Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Pinch me

Yesterday we went into the village. If you were to go, it would change you. It is incredibly eye-opening to see how most of this country lives, and actually these villages near town are "nicer" than most typical African villages. Mud houses, some with metal roofs, so many children, narrow passageways built with bamboo for fencing and privacy, but maze-like in their design. We walk through the rocky maze and find the tidy little home of a family of 5; a mother, grandmother, and three children. I am not sure where the men are in this culture. They come and go. Right now, they are alone. The mother works as a cleaning lady for Iris missionaries. She is animated, funny, loves to laugh and is full of life. Her husband was killed in a car accident. the youngest child doesn't go to school because she cannot afford a uniform and the house leaks during rainy season, the floor completely eroded. Money was raised to help her, and we were there to do the labor. Well, arrange for the labor. So men did show up after all and laid concrete incredibly fast. We all sat around on the rope bed outside and drank Cokes and they belched really loud and I giggled like a child. I love this culture. You can get away with most anything. But I sit on the rope bed and wonder just what is poverty? When I worked in Zimbabwe that summer with Rachel, I thought that was poverty. But looking back, at the time, they were well cared for. Villages had clean water, schools, a clinic, all nearby or within the village. The European farmers went above and beyond for their workers, build huge playgrounds for the children and made sure needs were met. So what is fair here? What is not fair? What needs changing? What is justice? What part is my responsibility? What can I do to help? Do they need my help? What does God want? What stirs His heart? He tells us, "the poor will always be among you". But what kind of poor? And just what is poor? Poorer than me? Too poor to stay dry when it rains? Too poor to eat a meal once a day? That is too poor. That is not right. 


All day long I walk around this city shaking my head at things I see, things that just aren't right. By being born in the United States, I was birthed into a land of opportunity. I bought a nice pretty house on nothing more than good credit, however that is defined. I went to college for free because I lived in a state that offers free tuition to B-average students. I will always have a roof over my head no matter what because I live in a land where there is an economy (though in much distress) that thrives off working and jobs and salaries and my family has those things and houses and they will take me in. I will always have resources, an education that offers me choices and comfort in the cycle of working, making money and obtaining basic needs and some not so basic. That doesn't exist here. There are no McDonald's, free Mavis Beacon teaches typing courses at the local library, no Department of Labor, no Cherokee Town Club in need of an inexperienced server with a winning personality and connections with the club president. I could go on and on, there are no dad's here to teach their sons how to respect their mother's and women. There are many motherless children who are growing up on their own, with no one to show them how to love. They are all here just struggling to survive. It is all just not fair. I don't know what else to call it. Just how poor will the "poor among us" be? This poverty that I see is a robbery and an injustice. Everyone should be fed, have an education, a roof over their heads, access to healthcare and to know love. 


I can't even have a puppy, so I haven't a clue what do with all these Mozambican faces looking back at me. Overwhelming need. I think I was born with this resiliency and adventuresome spirit and am single and jobless for a reason. I think God is amazing at orchestrating all our days. It is all just preparation for our future. When we say, "I am fully thine and Thou art mine", He takes it seriously. He knows well in advance that we are one day going to utter those words as He has, after all, completely set us up. He's good at that. Time and time again, He takes my little selfish escapades, such as a college graduation trip to go on Safari, and reveals something more amazing that we could ever fathom or imagine for ourselves. 


So today I am imagining a life here. I stood in line yesterday at the Bank to get a check cashed for 3 hours. Three. Praise the Lord it was air-conditioned. No matter how I try to fit in, I am the whitest, squeakiest cleanest (despite my real lack of daily showers and frequent swims in the ocean), most blue-eyed person in this city. I stick out. Even most of the other white people I have seen are incredibly brown and they blend. I try to at least dress in the required army green, but cannot do so without hues of pinks and pastels and jewelry.  I am me. This culture could not be more different from mine. We are opposites in funny ways. They wait in line for 3 hours because there is one teller at the Standard Bank. I cannot recall the last time I waited in most any line at all. Self-Service at Kroger, Express Lane at Target…oh wait, the Post Office. But we all stand there and grumble and complain the whole time and blast federal government and get to know each other and it makes the time pass. And it has never been three hours. That would make Channel 2 Action News. "Three Hour Line at United States Postal Service- East Point Branch creates riots, food and water being distributed". When I finally exit the bank that at some point closed while I was still in line, it was raining. People were lined under the overhangs of the smattering of buildings, chattering in Portuguese and Makua, unfazed, waiting on it to pass. I couldn't understand what they were saying but I don't think anyone said, "they didn't say it was going to rain" or "I wonder how long this is going to last, I have a meeting and big plans and I hate getting wet and I cannot stand under this overhang all day". They just stood there with their plastic bags of vegetables and goods and waited as if they were waiting for the 2 o'clock train. The rain woke up all the bits of green grass and the leaves on trees. The dark sky such a huge contrast against the bright blue one hanging over the Indian Ocean. The thought, "How can I ever leave this place?" enters my mind. How can any other life bring me any satisfaction? 


As I trudge up the hill to my house, I meet Manuel. His smile is so big it seems fake, but it is real. He wears earbuds from an MP3 player in one ear, but I don't see the MP3 player or hear music. His English is lovely. He asks me how long I have been here and how long I am staying. He tells me he lives here on base. I look hard at his face. I am forced to see the reality of his situation. He lives here on base. That means he has no parents. That means he has grown up here. He has spent his life, living in a room, with other boys, going to school, playing soccer. It means he has been well fed and cared for and missionaries have come along to love on him, he has a group of young boys just like him and they teach in Bible School and translate and he knows God. He has been blessed to grow up in an environment where he knows Christ, he has been taught the truth. He has been given a great gift. He exudes happiness. He asks me when I am coming back to his country. I hear myself say, "September". He squeals with delight. Guys here do that. Their laughs are so funny. Then he says, "I am so glad I heard God, to tell me to come here so I could see you and I could meet you. I want you to come back and to teach me what you know". The only thing I know is that these children will teach me far more than I could ever teach them. However, I CAN help. I have a few resources and ideas and two degrees and smart friends who would come and help. Where is Manuel going to go in the next year or so? He is at least 16. What skills does he have? Where will he get a job here? I know the Standard Bank needs tellers, so maybe I can find an accountant that would come here and teach a course in accounting. What if we can get certified as an instructional school? What other jobs and needs are out there? I took at taxi home. What if I could get him a loan to buy a pedicab or a motorbike with one of those rear facing passenger things attached? Could he make enough to pay me back in a year?  Then could he make enough to live? But what if he wants to be an electrician? I saw men in bright yellow suits working on poles the other day. Would Mozambique Power come and teach a course to electrical power technicians? The scenarios are endless. Not to mention all the jobs that are out there to help others. We are short-handed in the area of medical outreach. We need nurses to go out into more rural areas and give medicine, weigh babies in trees, dress wounds, give immunizations,  and injections. Why bring them from the West when Manuel is standing right here, big smile, funny laugh, eager. He is not a stranger. He's my brother. 


My sister always pays careful attention to give me what I need. The day before I left, she cooked a delicious vegetarian meal, just for me. In that moment, it was precisely what I wanted and needed, a warm, delicious, made-with-love, American meal. I want to give Manuel what he needs. Why NOT? What do I have to loose? Everything. I am well aware of the adversity and mind-sets and struggles that lay before me. What do I have to gain? Everything. But to lose everything, that's not so bad either. "If you abide in Me and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire and it shall be done for you". Jesus said that. It's in red in my Bible. To die is to gain, to live is to gain. We gain! We win. No matter what. Risk it. So this is what I am thinking about today. I really don't even see this as a risk. It is a choice. He is so endless patient and totally kind. The choice is mine. And it is the former life that propels me. I simply don't want my next 10 years to be like my past 10, all really running together and only highlighted by my vacations I took that year. And I am not choosing Africa. She chose me. Pinch me. I can't believe I get to live this life.

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