To Danja

Last weekend, we took the plunge and had our first Niger ‘bus experience’ – which actually turned out to be fairly bearable, once on the road! Air-conditioning, seats beside each other and a disappointing lack of livestock: some kind of luxury, surely. And at only 2500 CFA each – about £3.50 for a couple of hundred kilometres. Take note, Translink.

Our arrival at Danja has been a relaxed and gentle one! Our house here is not quite ready, so we’ve been staying in the compound’s guesthouse, but as hot season heightens to temperatures of 45 degrees, the air-conditioner in the room softens the blow more than a little! We seem to have picked a quiet time to turn up at Danja, as several of the folk here are currently either at a conference or away on holiday. Some return soon, but it may be next month before we really get to settle down and see everyone properly. However, we’ve already heard and seen a lot about the different ministries happening here, and the opportunities to get involved around the compound, hospital and church. We would appreciate your prayers as we organise our time here and look to where we can be more involved in outreach.

In building relationships with the local people, we and the staff here felt it was important we took some more time to focus on learning Hausa and so this week has been given over to Hausa study. Each day, we have been meeting with a local teacher for a two hour lesson and then spending the afternoon working through what we have learnt. It is quite intense, but we are covering a lot of ground which is good. We hope to continue these lessons with our teacher twice a week over the next months. Hausa is a very different type of language in many ways: though the idea of nouns having gender is similar to European languages, the tenses work very differently. The verb will change only a little, but it’s the pronouns (I, You, He, She) that change depending on past, present, future and so on. Initially, this makes it seem like there is less vocabulary to learn: but remembering which slight variation on the pronoun to use is very difficult! We are so thankful for our teacher’s help, as we were finding the language difficult to master on our own. Please pray that we would be quick and receptive to learn.

On Sunday we made our first visit to the church beside the hospital. The church is attended by a lot of hospital staff and their families. People seemed really enthusiastic and the pastor enjoyed cracking a few jokes. There is another church nearby which meets in Danja village which we hope to visit as well in the next couple of weeks.

The number of missionaries at Danja has really increased over the last six months. When we applied last year, one missionary lady was the only expat working here. Since the start of the year, and particularly with the opening of the Fistula Fund’s specialist clinic, many new staff have come to the site. There are now three organisations – SIM, The Leprosy Mission, and Worldwide Fistula Fund – working together across the same site. There’s obviously going to be a few headaches created by melding together three different international organisations, and the logistics involved in managing the programs simultaneously. That being said, it is exciting and encouraging that these charities have pooled their resources for the work here at Danja, and it feels like the joint effort is ripe to be rewarded.