USD Magazine, Spring 2000

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S ister Anastasia Lott lives, works and prays in a place most Americans will never visit. To do so makes little sense. There are few roads and fewer buildings. In some spots, clean water can only be reached by four-wheel drive via a 3-mile sand trail. Since there are even fewer working vehicles than roads, oxen are the preferred means of transporting water. Plumbing is rare. Most use the brush for their milers; the river for bathing. Malaria and tuberculosis are rampant. Rates ofAIDS and HIV are the third highest in the world. A bordering nation's civil war has left scores of innocent civilians injured or dead. Those chil– dren who are strong and curious always seem to find forgotten land mines buried in the soil.

knows this. The 12 years she has spent in African countries as a Maryknoll sister have taught her the lesson of a missionary's life - victories come in a child's smile, a pregnant woman's acceptance of vitamins, a village leader's agreement to let health workers teach. The heroes, she says, are the people them– selves, who eke out a life in conditions few Americans could imagine. "There are a lot of people who just strug– gle along day to day, looking for a bit of this and that to make it through the day," says the 1979 graduate, who spends her days organizing and conducting village workshops on health education, women's sewing projects and Christian education. "And some real heroes who generate life and hope for their own families and neighbors. " Some might think Lott a hero, although she likely wouldn't see it that way. Ordered by Maryknoll to leave Rundu, Namib ia, for her safety when Angola's civil war seeped into the country last fall, Anastasia has since returned to continue her work. Civilians have been wounded and killed, and a French family, including three children, was murdered in January by rebel bandits. Ir was not the first time danger forced Lott from her work. The sisters had to leave Bura-Tana, Kenya, in 1995 after more than six years working with the Kenyan people. A series of robberies was capped by their vehicle being shot up, indicating the mission was being targeted.

Eight different languages are spoken, many using impossible tongue clicks. Governmental corruption is accepted, a shoulder shrugging defeat among people who wash away their frustration and poverty in alcohol. Some choose suicide. Those who manage to get ahead are some– times dragged down by jealous villagers with gossip, accusations and witchcraft. Foreigners, when they're not handing out food or sup– plies, are often ignored. "Having been in that part of the world," says Vernon Lott, Anastasia's father, "I can honestly say I don't think there is enough money in the world to solve all the problems." But to approach Namibia, a country of 1.6 million people bordering South Africa, as a puzzle to be solved is fatalistic, an endless, soul-numbing battle if victory is viewed in terms ofAmerican efficiency. Anastasia Lott

ister Lott '79 works a puzzle with children from the St. Charles Lwanga Church in Omulunga, about 250 kilometers south of Rundu, Namibia.

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