A mudança

We're officially at the end of the year here in Nampula. No, the time zones are not such that here it is Dec 31st, but things have all winded down. School is all over and exams have all finished and now we wait til Jan/Feb to start that all over again. Its also time that we get some rest and relaxation here on the staff. Victor made a good point to most of the kids the other day that, of the guy we have working in the office with finances and the construction workers and cooks, there's really only Me, Marta, and Victor that work with the kids, and it's pretty dang tiring. 40+ of them versus 3 of us. Heck, my parents only raised us three boys, and while we turned out fine and are making them very proud, they'll admit at times that we made their lives a torment. And that was 3-vs-2. Our kids are mostly great also, but man, those numbers...

As a result, we're scaling back and taking things slow now until Christmas. As a result, I've decided to scale back writing. But have no fear. Instead of having nothing, I'm giving you a chance to hear from the kids.

A little over two weeks ago, I gave them assignment. We do extracurricular work quite often here, so it was not a surprise to them. The assignment was to write an essay of which the them was, “A mudança que quero ver é ____” (The change that I want to see is ________). I gave no further detail or explanation, only the length and the due date. I left it purposefully open because I wanted to see was was weighing most on minds.

For the first group of kids we'll hear from today either feel really guilty or now exactly what to say for every situation. The week I assigned the essays, we had a little incident involving mawowo. I'm guessing there are two of you reading this that know what mawowo is, so I'll tell you. Its basically the word for the burnt, crusty part of whatever it is you were cooking. Most often here we cook rice, and cooking twenty pounds of rice at a time is bound to burn some on the bottom of the pan. And for some reason the kids love eating this burnt rice stuff that literally tastes like you left hard tack in the toaster for twenty minutes.

Well, the incident involved a group of about four kids fighting in the kitchen over who would get the biggest share of mawowo. There was punishment doled out for fighting, and the kids had this to say in their letter about what they want to see change.

“I want to see my behavior change. I also want to see the behavior of Isac Pequeno and Muaparato [the other boys fighting] change. I want them to learn how to read and write. When people tell us to not steal mawowo we need to obey and we need to change.”

-Belson; Grade 4.

“The change I would like to see is stop eating mawowo because it hurts my health. I would like to see us forgive because it doesn't help to not forgive. I want to stop playing bad because it doesn't help to play bad. I would like to start to forgive people because the Bible says to forgive because if I forgive I will increase in wisdom and in knowledge of God's word.”

-Riquito; Grade 2.

“A change of how we carry ourselves in the orphanage. I would like to see the patio [of the boy's dormitory] clean every day and for us to not throw mango peels there because this is dirty and will make us sick. I want to stop the fighting between us because it will bring us a hard life if we fight. I like that I they stopped me from eating mawowo because it was harming my stomach and my health and I wasn't growing up good.”

-Muaparato; Grade 4.