july 5th, 2006

This was such a busy day that I wrote twice. Once in the afternoon. Once in the evening. I still remember this day. The morning more clearly than many other days I spent in Mozambique. It was our first morning out among the people. It was wonderfully overwhelming.

July 5th, 2006
"... João, a director of Care for Life, divided us up among the field workers - making sure there was someone to translate in each group. I went out with a man named Celestino and another man... I believe his name was Monga... I was very hesitant to go with 2 people that I didn't know, but it was wonderful. We started down the path to visit families... The first lady that we visited was an older lady who lived with her grandson who is 12. She has had 6 daughters who all died at very young ages. It was very sad to hear about it. Another family had a child that they "adopted" into their family when the child's parents died. While moving with this kid, he was riding on a bike & his foot got caught, so now he has an injured foot. The man that he lives with, because of superstition, hasn't taken him to the hospital. It's such a difficult situation. To make matters worse, this man was riding his bike home one day (probably the only luxury he has in the world) and he was attacked by bandits, beaten with a stick, and his bike was stolen. There were so many heart breaking stories that Celestino translated for me. Most of the families were meeting their goals, so it was a good visit. After I had gotten comfortable, I began saying "Oi" and "Bom dia". I would ask the children their age and ask to take pictures. One young boy climbed a tree to get some fruit for us. It was like chalky sour apple tasting. Most of the people were very receptive of me and allowed me to take photos.

***"The orphanage was right across the street from the [Indian] ocean. The kids recognized some of the people right away and were yelling "vem aqui!" - "come here!" Everyone put on an apron and headed for the entrance. While walking along the gate to the entrance, most of the kids stuck their tiny hands out the fence and gave handshakes and hi-fives! It was precious. They were all screaming and jumping up and down with excitement before we even entered!... We tried to sneak into the orphanage without the children in the yard seeing us, but it didn't work. They made a mad rush for us - children of every size and form. It was powerful to see how little the children have to clothe themselves, usually not much more than a completely worn through shirt and a pair of tattered shorts. Boys were wearing "girl" clothes and vice versa. It was hard to know the gender of the child because there were rarely any visual clues... The orphans rarely ever see individual attention, so we just held them and played with them... Visiting was so much to take in. You just want to hold all of them - love all of them."
My memories from the orphanages that we worked at are are the most bittersweet of my memories. The most heart warming - yet heart breaking - was the baby orphanage, which we visited every night. Swore I would go back and adopt one. One day...