Ina kwana family, friends and church family,
(Hausa for good morning)

It’s getting into the rainy season here in Jos. This means that in the morning it is hot and humid and in the afternoon the heavens open and it rains. The upside of the late afternoon rains is that they cause the temperature to drop several Celsius and bring about a cool breeze that helps to dry your sweaty damp clothes. The down side is that they also increase the number of creepy crawly critters that come into the house seeking shelter from the storm. This week we found a millipede about 3 inches long, a spider the size of my palm and a cockroach in our room. All sorts of gross!
Now rain comes in two forms here in the Plateau state: hard rain and torrential rain, which is usually accompanied by thunder and lightening. Being people who enjoy storm watching and feeling the deep rumblings of the thunder, we tend to find the experience of these storms relaxing….except for the other night. We were at Phil and Stephanie’s house having dinner when the heavens opened and it began to torrentially down pour. The sound of the rain was so loud that we had to almost yell to hear each other. All off a sudden there was a brilliant flash of light just outside the window as lightening struck the house beside us. This was immediately followed by an ear splitting CRACK!!! Rachel and I screamed in surprise and Phil jumped at least a foot off the ground…in a manly sort of way. All sorts of fun!

This past Wednesday we had our first opportunity to go to Blind town with the Nigerian community health workers and City Missions nurse who run the women’s clinic at Gidan Bege. Blind town is an area of Jos where the lepers and blind live, and entering it was like stepping back into Bible times. Mud brick house standing at most 8 feet tall all squished and built together with tiny narrow passages winding in between them like a maze. No plumbing, no electricity and no clear direction or orientation once you enter. Ducking through a small doorway, we sort of felt our way in the semi-darkness to a second back room. There we meet the chief of the lepers and his wife. Although the room received some light through a small window high in the wall, we used our cell phone lights to see the blood pressure gauges as we measured their blood pressures, assessed their health status and gave them some medications and vitamins. We then did the same for another ½ dozen lepers and a dozen or so locals who came to Blind town specifically to see us for medical attention. We also got mobbed by 10+ excited children all clamoring to touch us, hold our hands and learn our names. We did not enter very far into blind town though as we were told that City Missions has only begun to establish a relationship with the chief and thus has not yet received permission to enter further. Hopefully as the outreach continues to faithfully return and serve each Wednesday, the relationship will be become more established and the volunteers be allowed to venture further in to find and give medical attention to more lepers.
The experience as a whole was a sobering one. The health needs of the people in Blind town were so great, the living conditions so poor and our efforts so seemingly insufficient….like a single drop of rain in the desert. There is just no infrastructure here. No public health clinics, no access to clean water, no social support services. It was an overwhelming and discouraging thought. How does one possibly make a difference with so many obstacles to overcome? But we were gratefully reminded later that night that all of our efforts, no matter how small, are all intricately woven into God’s great redemption plan for humanity. So while we may not be able to bring public health care in Nigeria up to Canadian standards quite yet, we can still touch and change lives through compassion, simple service and love.

Well, lets end this blog with two funny stories.
The first is about taxi cabs in Jos, which are the size of Toyota Corollas but always pack 7 people into them: three in the front and four in the back. This has resulted in some interesting seating positions. Once I had to sit bent over on Rachel’s lap with my head touching my knees, once I sat with half a leg on the bench and half on the door handle and recently I sat on my heels behind the driver’s seat with one 1/8 on my bottom on the seat. This last one happened because a very large man squeezed himself into the back seat with Rachel, myself and this other guy. The driver turned around and told me to “Sit properly”. I stared at him incredulously. “Sit properly?” I said. “Sit where? I cannot fit. There is no room.” He apparently did not believe me cause he got out of the front of the cab to try and physically push me into the 2 inch space that was left between Rachel and the door. Predictably he failed and eventually conceded to my assertion that there was indeed no room to “Sit properly!”

The second funny story occurred at the hospital while we were doing a shadow shift in the ICU. We had been told the name of the head of the medical division that morning so when he came into the ICU that afternoon we thought we would introduce ourselves. Rachel leaned over to me and whispered “That’s Dr. Suya right?” In my head I could not remember his name exactly but that sounded familiar so I confidently answered “Yes!” So Rachel turned to the head of medicine and with confidence and grace said “Good morning Dr. Suya!” which unfortunately to our confusion caused the man to break out in laughter. He then corrected us that his name was actually Sule, not suya. It took us about a ½ hour after that to realize that ‘suya’ is actually the name for a type of BBQ meat they sell on the street here…that’s why it was familiar to us. This meant that we had pretty much called him, “Dr. Drumstick”. Oh we were mortified! But at least he thought it was funny and was not offended.

Anyways that’s all for now. It has begun to rain again and we still need to go grab a cucumber for dinner with Phil and Steph tonight. So we should get going before it really starts to pour…..opps….too late.

Love Lisa and Rachel