonder why I am out her and if I am really making a difference in this place.  I have been tested physical, emotionally and spiritually.  I have seen both the beginning and end of life.  I have learned that a smile is the same in every language, how to sort rice and beans, haggle for a good price at the market, say hello and ask how are you, in French, Nandera, and Arabic, make peanut butter, deliver a baby, make the traditional African boul, and the proper etiquette for handshaking at a funeral.  I have drawn my own water from a well with a bucket, experienced malaria badly enough that I needed IV quinine, swam in a river where hippos were seen the day before, been to an African wedding, carried a baby African style on my back, balanced water buckets on my head, and have driven my motorcycle with two chickens tied to each handle bar and 3 kilos of rice strapped to the back.  TIA.

And like the dirt that has permanently stained the bottom of my feet, Africa has left a mark on me.  Long after I leave this place, I will still remember the time I spent in the wilds of Africa.  I have been caught up in the rhythm of this place, the steady beating of the African drums. And I can’t help but dance along. This Is Africa.