Saturday, February 20, 2010

Nomads, a Frenchman, and Earthquake Relief

This afternoon, I found myself sitting across the table from a French man and listening as he told stories of a tiny village in Niger where he helped finance a tree planting project. He talked about the school children who each cared for their assigned tree and explained a demi lunair water irrigation system.

As we talked we ate Haitian food with a Canadian pastor, I thought back to scenes from the movie Second Hand Lions. A couple of crazy seeming old men sit on their front porch, guns in hand, and tell stories about their adventures in remote places. Then I looked back at the Frenchman. He's tall with gray hair and a carefully groomed mustache. He was wearing a yellowish brown button up and speaking accented English, and talking to us about Africa.

This man, a nurse, had shown up on the mission station unnannounced. Somewhere between his adventures in Africa and his time with his wife he had managed to make friends with a Haitian and arrange a 3 week trip to Haiti to work at the hospital.

People like this really exist? This is real? There are really French men who know and work with desert nomads in Africa. Nomads who paint their faces, dance, and build irrigation systems. I had to laugh a little bit as I answered my own rhetorical question.

This is my life. It is real. I really did wake up this morning and watch part of an 80,000lb. food shipment move into our guesthouse and I did hear that our 3000lb shipment of hospital supplies was delayed in England because of a bomb threat. And I did share lunch with a Frenchman telling stories about nomads in Africa.

1 comment:

  1. Justine,

    Isn't life awesome?!!!! Just think, you too, as each day passes are not so different than the Frenchman. Your life is becomming a story, filled with your own first hand experiences. Experiences that mark you as an expert in a developing country that most can only vaguely understand. Just think...another 40 or so years, you too may be sitting accross the table from a young person in some foreign country, sharing about your travels and the day the earthquake hit in Haiti. The path you have chosen to follow--even if for a time--will make you a very interesting person.

    Blessings,

    Don Brubaker

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