Indebted

If you think high levels of indebtedness is an American problem you might want to take a look at this poster that I photographed with my cell phone in one of the banks we use.  There is a picture of a big ram and the words, "For a successful Holiday."  The holiday is the upcoming Tabaski which commemorates the Biblical story of the near sacrifice of Abraham's son and God's provision of a ran in his place.  There is a slight difference in the Muslim version as the son spared was Ishmael not Isaac, but otherwise the same.

The difference in debt in America and here is that here you take out debt not necessarily to buy a house of car, but so that you can invite all of your family and friends over (with a focus on those who are not able to afford it themselves) and you throw a party in which everyone eats!  There are a lot of commentaries that could be made, but maybe the simplest one is that a good party is a valuable thing.

Silence Broken

Sorry for the long silence. It has been a rough couple of weeks. Too much work and not enough hands. Throw in some sickness and personnel problems (hirings and firings) and it all mounts up to some really negative blog posts, or no blog posts. So rather than do that I though I would just sign in an say two things. Keep checking back, I trust there will be good news to report soon, and also please keep us in your prayers.

On a slightly amusing side note I wrote a long personal email that I was going to send out as an update to friends and family. I decided it was too negative and so I thought I would send it to my dad to preview and of course I don't mind unloading on him. I also wanted to include the contact of a business associate in Holland for my dad to contact about well pumps. Somehow my long complaining personal email went to my dad, and to Holland. I of course sent a note of apology to the gentleman in Holland and he reply was, in summary, "hmmmm, you have an interesting life," and you know what that is code for!

There are few good reasons to work 72 hours in one week, but here is one

Lily's Egg

Lily really wanted to show everyone our first egg from our village chickens.  We have had chickens before but they were fryers so we didn't have any eggs.  She does seem to be acknowledging in the picture that this is in fact the smallest egg I have ever seen laid by what is almost a "full sized" hen.  It could be due to the fact that the rooster is more of a bantam size.  I don't know that much about chicken genetics.  I do know that he is a very proud, if small, rooster.  Proud or not, his clock seems to be off because he has been crowing at 1 in the afternoon.  I put our little egg in the fridge beside the ones that we get from the big commercial chicken farm and it went right through the egg holder in the door of the fridge.  I would imagine that several would be required for an omelet.

A Picture of Contentment

Contentment is a big concept, yet it so easily slips through our fingers.  One could pontificate on the subject ad nauseam, and the truth is, the concept is relative.  For those of us from the "developed world" it includes many things, mostly centered around material success.  I don't claim to have great insight into the people we work with in rural Niger, but I have noticed that they are very long-suffering and generally content.  If I asked them what contentment looked like they might describe the picture below.  Grain being pounded for that night's meal, mature crops in the field, animals and children in good health, all surrounded by a large family.

The picture speaks to me of peace and contentment.  The lovely thing is that it is all to be shared.  Moments after this picture was taken the women were laughing as they had me pounding millet heads.  Shortly after large steaming hot pots of rice and sauce were brought for our team.  Life can be difficult in Niger, but it still has as many moments of joy, and maybe more instances of contentment than you will find most places.