Though they themselves are poor, they still do what they can to help others. In this way, they give others and themselves the strength to carry on.
Victoria Manhique, a Tzu Chi volunteer, washed Cidalio Magaia. Then she used a surgical mask in lieu of gauze to carefully clean his foul-smelling and festering sores. Other volunteers around them began to sing. Soon Cidalio began humming along too.
The singing brought Victoria to tears. “At times, we think that we have the toughest luck in the entire world. But look at him. He’s been in great pain, but he’s been very strong. I’m deeply moved.”
Cidalio is 22 now, but his spine began to deform when he was only five years old. His family could not afford treatment, so his condition worsened over time to the point that he could not sit, lie down, or walk without pain. The deformity changed his appearance and also his outlook on life. He lost his confidence.
He lived with his sister over the years, largely staying at home and rarely venturing out into public. In mid 2015, Tzu Chi volunteers started visiting them regularly in their home. In just a few months, they grew to trust one another. Volunteers suggested that Cidalio sing to bring joy to people.
Following their advice, he began joining the volunteers on their visits to other care recipients. He sings for them. His resilience in facing the challenges in his life gives people around him reason for hope.
Out of her home into their homes
There are currently more than 2,300 Tzu Chi volunteers in Mozambique, spread across 20 communities. Most of them, like Cidalio Magaia, have received help from Tzu Chi. They live with poverty, illness, or other afflictions of life.
Despite their own difficult circumstances, they joined Tzu Chi as volunteers to visit and care for other needy people. Though they may be just as poor as before, their altruistic actions enrich others’ lives as well as their own.
The Tzu Chi missions started in Mozambique through the work of Denise Tsai, the first Tzu Chi volunteer in the country. She moved from southern Taiwan to Mozambique in 2008 after marrying Dino Foi, a Mozambican. Foi worked for the president’s family, so Tsai often attended parties, banquets, and other social events with her husband. She met many people in the upper echelon of Mozambican society this way.
Moving around in the upper social circles and rubbing elbows with influential or wealthy people may seem a glamorous thing to do, but it was not exactly Tsai’s cup of tea. “In 2012, I began to get tired of my social life,” she recalled. “I couldn’t stand the habitual tardiness and unpunctuality that are typical of the locals; I couldn’t decide if I wanted to start a business of some kind, and I was having some issues with my husband. With so many things happening at the same time, I even thought of leaving everything behind and going back to Taiwan.”
Her turning point in Mozambique came when a friend named Yang Ming-qin (楊銘欽), a Tzu Chi volunteer living in southern Taiwan, gave her a book entitled A Diamond on the Rainbow. The book was about Tzu Chi’s work in South Africa. After reading it, she called Michael Pan (潘明水), the head of Tzu Chi South Africa, and told him that she would like to volunteer for the foundation.
Pan and a few experienced South African volunteers visited Tsai in August 2012. They shared their experiences with her and showed her how to carry out Tzu Chi work in her adopted home. She thus began her journey as a volunteer.
Following the guidance from the South African volunteers, Tsai visited the needy in local communities. She still remembered vividly her first visit to Maxaquene, a neighborhood a mere five-minute drive from the presidential office. The dilapidation, poverty, and filthiness she saw there left an indelible impression on her. She was shocked to find people living in such conditions in a place she passed by every day. “The life that my husband provided for me didn’t include exposure to such suffering.”
She gradually discovered how little she knew about poor local communities. “Once I took an electric kettle to an information session in a community so I could make tea,” Tsai said. “When I arrived, I was surprised to learn that there weren’t any power outlets or electricity. They burned wood to boil water.”
Tsai also realized that she should have led a more frugal life.
Lurdes Cossa was a villager Tsai met during her visits to the needy. Her legs were atrophied, so she was forced to crawl around on her hands and knees. Despite her limited mobility, she peddled bags of peanuts to support her three sons. Besides running her small business, she managed to keep everything in her household in very good order. Tsai really admired her. At the same time, she reflected on her own comfortable life.
“My husband and I ate out once a week, and we would easily spend 2,000 Mozambican meticais [43 American dollars] for a meal,” Tsai said. “Seeing how Lurdes lived, I felt ashamed of myself. I decided to live a simpler life.”
What touched Tsai most was Lurdes’s willingness to volunteer after she learned about Tzu Chi. She even gave up her weekends—time that she could have used to sell peanuts and make money—to serve as a culinary volunteer when Tzu Chi offered food in communities.
What Tsai experienced after she joined Tzu Chi led her to realize the source of her discontent and unhappiness. “Life was too easy for me. That’s why I felt the way I did,” she concluded.
The following year, after she talked to her husband, they decided that she would become a full-time volunteer. Ever since then, she has been able to spend more time with her fellow volunteers and in local communities. She has been able to witness one resilient life story after another through her work.
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Mozambican volunteers, including Celeste Alfredo (front row left), Ana Maria Mandlate (back row second from right), and Victoria Manhique (back row right), ride in the back of a truck with vegetables, rice, and second-hand clothes on their way to visit the needy.
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Putting love into action—Victoria Manhique
In April 2015, South Africa was rocked by violence against immigrants from other parts of Africa. Many Mozambicans working there were impacted, with their lives and property threatened. Many of them fled back to their home country and were put up in shelters.
Tzu Chi volunteers visited some of those people to offer them care. Volunteer Victoria Manhique heard many sad stories. When an 18-year-old young man, with fright written all over his face, recounted the horrors and close calls he experienced during his escape, Victoria cried. She noticed how tattered his pants were, but the man had nothing else to wear. She decided to give him the blue jeans that she had on, even though they were her only pair. She said to him, “I know the pain of having nothing, but you mustn’t harbor resentment or become a thief. Just remember that a group of Tzu Chi volunteers have been here to give you love and care.”
Victoria Manhique has had a tough life herself. She fell ill and almost died ten years ago, and she has lived in poverty ever since. Three years ago, Tzu Chi volunteers knocked on her door and respectfully handed over a bag of rice which they told her had come from the love of numerous people. She felt their love and was grateful. Cherishing such warmth from others, she later decided to put her own love into action and become a volunteer.
Her husband makes 1,500 meticais (US$32) a month by selling newspapers. After paying the rent, they have only 600 meticais left for the family to live on for a month—less than half a dollar a day for five persons. As if that were not bad enough, her husband contracted malaria in 2014. He was not properly treated because they could not afford it. He was left weakened and unable to work for almost half a year. The family’s finances became even more difficult.
Their second son, 14 at the time, sold vegetables to help defray their living expenses during that time. One day, he suddenly disappeared. It later turned out that he had been kidnapped to South Africa by an organ trafficking ring.
Victoria went to South Africa to look for him. Despite the language barrier, despite being in a foreign country, she had no fear. “Many people helped me along the way,” she recalled. “But it was Master Cheng Yen who gave me confidence. I believed that if I had love and her teachings in my heart, I could surmount any obstacle in my way.” Luckily her son finally managed to escape, and they were reunited.
Victoria is just in her 30s, and she has already been through a lot in her life, but all the challenges she has encountered have not knocked her down. Encountering Tzu Chi volunteers further bolstered her strength to carry on. She talks about the importance of Tzu Chi in her life now: “If I let a day go by without volunteering, I feel as if I wasn’t fully alive that day.”
Many other volunteers are just as dedicated as Victoria. Denise Tsai is proud of them, but she worries about them too. “I tell them they don’t have to show up and volunteer every day. There are more volunteers now, and people can take turns.” She does not mean to dampen their enthusiasm to help others. Far from it. But the nation has no welfare provisions for the poor, so if they do not work, they do not have any income. Tsai said, “I want them to go find work so they can make some money.”
Unfortunately, work is not easy to find. “There are few small and medium-sized businesses in Mozambique, so there are not too many job vacancies,” Tsai explained. “Most of our volunteers lack any formal education, so it’s doubly hard for them to find suitable work.”
Without adequate income, they cannot pay rent, for example. Some time ago, Victoria and her husband fell behind on their rent. Their landlord knocked on their door repeatedly and demanded that they pay up. They could only ask for more time, again and again.
Fortunately for Victoria, the Tzu Chi Home had just been established, and it needed a resident security guard. Knowing the hardship that Victoria and her family were facing, volunteers unanimously recommended her for the job. As a result, Victoria and her family moved into the Tzu Chi Home. That took care of their rent problem.
“I always feel a little sad towards the end of an activity when volunteers smile and say goodbye,” Tsai said, “because I know that as soon as they get home they immediately face the tremendous pressure of their daily grind.”
Many volunteers do not know what tomorrow will hold for them and whether there will be food on their tables. They do not and dare not think about that. They will cross that bridge when they come to it.
Caring for her mom—Ana Maria Mandlate
Most volunteers are optimistic, and they take their challenges in stride. Ana Maria Mandlate, for example, sells peanuts for a living, and she works hard so she can have time for Tzu Chi work. “I just think that I need the time to volunteer, so I peddle and peddle, and soon all the peanuts are sold and I have time to volunteer,” she said with a smile.
She even came up with the idea of leaving her peanuts for sale with other vendors, on consignment. This method has allowed her to make money and volunteer at the same time. She did that one day so she could visit the needy in the village of Moamba.
Heavy downpours elsewhere in early 2015 did not bring any precipitation to Moamba, which had not seen rain in a year. Residents there had had to walk more than an hour to a river to bathe, wash clothes, and fetch water.
On their third visit to the village, volunteers visited an old woman living alone. Like before, they gave her rice, clothes, and vegetables that they had picked from the garden at the Tzu Chi Home. They also brought bundles of reeds, with which they planned to build her a home in the future.
The old woman used to live with her daughter and three grandchildren in a house that she and her daughter owned together, but a fire had burned it down a year earlier. The daughter rebuilt nearby, but she did not invite her mother to move in with them. The mother therefore lived alone in the open air under a big tree about 200 meters from them. She cooked for herself and slept on a torn, charred bed that someone had thrown away.
In Mozambique, people generally do not take care of the elderly in their family. Denise Tsai has used every available opportunity to convey to them the ideal of filial piety. She has even arranged for children to offer tea to their parents and wash their feet at Tzu Chi events. She hopes to plant the seeds of respecting and caring for one’s parents in the minds of the children.
Ana Maria has often hosted such sessions on filial piety. Though she is only 40, she is already a grandmother. Four generations live together in her household, the oldest generation being her mother’s. Ana Maria cooks for her mother every day, no matter how busy she is.
Ana Maria’s husband died when she was in her 20s. She had no skills for making a living, and with three children she could hardly keep her family fed and warm. She contemplated taking her own life…and theirs too. Luckily a neighbor loaned her 30 meticais (64 cents). This micro financing allowed her to start a micro business which slowly pulled them through those tough times.
It never occurred to Ana Maria, barely keeping her own family afloat, to care for her mother, who lived a four-hour drive away. “The idea of filial piety got into my consciousness after I joined Tzu Chi,” Ana Maria said. “As a result, I took in my mom to live with us so I can take better care of her.”
Against that backdrop, the sight of the old woman living alone in such primitive conditions in Moamba deeply saddened Ana Maria. She quickly made a fire to cook a meal, and then she started to clean up the surrounding area. Other volunteers chatted with the old woman as they sorted the vegetables they had brought. The old woman cheerfully chatted with them. She had not had people listen to her pour out her heart in some time.
Soon, the volunteers saw the old woman’s daughter. Early that morning, the daughter had gone to work on a farm three and a half hours away with a young child on her back. She had just returned home from work when the volunteers saw her. Though quite tired, she showed them her home. It consisted of a metal sheet on four wooden columns and some reeds.
Some time before, she had gone with her husband to South Africa to work, but he had often physically abused her. She escaped to return home. Now she did manual labor to support her family, which was undoubtedly a hard thing to do. Facing a tough time in her finances and her marriage, it is no wonder she did not smile the whole time the volunteers were with her.
Physical abuse—Rebecca Mabunda
Physical abuse within a marriage is a terrible thing, but it was all too familiar to one of the volunteers that day, herself a victim of domestic violence. Rebecca Mabunda had been a victim of physical abuse for 28 years when she first met Tsai. At the time, there were bruises all over her shoulders and back, some of them ulcerating. Having experienced such mistreatment before, Rebecca could readily empathize with the daughter.
Rebecca and other volunteers suggested to the mother and daughter to consider an offer from the foundation to build a reed house for them so that the three generations of them could live together. “If the whole family can live together and care for one another, there’s nothing that you can’t overcome,” they urged.
Rebecca explained what happened in regards to her own abusive husband. “He stopped beating me shortly after I joined Tzu Chi in 2013,” she said with a smile.
“Master Cheng Yen tells us to be content, grateful, understanding, and tolerant,” she continued. “I sincerely acted on her advice, and it transformed me. I thought, ‘If I can massage a care recipient, why can’t I massage my own husband?’”
Denise Tsai chimed in: “I went to see her husband in 2013 when we were planning a trip to Taiwan to attend a Tzu Chi camp. I thanked him for supporting Rebecca’s work with Tzu Chi. I said she was very capable, and asked him to allow her to go to Taiwan.”
Rebecca added, “Later, before I set out for Taiwan, my husband cheerfully said to our neighbors, ‘My wife is going abroad.’ He looked proud of me.”
A shift in mindset has helped Rebecca’s life change for the better. Her bruises are now all gone, and smiles have returned to her face.
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In Maxaquene, a poor, dilapidated community only a five-minute drive from the presidential palace, Lurdes Cossa (left) chats with Denise Tsai (right foreground) and Rebecca Mabunda (standing). This was the community where Tsai started her Tzu Chi work.
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Family feud thawed—Paula Malendze
A change in mentality has benefited others as well. Paula Malendze’s story is like a movie plot with many twists and turns, but finally it is now moving toward a happy ending.
Paula married Omar Aly, once a wealthy Indian Mozambican businessman who had been involved in ocean liners and real estate. At the peak of his career, he had married a woman with whom he had 11 children.
Sadly, his businesses collapsed during the turmoil of the civil war, which came two years after the nation gained independence from Portugal. His children divided up his properties among them, and his wife left him. After that, workers whom he had hired to paint his only remaining luxurious residence took the house from him. He was left with only the cash in his pockets.
At his darkest moment he met Paula, 43 years his junior and a devoted Muslim like him. They got married 24 years ago, and they have three children.
Aly’s side of the family, including his ex-wife and their children, did not think highly of Paula because she was black. They ridiculed and mocked her. She and Aly became reclusive, staying home whenever they could and shunning contact with others.
In 2013, at the invitation of a friend, Paula attended an information session on Tzu Chi. During the gathering she learned about “The Three No’s” taught by Master Cheng Yen: “In this world, there is no one I do not love, no one I do not trust, and no one I do not forgive.”
Paula found “The Three No’s” spiritually liberating. “I’d never thought of forgiving others over the years; instead, I’d always isolated myself from people. But after that gathering, I began going with Tzu Chi volunteers to care for people in our communities. I found that there’s indeed warmth between people, which I hadn’t realized because I hadn’t been loving and forgiving.”
Paula shared with her husband what she had learned in Tzu Chi. She urged him to forgive his children and to stop his lawsuit against them to get his properties back.
In October 2015, Paula got a call from Soraya Aly, Omar’s daughter, and found out that she was dying from cancer. Soraya, who had fought the most fiercely for her father’s properties, wanted to apologize to her father for her behavior.
After that, Paula went to the hospital often to care for her, listen to her repent, and share her own Tzu Chi experience with her. Omar went to see Soraya near the end of the same month. Seeing his own daughter on her deathbed, Omar uttered prayers beseeching Allah to free her from suffering.
Though Soraya was too weak to apologize verbally for her past wrongs, the grudges between her and her father dissipated the moment the two of them saw each other. Quietly, tears rolled down Omar’s cheeks. He later told Paula that he had let go of all his animosity.
Three days later, Soraya died.
Soraya’s mother saw Paula’s acts of kindness towards her daughter during the last days of her life. In a stark departure from her past hostility, she invited Paula to attend the funeral. She also introduced Paula to her family and friends.
“A change in mindset has changed my life,” Paula said. “I feel very free at heart now.”
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Tzu Chi volunteers care for a sick person.
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Open your heart to love—Celeste Alfredo
Victoria Manhique, Ana Maria Mandlate, Rebecca Mabunda, and Paula Malendze have all had hard lives. In comparison Celeste Alfredo has had it easier, but she also once closed herself off and trapped herself in a self-made prison. Only after she encountered Tzu Chi did she free herself from her mental isolation. Because she thinks clearly and excels in organization and planning, she has been a great help to the group of volunteers in Mozambique since she joined Tzu Chi.
The volunteers in Mozambique are mostly females. Their membership has brought them together, and their tough circumstances have kept them close to each other. They give each other encouragement and draw strength from each other. They are like sisters.
Victoria, Ana Maria, Rebecca, Paula, and Celeste visited Taiwan in late November 2015 to be certified as Tzu Chi volunteers, the first native Mozambicans to do so. “Though we’ve always worked hard for Tzu Chi, this certification has made it clear to us that we need to work harder, which I’m delighted and more than willing to do,” Celeste observed.
Their everyday grind and financial burdens are not lessened because they have joined the foundation to volunteer. However, their exposure to Tzu Chi ideals has helped them alter their mindset and face their future with love and hope. Their life may still be as financially difficult as before, but they are now able to face it with more equanimity and poise.
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This old woman lives alone under a tree. Her two little granddaughters next to her live just a stone’s throw away, with their mother. Everything the old woman owns is in the photo.
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Paula Malendze and her husband, Omar Aly, visit his daughter Soraya in the hospital. The hostility between the father and daughter, which had lasted for more than two decades, dissipated the moment they saw each other in this room.
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During a regular Tzu Chi distribution, joyful recipients carry rice provided by the Taiwanese government.
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