- "Niger: Crisis, What Crisis?" (Can you even imagine? Definitely worth the read if you want to know a little more about this land and what so many face.)
"The evening meal will be stewed leaves tasting somewhat like spinach, which the women pick every morning, yet crops were standing tall before the leafhoppers flew into Zinder in Niger and devoured anything green. The official response to a region on the edge of survival has been slow, but then the women went to see the Prefect.
It is after 6.30 in the evening in sandy and hot Dan Gouchy Haoussa, a village about a 1,000km east of Niamey, capital of Niger, and about 20km from the border with Nigeria. Nine children - the youngest about four years old and the oldest a teenager doing his homework - sit around a pot that Salamatou, one of their two mothers, has placed on the fire.
The stewed leaves of a wild bush called leptadenia hastate will be served when the tenth child, who is queuing at the only tap in the village, returns with water. It will be the family's first meal of the day.
More than 200,000 people in the district of Magaria have been living on meals like this for almost six months, but aid agencies warn that the worst is yet to come."
It is after 6.30 in the evening in sandy and hot Dan Gouchy Haoussa, a village about a 1,000km east of Niamey, capital of Niger, and about 20km from the border with Nigeria. Nine children - the youngest about four years old and the oldest a teenager doing his homework - sit around a pot that Salamatou, one of their two mothers, has placed on the fire.
The stewed leaves of a wild bush called leptadenia hastate will be served when the tenth child, who is queuing at the only tap in the village, returns with water. It will be the family's first meal of the day.
More than 200,000 people in the district of Magaria have been living on meals like this for almost six months, but aid agencies warn that the worst is yet to come."
- "Doing the Work of the Lord" (Amen!)
"...I've fed this insidious notion that, in order to "do the work of the Lord," I must be overtly working in some sort of recognizable ministerial fashion.
How wrong I've been, how unknowingly I've looked down upon a "normal" career..."
How wrong I've been, how unknowingly I've looked down upon a "normal" career..."
- "You Might Be an Idolator If..." (Ouch... but sometimes it is good to have someone step on my toes!)
"How do we know if we love something too much? Where is the line between a healthy enjoyment and an idol? Idolatry is often subtle. It can creep up on us in the form of good desires, like getting married or excelling in the work place. You may have created idols for yourself if..."
NIGER-LIBYA: “In Libya you face bombs, but in Niger you face death” (So much prayer needed...)
“Thousands and thousands of men have left to return to unemployment in Niger. We have no choice but to beg in the streets or to steal,” Abdelkadre Moussa, a returnee in Agadez in the centre of the country, told IRIN. “In Libya you face bombs, but in Niger you face death.”
- "Niger: Aid Response to Crisis in the South" (the perspective of the the first article I listed above, I find fascinating...)
"Aid is finally reaching tens of thousands of families in southern Niger who have survived mainly on wild leaves and fruit for the past six months.
The incoming civilian government has launched a cash-for-work programme covering 325 of the 354 affected villages in Magaria District (in the southern region of Zinder) to help the more than 200,000 people identified as food insecure, said Modibo Traoré, head of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Niger.
Villagers had been left with almost nothing to eat after their sorghum and millet crops were devoured by leafhoppers in 2010."
The incoming civilian government has launched a cash-for-work programme covering 325 of the 354 affected villages in Magaria District (in the southern region of Zinder) to help the more than 200,000 people identified as food insecure, said Modibo Traoré, head of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Niger.
Villagers had been left with almost nothing to eat after their sorghum and millet crops were devoured by leafhoppers in 2010."
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Photo by AC.
Photo by AC.
I can't really say I "enjoyed" any of the articles about Niger and the crises there, (is that how you pluralize crisis?) but I definitely have more of an understanding of what is going on. Thank you for sharing those. And I loved the article about ministry. Thanks! :-)
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