I don't really know enough to write this for certain (b/c two months here isn't enough time to determine what it takes to navigate Nigeria long-term), but life here seems to mandate a simple and goofy side to getting through each week--necessitated by the darker things you experience.
So...today I was languishing in the joys of a new pan of lasagna after having a great time playing ultimate frisbee with twenty other people serving here. I was chowing down in the kitchen for a while with Christy, one of the workers at the guest house. Over lunch I told her the long story of how a thief had obviously broken into our kitchen last night. I knew this to be "true," I explained, because an empty container of homemade vanilla ice cream was found in my room this morning by another one of our workers.
I mentioned to Christy how clever it was of this thief to steal the ice cream, consume all of it, and then manage to get into my locked room, leaving the evidence of the crime there in order to try to incriminate me. So we laugh and laugh, and it is all just sort of a silly way to enjoy life's simple pleasures and blow off a little steam while giving yourself a nice treat. We do this back in the States too, but it has a bit different flavor here.
That's because two Wednesday's ago i visited a second Blind Town here in Jos, in an area called Bukuru. I met many folks, and the village chief, and saw firsthand what leprosy does to a person's body. Took many photos which I will post on this site someday.
Saw dozens of kids playing in courtyards (euphemism) composed of trash heaps, garbage, packed dirt, mud holes, animals and their refuse, and nothing green anywhere for blocks around. Witnessed dozens of people flocking to our medical team, desperate and appreciative for any attention at all, and even more so of course for medical care. These people have nothing by our standards in the West, but are full of joy and generosity, which they manifest through personal warmth and smiles and great grace toward their western visitors, who have little if any clue of what their life is really like.
For the second part of the visit in this area we needed to travel over a mile to a place called "Lost Boys." But it was about a 30 minute walk and we were running out of time at now 5pm, so my guide suggested we take an achaba, if I was willing. These are the infamous motorcycle taxis. I said okay and a little anxiously climbed on board. I grabbed the shoulders of my driver and he turned his head to the side as if to say, "What the heck are you doing?' All their usual fares just sit there without holding on to anything as they dart around town through heavy traffic.
I looked at my guide, and he was sitting quite relaxed on the back of his achaba. So pride got the better of me and I let go of my poor driver and instead formed a death grip on the little stainless steel luggage rack directly behind my rear. We passed around the corner of the first block and were suddenly in the midst of a huge market area with people everywhere.
The driver went slowly and we weaved our way through the masses--a sight which you would have to see to fully appreciate. People smiled (read laughed) at me as I passed by. So then I decided to just go with it and relax, so I let go altogether. We of course made it, and it was really fun. Kinda like Six Flags Jos.
The breeze was nice and the ride was smooth and my driver understood what he had on board and drove accordingly. And this few minute ride costs a whopping 25 cents. Then I waited at this new area for my guide to run an errand. I stood watching schools kids walking home down this busy, dusty road; watching groups of men squatting on storefront entryways with no business and nothing to do; watching a tiny bar with an outdoor pool table of sorts under a little, rusty, corrugated metal awning.
We soon headed into the neighborhood which was right behind this outer ring of businesses. Imagine narrow little walkways of dirt and mud between crumbling walls of homes. People everywhere, staring at you. Trash and filth and noise--amidst cooking and families and joy and laughter. We went to a building in this area where our ministry does outreach each Mondays and Wednesdays, and I saw ministry booklets that are used--handouts of the Gospel of Yohanna (yes, you are right) in Hausa and English.
We walked through intersections and passed many kiosks serving roasted dog. We passed through areas where tons of people were sitting and cooking dinner with open fires in an area that smelled so foul I had to cover my mouth with my sleeve and try not to breath for 45 seconds, as I feared I would hurl.
We went into other areas, all on foot, where huge groups of men sat in hot, draftless, smokey rooms, made of mud or cheap plaster, with window openings but no windows or screens. Rows of benches, crammed full with men, set against dirty walls. No big screen TVs, no neon "Bud" signs--no electricity; no plumbing, no games, no laughter, very little talking. Open doorways: no doors or even curtains.
It was "happy" hour.
This area is known for heavy drinking, rampant alcoholism, and what the Nigerians call "immorality." The men in these rooms drank an air temperature, fermented green beverage from wooden gourds dipped into wide, shallow, metal tubs set outside on the dirt by the dozens. The liquid looked more like a green, watery soup at first--not uniform in color or even texture. (I thought the tubs may have contained dirty dishes or even laundry at first.)
But no, this is their homemade beer. Flies by the thousands everywhere, including some in the beer, but no one seemed to notice or care.
Bibles are distributed to those who want them, and evangelism takes place, but interacting with these people is first really all about simple greetings, and courtesies, and relationships. People are open to God's word here, but many are also clearly fighting it. Again you feel that if Christ were visiting Jos, this is a place where He would be spending a good deal of time.
The inhabitants here are some of the most challenged members of this very impoverished city. You sense their resignation to the life they lead as you past by filthy, open prostitution shanties with ragged, partial curtains and walls--or less, where men and boys step inside for a few minutes of casual pleasure, relief and escape that will likely cost them their lives very soon through the pandemic that is AIDS.
My guide, Reverend Joseph, told me he not long ago saw a couple "romancing" right out in the open. This particular area is also known as a spot where women and prostitutes leave unwanted newborns to die. They are discarded in boxes or wrapped in plastic bags and simply thrown out.
And as you pass through all this you see and certainly smell open sewage and men and boys simply facing a wall and relieving themselves as dozens of people pass by only yards away. So as you encounter people you simply smile, and say sannu (hello), and shake hands lengthily and don't let go for a long time, and look people right in the eye and let them know as best you can that you are truly happy and honored to meet them and that you are not there to judge them in any way but instead to try to help.
But a short time later, especially given the task at hand for those who minister here each week, I leave and feel certain that I have not helped any one, in any way. (And then I suddenly capture a sense of how easily I could be a "Lost Boy" if I was born here in Jos instead of McAllen, Texas.) And I walk out feeling glad I saw it all. And have a sense of understanding it--but know I've only scratched the surface of this life for these people.
And there is a sense of hopelessness and of realizing what it would take for any of these people to break away and step out of this life, and these cycles, and these routines, and their perhaps unrecognized self-despair, and the ignorance, and the dependencies, and the peer pressure and the family dynamics, and their Islamic or animistic or atheistic entrenchments, and it is almost more than you can take.
But coupled with these enormous challenges there exists--through God's grace--a sense of hope, a sense of peace. A sense of perhaps helping even one person, though there are ten thousand others in the area who you will never meet.
So as i walked back to our little dilapidated bus to ride back to my luxurious part of town, by contrast, i feel a strange sense of exhilaration and foolishness, of joy and despair, of sadness and hope. I try to love these people in a moment's time while knowing it is a drop in the bucket compared to what they need--but a drop nonetheless.
And even now, ten days later, I struggle to find a way to convey this to all of you who are kind enough to read these blog entries. And I wonder which of you may come here someday and add a few more drops or maybe even a bucketful to the ocean of need that is Africa.
If you do, you will have days like this and be greatly blessed, even in the midst of great poverty and human suffering. You will see new things and gain new perspectives.
And at the end of your day or week, you may stop and enjoy some ice cream or a silly joke, or create a moment of goofiness--to help you offset the distinct memory, in this case, of all the men and boys trying to escape from their existence for a short time--those brothers of ours who are drowning in their green beer.
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