My eyes are full

My eyes are full. Weary of images of suffering and selfishness. I don’t recognize my country in the images on TV. Maybe I’ve been away too long, but I don’t remember the callousness, the intense and relentless pursuit of self-interest, the distrust, the hair-trigger resort to violence. From the images on CNN, it doesn’t look like a country I’d choose to move back too--it looks like a disorganized, segregated, badly run police state. I am reminded of my white privilege here much more frequently than back home, maybe because a fish generally doesn’t think too often about the water it breathes. Cleveland, with its segregation and divisions, is like an aquarium. You can swim around for awhile some days before coming to the glass wall. Africa is more like a goldfish bowl. But some goldfish get so acclimated they even forget the bowl. I’ve seen it with expats here and now I recognize it in my own shock over the images from New Orleans. What else could possibly be the fruit of all the seeds we’ve sown? How could we not have expected this? I can only hope the images of New Orleans make more people aware of the fishbowl, but in my experience, those that deny its existence it can almost never be convinced.

Here, life goes on as always, or not. At a friend’s 30th birthday party last week, her brother began his toast to her by noting what an accomplishment it is, in this day and age in Mozambique, to even make it to 30.

Josina's Birthday

I visited an outlying rural health center about 5 hours by car from my house. Twenty-one women in the last days of their pregnancies are packed into a bare cement block building, “the house of expecting women,” sleeping on woven mats and cooking on open fires outside. No electricity, no running water. They come from hours or days away and patiently wait alone for the contractions to come so they can make it to the adjacent hospital in time for the birth.

"Casa de maes espera" =

House of expecting/waiting/hoping women

It’s getting to be the rough part of the dry season. Water is scarce but the rains are still two months away, so it’s far too early to start hoping yet. The goal is simply to get through to the next day. Expectations are low and no one even imagines being rescued.