The Gibsons online blog

Tuesday, July 01, 2008

Timbuktu Comes to Djibo

12:14 am |

Over the past three weeks much of my time has been spent working on the Tuareg migration here in Djibo, helping with aid distributions, feeding information to the UN and other NGOs, and working with ADRA ( www.adra.org ) in getting help to those who need it most. The more time I've spent working with the refugees the more complicated it seems to be. There is said to be approximately 1000 refugees in the Djibo area alone with more on their way. A large percentage of these are women and children and since their arrival two of these women have given birth following their four week journey to safety. One lady had to use someone else's makeshift tent to give birth in as she hadn't had time to construct anything of her own since reaching the refugee camp.

Over the last few weeks we have been able to get £3000 of aid to the most needy, but this will only last for a very short period of time. Unfortunately the Burkina government does not have any budget for this sort of emergency so we will just have to wait and see how the situation develops.

Thursday, June 05, 2008

Malian refugees are setting up camp around Djibo

10:14 pm |

Returning from Ouagadougou last Sunday we passed what look like a makeshift camp about 15 km south of Djibo. Some officials from Djibo seemed to be in discussion with the inhabitants accompanied by the local Gendarme. We were soon passed by their small convoy as they sped towards another makeshift camp just 10 km up the road. The residents of this camp, however, we knew. This was our Tuareg friend Muhammad whose village we often take our visitors for camel rides.

Prior to us leaving for Ouaga two weeks earlier Muhammad had mentioned the imminent arrival of Malian refugees and now he appeared to be playing host to quite a number of them judging by the newly erected tents. The following day I took a trip out there to find out what the situation was and listen to some of the stories of these refugees. Over the past several months news has been filtering through of a Tuareg uprising and the fighting that has been going on between the rebels and the military. It's near impossible to get a clear picture by listening to one party and I've heard of atrocities that have been carried out on both sides, but one thing was quite clear. These people had fled their homeland of Timbuktu in fear for their lives.

Over the past four weeks these families had been travelling over 500km on foot with very few possessions. One lady who had arrived on foot was about 9 months pregnant and a number of the children were now malnourished. The UN and the Burkina government are in the process of gathering information in order to decide what they will do. In the mean time our friend Muhammad has been left to play host to around 20 families each consisting of between 5 – 10 children per family. It has been estimated that there are up to 600 refugees in the Djibo are, many of whom are still hiding out in the bush, scared to come into the open lest they get sent back by the authorities.

We are expecting that the UN will eventually bring aid to these folk, but we are wondering how we might assist with their immediate needs. Up to now we have managed to get 12 100kg sacks out to them but this won't last long. Do pray that God would give us wisdom as we seek to alleviate some of their distress and as we feed information to the UN in Ouaga to hopefully speed up the process so that aid would reach these folk sooner than later.

Also see http://www.voiceinthedesert.org.uk/weblog/

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Bricks

9:32 pm |

Some of you will be aware that we have been raising money to build the SIM pastor here in Djibo a house. Well, the work has begun... by making the bricks. Normally one would buy bricks in the town, but due to their very poor quality we have decided to make our own -- or should I say I have employed certain individuals to be responsible for the production of bricks. As we have quite a bit of land around our house we have decided to have the production line in our yard which is very interesting for our youngest, and today saw the arrival of the sand and gravel lorry (which nearly took the gate of its hinges on its way in and then lost the use of its forward gears whilst in the yard) and the first hundred bricks we produced.

We will aim to keep folk up to date on the progress but we promise that this will not become the main focus of our blog for the next few months as most people don't find brick making as interesting as our younger son does.

Thursday, May 01, 2008

Air lifts are generally for emergencies only

9:13 pm |

We had a friend in the house today to keep an eye on Sam as our usual house help wasn't around. Now Sam has a few favorite videos one of which is called "Come Outside" where this lady flies everywhere with her little dog, pippin, exploring various aspects of every day life such as where the rubbish goes, moving house, how the post works etc. Very educational. This one episode which Sam insisted on watching with our friend was about hedgehogs. No problem with that one may think. After all, we do have hedgehogs here in Djibo so nothing too out of the ordinary their you may say. Wrong, a few minuets into this enlightening treat and a look (and sound) of amazement came upon our friend as this eccentric lady with the plane (and little dog) took a hedgehog out of her garden and flew it to the vets to fix its broken leg. The idea was beyond comprehension for our friend why someone would take a prickly vermin, airlift it out of a village and take it to a hospital exclusively for animals which, incidentally, was way above the quality of any of the facilities here for the human residents. Come to think of it, the idea is beyond me as well.

I did try to explain the best I could to our friend that a lot of people where I came are quite mad when it comes to animals. I do believe that his look of bewilderment was quite valid and my explanation didn't really change the expression on his face.

Saturday, April 19, 2008

Night Rider

10:44 am |

Night driving isn't particularly advised here in Burkina Faso, one; because of bandits on the road, and two; because of hazardous objects such as goats, cows, cyclists, potholes and an abundant of debris ranging from animal carcasses to vehicle parts deposited by the previous day's traffic. On the bush roads bandits don't seem to be as much of a problem but there is certainly an increased element of the unexpected as well as the possibility of getting severely lost in the network of tracks with trees as your only signposts. Over the last few months I have found night driving difficult to avoid just by the very nature of ministry amongst the Fulani.

One village I have been working in is about 23km out of Djibo. Last year some parts of the road out there have been worked on to make it a little easier to make the commute. The down side of this is that some parts of the road are in a state of semi repair which creates other problems. For example, whilst one is whistling along at 50kmph there is the risk of coming to a section that is in the state of incompletion. Not too much of a problem in the daylight. Big problem at night – and this is what happened to me last week.

I was happily driving back from the village mulling over the evenings events in my mind when suddenly this chasm of a rut appeared before me. I slammed on the brakes, skidded on the dust and hit the ditch with immense force. The car just seemed to shoot up in the air as the front wheels hit. Straitening myself up again and putting my glasses back on my nose I was convinced I must have done some serious damage to the vehicle. This was axel splitting stuff, I was convinced. And so, I got out of the car, made an inspection, saw no dripping oil, got back in and drove on being sensitive to the fact that all four wheels could pop off at any moment. Twenty minutes later I arrived back in Djibo without a hitch, thinking to myself that I had got off very lightly with that one.

The following week I was making the same trip. I slowed right down and turned of the main road onto the narrow track heading towards the village when the steering felt a little strange. Must be a flat tyre, I thought. Once again I got out of the car, made the inspection of all four tyres. No flat! Strange, must be the sand on the road. I continued a little way on my journey only to find the steering was still feeling very loose and so I got out once again making a closer inspection only to discover that when I turned my left front wheel manually my steering wheel didn't budge. Ah! We have a problem. Fortunately the other front wheel seemed to be doing what it was meant to and so, from that point on, driving was restricted to about 10kmph. I wasn't far from the village so I carried on, informed them that I wouldn't be able to do the teaching that evening and headed back to Djibo. The journey that normally took 30 mins took over 2 hours, but I was very grateful I got back in one piece.

I managed to find a mechanic in Djibo and was reliably informed that if I had been travelling at any speed when the steering rod had disconnected the consequences would have been a lot worse. We are now limited to two wheeled transport as the part we need to fix the car has to be shipped in from Europe. We have been informed that this will probably take about a month (the term "be with you in a month" tends to be understood here as estimating a month at the earliest rather than being an exact date).

I guess 4x4 vehicles aren't indestructible after all. We thank God for his protection. It could have been a lot worse.

Friday, March 28, 2008

The kissing Camel

9:05 am |

We thought that this Camel kissing Amelia was cute.

Monday, February 25, 2008

Water.

10:40 pm |

It was thrilling to see clean water flowing again in my friend's village. On hearing of my visit the chief got the whole village together in order to greet me. We spoke for a while and they showed me what they had put in place to ensure that when the well needed repairs doing the next time the money would be their. It's quite an encouragement when folk take hold of your advice and run with it. I was then presented with four cockerels as a sign of their appreciations.

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Well, Well, Well

9:36 pm |

Water, one of the basic essentials for life but often taken for grated. For most people coming from the UK the thought of rain doesn't fill one with excitement, in fact some may argue that the British Isles has too much of the stuff especially during the holiday period. Some even consider emigrating to warmer climates because of it. We, however, have come to appreciate its value in day to day living. In the north of Burkina it hasn't rained since mid September and we don't expect it to again until around mid June. In Djibo itself it isn't to hard to find clean drinking water, we ourselves are fortunate enough to have the liquid gold on tap, but out of the town is a different story all together. It's not that there are no wells in the surrounding villages, there are, though not in all, it's just that many of the existing wells are broken.

A couple of weeks ago a friend of mine came to visit and shared with me how his village now had no water supply. There were actually three deep wells in this community of about 1500 people but their final well broke the previous day leaving them with a five km walk to the nearest supply. Don't ask me why folk wait for the situation to get so desperate, it's a question I frequently ask, and never seem to receive a reasonable answer. Ho hum.

I agreed to help him on the condition that the village folk contributed some of the finance needed to get one of the wells pumping water again. One week later I went out to see how the work was going and to chat with some of the villagers about how they may put in place a system of putting aside funds each month for future repairs. The discussions seemed to go well and were met with a lot of nods of agreement at some of the ideas put forward. We will just have to see if they put any of the ideas into practice.

I head out there tomorrow to hopefully find a village with clean drinking water.

Monday, February 04, 2008

Dentistry in West Africa.

8:46 pm |

Now it's not that I generally avoid going to the dentist, in fact I like to think that I have become immune to any fear I may have once held to due to my frequent visits to "the chair" in my youth. The thought of a visit to the dentist in a West African country, however, seems to have revived that adolescent dread I once held, but when needs must one has to be the grown up and bite the bullet. And so, when my ten year old crown detached itself with the help of a piece of chewing gum kindly given to me by my ten year old son, off I went.

Now there is a dentist in the town where we live, and although he is meant to be very skilful I felt more comfortable heading off down to Ouaga to seek the counsel of previous missionaries who had gone before me. A few days later I found myself in that place once again where the light always shines like the morning sun and the instruments of the trade are left on display to stare at you with intent.

To cut a long story short I was very impressed with the dentist, a German lady married to a Burkinabe, as she explained to me that I would need to have a screw placed in the root of what was left of my molar. Her method of dentistry is a little different to what I was used to in the UK. I would like it to that of a German car, a Volkswagen lets say – no unnecessary frills but solid workmanship.

It was interesting that on the way out the Dental assistant (the lady with the suction pipe) offered me some counsel on the way out as to whether to use my old crown or get a new one made. Interesting.

Thursday, January 17, 2008

Our Friends' Imminent Arrival

9:25 pm |

As I write this blog we have a couple of friends who are slowly making their way across West Africa. They have already been to Timbuktu in Mali and next Tuesday 22^nd Jan 2008 they should be arriving in Djibo. Now we have had quite a number of visitors here over the years but none as yet who have come via this rout. Do take the opportunity to look at their blog: http://www.totimbuktu.blogspot.com/ and if you are reading this blog from Mali and see a couple of foreigners looking lost. Do point them in the right direction.

Happy New Year

9:15 pm |

Christmas is but a distant memory now and it seems a little futile to be writing about our Christmas in Djibo. So I won't. Instead I'll fill you in on the events surrounding our New Year, but to do this I'm going to need to take you back in time to New Year 2002 when we first visited some missionary friends from the UK down in the south east of Burkina. A couple of years later they were very kind in reciprocating the visit when they came to Djibo where a bit of an infrequent tradition began. Consequentially we found ourselves back in village of Legmouin just 5 km away from the Ghanaian border. It was quite a trek from Djibo (600km) but we had a great time visiting again with the Nash family.

Following a few days with our friends we headed back to Ouagadougou where we stayed for a few days before heading off to the SIM Burkina Spiritual Life Conference (SLC). Whilst in Ouaga I had the delights of visiting the dentist for the first time in Burkina. It really is something one tries to avoid, especially as I'm not that keen on the whole pain thing. However, needs must as one of my crowns came away and it's a little difficult chewing on a gnarled stump rather than a finely honed piece of porcelain. During our short stay in Ouaga all of us but Cheryl fell sick. Sam threw up whilst on the swings at the SIL centre. Cheryl said it was quite spectacular. I only smelled the after effects!

We finally headed off to Fada N 'Gourma on the Wednesday where our SLC was being held. Joshua for one was a little more subdued than usual and I for one needed to stay pretty close to the loo the first couple of days. Despite our ailments we had a great time and enjoyed catching up with SIM missionary colleagues. Most of the conference was in French this year and it was quite a challenge for me leading the worship in French, but no one threw anything at me so I assume it went okay.

We are now back in Djibo and Sam for one appears to be very glad to be home, and if I'm honest I think we all are. In the space of just over one month we have each slept in 11 different beds. I know we work with nomads, but we never imagined it would be a contagious lifestyle.

Well, I guess all there is left to say is, HAPPY NEW YEAR to one and all.

Sunday, December 30, 2007

Christmas Post!

3:14 pm |

Now we know that Christmas isn’t about getting stuff, and we know that presents aren’t the main focus of the season. But to be honest it was looking rather sketchy for the Gibson household in Djibo, for it was the 23rd December and still no Christmas post had arrived. I don’t think it really would have washed with a 10 year old, 8 year old and a 2 year old to say, “Hey kids, don’t be sad, and not having anything to open on Christmas day will help us keep focused on the reason for the season”. Needless to say we were beginning to wonder how things were going to pan out for us.

It was now Christmas eve and we had some friends on their way up from Ouagadougou. Just when we were about to give up hope of ever receiving any form of Christmas correspondence a glimmer of hope pierced the feeling of presentlessness when an unexpected parcel appeared as if from nowhere. It had mistakenly been delivered to the Ouaga office and it was indeed the largest box we had ever seen sent by post. It had everything in, gifts for the kids and grownups, as well as a delicious Christmas cake for all.

You know, we think the best gifts are those you just don’t expect, and we certainly weren’t expecting this one.

Thank you Whizz kids, Swamp and all our friends in BEC who made this happen.

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

A Moonlight Serenade

9:49 pm |

Pastor Jodoma and I were just coming to the end of our discussions as the sun was rapidly sinking below the horizon when there came a, Jam Nyalli (did you spend the day in peace) from a griot I know from one of the local villages, along with his brother. The griots are those who turn up at occasions such as weddingsand naming ceremonies to recite family's genealogy. The brother was carrying his hoddu which is a guitar like instrument made of wood, stretched goat skin and a single string. I was semi expecting this chap to pop round a few days ago and so was a little taken aback by his delayed timing. Anyway, he proceeded, along with his brother, to play and recite a tune they had put together about me. To be honest I felt a little embarrassed and somewhat flattered at the same time and with the moon light now reflecting off the lake behind our house it was very atmospheric. A short while later they headed off into the night with a little something for their evening meal. I think they were reasonably content with their evenings work and I'm quite sure we'll see them again at some point now they know where we live.

Monday, December 17, 2007

It's Cool to be back!

8:12 pm |

We were pleasantly surprised getting back to Djibo to find that we had well and truly entered cold season with night time temperatures plummeting as low as 17 °C and daytime temperatures reaching around the 32 °C mark. I know it's not quite as cold as it is in the UK at present, but we do have to wear jumpers in the early morning now.

It was great to catch up with the believers Sunday morning and Jodoma, our pastor, seems to have everything in hand for the church's Christmas celebrations this year. In the afternoon the family all set about getting the house ready for Christmas busily improvising with what we have as our Christmas CD collection added to the celebratory ambience. It was very exciting for the kids. Not sure if Sam really knew what was going on, he was just excited about everybody else being excited.

Thursday, December 13, 2007

A night out on the Town.

4:29 pm |

As part of the December FES the Children often go carol singing to various homes around Ouagadougou and as a reward get supplied with cakes, cookies and pop which seems to really encourage the kids to sing at their best. Needless to say I (Mark) was very happy providing transport for the little songsters with such rewards being extended to the chauffeur as well.

We visited several houses ending up at the American Ambassador’s residence near to the city centre. This was quite a treat for the kids and for some of the adults as well. I have never seen Joshua and Amelia singing so enthusiastically before.

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

What is FES?

3:17 pm |

FES (Field Education Service) was set up for missionary kids who live in isolated locations such as Djibo and is attended by MKs (missionary kids) from a number of west African countries and is run four times a year. It’s such great fun for our children as they learn in a larger classroom situation and get their fill of social interaction with children from similar cultural back grounds.

Amelia with class mates

Art class

Most of the families stay on site where parents tend not to see much of their school age kids from morning till night. You could say they treat our lodgings a little like a hotel… and none of them are teenagers yet.

Saturday, December 08, 2007

Pretty Polly

1:32 pm |

We seem to have acquired an African Grey parrot to add to the Gibson zoo. It's amazing what you can pick up in Ouaga. At present it appears to be a little bit aggressive so if anybody has some good methods in pacifying a parrot with attitude we would appreciate it. If you can think of an appropriate name for her (we were "reliably" informed that it was female) we would bring your suggestion before the board (Josh & Milly) for consideration.

Tuesday, December 04, 2007

Trip to Mahadaga

11:31 am |

As we were waking around the handicap project in Mahadaga Joshua whispered into my ear concerning the lady who started and runs the project, and asked, “Is this lady the new Gladys Ailwood”. Françoise Pedeau started this ministry seven years ago as she saw the needs of the handicapped children in her area. More often than not these children would be hidden away with little or no chance of any quality of life. Because of her vision and compassion Françoise has transformed hundreds of children’s lives through this ministry bringing the kingdom of God here to this corner of Burkina Faso where children with all kinds of disabilities receive therapy, education and vocational training. As we were shown round the project site we had a real sense that this place was a place of joy as the children beamed from ear to ear as they greeted us at the various locations.

Françoise with some of the children from the centre.

Visually impaired boy learning brail.

Two year old child with cerebral palsy receiving therapy.

SIM Link to the handicapped project:

http://www.sim.org/index.php/project/93279

I (Mark) have only been down to Mahadaga once, many years ago, but for Cheryl and the children this was the first time, and despite it being a long trip all the family were so glad we took the time to see the work down their.

Thursday, October 18, 2007

Back on line

9:30 am |

During our short time in the UK I realised that computers don’t really cope with drinks of tea very well. After pouring a full cup of tea into the keyboard of my laptop it rapidly closed down never to boot-up again. A lesson learned I think. Anyway, I am now suffering the delights of modern technology on the edge of the Sahel. It would seem that some of the newer modems don’t cope very well with older phone systems such as we find ourselves using in Djibo. A little frustrating feeling an increased sense of isolation from the outside world. The problem, however, has now been resolved and so, for those who nip onto our blog from time to time there should be some more regular updates. And if you are heading out with a newer computer to a country where you are not sure of the connection quality, it may be worth purchasing an external modem just in case.

Wednesday, September 05, 2007

Back 2 BF

11:02 am |

Following our time in the UK we are just about to head back to Burkina. I will write a little more about our goings on once I have a little more time, but i can assure you it wasn't all fun and games. Our friends' wedding was great though. Congratulations Mike and Alison.

Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)