Ben Tshin

I have been thinking recently about poverty, since it is all around me in Sudan. But one thing I have seen is a difference between slum poverty and village poverty. I mentioned this in an email to a friend:

It’s all about contrast and our sensitivity to poverty. Village
poverty is wide spread through a village. Usually, the entire village
has very little, including the elders and leaders of the community.
Village poverty is more akin to rural poverty, in that people are
usually survive through subsistence activities. It is usually no
market economy. Also, villagers are usually more spread out having
more land with which to scavenge materials like firewood, as well as,
land for their cattle to roam. Slum poverty usually occurs in pockets
within a larger city. Slums are packed and congested, and usually
without proper sanitation or water. A lack of sanitation isn’t a
problem in isolation. The diseases occur when people are congested,
bringing the lack of sanitation closer to each person. Slum poverty
might be a stones throw from a 5-star hotel. I was once in the Ritz
Carlton in Shanghai, and it overlooked a neighbourhood on the other
end of the economic scale. It wasn’t necessarily a slum, but you can
easily translate the scenario to Africa, and Asia and shift the
economic scales downward.

So slum poverty akin to acute pain and village more like chronic pain.
If you stayed in villages and small towns for long enough, you become
inured to the standard of life that people “enjoy”. But in a city,
it’s easy to see the horrible conditions endured in the slums,
especially when you sleep in a nice house with guards at the door.

Your comments on this would be very appreciated. I haven’t fleshed this out completely, but it is still on my mind.

Although I’m updating this blog more frequently than my newsletter I’m grabbing this update from the newsletter instead of paraphrasing it again.

Hi! Greetings from Africa!
I hope you are coping well with the recent snowstorms in Toronto. Here in Kenya, it’s the opposite problem: sun, heat and more sun. The daily high regularly reaches +35C, but I’ve been drinking plenty of water to adapt with the heat and the intense sun.

At the moment I am waiting in Lokichoggio in northern Kenya. Situated 30km from the Sudan border, Loki was established by the UN in the 1989 to serve as a logistical pit stop for humanitarian assistance to Sudan under Operation Lifeline Sudan (OLS). UNICEF, the World Food Program (WFP) and 40-other NGOs, including Medair, have offices here to support operations in South Sudan. As a result, a small town has sprung up around the airport and the UN compound.

Conditions in Loki are quite good. It’s much nicer than the expectations to which I signed up. There is a pretty good canteen with decent food, fresh fruit and vegetables. I’ve been told to stock up now before I head into Sudan where the food may come from tins. Unfortunately it’s a bit of a ghost town since 95% of NGOs have relocated into South Sudan after the CPA peace agreement was signed ending the war in 2004. The compound is littered with empty buildings of NGOs like Save the Children, Oxfam, etc. Altogether, I wouldn’t mind spending considerable time here, if only I had something to do.

Four weeks since leaving home I’ve been delayed once in Switzerland and once again here in Lokichoggio. Myself and another fresh colleague were hoping to get into Sudan as soon as possible. However, our second round of briefings have been postponed and put off and I’ve already seen different staff come through Lokichoggio on their way to Sudan. It is quite frustrating to be waiting here with nothing much to do.

Excitingly, I will finally be flying out to Malakal with MAF this coming Tuesday. I’m looking forward to seeing the real Sudan, instead of the veneer of Lokichoggio. The down side is that there is also no work to be done there either. My project is waiting for donor funding before we can go ahead with any work.

Please keep these things in your thoughts and prayers:

• an end to violence in Kenya which is weighing heavily on the Kenyan staff
• successful and quick donor funding for the WatSan project
• my faithfulness and fruitfulness amidst delays and boredom

in His service,
Ben