My Trip to Moxico and Angolan History - DAY 2
Jojo arrived this morning with two Priests of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. A Portuguese, Father Ornelas, and an Italian living in Mozambique, Father Onorio. I met them at breakfast. Jojo presented me as his spiritual sister (Maria is his godmother) and said I was living in France. Well, all started from there. What was I doing in there, how did I like it, etc. The Sacred Heart has a congregation back in Montpellier. I might look more about it, we never know…
I really find the life here at The Bishopric interesting. We manage to talk for endless hours about everything. From politics to history, from the Bible to travel tales. It’s such a sane life! The breakfast went till 10 AM, and in no time, we had to eat again… As Maria says, we are going to get fatter if this keeps this way…
We went to visit Our Lady of the Victories where Father Estevão and Father Abílio (Benedictan priests), two Portuguese have been living there for over 40 years! In the middle of nowhere! Can you imagine? They only have the Church, a dozen houses and then, around, nothing! The wild!
They asked Maria and I if we spoke Portuguese. “We are Angolan!” go figure! Of course, my Portuguese is bad! Terrible! Sometimes I hope that people around me speak more than a language to understand… So, I don’t speak! Be silent, my child!
We went back at The Bishopric for lunch. Maria is always asking Jojo if he has already eaten when he is in Luanda. He works so much, that someone has to watch over him, really. He is my big brother. Just like my older brothers Mário, Otto and Carlos. He was eating well and Maria said she was glad to see him this way, smiley, happy and in shape. He doesn’t like life in Luanda, so he gets depressed in that city! He replied, “I haven’t eaten”. I started laughing so loud! Maria asked what was wrong. How could I say that his breakfast at 10 AM was bread with a steak and mayo? The look he gave me made laugh even more. In other words, that wasn’t a real breakfast. I said: “Geez, Jojo! We ate together and you say you haven’t eaten?" Poor thing!
D. Gabriel, Father Onorio, Father Ornelas, Maria and I went to visit a few refugees’ camps around Lwena.
The bushes: Angola is such a huge country! So beautiful! I have met the real bushes! The wild, wild life of this country. The long roads, half sand, half pitch, are endless. They remind me of those images we watched from Rwanda during the war. Thousands of refugees followed those miles to somewhere else. A long orange/red road between two green areas. The roads are beautiful, but the images and the history of it are scary and sad…
Kilometres from here, there was a camp where NGOs were taking care of the landmines. Full of landmines, I am so afraid for those children. They walk around with no supervision…
As long as we crossed the savannah, hundreds of children would wave and shout "Chindele! Chindele!" It means, “White people” in Tchokwé, the local Bantu language. D. Gabriel says that White people around here are novelty for them, although there are the Red Cross and United Nations camps around here.
For Maria and I, we are foreigners to them too, anyways. Not only do we come from Luanda, but we are Mixed. It’s rare to see other than Black people here. “We” (Mixed) are only 13% of the global population, so there is no reason to get astonished by the fact. But we are Angolan. We are brothers. I hope they understand this.
The huts (houses) in the camps are made of earth and straw. Now it’s the dry season, what will happen when the rain starts and the rivers flood? D. Gabriel says that the refugees don’t want to build real houses (with bricks and cement) because they are afraid they won’t leave the area. They live under human conditions, only a room for families that have more than 4 children. They keep on giving birth. As D. Gabriel says “they have nothing else to do. No electricity, no TV, no radio, no nothing! So they do babies!”
Around the camps of the Bundas and the Luchazes (the two main ethnics), there are the military camps. The war is over, so they stay in the country to avoid going to the cities. To avoid confusion. Some are the terror of the camps next door – and God forbid – I am afraid to think that many of those girls in those camps have at least one child of those soldiers. They can become very violent. Homemade alcohol from sugar is in vogue. The famous “Caporroto”. A kind of brandy…you tell! They are done in the back of the huts.
Even in time of hunger, we tend to find happiness elsewhere…
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