I arrived in Gamboula on Monday night, after spending Sunday in Yaounde resting after a long two weeks in Uganda and Kenya. Translating is difficult and tiring, but it was rewarding to be able to open up a new side of Africa, the Anglophone side, to Benoit. I hope it assists him in the on-going work in CAR and gives him hope for what the future of his country could be. It was fun to see his reaction at seeing new people groups, such as the Masai, learning that they don’t steal from each other and experiencing their generosity. It was moving to see Benoit’s interaction with former displaced people in Uganda; people who had lived in Internal Displacement (IDP) camps for twenty years as a result of the rebellion of Joseph Kony and the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). The LRA have been terrorizing communities in CAR and fresh attacks occurred last week in the South East. Benoit asked them to go get him and take him home, to Uganda, as we don’t want him in CAR. Needless to say, they don’t want him back either.
On driving up the Gamboula road, I was greeted by Nadege, one of my sister’s and supervisor of the nutrition garden. She had been waiting for us by the side of the road. I jumped out the car and progressed on foot towards Clarisse’s house. As we got near to her house, she saw us in the distance, my white skin a beacon that I had arrived. She ran towards us, something rather unbecoming of an African mother, but she abandoned all sense of culture and just ran towards me, giving me a big hug. I knew then, what i have known for a long time, that this will always be a home of mine, no matter where in the world Darren and I find ourselves, we will always be welcome here.
I spent the morning with Nadege in the nutrition garden, weeding and talking and sharing stories. I have been trying to capture some of these stories on video and plan on sharing them with you via YouTube when I return to a high speed internet connection. One story is about a woman from Kentzou. She was a refugee from the banditry in CAR, married to a Fulani man, but not Fulani herself. Her child was terrible malnourished and sick and with the little money they had they took the child all the way to the hospital in Yaounde, Cameroon. After spending a lot of money they returned with their child to Kentzou worse off than before. Soon after, they arrived at the Gamboula hospital with little hope that the child would survive. However, the child did survive, and is now thriving thanks to both the medical and nutritional care she received in Gamboula. The mother was especially thankful for the nutrition garden, exclaiming every day over the vegetables, fruits and starches she was given free to help in her child’s recovery. They went home after three months and the woman continued to practice what she learned in the nutrition garden.
This mother recently came to visit Nadege and explained that she wanted to pay back her debt of gratitude to the nutrition garden. She gave Nadege some money to have a small area in the nutrition garden cleared to prepare a place to plant. The mother promised to come back with seeds and planting material to plant in this cleared space, in the hopes that her ‘donation’ to the garden would, in turn, help others who found themselves in the same position as herself: hopeless, hungry and destitute.
