Overwhelm me with exactly what I asked for

It's been two days of work here in Mozambique and already I can write a novel--or at least a novella. Of course, I would be that foreigner who came in for 2 days and figured out how to 'Save Africa', and clearly, that is not at all my intention. So, I won't give you my remedies, but I will give you my thoughts and fact about the experience. Matola has become my playground for research and limitless misunderstanding.

It has been a crude awakening, confirming all of the nightmares I have read about. They are all true, but the reality, much worse. I realize I have been getting my news from foreign non-governmental organizations who report the poor situation in health and thought, whole heartedly, that they were reporting the truth of the situation. Maybe the words were not convincing enough, the numbers not striking enough--but why is it that the people in the West misinterpret the situation here? Why is it that we do not travel here to do it ourselves? Can we not leave our comforts? Is it that we do not know someone here? Do we not have the interest? Are we afraid? Do we not have the means? .. I digress.

The point was to report back on what I observe and to design a plan that will best benefit the people of Mozambique, the people of Matola. I can go on rants about caring about this and that for days, but the truth of the matter is that it simply is. Take it or leave it. I take.

Starting on Monday I met with the gracious Director of all Social Affairs of the city of Matola. Abel, the Director, oversees a range of affairs such as education, health, etc is the coordinator of all of the many parts that makes the city run. Abel, a very humble man, gave his time to us on his feriada (holiday, National Independence Day), to help me find the many hospitals around Matola and to give me his brilliant insights on how the city functions and what it is he does and oversees. He was the best source of primary education I could have asked for. For holistic information, this is the perfect sort of character you'd hope to meet when doing the type of research I am doing.

Some Matola background:

• Population: 600,000 - 620,000 (World Gazetteer projects 675,422 in 2007 and 701,999 for 2008 with a 3.93% growth rate)
  
• my question: who is right about these numbers--not that it helps...
  
• in comparison: Santa Fe is growing at a 1.5% annual rate, with a population of 144,000--and we seem to think it's growing too fast.
  
• 11 hospitals
• 6 full time doctors--FOR THE ENTIRE CITY.
  
• 61 primary schools (grade 1-7)
  
• 6 secondary schools (grade 7-12)
• Students attend schools in 3 different shifts. First wave comes in the morning until 1/3 of the day, the rest follow. There is no full day of school.
• around 45% of the students must attend school beneath a tree. There are not sufficient classrooms.
• The average teacher has around 700 students.
  
• (I have a TON more info like this to come...as soon as I get my copies back...)
  
• Divided into 3 parts to be governed by 3 different posts (like sub-mayors)
• There is still an underlying tribal system that empowers some chiefs per area. Kind of like a local person to speak on behalf of the people (and they get great gifts/privileges for shaking hands and being at functions--[ahem..sound familiar?]).
  
• 60% of the people live outside of the 'citified' part of the city. Meaning, they do not reap the benefits of the city-run water system.
  
• City water stops running at 11a-12p everyday. It starts back up again early in the morning around 5a.
  
• This goes for city buildings such as HOSPITALS, SCHOOLS, etc.
  
• the only way around this problem is to purchase a private water pump, muito caro (very expensive...)
• This does not include the 70% of people that have no running water, whatsoever.
  
• The average family size for 60% of the population is 10 or greater in one household
  
• This could be nieces, nephews, uncles, cousins, other peoples' children, single parents, etc.
  
• AIDS affects 26% of the population. That means 1 in 4 or more are infected with AIDS.
  
• this is only an average. It could be more in some places--which is more likely the case.
  
• The numbers of infected rise dramatically if it is a female around the age of 18-25 or a male around the age of 30-45.
  
• Get it? the males seduce the young girls and then infect them with HIV.
  
• There is no system of sanitation.
  
• Cholera is still a major problem in these areas--but only when it rains. Today, not so much a problem, thankfully.
  

This is where we scratched the surface about our conversation. He, Abel, had many of these numbers in his head. I started by asking him what he thought was the most acute health problems that Matola faces.

He numbered: 1) Maternal Health; 2) Malaria - based on the # of deaths and survivals; 3) AIDS - based on numbers and reactions to the virus and what needs to be done to continue to prevent it in the future; 4) Cholera - the prevention of future outbreaks.

Mind you, this is no health official. This is simply a man that oversees what is being done in many different departments. Even he had an idea of what needed to be done.

There are only 5 hospitals the give maternal health. If someone does not live near this hospital, and say, for instance, they live in the more rural area, they cannot reach a taxi, there is no means of calling an ambulance, they may not even know who to call if they are uneducated about the system. They are simply stranded. This is 70% of the city. This is the 70% of people that live too far from the limited amount of hospitals and are too poor to afford services or even a taxi ride into the area where help can be reached.

Line into one of the hospitals in Matola.

Here is a standard life story of someone in Matola.

I'm born. I probably have no money. If I was born at night, my mother may take me to the hospital the next day. I had no choice but be born in my house because I had no other means--or maybe the hospital was closed. It may have been too late to go. The taxi would have gotten me there, but it's at least 1.5 km away, and there's no way my mother could have walked there in her condition. A day later I get to the hospital and get all of my polio and other vaccinations. It's obligatory for my mother to go through family planning classes to learn how to care for me. Yet, often, there is no one to teach such things and my mother would be much too tired after giving birth to me to learn those things, even if she wanted to. Now she must care for me and we must pay the extreme prices for anything else that we might need.
If I'm lucky, I make it to the age of 5. At 5, I can attend school. Hopefully my family can afford to pay for my uniform. Actually, it's much harder, because my father past when I was 2 years old. It's okay, though, he had two other women on the side and my mother was not happy about that. He would abuse her and growing up, I would have to watch. But now, I am 5 and I will go to school. Money is tough because we do not often have enough to eat. The hunger tears at my belly, but I will go to school.
I arrive to school and I realize that there is no building. We sit next to the corner store, (the highest selling item is alcohol), and we study beneath a tree. I dream I am Buddha trying to reach nirvana, but I can't get my mind off of the hunger pains. It's hard to concentrate, but we are learning nothing at this time. My teacher has gone to help his child at home and we are simply sitting. I play and draw squares in the sand. This happens at least twice a week.
By grade 5 I must past my exams to remain in school. I pass and can remain, but 30% of my classmates must depart. Those that did not know there would be an exam never imagined that they would not pass--and now they either return to their homes, but most of them will have to find a job. This is common and probably to come for myself. Our lives are survival.
I pass through 7th grade, but am not satisfied with the newest school system. There are very few schools and 5 of the 6 schools available are private. There are fees we must pay to say in. Thank goodness the religious groups are here to provide. 90% of the schools are run by different religious denominations. I don't care which one it is, although I have attended a protestant church once in a while--but I just want to get in...
I make it to 10th grade and now have to provide for my mother. She is on her death bed from AIDS. We have no money and now I must care for my brothers and sisters. I must find a job or leave my family. I will go tomorrow to find work on the roads. I have heard there is an opening selling tomatoes at the local market. I will see if I can talk to my father's old friend for a favor.
I will survive. I have had malaria three times in my life and survived and the cholera that broke near our neighborhood did not affect us. We have seen our brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles and cousins pass, but we survive. I now live for my mother. I must find her food in order to see that she can take the drugs she needs to survive. We will survive.

Okay, okay. Poetic licence or whatever. But honestly, this is a standard situation. Probably worse in reality--but life has its good.

I wanted to focus on this project as a health focus. It makes it easier to write a paper, fill out an application to focus efforts on one thing. Let's say I decide I want to stop AIDS and educate about that. This is an easy focus to begin upon. Yet, we get confused about what our priorities are and what the root of the problem is. This is what I must better understand. This is what I must figure out.

We visited 5 different hospitals in the area. I, the foreigner, took pictures of the restrooms. I photographed the street children, abandoned by the poverty of their parents who could no longer care for them; (30,000 per year in the area).

Mozambican street children.

A Standard Mozambican Restroom. a hole in the ground. the children are fearful of such a device due to haunting stories of children falling in. this is the standard toilet facilities for doctors and patients alike.

We departed from the many stories that Director of Social Affairs, Abel had to tell and we decided we had enough for the day.

2 Tim. 4:2 Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine.

Arrival to Maputo - from here on out, everything is understated

I am. I am in Mozambique. I am high on Mozambique. These are not my words. I take them from the friends that I have already spoken with, elated to be in this place. It is worlds different from South Africa. This country is run by the African people. There are relatively no white people here, unless they are here on holiday. (:

I arrived and was picked up by an incredible Korean family that has relocated from their previous home of 14 years in Angola and are now living here in Mozambique to start up a new Presbyterian-esque church. Outside of the largest city in Mozambique, they are working in some of the poorest conditions in the world--trying to reach God's people and help their lives and aid their abject situations. This is the place we talk about when we make frivolous comments about 'starving people in Africa'. That guilt radiates from actual people.

I have been able to practice my broken Portuguese with Pastor Juan (pronounace Jou-ahn) and his adorable wife, Maria--(mind you these are all their Portuguese names. Their real names are Korean)--and their two children Juan and Paulos. Pastor Juan and the two sons manage well with their English. I continue to feel inadequate in my inability to speak another language. Thankfully, I'm picking it up fast....

To Mozambique! This city is craziness. 2 million people live in the city and another 8 million live on the outskirts. The people suffer from lack of access to the most common of goods. Food, water, health, sanitation--i can go on for days. And, we've only begun to talk about it. It's not that the government is not trying...there are just too many people. There is too much need and not enough help, not enough solutions to the problems. It's extremely frustrating, but the Pastor lets me know that there is definitely an opportunity to start from scratch and really get things done. He spoke of the present limitations the organizations that currently work here have to deal with day in and day out because of international restrictions and other governing that goes on with aid from outside of this country. Because they are only developing, they have to follow the rules of the people that donate their money.

*frustrated sigh*... where to begin... I feel that the best thing for now is to read the potential of what we have planned and see where we can go. There is so much potential here. The outside of the city needs more help than I could have imagined. The town we will be working in is around 600,000 citizens. There is one governing body that oversees all of that. Under him, it is broken up into thirds and is governed by another branch that takes care of 200,000 people. That is where the governing stops. That is the top, the rest is down. Explain to me how you can get anything done with 200,000 people that you work for?

This is not even scratching the surface. At least there's electricity here. In Angola, everyone lives off of generators (if you can afford one) and there is practically no running water. Here, at least there are good roads in the city (3 main ones) and the water only gets shut off at night. Thankfully, our the "rich" family I'm staying with owns their own water pump. Otherwise, goodbye to running water after 5p. Sigh sigh sigh.

There is no telling what I can predict for tomorrow. Pastor Juan spoke of the swollen bellies of families that cry from their hunger pains. I can't imagine.... I ate shrimp the size of jumbo hot dogs. We are 10mins away from the hunger pains. Here we are--there they are. The world is so small. What am I doing sitting here...?

I am quite encouraged by the need. I feel the purpose and am eager to talk to the people and see where we can begin. There is so much to be done from a billion and one angles... I'll take one..maybe two. For now, I hope I dream in Portuguese. (:

Why do I really have to leave? -- (oh wait, that's the point[?])

Day 4 – Last day in Khayelitsha

Today was kind of on the fly, in that we really didn’t know where I would be going. I left the mission house with Susana to find Pastor Ohm who then decided we would be going to the winery in Stellenbosch. He knew how much I wanted to take home of the tastiest wines of the world. I settled on a cross breed of Shiraz/Viognier and a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon. Can’t wait to take a taste. Pastor Ohm and I sat a picnic table in the midst of South African wine country with the perfect late morning sun. We sipped our coffee and talked about Mozambique, and the expectations of working and living with the family that I will meet tomorrow. There are still so many so many uncertainties about what I will be experiencing and what will happen when I arrive. I’m just going without expectations… that makes it easier for me to expect the worst and hopefully come into the best.

We left the dreamlike escape of the wine country and returned back to Khayelitsha. It was only about a 20min drive, and we entered the Saturday chaos. The entire township is up and about spending their paychecks for the week on new clothes, groceries and mostly taking in the weekend. How I would love to own a taxi on the weekends in Khayelitsha. I’d make a killing.

We (Beauty and I) had the plan to have a last lunch before I headed out and it was usurped by the planning of Madoda, another great helper of African Leadership. He decided we’d have a beach picnic. The only problem: we didn’t have any means of transport. So, my solution: we walk there. hahhaa. Little did I know, after taking a taxi about half way with our feast (fried snoek fish and chips, appletizer sparkling grape juice, seasoned garlic bread, salad [lettuce and cherry tomatoes] with balsamic vinaigrette, and yogurt with fresh fruit for dessert), we were set to walk over. Another problem: they said it might be dangerous to walk all the way there through Harare. It is notorious for its flagrant violence, even in the middle of the day. One of the youth ministry leaders mentioned he’d been robbed there 4 times in his life. The last time was last week, and it was broad daylight.

Whoops. Minor details. I mean, it’s Saturday and it’s the beach…

Needless to say, I made it out alive and felt completely safe. We sat on the edge of a beautiful beach and stared into the cape, watching the city far on the other side under mind bending mountains. It was perfection. We feasted and watched the young African children (mostly boys) splash around in the cold water and build their magnificent sand castles. Monwabisi beach, populated by blacks and coloureds, is the place the township people go when they want a close by beach. I was shocked when the three locals I was with told me they hadn’t been to the beach since March or before then. It’s not an accessible thing they can enjoy. It is something out of the ordinary, and they told me they wanted me to have the best.

The entire day I was spoiled rotten by my friends. They, meaning Madoda, wanted me to have everything to be perfect. They spent way too much money on food and we frivolously enjoyed the day at the beach. It was incredible. I’m much too blessed. Even those that still need are giving to me, their friend. It’s overwhelming… I can’t believe they care so much. I need nothing, want nothing, and yet they dote upon me, just because they want to make me feel good about being there with them. I pray one day I can do the same for them. For now, I can spend $16 and have a feast with them. They paid for transport and the fish and chips. Fish and chips cost a whopping $3.50 for a mountain of chips and the most delicious local Cape fish. We all shared and it was more than enough. Ohhhhh the food!

We chatted about the limitations to further your education in South Africa if you come from an impoverished background. Every barrier in the book is there to keep people from having the means to attend college if they were black. They have to come up with all of their own money, have practically no access to outside money to aid them, and basically they are left to fend for themselves if they did not have sufficient funds. They are forced to work before or during school, no matter what. I have heard of no one coming out of Khayelitsha that has been able to attend college without a financially unbearable struggle. If it is access to school they lack, it is then having to be transported to and from school that becomes another problem. When will this change? I can’t believe how blessed I am to have what I have… Wow… Explaining the American university system—although not perfect, it is leaps and bounds above what it could be. I pray that they can make it into school. They will; inshallah.

I was a bit in trouble when we returned because we completely missed the Teen Life service at the College. Casta, one of the local leaders of the service didn’t want to speak to me. He had thought I was going to be there. And as I walked up with a handful of callow lilies (a ‘weed’ in Cape Town), he did not want to hear my excuses about the long walk to the beach and the slip of our minds to the time. There were no excuses. We simply did not make it. I promised him a personal written apology for what I missed out on.

I better go write it. I’m still not completely packed. I just checked the weather. Looks like the time there is going to be scorching! 85°-96° by Wednesday. Oh man. I hope it’s appropriate to wear shorts/practically nothing there. I’m going to melt. Yay for summer!

Making the Most of Khayelitsha

Days 2-3

Breathing in the chaos. Something I love to do. That is why I’m here. I crave the different days, different moments, out of the ordinary type days each day. Khayelitsha. Sigh.

For the past few days it has been a great success in reconnecting with everyone and being able to talk to everyone as I get to observe their wonderful talents. African Leadership has been particularly blessed with extremely capable locals to reach out to their own people. We are merely there for support. It’s terrific.

The time I spent in Khayelitsha was made up of me visiting two local clinics. I was there to talk to clinicians and to observe how the clinics conducted themselves. I found in just a short time that the lines are extremely long for the Xhosas and each clinic specializes in something different aside from a few staples like maternal care, pediatric services, HIV/AIDS and TB treatment and counseling, and some pharma distribution. One of the most astonishing pieces to all of this is that the clinic is their area of emergency response. There are only a handful of trained doctors on site and very few nurses. At the second clinic we visited, the head of the organization said proudly, “Our informational manager has just told us that last month we saw 22,000 patients at our clinic. That’s around ___ a day”. Astonishing. I was flabbergasted hearing these appalling numbers.

Get this—the clinic does not even necessarily respond to all of the needs because there are so few doctors. Did you notice I have not once mentioned emergency/trauma services? This is precisely because only certain clinics in certain areas respond to this specific need. All gunshot wounds, stabbings, car accidents, etc. have to be dealt with at the clinic specific to these needs—and get this, they do not necessarily do any on site response if they cannot there, yet every (Xhosa) person has to be referred by the clinic in order to be allowed into a hospital. These hospitals are far out of Khayelitsha and extremely hard to get to. If there ever was an emergency, you would first have to go to the clinic, wait for the proper referral and then go to the hospital. This is exactly what the locals explained to me.

Even in my prior visit here, one of Beauty’s (a close friend whose family I stayed with in the shanties) sisters came down with terrible pains in her chest and stomach. She knew she was a few weeks/months pregnant and had to see a doctor to ensure she did not have any complications. The ambulance was called around 12am and did not call back to say it would be arriving until 6:30am the next morning. Thankfully her symptoms had calmed by then. Yet, waiting some 6hours + some is a regular occurrence. The drivers of the ambulances themselves do not see it as an emergency—just another thing they have to do as a job. There is no sense of urgency, whatsoever.

The doctors that are on staff are spread much too thin. Some of the people that do come into the clinic are treating some things that can be treated at home, (minor burns, infected cuts, etc.). If they had the knowledge of treating some of these illnesses before having to wait in ridiculously long lines with a number of exposures to other ailments, they would be able to take care of themselves. However, there is no concept of this so far. They are only educated once the mistake has been made. There is no mechanism to reach out to the greater populations. It is only those who have made the mistakes—like properly caring for a child, preventing from TB and HIV. There promising pieces of this are the relationships that are building with local schools to get kids immunized and educated about the potential health risks. The problem is, it must surpass education and theory and be taken into practice.

Sorry. I can go on for days about all of my ideas and thoughts about the health side of this situation and how inangering it is for me and for everyone. The hundreds of sick people in the waiting room watched as I was easily talking to the head of the office simply because of ‘research’, yet they were sitting waiting to be talked to by any official. Sad but true. The apartheid still, very much exists. I’ll go into that in a bit…

The rest of the day was comprised of helping build a fence for the new auto mechanic shop that is being built right in the heart of Khayelitsha in Litsha Park, where the train station and main taxi stop is. This ministry is one that will create a sustainable income for African Leadership future pastors, students and programs, as well as provide a method of job training and opportunity for community members—not to mention a lot of cars are going to get fixed in the process. It looks so promising :)

I ate some KFC with Nosipho and Beauty while we talked about the rest of the world and what countries we would like to visit. We chatted about clothes and boys. Conversations are the same in any country of the world. All of the same concerns…. Hahaha.

I finished the day creating an unofficial timetable of what I would like to see while in my 10 days in Mozambique. I will be flying out on Sunday and will stay almost the remainder of my trip there, until the 17^th. I hear there are many different things about Mozambique that I need to be aware of—starting by the extremities of rich and poor. Apparently the poverty there is much, much greater than in South Africa—which is easily understandable given the wealth of even the poorest of the poor in Khayelitsha. The signs of development are quite apparent, even in the shanties. Yet, in Mozambique, the poverty affects the nutrition and access to food, shelter and other essentials. The HIV/AIDS rates are astounding. Also, as it gets warmer, the risk of malaria increases. Pastor Ohm informed me it is much more expensive in Mozambique than in South Africa. I couldn’t understand how that would be given the extreme differences in needs. He basically said that because the extremities of rich and poor are so great, the rich can afford more expensive things, because there is nothing else, but in the poorer areas, everything is much cheaper, but nothing we could purchase. The verbal description is disturbing, but I know that being there will clear things up.

Being that I’m so blessedly connected to the western world via my ridiculous cell phone (I refuse to frivolously endorse my phone company or services), I received an . email regarding the problems HIV/AIDS programs in Mozambique face because of the U.S.’s involvement in funding 70% of HIV/AIDS programs in the country on their own (limited) terms. This article will prep me in platforming a potential HIV prevention curriculum based on what has greatly funded, but limited capacity programs that have been developed in the past.

We watched the Dark Knight tonight. My second time. The movie never ceases to disappoint and was a whopping $8.00 including popcorn and candy. Take that, America.

Tomorrow – I’ll let you know what happens. I need to get to bed sooner than 1a. Still not a reality…ugh. College, here I come.

In the beginning...

I've just arrived.  Something like 29+ hours of travel and I'm still afloat--I think.  Two hours ago, opening the airplane window shade to an African sunrise reminded me much of a New Mexican one.  It brought me back to life.  When we touched ground I realized I was "back home", as Pastor Ohm put it.  It brought me such overwhelming joy to see the skyscraping mountains and rolling green hills.   I am in Cape Town.  

Soon enough we were racing down the streets, steering wheel on the right as I watched the students in their uniforms hurry into buses and early morning workers jaywalk their way into their respective jobs.  

Pastor Ohm and I were doing our planning, mixed in with philosophical thoughts about living life without having to worry about money and doing what is right for the sake of doing it.  Talking to him, it seems so concrete, the thoughts about making the right decisions and not having to worry.  I hope I don't forget it...ever. 

I'll be traveling to Mozambique on Monday and will most likely remain there for around 7-8 days.  I will be living with a family that lives in the city of Maputo who is working on several different projects.  While I'm there I will be following a doctor around who will show me the ropes of health in Maputo.  

If you're reading this and do not yet know what the heck I'm doing in South Africa/Mozambique, the purpose is to do health related research on what the most pressing health issues are.  This research will later go into depth in order to look at how to prevent diseases that are spread in the area by designing a curriculum to teach the community health education.  This will be based on what we see as rudimentary training, such as hygiene, sanitation, first aid, sex and gender education, maternal health, etc.  

The goal is to be able to design a curriculum in order to return to Maputo and teach it after I graduate, Inshallah. 

I'm getting ready to venture back into Khayelitsha, or the stomping grounds of my previous summer spent here in South Africa.  I will hopefully be reunited with old friends and what I feel is family.   Khayelitsha, or the largest township housing informal settlements outside of Cape Town, is where we built preschools/churches last summer, got to know many communities and was otherwise able to spend time with children singing, teaching, playing and dancing.  I can't wait to get back there.  For now, I must purchase my plane tickets to Maputo...ugh.

Well, I have to say, I'm terribly jet-lagged.  I stare at the computer screen and get drowsy thinking about the time I have ahead and the time I've just left behind.  Please stay tuned when the postings are most likely more live and less retrospective.  I mean, I'd like it better reading that, too.  

(Oh, yeah, HI MOM & DAD!! Look, I'm on the internet!!!)