The Places We're Working

Cote d'Ivoire

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Nestled between Liberia (our former home) and Ghana (our future home), Cote d’Ivoire has seen its share of troubles over the last decade. Once a stable and fairly prosperous land, since 1998 Cote d’Ivoire has been broken by civil war and turmoil, leaving its diverse population of nearly 20 million shaken and desperate for normalcy. The nation has settled a bit in the last couple years, but an uneasy peace remains. Much of the country remains dominated by former rebels, but at least the parties are talking and hope is high for new elections.

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Since the colonial period, Cote d'Ivoire's economy has been based on agriculture, forestry, and fishing. Cote d'Ivoire produces 40% of the world's cocoa crop and is a major exporter of bananas, coffee, cotton, palm oil, pineapples, rubber, tropical wood products, and tuna.

Cote d’Ivoire is also a country where Renita will be active. As a regional partnership manager for Partners Worldwide, one of her responsibilities will be coming alongside business and Ivoirian organizations helping businesses grow—just like she’s doing in Liberia. In the process, she’s gotten to know her point person on the ground in Cote d’Ivoire—Dea Lieu(right). Dea, who received agricultural and theological training from the US, is introducing new methods to help Ivorian farmers get better yields. He also plans to share better animal breeding methods with farmers; help in macro-managing communities; and minister to spiritual needs to help them grow in their Christian faith. When farmers complete Dea’s program, they receive livestock and a loan to begin their own farm operation, so they can feed their families and eventually the community.

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Until she can meet up with Dea in Cote d’Ivoire, Renita is doing what I’m doing—maintaining long distance connections through the Internet and telephone. She’s sharpening her French with Dea, and both are excited to be working together. Right now, Dea and the farmers he’s working with are focusing on raising chickens, pigs, snails, and a large rodent call a grass cutter or cane rat. I imagine its rather tasty.

The grass cutter (Thryonomys swinderianus). A good source of meat, and relatively easy to raise.

Snails for sale. Rubbery in texture, I think they taste like mud.

Making palm oil the old-fashion way.

Dea, dishing up the dirt on how to enrich soil for local rice growers.

Some of the women of the 18 Mountains Region, where Dea serves.

Father and Son Day at the Local Sanatorium

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I think I left off with "...but I still feel very shaky." Turns out, I was only halfway through my bout with malaria and its complications. Last Sunday, the 10th, I began my medicine and by Monday I had lost my fever and body aches, but still did not feel over it. Tuesday came without much improvement, and by Wednesday, when I had to cancel a much anticipated trip to a Bread for the World meeting in Washington DC, my fever had returned, along with an alarming inability to catch my breath. Both my primary care doc and the CRWM missionary doc recommended that I find my way forthwith to the Butterworth Hospital Emergency Room. Got there around 7:00pm and was admitted a few hours later. My malaria, treated late, found enough time to leave a parting gift: pneumonia and edema. They hooked me up to several IVs, shoved an oxygen tube in my snout, and I settled in for another week of crapola.

On Friday the 15th, I had a visitor. Our fourteen year old son, Noah stopped by to say hi, although cheering up Dad was not his primary reason for being at the hospital. He was there to join me as a patient. He was scheduled for surgery in a couple hours.

I mentioned a few weeks back that he had speech difficulties stemming from a condition known as velopharyngeal insufficiency, which involves the lack of the soft palate to close off the throat properly during speech.

The two hour surgery on Friday was a work of art and very successful. I was feeling much better, so I was allowed to stroll over to the recovery room and join Renita for a reunion as Noah returned to groggy consciousness. We left the hospital together Saturday noon. He's healing rapidly and though sore and on liquids, felt good enough to attend the school dance on Saturday and is back to school today.

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As for me, I feel great compared to how I felt. In about three days, I've lost 20 pounds of fluid from my body, my aches and pains are back to a normal 54 year old level, I'm treating the now mild pneumonia with antibiotics, and mostly I just feel like I have a cold and am still catching up on sleep.

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Renita has set new levels of steadiness and strength during these two weeks. Both Noah and I in the hospital in pain, and she ran the show, took care of us, and never flagged for a minute in her other tasks. I marvel.

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Ok, but that's enough about us for a while. Next time, if circumstances permit, I want to highlight some of the great work Renita is involved in-- in Côte d'Ivoire.

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Below are a few more cheery hospital scenes.

Could really do without the tube, and the oxygen dried my nose, but I needed it.

Noah, ready for his Friday date with the scalpel.

Recovery room.

His whirlwind of a Mom adjusts something while Hannah hangs out.

Just a couple o' patients, swapping war stories.

Doin' the Malaria Mash... in Me

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As you know I like to be pithy, erudite and educative on all my posts, but this requires more energy than I fear I can muster. We'll see. The short version is I have malaria, which occasionally happens when folks come back from the tropics. The disease is caused by protozoan parasites of the genus Plasmodium. Five species of the plasmodium parasite can infect humans; the most serious forms of the disease are caused by Plasmodium falciparum. Falciparum lives in the gut the female mosquito and when she bites, the microscopic little creeps enter through an anticoagulating mosqito slobber, and make a bee line to the liver.

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Patton would be put to shame after discovering the brilliance of this little bug’s strategic assault on our body. The parasite basically infiltrates a Trojan horse into our liver, where it starts duplicating itself. Meanwhile, it is sending out a cloaking signal (similar to the Klingons in Star Trek) from within this Trojan horse so as to remain undetected by our body’s immune system. In my case, there it rested, in my liver, for at least six months.

Last Monday, however, it was time to come out and party. From Home Base Liver, the parasitical creeps searched for my juicy red blood cells. Penetrating those, it started duplicating within them as well. Usually such infected blood cells would be exterminated in the spleen. So to work its way around that, each of these little demons produces as much as 60 different types of protein which, when on the surface of the blood cell, make it stickable to the surface of blood vessels, hence avoiding potential doom by not making it to the spleen. And these proteins are the first moment when the parasites become detectable to our body’s immune system. However, by the time our body comes up with some antibody, the millions of parasites are already switching to one of its other 59 proteins. The body’s immunity system becomes a toothless bystander, because the number of different and constantly changing protein combinations are essentially infinite.

Then things get gruesome. About every three or four days all the infected blood cells burst, exploding from over population and sending a wave of fever onto Yers Trooly, so that the next batch of demon creep babies can go about the body in search of fresh red blood cells again.

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As I say, Monday the 4th of May, at around 9:00pm, was M-Day. For the next four days, I suffered convulsive shaking and chills, disorientation, high fever, extreme fatigue and body aches, and constant headache. I thought it was "just the flu," so I decided to ride it out. By the end of the week, I understood how people could die from whatever it was I had. When I noticed signs of an enlarged spleen and anemia, I began to wonder. Then colleagues Mary Crickmore and Steve Sylwulka really raised my flu doubt even more by telling me, independently of each other, that it "sounded like malaria" and "are you SURE its not malaria?" Then I realized they were probably right. I'm very fortunate it did not develop into cerebral malaria last week when I was thinking flu, because in that case Renita would be writing this post, telling you that I am DEAD.

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Sunday I was feeling so bad I knew I needed to see somebody. We first went to a Grand Rapids Urgent Care Center. The doc there-- real nice fella-- was worse than useless, did not understand or apparently believe it could be malaria and thought maybe I was having a heart attack. Or maybe it was Lupus? TB? Talk about myopic! We left frustrated and $350 poorer. Finally, I got hold of the CRWM doc, Dr. Holwerda, who in fifteen minutes diagnosed it correctly. I started $5.00 worth of medication immediately, but am still very shaky.

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I was lucky. In Africa malaria kills 3000 kids every day.

The cycle. Note the juicy explosions, both within the liver cells and red blood cells. This party cost me a few million.

Love this National Geographic shot. An exploded red blood cell and another just about to go. Each yellowish projectile is yet another living parasite, ready to find a new blood cell in which to multiply.

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Missing Trokon

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There are some blog posts that stay in my mind for a long time before I put it out there. There are a collection of themes rattling around in my head at any given moment, waiting for the time when it feels right to bring one of them out to you. This one has been in there for maybe two years.

Today, I’m musing about Trokon Morris. For some of you, especially those who followed us on the blog The Reeds in Liberia, the name is very familiar. A privileged few of you even met him. Trokon, now 14, lives in a 12’x18’two-room reed matt and zinc covered shack down the road from where we lived. Like his friends, and most children in Liberia, he is extremely poor, without access to health care, adequate food, shelter, reliable water, or sanitation facilities. He lives, not with his birth mother, because she says she is unable to afford to take care of him, but with another family. How his life would be any more impoverished with her instead of this family I cannot imagine, and I think he knows he’s been dumped.

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His de facto mom, Sara, is on her own and cares for Trokon and three other birth children—Eastman, Jackson and Hannah. Sara suffers from severe vitiligo, a skin pigmentation disorder, which brings her shame and makes her something of an outcast. She survives by selling goods and produce from a small table in the Foster Town Market.

Trokon, along with Eastman, were the boys I came to trust the most in Liberia. They had more free access to us and our home than anyone we knew. They were with us every day, all day, and they became part of our family. I think of them like family, and I miss them a lot. They actively disliked each other, taunted each other and at times were viciously cruel , but they were almost always together-- perhaps they were competing for our attention. Eastman was-is- the simple steady one. Not particularly bright, he was the embodiment of loyalty and faithfulness. He was always there, usually in a good mood, and loved to pick at me. He was never happier than when I had him in a head-lock. Trokon on the other hand, was- is- charismatic, moody, intelligent, fickle, and a natural leader. When he was in a bad place emotionally, he was sullen, humorless, and everybody knew it. When his mood switched, as it often did quickly, he was mischievous, bright and eager to play. Far more independent than Eastman, he did not care so much about pleasing me—which pleased me even more.

I kidded both boys a lot, and they usually gave as good as they got, but in one area, Trokon was defenseless and by the time we left Liberia, just a certain look or a word could send him off screaming. See, I thought he was the most beautiful boy I ever met. His face was perfectly proportioned, and whenever I really wanted to get to him, I would attempt to compliment him on his perfect face. His pals would sometimes say he looked like a girl, so maybe when I said his face was perfect, he thought I was mocking him. But I wasn’t. Nevertheless, I knew just telling the truth would end any competition or playful debate. For me, his beauty added something to the mystery of the boy. I think it adds to the pathos of his story, and mine, and ours. His story is my story is our story. It makes it much more impossible to let him go. So I won’t.

I don’t know when I will see Trokon or Eastman again. But I know I will as soon as I get an opportunity. Renita and I have made some commitments to them regarding their education, and we maintain regular phone contact, so we are in for the duration. As I said, I’ve been thinking about this post for quite a while, and finally it’s a good time to show you his perfect face.

The troika: Eastman (actually Ishmael), Enoch and Trokon. happy in tee-shirts provided by the Calvin Team on their first visit-- summer 2006

A fierce competitor, Trokon takes on Romeo in football.

He does not like inactivity. He always brightens when he had things to do. Here making a toy truck entirely out of bamboo-- tires courtesy of discarded flip-flops.
He was forever hassling me to harvest coconuts and palm nuts from our trees. He trimmed the husks and sold them from a wheelbarrow for about 20 cents a piece.
Squaring off with Hannah. "Oh yea? C'mon then!"

Monitoring a footwashing holding Bandit the puppy. Eastman's feet were in terrible shape, and needed antibiotic care and also jigger removal.

There were some wacky moments-- I'm looking down on him at our small gate; he's covered in sticky red mud, trying to get in to give me a sloppy hug.

Decapitated by friends.

A very early shot. The secret to capturing this reaction? Get the camera ready, train it on the kid, and then suddenly and loudly pass gass.

Trokon and the Monk. He was rightly nervous around her, but he enjoyed provoking the viscious lil' whirlwind when at a safe distance.
A moody moment in the rice fields of Kakata.
His home. He calls them family but he knows his real mother is somewhere else, unable or willing to care for him. This abandonment was always a source of pain and anger for him.

See what I mean? Perfect.

From the Justice Corner

Digging the Farmers

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The world is seeing a hunger crisis it has not seen in half a century. An additional 100 million people in developing countries have fallen into poverty because of rapidly rising food prices, pushing the total number of people in extreme poverty to more than 1.4 billion, according to a 2008 USDA food security report. The UN says that the total number of undernourished people in the world is just under one billion.

Apart from it being an obvious and compelling humanitarian issue, US government administrations have for fifteen years recognized that world poverty is a national (and international} security issue. Poor states often fail to meet the basic needs of many of their citizens—for food, water, health care, or education. The same poor states that cannot fulfill their responsibilities to provide security and sustenance to their own people may also fail to exercise effective sovereign control over their own territory. Poor states often lack the capacity to control borders or remote areas to prevent plundering of their natural resources. For example, the “blood diamonds” taken from Sierra Leone were used by Liberian despot Charles Taylor to secure weapons through links with Al-Qaeda and Libya. Because of Taylor, Osama Bin Laden prospered. Today in Liberia, we read of timber and rubber being stolen in large numbers by forces committed to destabilizing the country.

The Strategic Importance of Agricultural Development
It probably does not come as a surprise to anyone to know that agricultural investment in developing nations is a good idea to help impact hunger. But it is much more than that. According to the UN and the World Bank, reductions in rural poverty generally correspond to an overall reduction in poverty. Agriculture fuels economic growth, provides skills and jobs, and stimulates manufacturing and service sectors. Agricultural development is not only a key to ending hunger, but ending poverty and providing greater security as well. These are a few more reasons why it is important that we care, that we get involved in combating poverty and hunger.

I’ve said before that I believe there are better ways to support hungry and poor people around the world than by merely offering food, relief aid or money to their communities. The overwhelming evidence is that communities in poverty are not transformed by gifts, money or food. Neither are communities of wealth transformed by merely trying to “fix poverty” by contributing to this kind of intervention. Communities of poverty and wealth are transformed from within. Groups like CRWRC, CRWM, and Partners Worldwide are effective because they understand this. Far better to help others grow their own food and create their own agri-business, than to simply provide it from US subsidized surpluses. In doing so, the poor develop a greater sense of self-efficacy and empowermment, and the wealthy develop a greater humility and awareness of the complexities involved in real partnerships. Africa CRWRC team works with local organizations in Mali, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, and Niger, to build the capacity of farmers to grow crops that not only provide food for their families, but contribute to the economies of their countries.

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I ought to add that agricultural development is only one area where our West Africa team is active. The team is involved in community development, church development, peacebuilding, justice advocacy, good governance and conflict transformation. But I wanted you to know today that none of this good work will get very far without the men and women who spend their lives digging soil for a living. That’s why we need to dig them too.

The pictures above are random shots of farms in Nigeria, Niger, Sierra Leone and Mali. That one just above us shows grain banks, storing millet for the lean times. Below are a few more from the collection of my West Africa boss, Mary Crickmore, in Mali.

Taken by friend and former CRWRC Mali consultant Winston Bosch, this is lovely afternoon shot-- what's he waiting for Winston?

The family that plows together smells cows together.

Mary's other half, Scott Crickmore, and Fulani farmer in Mali checkin' out the sorghum.

ReedNews Update April Edition

The Reeds are experiencing the unpredictability of a Michigan Spring for the first time in four years. It feels familiar and new—kind of like it always has. We had a perfect weekend, with low humidity, sunny skies and warm temps, and Monday comes with much cooler, wetter, cloudier weather. The four of us continue to do our thing and our things, with all of us mastering different aspects of adjustment to new school, new jobs, old climates, while at the same time never straying far from the fact that any week now, we’ll get the news that will give us a departure date for Ghana. Here’s some of the latest from each of us:

Noah: Our fourteen year old is making friends and doing very well in school. We are enjoying his exceptionally subtle sense of humor and fun, and because he is rather quiet, I tend to forget how smart and wise he is. Renita and I have been noticing for about a year that his speech seemed more nasally that it used to be, and after months of debating, we took him to a doctor, who referred him to a specialist, who diagnosed him with velopharyngeal inefficiency/incompetence (VPI) for short. This is a disorder of the soft palate which prevents the throat from closing off during speech, causing too much air to enter the nose. We were all glad to know what the problem is, but the remedy may require surgery.

Hannah: She’s a straight A student with a full plate of activities. She’s now on the soccer team, loves hanging out with several best friends, and yes, is getting calls from boys. I’m watching the circling males like a giant eagle, looking for my next meal. (Click on pic at right to see a close-up of her hamming it with her friends)She just landed a summer job as a counselor at a gig called Camp Tall Turf. So that means most likely she’ll stay in Michigan for a while after we leave for Africa. And if she stays, Noah will probably stay too. BTW, our lovely first born turns sweet sixteen on Saturday. We are even now preparing for a week of festivities.

Renita: The fact that she’s 5000 miles and more away has not stopped her from making headway in Cote d’Ivoire, Liberia, Ghana and Nigeria. Each week has her writing hundreds of emails, attending several meetings, and sometimes traveling to exotic places like Sioux Center Iowa to talk development shop with interested business and/or church leaders. She even has time to share African life with local church kids.(left) She continues to wait on the Immigration people to give her a date for her citizenship interview, and then hopefully the swearing-in service would follow very quickly. She thinks we’ll be outa here by June, I’m betting on August.

Yers Trooly: Those who know me will be surprised to hear that I’m learning French, and those who know me would be even more surprised to read that I'm actually getting it. Comprenez 'vous? Renita is learning as well, but far ahead of me. I certainly cannot converse with a French-speaking person, but I’m slowly catching on. Like Renita, I’m also involved in a fair amount of other work-related activities, which for me means writing, studying and some public-type speaking. I’ll be conducting an adult education series on Justice for Madison Square Church, and last Sunday, we spoke at Mayfair Church. Speaking on justice themes is good practice for me, and I’m always honing my philosophy of justice. God help me if I ever stop honing.

Mostly though, my most challenging work is happening inside my head, as I battle with the impatience that comes with wanting to be in Africa, to be working more closely with the folks there who are doing such great and inspiring work. I know I'm supposed to be here, because, well, because I am here. That struggle is draining, and may be one reason why I’ve been feeling sad of late. But a good struggle it is. There is purpose here, and that is enough to keep my mind and heart fully engaged.

Renita, working the French program Rosetta Stone.

Valuing Low

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For a week or so I've been feeling rather melancholy. I'd say it's a sadness bordering on painful much of the time. I get this way every now and then, and being a psychotherapist, I know I could call it depression if I was in a clinical mood. But I'm not in a clinical mood. To label this as "depression" is to pathologize it, to turn it into something merely to be prevented or cured. And yes, initially, when this thing hits, I get grumpy and restless, short tempered and impatient. I don't like the way I feel and I want to feel better. I want to be cured. But when I realize the sadness and emptiness is not going away just yet, I settle into it. I look for truth and meaning in it. I come to value "being here now". There is something important here. There is spiritual and emotional reality here. Being low quiets me down, brings me into the present, and gets me more in touch with the painful side of being human. Inevitably, I see it as a gift.

So folks, Yers Trooly has the Blues. It really is the reason I haven't posted to the blog this week. I wanted to-- I was thinking of the few of you who check in on us, but I could not muster the energy to make something up for you. I didn't want to fake it.

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Yesterday, I drove out to Lake Michigan, which is one of the most important places in the world to me. This particular place has a well known lighthouse, and it's deep red color seemed to pierce the grayness of the day-- and my inner ache. It's boldness and audacity pleased me. It couldn't care less about my darkness, it was just going to be there, red, in my face. Later, I found myself out on a pier marveling as I watched the loons and a duck I have never seen before diving for fish in the frigid waters. I felt privileged to be in their presence. Later still, I talked to God as I walked the beach, and, as is typical, He had no word for me. He just listened, and I imagined and thought I could sense an infinite smile. I walked the beach, breathed the cold air, and allowed myself to weep a bit as I considered the world I've come to know. "So beautiful" I thought. "So much pain."

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And then it was time to drive back to Grand Rapids and home. I'd like to say the trip cured my blues, but they are still here, keeping me honest. However, I did find the energy to simply be real. Which I figured is as worthy of posting as anything I could make up. So thanks for sticking with me.

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By the way, I took some pictures while on my walk. Here are a few.

Hey-- who can tell me what kind of duck this is? (Update: thanks to friend Ron Boes who knows a male Long-Tailed duck (Clangula hyemalis) when he sees one.)