Fourteen-year-old Alfredo Chivunda was born in a refugee camp in Zambia, so he has never known his country of origin, either at peace or at war. His family is from Cazombo, an Angolan town near the border with Zambia which was hard hit during Angola's decades-long civil war. After the peace pact was signed, refugees started coming home again to a country ravaged by war and littered with landmines. Despite the level of destruction, people, including Alfredo, have been flocking back to their villages, anxious to rebuild their homeland. Now, for the first time in his life he is living in his ancestral home, trying to find a school there.
But, too old to attend primary school, he quickly discovered that secondary schools had not yet been rebuilt. What’s more, having grown up in Zambia, he doesn’t speak Portuguese, the language of instruction in Angola. Alfredo is especially worried that he will lose key years at school: "The Portuguese which they do speak here will be hard for me to start learning, because it is so late. I will have to start again and that will be hard also."
Alfredo left Zambia on his own, and now he stays in a small village, 40 minutes’ walking distance from Cazombo, with his half-brother Manuel and his family. A lot older than the other children in the village, he feels lonely. "In this village there are no people to be friends with who are my size." He indicates a typical 5-year-old height with his hands: "All of them are just this size. I have no friend here. My only friend is this tree. I always stay here with the tree, reading a book. That’s all."
Holding a school textbook in his hand, Alfredo continues: "I have my book for grade 8, which is Civics, one history book, and another book titled Traditional Marriages in Zambia. I like those ones!" he laughs. When he returned, Alfredo was expecting some financial support from his half-brother. But his brother can’t help him, and he is very disappointed. Pointing at the evident poverty of his surroundings, he says "Life here is as you can see. We don’t have money … and my brother is complaining that ‘I also have no money to help you.’"
So, instead of getting help for himself, Alfredo has to assist his brother with the cassava weeding in order to earn some money for food, clothes and other things. A major problem for him is that he made his way home to Angola from Zambia in a hurry, without any papers -- and with no documentation he can’t qualify for food aid. UNHCR is trying to solve this problem for him so that he can at least get a minimum amount of aid.
Alfredo has attended meetings for the teenagers who, like himself, have returned to Cazombo, to discuss the problems they are facing and how to adapt to their new life in Angola – not the least of which is how to learn Portuguese. Education and training in Portuguese are identified as the two most pressing needs for the young: "It is better to just help us by having a school which we can learn Portuguese fast so that we can go back to school in Portuguese", says Alfredo.
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| IRIN |
