I've Found God!

They say 'the Lord works in mysterious ways' and as mysterious goes, this can't get much more so. Who would have thought that He, The Lord Almighty, King of all Kings would decide to appear in a small rural Mozambican village, least of all this one. Well, if you believe the name; this 5 year old child, sucking on a lolly and wearing a shirt with an unusually large collar, could be the answer that mankind has been looking for, for so long. Meet God...

Well actually, to be honest, and I'm sorry to have got your hopes up, but I doubt that this little whippersnapper has anything at all to do with the second coming of Christ. The only thing that this child really signifies is that his parents can't speak English! I have asked Francis about it all, he told me that he had pointed to the parents what it his name actually meant, but it doesn't seem that they were too bothered, his name sticks!…he doesn't have even a slight glow about him, that would have been an easy giveaway.

Fortunately for these kids when they grow up, silly names in Africa are getting less and less, as education and English speaking gets more and more. Francis was telling us a bit about some silly names from the past. Apparently they used to hear any nice sounding English word, and, not understanding what it meant, call their child it.

A few classic examples are as follows: Guilty, Innocent, Justice, Time, Neverdie, Lovemore, Takemore, Addmore, Learnmore and who could forget, Blessing (we all know him, it's not so bad).

Why not make up your own? It's easy, take any English word, name your child after that word, hours of fun for you, a lifetime of embarrassment for your child!

The Cleanup

Today, my master plan was put into action!

When I arrived, as I may have mentioned, I was shocked by the amount of rubbish to be found everywhere, as well as the apparent lack of any kind of waste disposal.

On the bus to the village, when I first arrived, Francis and I were discussing solutions to this problem. It isn't final, but we kind of decided that, to try to change a whole country's habits in 5 weeks isn't that realistic. So, what we decided to do instead was to educate some kids for when they grow up…again, I know this isn't much, but it seems just about all that 3 people can manage in my 5 weeks.

I can assure you, you won't find the details interesting, so in short, my master plan involved bribery. In this case, a lolly each. After a quick lesson in what to pick up and why…

…And in exchange for a lolly (afterwards of course), the kids would go around the village and fill up their bin bags with non-biodegradable lixo (litter in Portuguese). There's a shit load of plastic bottles, plastic bags, glass bottles, clothes and a surprising amount of flip-flops. 

The results were pretty surprising; the areas we covered look a lot better already. The area behind the house (where Francis' pig lives) is completely clear. Picking as we went, we also made our way to and through the market, in an effort to show all the adults there that we mean business. 

In the end we managed to fill, and properly dispose of, 10 bin bags full of waste. Not bad for an hours work and a total of 20 kids.

This week is going to be a whole week of lixo related colouring, identifying and picking. Hopefully Francis will carry this on for as long as he can. Seeing how bad their parents have let it get without seeing the problem, I feel that teaching these kids the right way to be is almost as important at this age, as learning their 1, 2, 3's and A, B, C's.