Young Africa - Week 4

Wrapping up our time in Mozambique, we painted Our Lady of Peace Parish and planned our final exhibition.

The orphanage was in need of a new coat of paint on the outside. Unfortunately it rained really heavily on Monday so we had to cut it short, but we got the kitchen finished and then spent the next two good days painting the outside. It made a huge difference and the place looks much brighter now.

Back on campus, we put together Wednesday’s exhibition and performances. We decided to do the Siege of Ennis with the girls, but realised that none of us knew exactly how it goes so it became a sort of hybrid ‘Siege of Beira’ dance! Most of the volunteers had to learn their one-two-threes from scratch, and the Mozambican hostel girls really gave them a run for their money in terms of perfecting the steps!

On the day of the exhibition, all the rehearsals paid off and the dance went down really well. We also held a fashion show of the Tshirts we had decorated, sang a few Irish and African songs, explained the concept of the canvas, and made speeches in Portuguese. We finished the show with the Portuguese song and dance we learned at the training days, and were delighted that the audience all joined in. There was a great buzz surrounding the day, and it really highlighted our achievements since arriving in Young Africa.

That night, the girls cooked for us and we had what could probably be described as a leaving party. It was an emotional evening, as it is always hard to say goodbye to people who have come to be close friends. The following day was spent packing up and cleaning the huts, although we got one last goodbye song before the girls went to bed and we headed off to the bus. It seems that there is a song for every occasion in Mozambique, and it is such a great feeling to be sung to by a group of young Africans!

Our long bus trip back to Maputo wasn’t without its glitches but we got there eventually. On our last day we met Fr. Esteban who showed us around the Xipamanine area of Maputo. We could really see the big difference between rural and urban areas of Mozambique. Even though the month is over, our relationships with the people we’ve met will continue into the future, hopefully some of us will even get to visit them again.

Thank you so much to everybody in Young Africa for giving us such a great experience!

Young Africa - Week 3

Our third week is over and we are becoming quite aware that our time is running out! We have finished our work in Munhava Orphanage. They invited us back for a morning of face painting and balloon modelling, as well as a few thank you songs and more of their amazing dance moves! For many of us this has been the highlight so far, as we got to see how our work puts smiles on the faces of the staff and kids of Munhava, and how we are really appreciated. We found it difficult enough to keep up with all that energy so early in the morning, but it was well worth it!

On the Young Africa campus this week we have been working on building Machesas, which are study huts with thatched roofs and concrete table and seats underneath. It is nice to be getting out and about on the campus, getting to know the guys who work and study here. Through a mix of English, Portuguese and Shona we are managing to have a laugh and form friendships while working. Relationships really are as important as the actual work on this trip, as getting to know the locals personally makes our time here much richer.

The hostel arts project is pretty much wrapped up, and the hostel girls have a created a beautiful canvas which will be brought back to Ireland for exhibition before returning to Young Africa in Mozambique. The canvas, like the circles project last week, is focussed on the past and present. Through images of flowers, each individual girl has outlined who she is, where she has come from, and where she is going. Because of the language barrier at first it felt as if the concept would be a difficult one to get across, but it worked out wonderfully and it is great to be able to read all about their aspirations. There are future business women, teachers, doctors, activists and lawyers in the hostel, and we are lucky to have met them.

Raj took some of us to visit the future site of the next Young Africa project in Dondo, not too far from the campus in Manga. We got a glimpse of his vision of a future agricultural college, as well as meeting some local small farmers who were very interesting to listen to. It is great that we have got to see so many different aspects to the area, as well as getting some insight into how sustainable development can work.

It is strange to be heading into our final week of work, knowing that we will be on the plane back to Ireland very soon!

Young Africa - Week 2

Our second week in Young Africa is over and all of us have well and truly gotten stuck in. Our time in the carpentry workshop is finished, with a nice few benches completed for the school nearby. Our painting of the local Munhava orphanage has come on in leaps and bounds. The refectory is now covered in colourful murals of fruit and vegetables, on top of a sky blue background which makes the room so much more bright and welcoming for the kids. We still have to paint the dorms and classroom, so hopefully by the end of next week the orphanage will be colourful and suitable for the smiling kids who welcome us so much every morning. Everybody takes the chance to spend some time playing with the children from the orphanage and adjoining crèche before we start work. They love to have new people to entertain them, and it’s impossible not to enjoy it. It’s keeping up with their energy in the heat of the morning that is difficult!

We have also made an excellent start on the hostel arts project. The three artists in the group have taken on the task of teaching the girls who live on campus the basic skills and techniques of art. The rest of us are learning as much as the girls are, as we help them with their projects and contribute some of our own too! Each girl and volunteer decorated a t-shirt with all manner of colours and sequins. Later we drew and painted on paper circles, with each person adding them to their own piece of string with additional discs outlining where they’ve come from and their hopes for the future. This is a great exercise for the girls, and is in keeping with Young Africa’s approach to development. It is great to see them writing about their aspirations of finishing their education and seeking careers. The feedback on the project so far from the girls has been very positive, and we can see their confidence in their work growing every day.

 Our own education has been an important factor in our time here too. We have been divided into groups of three to present chapters from the 80:20 development education book. There have been laughs at the methods which some of us have used to present the information, but this hasn’t taken away from the seriousness of the issues we have been discussing. Everybody appreciates the chance to learn and discuss such important issues as women’s rights, ethical consumption and HIV. The discussions don’t end when the presentations do; we are taking the knowledge and chatting and thinking about it in our day-to-day lives. Vernom, who has joined us from Zimbabwe and will be working with us for the rest of our time here, has proven to be an invaluable source of first-hand information about the developing world. His presence has really added a new dynamic to the group, as well as having an extra person to laugh with and have the craic with on our down time!

Our daily Purtuguese lessons are still going strong every morning with Monica and Fatima from the hostel. It’s only a half an hour after breakfast but it is benefitting everybody. We are finding it easier to chat with the people who live and work here, as well as helping the two girls realise that they have something important to offer us too.

We had the chance to visit Rio Savanne on our weekend off. The beach there is pristine, and at night you can see the Milky Way and the sky is full of shooting stars. It was a surreal experience, and we managed to see a field full of wild monkeys which you can imagine was quite a sight for a minibus full of SERVE volunteers. We’ve also been in to the centre of Beira to look around the town and the craft market. It’s good to get out of the Young Africa campus and see what else is happening in the area.

Having said goodbye to our esteemed leader Chris, we are all very aware that we are now halfway through our project. Next week will bring some more physical work in the form of building study huts, so we’re looking forward to seeing how that goes!

Tchau!

All the SERVE team in Young Africa.

Young Africa - Week One

So this is Young Africa! On our first night here we were treated to welcoming songs performed by the 12 girls who live full time in the on-campus hostel. Although we couldn’t understand the words, or repay them by singing a few tunes as Gaeilge, it was the perfect antidote to the 17 hour bus journey we had just endured. Our first week as volunteers on the Young Africa campus was a busy one. We had all been looking forward to meeting the founders, Raj and Dorien, and they didn’t disappoint. They are such interesting, engaging people who instantly welcomed us into what has essentially been their home for the last four years. In just one week we have begun to see how their approach to development works.

We had the honour of attending the graduation ceremony on Friday, when over 200 students were presented with certificates in skills such as carpentry, mechanics, computer repairs, cookery and beauty therapy. The buzz around the place was a testament to the hard work put in by all students, teachers and staff over the last year. We hear so much about how education is key in developing countries, so it was great to see some positivity and success in this area.

Saturday’s Copa do Mundo 2010, Young Africa’s World Cup tournament, turned out to be a much larger affair than we’d ever imagined. An array of football teams made up of young people from Manga and surrounding areas descended upon the campus on Saturday morning and brought with them cheers, excitement and dancing. My God, the dancing! It’s a surreal experience to see hundreds of children, with no possessions bar the clothes on their backs, smiling so broadly and dancing so heartily to Wave the Flag… literally all day long. They made us feel so welcome as we threw ourselves into dancing, balloon modeling and face painting, to such delight. While this was going on, the main purpose of the day, football matches, were taking place.

SERVE were well represented with a male team, and a female team which included some of the hostel girls. Congratulations to the girls, who came third in their competition. I feel obliged to tell you, however, that there were only four teams. Still, they managed to score in every match and even win one, whereas your male representatives finished without so much as a goal between them. Ah well, it’s the taking part that matters, right lads...?

On Sunday we attended a mass, which didn’t disappoint in terms of hand clapping and singing. The hostel girls were proud to show off their old orphanage to us, it is good to see that they still have happy ties to their childhoods.

We are being fed twice daily in Magico, the public restaurant on campus run by locals, Gift and Manoso, and incorporating the cookery school of Young Africa. If you are somebody who gets anxious at the thoughts of eating meals in a place as foreign as Mozambique, you needn’t worry. We have been treated to some of the best food of our lives here. They are not afraid to experiment with food from varying cultures, and cater to anybody’s individual needs.

The rest of the week was filled with painting flags and a banner in preparation for the football, cutting the grass on the pitch with hand-held choppers, a bit of carpentry, playing with the kids in the crèche, development education, some itchy mosquito bites, more dancing and Portuguese lessons with the hostel girls.

We have learned to be open to anything, to be prepared to do things we hadn’t originally expected, and to enjoy every moment of the experience. We have met so many new people, and somehow formed relationships despite the language barrier. The next three weeks will probably go by way too fast, and so we’ll have to make the most of it, learning, experiencing, and having some fun while we’re at it.

Atè logo!

Lindsay, Donna, Catherine, Emily, Nick, Cathal, John, Kieran and Francois.

>> SERVE in Mozambique

>> View the tour of the Young Africa campus, by the 2009 SERVE volunteers