JAN '11 Djiboutui again!

A short-notice requirement sent us back to Djibouti.  I was pleased for the opportunity to reconnect with friends there, but stunned when on arrival was told that my friend Muhammad had died and his family had disappeared.  Inquiry over several days produced no more information or confirmation.  My correspondence with the oldest son has gone unanswered since October.  Their house (left, with a tree in the yard) is occupied by another family now.

The fellows I work with and I went to lunch in the city.  When we parked, this little girl offered to watch our vehicle for us.  It's a common practice kids do in hopes of a little money.

When we came out, she was there with her mother and brother, waiting.  Cheerful enough, all of them, and polite.

We gave them a generous amount, and the little girl asked for more before she even saw what we'd given her.  :)  Gave her more, of course.  With 60% unemployment in the city and 80+% unemployment in rural areas, they've got a tough and frightening future.  Neither rude nor demanding, they politely let us know that they could use the help.  It's easy to give to such a gracious request.

With gaps in our work day, I took the opportunity to wander the countryside, hoping to see and understand.  Several encounters with surprisingly nice people added bits of insight here and there.  I picked up one young fellow beside the road with a couple of his friends.  Recently graduated from business school, he had been looking for work for awhile with no luck.  We talked about where jobs might be emerging in the country's economy.  Perhaps at the expanding oil terminal or at the new port facilities.

Farther out still, literally at the end of the road, these two precious children watched me for awhile and tentatively made their way out to where I was photographing the countryside.  Actually, I was just waiting for them to get comfortable with my being there.  The boy brought his school notebook with him, perhaps so I could see he was a young man of substance and ambition.  We chatted briefly before I asked if I could take their picture.  He instructed his little sister to ask for money (which I was glad to give) and say thank you politely.  Sweet kids.  The cinder block structure in the distance, left, is their home, I think.  The next buildings are restaurants that have failed.

On a subsequent visit to the same spot, I met this young man (in blue, left) and his family.  Nice folks.  The kind of people you'd be pleased to live next door to, walk to school with, maybe hang out together on weekends.  On the hilltop behind them, their simple house.  There are 12 folks in the family.  None are employed full time.  It's a tough world for them, there in Djibouti.

A friendship gift from one spicey food lover to another; Tabasco speaks for itself.  I brought some grocery gifts for the family; stuff they might not buy for themselves very often; and the Tabasco (came all the way from the states) which goes with absolutely everything.  It's one of our favorite excuses to start a conversation about things we like.  Chicken pepper soup, fish pepper soup, pepper pasta, pepper sardines, beans and pepper sauce, eggs with pepper sauce, bread with pepper sauce, the list (and the conversation) goes on for awhile.  Even more fun when we don't speak French and they don't speak English.

On a subsequent day, I met poppa and the rest of the men in the family. Fine fellows, all.  Gracious and hospitable, they made me welcome and endured my horrible French.

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On the way home, I stopped in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, a place with a lot of history.  This statue, for instance, called the Lion of Judah, has a tale to tell. Erected in 1930 just before Emperor Haile Selassie's coronation, it was stolen by the Italian occupiers in 1935 and taken to Rome, where it was erected next to the Vittorio Emanuelle Monument. During the 4th anniversary celebrations of the proclamation of the Itlian Empire, Adolf Hitler chose to visit Rome, and attended the celebratory parades along side the Fascist Dictator Musollini and King Victor Emanuelle III. In the parade were numerous subjects of Italy's African Empire, including a young Eritrean named Zerai Deres. Zerai Deres was marching with other parade members carrying a ceremonial sword with which to salute the King, the Fuhrer, and el Duce, at the grandstand. As the parade marched past the Vittorio Emauelle monument, Zerai looked up and saw to his shock, the golden Lion of Judah, the symbol of the ancient monarchy to which his ancestors had long owed aliegence, erected as war booty in the heart of Rome. It was too much for him to bear, and he promptly drew his sword and with tears of anger running down his face he fell on the first Italian officer he could find. He killed and wounded numerous Italian military officers before he was killed. Zerai Deres is lionized to this day as a brave Ethiopian patriot.

The monument remained in Rome for decades, and was finally returned to Addis Ababa in the 1960's. When it was re-erected in it's square, the Emperor was present in military uniform to salute, and to pay tribute to Zerai Deres. Following the revolution in 1974, the new regime decided to remove the statue once more as it was a monarchist symbol. However, the elderly war veterans association members appealed to the new government to consider the memory of Zerai Deres and his sacrifice that was inspired by this very symbol. The statue was saved and remains today.

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I came to Addis just to visit a family there.  The older son with whom I've corresponded for the last year is away in college.  I'd told him I was coming, and he told them, so they were prepared. 

Momma (with help from little grand-daughter) prepares coffee and popcorn for me as her guest.  She'd roasted the coffee beans and they'd ground them on the spot with a mortar and pestle.  Traditional Ethiopian coffee, she explains, is made that way.

Momma was completely blind when I was here a year ago, and had a leg problem that left her crippled as well.  Her husband died several years ago, so the children had cared for her on their own.  The oldest at home, a fourteen-year old fellow, worked as a shoe shine boy in front of the hotel where I stayed.  That's where we first met.  Momma's sight is restored now, thanks to getting some help from the public health-care system, and she got treatment for her leg, so she's able to walk a bit.  The kids (who speak a little English) tell me she may get to have an operation on her leg in the next year or so that they hope will restore her mobility.  It's been a hard couple of years.  They thanked me for visiting and for the gifts I brought and promised to pray for me and my family.  Fine folks.

I hope to return, perhaps this summer.

We're here for a short visit

"Strange is our situation here upon earth.  Each of us comes for a short visit, not knowing why, yet sometimes  seeming to a divine purpose. From the standpoint of daily life, however, there is one thing we do know.  That we are here for the sake of others... for the countless unknown souls with whose fate we are connected... by a bond of sympathy."

Einstein's oft quoted declaration points to what so many of us fear about ourselves; that perhaps we're selfish and deliberately blind to the condition of our fellow man.

Could it be that we that we complain about our "rich man's problems" such as our supermarket's lack of good avocados or the rising cost of a good education? Then we neither feel nor say anything about our brother in Pakistan who lost everything in the flood last week. He lost his home, his livelyhood, his wife and children. Or how about the African father who weeps because his children are undernourished and he has no power to feed them better? 

Kids in Africa; their community has adopted us and made us part of their

family.  They've taught us so much over the years.

"We are not in control.  We can't change things," one sweet friend said to me yesterday. Actually, she does change things. Although confined to a wheelchair, she travels with a group to Africa every year accompanying a shipment of things that help communities there. They work all year, collecting goods, then they go to the most difficult places and live in the communities, teaching and helping and dispensing love unconditionally. :) She and her friends are on my short list of heroes.

"Estranha é nossa situação aqui na Terra. Cada um de nós vem para uma curta visita, sem saber porquê, mas às vezes parecendo um propósito divino. Do ponto de vista da vida cotidiana, porém, há uma coisa nós sabemos: que estamos aqui para o bem dos outros ... pelas incontáveis almas desconhecidas com cujo destino estamos ligados ... por um vínculo de simpatia."  Homemade World

AUG '10 - Back in Africa

In country for a couple of weeks work, I made time at the end of the day to visit friends.  Just a few minutes from my work site, this is the first family I met here back in '07.  Poppa shows me the site for his daughter and son-in-law's new house.  My Portuguese remains inadequate, but I think he said they were just married this year.

It will be a simple home, perhaps 300 sq ft.  Water is available less than 10 minutes away.  Having family nearby is a big deal, of course.   In the collage left, the young couple carries wood from the sawmill for the project.

Click on the picture to go to a more detailed narrative.
On the right, below, Poppa's youngest and my first friend in Africa (and our fourth grade scholar) enjoys summer vacation.  School starts in October here.  She's been making good grades all along and actually enjoys school.

We're tied to five families here now with twelve or so of their children in school.  This last school year went well and all of our kids passed on to the next grade.  Our oldest boy passed the critical sixth grade standard achievement test, which is quite a big deal.  It means he gets to go on the the 7th grade.  The test has about a 70% failure rate marking the end of education for most.  The next big hurdle is at the end of the 9th grade.  Only a few children go on to finish high school.

Brian Dickerson photos Aug 26, 2010 From various places on various days, here are some photos of Sao Tome; a little scenery to go with the pictures of kids and friends. Click on the thumbnail above to see the large format photos.

With photos from our time together a few months ago (photo, right) and some books from Lisbon, my friends here are part of a large family of fine folks.  Grandma adopted me awhile back and the rest of the family has made a place for me.  Books in Portuguese are an appreciated gift; there's no outlet in the country where they can buy new books and the libraries are minimally helpful.  Most manufactured goods come by plane or ship to this isolated country.

APR '10 Marilyn in Africa

A week with my wife in Africa

Sao Tome & Principe

After 3 years working in Africa and a dozen trips to Sao Tome, my wife finally gets to come along.  We took a week together to vacation a bit and to give her a chance to meet all the friends we'd made over the years.  In Pantufo (photo, left), I'd told them she would be coming.  They received her like family and escorted (dragged) her around like they do me.  Her comment, "Now I know how Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie feel!"  The folks made a big deal of her visiting their neighborhood, treating her like a special guest.  

At the elementary school,  she's swamped in the mob of kids (photo, left).  Both teachers and kids were expecting her and welcomed her warmly.   Beside her in dark blue, our third grade scholar, doing great in school!  

At Ribeira Afonso (photo, left), I surprised my friend Nino and myself too. We ran into each other after mass on Sunday morning.  He joined me for the day with a family and nine children on a trip to the capital.

Among the better pictures this trip, these two friends (photo, right) make a pretty pair against the tropical background.  They are in dozens of pictures from earlier trips.

The trip was understandably hard for my wife.  The impact of seeing these dear friends face to face caught her a bit off guard as it did me early on.  Knowing these folks well enough to be friends, to begin to love them, changes the way you see the world.

Oh, and there was the one scary incident downtown.  Driving to the city center to exchange currency, I'd not thought of what it might look like to my wife riding with me in the truck.  As I pulled into the square, half a dozen fellows (really big guys) recognized me and ran to the truck, each one insisting loudly in Portuguese that I make my deal with them.  I know them all by name and it didn't occur to me that my wife's view was... well, here we are in an African town a million miles from normal, and a bunch of big guys I don't know are rushing my vehicle, hollering and waving, and forcing their way in through the window, grabbing at us.  Scared her a bit; I had to apologize for not warning her.  Funny afterward, though.

JAN '10 - A stranger ...

I was a stranger, and you took me in.

Back in Africa for perhaps the 15th time in the last three years, work continues to be extraordinarily difficult both technically and politically.  Friends, on the other hand, are always a joy.  At Sebastiana's house, they welcome me and a fellow I picked up along the way (he's from the Treasury Department).  Without a moment's hesitation, they invite the two of us to lunch the following weekend.

Photo left: "Levante me, levante me!" she says, which means 'pick me up', I think.  I have almost identical photos from two earlier trips.  She's affectionate, but this is just to be in another picture, I'm pretty sure.

Lunch the following weekend includes fish and rice, breadfruit (which tastes like a foam rubber pillow) and salad.  I made the salad, much to the delight of the ladies who I don't think had ever had a guy in the kitchen before.  They stood around and watched me slice cucumber and tomatoes like maybe they weren't sure I could do it without hurting myself.  


Sebastiana, the family matriarch and our hostess, is shown here with her oldest son Walter.  He's a sweet spirited fellow and an enjoyable lunch companion.   He along with his wife and daughter are here from Cape Verde for the last few months.


Some of Sebastiana's children and grandchildren (left).  There are a lot more of them.  The kids took over the cameras and took several dozen photos.   The dinner table shown here seated all the adults; there were a mob of kids, too.
Having come to Africa so many times without really understanding my place in their world, this time I'm finally beginning to get it.  I was a stranger, and they took me in.  Funny, early on I figured I was the one who had something to give.

The granddaughters (right) hold the youngest member of the family, Vandelay.  He doesn't suffer for attention; the family is large and close knit with plenty of arms to go around.  He's my favorite, of course.

The men here cut their hair super-short, so I'm a bit of an anomaly.  The little girls try to braid my hair like theirs, and the boys want to touch it because it's so different from their own.  I'm a minority!  An oddity, anyway.  Not a lot of old white guys around.

The kids took the crazy video (left) with my camera along with dozens of pictures.  After lunch, Maria sang and the kids danced, sort of.  This is the dance from Cape Verde, they explain.  Many Sao Tomeans emigrated to Cape Verde when independence came 30 years ago.

At the end of the visit, (photo, right) exhausted from playing with kids and from the labor of conversation in a language neither of us understand or speak well, we make our way back up the hill in the rain.  The trail is muddy and slick.  Friends at the window and door watch to bid us goodbye once again.   

Like most folks here in Sao Tome, my friends must struggle  just to survive economically, to give their children a chance at a better life, to make it from one day to the next.  In all of that though, this particular family is wonderfully gracious and hospitable.  They've changed things I thought I understood about culture, nations, and God's grace.  

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Afternoon tea...
At the end of my time in country for this trip, half-way through the very last day, I get a call from a teenager I know  insisting I come to their house.  It turns out that the phone call was mom and dad's idea; they wanted me to come over for the African equivalent of afternoon tea before I flew out the following day. 

So, across the city at the home of friends, the family receives me warmly.  Here (left), the kids play and pose for pictures perhaps in hope of another day when I'll come back with prints for them.   On the table in the background, photos from October's visit.   In the center of this picture, one of our scholarship kids.  She's doing well in school, we're told.  Her mom and dad have graciously let us participate in her education.  As is the case across Africa, from tradition and sometimes from economic necessity, girls are often left out when it comes to school.  That will change, we hope, but the process takes decades.  

Here, public education carries them through the 6th grade.  Schools are crowded; all have double schedules with half their students in the morning and half in the afternoon.  Children are busy with household labor during the time they're not in school.  Chores often include gathering food from the jungle or helping with firewood collection.  Cooking is done over a small metal box with a charcoal fire inside, or (more often) outside in the yard.  School beyond the 6th grade is available but seats are limited and expensive.  Many are left behind.

 The women prepared and served jacque fruit and safou while the men sat around and talked.  Jacque fruit is pretty good; safou, not so much, although it's an important staple in this part of the world.  The men sat and talked comfortably about the economy, relations between African nations and the West, and the important elements of fatherhood.  Always looking for business opportunity, they're surprised that I'm not rich enough to buy them a car, a taxi they can operate as a business.  I'd love to, of course.  Inquiring about how much it costs for me to travel, they discover that my plane ticket costs as much as their house; they catch on to how things work when I explain that the government pays for my travel.  
I hope to return in a few months.

So what are we going to do with what we know?

Tell the rich folks to quit being so full of themselves and so impressed with their own possessions, which are here today and gone tomorrow.  It's not their merit that made them wealthy and others less so. Tell them to go after God who is generous to us all - and tell them to do good, to be rich in helping others, to be extravagantly generous. If they do that, they'll build a treasure that will last, gaining life that is truly life.

          1 Timothy 6:17-19