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December 24, 2005
Burkina Faso and the Baggies
So the Baggies have taken the Burkina Faso national team captain, Badou Kere, on trial, with a view to signing him in January!
Now I appreciate that Burkina Faso and West Bromwich Albion FC (aka the Baggies) may both seem obscure to many of you. Yet all the more reason for my excitement at this bringing together of two of my passions! I may even know his family. Maybe I should offer my services to help Badou's cross-cultural adaptation...
The only other moment I remember of convergence between Baggiedom and Burkina was when one of the Baggies' most famous supporters, the somewhat racey tv comedian, Frank Skinner, came to visit us in Gorom-Gorom. A story for another day, perhaps...
In the meantime, we have to try and beat Man Utd at Old Trafford on Monday...
Tags: burkina faso africa football burkina soccer baggies west bromwich albion badou kere frank skinner
December 18, 2005
Spotlight on Darfur 3 - Christmas Edition
All Things 2 All is hosting the third Spotlight on Darfur - a collection of posts bringing attention to the continuing situation in the Sudan.
"In the Western world Christmas has become a time of glitz and tinsel, and also for many a time to give and receive gifts. The contributors to this Spotlight on Darfur are diverse and do not represent any one organization or group. But we share in wanting to give something to the people of Darfur at this time, and we hope for peace in that troubled and conflicted area."
Go read.
December 14, 2005
Gut-ache and grain stores
“Hey, tubaaku, umma! Yuwoonde wari!”
I sat up groggily and looked around me. It was the middle of the night, but the stars had disappeared in a thick blackness. The wind was whipping up unrelenting clouds of dust, announcing what Yero had just called out:
“Hey, white man, get up! The rain’s here!”
I watched blearily as, buffeted by the wind, he opened the tiny 2 ft square hatch to the granary. The granary (you can just see it in the background in the photo) was like a little thatched hut on stilts, about 5ft in diameter. He invited me to clamber in. I blinked, not quite understanding what was going on, but scrambled through, and Yero followed me.
Of course. His small hut had a leaky roof, and there was just enough room for his wife and kids to shelter. But the granary had to have a good roof to protect the precious remainder of last year’s harvest from the weather. So we settled in and tried to make ourselves comfortable in the dark amongst the millet. In the silence, with the hatch open, we felt more than watched the rain suddenly thunder down, attacking and pounding the dry earth. It was a good feeling, knowing that our work in the fields the last few days had not been for nothing. If the rains continued like this for a few more weeks, Yero and his family would have food for another year.
I had come from Gorom-Gorom to spend just two weeks with Yero. I’d been there about a year, and my progress in learning Fulfulde, the language of the Fulani , had reached a plateau. I needed a short time of total immersion to give it another boost. A nearby missionary was teaching Yero the way of Christ, and had suggested this might be a good place to come for a couple of weeks. Yero had become a Christian, but had been forced to leave his village because of his faith. He had set up a hut by his field just outside the village, and sometimes men would stop by when passing. Some came to berate him for abandoning God. Others obviously wanted to stay friends, risking the wrath of the local imam for associating with the apostate Yero. Yero had learned the basics of reading, and we were reading together through Luke - almost the only New Testament portion we had in Fulfulde at that time. The idea was that this would help his reading and his understanding of the way of Jesus, while I was force-fed a daily diet of undistilled Fulfulde.
Yero was captivated by reading the story and teaching of Christ in his own language, and it was thrilling to see him amazed by accounts which I had become almost inured to through over-familiarity. The challenge of Jesus’ words came afresh as I saw again what it must be like to hear them for the first time – the provocative and deliberate challenge to the complacent self-satisfied religion of those who considered themselves God’s chosen. How we need that challenge afresh in our lives…
Yero’s favourite bit was 6:27-42. Whenever someone stopped by, he would read that passage: “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.” And he would do it. Those who had mocked and rejected him, he would welcome, and give them food and tea.
I enjoyed most of my time there – apart from two days of agonising gut-cramps, which had me doubled up on my mat in the shade under the acacias. Occasionally I would let out a grunt of pain, to the great amusement of Yero and his wife. The Fulani take pride in their "pulaaku", never expressing pain or discomfort, and I heard Yero’s wife laughingly telling her friends that the white man had been “crying with agony!”
It was only two short weeks, camped out with Yero and his family by his field. But I learned a lot in that short time – not only about Fulfulde and Fulani culture, but also about weakness and dependence as part of the shape of our ministry of the gospel. Too often we go with an arrogant, even colonialist attitude, imagining ourselves saviours rather than servants. We go thinking only of what we can give or teach, rather than what we ourselves might need to learn. We have the idea it is our strengths that God will use, rather than our weaknesses. Yet the gospel is cross-shaped – expressed in weakness, service, and suffering. And its treasure is in jars of clay that need to be broken for it to be released. The cross is not just to be announced, it is also to wound our own lives.
A couple of years ago, I went back to visit Yero and his family. He is one of the strongest Christians among several Fulani believers in the area now. They reminded me about my time there all those years ago. They still laugh at me “crying with pain”, and at Yero getting me to climb into the granary in the middle of the night. I know I myself met with God there, in my weakness. I know I learned from Christ through the life and response of a new Muslim convert. I hope and believe Yero was blessed too by our time together. But I know that if he was, it wasn’t because of my brilliant preaching or powerful ministry. I didn't have any of that to give.
All I had to offer was the willingness to have gut ache, be laughed at, and spend a night in a granary.
Tags: burkina faso africa stories burkina fulani bible fulfulde pulaaku ministry mission missionary
December 08, 2005
Murder by cotton
A poor man's field may produce abundant food, but injustice sweeps it away."
(Prov 13:23)
Cotton is a Christian issue! Cotton and other agricultural subsidies in rich western countries are robbing people in poor countries like Burkina Faso of honestly earned income. What should our response be?
Burkina Faso's exemplary efficiency
Burkina Faso is a model of efficiency and production - at least when it comes to cotton. Her cotton farmers are the most efficient in the world, producing cotton at only 21 cents/lb. Cotton, known as "white gold" in Burkina, is the main export of this, the third poorest country in the world, providing half her export earnings. So you would think that everyone would be keen to applaud such an exemplary effort of a developing country helping itself, independant of international aid. Especially in a country of which US officials recently said: "we are proud of their success in encouraging economic and personal freedoms..."
American cotton subsidies take from the poor
But not so, apparently. Even at such prices, Burkina struggles to sell her cotton. This is because American cotton, produced at 72c/lb is subsidised to the tune of 3 billion/year to her 25 000 cotton farmers, thus depriving the poor of an honest income. It is estimated these subsidies cost West African cotton farmers $250 million in lost income. Burkina Faso, for instance, received $10 million in U.S. aid in 2002 but lost an estimated $13.7 million in exports because of U.S. cotton subsidies.
Next to this, the U.S. pledge of $7 million (of which only $5 million is new money) to aid West African cotton farmers hurt by these subsidies seems ridiculous. As Francois Traore, president of the union of Burkinabe cotton producers, said:
"This is a question of human rights. We're not asking for a gift, we're asking for just rules."
Changing the rules
Those "just rules" can be decided at the World Trade Organisation meeting in Hong Kong next week. The "African four" - Burkina Faso, Mali, Chad, and Benin - are four poor West African cotton-producing countries, where more than 10 million people depend directly on cotton to pay for food, school fees and housing. . They are calling for an end to such export subsidies and for duty-free and quota-free access for cotton and cotton products from least-developed countries.
Cotton subsidies are just one aspect of the unjust trade rules that need addressing - and the US is far from being the only guilty party. While the U.S. gives more than $12 billion in subsidies to its farmers on everything from corn to sugar to tobacco, the EU gives $53 billion. A European cow receives $2.50 a day in subsidies, while 75% of Africans live on less than $2 a day. There is also concern about intellectual property rights, and attempts to liberalise the trade in services.
But cotton has become a symbol of the inequaliities of the current system, and unless something changes, the West African cotton industry - an engine for development and hope for millions of poor - could disappear. And we will be charged before the Great Judge of oppressing the poor, and denying them justice in the courts.
A Christian voice for justice
"Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute.
Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy." (Prov 31:8-9)
We need to develop a Biblical attitude and response towards poverty. As part of that, we should recognise that trade is a Christian issue. A Christian response to injustice in trade must affect our own lifestyle - to pursue our own prosperity at the expense of the poor is an offense to God. And we should also "defend the rights of the poor and needy" - calling for justice for the poor.
You can let your voice be heard.
* UK: vote for trade justice
* US: Contact President Bush and ask him to fight extreme poverty at the WTO by making trade fair.
* UK/Europe: Contact Peter Mandelson, European Trade Commissioner, to call upon him to do everything to act for the poor.
* UK/US: Join the Make Poverty History (UK) or ONE (US) campaigns
Tags: burkina faso africa burkina aid trade wto cotton justice poverty bible subsidies
December 03, 2005
AIDS rate drops in Burkina
As you know Thursday was World AIDS Day. The number of people in the world living with HIV is at its highest ever (an estimated 40.3m people currently living with the virus across the world, with almost 5m infected in 2005). Two thirds of the people living with HIV - 25.8m - are in sub-Saharan Africa.
Yet in Burkina Faso, one of the poorest countries in the world the AIDS rate has fallen. HIV prevalence is currently about 4% in the country as a whole. But infection rates among pregnant women living in urban areas, were down to 2.3 percent in 2004 from 4.2 percent in 2001.
Continue reading "AIDS rate drops in Burkina"
Fulani baptisms
Back on the subject of baptism, my colleague Steve writes about the recent baptism of two Fulani men, Kunjel and Mamadou.
Tags: burkina faso africa burkina fulani church baptism mission
December 01, 2005
Jaynebu's Story
The second time we found the bag of human excrement outside our door we knew someone was doing magic against us.
I went to a Moodibo (Muslim religious teacher) for help. He said I had to pay him 500 cfa (£0.50) to help. I paid him. He handed me a pen and instructed me to think hard of the thing that was troubling me and then to spit on the pen, hand it to him and he would reveal the problem to me. I did as he said. He then told me that I was very sick. I said “No, that’s not the problem”. He then said that for him to further help I needed to bring him 24 white kola nuts and 24 red kola nuts. It was the year 2001. In that year kola nuts were very expensive, even a small one was 50 cfa (£0.05) I went home and did the calculations. It would cost 2400 cfa. I could not afford it.
