Mozambique: Monday - village feeding

It turns out that Children's day lasts more than a day. As I get to experience the Africa sense of time, where everything gets elongated, this actually begins to make sense. In any event, today is Monday, but the kids don't have school because of the holiday, so the schedule is a little confusing, since no one seems to know which of the normal daily activities are still being held.

Today I finally made it to breakfast, but forgot that I needed to bring a mug for the tea. The roll was better than I expected, and I bring it back to my room to put my peanut butter and jelly on it. It seemed like a feast.

My team helped at the village feeding today. Every day the orphanage opens its doors to local children who come for lunch. They gather in a small 'classroom', an open-fronted structure crowded with eager children. The meal has not yet arrived, so the Mozambican leader asks our group if any of us want to preach. Deborah steps up to the challenge, and tells the children of God's love, while the leader translates her words into Portuguese. Finally we see the jeep rolling up, with a huge aluminum vat of rice, and a smaller container of beans.

I volunteer for the hand-washing station. It takes a while to understand the method. There are two buckets, one with soapy water, and one with clear water. We get not-quite-clean bowls to use as ladles, to scoop the water with, and pour it over the children's hands. The challenge is that there are lots of children, and not very much water. Eventually I learn that the best technique is to hold the bowl still and pour a trickle of water. The children automatically line up their hands underneath. Occasionally one child will get ahead, and then we have to say 'juntos' (or something like that) to remind them to cluster together.

Some of the kids have plastic bags with them. These are crumpled in their fists, and when they open them up we see the holes from hard use. We don't have any way to do a good job washing the bags, so we pour a little water in and hope for the best. The dirty, disintegrating bags are used to collect leftovers to bring home.

Often, a young girl will be caring for an even younger sibling. I'm touched to see how careful they are to ensure that the child's hands are washed clean. This is actually much more important than it is at home. For one thing, the children are constantly playing in the dirt. Secondly, parasites are rampant, and thirdly they eat with their fingers rther than using silverware. So we do the best we can to wash 200 pairs of hands with two buckets of water. Today we have extra children because of children's day so we actually end up feeding 400. Briana and I each get an extra half-bucket of water to cover the extra kids.

The mud puddle around the bucket grows larger. I'm amused to see that the boys walk right into the mud while the girls stand at the edge and try to reach the water without getting muddy. My long skirt is getting wetter and wetter, but at least it will dry in the sun.

I was so busy washing the hands that I didn't notice that the food was running out too. A deperate call went out to the kitchen, who sent down another vat. No scene of cavalry riding to the rescue was ever as welcome as the sight of that white jeep rushing up with more rice.

For a video of the village feeding, click here.