This is a common compliment I hear from Ghanaians. In a taxi yesterday, I was telling my roommates about someone saying this to me, when they saw me after Christmas break. The taxi driver overheard us, and I began to explain that white ladies don't like to be called big. He didn't understand. I said if you are big, then you look unhealthy - like you don't exercise enough, so you become big. "Oh, it makes you look lazy." - "Yea" - "Well, there's a problem with hunger here," he said. While I know there is a problem with hunger in Africa - I had never really had a conversation like this before. He explained that if people become thin, that means they haven't eaten, or they are very sick. If they get too thin, it is too hard for them to become well again. He said "that is how we loose so many people." His wife carries more than 50 pounds of cassava in a bowl on her head everyday, trying to make a living, AND he adds the side note that she always carries an 8 kilo (over 17 pounds) baby tied to her back. She is getting too thin, she takes a pill every night to help her keep on weight to sustain herself for another day of work, doing hard labor, barely being able to care for her child.
Even here in Accra, I forget to be thankful for the food I have. Instead, I wish for other food - I bring food from the states - I bring and eat so much food that I have to jog it off - and so many people around me don't have enough to eat.
James Kofi Annan just finished speaking at Chapel this morning. He was sold as a child slave here in Ghana when he was 6 years old, by his own parents. He worked fishing all day, being beaten and barely fed. He escaped when he was 13, went to school and became the only literate child out of 12 in his family. He earned degrees and had a career, and now has an NGO to rescue and rehab the children in slavery.
Today in Ghana, children are being sold for around 50 Ghana Cides, about 35 American Dollars into slavery. Their uneducated, uninformed, illiterate, poverty stricken parents sell them, to the deceiving slave trafficers - for the promise that they are buying a better future for their children. Everyday more children are being sold, boys to fishing villages, and girls into brothels.
There are some government laws in place against slavery, but even more there are bribes and corruption to turn a blind eye to the slave trade. James' full time work now is going to the villages and rescuing these kids. He rescues them, has a home for them to get rehab and tries to educate the parents before returning them home. Here is his website - they need prayers - the situation is big. He said the slave trade here and now is exponentially larger than the Trans-Atlantic slave trade ever was. Can you even believe that? And it's right here in Ghana.
Challenging Heights
I remember seeing an Oprah about a family who rescued children from slavery in Africa years ago. They were in Ghana. The missionaries here know them, and the children they saved.
Oprah - Sold into Slavery
I am done complaining about the heat, and not being able to stay in shape - Thank you Jesus for life.
No comments:
Post a Comment