Row, row, row your boat..

It’s been a little bit of a quiet period since my last post. On Sunday I visited Ganvie, a ‘stilt village’ built on the large lake in Benin. Really cool place by the way! The local town had grown into the lake and a whole community lives on the water! No footpaths, just boats. Suddenly living at a marina isnt so posh :P

To get there we had to take a small boat about 45min up the river. This is the first time it truly hit me the conditions that some people live in here, but also a realization I had never had before; I’ll explain. The riverbanks in Cotonou are where all the rubbish, waste etc collects; also it is where the poorest of the city live.. Passing in the boat the poverty hit my like a heavyweight champs right hook. Literally there are people living in lean too shanties on top of rubbish tips adjacent to the river, that by the way is also the largest open sewer you can imagine. Seeing this I realize why we are here, if in some small w

ay we can contribute to the bettering of the quality of life of these people then every minute spent here will have been worthwhile.

Watching the people as we passed I also came to a realization that was maybe personally more shocking to me: the quality of living is far less than we are used to, but the quality of life is not! The people LIVE LIFE here. There is no complaining about the squalor, there is no down heartedness about the lack of facilities. Seeing the people going round their daily life with the energy they do put me to shame. Too often do I catch myself judging the people’s lives here by the place they live, how they live and what facilities they have at their disposal when they have a appreciation of life that is rarely seen. Yet I find myself complaining when the airco stops for 5min on the ship or when there is only decaf coffee left in the morning in the dining hall.. suddenly sounds so trivial.
Sorry if this sounds confusing but it is a hard feeling to describe.

On Sunday we had an international praise evening with different nations showing how they praise the Lord. ‘Joyful singers’ you have set me in good stead! The best quote of the evening was from a Liberian lady who started their section with the statement: ‘’Stand up! Praise the Lord! Shake your body to the glory of the Lord!’’, never was there a truer statement. I love the energy and the totalness of the way the (west) Africans praise. And why just use our voices when we have our whole bodies at our disposal (even when we lack rhythm)!!

God bless,
Ben