ADPP - Cidadela das Criancas

ADPP – Cidadela das Criancas – a Humana People to People/DAPP Children’s Town Project. Located just outside Maputo, Mozambique. If you want to find it, go to Costa Del Sol Beach, past the fancy white persons hotel with the three armed guards outside. Keep going until you hit the dirt road and then walk about 45 minutes – past the fish market on the shore...past the stalls...past anything. If you ask a local, they will just keep pointing down the dirt road whose ruts and hills are so severe that it takes a car about 25 minutes to make the 2 mile trip.

Since I first saw Cidadela I have had many emotional ups and downs, so much so that I didn’t want to write about it in this blog the first time I visited because I didn’t know how. I’m of two minds now whether this was a good idea – wise because I was probably in shock the first day and my report would have been disproportional and heavy handed and unwise because it is so easy to get desensitized to and accept unacceptable standards and maybe sometimes a little heavy-handedness, a little shock and horror is called for.

So here we go. Cidadela is a primary school serving about 800 students, 80 of which are orphans who live here permanently. They have all come by various and unknown routes – placed by government officials, NGO’s or moved here from other orphanages when they reach about 4 years of age. While they are orphans in a country with a high HIV rate their HIV status is unknown. The school is made up of a compound of several buildings – one large ‘dining hall’ and kitchen, classrooms, teachers offices, dormitories, and a bathroom that, we are told, used to work.

The first day I came here I was in shock for the first hour. It was straight out of a Concern or UNICEF commercial. After almost a week on this continent it was at this moment that it finally hit me that we were here. We were in Africa. A realization based on stereotypes I know, but there it is, ingrained in us all. The compound is dreary looking with yellow sand and peeling yellow concrete buildings. The kids were eating lunch which was being dished out by the older kids – sheema (maize porridge) with a little sauce and one piece of beef bone with a little beef clinging to the sides. This being Saturday they got meat. Every other day it is beans and rice or fish and rice/sheema. As the day wore on we played with the little kids and I alternated by a feeling of pity, a maternal need to hug them and wash them, and marveling at how, despite the circumstances, how normal they seemed. Kids are, after all, kids. These ones were a bit more needy, a bit less socialized, and a bit less technologically minded (they spent two hours fascinated by my digital watch whereas my little cousin at their age had two computers) but they played, they sang, they danced, they were far more creative than kids at home, and they were cute – they were kids.

I left that day enraged, frustrated and frankly very worried that I wouldn’t be able to last the two weeks here based on the living conditions. The two things that shocked me most was the lack of supervision and the complete absence of hygiene standards. Based on Western standards these kids have no supervision. I now know that there is a level of supervision but nowhere near what is expected at home. The kids can leave the compound whenever they want and there is no system to make sure that they come back or that they are in their beds at night. 4 and 5 year olds put themselves to bed at night, which just about breaks my heart. But what do you expect, this is an orphanage. For the 80 odd kids here there are no working toilets and no showers. None. I say hygiene standards because there are attempts at hygiene, these are not stupid people. They take bucket showers everyday but there is no soap. No soap! And there seems to be little knowledge on the parts of some – especially the kitchen – I can’t even go in there or I won’t eat the food and I have to eat the food or more or less starve.

One week in and I am less enraged and frustrated about these things, although I find myself becoming angry at other things as they pop up during the days. For the first time in a very long time I am feeling useful. We are lucky in that we not only have the motivation and the knowledge, but we also have a little money set aside to help get things done. Brian and I decided before we got here that, since we don’t have the language, we would focus our attention on hygiene and sanitation – something badly needed. A list of things we hope to do in the two weeks we are here:
- Establish a health center on the premise, figure out a way to stock it, and find a nurse, doctor, or healthworker to come to the school regularly
- Get each child HIV tested
- Take care of existing health conditions – these are mainly infections from mosquito bites and ringworm which seems to have taken hold of the scalps of many of the young ones
- Get showers and toilets for the kids – there is an existing shower block with toilets here but it hasn’t been working for, from what we can gather, over 16 years. We currently have a plumber looking at it. In addition, the school itself is in the process of building toilet blocks.
- Get mosquito nets for each child
- Get worm doses for each child
- Establish a garbage system – currently there is no place to put the garbage (this seems to be a Mozambiquan problem/cultural issue since Maputo is covered with garbage) so it just gets thrown on the ground and as a result the compound is covered in litter. We are going to dig a garbage pit and do a massive cleanup on Friday.
- If we have time, try to do something about the standing water and long grass that is breeding mosquitoes


So those are our goals for the two weeks we will be here. It’s a lot but already we are making some headway. Mostly due to a combination of dogged persistence and money things are coming along fairly quickly. Our mutual traits of stubbornness and my obsession with cleanliness are coming in handy.

Now I’m off to lunch. Wish me luck!