Mozambique: Children's Day - Sunday 6/1

Today is children's day - a national holiday. The orphanage opens its doors to literally thousands of local kids. They come from far and wide by bus and truck and on foot. Some are in their best clothes - little girls in frilly organza dresses, that get radically dirty as the day goes by.

We start with a church service. There are rows of narrow benches, with an open area in front, covered irregularly with rough mats. The children cluster around us, crowding on the benches, until they get bored and move away. At one point I make a new friend, Fran. Our conversation sounds exactly like a script from my Pimsleur Portuguese lessons. She says something incomprehensible, so I respond (in Portuguese):
I don't understand.
you don't understand? do you speak Portuguese?
No, I don't speak Portuguese.
Do you speak English?
Yes, I speak English.
She shook her head sadly, disappointed, as if she were saddened by a child who should know better, or maybe a toddler who should be toilet trained by now.

The service was chaotic. The sound bounced off of the metal roof, so even when soemthing was translated into English (not too often) it was pretty incomprehensible. Most of the service was translated from Portuguese into Makua, so it was hard to even guess which parts to try to decipher. I grasped a few 'espiritu santo' and 'gratia a Dios' and 'obrigado's.

As the service ended, the orphanage kids were dismissed first to go eat -- the highlight of the day. Children wait all year long for this day. In a country where so many are starving, it's all about food, and they are not disappointed -- the meal includes entire pieces of chicken, and bottles of coke. This is considered a feast, but as adult visitors, were were warned that we wouldn't get to eat until all the children had been fed (and as it turned out, not even then).

Our first job was crowd control, barricading the gates so that the other kids couldn't push through until it was their turn. I felt a little like the riot police. For the next set of kids, we were supposed to create a human aisle up to the dining room -- we kept running up the hill to wait in the sun, only to find out that it wa a false alarm, and it wasn't time yet. Next it was the turn of the children from M. -- a nearby village they have a special connection with. And finally the turn of the local village children, hundreds and hundreds, lined up by 20s. After lunch, the children run down the hill for games. It is hot and dirty, but they are still eager and energetic and surprisingly good tempered. We can still smell the aroma of the chicken on their fingers, and I realize this will probably be the only time I ever find myself jealous for the meal of a Mozambican child.

To end the day, we line up near the exit of the orphanage, creating a human aisle by the gate to make a 'fire tunnel' for the kids to walk through and receive prayer as they leave. The incentive for them to exit is that their goody bags are just outside the gate -- a huge motivation. We pray for each one as they leave. Some are crowded so tightly together it is literally hard to reach the little ones. Hundreds and hundreds of times, I pray in Portuguese "I bless you in the name of Jesus". They fed around 2400 children today, and we blessed around 1000 on their way out.

Click here for a short video of children's day.