Duex Mondes

Two Worlds

Yesterday, Thanksgiving Day, Sally and I had a chance to experience two Niamey expat worlds.  One was the embassy world and the other was the NGO/missionary world. 

World #1.  We went to Thanksgiving Dinner for Americans at the home of a lady who was with the American Embassy.  It was a potluck; so free food, free drinks, paper plate, all very nice.  Her home was lovely… and big… pool, gazebo, two living rooms, grassy back yard, etc.  Out of the 60 or so Americans there I only recognized three that I had seen before so this was a different group.  The embassy people live quite well, are very polished, and exude confidence.  We were told, they are assigned here for two-three years and then move on and are not encouraged to “become local.”

I talked with a lady from the World Bank who works on Poverty Economics.  Seems that a global view of poverty wasn’t working very well so they are trying to find out what poverty is like at a household level.  They do research in villages at each house to find out what education the people have, how many animals they have, what they eat, etc.  Then they analyze the data to see what can be done to improve their condition.  It’s all very business like.

There was a lady who worked with the Peace Corp in Niger for 7 years and now is back working at the Embassy.  She loves Niger.

The Ambassador was there.  A rather young looking black woman with great social skills.  I didn’t learn where she was from or her schooling but she represented the US quite well.

I met a young man, just out of college, who, according to him, was running the embassy.  He used the analogy, the Ambassador was like the mayor, and he was the city manager.  He seemed quite young and inexperienced to have such a position.

They all seemed to like their embassy jobs and look forward to their next assignment.

World #2.  Then we went to the extended SIL family Thanksgiving dinner.  It was held in the SIL conference room and it too was a potluck but we had to pay for the room and some of the food.  There were 33 of us.  I knew everyone there.  We were the only “short-termers,” all the others had been in Niger or West Africa for many years, in the bush, or were children. 

I ate with a Frenchman and a Norwegian man, both of whom were in their fifties, spent their adulthood in Niger, had spent time in the bush, (one in tents with a nomadic tribe for several months) and were translators. 

Our discussion also focused on the poverty of Niger.  These men knew people who had died of starvation.  They lived in villages where people died from lack of medical care.  They lived with women who looked like they were 60 years old but were only thirty because life was so hard.  30-40% of the children in the village would die from various causes. 

These men don’t have a job; they have a mission.  They both feel called to bring the Bible to people.  They do it by translating it, putting it into writing, and then getting it to the people through audiotapes, video bible stories, and face-to-face communications.  The written part is not the most important tool.

The thing that amazes me is that the two worlds don’t mix.  They don’t mix socially very much and they don’t share much information.  On the one hand you have a group of people with the resources to do things to help the people of Niger.  They have tried all kinds of things to help; all with good intentions and appropriate expectations, (something any one of us would say is a good thing) yet not much sticks.

Then you have the missionaries who are “on the ground,” for the long haul, with few resources at all, knowing what works and doesn’t work.

Here are two groups of caring people who have different perspectives and could help the other but they don’t talk.  They are in two different worlds.  How sad.