Where to begin?

So I had quite the interesting last few days, to put it mildly. I'm not really sure where to begin with this, so I'll just take a crack at it and see where it goes.

Packed up all I figured I'd need for 3 days in the African bush into two small bags on Friday night. Nicely forgot toilet paper. Not a good thing to forget when traveling. Ever. Sunday (name of our driver) picked me up at noon on Saturday and we went to the Mountain View compound to pick up Monica, Janina, Christine and John then headed out on the 3 hour drive to Abuja. We were supposed to meet up with Chinyere in Abuja, but her flight was delayed from a mechanical problem so we weren't sure what was going to happen, but drove out there anyway. We stayed in the ECWA guest house in Abuja for the night and 3 guys from Water Wins, a well drilling organization landed from the States and also stayed the night. They're associated with the CRWRC and PWW (Partners WorldWide) and come every year to bring supplies, train Nigerians and help dig more wells for villages in Northern Nigeria. Great organization and great guys. Doug started it up a few years ago and got in contact with Steve, a professional well driller. They've come out for the past few years and Jamie, who works with Steve, came out this year too.

Sunday morning we found out Chinyere wasn't going to be able to join us because of the delay, so after a breakfast of eggs and toast, we headed out on the 8 hour drive to the EKA (think it stands for Eastern Kontagori Kambari (thanks Megan!) Area). Jos, the city I live and work in here is in Plateau State, Abuja is in Abuja Capital Territory, the state just West of Plateau State and the EKA is North West of that in Niger State. The three well drillers, the of us CRC peeps and our driver all fit nicely into the van with everyone's luggage, plus all their well drilling supplies. After the nice long and hot drive, we stayed at Jeremiah and Marietta's house, while Christine and John Breuker stayed at another home not too far away. We had dinner at Dave and Jen's (? - I'm horrible with names), a missionary couple there who have been there for 41 years. Dinner was delicious, but I made the mistake of eating an entire red pepper that was in the salad. I think I turned as red as the pepper itself. Sunday night is movie night and a projector screen was set up. We caught the very end of Jurassic Park and The Jesus Film was put on after. Sidenote: if you feel like how I used to feel about Jesus being portrayed in movies, just think about how many people are able to come to faith through that amazing movie. Take some of these facts I lifted from Wikipedia. It's been translated into 1,026 languages (Nigeria itself has over 500 languages), is shown in 229 nations, and has been seen more than 5.6 billion times throughout the world. Which makes it an incredible aid for evangelism and spreading the gospel in remote areas (like the EKA). If you're still not sold on that, think about the 230 million people who have converted to Christianity because of this movie. If you have a problem with Jesus being portrayed in a movie, He sure doesn't seem to mind because He's using it in a huge way. Sidenote end. That night I took a picture of 5 African boys. Before I knew it, I was swarmed by like 20 more village kids who all wanted their pictures taken. They loved it, especially since my camera has the adjustable screen, so they can watch themselves have their picture taken. This lasted a good half hour. I had shared a room with a praying mantis in the night who thought it could fly through walls. It couldn't. Just made a bunch of noise until I managed to get it out.

Monday was the most interesting day. North American style breakfast got us geared up for a lot of driving again. This time it was more fun though. I got to drive! I got the keys to Dave's pickup and got to drive us through the African bush. Pretty darn fun. And bumpy. Rest of them took turns sitting/standing in the back. Surprised I didn't lose any of them with the bumps we hit. Well, I hit. We had a guide point us where to go so we wouldn't get lost. We went to several different villages in the area. Most rarely see white people, so needless to say, we were a bit of a show. Lots more camera fun. One of the villages we went to, we delivered a concrete slab for one of the new wells that had been dug there and a different village we installed a sign saying who had sponsored the well to be dug. One villager showed us how they separate the chaff from the seed. Still done the same way it's spoken of in the Bible. There are so many parts of the Bible that just hold so much more meaning to the people in the 10/40 window that we only vaguely understand.

The truck started to stall a lot, so Sunday took a look at it and fiddled around. Let him drive the rest of the way back. We went back for lunch then went to the market. The market here is quite different from Jos. Much more Muslim influence (no picture taking!) but pretty cool. Very big - it's only once a week, so it has to be. We went back to Dave's. The rest of them got to take a tour of the school there while I helped put together a satellite dish for his neighbour. Got the dish together, but no channels as he didn't know where the satellite he wanted was. Good thing the sky is so small...

Dave drove me back on his motorcycle. Was pretty surreal. We took a path that led us through several 'homes' (families live in several huts all together, looks kinda like a mini-village). On the ride over I just started laughing. If I had thought last year that I would be riding past the beating drums of villagers in the African bush on a motorcycle, I would have thought I was nuts. Maybe I am.

The villages we visited have never had access to clean water so it's an incredible thing. Half of all the babies die because of unsafe water here. And we don't think twice about turning on the tap for perfectly fine, perfectly safe water. Chances are you don't even drink water out of your own tap because you've been brainwashed into thinking bottled water is the only 'good' water. These people are digging water out of swamps and feeding it to their children and we think our multi-filtered and clorinated water isn't good enough for us, but don't do anything about the millions who go thirsty every day.

Chances are me saying this won't affect you, you've seen the commercials and turned the channel. You've read heard the stories and faked concern. What makes one more person telling you we live in a culture obsessed with the self change anything? It's not like you know them right? It's not like you can do anything about it right? Maybe you'll frown about how sad it is those people out there live without all the perks we do. Maybe you'll tell someone else. Maybe you'll support a band that supports a charity. Maybe you'll watch a movie about poverty and think about how 'sad that is'. Maybe. But you won't do anything. What could you possibly do, right? The problem is too big, right?? What could one Canadian do, right??

As you sleep tonight you'll have forgotten about this blog. As you sleep tonight you'll be thinking about how you can't wait until the weekend to watch that new movie. As you sleep tonight - the few hours passing as one day merges seamlessly into the next - 30,000 children will die from starvation or diseases related to malnutrition.

Sweet dreams.