Homecoming

Today I returned to the Meheba Refugee Settlement where I had volunteered with FORGE three years ago.  After only three months living in the settlement, it had come to feel like home.  I even had my best girlfriend, Mary, just across the road to visit and chat with.  Going back today felt just like a homecoming.  Solwezi, the town about an hour away, has changed so much.  It is so much bigger and busier than I remember.  But, Meheba... driving into Meheba, it felt like I had never left.

I hadn't told Mary I was coming.  I only sent her a text as I entered the settlement to let her know I was on my way.  As I walked up to her house, she came running out and gave me the biggest hug ever and asked me, "Are you really here!?!"  It felt like a dream.  Instantly, a child was put in my arms (Hope, now 3 years old, her youngest who had just been born when I arrived before), and I was whisked off to be sat down and introduced and re-introduced to the whole family and proudly displayed for the neighbors.  With the exception of the children having grown older, we all fell right back to the way things were.

It was hard to leave her, but even harder still to know that, despite the fact that we call each other "sister", our lives are so different.  I have gotten fatter in these last three years, while Mary has gotten thin.  Angolans no longer have protected refugee status and can no longer receive support from UNHCR.  So that also means that Mary can no longer be employed as a community health worker.  My Angolan colleagues' positions are now filled by Congolese refugees.  The idea is that Angolans are supposed to repatriate now that the war in their country is over.  Of course, it's not as easy as that.  Systematic, assisted repatriation isn't happening like it was before (some bureaucratic catch 22) and all that can be done is UNHCR can give them some funds to help with transport, but the refugees have to figure out how to repatriate on their own.  So they're stuck in limbo - having a hard time making ends meet in Zambia, but unable to cut through all of the red tape and obstacles to go home and try to make a better life in Angola.  Then there are other reasons to stay.  For Mary, her children are all still in school... in the English-based Zambian school system.  If they were to go to Angola now, they would be uprooted in the midst of their studies and have to switch to schools taught in Portuguese.  Mary cares more about giving her children a shot at a better future by finishing their schooling well, than with having a comfortable life and the fulfillment of employment for herself.  This bright woman, who was an excellent health worker, now raises goats and chickens to sell when she needs money for her children's school fees.

The compound that I called "home" is now an orphanage called Safe Haven.  I kinda like that those rooms that were such a safe haven for me while I was in Meheba are a home for these children.  I hope that it will be a place where dreams are planted in their young hearts and that they would have the grace of God covering them, so that they might one day return to their home countries as a generation of peacemakers.