The plan is to organize an exhibition of the art created by the children at Muodjo. Potential benefactors will visit that display of the streetkids’ interesting drawings and might chip in. So Oswaldo and I take a bus to the city and look for materials. Since we can’t find them, we end up hanging out in the German cultural center where I talk to the local coordinator of DED. He seems interested in our story but of course doubts if we can organize it all by ourselves, “bypassing” as we call it, bulky bureaucracies.
It is a lazy day let me not pretend otherwise. Oswaldo takes me around Maputo a bit more and shows me a ruined grand colonial house. As I observe the dilapidated balconies I see a few children sneak into the building.
“They live here” Oswaldo explains.
Yes, they do, and now they come to ask us for something to eat. My friend gives them a few Meticaisand we continue. Even though I haven’t actually seen the living condition of Maputo’s street children, their sleeping places, their diet, abuse, sickness, I understand they are not living happy lives.
Oswaldo used to live on the streets himself, before he was rescued from the streets and brought up by missionaries. He was a good student and went on to study musicology, and actually earned a degree. Many of the projects at Muodjo involve traditional instruments from Mocambique or Zimbabwe.
February 3. Streetkids.
