dangerous presence

This is what I miss most: being hugged by an older woman, a grandma, a mother. This doesn't ever happen here. Sara and I hug sometimes: mostly this is me grabbing her by the waist if she passes near my desk and resting my head on her belly. She lets me do this, sometimes strokes my hair, and I appreciate it very much.

But that's about it. Mozambique is a two-kiss culture thanks to 400 years of Portuguese colonization: you know, those very-European air kisses on either side of a person's face. It can be tricky. Ideally, one's cheeks do not actually touch doing this and definitely your lips should not make contact with any skin. (Someday I will tell a super embarrassing story about one of these greetings gone madly wrong. I am blushing even now. Agony.) Hugging is not common here, especially American-style bear hugs. I grew up with lots of hugs and I miss them. I miss them from older women. 

I sat next to just such an older woman in church today. Mama Isabel arrived late and plopped herself beside and slightly on top of me, toward the back where all the mothers sit (plus me). She is short and really big, softness and flowers, with a wild blue pattern on her muumuu today and those awful, comfortable old-lady shoes (tan); peering down at me, smiling at the odd white girl, through gold-rimmed glasses that don't quite reach behind her ears. She's all warmth and bigness, Mama Isabel.

We remained that way the whole service, me under and pressed up against her large brown arms in the too-narrow pews. It was all I could do not to reach my free arm over across to her opposite shoulder (if it would reach) and simply cling on, just lean into her and rest.

But I did not. Instead I soaked in her presence there beside me, tried to be content with my elbow comfortingly wedged beside her ample waist. She reminds me too much of my grandmother and her church friends down in rural Oklahoma, Lutheran women also big and warm, wearing floral spring prints, such unfashionably sensible shoes, steady, no-nonsense.

I am very hungry for safe love right now.

Maybe it was an important precursor to my afternoon, those few moments with Mama Isabel. After the service ended, I walked blinking back out into the bright afternoon and starting kicking up dust as I made my way back home. Mae Pastora - the young pastor's wife, who is also a pastor - was just behind me and ran to catch up with me. She is so kind to me, always, when most of the time I have no idea what is going on. 

At this point, I'm going to simply paste in the chat I had with my dear high school friend Danny. I don't have it in me to recreate this afternoon's events.

3:22 PMme: hican you talk a sec?danny: yes.

me: can you skype?

danny: no.

:( sorry.

3:23 PM

can we type?

me: sure

i just got back from... craziness

danny: ?

me: i went to church this morning

3:24 PM i go to this church here in town, its a nice church, nazarene. i'm the only white person.

me: i go by myself. i'm usually confused as to what is going on, but i like the people. its a good church.

after the service, i left right away.

3:25 PM and the pastor's wife, she was walking too, so we walked together

she is young, only 24

but really great

very quiet and sincere, sort of intense

i like her

we were walking and she was saying some stuff about this funeral she was on her way to, etc., and about this little girl who needed prayer for her eye, etc. etc. i couldn't understand it well.

3:26 PM and then she invited me to come with her. and i said, ok, even though i had no idea what we were really doing

and we went over to her parent's house. and prayed for a sick lady lying on the floor, i'm not sure why, that was fine.

then she served me lunch. that was fine.

3:27 PM then we got in the car with her father, who is a pastor and runs this quite large HIV ministry. that was fine, but i had no idea what we were doing.

danny: (i'm getting really nervous)

me: then we drive and visit a few different HIV orphan centers that he runs. i wasn't really sure why he was showing it all to me, but i asked lots of questions, etc.

it was pretty nice. i was interested.

its my job actually.

so - then we drive way the heck out of town. like the middle of nowhere.

3:28 PM seriously. it was... like barren africa.

and we are driving to this other center they have and we get there and its like one tiny little mud brick house in the midst of this huge savanna expanse. some orphans live there with some "substitute moms" (as they call them). just a few kids.

its like... TOTALLY middle of nowhere.

nothing.

3:29 PM just.... grass.

and then there is a little figure sitting on the veranda with a cloth over her whole head

i still don't know what is going on

and they say, this is the little girl who needs prayer

she is HIV+. her mom is too, still alive, but barely.

and so the girl lives at this little house

3:30 PM and i didn't know why she had the cloth over her head

and they said: she is always sick. always. (from the HIV of course)

she was tiny. like a tiny little deer

and

they said that she'd had some problems with her eye.

3:31 PM and somebody had paid for her to have an operation at the central hospital in Beira. which is about 3 hours away. its a total dump. a very scary place.

and the operation went badly and her eye was lost and she's been for a couple of years continually going to the local hospital here but they just keep kicking her out, don't let her stay there. they can't really do anything for her i guess. they just tell her to take her meds at home. so, that's the background.

and so then we pray for her.

3:32 PM and then they pull the cloth off, and she looks up at me.

and i swear, danny, half of her face was an open pussy sore, all infection.

it was all deformed.

like her entire face was an infection, green.

her eye was enormous

the one she lost

it had swollen, taken over her face and it was just an enormous gaping pussy hole in her head

3:33 PM and it had spread to her mouth

and basically her whole face. she didn't look even remotely human.

she didn't make a sound.

they just covered her up again. to keep the flies off of it.

she is 6 years old.

and she has like no emotion - i mean, obviously has it but its like she is dead already, makes no response. i can't imagine the pain.

she is tiny

3:34 PM and she lives her life under the cloth

in the middle of nowhere

and no one talks to heror touches her, from what i could see
and she reeks, from the infection
her mother is nowhere to be seen, dying herself in some hutthe little child just slumped over again

and they put a bowl of rice under her cloth

and they said there isn't anything they can do

3:35 PM the hospital won't take her in anymore

and i swear, she is going to die with a face like that

it was one of the most grotesque things i've ever seen.

and i've seen a lot.

she is only six

and i wanted to take her in my arms and pull her away from there forever.

that's what i saw this afternoon. just now. i just got back.

3:36 PM danny: horrendous

me: i'm done typing now

danny: i don't even know what to say.

me: i don't either

i'm going to call my friend who is a nurse and see if she can come with me back there tomorrow

i don't know. its so crazy.

3:37 PM danny: man.

me: thats all. i just needed to talk to someone.

I did call Jacqui, who runs the baby clinic I've been working at. She listened patiently to me and, amazing woman she is, immediately said that she'd meet me tomorrow morning at 8:30 AM, with  avisiting friend who is a nurse. I asked her to bring some meds, whatever she has around, antibiotics, antiseptic, bandages, painkiller, anything. She replied, in her soft, rounded Afrikaaner-accent: "Right-o. See ya tomorrow, Brooke."

I am so relieved. It's something. That little girl, whose name I cannot remember now, defies words to describe. What she needs, like me but a million times over, is safe love, Mama Isabel, fat brown arms to scoop her up, hold her, just make everything okay.