Nigeria- And if it were us

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Last night my husband and I went to have food at our favorite restaurant, an Ethiopian restaurant called Red Sea Restaurant. It was opened by political refugees through the help of the International Rescue Committee. We’ve been going there since 2006, I believe. When we are there it’s like time has stopped. The previous owner received us with open arms and give us a giant hugs every time. Last night, I asked for a fork to eat my sambusa and the waitress was surprised. It was so hot I had to make some holes in my food to cool it down. Ethiopian food is made be eaten with your hands using injera, a type of flat bread. We laughed.

Whenever I’m in this restaurant I think of the many struggles that people in Africa still deal with today. I am very lucky to have been born in the place and time that I was, where daily struggles are not about seeking food nor surviving the latest flu. To top it off we get to receive an excellent education.

Everyone I know who has put a foot in Africa has been changed forever, and this is what happened to my husband and I when we decided to go to Kenya and Tanzania for our honeymoon back in 2008. 

*My husband Matt and Masoline when we visited the village we help support through a child via Plan USA.

*Christine and Masoline thrilled by the fluffed animals we brought to them.

While many of us have been preoccupied by the shocking events of last week in France, far less attention is given here to the massive slaughters happening in Nigeria by Boko Haram http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boko_H… The world is a small place, and an attack on one innocent is an attack on us all. We should be as outraged by attacks anywhere in the world as we would be in Paris.

Photos speak a thousand words. Here is one and I hope it won’t paralyze you but cause a moment of reflection.

Photo from internet

Photo from internet.

It’s easy to feel hopeless in the face of such horrors. I think the first thing we can do is be aware of these tragedies and think of them as though they were in our own country.

Amnesty International (http://www.amnestyusa.org/) works to expose human rights violations around the world, including in Nigeria. Doctors Without Borders (http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org) is assisting survivors of the attack.

*Photos taken during our honeymoon in 2008.

Again, if it were us…

It’s us.

Thanks, Caroline