Already it has been 4 weeks since I last touched the sweet Canadian soil. It was a Thursday night that we arrived in Cotonou, travel weary but in great spirits. Praise God for the incredibly smooth journey we had! After literally wrestling for our baggage in the airport we were greeted by Alex, a Beninois taxi driver, holding a sign that read “Any et Chartly”. I have decided spell my name “Aimee” (Em-eh) which is much easier for the Beninois to pronounce. Everyone we meet makes a joke that our names Charite and Aimee have similar meanings. I have quickly discovered that the people here love to joke and laugh!
After spending a night at the SIM guesthouse in Cotonou, we drove with Martha (a Dutch nurse who has worked at the hospital for 30 years) and Dorothy (an American who does Bible translation in west Benin) to the SIM base in Parakou – a seven hour trip north. The main road that weaves through the country from the south to the north is dusty and marked with the biggest potholes I have ever seen. Drivers must be on constant alert to swerve around potholes and oncoming traffic. Honking is constant because it is the signal used for, well, pretty much everything. We passed many transport trucks loaded past the brim with goods, and also saw one flipped on its side. Somehow I managed to sleep most of the trip – I must have been really jetlagged – but it is actually a really terrifying experience and I am not exactly looking forward to the trip back to Cotonou in December to get our visas renewed. We have learned that “zemi-johns” (motorcycle taxis) are plentiful and will take you wherever you want to go for not too much money. They are the most common (and most thrilling!) mode of transportation here.
In Parakou we were greeted by Clara, the Benin-Togo SIM director and Benjamin and Christine Hageman, a missionary couple. Each year Benjamin teaches at the Bariba Bible School that is close to Bembereke from June to December and then he teaches at a Christian college in New York for the remainder of the year. Benjamin and Christine took us under their wing, treating us to delicious meals and delightful conversation in their home. The warmth and generosity of the SIM staff in Parakou helped to ease the transition to this new culture and have been a tremendous blessing to us. Christine couriered us to several stores and with her French and her bargaining expertise she helped us purchase some staple food items to get us started at our new home. Two such amenities are hot chocolate and grenadine syrup (it can be mixed with water) which are the standard drinks to serve your African guests.
The road from Parakou to Bembereke is the worst bit of road we have seen yet and we travelled by African taxi - an ancient station wagon packed to the brim with passengers, baggage, animals, and anything else you can think of. We are told that we were fortunate we had only 10 passengers in a 7-seat station wagon, since a typical load is 13 or more. Our suitcases rode on the rooftop. We calculated that our total journey from Toronto, Canada to Bembereke, Benin took a WHOPPING 24 HOURS!
Our home in Bembereke is nestled amidst a magically lush forest. It is the end of the rainy season so every where we look it is green, and so far it is not too hot. We are told that our home is the nicest of all the missionary houses, and to us it feels like a castle! Charity and I each have our own bathrooms complete with showers (albeit there is no warm water). We even have a guest room! Deborah is a Fulani woman from the village nearby who will work for us on Mondays and Fridays. She will bake bread, do our laundry, wash our vegetables (in bleach!) and clean our house. This is a way for her to earn some extra money for her family of 7 (5 sons and her husband who is the hospital secretary).
There are six missionary staff working at the hospital including Charity and myself (all of the other hospital staff are Beninois!). Anja, is a nurse from Switzerland who is 21. She is here for 4 months and the three of us have become fast friends, often visiting in the evening and cooking meals together. Katrin and Martha have been here for a number of years (Martha for 30!) and they have wonderful wisdom to share with us. Beatrice, in her late 20s and also from Switzerland, was married in February to a Beninois pastor named Manasseh and they live at the Bariba Bible School five minutes down the road where Beatrice has just started as a student. Katrin and Martha spent our first weekend here in Togo for a wedding and because they didn’t want to leave us on our own we stayed with Beatrice and Manasseh in their quaint 1-room home. They only have 2 hours of electricity each day! They introduced us to their friends Caleb, who is the pastor of the Bariba church we attend, Caleb’s wife Aissa and Aissa’s younger sister Yapenno. We learned to make Swiss bread, played Extreme Uno and volleyball, and visited a traditional Fulani village.
The hospital is much larger than I expected and a very bustling place. Each unit is a separate building and the buildings are linked by concrete paths. The patient rooms, which are filled with 6-10 beds open to a courtyard. The outside walls are lined by still more patients who are lying on mats. “Les gardes de patient” – the family members who stay and care for each patient – gather to prepare food and do laundry in the courtyards. It is not an uncommon sight to see patients sharing their beds with 1 or 2 family members as well. Meals are shared from the same bowl and are eaten with your hands (usually a porridge-y substance that is dipped in sauce). Everywhere we go we are greeted by “good day!”, “how are you?”, “how is your family?”, and “how is your work?” in French, Bariba, or Fulani, the languages that are most common in this region. Did you know that there are actually 50 languages present in Benin? We have met quite a number of people who speak 5 or more languages! At the same time few of our patients will actually speak French at all because the patients come from rural areas and also from Nigeria, Niger, and Burkina Faso. What I hear is that patients choose to travel the great distance because they heard through the grapevine that they would be treated well at this hospital. Our hospital is not the biggest but here the patients will receive quality care and the staff is genuine, compassionate, and God-fearing.
For two weeks we have been orienting to each service in the hospital in this order: the dispensary, children’s clinic, laboratory, eye clinic, evangelism, TB clinic, pharmacy, HIV/AIDS clinic, operation block, maternity ward, surgical ward. At the dispensary which is a quasi walk-in clinic/emergency room/triage area, the nurses consult with at least 50 patients daily – assessing, diagnosing, and prescribing treatment. Only in the most complicated situations does the patient go on to see a doctor. We saw accidental injuries (broken bones and bur ns), a lot of malaria cases, cardiac problems, and GI problems caused by stress or parasites. The eye clinic was one of my favourite places to visit. Paul, the eye “doctor” is actually a nurse trained in eye care. He is one of only four people in the country trained to diagnose eye problems and perform eye surgeries! There is a group of pastors who work at the hospital, diligently sharing the Gospel with patients, and each Friday students come from the Bible school to play music and preach. In the operating rooms, the surgical team prays with the patient before each surgery and every morning all of the hospital staff gather for a meditation; we sing, read a Bible passage, and pray together! It is such a great privilege to be participating in the Lord’s work here, serving alongside my Beninois brothers and sisters in Christ!
1 Corinthians 15:58 “Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord.”
Please pray:
- For Charity and I as we have officially started work this week - for courage, competence, understanding, and compassion
- Against discouragement with learning French (at times it feels like it is coming too slowly!)
- For relationship building with the young people in the Bariba church community and with the staff in the pediatric unit where I am working
