Paulo’s Home Visit

We left the baby house early Saturday morning, with Paulo dressed in his best clothes ready to visit his father’s house for the first time in his life. I wasn’t really sure how far of a trip it was going to be, but was under the impression that it would take a good majority of our day to complete the traveling.

It has been a lot of fun to share these experiences with my friend Christie from back home. She loves the new experiences about as much as I do, and for that I am grateful. Many times during this day trip, we found ourselves in situations that made us laugh out loud at the absurdity of our circumstance. It has been such a blessing to have a good friend to share these times with, and also easier to get people to believe these unbelievable situations that we find ourselves experiencing.

As we squeezed into our first chapa ride of many for the day, we headed south from the city of Maputo. It was a long ride to area called Boane, which I had never been, while here in Mozambique. It was far enough away from the city, that we had a hard time getting a cell phone signal, and it was also noticeable that life was even simpler in this area than in the city. We then arranged a ride in the back of a pickup with 35-40 of our closest friends. It ended up that because Christie and I had baby Paulo with us that we rode in the cab of the truck for this 2 and ½ hour ride.

After waiting for about 45 minutes for the driver to round up the other travelers needing a ride down this long road, we finally left this small village. It was soon very clear to us that even though it had been 2 days since it had rained, this road was still very muddy and some would say possibly impassable. These people that would make such bold statements are obviously not from Africa, much less Mozambique.

If you can imagine a minimum maintenance road in the States that has been closed because of a flood washing out the majority of the road, and the part that is left is thick, wet mud and water. Take that image and put it in the middle of nowhere, so that if you do happen to get stuck there isn’t much hope of getting out, unless you walk yourself out to the nearest town many miles away. This was the situation that Christie and I found ourselves in, and we both were having the time of our life. I found myself looking at her and thinking, “I can’t believe that I am in Africa driving toward the Swaziland border in the middle of the nowhere, I can’t see civilization in any direction that I look, and I am sharing this experience with a great friend. Can it get any better than this?”

The drive was long in distance and also in length of time. It was very slow at times because of the road conditions, but miraculously our driver got us through and to the last stop on his route which was as close as a vehicle could take us to where Paulo’s dad lives.

We started to ask around, talking to the locals, trying to find out if they knew where Paulo’s dad lived, and it soon became clear to me, that my fearless translator Luis had forgotten Paulo’s dad’s name. Here we are now, seven hours drive from home and we don’t even know the name of the man that we are trying to track down. For anyone that know my friend and translator Luis, this is not out of character for him to do things like this, and I love him for it, because it gives me things to tease him about. As we continued to talk to the people of this remote village, one of the guys thought that he knew who we were looking for, and agreed to walk with us out to where he thought the man lived.

We walked down this road for at least two miles and as walked we teased Luis about the snake that had slithered out of the tree we were standing close to in the village. He panicked, screamed a little, and ran away faster than any of the men and more importantly women that were standing in our circle under the tree. His story of what happened differs greatly from Christie and my memory of how it happened, but I think that our version is more accurate and much more entertaining.
As we neared where the man helping us said that he thought Paulo’s dad lived, I saw a man in a full suit walking down this red dirt road toward us. As he got about 50 feet from us, I told Christie and Luis, that I thought that I recognized him from his visits to the house to see Paulo, and I was almost positive that it was his father. I took Paulo and walked toward the man who stood in disbelief that we had really traveled all of the way out to his village, with his son, to visit him. He stood there, obviously dressed in his best clothes, and it was obvious then that this was a really important to him that his son had finally come to visit him.
For those that aren’t familiar, Paulo joined the rest of the children at the baby house last summer, when his mother abandoned him. His father found out shortly after, but wasn’t able to provide adequate paper work or housing to convince social welfare to allow him to take Paulo. Paulo’s father, George is a neat man, who obviously cares a lot for his first-born son, but can’t provide for himself, much less his boy. I am so glad that I have the opportunity to be a part of what the baby house continues to do for these children and their families.

As we sat in front of this man’s house and he sat with Paulo in his arms, not much was said, but it was obvious that what was happening was good, and I really enjoyed just being able to sit there and be a part of this man’s joy. He sat and just enjoyed having his boy on his lap, being able to hold him while sitting in front of his home.

As the time approached and we need to leave in order to be able to get back to the baby house that same day, we all walked the two miles back to where the pickup had dropped us off. Paulo’s father carried him the entire way, and it was so obvious of how proud he was of his son. Everyone that we passed wanted to see the boy, and when we finally got back to the little village, he showed Paulo off to everyone that was sitting around the tree.

After standing for 30 minutes or so, a mini-bus came by and we were able to catch a ride back to the main road. This driver went so fast on this road that was in such a poor condition. We made the trip in ½ the time that our ride to the village had taken. The ride was so bumpy and included Luis laughing at Christie and I as we were airborne multiple times throughout the ride with Paulo in our arms trying to keep his head protected from hitting the ceiling and windows of the bus. When that ride was finish, we were able to get right on another larger bus at the stop that was packed to past the maximum occupancy, and made really good time back to the city of Maputo.As we were walking home at the end of the day Christie and I were processing through our day and how much we love these “African” experiences. The part that we love the most about it is these situations would be so outlandish in our homeland of the United States, but are everyday norms for the locals of Mozambique. It isn’t out of the question to squeeze 60-70 people in a bus that has a posted capacity of 26 people. It isn’t hard for the people of Mozambique to imagine driving down a washed out, muddy road in a two-wheel drive mini-bus, but most Americans wouldn’t attempt to travel down this same road in the strongest SUV that money could buy in the States. We both love the fact that we are able to have these experiences with the people of Mozambique. Life is good.