In my darker moments, I feel like the refugee camp is just one giant out-stretched arm, hand palm-up, begging. This is the feeling I get when I'm there, on the ground, dealing with league we support and the GRS program that we support. The bottom line is that our efforts in Mayukwayukwa may not be sustainable once our contract to go there runs out for the simple reason that if we aren't visiting them and bringing with us gifts and incentives ie Nike shirts or soccer balls, they will cease running the programs. Nevermind that the benefits of the program (knowledge and understanding about HIV and AIDS) is what really matters. It's the forest through the trees syndrome; it's the live from moment to moment mentality.


Yet I must also remember that these are displaced peoples that did not choose their situation. At forty years old, Mayukwayukwa is the oldest refugee camp in Africa. Most of the people there who I work with were born in the camp and now have children of their own. If all your life you have been given food by the World Food Program you are going to be inclined to receiving food. Now the UN might pass a cessation clause for Angola meaning that all those refugees that escaped the dire situation there forty years ago or resurgent problems in the late nineties will lose their status as refugees. Essentially they will become illegal immigrants. Those that have already been repatriated voluntarily are not accepted by their Angolan brethren, the refugees are called "Zambianos", a strange xenophobia prevails.