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Preventing Children’s Deaths in Jordan

On Saturday, as I set out to hike up the stunning Wadi Feynan in South Jordan, a Bedouin lad on a donkey rode up to me and introduced himself as 16-year old Khaled with his donkey Ferrari. He rode beside me a little way before heading off to find his herd of goats scattered about the valley. His happy, carefree manner and endearing sense of humour brought home to me the reason I am here in this amazing, complex country.

Every year in Jordan at least 5,000 children do not survive to the age of 16. That is similar to the numbers of children dying in the UK – yet in a country with a population less than a sixth of the UK. And the real tragedy is that many of those deaths are preventable. Outside infancy, nearly a half of all child deaths (280 children aged 1-14 each year) are from external causes – mostly road traffic accidents, but also from falls, drowning, fires and electrocution, suffocation. A further 220 infants and children each year die as a result of infections.

Over the past year I have had the privilege of working with UNICEF and the Jordanian National Council for Family Affairs to develop a national system for reviewing and learning from children’s deaths.

The overall aim of the project is straightforward: to systematically gather comprehensive data on all children’s deaths in order to learn lessons and make recommendations for system improvements to prevent future child deaths and improve child health and welfare.

A straightforward aim, perhaps, but far from straightforward to achieve.

Jordan is an amazing and profoundly complex country: a haven of peace and stability in one of the most troubled regions of the world; a country where progressive, liberal values are dominant, yet sometimes seem to hide some deep and confusing traditional ways; a country where rapid urbanisation and development have both improved living standards for many, but also caused huge problems of overcrowding, traffic congestion and pollution; a country where the generous and hospitable nature of the Jordanian people has seen huge influxes of refugees, now making up close to a third of the total population.

With wide discrepancies in the life chances of children from the wealthiest and poorest segments of society, and significant pressures on resources and infrastructure, making changes to improve children’s lives remains a massive challenge.

This week marked the end of the project. We delivered the finished protocol and forms, and ran a training workshop for senior representatives of the different agencies who will be involved in running the programme. With a sense of fulfilment, I started writing my final project report, and recognised that, in spite of the inevitable challenges, we had met all the project objectives we’d set 12 months ago. With my colleagues Vicky and Hamza, we set off to our final meeting with UNICEF and the National Council, ready to hand over the baton and fly back to England to enjoy my retired life.

Only to be told that they would like me to prepare a proposal to support the implementation of the programme over the next 12 months!

Perhaps I should take a lesson from Khaled and Ferrari, take it with a smile, and launch into this next phase.

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Holding Scorpions

A week before our recent trip to Jordan, Lois and I had been on a retreat at Mirfield in Yorkshire. The theme was meeting God in the garden. The context could hardly have been more different from our visit to the Wadi Rum wilderness. But while in Mirfield, I had been deeply moved by a Stanley Spencer painting of Christ in the Wilderness.

 

The Scorpion is one of a series of 18 drawings and 8 paintings completed by Spencer to give some expression to his understanding of Lent.

We didn’t encounter any scorpions during our time in Wadi Rum, but being in that place, surrounded by the untamed wilderness, it was not hard to imagine the struggles Jesus must have gone through as he faced his own demons.

I had somehow been drawn to this painting; something in it spoke to me. There was a wildness in the harsh reality of the terrain, and the sinister form of the scorpion that disturbed me. But, more than that, I was struck by the vulnerable tenderness with which Christ was holding the scorpion and seeming to gaze on it, not with horror or dread, but with sorrow and compassion.

 

That day in the wilderness…

Did you sit there, in stillness, holding a scorpion in the palm of your hand?

Did you wander, barefoot, among the rocks and the sand?

Confronting the harshness of the reality of life? Holding it,

tenderly;

gazing with compassion?

This creature that you had made. Why?

 

And God saw all that he had made, and it was good.

 

Poisoned. Dark.

Something to be feared.

Hunted.

Crushed.

 

Your eyes –

eyes of sorrow for what it has become,

for what we have made it, and

for what we fear.

Twisted.

Poised to strike.

An angel of death.

 

What is it that we have taken and so twisted?

Affection, affirmation, ambition?

Goodness and beauty?

Comfort?

Security?

 

You see, also, the scorpions in my life.

The hard shells, the poisoned barbs.

 

And you look with sorrow.

And compassion.

 

You hold us, too, in the palms of your hands.

Gazing –

Seeing beyond our hard shells.

Drawing out the goodness within.

Not afraid, not shying away.

You hold that reality.

In love.

 

Can I, too, hold the scorpions in my life?

Without fear, or running away?

Not denying their existence, or

shrinking back from them.

Can I confront the harsh wilderness of our world?

The evil, the suffering.

And somehow hold it

In love.

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Silence in the wilderness

Wadi Rum

The 40 days of Lent are typically a time to reflect on Jesus’ 40 days being tempted in the wilderness, and the Israelites’ 40 years wandering through the wilderness on their way to the Promised Land. So it seemed somewhat appropriate that on the second day of Lent, Lois and I headed south from Amman to the desert wilderness of Wadi Rum in Jordan.

It may not have been 40 days, let alone 40 years, that we spent there, but we did manage a bit over 40 hours taking in the wild majesty of that place.

How does one convey the wonder of such a place? It was unlike anywhere I have ever been before. The barren, thirsty land of rocks and sand; the huge, towering landscapes of weathered rocky outcrops; the deep, shadowed canyons; the unexpected fields of purple and white flowers; the seemingly lifeless shrubs and trees that nevertheless sprout green shoots; the wandering flocks of sheep and goats; the Bedouin tents defiantly holding forth against the harsh and bitter terrain; the muted palette of ochre, sienna, russet and olive; the vast and vibrant blueness of the sky; the symphony of stars dancing through the heavens …

For me there was something deeply emotional about being there. At times I felt quite overwhelmed by it all: to be present, in complete, deep silence, surrounded by such timeless grandeur, within which my own life seems but a momentary speck of dust. As I sat on a rock in the early dawn light, I felt I had no choice but to be silent myself.

Let all mortal flesh keep silence…