« August 2005 | Main | October 2005 »
September 30, 2005
Latest on Food Aid and Radio Station for Burkina Faso
* 12 May: Food shortages and how to help.
* Updates: 22 June 23 June 28 June 11 July 28 July 1 Sep 13 Sep
Radio Station: details on the Radio Station we are trying to start among the Fulani in the north of Burkina Faso.
Tags: burkina faso africa aid burkina fulani radio
September 29, 2005
Email dangers...
My mum showed me this from her church newsletter:
A Minneapolis couple decided to go to Florida to thaw out during a particularly icy winter. They planned to stay at the same hotel where they spent their honeymoon 20 years earlier. Because of hectic schedules, the husband left Minnesota and flew to Florida on Thursday, with his wife flying down the following day.
The husband checked into the hotel. There was a computer in his room, so he decided to send to send an e-mail to his wife. However, he accidentally left out one letter in her e-mail address and, without realising his error, sent the e-mail.
Meanwhile, somewhere in Houston, a widow had just returned home from her husband’s funeral. He was a minister who had a heart attack and died. The widow decided to check her e-mail, expecting messages from relatives and friends. After reading the first message, she screamed and fainted. The widow’s son rushed into the room and saw the computer screen which read:
To: My Loving Wife
Subject: I’ve arrived
Date: October 16, 2004
I know you’re surprised to hear from me. They have computers here now and you are allowed to send e-mails to your loved ones. I’ve just arrived and have been checked in. I see that everything has been prepared for your arrival tomorrow. Looking forward to seeing you then! Hope your journey is as uneventful as mine was.
P.S. Sure is hot down here!
September 22, 2005
Did you see this?
Missionary blogs: A new site highlighting missionary blogs from around the world.
Do you get it? Tod on the good news of the kingdom, and what it's not.
Get me to the match on time: These guys really didn't want to miss the game!
September 13, 2005
Cold water from Burkina Faso
Some quick updates of good news:
Food Aid: I spoke to the pastor's son in Gorom-Gorom today - the pastor is away for a few days. The food aid we sent has been distributed, and all went well. He will forward photos and a report asap.
Harvest: The rains have continued well, and the harvest will soon be ready. No locusts this year!
Radio station: Things are progressing slowly, but there are promising signs that things are coming together for us to buy land for the radio station.
Steve: My colleague Steve now has two Brazilian co-workers with him, whom he is now introducing to the delights of Djibo. Welcome, Christiano and Irenaldo!
Gorom-Gorom: I spoke to a friend in Burkina today who gave me an encouraging report on the progress of some of the Fulani Christians from the Gorom-Gorom area. It seems they are persevering and growing in faith.
All this is greatly encouraging for me. It is not easy to be so far away when times are hard and there is little news. Thank God for good news!
Like cold water to a weary soul
is good news from a distant land.
(Prov 25:25)
Tags: burkina faso africa aid burkina fulani radio
September 12, 2005
The state of the nations
This week will see the largest-ever summit of heads of State and government. They will be addressing the failure to reach the Millenium Development Goals of development and poverty reduction.
The league table
The Human Development Report 2005 is once more a call to action. This report places countries of the world in a league table according to development as measured by life expectancy, educational attainment and income.
As usual, Africa is gathering the crumbs at the foot of the table. Burkina Faso is third from bottom again, 175th of 177 countries measured. Only Sierra Leone and Niger are below it. Norway and Iceland are top, with the US in 10th place, and the UK in 15th.
Some interesting comparisons:
| Indicator | United States | United Kingdom | Burkina Faso |
| GDP per capita | $37562 | $27147 | $1174 |
| Below $1/ day (%) | - | - | 44.9 |
| Life expectancy at birth (years) | 77.4 | 78.4 | 47.5 |
| Infant mortality (/1,000 live births) | 7 | 5 | 107 |
| Births per woman (fertility rate) | 2.0 | 1.7 | 6.7 |
| Literacy rate (% ages 15+) | 99 | 99 | 12.8 |
| Undernourished people (%) | - | - | 19 |
| HIV prevalence (% ages 15-49) | 0.6 | 0.1 | 4.2 |
| Doctors (per 100,000 people) | 549 | 166 | 4 |
| Access to clean water (%) | 100 | 100 | 51 |
Burkina has been improving - in the last 30 years life expectancy is up from 43.9 to 47.4 years, and infant mortality is down from 163 per 1000 to "only" 107. However, the figures are still not acceptable. How many of us would be happy with the expectation of living only 47 years? (It would leave me two years to go.) Or how happy would you be if your newborn child had a 1 in 10 probability of dying?
There is a clear moral, ethical, and biblical responsibility to address such issues. The goals are attainable. The decisions made at the G8 summit will have some impact, but more is needed. At one level the question is whether there is the political will to address the structural changes necessary.
At another, more fundamental level the question is whether we ourselves care enough to make a difference? Are we prepared to pay the cost of justice and compassion? Are we prepared to make our own hard choices? To live more simply, to pay more, to give more - to care more? To deny ourselves for the good of others?
Tags: burkina faso africa aid burkina development hdi un summit human development report un poverty
September 10, 2005
Psalm 8
O LORD, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
You have set your glory
above the heavens...
When I consider your heavens,
the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars,
which you have set in place,
what is man that you are mindful of him,
the son of man that you care for him?
You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings
and crowned him with glory and honor.
(All photos from the gallery of the Hubble telescope site)
September 03, 2005
World Cup Qualifiers Spectacular
While my home town of Cardiff was invaded by the hordes who came to see England take a narrow 1-0 win over Wales, a much more exciting match was taking place in Ouagadougou, where Burkina Faso trounced South Africa 3-1.
Although Burkina were already out of the running, the result has all but ruled South Africa out of qualifying for next year's World Cup Finals in Germany.
Felicitations, les Etalons!
Tags: burkina faso africa soccer burkina world cup football
September 01, 2005
Food crisis update from in Burkina Faso
* Herders hit the hardest
* Report from on the ground
* Gorom-Gorom
* Tear Fund and Christian Aid in Burkina
Herders hit the hardest
I have noticed that in the TV and other reports on the crisis in Niger, there were a lot of Fulani. The BBC notes that this is because those who depend on animals have been worst affected by the food crisis throughout the Sahel.
"Millet prices [per 100kg bag] have shot up from 10,000 CFA francs ($18) to 25,000 CFA francs ($45) and animal prices have collapsed. This double whammy has hit the Fulani herders of the region hard. They are fast running out of animals to sell. Herds of 300 have dwindled to 20, either dead from hunger, or sold for a pittance in the struggle to raise money for millet, the staple crop."
"Somebody has got to resolve the problem of mounting food prices and falling animal prices in the long term."
Report from on the ground
Steve writes from on the ground in Djibo in the north of Burkina. Over the last few weeks, there has been a gradual move there from suffering to hope, as the rains continue, and the first handfuls of food are taken in the lead-up to the harvest. It looks like this year the harvest should be good - if the locusts keep away.
Read about it here: "It is very difficult to measure hunger. If you come to Djibo and say 'Hands up if you're hungry', the whole town (including the mayor) will put their hands up. And it is true that everyone (except the mayor) is looking thin these days. When I returned last week from ten days in Ouagadougou, I did a double-take at how emaciated some of my friends had become."
And here: "Mawna Belko sighs. 'God be praised,' he says. 'If on the day the babbatti came last year you had told us that we would still be drinking tea in August, we would not have believed you.'
Babbatti.. The word has never been far from our lips since 27th September last year when the pink cloud came from the north. At first people thought it was an approaching dust storm, but then the cloud turned into millions of tiny dots, pink and flickering and strangely beautiful. The dots swarmed towards the fields and began to dive, and for an hour the air was thick with legs, wings and mandibles. The babbatti ate everything and left.
Now rainy season is here again, and the fields are again filled with ranks of almost-millet. Everyone knows how precious the crop is, and how precarious. One month to go, and then the millet can be harvested. A repeat of last year's locust invasion would be catastrophic."
And here: "Yesterday I started harvesting the corn in my back yard. All over Djibo people are doing the same - they are taking corn to each other as gifts and will eat it until the main millet harvest."
Gorom-Gorom
Gorom-Gorom is typically a bit behind the rest of the country, and seems to be still in need of some food aid through to the harvest in October.
I have not been able to contact the pastor there recently, but there was a problem with transporting the food aid up to Gorom because the roads were unpassable. As soon as I hear something more, I will post it here.
Tear Fund and Christian Aid in Burkina
Both Tear Fund and Christian Aid have been working in Burkina Faso through their partners there. As well as responding to the immediate needs of the food crisis, they are working on long-term development to improve food security, through cereal banks, personnel training for effective distribution, improved land use etc.
