Go see for yourself!

Our 'comfort zone' is a 'holding cell.'  That can change.
 
In a coastal village in western Africa where we work, a sweet grandma shows off her new grandson. She hopes and prays for a better world for him.

You can make it happen.

Curious?  

Things you can do:

• Go.  Go see for yourself.  Stay long enough to outgrow being a tourist.  Stay long enough to meet and get to know some folks.  Then go back when you can. 
• Give.  Figure out how much is generous.  Then double that and give it.  If it isn't difficult, there's no cost, and you're unchanged.  Give until you have to change your lifestyle to keep it up.  Do that from now on.
• Help.  Find out where the needs are and pitch in; join in with those who are effective.
• Hope.  Push back the hopelessness for just one family by giving them a hand up.  Or two families.  Or ten.
• Learn.  Study deeply enough to get past your emotional response and get practical with your efforts.  Helping without hurting isn't as easy as it sounds. Pity isn't helpful.  Friendship is. 

Rinse.  Repeat.

Friends of ours since the early days, three here

are siblings; can you pick them out?
(click for larger version)

If you're living comfortably in the west (with a job, a house, a car, and a bank account), you're in the world's top bracket for wealth.   Rethink, adjust, do differently.  Or not.  Your choice.  :)

APR 2014: Specific requests (opportunities) in the queue:

$50 will cover a semester's costs for a kid in western Africa; fees, uniform and shoes, supplies, and some food assistance.
$300 will give a family a chance to step up a bit with food for a couple of months, materials to repair their home, and medicine they need. 
$800 will put 40 kids in Kenya in school, including one meal a day, for the upcoming semester.
$1500 will employ 3 teachers for a school year.
$2500 will equip, staff, and operate a preschool for a year.
$1950 will supply an elementary school with notebooks and pencils for each of their 600 students for the upcoming semester.

You can go to Africa and see for yourself; it's not inexpensive, but it's worth the price to understand the world we live in.

Africa is my focus; it need not be yours, but we should have a perspective that's larger than our own comfort zone, should we not?

Don't let me persuade you; go see for yourself!  You'll never be the same again.  :)

_______________________________________
The following is a quote from “Africans – Altered States, Ordinary Miracles” by Richard Dowden. 

“Africa has a reputation: poverty, disease, war.  But when outsiders do go they are often surprised by Africa's welcome, entranced rather than frightened.  Visitors are welcomed and cared for in Africa..  If you go you will find most Africans friendly. gentle and infinitely polite.  You will frequently be humbled by African generosity.  Africans have in abundance what we call social skills.  These are not skills that were formally taught or learned.  There is no click on have-a-nice-day smile in Africa.  Africans meet, greet and talk, look you in the eye and empathize, hold hands and embrace, share and accept from others without twitchy self-consciousness.  All these things are as natural as music in Africa.

“Westerners ... often find themselves cracked open.  They lose inhibitions, feel more alive, more themselves and they try to understand why they have only half lived.  In Africa the essentials of existence - light. earth, water, food, family, love, sickness, death - are more immediate, more intense.  Visitors suddenly realize what life is for.  To risk a huge generalization: amid our wasteful wealth and time-pressed lives we have lost human values that are still around in Africa.”

For those thinking of going to Africa ...

Good for you!  By all means, go.  You'll be so enlarged by the experience.

If you're thinking of going to one of the lesser developed countries in Africa, though, here's the stupidest problem you'll have to deal with. 

There's a sort of 'different' status you'll have to understand and handle early on.  You're different in many ways, especially if you're white, and that's perhaps entertaining but not really helpful at all.  We're actually all the same, of course.

When my wife (right) traveled with me to one particular village where I'm known, she likened it to being Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie; folks welcomed her enthusiastically and dragged her off to meet family.  I'd told them that she was coming, so they made a big deal of having her there.  It's fun being 'special', I suppose, but emotionally exhausting, and it's unhelpful if you're up to anything more than just visiting.

It's worth remembering, these folks are stronger than most, work harder than most, are more creative and innovative than most.  They're bright, gracious, and open to the world.

Classic 'do-gooder' photo in Africa

The photo (below) from earlier today illustrates your problem a little further if you're trying to share the story back home.  It's the classic 'do-gooder in a third-world country' look, and it doesn't convey anything useful; OK, perhaps it does, but probably only to the folks that are in the photo themselves.  This family here set up the picture and a dozen more.  The photo doesn't explain that we've known each other for a few years or that we met the young lady at my shoulder when her daughter (the youngster in my lap) was two weeks old.  She introduced me to her family; her grandma adopted me and began my education.  The three boys on the left side are her nephews and my buddies.  The young lady's husband composed us and took this picture.  I'll deliver prints next time I'm in country.

The 'celebrity' role is pretty much automatic, especially if it's your first time here, and it is kind of fun.  Kids run after you and call out to you for candy.  Folks are willing to welcome you, and if you ask politely, they'll probably be OK with you taking pictures.  You can bring little gifts for children and get to hug a few of them, perhaps.  You can play the 'special' person role, but it's more for your benefit than theirs if you do.  If that's the extent of your opportunity and purpose, no problem.  If you want to help, though, it takes more understanding.  Check your attitude; they know so much more about living than you're likely to grasp.  They may be poor by economic measures, but they are power-players at life.  Put yourself in their place; how might you respond in their circumstance? 
 



If you want to be a friend, you can't be other than that; being too different or too special messes things up.  At least, that's the best I've been able to grasp.  Grandma (right) helps me understand, but it's taken time. Five years so far, and I'm still learning things.  They introduce me as a family member now, which is pretty cool.

There are things we might grasp early on, but it's easy to miss important truths.  Toys and clothes are fun, but probably not needed.  Books for the kids are nice and even useful.  Things that matter more though, are larger and more costly.  Caring enough to understand and love well is difficult.  Grandma lost her brother this month, and her 25 year old son a few months earlier; it's been a hard year for the family and her needs have changed.

Seeing it in person, you get to shed the perception that the folks here are just sitting around being poor.  They're extraordinary workers; intelligent, innovative, creative, and always looking for possibilities.  Early 'til late, they're at work providing for their families.

One of my greater pleasures, I noticed this evening as I arrived back in the city ... being ignored by students on their way to and from school.  They pass in droves, chatting about academic stuff, and don't give me a second look.  I'm so pleased for them and hope for the thousands of others here that they'll have a chance at higher education too.  And a better life, dear Lord.

So what can we do if we want to be helpful?

JUN '12 - Sao Tome

Little princess is big enough this year to inherit a pretty dress from an older sibling. She danced all day in it, even wore it to the beach. Speaking of which, there are few things more entertaining than kids at the beach.  

The short video here is just enough so you can hear the squeals and laughter.

In Sao Tome & Principe to work with the local NGO, I had plenty of time with friends including a couple of trips to the beach. The kids really wanted to go; it's hard to refuse them, of course.

The goal this trip is to realign and expand our Family Assistance and Education Support project through STeP UP, the local NGO. We finance the project, and STeP UP does the work, for which I'm profoundly grateful.
We've expanded our small project to include 12 school kids and their families plus a couple of small business start-ups. We're working with a family and their son in prison as well. Circumstances here are difficult (understatement), but the people are among the nicest we've encountered in our travels.  

My friend and his son, (photo, left) at home; after a few years off and on when I'm in the country, we've covered a lot of conversational territory. He's accompanied me on several trips; he's got relatives in Ribeira Afonso which is home to one of our families. After a couple of years, we discover he's uncle to the kids. And I arrived this year to discover I've been named godfather (Padrinho) to the latest arrival among his nieces and nephews, an unexpected honor.

We've partnered with several families for specific goals of keeping the kids in school and the family viable and moving forward. School doesn't cost much, but there are uniforms and shoes and supplies and some small fees like the school bus if the school is too far to walk to. Helping parents includes things like mosquito nets or in-home health education or small business finance, or perhaps things for gardening or fishing.

This family (right) has doubled the size of their cultivation area. We financed the materials for water lines to the house and the field, but they did all the work. In an area about 450' square, they've got sugar cane, corn, beans, bananas, manioc, and several things I didn't recognize. They now raise enough for themselves and some extra to possibly sell or trade. Oh, okra, too. Lots of okra! They've got 5 kids, 4 of whom are in school. Busy folks.

Youngster (left) pulls up a manioc root to show me. Easily pulled from the ground, the root provides carbohydrates but no protein. Still, it's an important staple in the common African diet.

The large bananas (plantains, I guess) are eaten fried or boiled, much like we eat potatoes. Not bad, actually, with a little salt.

Off to Santa Luzia to visit family friends, the minimal road through the tropical jungle provides an opportunity for the kids to make lots of noise, a little of which is in the video here. If you can select a hirez replay, you'll get a good look at the vegetation here.

If you look for Santa Luzia on the Google satellite map, you'll have a hard time finding the road we followed. In fact, I had a hard time finding that road. :)

In the village of Santa Luzia, holy cow, I'm worn out! We've got almost a dozen kids with us, and they've dragged me all over the countryside. Fun, though; delightful actually.


I get a little relief when the kids run off with my cameras. They take most of the pictures from this trip; almost 4 thousand in two weeks.
Same kids, down the mountain and on to the beach near Micolo. Even with a tan, I look oddly out of place.

At a roadside vendor's near the beach, we eat concon (flying fish) and fried bananas. This was the first family to adopt me some years back; they introduce me to others as a family member now.

In a neighborhood where I've become the semi-official photographer, kids play at an odd jump-rope game. Easily entertained, the children are bright and energetic. Moms and dads appreciate having photos of the family over the years.


Delightful children; some show signs of inadequate nutrition. The lack of protein will often result in stunting; underweight for height and under height for age. The reddish tint to the hair is an indicator. This village is on the shoreline and most depend on fishing for subsistence.  

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The rich steal from the poor, here. Illegal fishing by the developed countries has depleted the fish population in most of the Gulf of Guinea. It'll take decades to recover if we ever manage to get the bad guys off the water and out of the Gulf region.

Helping Others; it doesn't take much, but ...

It doesn't take much, and you don't have to do it all by yourself, and you don't have to do everything, or even do it all at once....

The circumstances and needs of others can be overwhelming, both for them and for those of us who would like to come along side and lend a hand.  But it doesn't have to be that way.  At least I don't think it does.

If, for example, you step in and support me and my family, that helps.   But I don't think I would want my family to be dependent on you long term.  What we could really use is some help to step up so we can handle things for ourselves. 

If you sponsor a child of mine, do it through an organization that works with the whole family and community.  A family can have lots of kids.

If you lend a hand so that my family or my community makes progress, well  that can be a real blessing.  One time donations are wonderful, especially in response to crisis events, but if you can, commit for the long haul, like a decade.  Or two.  Getting a couple kids all the way through school would be a big deal for the family.

Doing it well takes skill, insight, and long-term investment of time and attention to the details.  World Vision does that.  They lead with child-sponsorship, but it's really community investment that they do; and they do it well.

TechnoServe has been doing community development in an impressively thoughtful fashion for four decades.

TexasEx.Org is our non-profit organization; we work with some small organizations and directly in communities in Africa and elsewhere.  We do micro-this and that.  Finance, meds, tutoring, home repair, business equipping, scholarships, school renovations.  Five years in the work, so far.  Feel free to join in.

The Celebrity World ...

Being a celebrity has advantages, perhaps.  Wealth is nice, having an audience is encouraging and affirming, and getting to go and touch the real world is a big deal.  Not all celebrities grow up to responsible adulthood, of course.  They're like the rest of humanity in that there there are a few impressive folks who are working hard for the good of others.

Charlize Theron founded the Africa Outreach Project whose mission is to help "keep African youth safe from HIV/AIDS."  Did you know she was born in South Africa?

Bill and Melinda Gates are actively involved in making an end to Malaria.  And much, much more.

George Clooney, Oprah Winfrey, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, others.  Angelina has been the UNHCR rep since '01 and has visited 20 countries.  Ben Affleck is on Facebook with his Africa travels. Impressive efforts all around.

They get to go see and touch the real world.  That's where most children (like the ones with Charlize there in the photo) live in poverty along with their families.  That's where there's no running water, little food, no jobs, no security, no school .... no hope for tomorrow either, unless someone helps out, unless things change.

Did you know you can go see and touch the real world too?  You can go sit on the porch with papa and watch the kids play there in the dirt, just like kids everywhere else in the world do.  You can go with mom to the kiosk and buy a few vegetables and maybe a fish if she's got some money.

You can go to the beach and help the fishermen pull in the nets.  They'll laugh, but they'll let you help.  You can sit on the hillside with the boy and his goats and count the hours.

Somewhere along the way, you'll get a grip on the real world.

It's not an emotion; clarity comes after the emotion is drained away.  It's an understanding and, perhaps too, an ownership of your place in humanity.

Then like a good brother, you can lend a hand and maybe make a difference just like the celebrities do.

What do you think?  Want to go?