The Eyes of the Children

It was the children’s eyes that got me and tore at my heart today. Filipe and I had just finished eating our lunch in the car at the orphanage where we have been working for the past six days, when first a group of four orphan girls climbed into the back seat of our SUV and then later four boys climbed into the far back. We had left all the doors open while we ate because it was so hot, even in the shade. All of the children were well mannered and it was obvious they were just having fun, not begging or anything. They simply seemed curious and wanted to be with us I guessed. Filipe spoke to them and asked the girls their ages and what they had been doing. They were 11 and 12, but looked much younger to me. They said they had been busy painting their lips with some lipstick they bought. We didn’t ask anything of the little boys that joined in. They were quite a bit younger. They seemed satisfied to just be in the car.

They stayed in the car until we shooed them out, laughing and giggling and begging me to take just one more photo of them. All of them were dirty, and the four little girls’ lips glistened with the lipstick they had put on. One of the girls in a torn dress that she continued to lift back on her shoulder was strikingly beautiful. I made the comment to Filipe if this little girl made it to adulthood she would be one of the most attractive women one would ever want to see. All of their complexions were almond brown, but their eyes sparkled in the dim light inside the car. Because of their strange color, Filipe called them Mulatto and I was struck by the negative tone of his voice, as if something was wrong with being “Mulatto” or mixed blood.

The orphanage is run by a local church group in the town of Lamego that is about 75 km from our office here in Beira. We found out about the place when one of our Entrepreneurs went there and learned that the orphanage didn’t have any water anywhere on the premises. He had gone to Tica to tie up some contracts for water pumps and had met the woman who is the District Director. She had suggested that someone go there and see if drilling a well and building the orphanage a pump would be a possibility. We took on the challenge to drill the well and build a pump as a gift to the orphanage. We called ahead to let them know we were coming, but didn’t know what we were going to find there. On entering the gate of the place, we were immediately welcomed by a singing chorus of children and some adults, and this very dressed up lady who is the director of the place. It was amazing seeing 75 children from ages 3 to 16 singing and clapping their hands for what seemed like 15 minutes before they stopped. The Director was funny. She first kissed us all (five of us had arrived for this first day’s work), then she went into a tirade of welcoming and blessing us all, and assuring us that it was God’s will that we were there to bring precious water to their orphanage.

We got right to work, but found soon that we were up against a real challenge on this project. Our idea was that we would drill the hole for the rope and washer pump casing, find water about 2 meters down like we have done on all the other wells, and we would be out of there in a couple of days with a fully operational pump. It didn’t work out quite that way as we struggled with caving sand, and water that was not two meters down but five and one half, and the aquifer was only about one meter deep. Well anyway during our visit there and through the completion of the pump after five days of hard work, we found out a little about the orphanage and its wonderful innocent children.

As I said there are about 75 of these kids—all from the village where the orphanage is located. Each has his or her own foster family who take them at night, but in the early morning all the children come back to the orphanage and stay there all day. Depending on their ages, they are schooled for part of the day in an open classroom with just a roof and bare poles for walls. The seats are benches made from simple cut boards and there are no desks. A blackboard hangs precariously on the back posts of the open hut. The man who is the children’s teacher is a carpenter who has his own business right there in the school where he builds beds and other furniture. The children are fed one meal during the day, and I am suspecting that this is the only meal they get from morning to night.

The rest of the orphanage consists of two grass roof huts. One is the office and the other a cooking hut. Four women come each day from the village to assist with hauling water for cooking and drinking and two other women do the cooking full time. There’s a full-time guard and the woman who welcomed us comes every day from another village closer to Beira to direct the operations. She’s a sweet smiling woman who has been along side us helping and watching since we arrived on the first day. The village mothers who carry water make two trips a day to the river carrying on their heads jerry cans full of water for the orphanage. The trip is about six tenths of a mile (1 km) one way. Water at the property we knew from the first would be a welcome addition to the place. We found out today that it was more than that when we started pumping water for the first time and people of the orphanage and surrounding homes couldn’t wait to get their hands wet and take a drink of the stuff.

But back to these sweet faces that had piled into the car. I couldn’t begin to describe the heartache I felt with these children surrounding me. And when I took pictures of them and looked at the photos up close, I was further struck with this heavy feeling in my chest. Their sparkling eyes were what really got me, though. I couldn’t keep my eyes from tearing a little as I watched them and took pictures of all of them one after another.

On the way home later in the day, I couldn’t get the children off my mind. When we stopped in Dondo about half way back to Beira so that Filipe could talk to some school officials there that we had been doing business with, I didn’t get out of the car, but sat there contemplating what had been tearing at my heart all afternoon since lunch. It was about the children—these orphans, who have no mothers or fathers, who are shuffled each day to and from the orphanage, and have only each other during the day (other than the time they have in school) to play and chase the frequent wagons that roll along the dirt road by the orphanage carrying sugar cane. The children are loosely confined in a small lot about 100 feet square along this same dirt road. There’s one tree on the lot that provides shade under which many of the children play or just sit around, and when their food comes around noon-time, they spread out in small groups eating and doing what little children all do when they are eating together. They have no latrine on the property, so when the children have to go to the bathroom they go to a lot nearby where the owners have a squat latrine. In the corner of the property, there’s a place where the children are bathed I am told, but I didn’t see anyone using the bamboo enclosure while we were there. And with water having to be carried to far, I suspect that bathing is a luxury not often used.

While I sat in the car at Dondo waiting for Filipe, I kept thinking about these children and the little they have to look forward to in their lives. It was heart wrenching for me as I thought about all the people I have known or know about who can’t have children who could give children like these a home and a future. If only it were possible. . . I though about what heartache these childless people must be going through if they are some of the many who could sustain and provide for a child in their home, while these beautiful, healthy children eek out their lives in this orphanage. How would it be if all the children like these could find a home in a place in America where they could get education, have clothing that was not torn and tattered, who could play in a playground with other children and could have parents who loved them like they need to be loved. It’s even difficult to write about this and I cringe just thinking about what is ahead for these children. How would it be, I wonder, if all the legal and bureaucratic barriers were suddenly dropped and people who had the money could come to Mozambique and see these children and take them into their arms and return with them? How that would make a difference in this world. And what a service they would be giving to mankind.

When Filipe came back to the car I asked if it was difficult for foreigners to adopt children from Mozambique. He gave me the simple answer that I had expected, “It takes a long time, but it is possible.” I guessed at the rest of the story, “And there are a lot of people along the way that have to be paid off.”

The Issue of Intimidation

Everywhere I go here in Mozambique I am constantly challenged by my own standards for quality, for behavior, for initiative and for forward thinking versus those of my colleagues (nationals) and other nationals that I encounter who appear to be lacking of these principles and behaviors. For the most part, because of those standards in which I am invested, my age and my position here in the work I am doing, I find that I am so intimidating to those with whom I work (those nationals spoken of earlier), that most of what I am attempting to pass on to them (new technology, ideas, concepts, standards, etc.) is lost as long as I am in their presence. I have attempted on occasions to simply leave the scene to let them struggle on their own, turning over the entire operation to them, but when I return I often find that most of what I believed was leaned by them is not put into practice, though I know that they have learned it. When I ask them or attempt to determine why those principles I know that they know were not put into practice, I am convinced, though they will not always admit it, that they are afraid they will make a mistake or will do wrong what I know they know.

When the frustration level has become too high for me, I have criticized my colleagues (the nationals) by saying things like, “Do you remember the conversation we had a few days ago about how I want you to think ahead about what has to be done?” or “We just did this operation over there and this one is exactly the same. Is there some reason that you are unable to see that we simply have to repeat what we did there?” But these questions are usually met by a hanging head and a quiet, “I’m sorry,” or some other statement that leaves me believing that once again my presence and the criticism that I had expected would assist them in seeing the importance in taking initiative, has been lost within this over-powering intimidation they feel by my position, age, or whatever.

Just the other day, for example, me and my national colleague were working on one of our rope and washer pumps, making some changes that would cause the pump to work a little more efficiently. He and I discussed what needed to be done to make these corrections, and together we made them and the pump worked like we wanted it to. Making these changes were simple tasks that required drilling some holes, cutting some wire, tying the pipes off, and reworking a bracket used to hold the riser pipe in place.

We had two of these pumps to revamp. They were both within a few dozen meters of each other so we walked over to the second pump with the same tools and wire that we used on the first one. I stood off to the side to let my colleague make the first move to begin this operation, and nothing happened. After waiting some time, while he walked around the pump and assessed the situation and talked some to one of the people who lived on the farm where the pump was located, still noting happened. He took no initiative to begin the work on this second pump. Finally, not wanting to just jump in and start working on this pump, and feeling a good deal of frustration by that time, I said to the young man, “We just finished doing the other pump and this one is to be revamped the same way. I am just wondering why you haven’t taken the lead to begin work on this pump. I am sure you know that we have to do here is exactly what we just finished doing on the other pump.” His answer to me was something like, “I was afraid that if I started doing this work, it would not be right or that I would not do it like you wanted it done.” With that I just stepped in and began directing the work and in a few minutes we had it done. But I knew I had hurt the young man’s feelings, and that he was very ashamed that once again I had brought up the matter of his taking initiative. Another man who was standing by, a U.S. Intern who was working with us, took the young man’s side and told me I was too intimidating to the young man, and that was why he didn’t start work on his own. I knew that and it was interesting to me to see the relief on my colleague’s face when he realized he had someone on his side. I let the matter drop then, but I am not sure that the process that I am in with this young national is over.

I am continually struggling with these questions about how far I can go before my work here becomes useless or counterproductive. I am clear about my mission of being a mentor for these people, and I am also convinced that this mission is valid and that when the people I am working with realize the importance of such things as taking initiative and thinking beyond “the box” that their lives will forever be changed for the good. I have seen the results of these changes in some of the people with whom I have worked, and I know the process is workable. But to what extent do I go to make it happen before I hurt people like I did my young colleague the other day before he becomes so resistant and fearful that he will become unreachable? That seems to be my overriding challenge for the moment while I am on this quest.