Travel to South Africa and Mozambique: Me and the children of Africa
The entire route of the trip to South Africa and Mozambique, as well as useful tips, costs and conclusions, you can read HERE.
To the previous travelogue –> Missionary Base in Maputo
What did I get into?
Day 1:
- Free time with children up to 3-4 years old. It was time to hug and attack my phone and the Go pro with danger to their lives - you know, the targets were in sand and many little hands were pressing all possible buttons at the same time.
– Free time with the babies. Time for hugs and lullabies.
– Dinner with the children. Basically, lunch and dinner is rice with vegetables and gravy. Breakfast is bread (baguette type) + tea. There is also cake for birthdays and holidays. The rice for dinner was delicious, but my stomach didn't like something, and the next morning I had stomach aches, which quickly went away with a probiotic that I was carrying from Bulgaria.
– Youth evening with the older ones from the boarding school (over 11-12 years old). Curlsson spoke about the fact that we should believe that God is close and always with us. I joined in with the example of the clouds and the sun. Also for each one being very special.
Day 2:
– Morning intercession. What does this mean? Older students from the boarding school meet at 7:00. In the morning (before school) in the prayer hall and there for about 30-40 minutes there are songs, dances, a short message from one of the missionaries and a prayer. The message that day was to help our friends who are in need.
– Shopping. According to the schedule, there is an organized walk with the organization's bus 2 times a week. Together with 3 other missionaries (Sara, Erica and Emanuel) and the driver Alex, we moved to a very large hypermarket in Maputo. Although the food with the kids and my room were free, it was highly recommended for visitors to provide toilet paper, kitchen paper, vero, trash bags, and other supplies that are running anyway. Due to traffic jams on the road, we generally traveled 1 hour per trip, 1 hour on the way back and had about an hour to shop. In the store, the prices were one idea lower than those in Bulgaria; Fruit and bread were cheap and toilet paper was expensive.
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– An organized activity with the girls (ages 6–18)—we colored pictures with colored sand that I’d brought from Bulgaria, and then there was plenty of time for dancing and singing. During that time, I was deeply impressed by how one little girl had several bags of treats like “Kubeti” and how she handed them out one by one to all the children so that they would each have an equal share of the treats, and all the children stood patiently, waiting for her to finish handing them out.
– Evening meeting with the girls. I watched from the side. Sarah (a missionary from Canada) shared a message about the fruits of the spirit.
Day 3:
- organized activity with the little boys of preschool age - making bracelets with their names. Later, Charlotte, one of the missionaries, shared that the children gave a response, that they liked the activity very much.
– I watched how children were photographed for the site Stop for the One - a subsidiary organization for sponsoring training and expenses
– Free time in the afternoon with most children and missionaries at the playground. Time for talk, photos, laughter. It was a festive and non-school day - May 1.
– Shopping from the craft store in the base of handmade things by the girls, because they are trained as seamstresses. Among the things I bought was a small bag made by Girl on Ima Hornesia, a book by Heidi Baker, and another by an African missionary; Iris Ministries company t-shirt, head garlands.
- I finally handed over the suitcase of donations to the donation room, where they distributed things by age and gender and emptied the suitcase for some boy who was going to leave the base soon because he was already big and graduating from school.
- Evening for home groups - each boarding house organizes songs and theme. Tonight I decided not to participate in any group, even though I was invited to the girls, but instead I listened incognito to the songs that came from the girls' dormitory, with which we were only separated by a brick fence.
Day 4:
– I watched with interest the festive program taking place in the church building to mark the end of the first semester; after that, the students were set to have a two-week vacation. Among the children, I noticed several young Black children with albinism—white with blond hair. A tried-and-true trick the teachers used to get the children’s attention when they got distracted was for one of the teachers to start singing the popular song “If You’re Happy… Clap Along With Me,” and all the children would start singing along.
- I participated in praise in the boarding school for children with SEN. It seemed endless to me, as one of the older children there, who was not so damaged and could sing and speak, set song after song after song 🙂 The women who take care of these children were extremely kind and smiling.
- Meeting Steve Lazar - he had just come to visit the base in Zimpeto from Australia, there was a RD and they were carrying a cake back and forth.
– Transfer with the driver Alex back to the airport in Maputo, for my next flight to Cape Town.
First person impressions
– Children know how to quote quite a few Bible verses, many Christian African songs. They like to spend time with missionaries in conversations, songs, organized activities, knitting hairstyles. Individuals are those who are looking for you to give them sweetly, and in a cheeky way.
– Most children greet when you pass by and are taught discipline. An important lesson that the girls showed me is how when one of them has something that the others don't have, gathers their friends and divides the amount equally. I have it documented on video.
– The kids at the camp’s favorite thing about me was my phone—taking pictures of them, taking selfies together, “arguing” over which photo I should delete and why, even though I didn’t want to.
– African children love to sing. Just set the tone for a familiar song and they start and have a hard time stopping. Several times a day, praise songs announced the base. As I mentioned above, on the last night every boarding house had a so-called home group. The missionaries had their own separate group. Standing alone on the bench in front of the room, a loud and powerful singing from the girls' boarding house, which was across the wall opposite, began. I even photographed them incognito through the wall.
- Although the children are dressed and have something to eat, the base is without extras and there is a shortage of toys, especially for younger children. They mainly play with sand toys, balls. Only the boarding house for children with SEN was very colorful and equipped, compared to other premises.
– The missionaries were 100% white, while the staff who cared for the children around the clock were 100% Mozambican. Half of the staff didn’t speak any English, and it was almost impossible to communicate with them. That’s probably why they seemed a little “withdrawn” to me—they didn’t seek out contact and avoided it.
- The biggest challenge during my stay in Zimpeto was the language. Mass children and staff spoke only Portuguese and no English, and I know English and 5 words in Portuguese. From time to time I used the Google Translate app with the kids to talk and things were happening to some extent.
- The weather was noticeably warmer than South Africa. There were mosquitoes all day.
With some children, I became a little closer: hydrangea (I bought a bag made by her), Melton (the boy kept joking with me until I remember his name), little Herrick with whom we strung a bracelet with his name.
On the fourth day, my driver Alex took me to the airport for my next flight from Maputo to Cape Town. The terminal was very limited in terms of dining options, and the souvenir shops had “slightly” overpriced their items—$5 for a magnet! There were even some handmade ones for $15! The flight was again on one of LAM’s small planes—two rows of two seats each. The plane took off at 5:55 p.m. and landed in Cape Town at 8:40 p.m., right on schedule.
TO THE NEXT TRAVELOGUE –> CAPE TOWN: THE CAPE OF GOOD HOPE
–> Browse and book a budget hotel in Maputo at a discount. See here!
