On Friday 19th I went with Matt and Jake to distribute blankets to some 120 orphans at a village nearby Dzaleka camp. This is an outreach programme through one of the camps churches, Emmanuel Full Gospel. We went first to collect the blankets and 2 of the refugee pastors, Joshua and Peshu, from the camp .
When we arrived at the village there were lots of children, women and men sitting and waiting infront of some buildings the village uses to teach and feed the orphans in. These children are orphans because their parents have died due to various illnesses or diseases, such as HIV/AIDS or cancer. Pastor Joshua called out the orphans names from the list he had and the children lined up infront of us.
This took quite some time and many of the children were missing. During the wait some small children tried to sneak into the line but were firmly removed!
It felt strange standing there, at this official 'ceremony' of handing out blankets. I was quite apprehensive about taking part and hung back for a while to take some video footage and photos, but the pastors were keen that Jake, Matt and I join in the distribution. I felt very conscious that here was the white man giving and the black man receiving....what sort of message is this??
I was comforted though from seeing the small children walk away with their blankets knowing they would now have something to keep warm at night, as it gets very cold in this area at night...but I questioned whether someone in the village may take the blanket and try to sell it. I don't mean in any way that they are dishonest or selfish, but simply the harsh reality that having money means being able to buy food. What is more important...food or warmth?
What was also difficult was of course there were not enough blankets to give to all the children and afterwards, as photos were being taken I was pulled on by a few children asking to be given one as well, I could only reply, "next time."
But the distribution was a success and it did go very well, the pastors were very pleased and afterwards they proudly showed us the village church that they often preach in.
Before we left the village I became a figure of amusement for some young girls who apparently thought my skin colour was very strange and wanted to touch my arms. I also had a small cut on my hand which was slightly bleeding and they found this fascinating!!
We made it back to the camp and dropped off the two pastors at their office. Next to the office is the tailoring training centre that There Is Hope has funded which I took a look at, and next door there were some students learning how to braid hair using hair extensions. One girl was sitting very patiently having her hair braided, i'm not sure how long she had been there, but she looked pretty fed up with four people pulling her hair in all directions!
Outside, waiting to leave camp we were surrounded by children wanting to shake our hands and share the typical greeting with us..."hello, how are you...i'm fine, how are you?" One small child was clearly very scared by us, crying and screaming, clinging onto a women, he really didn't want us to shake his hand!
On our way back to the city, we stopped at a busy market area to pick up some drinks for the ride home. All sorts of business going on there, small shops, clothes and shoes for sale, all types of foods being cooked and goats and cows hung up, being stripped of their skin and chopped up. Then I witnessed my favourite sight for the week...a man walking across the road carrying a bulls head! It looked freshly cut off and somehow he had made a handle through the skin of the neck for carrying ease. I wonder what he was about to do with that...bulls head soup perhaps, or a new style of handbag??!!
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