Remembering Africa pt. 3

Maputo, Mozambique 2011

It had been two years since I had left Kenya. Two years too long if you ask me. In the meantime I had spent a couple of months in southern India and if that trip accomplished only one thing, it confirmed what I had suspected— I had left my heart in Africa. I had spent the better part those two years dreaming about going back. I had watched every documentary and read every book I could get my hands on. It didn’t matter what it was about as long as it was in Africa. I even took a History of Africa class at my university. I had a bug I just couldn’t seem to shake.  In the spring of 2011 I was asked to co-lead a team of college students to Mozambique in the summer of that year. I was going back!

I was immediately struck at how different the Mozambican landscape was from equatorial Kenya. Green, lush rolling hills had been replaced with sparse, brown, flatness. Rich, fertile black soil had been exchanged for sand that seemed to find its way into my clothes, my bag, and every other place it wasn’t welcomed. With the exception of a palm tree here and there, green wasn’t on the menu.

Our team was scheduled to stay at an orphanage on the outskirts of Maputo for a little over three weeks. I had heard stories of the type of children this orphanage took in and, to be honest, I was nervous. They were the outcasts and rejects. They were victims of circumstances they had never asked for and helpless to affect any sort of positive change in their own life. Some were HIV positive, others had been raped or molested. I was afraid I couldn’t give them the love they needed, the love they deserved. I remember being brought to tears on more than one occasion as child after child in shy, broken English recounted their story. My heart wrenched in pain each time I heard one. I struggled to understand the human who could inflict such horrors upon an innocent child.

We arrived at the orphanage mid-afternoon. We were hardly given time to set our bags down before we were swept off to tour the compound. Thick, cement walls topped with broken glass formed the perimeter we walked. There were children everywhere, literally everywhere. They seemed apprehensive and uneasy at our presence. I didn’t blame them. I knew their trust wasn’t something that was given. It would have to be earned. Little ones who found themselves in our path scurried as we approached.  My eyelids felt like lead curtains. I fought to keep them open. After two days of travel and multiple time zones, I knew it was a fight I was sure to loose. After the tour and orientation I collapsed onto my bunk. I didn’t even have time to remove my sweat soaked clothing before I slipped into a black, dreamless sleep.

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An unfamiliar noise drifted into our room causing me to stir in my bunk. The beat seemed erratic, disjointed and yet, there was something methodical and soothing about it. Drums. I guessed. I struggled to remember where I was as the fog that had settled over my mind slowly began to lift. I rolled out of bed trying to muffle the squeak of the metal bunk bed as best I could. I threw on some clothes and forced my stiff body out into the crisp, Mozambican morning. An unexpected chill had swallowed the heat of the previous day. I was glad I had grabbed a light jacket before leaving my room.

I was instinctively drawn to the sound that had awakened me. I walked passed empty dormitories and wandered where the children were. A couple of mangy dogs snoozed under a cement bench with a checkerboard painted on it. The aluminum bottle caps strewn about must be used as the playing pieces. I noticed an elderly lady, bent by years of manual labor, sweeping an abandoned cafeteria. She smiled at me as I walked by.

I stopped abruptly after rounding the corner of the cafeteria. What had been the football pitch the day before now held hundreds of children in brightly colored school uniforms standing in perfectly straight lines. I noticed a few adults at the front of the assembly, teachers I assumed. There were three older boys near the teachers kneeling over large, hand made drums. I could tell they weren’t playing the drums out of obligation; the determined, satisfied look on their faces told me they loved what they were doing. I sat down on a cement ledge to watch the demonstration unfold. Without warning the drumming stopped. I sat transfixed wondering what would happen next. The silence of the moment was interrupted only briefly by a shout from one of the drummers.

As if on cue with the rising sun, the assembly of children began to sing simultaneously in perfect harmony with the beat of the drums. I felt a chill run down my spine as their rich voices washed over me. The sound was pleasant and spellbinding, like nothing I had ever heard from an American choir. Time seemed to stop as I drank in the beauty of the moment. I recalled some of the stories these children had shared with me in the previous days, stories of unbearable pain and unbelievable suffering. And as I sat there watching these children sing, an unfamiliar emotion began to grip my heart. It was subtle at first and slowly began to increase until I didn’t think I could contain it, like glass being slowly filled with water until it overflowed. Hope had invaded my heart and I knew I would never be the same.