Friday, October 30, 2009

In Khongoloti

This week I'm about a 2 hour walk away from the Zimpeto base at a Children's center called Khongoloti. There are approximately 30 children here. I think I will like it here much better than Zimpeto. Since they're in the middle of construction I get to actually do something. Although even here it's hard to convince them that I capable of work. Nobody seems used to visitors who work, just the ones that give away money and gifts. I think Iris is probably living off the commerce coming from Christian Tourism, where Christians come to see the miraculous going-ons of Heidi Baker's ministry and of course want to be apart any way they can, which is usually just financially. The people at Zimpeto pretend to disdain this Christian tourism, but the truth is they thrive on it. The kids are especially prudent, they are worse than touts, instead of selling taxis and buses and hotels for a little something off the top, they are selling a relationship with a real-life African orphan in exchange for cell phones, mp3 players, musical instruments, and all-expenses-paid vacations at their new-found friend's house in the western world. The adults are almost just as bad. Sharon, one of the 'hospitality' staff, was sitting at a lunch table with me and some of the boys from 'her' comarada and we were talking about the possible events of the day, one of which happened to be watching a movie in the 'library'. Somewhere she says to me 'gosh I sure do love my comarada, we've got to get a tv in there sometime though, oh I just wish. (She makes like watching a movie in the library were a rather arduous ordeal and I originally thought maybe it was in a different part of town or something where we had to drive or walk the kids, like the swimming pool or something, but it turned out the 'library' was just one of the classrooms on campus) Then she says to the boys, you guys just wait till we get a donation, once we get a donation I'll get you guys a tv. The whole thing was just so blatantly a plug. I'm not really dissing them though, If I were in their place I'd more than likely be doing the same sort of stuff, although hopefully with better aimed discretion, so all the more power to them, I hope they get all their heart's desires. All I know is that it sucks to be in a position where people expect you to give them stuff. I can't help feeling that my potential for relationship is doomed by the certain disappointment of the other person's expectations. Yes, it’s a nice fucking ipod. No, you can't fucking have it. I fail to see how it should make you any happier than it currently does me; and even if I could see it, I'd probably still say no just because of the way it makes me feel when you eye my shit like a vulture waiting for my sense of propriety to die under the weight of the steadily increasing guilt of having shit that other people don't have. Yes, I'm aware that in most perceivable aspects, my life is far more desirable than yours. This is something that we both have to deal with. I have to decide just how uncomfortable I am with our disparancies and just what I'm willing to do about them. You, in turn, must figure out how to live a good life despite it all. And yes, I realize too that it is part of your job in this game of mutual existence to make me uncomfortable by raising my awareness of your need, but there is an extremely fine line between a legitimate call for justice and the selfish manipulation of this universal human virtue and the fact of the matter is that I just don't trust you to tell the difference. Yes I think that you should access to as much education as I've had, as good jobs as I do, and as comfortable a lifestyle as I have, I think everyone should have this kind of access. However I don't know what I'm going to do about your insufficiency right now, but it's not going to include giving you my laptop, I need that to write, or my ipod, I need that to meditate, or my guitar, I need that to express myself, or my money, I need that to get home. Why do my needs come before yours? I don't know how to answer that, I honestly don't. Maybe I'm just selfish. Maybe I haven't realized that the true secrete to my happiness is literally giving up all that I have and living a life of service to others and abandon for my own well-being. Maybe all the rationalizations I make to myself about how my conceding to your immediate desires won't help the problem but will instead just make it worse for you and harder for me to help in the long run are all just self-preserving propaganda that prevents me from facing the truth of my utter selfishness. I honestly just don't know. I honestly just want to go home armed with the confidence that the life experience of these last 6 months has handed me and see if it’s enough for me to be happy. I just want to leave all you needy people with your justifiably shallow concerns and your understandably depraved understanding of me and my culture and I want to go back to a place that is rich in all the ways that I want to rich; where the pleasure people receive in my company doesn't come from status or potential monetary gain, where I can be myself deeply and be deeply understood. Perhaps I am romanticizing a home I never had, nor will ever have. Perhaps my life will be a perpetually dissatisfied quest. Jesus. His role as the answer to life becomes clearer now. Oh Jesus. Were you not so plagued with your name and its millions of idolatrous worshipers I think I should love you too. Instead I must hate you in order to do my part in stemming the onslaught of sin and bringing rise to the fullness of your glory and seeing your kingdom established on this Earth.

Anyway, Khongoloti gets very few visitors. There was a South African named James who used to come every so often. One time he brought a cousin, also named James. The kids all call me James Tres (3 in Portuguese). The only white person here is a girl maybe a year older than me named Bethany. She's been here less than 10 months and she pretty much runs the place. There is a pastor and his wife here from the Congo but I hardly ever see them talk to the kids except to tell them to do something for them.

Anyway, the thing I really wanted to say was that here at Khongoloti I've already had a couple of "I'm in Africa" moments that I haven’t had since I was in Chomoio or maybe a few times in Tanzania. These are moments when you are suddenly struck with where you are and how different this is from life that you have lived and will continue to live and all of a sudden life becomes full of awe. In Africa its usually unabashed poverty that causes this sensation, but here in Khongoloti it’s the pure goodness of the kids. I have already picked out my favorite kids here. I never met a single kid that I liked at Zimpeto, but here I have about 6 that I wouldn't mind taking home with me if I had to. Antonio tops the list. He is eleven years old and has a disposition that makes you want to get his autograph so that you can say you met him first. I don't know if he has any talent but he's definitely a rock star in that he is the coolest person you will ever meet and doesn't even know it, and probably never will. He's incredibly bright, which was discernable from just talking to him for a minute. He's so cool, not offended by anything, nice to all the kids, helpful to all the kids, looks after the ones that are younger than him, doesn't appear to have a selfish bone in his body, but he's not a push over either. He just is, exactly the way that is ought to be. His amazingly attractive personality spills out tangibly too, he'll probably be very popular with the ladies.

Another one is Neide (pronounced Ned by me). This kid is like 5 or 4 years old and has the cutest personality maybe I've ever come across. He’s silly, but invitingly so. He's not trying to get attention, but he certainly doesn't mind it either. And then there's four-year-old Shtelyoo [spelt the way an American would pronounce it in lue of knowing the actual spelling] who I mostly mention because he is physically the cutest child I have probably ever seen. I'm not really a kid person and I don't think all children are cute, in fact I am rarely possessed by any genuine admiration for their immature appearance, but this kid is gorgeous. You can tell he's going to be beautiful all the way to the end. One can't help but lament that such features should be bestowed upon the sex for which they shall earn the least appreciation. If this kid were a girl she could have it made as a supermodel with a dazzlingly rich and famous husband. Another good kid is Nelyoo (again spelled according to American pronunciation). I can never hear a word he says, but I'm touched by the candor he can evoke through his shyness and want to give him anything he desires.

The only kid that I wasn't enamored was Blessing, who I found out later was actually the Pastor’s son. But in the end he came through was rather helpful and certainly superior to any kid I've yet to meet at Zimpeto.

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