It's very common here to have a guard, but it's not
really what you think. It's more like a property manager or maintenance man who
can work during the day but more often works overnight. Last year Nunu hired a
man named Buanassa to oversee the property... Aka guard. He comes in the late
afternoon to do some yard work, starts a fire and settles in for the night. The
vast majority of nights are uneventful but it is likely that if he wasn't here,
our building materials and more would disappear.
Each night while he is working, his wife Binti brings him dinner. I quickly found out she also fetches water for us (as we don't have running water). While I often find locals hard to read, emoting one or two solemn expressions for good, bad and everything in between, not Binti... She laughs at everything! I watched my first day in amazement as she carried a bucket that must have been at least 5 gallons on her head and with absolute ease, she poured it directly into our water barrel. I thanked her for doing such hard work, and a big smile spread over her face and she giggled!
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| Carrying water. |
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| She tilts the bucket right off her head and pours water into the barrel. |
Each day Buanassa shows up and does his yard work. With Nunu in night
school, jet lag combined with a lack of electricity resulted in me falling
asleep shortly after sunset at 5:00. I slept easy knowing I didn't have to
listen for each sound of the night, wondering if any of them were bad. One night
I was awakened between 7 & 8 by some of the strangest animal noises... They
were so strange I couldn't even look, I was too scared (I would be the first to
admit I get irrational when I’m sleeping). Within a minute or so Buanassa was
there shooing the animals off. At one
point I thought he was throwing water on them... Turns out what I was hearing
was rocks flying through leaves in the trees.
Just two nights ago, he came to the door asking Nunu out to the yard so
that he could show him the snake he just killed! It was about 4’ long and the
first real snake I’ve seen here… for that matter it’s the largest snake I've
seen where there isn't a piece of glass between us!
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| I wish the picture was closer, but I couldn't bring myself to take another step. |
A few days after my arrival, Binti showed up at my door. She didn't knock but rather in a sing-song
voice said "Amiga" (friend) from my porch. I didn't even understand
our whole conversation. At first I thought she was concerned about what I was
eating, as I hadn't had a fire in the first 4 days of being here. Turns out she
was probably asking what I ate hoping she might get some of it. :)
She continues to stop by about every other night, always asking if I'm
sleeping, which I'm not but I have showered and put on my pj's and I am hanging
out on my bed, inside of our bug net. We chat a little about her kids and Nunu.
While Macua is her primary language, we speak enough Portuguese to get things
across... And what we can't figure out how to say we just laugh about!
She has also moved on from only asking me about food to also asking
about my clothing. Sometimes my brain translates things and I'm convinced I'm
wrong... Is she really asking if she can have the pj's I'm wearing? When I
pointed out I'm wearing them, she was like well tomorrow... To which I told her
I wear them all nights. And to prove my point I now only sleep in those pj's
with the exception of the one day they are being washed.
I sort of felt bad that night as I count the number of pj’s I have and
realized I have 4. And this is where the inner struggle begins: sure I could give her one of my pj’s but it
sets up a pattern of giving and while I could tell you what is going on in my
heart and mind, I can’t tell you what she is thinking. But more often than not,
the more you give, the more people expect. So giving my pj’s today could mean
tomorrow she asks for my purse or one of our chairs… you just never know. And
since our ministry is being set up to offer hand ups and not hand outs, I feel
I’ve made the best decision for now.
Back to life with Binti, honestly when I thought she was asking for my
pj’s, I gave her the benefit of the doubt hoping jet lag and my Portuguese were
to blame. The next day a friend of mine who speaks Macua came over and we
invited Binti. In front of him she asked for the flip flops I was wearing:) I
guess she operates under the motto that it doesn't hurt to ask! So while I
want to help and give things, I work really hard at saying no, and only cave to
give little things like an onion or some left overs.
When I first arrived and met Binti, my plan was to have Nunu talk to her
and find out if there were any widows or single moms in the neighborhood and
then ask Binti to take us to meet them. But upon speaking to my friend, Latino,
who is from around here and therefore understands the local culture, he told me
that if we tell people “we want to help,” they won’t hear that; rather, they
will hear, “we want to GIVE.”
So I talked to Nunu some and we decided that we need to go about this
even SLOWER than we had planned. I tell you as someone who wants to just jump
right in, it’s HARD to move slowly, but I’d rather do things the right way. So
we decide to ask Binti if she could invite some of the women and children in
the neighborhood over the following weekend. Not really sure what to expect but
hoping that 5 adults and 10 children would show up tomorrow… I thought that
would be a good start in getting to know our neighborhood…
To be continue…
(Be sure to check back tomorrow to find out who shows up at our house!)
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