The Gibsons online blog

Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Christmas in Reverse

1:39 pm |

A traditional English Boxing Day always consisted of finishing off the previous day's turkey and whatever else was still edible (Brussels Sprouts excluded as there are many who would question how edible they were in the first place… let alone cold or reheated!!!) My Boxing Day, however, consisted of putting the innards and pump head on one of the wells we had sunk the previous month. Not that traditional I know, but very worth while for all concerned.

We spent Christmas day with our friends Steve & Charlie eating a chicken that didn't need potatoes to prop it up due to its slenderness. This one was from Ouaga! We were very fortunate to have all the trimmings, bread sauce, cranberry sauce, Christmas pud as well as mince pies and a wonderful Christmas cake that a friend had very kindly baked for us in the UK, thanks to all the visitors we had out at a most favorable time of the year. We even had a few presents to open which arrived un-typically in time for the occasion. We were reliably informed that one of our sons (and it wasn't the three year old…)had a midnight feast of a fudge finger from his stocking.

In Djibo the Church holds their Christmas celebrations on the evening of the 24th. I was informed that the one of the churches' celebrations here in Djibo went on until 4am the next morning. The Fulani church, however, were much more civilised. Starting at 6:30 pm with the singing of Christmas related songs and finishing with a meal of macaroni and goat. We were back home by 9pm to get the children off to bed and do our parent/Santa thing the night before. Remember the finger of fudge. We even placed a block of cheese in Amelia's stocking, not because we are odd, but because that's what she wanted for Christmas.

The week leading up to Christmas we were all down with malaria apart from Amelia. Not really a Christmas tradition but it's good to do things a little differently from time to time. Apparently it stops one getting into a rut. As well as being visited by this rather unwelcome parasite we did have some other guests who were very much welcome, our friend Robin Watson who is working on the Fulfulde translation of the Bible, and our treasurer and his family. We also had the American Ambassador and her husband for supper one evening as they were doing a Christmas tour of the north of Burkina visiting peace corp workers.

One thing we can say about our Christmas. It wasn't un-eventful. Hope you had a memorable and meaningful Christmas as well.

Saturday, December 13, 2008

Christmas FES

2:26 pm |

Once again the children have had a great time at FES as they have met with their friends and enjoyed the classroom context of learning. This is the one FES in the year that we don't head down to the rec-club to go swimming as it's far to cold for us. It only gets up to 30 oC in the shade. As with last year all the kids went carol singing to various homes in Ouagadougou and finishing of at the American Ambassador's residence. After singing heartily we were all treated to nibbles, savory for the drivers (Me as well as a few other parents) and sweets and cookies for the kids.

One of the fun things the kids got to do during FES was to make gingerbread houses out of digestive biscuits and decorated them with sweets and other sickly stuff. On looking at the constructions I'm surprised they made it back to our apartment with most the sweets still intact!!! Not sure if they will make it back to Djibo intact as Amelia insists it travelling on her knee. With Sam sitting next to her I don't think this construction stands much of a chance.

Saturday, November 08, 2008

Ticking All The Boxes

7:22 pm |

Over the past week and a half we have had the privilege of working with Friends In Action making some fairly deep holes in the ground around the Djibo area. I didn’t actually realize how hit and miss the whole operation was when it comes to actually finding water. The first two holes we sank were a huge disappointment and it was very discouraging having to leave the village of Konga not having found a decent amount of water. The Second village, however, was a different kettle of fish. After drilling down just 100ft water came gushing out. The elation that was written all over my friends face said it all. For years they have had to drink diseased water from the lake and hand dug holes, but now they have their very own clean water supply.

Now we had succeeded in the village of Winde ferru we had time to head back to the first one to have another bash. Once again all we hit was solid granite, not a hint of damp for 140ft, but in our last and final attempt, success. Water came gushing out at 120ft down with more than enough wet stuff to provide the village with a good supply of clean water. Not to be taken for granted!

The team from our home church (Bilton Evangelical Church) came out to sink two wells, fix one and mend a colleagues vehicle. In their words, “all the boxes had been ticked”. I understand now that drilling wells takes faith, a good deal of perseverance and hard work.

Friday, October 24, 2008

We can't believe it true.

4:23 pm |

Over the past couple of days I've taken myself off to the two villages where we're going to be sinking wells during the next couple of weeks. The money involved to sink a well is way beyond the villagers' capability so when informing them that it would be happening in the next couple of weeks the excitement in their voices was evident. The chief of one of the villages is usually a quiet dignified old man, but when informed that it would definitely be happening he was literally shouting with excitement. Just this morning, as I was coming back from the other village, my friend said, "folk still believe it can't be true… normally if discussions begin on something like a well it will often take years (4 to 5 yrs) before (if) anything comes of it".
Spending the morning out in my friend's village we got talking about health issues. He was telling me how he has (all the symptoms of) severe amoebic dysentery. He said it seems to be seasonal, for whenever they drink the water from the lake many people in the village come down with the same sickness. For most of the year animals and people alike us the dry bed of the lake to defecate in. When it rains, the lake forms, cutting the only road to the nearest clean water supply 3km away, thus leaving the villagers no option but to drink the contaminated water.
It's such a blessing to be able to bring a little light into what would otherwise have been a seemingly hopeless year due to the dismal harvest they've just had. Do watch this space as the well drilling project comes to its climax – fresh, clean drinking water.

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

"Tuubaaku wadi tayre"

3:12 pm |

"The white person is harvesting!" These words rang out in the village of Mondé Sô as I endeavored to help my friend, Lobbo, harvest some of his millet. It's not a familiar sight to see an Englishman out in the field making his ears go redder than usual and getting his hands dirty. All some folk could do was laugh as they weren't quite sure in what other way to express their astonishment. I don't think it helped by my rather unorthodox method of cutting millet stalks. My preferred tool was a machete, rather than using the short sharp blade which had the potential of removing ones fingers if one was unskilled in this area, of which a certainly was (unskilled that is).
Often when asking whether the harvest is good or not I tend to get a rather guarded response as they like to leave a little room for the possibility of future help later on in the year as grain stocks run low. It is quite evident, however, that this year's harvest was not going to be great with the rains having been very stop start. The rains began very early, but then stopped for a month and then started again causing people to plant twice rather than just the once. Nevertheless, by mid August folk seemed unusually optimistic as the rains had been a little more consistent, but then at the start of September the taps were turned off and people's crops were left to dry out yielding a minimal crop.
We are now in mid October, and over the past few days we have seen over 40mm of rain fall in Djibo which is highly unusual this late on. Sadly these late rains will only serve to cause more loss of crops, for once the millet dries out the wind that accompanies the rains will just nock the crops down leaving the heads rotting in the mud. To add insult to injury this year has seen large swarms of birds making a meal of people's already waning food supply for the following year. From most quarters the message is clear this year. People are going to suffer.

Monday, September 15, 2008

Google Earth Image

6:01 pm |

This picture is of our house in Djibo

Monday, September 01, 2008

Party in the car

12:40 pm |

Amelia is an optimistic young lady, and the fact that we would be travelling down to Ouaga on her birthday didn't dampen her enthusiasm in the slightest as she daily remind everybody it would be her birthday in 10 days time, 9 days time, 8, 7, 6 days time. For Amelia, having a birthday in the car was just the icing on the cake. And so, there we were with cake, balloons (inside and out), games (that didn't involved too much moving around), and not forgetting the traditional opening of presents. We got quite a few odd looks I can tell you.

With part of the road down to down to Ouagadougou being such in poor shape a rollercoaster ride was thrown in for good measure but what should have been a 3hr journey took nearly 5 hrs, and on reaching our destination we were all pretty exhausted, but we did arrive all in one piece which is always a positive thing.

Much of the rest of Amelia's birthday she spent playing on her new pc game (SIMS 2) which was a big hit, and in the evening we went out on the town with a couple of the children's friends. All in all we had a good day

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

I've heard of TV!

3:03 pm |

As a rule I don't particularly like using the Jesus film in Evangelism as this medium is often open to confusion and some levels of misunderstanding with the bush nomads of the Sahel. However, when you don't speak the language of those you wish to communicate the message of Jesus it's rather a convenient tool.

A number of weeks ago the head marabou (Islamic teacher) of the Tuareg camp near Djibo requested that I showed his visitors (the hundred or so refugees from Timbuktu) the film about the life of Jesus. He was very happy if we showed it in Fulfulde but I knew it had already been translated into Tamacheq. Just this last week I managed to get hold of a copy and so last night, along with the pastor from our church, we showed the film. Now many of the nomadic languages have different dialect depending on where you're from and I wanted to make sure it was the correct one for this group, and so when I did a short dummy run the response was memorable to say the least. Some of the crowd were convinced I had Tuareg in the back of the car speaking their language. Another elderly man made the comment, "I've heard about TV, but this is the first time I have ever seen one".

I'm still not convinced that the TV is the best medium to communicate the gospel, but in this case it was the better of two evils (people hearing the message of Jesus, or not). I always find it thrilling presenting the gospel to people who have never had the opportunity to hear before, even more so when presenting it to a people group such as the Tuaregs who are largely un-reached.

The response was very positive.

3 out of 5 isn't bad!

1:17 pm |

As odds go we don't do to badly health wise out here. Actually we do pretty well considering. Rainy season, however, is that time of year when the mosquito's multiply and with them the malaria. It's that time of the year when people can least afford to be sick as they head out to their fields to cultivate and yet for many health is often at its worst.

The last two weeks have seen a rapid decrease in health in the Gibson household as buckets have been placed at the side of beds and quinine has been handed out like sweets on sweetie day. The only two people who seemed to have escaped the malaria to date are the youngest and the oldest members of the family. If you are a family member reading this blog don't be too alarmed, this killer disease has been defeated once again and all are back to full health… more or less

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

First relative on Mark's side to visit BF

9:42 pm |

Last Monday evening we were thrilled to welcome our niece, Lucy, and her friend Helen from the UK at Ouagadougou international airport. As 3^rd year medical students they will be working with our friend, Dr Ken Elliott, at the Djibo surgical centre for a couple of weeks gaining bit of a different experience in medicine. We hope to show them a bit of the wild life of Djibo if they have the time.

Sunday, July 27, 2008

Work in progress

12:46 pm |

Over the past few months we have been busy raising finances, purchasing land, making bricks, finding reliable builders and getting the construction under way. Here is a snap shot of how it's been going.

Making cement bricks in our yard.

Getting ready to build the compound wall.

Wall complete, digging the foundations and starting the house.

And the walls go up.

We are hoping the building will be complete within two months so that Jodoma and his wife can move in before the end of the rainy season.

Friday, July 18, 2008

Back on the road again

3:39 pm |

After being off the road with our car since April we are finally mobile again. One of our friends from the FIA well drilling team was able to come up to Djibo and fit the broken part from the steering rack. To most people this may not sound that exciting a subject to be writing about on our blog, but believe me, for the Gibsons, it's very exciting to be back on the road again after three months of being without a car.

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.

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