I’m just gonna break this down and give you the facts. It’s difficult to articulate the experience of being in a third world country so I’ll just give you the itinerary and we’ll go from there. And I know this is turbo late…sorry bout it.
Day One: (well, day one after a day and a half of traveling)
We get up and go to Masana (the center where Sarah works with the kids who live on the street). We meet the boys. They usually wash their clothes when they first get there so they were busy doing that. Some of them just stare at the crazy Malungos (white people:)) and some of them run right up to us and start shaking our hands and talking away to us. Of course we have no clue what they’re saying. The national language of Mozambique is Portuguese, but most of the kids also spoke Shongon (no idea how to spell that) which is a dialect that is spoken in the villages. Unfortunately I don’t speak either of those languages so I just smile at them….what else can I do:) Truthfully it is SO frustrating to not be able to communicate with them. I want so much to hear every little thing that want to tell me about themselves, but I guess that’s just part of it.
After a few minutes we head back to the kitchen to help get breakfast ready to serve. They eat the same thing every day…bread with butter on it and hot tea. Mama Julia does all the cooking for Masana and she also makes these things called Bajeas (again, no idea how to spell that). They’re basically like a fried bean dumpling. And let me just tell you…those jokers are delish! The boys can buy those from her in the morning, but she gave us some for free every morning to put on our bread:)
Once everyone finished up eating breakfast we went to church. Which basically means that everyone gathers at one end of the room and Luis (the main teacher/worship leader/father/disciplinary/doer of pretty much everything) leads the boys in some songs. Most of them clap and sing along and have a good time. Some of the older boys are too cool for school, but they still join in occasionally:)
After church was over we walked down to a local school and played soccer on their court. Well the guys played soccer. I stood on the sideline and watched:) Those kids are serious about their soccer. Sarah and I ended up playing some other games with some of the smaller boys…they weren’t good enough to play on the soccer team either:) I learned a game they play with stones that’s similar to tic tac toe.
After a few hours we head back up to Masana to get ready for lunch. The boys have a chance to take a bath before we eat and it’s funny to see how similar we all really are. The little boys don’t like taking baths and have to be forced most of the time…as I suspect is the case in a lot of homes here:) After they clean up we have church again. Luis leads them in some more songs and this time he teaches a lesson at the end. After that lunch is served. Again, they eat pretty much the same thing everyday. Rice with some kind of meat and stew topping. When they get done eating they take their plates and cups back to the kitchen and then start to disperse. This process takes a while as most of them hang out for a good bit before they end up leaving.
Once all the boys are gone we hang out for a bit while we wait on 2 of the boys (Manuel and Nelson) from the orphanage that Sarah used to work at. They are going with us for the afternoon to translate into Shongon. Once everyone is there we all pile into the car and head out to a village just outside the city called Matola. Sarah, Manuel and Nelson go there every week and have children’s church with a lot of the kids in the village. I actually got the chance to teach the lesson on that day which was exciting. It’s always interesting speaking through a translator so who knows what I actually ended up saying:) I brought some paper and glue and popsicle sticks for them to do a craft…which is so American VBS of me:) They seemed to like it though. Even the adults wanted to take part. After we finished up with the craft everyone headed down to the beach and all the kids jumped in the ocean. It was actually really windy and pretty cool down by the water so I was not about to get in. A little girl handed me her baby brother for a minute. I thought she wanted me to hold him so she could go play in the water, but she just hung out beside me for a bit. He started to get fussy and she took him back from me. I guess her arms just needed a break:)
Once we left Matola we all went out to eat…at a Thai restaurant of all places! It was good and Manuel and Nelson loved it. They had never had Thai food before. They ate their food plus everyone’s leftovers plus dessert:) It was hilarious to watch them. When we were done eating we dropped the boys off and headed back to Sarah’s apartment. When we were almost there she mentioned that we were about to pass by the spot where a lot of the boys from the center sleep. We decided to stop and hang out with them for a bit.
When we walked up they were so welcoming…offering us seats on cans or mats or whatever they had to sit on. This was definitely a defining moment for me. I knew in my head that these kids slept on the street every night, but here I was face to face with it. As we sat there I watched one of the boys using the top of a soup can to slice onions and tomatoes to make a stew for dinner. As I looked around at them my initial reaction was, "That’s it…I’m taking every one of these kids home with me right now!" as the week went on my perspective would change quite a bit…but I’ll save that for another post:)
At Matola getting ready to start children’s church.
