Face to face with poverty...

I have just had the most painful lunch ever... In my whole life. I try not to burst into tears while writing this and, to be honest, it took some minutes to regain balance again. It is difficult to describe, and it is even more difficult to imagine. You have to FEEL it. FACE it...

Today (23 of August) is a one year anniversary of Escola de Professores do Futuro Tete (the college where I am going to work for the next six months). There are a lot of guests and important governmental representatives. But also the people from closest communities came to see the event with all the cultural activities and... to get food. When it was already lunch time, the guests were sitted in a dining hall with chairs, tables, plates, forks and knifes, and food. Our school is still under construction, so the teachers including us (me and my collegue from Germany Vimalo) had to eat outside. We were leaning against the wall of the dining hall with the plate full of food in our hands, and in front of us were few rows of kids, maybe twenty of them, maybe even forty. Looking at us, watching while we are eating. With every next spoon of food I felt guilty I have this food in my plate. This was not eyes of one hungry child, it was at least forty hungry eyes watching every piece of food you put in your mouth. I am sorry, maybe I am exagerrating... But seeing these rows of hungry children was too much for me. I felt terrible. I could not finish eating. I had to hide somewhere inside, where I would not see them and still.... I felt awful...

Finally, I have asked if it is ok to give the rest of my food to these kids (I also saw that other grown ups were doing so). And it was even more painful.... They rushed to the plate I was reaching out as a bunch of starving dogs for the bones... The plate was on the ground and seven or eight kids were holding a pinch of rice each...

From the time I stepped into Mozambique I have been seeing things that were not surprising me, that I was expecting to see, and actually, the poverty did not seem to be so visible and as big as I have expected it to be. But today I faced it. I faced the poverty of Mozambique. And I did what the reach countries do - I dropped the leftovers from my plate. The leftovers that does not make any change. Leftovers that made me feel miserable and ridiculuos.