05 June 2012—
Our day began much like yesterday, with a busy ride through Xai-Xai which led us out to a local school about 90 minutes away. This well dedication, which consisted of several groups, was even attended by community members from other villages who had heard that we were going to be in attendance.
While they were clearly appreciative for their new access to the clean water the well provides, they shared much of the same sentiments that we heard yesterday about the fact that they are still in dire need of a hospital. In this regard, when speaking to several of the women, they expressed their dismay about the fact that it is extremely common for many young mothers to die during child birth because they cannot reach adequate medical care. Still, they shared with us the fact that only a year ago they had been hoping for a well to be installed near their school, and now they cannot believe that their prayers have actually been answered. Because of this, they can see that there is help out there.
After their initial greetings, the local villagers were welcomed to share their feelings with us, and at one point, one of the leaders stood to tell us the importance of school for their children. While we were celebrating at a very nice facility, education that is actually funded by the government only goes to 4th grade, so he expressed his belief that men need to be scholarly. If they can earn an adequate education, then they would be able to more effectively serve their community. As he said this, I couldn’t help but notice the look of agreement that passed over the faces of all the men, and it almost seemed as if they were thirsting for something to be prideful about.
In this kind of work, pride is an extremely powerful thing because it’s incredibly hard to lift communities up when the people within them feel as if they are constantly failing. At one point, after we split the men and women apart, one of the females asked Angela, Julie and I how she can be successful. In her words, she felt as if she tries so many things, but always seems to fall short. Her words touched me because it seemed strange that she would assume we had some secret to becoming wealthy; however, she nodded with understanding after we told her that we also struggle through trails on a daily basis and often fail just as much.
From here, the women began to sing and dance, and after grabbing each of us to join in the fun, they requested that we sing them one of our songs so they can see what we dance to. Obviously, in our culture this is not something that is a huge part of our lives, so we struggled with thinking of a song we all knew that would have an upbeat tempo. After going back and forth for a bit and accepting the fact that none of us were in any way fantastic singers, we decided that the “Hokey-pokey” might be something fun and easy to learn. So, there we were with a large group of grown women who didn’t speak English, dancing to “put your right arm in…” and giggling like school children the whole time. I think I almost laughed harder at that moment than I have all week.
From there, we were fed lunch and were given a final thanks from the chief of the village who stated that, “remember after today, that you are leaving with new friends and family in Mozambique”—such simple words, yet so true.
Our drive home was long, but we arrived early enough that there was still a bit of time before dinner, so Angela, Aaron and I headed out for a run along the road outside our lodging and retired to the beach for run along the surf. Although the water is much calmer than it was the other day, the waves were still a decent size, so we decided to make our way into the water. Poor Wayne was sitting on the beach attempting to journal in peace, while the three of us loudly splashed around through peals of laughter and put up a hard fight against the extremely strong undertow that runs along the shore in that area. Between the running and the swimming, I think we might have burned off a ¼ of the calories we consumed during lunch alone! The food in the villages here will stick to your ribs!
At the current moment, we have just finished breakfast and I am running behind on posting this for the day. Our ride is supposed to pick us up in about 7 minutes and I have apparently done a little too much procrastinating. The beach called to me this morning at sunrise when I should have been writing!
I usually feel as if I have something important to say or that I have come to some sort of conclusion about the day by the end of my writing, but I’m having trouble articulating a lot of my thoughts into something worthwhile. Therefore, I will simply end my writing of the day with one of my favorite Gandhi quotes that we discussed at breakfast just a few moments ago.
“Be the change you wish to see in the world.”
No comments:
Post a Comment