Still Here!

Ahhh, lack of updates! I have the usual excuses. I’ve been very busy. I haven’t had much to say.

But here I am. This last weekend we had the second new member training. This one wasn’t quite as impressive, because this one was with the weaker of the two LCs, but we had some very strong candidates come and I think the LC will benefit from some excellent new members.

On Sunday I was extremely tired and just wanted to relax, so I grabbed a book from our “library”. It’s called “The Impact of War on Children” and it’s written by Graca Machel, the former Mozambican Minister of Education and now a representative of the United Nations. It’s from 2001, so it’s a little our of date, but it’s very interesting and has quite a few interesting cases, including some more recent conflicts that occurred during my lifetime, but when I was too young to know about it (Rwanda, Kosovo, Burundi). She raises a lot of good points, about health, education, and reintegration. Right now I am reading the chapter on Education. She suggests that education should continue if at all possible, even in times of war, and if it can’t, it should be resumed as soon as possible once the conflict is over. It gives communities a sense of stability to know the school is running and bring people back into a normal routine after very abnormal events.

She also gives several examples from the Mozambican civil war, including the fact that 45% of primary schools were destroyed and child soldiers were being employed regularly. It made me realize that since I have been here, nobody has talked about the civil war. They talk often of their independence and fighting against the Portuguese and build statues and name roads after the leaders. Yet the civil war is never mentioned. It’s a subject I would like to learn more about, but I feel awkward bringing it up. Just like Mozambique’s Communist phase. If it weren’t for the street names, you wouldn’t ever know it happened.

Of course, most of the people I am working with were just bring born as the war was ending, but I would still like to hear about what happened and why. A lot of the people in power within the country are those who went through both the independence and the civil war, so it definitely influences the country, even today.