23/05/10

Today Rita, the Portuguese volunteer, and I took 20 of the girls to Yvette and John’s at Tsene Lagoa. Yvette had a whole day of swimming and horses planned, with an emphasis on learning about these things as they were doing them. John and Yvette have 4 dogs that are really friendly, unlike Mozambican dogs, especially the dogs we have here at the mission, but I had forgotten that some of the girls would be scared of them. Yvette offered to put the dogs away for the day, but Rita and I agreed that we wanted the girls to learn that dogs can be friendly and even playful, that they don’t all threaten to attack and bite. I am sure that the girls have never seen dogs before that were friendly and even wanted to play (even my friendly dog during training had never been played with, when I picked up a stick to play fetch with him he thought I was going to hit him with it). Two of the girls (about 10 years old) burst into tears whenever the dogs would come near, but by the end of the day they were completely fine around them and the rest of the girls were loving getting to pet and play with them.
We had a snack when we arrived and then went down to the ocean. It was an chilly, overcast, and windy day, so it didn’t even cross my mind that the girls would want to swim. I should know better by now. The beach was covered in crabs so the girls immediately set off trying to catch them, determined that we would be having crab for dinner. As they started venturing closer and closer to the waves their pants started to get wet, so they asked if they could take their pants off. After another 20 minutes of girls accidentally getting too far in and soaked by a big wave, one girl asked if she could take her shirt off too and next thing all the girls were running around in their underwear. After another 30 minutes one girl said she had gotten sand in her underwear, so could she take them off to wash them—next thing we had 20 naked girls running around the beach. We could have stayed out much longer if it were not for a cloud burst that sent everyone running for their clothes. Some of the girls complained that their clothes were wet when we told them that they had to redress before going back to the house, no they couldn’t walk back naked. Rita and I rolled our eyes, well maybe you should have thought about that before you ran into the ocean fully dressed.
We returned to the main house for lunch and a fire was made for the girls to warm up around and dry their clothes. Without being prompted the girls all cleared their own stuff away and four of the girls even washed all of the dishes. I think the two maids were pretty taken aback, but certainly not complaining. Yvette gave all the girls large construction paper and markers to draw and they all ended up making cards for Yvette, telling her thank you, how much they had enjoyed their day so far and how they wished they could stay forever.
Our last activity before having to leave was with the horses, though we didn’t have much time which was a shame. Yvette talked a little bit about horses and then each girl (and all wanted to except one girl) got to sit bareback on one and got led around for a couple minutes. Some of the girls were terrified, but they loved it. Animals in Mozambique are treated and though of very differently than in America, so it was wonderful for these girls to see these huge creatures not as scary or simply a future meal, but as intelligent, feeling creatures—our friends even.
Even though it was chilly as the sun set and we returned home in the bed of a large truck, most of the girls curled up for nap, completely exhausted.