Volunteer Group - Almost Everyone has Arrived
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Truck that transported our luggage while we rode in a "chapa" (a Mozambican taxi)
We arrived in sunny, 80 degree Beira on July 5th after a freezing cold layover in Johannesburg, South Africa. As we straggled off of our 16 hour plane marathon from New York City, we looked like the proverbial tourist with our flip-flops and summer clothes while all of the native Johannesburg people wore their winter coats and UGGS. So we rejoiced when we got to Beira and found it much, much warmer. I have to mention, for all of my shopaholic girlfriends, that there was a massively huge mall inside of the Johannesburg Airport. My children will be proud to hear I only spent $4 on a cup of Hagen-Daz!
In a later entry I will write about the facility where we are staying, as it is an interesting building and has been adequately fortified to protect us. I feel perfectly safe here and have slept soundly every single night since arriving. Although I must admit that our full days probably play as much a roll in promoting sound sleep as anything else. I must also mention the emotional stress and angst I experience every single day as we see, hear, and feel firsthand the suffering and lack of hope everpresent in this beautiful city. I weep, sometimes openly at what I witness. Then I buck up and do what my duties are for the day. As I do so, I get lost in this beautiful place and soak up the spirit of what we are doing. Care for Life is making such a difference.
Let me tell you a little about the magnitude of what has been accomplished. Over the past 10 years many villages have been helped. Nine have completed the 36 month program. Presently 4 villages are participating in this lifechanging approach to helping Mozambicans learn how to help themselves. To summarize:
Families choose their own goals and are rewarded with tools and equipment to improve their lives even more. There are four family goals that all should choose:
1. clean water source and purify what they drink
2. Pre-natal care for pregnant women
3. Birth certificates - which are necessary even this this 3rd world country so a person knows
how old he/she is (many do not know their own age), and for school
4. Latrines
Each Care for Life community has bicycle ambulances to transport pregnant mothers to the hospital or clinic about 5 miles away from most communities. Prenatal care is provided by local mid-wives. Care for Life sends doctors and nurses periodically to assist with this great need. Over 60% of Mozambican babies and moms die at birth. Most women have more than five children, the average number of births being ten. The communities that have participated in CFL programs have seen ZERO deaths of mothers or babies. That's quite an amazing accomplishment for a program just a little over ten years old.
CFL also offers communities an agriculture program which allows them to grow their own food and sell some at markets, thus giving them the food they need to survive and a way to generate income. Mosquito nets are also provided for families as they begin the program to avoid malaria. They are also given purifying tablets for their water. Communities that have been with the program for five years are then usually so improved, families are willing and have the means to buy the tablets and nets (which last about five years) themselves.
The Childrens Club within Care for Life is where the CFL volunteers (me and my group) teach children crafts: book bags, weaving projects, and help to build machessas (a covered community hall) where sewing and weaving skills are taught and practiced. We will also help build benches for the machesas After teaching this afternoon in Subida (a CFL community in the program for 24 months) we had fun playing games with the kids who throng us, especially when we take their pictures and then show them. Some of them have never seen themselves before. I will try and attach some pictures I took while there today.
