Dream up the kind of world you want to live in.Dream out loud at high volume.

Since when do we think government can provide for their citizens? In Nigeria, they can't. So does in many countries, both developing and developed countries.

I met with a long time friend who work in Nigeria but currently is in the US to avoid the chaos of the election there (Election is this Saturday, please pray for peace!). I haven't heard from her since September 2005 and now she came back and told me she was assigned to work in Nigeria and has been living there for one and a half years. Coincidently, I am in the Mission Development team of the Nigeria Water Mission from the CincinnatiVineyard Church and SSE (SelfSustainingEnterprise); it is time for me to dig on more information on culture and day-to-day life in Nigeria from her.

Government doesn't provide basic needs
I was asking for confirmation from her that there is no such thing as "waterworks" department exist. She confirmed it by telling me more stories about how difficult it is to work with the government. This information dropped my jaw the first time I tried to make sense of it. How come a rich country (they're one of the biggest oil producers in the world) could not provide the very basic need of their citizens, such as water.

There are two different kinds of lives in Nigeria. Planned cities and everything else, which could be called slum. Although, I would need to see this through first perspective. I've seen "slum" that are not slum at all, it really depends on what the definition of what's a slum and what's not slum. The ugliness of New York streets define its state as one of the strongest cultural cities in the world. The "slums" in Indonesia were made of an organic-chaos kind of living shaped by the way of life of people. I think slum is a slum when it generates disease, crime-driven society and lack of sense of community.

But her emphasis on how government had more control in cities and villages that determined economic development blew my mind. When an entity in control doesn't even care...I can't imagine what is going on there...

It's a tribe-driven community
There is lack of sense of nationality and locality based on cities where they live. If you're a Nigerian living in Nigeria, it is your tribe that's important, not your city, not your nationality. People are concern about their family and their tribe and more likely to be less concerned with their city/locality or nationality.

Situations in the regions are varies too, in the northern part conflicts happened between religious groups rather than tribes. The center part of the country is the most peaceful one, around the City of Jos and villages where we're going to be working on. The southern part is around Abuja, where there were few conflicts.

I can't speak based on the fact since it is a foreign country to me, but learning from the person who were actually living in the area for almost two years gave me more background pictures to help develop the mission program for this project. This is a common theme in the developing world, a government lack of leadership and rich of corruption. But, who said that society would only depend on the government? A nation's biggest resources is their people. And from what I heard, Nigerians are hardworking, family-loving, spiritual, intelligent people, who happened to have less connection to what's available in the world.

The village leader and SSE, and the people dream up the world where children will not need to wake up at two am to walk for two hours to get a bucket of muddy water. A dream that every school will have more access to clean water. A dream that every family will have more time to relax, to study, to work on the farm rather than struggling for water. A dream that someday, mortality rate from water-related disease will decrease significantly.

as what Bono said..
Here's to the future! The only limitations are the limits of our imagination. Dream up the kind of world you want to live in. Dream out loud at high volume. That's what we do for a living. Bono, U2.