Familiarity is not lost with mere distance. Circumstance and time is the key though Einstein might have something to say about that - I never could avoid dropping that 'relativity' word into every conversation. Talk about smug. Anyway, what I mean is here's me 25,000 feet up en route to Algiers, and not feeling the remotest bit apprehensive. But then again while Britain may be over 1000 miles north of here, that's only two hours flying time - hardly a traumatically long separation. And besides I've been on more planes than I've had hot dinners so I'm just in a different familiarity to my usual one. In fact my biggest worry right now is my impending chances of bronchial carcinoma from the distinct lack of a non-smoking area.
Arriving in Algiers is an intermediate step, though they speak French which is still vaguely familiar if not comprehensible. The main differences are the 6.00am wake up calls from the local mosques, the obvious racial differences - though many could have passed for Europeans - the enforced curfew with army patrols, the low rumbling of a passing armoured car, complete with 3Omm cannon, not to mention the anti-car-bomb bollards across the road from the hotel all good civilised forms of intimidation.
So on to Niger where the first day is spent meeting the other missionaries with World Horizons lounging on a beach and buying tickets to get to the goal - Galmi Hospital. So far all experiences have been sanitised by the presence of other Nigerised Westerners who provide an insulating cocoon and even aside from them, the capital city runs on familiar lines:- there are taxis and banks and supermarkets, even museums so from inside a jeep one is still just watching, almost like some form of 3D television. So far, I'm just a spectator, a tourist.
Galmi Hospital. No joke, drums throb in the night, like a cliched African adventure film or the bass line from a distant party, their rhythmic thunder contrasting with the 'chirrup chirrup' of a territorial cricket and the high pitched wine of an eager mosquito. Protected by the 9 fine green mesh of a net I toss and turn to find a cool spot on the pillow, for even in this alleged winter the temperatures can be uncomfortably warm. Sleep comes with difficulty" my mind constantly swarming with a thousand fleeting images that vie with one another in a mind whirling, almost delirious with the differences between Great Britain and Niger. Now I'm culture shocked.
Live scorpions and desiccated lizard heads for sale as traditional medicine; an infant praying mantis as slender as a blade of grass; laden camels swaying wide and deep as the ocean swell; donkeys pulling carts laden with little boys and recycled oil drums, now full of water; babies gazing blankly from the security of mother's back; a bus load of African costume - brilliant hues on unblemished chocolate skin; children leading blind parents; lepers begging for alms; mud brick houses; dust track roads; herds of scrawny cattle; a smile - the only communication with a mother and child that seem as unreachable as any extra-terrestrial; children so thin you can see the suture lines in their skulls; rays of tribal scars adorning almost every cheek; women pounding millet in giant wooden eggcups; men planting millet in fields, their only tools a pick and their bare hands. it is these visions, sounds and most importantly these tense, stumbling, interactions between 'ME' and 'THEM' that reveal the glaring differences that separate us. Eventually, the distinctions must blur and fade towards 'me' and 'them' (for I suspect it will never become 'us').
If you have ever visited a strange town for the first time when everything is new, constantly straining to keep track of where you are, disorientated by the total loss of all familiar landmarks, you will grasp something of what I felt. In a similar way these cross cultural experiences crowd the senses causing an intense awareness of non-belonging. To bridge this gap is time consuming but essential, for not until a scorpion is as bizarre as a wasp or a spider, until Hausa flows off the tongue as readily as English, until bargaining for vegetables is as convenient as a laser bar-code reader at a supermarket checkout, not until all merely circumstantial and cultural differences are done away with can true mission begin. True mission where the only conversion is from darkness to light and not, as has often been the case, from a African to Westerner.
Arriving in Algiers is an intermediate step, though they speak French which is still vaguely familiar if not comprehensible. The main differences are the 6.00am wake up calls from the local mosques, the obvious racial differences - though many could have passed for Europeans - the enforced curfew with army patrols, the low rumbling of a passing armoured car, complete with 3Omm cannon, not to mention the anti-car-bomb bollards across the road from the hotel all good civilised forms of intimidation.
So on to Niger where the first day is spent meeting the other missionaries with World Horizons lounging on a beach and buying tickets to get to the goal - Galmi Hospital. So far all experiences have been sanitised by the presence of other Nigerised Westerners who provide an insulating cocoon and even aside from them, the capital city runs on familiar lines:- there are taxis and banks and supermarkets, even museums so from inside a jeep one is still just watching, almost like some form of 3D television. So far, I'm just a spectator, a tourist.
Galmi Hospital. No joke, drums throb in the night, like a cliched African adventure film or the bass line from a distant party, their rhythmic thunder contrasting with the 'chirrup chirrup' of a territorial cricket and the high pitched wine of an eager mosquito. Protected by the 9 fine green mesh of a net I toss and turn to find a cool spot on the pillow, for even in this alleged winter the temperatures can be uncomfortably warm. Sleep comes with difficulty" my mind constantly swarming with a thousand fleeting images that vie with one another in a mind whirling, almost delirious with the differences between Great Britain and Niger. Now I'm culture shocked.
Live scorpions and desiccated lizard heads for sale as traditional medicine; an infant praying mantis as slender as a blade of grass; laden camels swaying wide and deep as the ocean swell; donkeys pulling carts laden with little boys and recycled oil drums, now full of water; babies gazing blankly from the security of mother's back; a bus load of African costume - brilliant hues on unblemished chocolate skin; children leading blind parents; lepers begging for alms; mud brick houses; dust track roads; herds of scrawny cattle; a smile - the only communication with a mother and child that seem as unreachable as any extra-terrestrial; children so thin you can see the suture lines in their skulls; rays of tribal scars adorning almost every cheek; women pounding millet in giant wooden eggcups; men planting millet in fields, their only tools a pick and their bare hands. it is these visions, sounds and most importantly these tense, stumbling, interactions between 'ME' and 'THEM' that reveal the glaring differences that separate us. Eventually, the distinctions must blur and fade towards 'me' and 'them' (for I suspect it will never become 'us').
If you have ever visited a strange town for the first time when everything is new, constantly straining to keep track of where you are, disorientated by the total loss of all familiar landmarks, you will grasp something of what I felt. In a similar way these cross cultural experiences crowd the senses causing an intense awareness of non-belonging. To bridge this gap is time consuming but essential, for not until a scorpion is as bizarre as a wasp or a spider, until Hausa flows off the tongue as readily as English, until bargaining for vegetables is as convenient as a laser bar-code reader at a supermarket checkout, not until all merely circumstantial and cultural differences are done away with can true mission begin. True mission where the only conversion is from darkness to light and not, as has often been the case, from a African to Westerner.
