Trusting the uknown to the known... again.

Where to start? Well at the beginning I guess… I took a position with a NGO called SILAH Mali located in Mali West Africa. After several weeks of training, I was schedule to spend two weeks at home with my family before flying out to Mali. But then the unthinkable happened, literally the last day of training, the reports came out about a coup happening in Mali. I had been following the political unrest in Mali for the past several months an knew that at elections, which were schedule to happen three weeks later, there might be an upset in this fledgling democratic country. I did not expect a coup. I also had been following the news of the unsettling raids and kidnappings happening to the north of the country. The Tuaregs (a lighter skinned nomadic people group who inhabit Northern Mali, and parts of Niger, Burkina Faso, Algeria and Libya) have been holding uprising periodically since Mali’s separation from France in the 1960’s. I knew they were uprising again in the north but did not predict that they would have substantial enough force to take advantage of Bamako’s instable government and actually be able to conquer the entirety of Northern Mali. 

So here I am the day before my original flight was schedule wondering what now?  I know what will happen to me in the next few weeks. I have been delayed and will go straight to more training in another part of Africa for a month while we wait to find out what will happen to Mali. But no one knows what will happen to Mali and to the work of SILAH Mali. All of SILAH’s volunteers and workers have fled to neighboring countries to wait out the instability. The countries surrounding Mali have cut off trade and closed their borders to Mali until the coup leaders step down and return Mali to its democratic status. Land locked Mali depends on outside oil and other imports to function economically. As every day of the sanction passes, the situation become more dire for the people of Mali who will inevitably suffer from hunger and drought. Also, in the North of Mali, along with the Tuareg rebellion there have emerged an extreme Islamist faction which is trying to enforce sharia law on the newly conquered territory. There have been reports of rape and also the murder of Christian believers.

Things look bad and they look like they will grow worse.  

I am continuing to trust the unknown to the known.  I do not know where I will go after training or how long it will be until I can see the people I have been thinking so much about but I know who does. If you know who does too, then ask him to be with the people of Mali, especially the blvrs in the North who could be facing tremendous persecution. 

In ten days, I leave for training in Zambia where I will have no access to internet, so I’m sorry that this depressing post will be the last for more than a month. But you can follow the news of Mali simply by googling the word Mali and reading the recent articles. 

I remain extremely hopeful that I will soon be experiencing the kind warm of the Malian people I have heard so much about and look forward  to posting about all the experiences and adventures.