The pain of being white

This is going to sound odd. I can already feel the comments coming back at me But really, sometimes I really dislike being white. Don’t get me wrong- I love my country, my race, my color etc. But living here in Niger is made all the more difficult but the color of my skin. Oh how I long to blend in. To go to the market without being followed by people, paying more than usual because “white people can afford it” and have restrictions on work and travel because the color of my skin makes me a target. Let’s face it- that sucks.

We found out last week that there is potentially funding available from an interested donor to open up a satellite school of our Girls at Risk Vocational Training program up north. The Northern part of the country is where the majority of the Tuareg people live. The plight of young women is horrible in many instances and they are married off at 12, no skills, no hope. Crazy high maternal mortality and child mortality rates. We could access these girls and teach them, love them. But we can’t go. And we aren’t in a position yet where we have locals trained to be able to fully reproduce this on their own or who we have complete confidence in to run and manage a program this size. If I blended in I could go there and start this project or at least work with locals to run it and visit weekly for follow-up. But I can’t.

There is a refugee situation along the Mali border that is also concerning Tuareg people. They are fleeing the conflicts in Mali and crossing over just inside the border of Niger, where they are doing everything they can just to stay alive.

The ragtag shanty huts of the refugees

A malnourished grandmother, who walked for days, holding her equally malnourished grandchild.

I could help here too. There are distribution projects going on (although far too few to meet the need) that I could help with. I can speak the Tuareg’s language enough to help, talk with the people and deliver the aid. But we can’t go. Too dangerous being a white person to go there. I thought about wearing a full head to toe burka and gloves, but as soon as I opened my mouth they would know.

Our village feeding program needs more oversight and we miss seeing those groups of awesome children whom we love. We miss going! Increased security risks means us expat folks can’t go. Are you seeing a pattern here?

This lady had just arrived, walking days over the border. She was carrying her child and all she could of her belongings and left everything else behind.

* All photos courtesy of ADRA, editing by me.

 

So there you have it. My sadness at sticking out so much that it impedes my ability to do some of my work. I know that God knows all this and that I am deeply needed her in Niamey with our Girls School and their families, but it gets really tiring sometimes not being able to leave the city really.

SO….thanks for hearing me out. Has there even been a time you wish you could change your skin color for any reason?

What is a girl worth?

I have been researching and immersing myself in books related to the value of girls in different societies. I am shocked often by how wide the gap is across the world in different cultures and countries. Across my reading I came across some great thoughts and quotes. So I would like to share them here, along with some new portraits of some of our girls. They have VALUE. They are LOVED and CHERISHED and it is such a joy and honour to be part of their lives!

So what is a girl worth?

Maybe we could say:
...she is worth having her sexual purity protected

… she is worth advocating for. She needs you to stand up for her and her rights

…she is worth telling the truth to

…she is worth protecting from all kinds of abuse and violence and neglect.

…she is worth educating

…she is worth nurturing, mentoring and engaging in real conversation

..she is worth loving as Christ loves the Church, His Bride

 

Zuwera here has scars all up her arms and she is very self- conscious and feels no one could ever love her. Oh how I long for her to feel loved and accepted. I pray she gets that from us, but more importantly knows there is a God who loves her and knows she is beautiful!

Mentoring is an intentional relationship that is unlike any other.

It is not about knowing something. That is education.

It is not about learning to do something. That is training.

Mentoring is about showing someone how to be something.

Jesus mentored his disciples. He did not offer theoretical instruction. He “did life” with them.

His Grace says “even though (something happened)…I ALWAYS will LOVE you and ACCEPT YOU”

He’ll always see you as the precious, beautiful, sweet girl He created.

But evidence of Him is so obvious on the darkest of canvas like your stories…such beauty blooms when we reach out and ask for reminders of our worth–it’s our worship to turn toward affirmation, for our hearts know the truth.

To be able to walk this road with these girls.

To see God take them from defeat to success, from self doubt to confidence.

That is the best job in the world!

The picaken–an epic feat of cooking!

Here in Niger we need to get creative in our fun. There just isn’t much to do! So when I read a blog about this crazy feat of cooking, I knew we had to try it! I found a partner in crime in Kerrianne and we plotted our cooking adventure to our unsuspecting victims at the next team potluck!
So have you ever heard of TURDUCKEN? You know, the main course dish where you take a chicken, you stuff it inside a duck, which you then stuff inside a Turkey before cooking it all together? As a meat lover this makes my mouth water but we have yet to make it. Paul brings it up every once in a while so maybe we will try it when we are home!

Anyhow…the picaken is the DESSERT VERSION of the Turducken. YOU MAKE A YUMMY PIE. You cook it. Then you pour cake batter all around it and you bake it right inside of a CAKE. COOL! So of course the first step is to come up with a yummy combination. Our options are limited so we decided to try a chocolate/peanut butter pudding pie with a white vanilla cake around it.

First we made the pie. (This is all done at Kerrianne’s place since our oven is still broken 2 months later with no fix in sight).

Kerrianne hard at work

You really can’t go wrong in my option with any dessert that mixes chocolate chips and peanut butter!The cooked pudding is ready to pour into the baked pie shell.

In it goes! After this we called it quits for the day to allow the pie to set. We wondered how to drop it in the middle of a cake pan.

Fast forward to the next day. We whipped up yummy vanilla cake mix. (As a side note- another bonus of doing the cooking at Kerrianne’s is that her mixer doesn’t shock you with electricity like mine does!) So we used a spring form pan so we could get a nice high cake. We poured some batter into the bottom first.

Then we dropped in our cold pie. It fit snug. I wished we had a bit bigger spring form pan.

Then we poured cake batter all down the sides and covered the top. The pie is totally hidden now!

We let the cake bake at this point. I realized when we got to the time when it should be ready that the middle top was not baking. I realized the error of my ways in using a cold pudding pie with no pastry top so it was not letting the batter cook in the middle top. So NEXT TIME I will use a more traditional baked pie with a pastry top (take note of that any of you who want to try this at home!) You can see in the picture that the middle is not quite cooked. But the pie is well hidden!

Then for fun I added a 1 inch layer of a yellow cake. Three flavours in one dessert! Of course this made it difficult to decorate. I had made an awesome browned butter icing from an old cookbook. It was so yummy it took willpower not to eat it out of the bowl!

OK so I definitely lose points on the decorating. At this point Cecilia texted me and said “FAILURE IS NOT AN OPTION!”

At our potluck that night we let Cecilia be the one to cut it open. She knew we were having fun with our epic dessert plan but had no idea what it was. Check it out! You can clearly see all three layers!

The very inside white batter was still not cooked (due to the cold pudding error) but let me tell you- it tasted awesome! Decadent! You don’t need a very large slice to truly enjoy this rich dessert. And everyone loved the surprise of the pie hidden in the cake!

So here is my question to you- what kind of combination do you think would be awesome? Warning to my family – I intend to perfect this process and bring it to family events next year! And let me know if you plan to try it at home yourself! Go have fun!

 

Here is a picture of someone else’s  double decker picaken delight - courtesy of tasteofhome.com

For the original crazy inspiration – check out this YouTube video!

The Original Picaken