And so, indeed, things continue...

Life, it seems, flies by without one noticing.  I know that must be one of the most overused cliches, but really, ill have been here a month tomorrow, and i could swear that I only flew in last week....

Things have been improving here in some areas, and continuing to lack in others.  My project has, of course, captured my heart, there are now between eleven and twelve kids at the orphanage, depending on which women are working there.  The women who staff the place are usually orphans themselves, raised in the system, without money or futures, they are stuck in the never-ending cycle of broken families until they die, young, usually, because the amount of disease in these centers is staggering.  Out of the eleven living where I work, there is almost always one with malaria, and they all have some kind of chronic respiratory infection that looks like bronchitis, and Im dearly hoping isnt TB.  The kids are fantastic, beginning with their names, Abeli, Aninha, Amarildo, Nono, Chertan, Nicoli, Julinho, Rozinha, Mattias, Aleixandro, and Carlitos, and ending with their incredible tenacity.  Through the shouting and beatings they are dealt by their "care takers", through the minimal sanitation present where they live, no medical care to the point where each small scrape becomes a gigantic lesion and then scar because it is not treated properly if at all, and despite a total lack (except for the Eight to Five volunteers) of good role models, they remain intelligent, optimistic, sweet, eager to please, kind, willing and adorable.  I am starting work full time next week, which means I can start some immersion lesson plans, Portuguese in the morning and English in the afternoon.  As I only have a few months with them, and they all do get to go to school free of charge until theyre eighteen, Im aiming for basics, alphabet and counting in both languages, maybe some simple word groups.... 

Really, what I would like to impress upon them is that I love them, that someone loves them and cares, and even if they forget me completely, I will forever hold them in my heart, and they will have had at least that much of what they deserve.

I can hardly believe that anyone could deprive children as they are deprived, but I know that it happens every day and in such worse ways.   

Enough, or I wont be able to write anything else.  Wish I could fit them all in my suitcase and take them home with me.  They make me incredibly hopefully and totally suicidal at the same time.  Anyone reading this must promise me to treat every child with the utmost respect you can muster, because they are our mirrors in a way that is more truthful than anything I know. So:

HUG A CHILD TODAY, DAMMIT!

My host family has unfortunately turned out to be a little bit of my worst nightmare.  They are like a typically dysfunctional American household, the father at a job that takes him away from the house for three days at a time, the mother speaks constantly in a tone that makes you cringe, always yelling and threatening to hit her children, the twin brothers in constant, slightly cruel competition, and the young daughter as spoiled as they come.  However, they are all totally decent to me, which makes it even stranger...  They tell me it will be a good experience for me, but Im not so sure.  Dysfunctional families, especially of the argumentative kind have never been easy for me to handle...   

And when I mentioned to this to the organization Im working with, I was told that this is simply the way things are done here.   THATS scary.  We (the volunteers) seem to be running into this problem quite a bit here.  Its a sort of cultural, perhaps heat-induced lethargy, and I feel that it is what has allowed for the rampant corruption and general disastrous lack of infrastructure that is present in this country.  It is really only to be expected, in the sudden switch from colonial slavery where less was more and the more one resisted working (because this meant for the Portuguese), the better.  And before the Portuguese was a small community, tribal system which meant working for yourself, your family, and your village.  So the whole imposed Western capitalist system, pushing buttons for a faceless corporation for pennies while witnessing the country your fought so hard for fall further into disrepair and disease, is not really viable here, and even if it were, no one has ever really taught people how to operate within it, and really, with the way that the Western capitalist systems are going now, who would want to?   

The thing that keeps me working is the position at which I believe we find ourselves.  Mozambique, like many other developing nations, has the advantage of loads of prior knowledge and the opportunity to create a lifestyle without committing the mistakes anyone else has.   However, putting this creation idea into practice is just SO DAMN HARD!!!

Well, as Dougie would say, the Contrasts and Complaints Department is now closed, and there are definitely some things I should say before ending this latest blog.

The nightlife here is pretty fantastic, not in the least because I can order BEER!!  No, im not drinking myself into a puddle, but I have been to two clubs, one of which, Coconuts, the biggest club in Sub-Saharan Africa, is brilliant, the other totally decent, except for the shitty house music, and the VOLUNTEERS HERE ARE FUCKING MAD!!!!   Everyone is smart, mature, interesting, kind, cool, and most a bit nerdy, which, you know, is necessary for me to like anyone... :)  They form the kind of support network that the organization does not provide, and they are my bread, jam, and butter.  In fact, its a bit odd, here I was, expecting to work my butt off, and instead every weekend im bar hopping, beach bumming and eating delicious fried chicken and coleslaw and the occasional coke.  My favorite thing about people here is their love of laughter.  Their Portuguese may sound like its all queijas, complaints, grunando (grumbling) and shouting arguments, but say hello and their faces crack open with smiles that light up the whole road.  The best is to be called Mulungo, the word for whitey in the local dialect of Changaan, and to wave back and say Mulande, blackie.   Hysterics, every time, even though its the only two words I know!!!!  Speaking of speaking, i aim to take classes in Changaan, its fairly pretty and damned useful here....  

In conclusion, things here are hard, but thats what I was looking for.  Full of despair, but also of laughter, I feel like this experience will cement me as a person, after this I will know what is the what, if you know what I mean.... :P  

May this post find you all in the best of health and happiness, I miss you and love you, beijos,

allie

allie.unisus@gmail.com

allie