Goodbyes are a very awkward thing in the culture here that I'm still getting accustomed to. When people leave there is often very little fanfare, folks will not talk about it, and if they do they will mention it in a very hushed manner as if its something not polite to be talked about. To make it worse, if somebody is leaving for a long time (or for good) people will avoid them like the plague all day. Case in point, when I left for America the last time I was here, nobody talked to me for two whole days before I left. When the large group of kids left for Beira, there was little fanfare, they packed their things, said a few goodbyes, and left.
There is still something that I can't quite put my finger on. It is as if everybody is just avoiding the difficult part of the goodbye. Its not like the movies where whatever friction that accidentally builds up between people eventually gets dramatically resolved, they let their emotions flow, and dramatic music plays in the background and everybody gets a happy ending.
I realized how extreme this can be several days ago. First off, other than being on call for anything 24/7, I'm also one of two people here that can drive people. Second off, did I mention being on call round the clock? I was woken up at 2:30 in the morning (which is only about 3 hours before I'd normally get up, but whatever). It was Lazaru, and I needed to take him into town so he could get on a bus to go to Beira.
As is my custom, I’ll back up. This time, a lot.
People around here call Lazaru the #1 Kid. This is not because of any achievement, but it is because he’s been here longer than any other child. Lazaru is from a town about 90 minutes from the city. Like most of the kids here, after his parents died he bounced around from relative to relative until eventually getting rescued by us. To make what is always a long and sad story short, he and his sister Regina have been through a lot.
Lazaru and his sister Regina after her graduation (sorry for the bad quality)
As if life wasn’t already hard for them, Lazaru has a medical condition which severely restricted his growth. Whether its from being malnourished the first who knows how many years of his life, a birth defect, or some other medical condition, Lazaru has ended up with the body of a 10 year old. It’s the kind of thing that would be noticed in the U.S. and treated easily with growth hormones or steroids or having big glass of milk everyday. Here, its far down on the list of doctors’ lists of priorities after the tens of millions of cases of malaria (like me), tens of thousands of cases of tuberculosis, and thousands of cases of cholera every year. Because of Lazaru’s problem, his head (which grew at a normal rate) gives him the appearance of somebody that is incredibly malnourished. Because of his appearance, it really is impossible to know with even the slightest certainty how old he is. Its something which is not really a problem here because nobody knows their real age. When people ask, he tells them 18, because he just finished 12th grade. The thing is, his relatives say that he’s years older than his sister, who is 21. I don’t speculate on what his age is because age is a very trivial thing here. The poverty and lack of access to opportunity here doesn’t really discriminate based on age.
Lazaru is very studious and tries very hard in everything academic. This is probably because he realized many years ago that he has to be in order to succeed in life. He’s unable to do physical labor or farming (the fall-back profession here) and can barely jog because of his physical condition. His favorite subjects are French and philosophy. He has nobody to practice French with, so he and I end up passing the time by talking philosophy. This leads to countless arguments. Ironically, they usually end up very childish, with him claiming his knowledge to be superior because he’s actually studied philosophy is school (a high-school elective here) whereas I'm self-taught and me telling him that his schooling is worthless because while he’s only read the Cliff Notes I’ve actually read Marx and Kant and Kierkegaard.
While Lazaru has studied and done very well in school, there are certain things that are sometimes too much to overcome at first (without tremendous help from God). After finishing 12th grade in November, he was unable to enter the teachers training college because he was couldn’t demonstrate his transcript to show he graduated high-school. This, as I have learned from watching all the kids the last month try to get their transcripts before moving off to vocational training, is a very common and difficult problem. The director of the school refused to release transcripts because the teachers had not yet turned in grades, even though Lazaru had passed the national exams. Once the teachers showed up to turn in grades, the director was not there to make the transcripts. This song and dance continued up until Lazaru missed the deadline for entering the Teachers training school. The training school was his second choice, after learning that he wasn’t accepted to university to study journalism. University here is so competitive that unless you are the best student in the city or have the money for a bribe you are never going to get in. Think of it like the Ivy League: Unless you ace the SAT and volunteer 60hrs a week in a nursing home your parents had better donate a building or be lifetime platinum members of the alumni association or you’re never getting in.
But God is faithful to those who are patient. After a very hard 2-3 months of having no idea what his future had in hold, we got wind of a university in Beira that is just minutes from where the rest of our kids are attending Young Africa Trade School. They’re a Portuguese university and are a little more flexible on when you can get in. Its actually a great fit and he’ll be able to live with the boys that are already in Beira for Trade School. It looks like that part of town is quickly becoming a second orphanage for us here at Evanjafrica.
This brings us back to why I got woken up at 2:30am to drive Lazaru to the bus. I knew that Lazaru was going to be attending school in Beira and would soon be leaving, its just that I didn’t know when. He got into the car with two backpacks, the sum of his possessions (minus his radio, which he entrusted to another kid here). Although you need not have fear, because he was not on his own yet. He was leaving with Graçio, a longtime friend of this orphanage who lives in Beira and is attending the university with Lazaru and moving into the house with all the boys. He's like an RA. Or a police officer. But hopefully more like an RA.
Though Lazaru looks likes he’s on his way, there are still many things to pray for with us:
- Lazaru’s desire is to do journalism. It has been for quite sometime, so he’s fairly certain of it. Still as anybody who’s ever lived past the age of 18 knows that what you want to do in life can change. Progams at this university are a little more rigid and it will be harder to change after a year or two. We’re praying that his desire for journalism is true and he will stick with it long enough to graduate and no doubt go on to do a scathing piece titled “Local orphanage skimps on amount of sugar in muffins in order to stretch a dime”.
- Lazaru is very close with his sister, Regina. They are the only close family they have left and this is the first time they’ll be apart. Pray that they will transition well, especially for Lazaru, who as soon as the bus got 2 hours away was farther from home than he ever has been before. Beira is about 18 hours away.
- To be blunt, Lazaru is scared of being out in public. This is mostly due to his appearance and constantly being mocked and ridiculed everywhere he goes. He has learned to be fairly positive about it, and its mostly due to his faith. I try to take him into the city with me for errands as much as I can. This is mostly to make him more confident around crowds and lots of people and eyes. It helps that anybody who’s seen with a white person gets instant credibility. Pray that people would see Lazaru for who he is as a person created in the image of God as he enters into a new school and surroundings and environment.
- Lazaru, like all the older kids around here, are a important part of our family and a tremendous help to making things function. For much of the last year, he has been helping out with leading our evening worship and devotionals. Pray for us here as we adjust for life after the kids that have left and that Jesus would continue to work here and increase the maturity of those that remain.
Good luck to Lazaru!! Praying :)
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