Trip to Mozambique 2000

In February 2000 I went on a month trip to Mozambique. They had just suffered a severe rainy season which had washed out many roads and destroyed infrastructure. After a fundraising campaign I personally went to Mozambique to insure the funds got to those in need. Part of our mission in Portugal at the time was to prepare young volunteers for service in Africa. Two young people travelled with me and got to experience life in Africa on the ground. Mozambique was one of the poorest countries in Africa at the time. Here are a few of the photos I have managed to keep over the years.

In this first photo I am delivering foodstuffs to Mother Teresa´s home in the outskirts of Maputo, the capital of Mozambique. Rather than send the aid by container which our association had did before and found very complicated, expensive and time consuming, I brought money with me and bought foodstuffs in Maputo and distributed to needy institutions working with children in Maputo.

Mother Teresa´s home had around 150 children from birth to seven years. The fifty or so newborns were laid out on the courtyard patio while the older ones played games and did activities with us and our missionary friends. The flies and the children´s faces were horrible and I picked one baby up to at least save one from his torment. The nuns were busy trying to gain support and improvements for the children which left the children with some sweet local workers to take care of them. With just a little bit of financial help the orphanage could have been greatly improved to keep out the flies.
The orphanage had been built near the local garbage dump for Maputo where babies were often found abandomed by their mother´s, a kind of abortion. People going through the garbage for goods would bring the babies to the orphanage as it was located not far away. However, because of the dump, the children and orphanage suffered with the flies. The Sisters asked me not to photograph.

These boys were at the Anglican Center for Street Boys in the center of Maputo. As is typical in many poor countries, some children run away from their homes to the big city to try to have a better life. A local Mission tried to encourage street boys to move into the Anglican Center to not only have a place to live, but to receive an education with them. But life on the city streets had its benefits as the children could raise quite a bit of money begging, especially the younger ones. But the older ones would rob from them and abuse them, so it was not all roses. Moving into the center had its withdrawal problems and the children had to accept they would not be able to buy Coke and the things they could get on the street. I again bought food stuffs for the center. Later I found out that the sugar I had bought had never been served to the boys. The director of the center later explained that since they could not always afford to buy sugar for the children, they did not want them to get into the habit of having sugar with their cereal.

One of the boys with some of the sacks I bought.

Mines left from the years of war have been a problem for many years.

We carried as much extra things in our luggage to distribute and had sent some boxes ahead by mail. At the center the things we gave to the younger children, were later stolen by the older ones to sell on the street. We later pow-wowed and did a skit to try to teach the boys the error of their ways.

Here is a picture of the former street boys with our humble offering of foodstuffs which was greatly appreciated at the time. Much of the food came from Pakistan and India. You notice the Muslim Crescent on the bag. The local merchants were mostly Muslim Pakistani´s. The Mozambicans resented that the Pakistani´s would send their financial increase back home instead of investing in Mozambique.

Here is David who came with me from Portugal for the month long visit. In the end he did not volunteer for any service in Africa, but I am sure the visit affected his life positively. Four other volunteers which we helped to send to Africa remain there today involved in local humanitarian work. My oldest son and his wife spent eight years in Africa involved in humanitarian work. My oldest daughter spent a year in Zimbabwe. Two other sons spent a year each in Mozambique and Equatorial Guinea. That was part of their higher education. The children in the above photo were patients at the hospital with different cancerous growths.

Here we are back at the center where the boys are learning a trade as part of their education. These boys were around 14 years of age.

Back at Mother Teresa´s which we visited each week during our stay in Maputo. I even almost got a speeding ticket driving out to their orphanage. The police woman pulled me over and told me I had been speeding and would need to pay a fine of 1 million in the local currency. It sounded like I lot of money. As I passed her my driver´s license I carefully slipped a $50 bill and explained how I was taking the foodstuffs to the orphanage. That seemed to solve the problem and we were on our way again. I recently found out the fine would have been around 500 Euros or $600. Later on another day, when I went to the local market in Maputo, the local mission worker told me not to stop for anyone as we walked across the market square. Half way across the square, a Policeman approached me and asked me for my documents. I did not realize he was the one I was not suppose to stop for. I stopped and found out he was looking to make a fast buck at my expense. Though my papers were in order, he kept trying to figure out how he could get some money out of me. I was willing to give him a "tip" but the mission worker would not let me "out of principle." Anyway, she was quite upset that I had stopped when she had told me explicitly not to stop. But my natural reaction was to obey the policeman which in Africa it seems you do not always do. We spent an hour at the police station "out of principle."