Joyeux Noël!

Janet, Jolie, Christian and Martha had done some lovely designs at our house for you all, to wish you a very blessed and happy Christmas and a happy new year. These girls, as well as many other children, touch our lives daily in our mission compound of Foulaya.

As a household without children, we feel blessed to have them in our lives. Yes, sometimes they come at the most unexpected of times, usually asking “Aunty, we want to play!” or “Aunty, can I have the toys to play with?” and yes, like children anywhere in the world, there are conflicts to break up and resolve.  But, like any loving parent, when Foulaya is empty, we miss them, their voices, even the crying! They give life to our environment, together with the cats! Our Ivorian colleague with six children of her own recently said: “When a child is born in Africa, it is difficult to say “that’s MY child” because the child belongs to the environment, the community in which he or she grows up in. Everyone has a responsibility towards influencing the child.” Another Zambian friend said to Sarah before leaving for Guinea “Be prepared to give people a smile, it shows love.”  And at Birmingham airport, when embarking on the first leg of her flight to Guinea, the final words of Sharon, Sarah’s sister were, “Go and LOVE the people.” All of these quotations, from women who love God, inspire us to live out Christ on a daily basis, not just with those of high position but also the littlest and lowliest, and to give them our respect and love. And it’s the perfect time to remember Jesus, as little and lowly, but who was visited by adults – from shepherds, to three Wise Men who travelled a long distance and the heavenly hosts – to honour Him.

Merry Christmas and a Happy 2012 to you all.

Kittens dispatched!

We had to say goodbye to our six kittens before leaving Conakry, a very emotional time, but they had already spent over two months with their mother and needed dispatching. Rowan had become very thin, an extremely attentive mother who was also feeding big boy Benoit! Shame on him! On returning from Conakry, Rowan has regained some weight and looks much healthier.

Sonia's encouraging visit and a time of relaxation

As mentioned a few blogs ago, Sarah had travelled to Conakry to welcome Sonia from TAB Baptist in Wolverhampton, to Guinea. Sonia, responsible for mission liaison at TAB, had seen us during our home assignment visit and was particularly touched by what Eric had to say on the value of rest. She felt touched to come and visit us here, to see at first-hand the reality of life on the mission field. She has been a huge encouragement and support for us, praying with and for us, following us in our various ministries and cooking delicious food for us! And it’s clear to see that despite the language barriers, she herself had made an impression on the hearts of Guineans close to us. By God’s grace, we’ll look forward to seeing you again next year Sonia!

Trip to the islands

Eric and I profited from dropping off Sonia in Conakry to travel to the islands off Conakry, known as the Iles de Los (Islands of Idols, as the Portuguese had named them hundreds of years ago). It was a wedding present from the Mission Philafricaine Conakry team two years ago that we had not yet used. There are six islands in the group; we stayed on Kassa, the one nearest to Conakry, after a ride in a motorised pirogue that lasts for 30mins. The people who live here, mainly of the Susu group, are predominately fishermen. The British had control of the islands but handed them over to France in 1904. Hopefully the next time, we’ll take a visit to the island of Fortoba, where slaves were kept in apparently excellent climatic conditions, which enabled the authorities to better prepare them for the market. Descendants on Fotoba hold British names such as Wright. Kassa is a beautiful island rich in bauxite that the French exploited for many years. One can still see the remains of the mines, the rich reddy-brown earth dotted around. 

We had an enormously relaxing time and enjoyed the cuisine (barbequed fish and calamari with chips and fried plantains and salad!) and gained two bodyguards, Leon and Leanne, the dogs belonging to the resort, Le Bamana where we stayed, who followed us to the beach and back. Well worth a visit! We thank God for his protection during all these long journeys.

Marks & Spencer starts new delivery service

For my birthday, Eric and I travelled to the capital of the Forest Region, N’Zérekoré for a day off, as well as a bite to eat. Sarah spotted 'the' lorry that she usually sees in downtown Macenta but has never had the chance to take a photo of it. Finally, after travelling 2 hours, Eric captured it to show you the proof that Marks and Spencers are now in West Africa...

Paving the way for discipline

Last Wednesday morning, Sarah went to drop her colleague in town to do some shopping but found that the market was unusually closed up. We found out later that the Prefet had called a meeting at the Maision des Jeunes (Youth Centre) to discuss the behaviour of teenagers in the light of the stabbing of the Malinke boy the other week. But why was the market closed? On returning from this meeting, our local tailor explained that it was necessary to close the market, forcing everyone to attend. Everyone from market stall holders, to community heads, to representatives from the religious community was called to listen to how the whole community should keep an eye on their children, not leaving them to be influenced by the ways of the streets and night clubs but to take responsibility for them. Let's pray that this talk will have an impact.

Macenta town market on a normal trading day

Women selling dried fish

Taxi woes

Hi all,

After a gruelling 22-hr taxi ride from Macenta, Sarah's in Conakry to welcome and accompany Sonia, a sister from Wolverhampton, back to the Forest. There are some lovely stretches of road that are a joy to ride on (Macenta and the 54 miles after Macenta) and some terrible patches of broken tarmac and deep potholes that a small car cannot tolerate. I had the pleasure to travel with Pastors Simon and Simeon! What was interesting about the route however, was the change in attitude of the military at roadblocks. They no longer have the right to hound and physically abuse civilians, especially taxi drivers themselves, but they have to be courteous and people through the road blocks as quickly as possible! There were a few that took to being verbally abusive when our chauffeur provoked them, but the majority only wanted to see the necessary paperwork and wave us through, albeit grudingly. Whenever we travel, we take what is called an Ordre de Mission, or an official permit that shows that the mission has allowed us to travel. These are part and parcel of bureaucracy in many Francophone countries but work a treat for getting through these road blocks.

The beautifully smooth European Union-paid for road in Macenta

Sonia will be here on a journey of discovery of what life is like on the mission field in Guinea but also to support us during her stay. We're looking forward to meeting and getting to know her, introducing Guinea to her and also taking her through our mission journeys. Sonia is our first visitor since we arrived in Guinea (Eric in 2005, Sarah 2007) and we pray that this visit would be blessed and a blessing for all of us!


Up-to-date cat photos

In the meantime, Eric's left to run the eating schedule for Rowan, Benoit and the six kittens who are becoming more and more playful, agile and greedy by the day! Rowan is on a course of anti-worming tablets as she's lost a lot of weight, but then again it's not surprising as she's feeding six mouths plus Benoit who slips in and takes advantage before Eric throws him outside, yet again!

Big brother Benoit loves hanging out with his young siblings and play attacking also...

Ahh!

Gorgeous!

A very big thanks to Ali, our online vet who's always willing and able to answer cat health questions!

All is calm - update to Monday's blog

We are happy to report that the situation in Macenta has calmed. The family of the young Malinké lad who was killed agreed to accept the plea for forgiveness from the family of the Peul boy.Thanks for your prayers but continue to pray for these families, particularly for those who are grieving.

Bloodshed in Macenta

Today is the day after the day of celebration of Tabaski (name in West Africa) or Eid-al-Adha, when our Muslim cousins commemorate Abraham’s obedience towards God when he was asked to sacrifice his son Ishmael (not Isaac, if you thought you read wrongly), but God intervened by providing Abraham with a sheep to sacrifice instead. In the weeks leading up to the celebration, the streets are full of goats wandering or tethered in random spaces in preparation for the mass slaughter and feast. Tabaski normally passes peacefully.

This morning, Sarah had asked our housekeeper’s granddaughter Marie to go to the market to buy some tomatoes and aubergines as we would be eating with 80-year-old Gandhi Marinova, the pioneer called by God to establish the Mission Philafricaine in Guinea for a meal (more about her, yes her, in the days to come). She’s visiting Guinea as it’s the 30^th anniversary of the mission this year. She had received a cockerel as a present this morning and had kindly given it to us for our lunchtime meal. After a morning meeting, Sarah returned to find that Marie had returned empty-handed. Mariam, her grandmother explained that a young Malinké boy had been killed in a nightclub in town.

Eric returned from work and as usual, took the route towards the town but was diverted by the military as they had cordoned off the market and central areas. It turned out that two boys, one Peul, the other Malinké around 13/14 years old had seen a mutual love interest that they both yearned for. The young Malinké was successful and set about dancing with her. The young Peul saw them both dancing together and wanted revenge. He made for home, seized a knife, returned to the club and stabbed his ‘friend’. Now, as ever in Guinea, this has turned into an ugly tribal problem. The Peuls or Fulani are the largest people group, and dominate the commercial scene, and are often blamed by other people groups for controlling the food prices and resisting integration into the general population. There was much tension between the Peuls and Malinkés in the run-up to the general elections last year in which the Malinké candidate Professor Alpha Condé won the election and became president. Soldiers quickly surrounded the house of the young Peul to protect the family from Malinké exacting revenge. It’s not clear if the boy is still at the house or is in hiding somewhere else. A very precarious situation has transpired in that the ‘prefet’ or the head of state at regional level is also a Peul and any statement or intervention from him would only be seen as biased. In a very ill-judged move, a group of elders from the Peul community made a visit to the home of the bereaved family of the Malinké boy in order to seek reconciliation. They were met with by a furious mob who had tried to decapitate one of the elders who was rushed to hospital.

• Please pray for this terrible situation, that the hearts of the family of the Malinké boy would be comforted and that they seek not to exact revenge.
• That God would calm the hearts of those who are living in rage.
• That He would send an envoy capable of bringing the Malinké and Peul to the table to dialogue.
• For the military to act wisely and responsibly.

New arrivals

We have the pleasure to announce that Rowan gave birth to six kittens in the early hours of 7 October - three males and ginger, three females stripy, like her. We were surprised to see that she wanted to stay at home to give birth and not at the car workshop where she had done before. She acted strangely, following Sarah to every corner of the house to the extent that Sarah had to spend the night in the spare bedroom with her, Rowan's own personal midwife! Even Eric, who's normally goes to bed early, had sacrificed this time to stay up and see if the kittens would emerge, but alas, no. Sarah encouraged Rowan to go into her birthing basket, then promptly fell asleep. Around 5am, Sarah woke to find the new arrivals and a very proud Rowan. At the women's morning prayer (time with house workers and mission workers), the news of six kittens being born circulated with much excitement and pride for Rowan. More than two weeks later, the kittens are doing extremely well, eyes and ears have opened and they're responding eagerly to the voices and sight of visitors. Benoit is less interested in the kittens than he is in teasing his mother!

Out of order

Apologies to you all as you've not received much information from us over the last few weeks, but as our normal internet provider, an NGO in town has moved to another building, it's taking them a while to get settled in. In the meantime, we're using a dongle which is no way near as fast. We are able to send text but uploading photos is more time/money-consuming.

Please bear with us during this time!

Working lives (Part 1)

Chers amis,

Since starting our blog, we’ve not spoken much about what we actually do here, apart from amusing ourselves! We are with BMS World Mission (formerly the Baptist Missionary Society), seconded to the Swiss Alliance Mission of Switzerland, which has established itself well in various stations across Guinea. Today, we focus on Eric. He’s the Director of the CM or Medical Centre. When one thinks of a medical centre in the UK, one imagines your average clinic in any town or city, where doctors prescribe medicine or refer people to hospital for more serious ailments, injuries or complications. Here, the Medical Centre is more like a hospital, with wards containing about 100 beds, with a pharmacy, laboratory, orthopaedic workshop and operating block. The majority of patients have leprosy complications and tuberculosis. Eric’s responsible for motivating and encouraging staff, day-to-day management and administration, resolving conflicts as a member of the leadership committee, stimulating research opportunities, maintaining the relationship between the CM and its donors and other actors, hosting external medical personnel such as surgeons who visit to treat people with leprosy complications, and of course, consulting patients, as well as many other chapeaux (hats).

The founding of the centre goes like this: the wife of the President Sekou Touré invited the Mission Philafricaine (MPA), a Swiss non-governmental organisation and Christian mission to come and establish a colony for people living with leprosy.  The CM has become a national referral centre for people with leprosy complications and tuberculosis (ordinary stage and multi-drug resistant TB). Drugs for these two diseases are free of charge for patients but we have donors that subsidise these and many other things. The CM also provide counselling and testing for people who want to know their HIV/AIDS status, and have strong collaboration with Médécins Sans Frontiers who provide the MPA with anti-retroviral drugs.

As you can imagine, donor funding in our fragile world economic climate has become very stretched, with our biggest donor planning to pull out of Guinea in 2013 because of its own financial problems. As you can imagine, this is a huge concern for us. It also comes at a time where the mission is considering handing more aspects of responsibility over to Guinean colleagues. This is a difficult step for some expatriates to consider and in a society when accountability is either a dirty word or not well understood and corruption and nepotism thrive, questions such as “Can we trust people to handle the finances and medicines?” or “Will people be able to continue with what has been started at the same level?” are asked. The CM has already made a good start towards ‘Guineanisation’– the majority of its employers are Guinean. We are hopeful that this process can be carried out and that one day, someone qualified and a Christian can step into Eric's shoes, leading this important medical resource. Please pray for the right candidate to be found and that in the meantime Eric receives the strength for this rewarding and yet stressful role!

 

Cat mysteries

A couple of weeks ago, Eric spent a nuit blanche (sleepless night) because he heard a kitten crying round the back of our house. The next morning, when went over to the car workshop where the cars are parked, a small black kitten welcomed him, crying at him and darting back and forth. Sarah fed him with some fish and slowly gained his trust. Had Rowan given birth to yet another or had the other little black cat we’d already sent packing escaped? We’re not sure! Our house help told us that her neighbour’s black kitten (one of Rowan’s) had escaped when the door to the house opened and their dog was let in! How could he have found his way back to the mission? It’s a long way for this little mite.

Black cats are sought after for witchcraft in the Toma-Maniya tradition and sorcerers use them to make themselves and objects disappear. In any case, we’re becoming attached to him and vice versa and are still considering if we should keep him. He seems happy enough but his mom (if Rowan is his mom!) will not let him try to suckle, landing a few punches on him if he does, so he knows his place! It’s probably also linked with the fact she’s pregnant...again!!!

Meanwhile, Miss Horror who we happily dispatched a few weeks ago is stuck in the grenier (loft space) at my friend Susanne’s house, too afraid to come down to go to the toilet, so her place doesn’t  smell too good at the moment...however, she has now has a tray with sand to use and is apparently doing an excellent job with the mice.

Finding love in nature

Potato love...



Palm nut tree love (commonly used to make red palm oil)...from our very own garden...

Mixed bag

Today, we're at N'Zao, where there's an American mission hospital with wireless internet access (youpi!), about 7kms from the N'Zérékoré, the capital of the Forest Region, around one and half hours from home. We're taking a break from Macenta for a couple of nights, staying at the Catholic Mission in town. Here's a mixed bag of stories of life in Macenta.

Snake killed

Ascension Day was a day off for us, and despite it being August, the heaviest month for rain, there was a dry moment which allowed us to take chairs and table out into the back garden to eat with our young footballer friend. After putting chairs and the table back in, he mentioned in passing that he saw a snake in a bush not far from the house. We asked Moriba, our day guard to kill it and he did so by lunging at it with a long pole. Not enough meat on it for a meal for two, unfortunately.  

Fête des Nations

As we make up part of a multicultural expatriate team (British, Congolese, Swiss and Ivorian), we celebrated our various nationalities with a ‘Fête des Nations’ or international party, where each family/person brought a meal (as the ackee and saltfish brought over from the UK last year had already been eaten, Sarah plumped for a beef curry with naan breads) complete with meat and fish for barbecuing. Our Ivorian colleagues brought achéké (grated, fermented cassava served with hot pepper sauce and fish). All very tasty, or as the Guineans say C’est doux dey! (It tastes good, doesn’t it?) The PROEspoir or 'Project Hope' team is the biggest team in the country, consisting of three families with 10 children, two couples and a single lady, Martha, who has been here for 21 years. We played a number of games and Sarah representing Great Britian, did a quiz on the Queen. Our Ivorian colleagues were surprised to know that, according to an official website one can actually shake the hand of the Queen ("That's not possible in our country, your hand would be chopped off"). For the Swiss contribution, we did a spot of yodelling and leaping around the BBQ and continued the dancing led by our Ivorian colleagues. You can check out Eric’s contribution in these photos. What a scream!

We wanted to post more photos but the server is very slow here!


Your help needed

We're planning to be in the UK next year for our home assignment but we need somewhere to live from the start of September until early November. Ideally, we would like to be in the West Midlands area, preferably in Birmingham or not far from Birmingham, so we can participate in activities at our home church, Bearwood Baptist and be within a reasonable distance of our churches in Wales and West Midlands regions. Unfortunately, the International Mission Centre for BMS is likely to be booked up as it's the start of the new training year. If you can help us with this, please let us know by email. We encourage you to publicise this request in your churches. Thanks!

Blessings and have a great weekend, until next time!

Small cat diaries

Warning: for those of you who don’t like cats, don’t read any further. We’re sure that we’ll post other things that will interest you in the weeks to come. I (Sarah) have been a cat lover since childhood. After arriving in Guinea four years ago, I had the pleasure to discover that one of my colleagues was as dotty as me about cats and I quickly inherited Ash (who we had to put down after giving birth to her first litter) and her sister Rowan (below), a maladroit, extraordinarily timid kitty-cat of seven months who quickly adapted to Eric’s permanent presence in 2009.

We’ve forgotten how many litters Rowan’s had but she’s given birth to all at home apart from the last two (probably over 20 kittens). She was born in the car maintenance workshop on the mission compound and this shelter has become her favourite place to hang out, peaceful during the evenings and weekends – but also being a place to give birth and stay hidden. She gave birth to what we originally thought were three kittens in May and had moved and hidden them in several locations around the car workshop so by the time we got our hands on them, they were already wild. Trapping them has been a slow process! We usually used Mama and food as bait and then if they were extraordinarily hungry and couldn’t wait for Mama to bring the food to them, they came to eat alongside her and – wham – a perfect opportunity to grab them by the scruff of the neck. After locking Miss Tabby in the bathroom whilst deciding whom we could give her to, my neighbour Agnes mentioned that our pastor’s wife was looking for one. Miss Tabby was swiftly dispatched an hour later.

Toulouse (above, in our sink) was caught a few days later and we gave her to Mariam, our house help. She was petrified but calmed down after a day. Was hard to let her go! People here are usually on the lookout for kittens to help them kill the mice entering their homes and eating their stash of rice, usually stored above the ceiling.

Next came the last two...hang on, you thought I’d written that Rowan had given birth to three??? To my surprise, I discovered that in fact there was another lurking in the workshop. However, Rowan helped us out in catching them. By this time, she had lost so much weight running to our house looking for her food and running back to the workshop to give it to her babies (even when we’d left other fish for them) she was tired of this process. The clever cat decided it was time they came home to us! She convinced them, although with rather a lot of hesitation from their side, to make it all the way to our front door. Tuesday night, ‘little Tremmy’ (named after my sister’s cat that’s also jet black) showed willing and...one down, one to go. A gentle soul, he adapted to our presence and touch very quickly. Mariam’s neighbour Elisabeth got the cutie.

Now we come to Miss Horror, the last one to make it into our household. Wednesday night, Rowan tried the convincing act again with her, but instead of simply following her mother into the house, Rowan was forced to feed her right in front of the front door to reassure her that everything was going to be alright. I in the meantime, snuck into the kitchen to get some dried fish to put in front of the door. Rowan squeezed her way past the mosquito net door, leaving a little crack for Horror to follow her. Wasn’t too easy, but she took the bait. After taking a little bit from the fish, Rowan padded past Eric and I who were seated like statues on the sofa and into the kitchen. Horror started off but then sensed something wasn’t quite right. She looked at each of us, dead in the eyes, we moved a little to make her a little bit more comfortable. She started backing towards the door, turned, ran towards the mosquito net door and...bang! She bounced right off it, couldn’t find the exit! I leaped up ran to the door and shut it tight before yelling a triumphant “YES!” Mission accomplished! Rowan ran back into the lounge, panicking for her enfant. After spending a noisy long weekend with Horror trying to escape every hour, we gave her to my friend Susanne, who left with her on a motorbike. Readjusting to life without kittens has been a little bit difficult for Rowan who was still crying for her baby and taking fish to Horror’s hangouts. Happily for her, she has gained weight and is getting a lot of affection from us again.

Busy week!

Hello, this is the first time this week that Sarah's been able to get herself to the offices of the extremely kind non-governmental organisation (NGO) in town to log on to the net! It's either a bike ride of 15 minutes or 10 minutes door-to-door. This has been a particularly busy week, which culminates in a 'Fete de Nations' (All-Nations party) tonight, with all the members of the mission team coming together for an Agape meal, games, singing and who knows what else. We'll try and upload some photos next week if we remember to take the camera with us! Take care of yourselves.

New Bloggers!

Hello friends, its Eric and Sarah Harris-Bafende live and more direct from the Forest Region of Guinea, West Africa! We hope you’re keeping well where you are! It’s not that we’re technophobes, on the contrary, but for one reason or another, we have been extremely reluctant to join in the blogging fever. But as some of you have desired to have more on our life here, we thought this would be a better way to communicate with you. We’ve called it Venez et Voyez (Come and See), so that you do just that, come and see what God is doing in our lives here in Macenta and the lives of our Guinean, Swiss, Ivorian, Liberian, Sierra Leonean... brothers and sisters with whom we live among. For those of you who are new to us, we'll give you a short biography of our time here in Guinea another time.

Have a great weekend!

Sarah and Eric