They Call Me... Coon-ya

I’m now back in Maputo after a 35 hour bus ride this weekend. I’ve got a busy few days followed by my trip back to the states. There are so many things I want to write about but there are only so many hours in my day.

The best part about this trip, just as the last, was my time spent observing the kids. This trip was different in that we had more kids around… and they were always around. I think in part because the yard wasn’t torn up from septic work and we have more land now for the kids to run around.

Neighborhood kids at church with us.

The neighborhood kids were there most days… all day. They even sat in on our nightly family time. I know nothing of the home lives of these children and so it was neat to watch them sing and pray with our children.  

One night Pedro came to my door and told Nunu that the community kids were being disrespectful and misbehaving, he told them they couldn’t come to the Center the next day. The next day Pedro told Nunu that the children had apologized for what they had done and he was allowing them to come back in. This kid cracks me up!

Pedro can run but he can't hide... he was trying to avoid my camera!

Last year Pedro and I had problems because he got really jealous when I gave other boys attention… so he was constantly mad at me. This year I think he only got mad at me once, it made my time there so much easier. Last year on many occasions Pedro would get very upset at the other boys as well… someone was constantly provoking him. But the thing is they are a bunch of boys… brothers really… they all provoke each other. It’s been so awesome to see how much he has grown in this area, I don’t even know how to describe it other than to say that he just handles himself better.

Pedro overseeing the Neighborhood kids
who helped us clean up the yard. 

This year the neighborhood children noticed me a lot more. Some of them learned my name from our kids and would shout at me and wave when I was walking from the bus. While other kids would just shout “Coon-ya” which means white person in Macua. Even though Nigel is white, he is tan and I guess since there haven’t been many white people around… the kids just notice me more.

We have two toddlers on our street right now and their older brothers hang out at our Center, so many days these little toddlers wonder in. There is a little girl whose name is something like Alfie. The first time Alfie saw me in the Center she started to cry and turned around and left. She eventually warmed up to me, or at least to being in the same space as me. But there is a little boy who at the sight of me starts crying and turns to leave.

Alfie after she had warmed to me a bit. 

I'm such a sucker for these little ones!

One day the yard was pretty empty and I was just sitting on my step. The little boy was in the yard with 1 or 2 older kids. The older kids left and the little boy was fine… until he realized he as alone with me! I was 10 feet away from him but I could see the horror in his eyes as he started crying and trying to figure out what to do. I called Pedro over. Pedro picked him up and he stopped crying… I tired to explain to Pedro that he was afraid of me, so Pedro stepped closer to me and the boy started to cry again. Pedro laughed and stepped away and the little boy stopped.

It’s so crazy, but can you imagine living in a world where everyone has the same skin color as you? Imagine being a child, how would you react if a green person showed up next door. If you were little you would probably be scared and if you were a little older you would probably be curious and you would probably stare. I just wish I knew how to make these little kids not so afraid of me. I guess like all things… it just takes time.

Prayer Request:

- My eyes. I had pink eye in my right eye about 2 weeks ago and then I got it in my left eye (I caught it early, so it wasn't nearly as bad). Today I noticed that my right eye is a little more blood shot than normal. My eyes are really sensitive to the sun, so it's hard for me to go without sunglasses and in order to wear sun glasses I have to wear my contacts. When I get pink eye I throw the ones I'm wearing away, do my best to clean out my contact case and I don't wear contacts until my eye is normal. But I'm wondering now if it's the case that is causing my problems. Today is the last day I really need to wear contacts so I am. I have a little bit of my drops left. I'm praying that I don't get a really bad case of Pink Eye while on an airplane.

- I'm also about to go to a meeting with Pastor Filipe, the man who we are working with to coordinate a small building on our land in Ponta. Pray that we can come to agree on a building that is in our budget as we only have about $1,500 USD to work with and we only have today to get things figured out.