Living without fridges & freezers

Every Tuesday and Thursday are the Blake family market days in our home city of Maiduguri in northeastern Nigeria. Jen braves the traffic, parks in a sea of vehicles, walks through sewage, smiles at the beggars, and moves from stall to stall for our groceries. However, the vegetable stall is the most important one because we long to eat fresh veggies. Still, once we get there we find: rotten tomatoes, wilted lettuce, dried-out carrots, cabbages starting to spoil, green beans beginning to shrivel up. These vegetables are almost always trucked 10 hours away from central Nigeria at Jos where the weather is cool, the rainfall is better, and the sunlight is less intense. Every Nigerian knows that the vegetable capital of the country is Jos not some semi-arid desert town like Maiduguri.

During our first July 2007 harvests at the INTERCEP (Intl. Centre for Peace, Charities & Human Dev.) farm at Maiduguri, we were amazed at what a little compost and a little water can do. Huge zucchini, beautiful squash, gigantic watermelons, thick green beans, plump sweet corn, beefy tomatoes, and hefty eggplant were all growing in this sandy soil. Thus, we began to understand that producing vegetables in raised plant beds, composts, and drip irrigation wasn't a problem. The first day that Jen took the vegetables to the International Hotel they asked her: "When did you come from Jos?" She said: "We are growing these beautiful vegetables 5 minutes away from his building?" to which they were astounded.

We have had no problem selling these vegetables to the hotels, locals marketers, and interested buyers. Commercial revenue has been generated proving to the local believers that we can pay our own farm caretaker from the sales of the vegetables. In August 2007, we held our first INTERCEP food security workshop in Maiduguri with Dave Goolsby from Healing Hands International in Nashville, Tennessee. Our trainees were skeptical at first as to the motivation of these people in bringing them to our farm for a farming workshop. However, after they saw the blessing of composting, they were thrilled to envision how vegetables could grow in the desert.

Nevertheless, a couple of our first workshop participants asked: "How do we preserve all of these vegetables after production?" It was an excellent question that neither Dave Goolsby nor any of the INTERCEP team was ready to answer. Therefore, Jen began to ask: "How could we teach our women to preserve these vegetables through canning?" Dave immediately called his wife, Janice, and discussed with her the possibility of simple preservation techniques. With Jen and Janice now both considering the possibilities, the idea of a fruit and vegetable preservation workshp was born.

If God wills, we hope to lauch our first food preservation workshop for the women of Maiduguri in early 2007. This will be followed by a vegetable production workshop for the almajirai (Quranic students), malamai (teachers), and parents of the almajirai. This will only increase the viability of our non-governmental organization (NGO) in Nigeria which is INTERCEP in Maiduguri. As the credibility of INTERCEP continues to resound throughout Borno State, the impact of self-sustainable agriculture will only be multiplied.

May God Give Us Grace....

Can you imagine a 5 year old child, alone and begging in the streets? What about rummaging through a gargage pile for food if the begging isn't successful? Impossible as this sounds, this is an everyday occurence in the cities of Northern Nigeria. Males from the ages of 5 to 15 are sent to the Northern cities to learn the Qur'an and a marketable skill. They are solely dependent on the teacher(malam) and fellow disciples(almajirai) for their daily food. Because of the scarcity of food in the area, they resort to begging and pleading for spare change, food or any gift that someone might offer. "Allah ya ba mu alheri" is their begging cry which means "May God give us grace". All too often the response they hear is "Allah ya ba da sa" which means "May God provide". A polite way to say "I have nothing for you".

Poor Muslim farmers who cannot afford to feed their children go through a thought process similar to this "Since I cannot afford to feed the boys here, I will send them to the city where they can learn the Qur'an and get a job." Though they do study the Qur'an for a few hours every day, these boys are unable to find work because they are uneducated, unskilled and have no experience. Their only chance for survival is to flood the streets and beg for handouts from anyone with means.

A major focus for Arewa Aid for the upcoming year is to hold workshops to teach basic farming skills. Our goal is to teach the Nigerians to produce and preserve food to last all year. One of our planned workshops is specifically intended to help remedy the plight of the almajirai. We intend to invite 20 of the students (almajirai), 10 of the teachers (malamai) and 5 sets of parents from the affected villages to come to our farm to learn basic principles for food production.

We plan to hold two vegetable production workshops during the upcoming year. In addition, our plan is hold a food preservation (canning) workshop to help preserve vegetables all year long. The cost of a single workshop is approximately $1,750. We need your help. Can your company, church or civic group become involved and sponsor one of these workshops? Can you help us as we teach these boys and other similar groups in Nigeria to become more independent?

Please help us, so that we can help them.

The Weak say "I'm Strong"

I first met Ayuba in December 2004 at Chibok in southern Borno State (our home state in northern Nigeria). He was tall, strong, and a great communicator especially with little kids in his local elementary school where he taught. His Kibaku (local tribe) parents were so proud that one of their sons, against all odds, in the village had made it. He was an active believer, successful primary school teacher, and renting his own apartment in the capital city of Maiduguri. He was my translator when I first visited Chibok and he could interpet my words from Hausa into Kibaku with ease.

In July of 2005 when our family first moved to Maiduguri in northeastern Nigeria from Jos in central Nigeria, we always asked about Ayuba. He was conspicuously absent at local assemblies and we began to inquire from the local leaders on his whereabouts. One day at a congregational meeting, the subject of Ayuba came up and my best friend, Dr. Eni, began to cry. Ayuba had gone from being this strong, vibrant, and competent elementary school teacher to a crippled beggar. Dr. Eni thought that a local unqualified "quack" doctor might have prescribed unnecessary medicine but it was unfortunately worse than that.

There are so many mysterious sicknesses in Africa that have no explanation and even qualified doctors are giving "their best guess." In Hausa, the word for sickness is "ciwo" and no one ever qualifies the type of "ciwo" because in the local worldview to specify the "ciwo" gives it more power. Therefore, all we knew is that Ayuba was slowly becoming blind, his spine was weakening, and his legs were so incapacitated that he could barely walk. He went to an eye hospital in Cameroon (neighboring eastern country to Nigeria) but they could do little. He even went to his hometown of Chibok to announce to his parents that he didn't know what was going to happen to him now.

However, through all of Ayuba's severe pain, his faith has been a powerful testimony to the rest of the believers. Ayuba in Hausa is actually the name for the most awe-inspiring Old Testament character of suffering: Job. Whenever, I meet Ayuba at assembly, in the office, or at his house, I always ask him: "Yaya jiki?" (How is your body?). His response forever remains the same resilient answer from a man of deeply-held faith in the Almighty: "Alhamdu lillahi!" (Praise be to God!). Ayuba will never let on to how much pain that he is really experiencing with his degenerating eyesight, weakening spine, and shriveling legs but he will tell you: "Mun gode wa Allah saboda alherinsa" (We give thanks to God for his grace).

Ayuba goes to the University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital (where Musa was born) every day for eye treatments and physical therapy. The local believers are assisting Ayuba with nearly $20 monthly but that cannot possibly provide for his everyday needs. Before I traveled, the shepherds approached me about requesting some additional assistance for him. I asked one of my INTERCEP understudies, Dauda Balami, who takes care of Ayuba every day how much he would need and gave me a figure of only $70 monthly. Ayuba would be unbelievably grateful if someone helped to relieve some of his pain but would say as he always does: "Alhamdu lillahi!" (Praise God!).

Ruwan Sama (Sky Water)

Water is so precious. In the Hausa language of northern Nigeria, you can never just say "water." You have to say "drinking water", "sky water", or "cool water." Water is a treasure. You can't just talk about water flippantly without qualifying what it's used for, where it comes from, or what temperature it is.

I forgot about this last night. When I went to pick up my toddler son, Musa, from bible class at the College Hills church, he was holding a cup of water. I told him it was time to go. He held tenaciously to his cup of water. I repeated "let's go Musa." That cup of water was not budging from his tiny little fingers. When I pryed it from his clenched fists, he bawled. It was then that I remembered. This 23 month old boy remembers how much we valued water back home in northern Nigeria.

I just received a call from our home Nigerian city of Maiduguri. My first question to the caller was "Yaya ruwa?" (How is the rain?). He responded, "Ruwa ya yi gyara." This literally means "The rain is repairing" which really means it is softening up the ground for planting. A Hausa speaker will never say "The rain is destructive" because "ruwan sama" is a gift from God. No one but God can ever control when, where, how, how, or if it falls.

I'm a bit worried because the caller actually said that the rain will soon end. This means that the long dry season will set in. In a good way in Maiduguri, there will be no more flooding, less mosquitoes (carrying malaria), and driving won't involve worrying about splashing pedestrians near the puddles. However, for the majority of northern Nigerians, this will mean that planting is over. This will begin the idleness of the dry season. "The idle mind is the devil's ..."

This close of this year's "ruwan sama" (sky water) will mean that we have to twice or thrice weekly buy water from the companies in Maiduguri who sell it in tankers. Then, the Pompomari community surrounding our drip irrigation farm will beg for water. We can't turn them down because our sign says "Intl. Centre for Peace, CHARITIES & Human Dev." Thus, the perpetual struggle will re-ignite between the need to water our drip irrigation farm and the local needs of the neighborhood. My prayer is that the Lord will provide a deep well with a solar pump for our farm to also help our local people quench their thirst.