Paula Lijó Marcote. Fisterra, Spain. December 2002

• What my mum always tells me: ‘You don’t need anything to be happy.’ How naive!!! I thought I’d be able to give something in Zambia, and all I have done is to receive. Every look, smile or gesture radiates love.

• Without a doubt, the best experience in my life. I’d like to invite all those who have a chance to experience this. (Paula went to Zambia in August 2001.)

Raquel Noriega Rodríguez. Vigo, Spain. November 2002

• It was only a 28-day stay in Zambia (Aug 2000) but it was enough – the most intense experiences still endure in my memory.

• This photo illustrates part of my travel.

Marina Moa Banga. Vigo, Spain. December 2002

• Children walk barefoot, alone and hungry for several kilometres to go to school, fetch water, etc. They’re going to be vaccinated against polio today.

• Later on, and in the same conditions, back to their settlement. Their fortitude and serenity have an impact on you. They neither complain nor ask for anything.

• Children in Africa are the expression of life, of future – but what future for these children? They go and fetch water in the middle of their poverty, of rubbish, dirty, hungry – it’s in our hands to cooperate so that they’ll have a more decent future.

• And have drinking water, be able to go to school, eat. ‘Share your food with the hungry.’ (Marina went to Zambia in August 2000.)

Mª Luz Rodríguez Santamarta (Father Sinesio’s sister). July 2007.

• Thanks to HUMI and the nuns who look after them, 35 orphans eat three times a day, study and are receiving a good education. They are kids between 6 and 18, a difficult age educationally speaking. The nuns look after them very well and love them as if they were their own children – the kids do not want to go back to their villages on holiday!

• HUMI attends to many villages too, providing them with blackboards, chalks and educational material for their schools. This is the task of Teresa Garrido and another three girls in the Mission. They have a lot of work to do apart from this, but they bear it with enthusiasm and joy.

• HUMI is present in another foundation managed by Cristina Fazzi, an Italian doctor who takes care of undernourished children and single mothers. An impressive task that she develops in the middle of the forest. There is an enormous plaque there, saying ‘DONATION FROM HUMI, VIGO.’

• HUMI is becoming a familiar name in Zambia, and has reached the LUBUMBASHI seminary. Money has been sent for a grant and other things that Father Willy Dibala will ask for. That is the poorest place I have seen in my life.

• HUMI can be satisfied that its work in Spain reaches the missions where that work is much needed, and where the money is put to good use down to the last euro. The people there are very grateful for this.

Alberto García Alonso. Vigo, Spain. January 2003

• GENEROUS PEOPLE! In spite of all their suffering, no face pulling, no expression of displeasure at all. There are times in your life when a fact or a person, or other details, mark you forever. I encourage you to go and feel it.

• Alberto went to Zambia in August 2001.

Piedad Garrido Argudo. El Toboso, Toledo, Spain. August 2003

• IT TURNS YOUR LIFE UPSIDE DOWN.

• Mishikishi has helped me understand a little better what life is about. I’ve made a step forward at a personal level, as I’ve seen and felt love, kindness, humility, by being in contact with those children and really charming people. This experience is hard to summarise in a few lines, but my heart was open and I felt so alive for the first time in a long time. I hope I’ll be able to go back there because those people leave a mark on you.

Volunteers’ group. August 2003

• Volunteers’ group with the children in the mission.

• Roche, Cristina, Cilio, Carmen, Trini, Flor, Piedad, Raúl, Felipe, Carlos, Paula, Carmen, Isabel, Alfonso, Rafa, María, Nieves and Juan Carlos.

• Thank you for allowing me to meet real angels. (Isabel Pérez Prego, August 2003.)

• Somewhere in Africa: please make up your mind and cooperate – they’re waiting for your help. (Alfonso Ruiz Miguel, August 2003.)

Juan Carlos Rodríguez Yuste. Wing 1 nurse, Fremap Hospital, Majadahonda, Spain

To tell the truth, even before I left for African lands I’d already been suggested that I tell about my feelings there afterwards. Being a novice in this kind of experiences, I’d always been told or, rather, had always heard that it was very difficult to really convey to others what you feel when you experience such a great deal of images, of situations – and that the only way of being able to understand it is to feel it for yourself. My small experience has confirmed this, and so I’d like to encourage you to try and do any kind of volunteering. You don’t need to travel so many kilometres, that’s for sure – sometimes there’s work waiting to be done right next to our homes…

The inception of a preoccupation
This was actually something I’d been pondering, worrying and getting excited about for a very, very long time. Still, as it turns out, you never seem to find the right time for it – you tell yourself about your age and about your education being first, and family and work next. Or you simply find yourself some excuses not to undertake an experience of that calibre – fear of the unknown and the potential danger due to the situation in these countries are always there.

But finally this year my excitement was more powerful than my fear of the unknown, and I was fortunate enough to come across – in the most absurd way – a group of charming people. We all share the same preoccupations about and rebelliousness against social injustice, and a project that had just been born – one that you gradually get involved in, believe in and devote more and more time to. In sum, that was the prod that finally led me to my first experience as a volunteer.

When the time was coming near

In principle, there was an opportunity to do the volunteering in Venezuela or Zambia, where the missionaries we were going to cooperate with had their headquarters. Owing to the situation in Venezuela in the past year, and advised by our colleagues there, we eventually opted for the African country.

It’s very hard to start off with a specific project, especially when you don’t have any first-hand knowledge of the situation or needs of the people you’re supposed to go and help. And it’s much harder when this is the first time you undertake something like this, and you barely have a month for it. Of course, we were all aware that we wouldn’t be able to do miracles in that time. We might change things very little, but this could actually be the beginning of future projects organised – why not? – from our country. Also, we would be able to benefit then from the advice of our contacts there.

The most important thing is to be clear that you won’t save any lives, be a hero in anything or for anybody, or start a revolution or anything in just one month. You should be aware of this to avoid disappointments later. So, in principle, this initial year’s project was to simply get to know a reality first-hand, and be able to help where needed insofar as possible. We were lucky that much of road had already been travelled – missionaries, mainly Spaniards, had been working in that area for more than 25 years.

They worked directly with around 200 orphan children, whom they tried to feed, educate and teach a trade, and indirectly with a great many people living in villages in the surrounding area, where the missionaries, purely and simply, helped them survive. Poverty was, of course, brutal.

So we set ourselves the goal of collecting school material and medicines. I must say that in those circumstances, and for the above reasons, your inventiveness sharpens – you find a thousand ways of making do, you speak to all sorts of people asking them for help and advice. The fact that people gets to know you more or less directly results in a more intense, better response on their part. Eventually, the amount of funds raised was fairly good.

As you can imagine, you come across a thousand hindrances and also pay the price of being inexperienced. A great deal of trouble transporting the material, a lot of money, and even danger when carrying drugs from one country to another, as drug transport, and more specifically the transport of certain substances, is in principle a risky business. Some advice for the future – it’s much more suitable (especially if the necessary material is available in the country you’re going to) to raise money, basically, and buy the necessary material in that country.

And eventually the time came

To tell the truth, at first you don’t know where to look. Everything’s amazing to you. Indescribable feelings, unbelievable looks, shocking images, a thousand anecdotes to tell, extreme poverty – to name just a few.

You reconsider many things. You realise how unfair life and we humans are. You feel fortunate but selfish at the same time, and understand then how easy and hard it may be to live.

You soon change your whole mindset, and really appreciate what your stay there means. The mere fact of being with the kids, sharing moments, getting a smile out of them, listening to their problems, makes up for all the rest. The children give you much more during your first experience than you can give them.

You come across a reality that’s totally different from the one you know, and, most dramatically, one with no prospects for the future. We’re talking about a population whose life expectancy at birth is 33 years, and in which one out of four people had AIDS. A country where women’s subjection is terrible, and political corruption at the order of the day. A country where parents’ only concern is to be able to see the sun shine tomorrow, and count the same number of children as last night. Sadly, the only problem there is how to live one more day, and so the fact of having AIDS only means shortening a future that really doesn’t exist. It’s easier to understand now how you can feel so fulfilled by getting a smile out of an African child, isn’t it?

So you go and imagine. Everything’s overwhelming. Children were almost all there was, children who couldn’t possibly be more undernourished, who ate once a day if they were lucky (or that was our intention at least), had a drink taken from plant roots on celebration days, children who became adults at six, children who looked after their brothers and sisters at four, who wandered aimlessly for kilometres and kilometres – but children who also, even if it seems impossible to believe, smiled, played football with balls made of rubbish bags and ran as you wondered where they found the strength for that, were so grateful for all you did, welcomed you singing and dancing, offered you what the didn’t have for them, and, in the case of the youngest of them, were scared at you as they’d never seen a white man…

In sum – unbelievable. The time of return is much harder than that of departure. You get the feeling that there is still so much to do, you bring so many ideas for future projects with you, and all of us – all of us – come home with the thought of going back sooner or later, for longer and with a more specific project.

Without a doubt, it’s been my best experience so far. All your feelings come up to the surface, you feel what you thought would never feel again, you see things you used to believe that didn’t exist, and try to come back with a different life philosophy – but, eventually, I guess your everyday life gradually absorbs you again, though let’s hope that those traces will remain…

We’re currently working to define a number of projects, the fosterage of kids from the area among them. In some cases the aim is to allow them to go on with their studies (the kids from the mission), and in some others it’s ‘simply financial aid’ (the people from the surrounding villages). There’s nothing definite yet, but it will emerge little by little. So, if you make up your mind, you know what to do – get in touch!