Remembering a Little Girl

The Saturday night that we returned to our house after our trip to South Africa, we were greeted by our guard, Armando, and three neighborhood boys, Isaac, Torino, and Veloso, standing outside of our gate.  The boys regularly come over to our place to visit and practice Portuguese/English.  They asked if they could come over right then and we told them we needed time to unpack and settle back in, so we agreed that they would come over Monday evening.  Monday evening came and went and we never heard from them.  The next morning, after our Portuguese lesson, we saw several cars and a large group of people at Torino and Veloso’s house.    As our language tutor left, he said that someone must have died.  We noticed that despite the large group of people, it was very quiet and somber.

Later, while Dave was out, he saw Veloso, and he asked him if everything was okay.  Veloso informed him that Gustodia had died.  Gustodia, often called Toto by the other kids, was his 5 year old sister and probably the friendliest kid in the neighborhood.  Normally when we open our gate, all of the young children immediately start waving and yelling “How are you?” without really knowing what they are asking.  If you respond in English or Portuguese, they usually will just ask “How are you?” again!  But Gustodia, unlike the other children, would come running up to us to shake our hands with a big smile.  She often would come and knock on our gate for no reason at all except to say hi and sneak a peek at our dogs (the rest of the children wouldn’t get near Charlie and Lobo).  On one recent occasion, I was walking to our church down the road and she came running up to me and said something I didn’t understand.  I reached out to shake her hand and she looked up at me with her big friendly eyes, mouthed a kiss, and then kissed my hand and waved goodbye.  That was probably my last encounter with her. 

We don’t know why she died.  Dave asked Veloso if she was sick or hurt, but all he said was that she had pain in her head, which can mean a lot of things here in Mozambique.  As we mentioned this to our colleagues with MAF, they commented that unfortunately this happens far too often here and that this wouldn’t be the last time we encountered such a tragic death of young child.

But as for Gustodia, we will remember her for the sweet child of God she is, and we will probably always think of her when we hear a knock on the gate.