That seemed like a good idea... FOR ME TO POOP ON!!

The title is a reference to Triumph the Insult Dog.

One thing my mother warned before I left: Don't mess with voodoo.

There are many things in this world that we don't understand and therefore don't believe in. Ghosts, for example. Witchcraft, sorcery, voodoo, hoodoo... lots of people dismiss it as bullshit... but I live in Benin. No one dismisses it here.

**warning: gross stuff ahead. if you've just had lunch, or are faint of heart, don't read this!!!**

I was waiting for Mathieu to pick me up after work on Friday and I was reading the paper. The headline on page 11 of La Nation reads:

Les "gourous" de la mort -- Le fléau mystérieux qui décime la gent féminine (The Gurus of death -- The Mysterious Plague that is Decimating the Female Race)

The article goes on to say that women in love are being killed. Not by AIDS, not by cancer... I have to quote it for you to believe it:

Des prédateurs, ce que les Ivoiriens (de la Côte d'Ivoire) appellent les "gourous", ne sont que des personnalités mues par un souci effréné d'entretenir leur fortune qui font succomber à coups d'argent, leurs victimes en quête de gain facile et gagnant donc leur manger à la "sueur" de leurs cuisses. Le mode d'emploi trouvé par ces gros bonnets, les "grotos" comme on les appelle ici, est tout simple. Pour assouvir leur dessein lugubre, ces exterminateurs contemporains sans scrupule demandent à déféquer ou à uriner sur des filles ou vice-versa après avoir satisfait leur libido avec elles, en échange de faramineuses sommes d'argent. Quelques heures ou quelques jours après, les victimes commencent à sentir des malaises; une maladie "bizarre" s'installe et prend plusieurs formes. Puis, la suite, c'est le trépas en douce.

To translate basically. Rich and powerful men who want to keep or improve their richness and power, get intimate with women and then offer them absurd amounts of money to let them or ask the girls to... well... relieve themselves on the man or let the man do it on them. Days or hours later, the women fall mysteriously ill and die. DIE.

A "marabout" or powerful sorcerer is quoted in the following text, the article's continuation:

D.S., un marabout et exorciste à Abobo BC, très sollicité par bon nombre de footballeurs, d'artistes et de personnalités ivoiriens, a reconnu que "ça existe vraiment" et explique : "C'est une pratique que certains féticheurs (voodoun)conseillent à leurs clients. Soit, la personne défèque sur sa copine ou il demande qu'elle défèque sur lui. Ca peut paraître dégoutant mais, je vous assure que c'est un moyen infaillible pour avoir de la puissance et pour consolider sa richesse". Evidemment, cela n'est pas sans conséquence : "La fille qui accepte de se faire ch... dessus, est, dans 98% des cas, vouée à la mort. Ca peut prendre du temps. Mais, elle finira par mourir", confie le féticheur.

He explains again what I explained earlier, that in Ivory Coast, some clients of voodoo priests come to them for riches and power and they recommend this practice of not-so-golden showers to give them riches and power. The girl dies in 98% of cases, data which I'm sure has not been scientifically verified.

They quote one girl who politely declined a man's requests, despite the offer of 10 million francs or $25,000. Another girl whose friend died mysteriously discusses how they had laughed when she said that her boyfriend wanted her to pee on him:

"Moi, je soupçonne fortement son amant, une grande personnalité du pays qui lui offrait tout ce qu'elle voulait. Il y a un mois, AD m'a confiée que son amant lui avait demandé d'uriner sur lui après qu'ils eurent fait l'amour. On a bien ri. Mais, c'est depuis ce temps que ma camarade est tombée malade..."

They also quote doctors who looked at these patients and declared these diseases as "mal mystique".

How do you convict someone of murder?

I asked Mathieu how these guys can be punished since there's no way to prosecute them in any modern courts, and he assured me that karma's a bitch, although of course, he never could put it that way. I picture their faces shriveling up and them falling into a pile of dust, like in an Indiana Jones movie.

Anyway, I'm sure I've grossed everyone out thoroughly. Voodoo may or may not be a thing of the past, but certainly shouldn't be taken lightly. West Africa, and Africa in general, is very powerful.

The modern world underestimates itself greatly. We pride ourselves on our "intelligence" and our ability to make machines "Go", but these people can cure disease with plants and can create wealth with magic... poop.

Why, then, with all their magic, haven't they dug themselves out of the proverbial hole they're in? Perhaps for the same reason we have an economic crisis, or why we can't seem to put even a small lid on our consumerism to help out our environment... because there is good *and* evil in the world. The Good understand that using magic and powers for your own advancement will not lead to anything durable. And until the Good stand up to the Bad, until women stop taking money and gifts from men for "fecal favours" (lol, i slay me!)... until we really and truly stand up and speak out against that which we know to be evil... then evil will always win.

A little preachin' for those who made it to the end of this post.


In other news, I took SIXTEEN kids to the museum and to the amusement park this weekend. :) More on that, and pictures, tomorrow. SIXTEEN. Started with 8, and then the family got wind of it. You know, I think I'll miss the kids most of all. They're pretty adorable! And really sweet! And very well behaved! I was impressed!

Knocking and getting knocked

My life has been blessedly violence-free. I've never been punched in the face, never been beaten, have never witnessed someone really being beaten (except this one time in Detroit, some guy was on the ground getting kicked in the stomach but we were in a vehicle driving by so I just looked away...)

Generally, violence is deemed as bad in Canada, unless you're watching a UFC fight on TV. Not that it's not seen as bad here, but generally it seems that people seem to think it's ok to use corporal punishment -- if they "deserve it", it's ok.

Obviously it's a changing attitude. More and more people are getting the message that it's not ok to hit children and women. I think maybe our society has gone too far, to the point where school teachers can barely touch students anymore without being worried that they'll get charged with assault, either sexual or physical.

So anyway, last night there was a knock on the door.
Did I hear properly? The TV's kinda loud.
Knock knock knock...

C'est qui? (Who is it?) C'EST QUI?
C'est moi... a meek voice answered. And then the young voice mumbled something in Fon.

I'm not keen on opening the door to strangers, but happily Mathieu was there so I let him deal with it. He opened the door and a voice just went on and on in Fon, and suddenly I heard "1000 Francs" and on and on again until she just started to bawl her eyes out and Mathieu started to search his pockets for change and kept telling her to calm down. He gave her 500 francs (1000 = $2.50) and sent her on her way to find the rest of the money at someone else's door.

He said to me that he didn't understand her whole story, but apparently she sells flour in this neighbourhood and someone had gyped her out of 1000F that day, and if she went back to the lady she sells flour for without the money, she'd get a beating.

Oy. For 2.50 you get a beating? Mathieu insisted she may have been acting, but her tears and cries sounded real to me. Then again, I've cried pretty convincingly in my day.

It has also come to my attention that someone I've met is a bit of a polygamist, but not out of religious affiliations, but rather just because he can. Plus he hits his "women", but I think the children are too small for him to take anything out on them. Apprently there's even more to the story, but upon seeing my scathing disgust the person who told me decided to stop. This dude has no job and counts on his mother (he's in his mid-to-late 30s) and his baby-mamas to support their own families. A leech. The worst kind. So gross.

I can only pray that karma is a bitch.

Because what can I really do? Can I go to the police? Can I interfere in people's affairs like that? Can I go to the girl and say, "I hear your boss is beating you, come with me and we'll file a complaint with the police"? And what if it doesn't work? What if she gets beaten even worse? What if she gets kicked out of the house and ends up on my doorstep?

My responsibility... not my responsibility... my responsibility... not my responsibility...

I can see why Africans are so into God... you have to pray a LOT around these parts.

TV in Benin

Television in Benin is basically comprised of 5 parts. First, there are very, very few channels. As far as I can tell, unless you have a special satellite dish (in which case you get Francophone BBC and some French-from-France channels), you get about 4-5 channels, most of which broadcast the same stuff. Radio seems to have a nice variety or programming, but I don't have a radio.

Part 1: the News. Most of Benin's TV is newscasts or special news shows. They talk a lot about politics and education. I guess in a developing country, they like to keep an eye on their government and the most recent developments in their country. Yesterday they were talking a lot about micro credits for women. They were interviewing women in the north of the country, they had subtitles because these women don't speak French or Fon, they speak whatever language they speak up "in the north". After the news they had an interview with the Minister of Secondary and Post-secondary Education. He was funny in a I'm-Way-Too-Honest-To-Be-A-Politician kind of way. I liked the cut of his jib.

Their TV reminds me a lot of TV in Canada in the 80s. When they try to cut to a caller who wants to ask a question sometimes they can't get through or the call comes in with a lot of feedback. They try to cut to a special report and the technician can't quite seem to get his shiz together, so the news anchor will have to say, "we'll get to that video later." They use blue screen, but they're not sure which camera to cut to. The production side is a work in progress... but the content is pretty interesting and well edited.

They very rarely have international news, but I guess once a day they'll have international news for about 15 minutes. They often talk about Obama, if there's something interesting to be reported. I saw Hilary on a few days ago, but the volume was cutting in and out and I didn't really hear what they were talking about. I really have very little clue what's going on in Canada or in Europe. Happily my friend Emma sends me little email updates on the state of the world. Doesn't seem that anything much has changed over there: gun violence, economic crisis (this is one helluva long "crisis"), politicians being douchebags, Obama being dreamy... strangely, I don't miss not knowing what's going on in Hollywood, although I hear Madonna adopted another baby.

One thing I love/hate about the news here is that they show dead bodies and disease. Police gunned down some robbers? Please have a look at their bullet-ridden bodies! Car went up in flames after hitting a post due to drunk driving way too fast? Let's cut to the charred remains they pulled out of the vehicle after they managed to put out the flames! Disease is ravaging a village? Let's look at how it's eating at the flesh of this 7 year-old.

Not sure how I feel about it, except that it's actual reality and it's kind of refreshing. Rather than glorifying violence and disease in Hollywood and watching it on CSI... enough glorification and you start to think that reality doesn't look like what it looks like...

The thing in Benin is that there's often GOOD news on television and rarely violence, robberies or political stupidity... but that might just be because of the productivity of their current president, Boni Yayi. He seems to be getting a lot of stuff done.

Normally the last 5 minutes of the news is horse-racing results. We do lotto 649, they do horseracing.

Part 2: Music Videos. Most of the morning TV is made up of music videos. A lot of it is American hiphop, but a lot of it is also local artists, either from the Ivory Coast or Benin. There are a couple African hiphop artists that are really good. Some are considered pretty big stars although I've never heard of them. Just like it was funny in Montreal, it's hilarious to me when a hiphop song is uberpopular in a French-speaking place where they don't understand the lyrics.

Any music video made in Benin is normally shot at one of the nice hotels on the beach. They're all pretty funny and look like they were shot by highschool students, but hey, keep at it. The music videos for traditionnal songs are nice and normally have a story, so they're interesting to watch.

Part 3: Soap Operas. In Benin, they call them "feuilletons" which to me is a piece of paper or a small booklet, but to them is a soap opera series. As far as I can tell there are 4 TV shows that I could follow if my TV channels came in properly. First and foremost, there's a soap from Mexico. Yup! Mexico dubbed in French. I think it's Mexican because the help looks Mexican but you know how soap operas are pretty generic in their locations... Could be Spain. It's a typical soap opera - rich families who all sleep with each other or want to. Ungrateful kids who try to split their parents' new relationships up. Poor families who become rich, disown each other... someone was murdered and they're trying to figure out who the killer is before they hit again. The mother went away to prison and her kids don't know she's their mother and now she's back but they hate her and maybe it's her husband that killed the woman she went away to prison for killing... Love it!

Next there's the Beninese soap called something like, "2 sisters for the same man". I haven't been following this one as much, I'm not sure what time it's on. From what I can tell, right now, one sister is pregnant with the other sister's husband's baby!! And her mother is supporting her in this decision and may have even encouraged the pregnancy. There's another Beninese show that's more of a comedy, but the only time I saw that one was when we were in the waiting room at the Minister's office. Otherwise I'm not home during the day to watch it. I'm learning a lot about what's considered "normal" in relationships here (and yet SO not cool), but I'll get to that in another blog entry.

If I get all my channels, sometimes I can get S-Club7 and Las Vegas, yes, dubbed in French.

Part 4: Variety Shows. Oh Variety Shows. They do something really weird here called Play Back, which I guess is the same thing we do in America except we hide it better. I guess no one bothers to sing live here unless they're in concert. So they announce that the artist they have coming on their show will be lipsyching to a tape. I love when the CD skips. It's basically an opportunity to showcase some dancers, which is nice, But I think it makes the artist look stupid. No one here seems to mind though. I love when they show the audience dancing. We would consider some of their dancing to be a little, um, inappropriate, but this is Africa.

This one guy has a daily news/cooking/authors/singers/whoever show on at lunch time on weekends (and maybe during the week but I'm not home to watch it?). He always wears the shiniest satin shirts!! So awful. The cooking part is fun, but it's sponsored by an italian pasta company, and the parts I'd like to learn how to make, like their peanut sauces or other sauces, they just say, "now add your peanut sauce" like everyone already knows how to make it. Oh well, sucks to be me I suppose!

Part 5: What could part 5 possibly be?? FOOTBALL of course. There's a match on every few days. One of the Paris teams has an awesome player from Benin, so those matches tend to get played at the bars here more often. I haven't become addicted or anything, but I don't mind watching games.

No one here even knows what hockey is. I can't say I miss it.

I will say that I miss The Hour. Oh George. I know you're available online, but online is so difficult here! Sigh... I guess when I get back I can have fun catching up on all my George time...

You can stand under my umber-ella

NOTE TO ALL READERS: there's a comment section in the blog for a reason -- interaction. I'm all alone over here folks! Leave anonymous comments if you want, if something shocked you about what I wrote, or if you think I talk too much (not much to do in the evenings here... no CSI to keep me busy...) :P ... ask me questions if you're curious about anything and I'll try to answer. My dad is reading, so be nice. ;)

So, I'm realizing that the kids here don't seem to play with toys at all. Even those families with a little money, the kids don't seem to play with much. I guess that culturally, they just don't play? I don't want to say that they're not raising their kids properly, since I've met tons of awesome adults who grew up here... more investigation is necessary.

I think back to Christmas with my niece Elbie and nephew Buddy, or the time I spent with little Ollie B and all the toys kids in North America have, no matter how poor the parents are. A ridiculous amount of toys, so many that they'll never play with them all. I remember the basement full of toys my cousins used to have and wonder where those toys went.

So the babies just sit there without even a rattle or a set of keys to distract them. Dzzt. BOORING! And I have no idea what the older kids do for fun. I know that some of them work, and I'm not sure how I feel about it. The girls also help out their mothers at quite a young age, getting water from the well, taking care of their siblings, cleaning, etc.

The child-work thing is weird. Having a 10 year-old come up to your car window selling gum, pens, and other random items at 11pm on a Monday... he/she'll be there til late at night and go to school the next morning. I know university students who complain when they have to work that kind of schedule.

No one sleeps here. There are a lot of patios and bars to go to if you're not working late. "Cotonou by night," the boys I work with joke. I guess when it's 30°C at night, no one feels much like sleeping indoors. I have air-con, but it's a luxury they installed for me because I'm white and I'm a wuss. But seeing kids running around after each other in the streets at 10pm and having no one around seem concerned - it's just weird. "Mom I'm going to Billy's!"

Then again, everyone's the same. I believe it more and more. Just because we don't see the kids running around outside, doesn't mean there aren't tons of kids running around at crazy hours in the night, not getting enough sleep, in Canada. And they have warm/cool homes, lots of food to eat, and don't have to work to pay the bills (at least I hope they don't).

Today we visited my colleague who lost his wife. Before we visited with the widower, my colleagues warned me not to cry infront of him (I can't help it, someone talks about someone they love dying and my mind automatically goes to Brenda and I can't help but realize how much pain that person must be in!!).

I asked Brenda to help me not to cry, and I didn't!! I was proud of myself, but it helped that he wasn't crying. There was a very dark cloud over his head though. I even smiled a lot, which I hope was a comfort - my colleagues may have warned me not to cry, but they had really long faces and heavy shoulders, and that's no help.

He's staying at his brother's because he can't sleep in his bed, and his kids are staying with a friend of the family's, a lady from his church. The kids must be wondering what the eff is going on.

They haven't told the kids yet, they're all under the age of 7... we went to visit the kids afterwards. Such cute kids. The oldest girl had these awesome spikey tresses with different coloured elastics. I told her I liked her hair and she smiled, shyly.

They must be wondering why random people are coming to see them, why they're not in school, where their mother is, why their father is only coming to visit sporadically. I know that they know - they're kids, they're not stupid. I'm not sure what I would do in his place, but they say that they normally tell the children at the burial, so that the child can visually understand that their parent is dead and then they tell them that they should put a bit of dirt on the tomb. Sounds traumatizing to me, but I've never had to bury a parent :grateful moment: ... I leave it to their experience and trust in their knowledge.

My colleagues are really trying to tell him that his focus must be on his children, and how they will be taken care of now that their mother is gone. They talked to him very clearly that they, together with him, will examine all his options and with their support they will come to a solution on how best to care for the kids.

One thing was clear, they need their dad in their life, so that the separation isn't too intense. The widower must have courage, and not let himself get into a deep depression. The boss lady actually told him, "don't commit suicide." Gee. Don't mince words or anything. It was an admirable discussion. I really admire my boss lady.


The weekend was awesome and rough all at the same time. Knowing that my friends were partying it up without me was H A R D ! ! ! Hector Moralez! Jason Hodges! Loopity Goofs, Gerard, Pepe... sigh... I won't get to hear my friends spin for months and months. It's almost as bad as knowing I won't get to eat peanut butter for 5 months (and you know I luuuuv my peanut butter)!!

I saw pictures on Facebook today and my girl Joanne brought a picture of me to the party and snapped me with all my peeps!! It was so awesome! (Jean-Guy, Nick B, you have to check Facebook, she used a Maria-Eating-Picture!! LOL!!!!)



The awesome part of my weekend was, of course, the beach. I managed to sit alone for all of 20 minutes, watching the waves roll in and out. I can sit and watch waves for hours - it's way better than TV. I can amuse myself by watching the rhythm, watching the waves get bigger and roll over, smaller and smoothe, watching them cross and how they hit the shore. There are also lots and lots of little crabs on the beach! :scuttle scuttle scuttle: cute! A few sea shells, but, uh, nothing to write home about. Even though I am.

So after my 20 minutes, a young man named Ludvert asked if he'd be a bother if he sat with me "pour discuter un peu". Apparently he was named for an American army buddy of his dad's. He's 22 and wants to move to Chicago in the summer to study accounting (to do his masters), or to Montreal where his brother is studying law. He wants to practice his English with me... but his English is reeeally bad.

I think he has a bit of a crush on me. I guess Roger, the dude who owns the beach bar, has dibs on me, but neither of them have managed to woo me yet (or ever, if my meh-ness is correct). (Update: Ludvert just brought me this tacky ceramic angel as a gift. He called and said, "I got you a present, can I bring it?" Very cute. He's a smart kid. I enjoy talking philosophy with him, and apparently he likes to go dancing and loves music, so I think we'll get along just fine. Plus he has a motorbike, so he can take me places, or teach me to ride when/if I decide to get one.) (Actually, come to think of it, Roger called to say that he bought me a present too... but I think he got some garbage bins for his bar as a present to me because I keep complaining of the garbage on the beach. That would be awesome! There's a retarded lack of garbage bins on the beach -- it's criminal.)

My brain is so filled with the enormity of the task before me at work, that boys are the last thing on my mind -- I really need to make some girlfriends pronto so that I don't really have to deal with boys at all, but girls don't seem to be around half as much as boys. Ludvert says that they're at home helping their mothers with the household - they're home doing shit because their mothers are tired since they've been doing it since they were 10 and then when the girls are old enough, the mamas stop doing anything and leave it all to their daughters, and the guys are kind of left to their own devices. I see a few ladies around and I really need to make more of an effort to talk to them.

But the boys I've met are all very nice and not at all threatening, and they have lots of fun and interesting friends to chat with, namely a big Nigerian dude who speaks English (DTJB just asked me in an email if I was speaking English at all and until I met him I hadn't!) and another kid who's really into Jay-Z.

The Umbrella song came on the speakers at Roger's bar when I was there with Ludvert and his friend, and I told them what the lyrics meant. So funny, they had no idea.

You can stand under my umber-ella-ella-ella eh eh ;)

The Good in Everyone

Aw ya... listening to some Herbie Hancock, rockin the air conditioning, just got back from my first walk to the beach (the feeling I had this morning that I should buy a plane ticket home vanished when I saw the waves roll in on the sand -- home? what home?) and an uber-filling lunch. Oh my gaaaad I can't wait to be more familiar with the food here so that my friend Jean can stop ordering for me. I accused him of trying to fatten me up. "Just a little," he said.

My colleagues here are all awesome. Such thoughtful and hard-working people. At noon today, I thought, "Holy shit, if I have to wait til 1pm to take a lunch break and go for a walk, I will DIE." They work straight from 8h30 to 1pm!! NO CAN DO! Call me lazy, I call it HUMAN.

I asked Jean - don't you get hungry?? No, apparently not. Then again, at the age of 6 he was getting up at 5am to walk 20km to the fields where he spent all day under the hot African sun cutting down branches, pulling weeds and burning stuff only to walk the 20km home afterwards. There is no lazy work-ethic here.

Anyway, as I made my way to the door at noon -- actually, a funny language barrier here. They didn't understand when I said, "Je m'en vais prendre une marche." Apparently they don't "take" walks. It's kind of a funny expression when you think about it. We could just as easily say, "I'm going walking," or "I'm going to walk," which is way more accurate. Anyway, everyone was working, but I found Jean downstairs reading the paper, so I asked him if he wanted to join me on my walk. Once he figured out what it was I wanted to do, he came with me. "Do you want to go to the beach?" EEEEEK! Yay!

We started to walk and a bunch of kids came out of a school nearby for lunch. The children here are SO CUTE!!!

They have a word for "white person" in Fon, the local language, which sounds like YEY-VO (I'll have to ask how to spell it). The children see you and sing a song that goes something like, "Yévo, yévo, Comment allez-vous, ça va bien merci!"

I'll have to learn way more Fon while I'm here. I wonder if I can find a textbook of some sort. SPEAK WHITE, DAMMIT! (kidding, kidding...)

This little boy was hiding in the shade under a bench, playing in the sand while we were walking along the beach. Jean wanted me to try some local fruit... and we bought it from his mother. She had this little bundle of baby blubber straped to her back, sleeping soundly... I wanted to eat the baby!!!! It's hair was all natted with different coloured elastics... holy cuteness! While Jean was negotiating the price, this little boy started to sing to me.

I'm sorry Maria, WHAT?! Yes, I've been eating the fruit here.

Those who know me, know I don't eat fruit... but I promised my friend Dair that although I wouldn't go out of my way to eat any, if any fruit was offered I wouldn't decline. I think my body will go into shock, but we'll see. Speaking of which, I think he left the bag of fruit we bought from the lady at the restaurant we stopped in after -- I should go ask him. In any event, he made me eat some local fried bananas at lunch, so I think my fruit quota has been met for the day. HAPPY DAIR?!

Anyway, during lunch we got on the topic of fear... oh right, because we were talking about how people here talk to each other and aren't really afraid of one another, and how when he went to Toronto, a girl was afraid of him when he went to help her take her bags off the subway, or the time he was walking down Gerard and a girl started to run in the other direction (he's not shady or anything, quite good looking, he's just black). Or how our first instinct is fear (or annoyance) when we go to a bank machine and someone is waiting behind us. It's a crazy world we live in. It's just not like that here. Everyone talks to each other, or doesn't. Whatevs.

We started to talk about how important it is for the good in the world to stand up. The bad in the world speaks very loudly. The good whispers. The news we watch is all bad, all the time. Violence, war, disease, corruption... why? Is it not the minority of events? Isn't there far more good going on in the world?

I wish people would talk more about organizations like UNICEF or Right to Play rather than Al Quaeda. Why not promote these messages of hope rather than the messages of violence? It's important to know about the bad, but far more important to know that there is good. Why not mention that a black man saved a white couple from drowning rather than splatter the headline, Black Man kills White Couple?? Why doesn't the first make the news?

This is why I watch The Hour and not The National. It has an effect on us -- don't think it doesn't.

When was the last time you smiled at someone on the subway? Or said, "Hi, good morning" to the people who work in your building, in the elevator? What happened to our humanity?

Of course our conversation ended with Obama. He is the quiet good majority turned into a roaring lion of hope. SPEAK UP DAMMIT. Make the kind of world you wished you lived in. What's the worst that could happen? Someone will look at you funny for saying hello? For helping them with their bags?

The risk of violence and accidents exists no matter what we do.
So forget the bad for a moment and do more good. Ignoring each other is not good.

Oh my god - 2 of the 4 croissants they brought me for breakfast are staring at me... "we are chocolate and we are delicious!!" oooh my belly is so full from rice and cheese and plantains... Africa's gonna make me fat.

God sometimes you just don't come through...

I believe that every society is exactly the same. There are lazy people, extraordinary people, gossipy people, mean people, nice people, smart people, stupid people, violent people, passive people, proactive people, etc. in every society.

But there's something about tribal people, be it African, Aboriginal (Australian or Canadian), or South American that gives the impression that they just don't care to better themselves. They live, they die. They don't explore, they survive. They don't really evolve, they just improve, again, for survival's sake. I'm not saying this is actually how it is, just that that's the impression I have.

I had an interesting discussion with my brother over Christmas about the African "blahs". I won't go into how my brother feels about the situation, since I can't remember his point of view, only that I didn't agree. Are they really indifferent? Or is it just that the indifferent people have been in power, using the money they make through warfare to keep up with the Joneses in bling and not in societal structures...? I'm ill-equipped to theorize.

I read this great article on my friend Andrew's blog. Andrew's in Liberia, a few countries over (west) from Benin, working in orphanages. The article talks about how Christian organizations are bringing a sense of hope and self-respect and self-awareness to these people... for better? or for worse?

Oh big-G. Where would we be without you baby?

I thought this article was à propos... so many people, when I told them I was going to volunteer abroad, said, "You're not working with a Christian organization, are you?"

I'm not, but for the record, I'm totally bringing Jesus with me. He's got my back.


As an atheist, I truly believe Africa needs God
Missionaries, not aid money, are the solution to Africa's biggest problem - the crushing passivity of the people's mindset
by Matthew Parris

Read the whole article on The Times Online

Before Christmas I returned, after 45 years, to the country that as a boy I knew as Nyasaland. Today it's Malawi, and The Times Christmas Appeal includes a small British charity working there. Pump Aid helps rural communities to install a simple pump, letting people keep their village wells sealed and clean. I went to see this work.

It inspired me, renewing my flagging faith in development charities. But travelling in Malawi refreshed another belief, too: one I've been trying to banish all my life, but an observation I've been unable to avoid since my African childhood. It confounds my ideological beliefs, stubbornly refuses to fit my world view, and has embarrassed my growing belief that there is no God.

Now a confirmed atheist, I've become convinced of the enormous contribution that Christian evangelism makes in Africa: sharply distinct from the work of secular NGOs, government projects and international aid efforts. These alone will not do. Education and training alone will not do. In Africa Christianity changes people's hearts. It brings a spiritual transformation. The rebirth is real. The change is good.

<...>

Those who want Africa to walk tall amid 21st-century global competition must not kid themselves that providing the material means or even the knowhow that accompanies what we call development will make the change. A whole belief system must first be supplanted.

And I'm afraid it has to be supplanted by another. Removing Christian evangelism from the African equation may leave the continent at the mercy of a malign fusion of Nike, the witch doctor, the mobile phone and the machete. END

While I agree that "a whole belief system must be supplanted," I'm not sure I agree it has to be supplanted by Christianity or religiosity as we know it. I know we are all connected as a human race and as a planetary organism... we call the energy within us and around us "God"... but what if we gave it a different name? What if this energy wasn't there to riddle us with guilt or pity towards those who haven't yet "found God" and instead worked to make us realize that we are all the same?

Bah - what do I know. If Africa enlightens, I'll report back.


Blog title is from Tori Amos' God: crazy video... oh Tori.