A lesson in survival for Angola's shell-shocked orphans: Civil war has wrecked the town of Cuito but Karl Maier finds it's business as normal in schools and shops

BENDING low to enter a white canvas tent, Evangelista Chamale lifted a blanket to expose a reed mat resting on a brick platform about the size of a double bed.

'This is where 14 children sleep,' she said. 'The older ones stay with the little ones to give them comfort, especially now that it is so cold.'

A dozen tents set in an open lot in the centre of the Angolan city of Cuito house 137 orphans, children whose parents were among the estimated 15,000 people killed in the 18-month siege by guerrillas loyal to Jonas Savimbi's National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (Unita). Many of them perished in the months of rebel shelling which has destroyed nearly every building in town.

Ms Chamale has been working with Cuito's orphans for the past 15 years. But she said conditions for them had never been more difficult since Angola's civil war resumed in 1992. This was after Mr Savimbi rejected his defeat in the September 1992 elections by President Jose Eduardo dos Santos' ruling Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA).

Ms Chamale's morning begins at sunrise, when she organises breakfast and then seeks help from a handful of international aid groups and the government relief agency, Minars, to supply everything from food and medicines to blankets and shoes. Only shoes have eluded her.

'We found the children wandering around the streets crying out for their mamas,' she said. 'Some had malaria, some were suffering from diarrhoea, some hunger, but the worst thing was the trauma of the shelling.'

In a clearing behind the orphanage workmen have dug a bunker about 15ft long and 6ft deep, but it was clear that it could not accommodate all 137 children. Medecins sans Frontieres has helped the orphanage with medicine, and aid from the UN World Food Programme has allowed Ms Chamale to prepare four meals a day, mainly of rice, beans and maize.

Like many Angolan professionals who are not working for international aid agencies, Ms Chamale receives no pay, only a promise of a wage once peace returns to the city, which she admits could be a long time. Her efforts reflect a spirit to survive in a city which, by the sheer scope of destruction, should have died long ago. On almost every block of Cuito an abandoned plot or a bombed-out building serves as a refugee camp, sometimes for people who have fled their homes in the rebel-controlled sector across the city's main avenue, or from the equally besieged town of Cunje, about four miles away. Everyone, it seems, is busy.

Hundreds of people have crowded into the back of the remains of the Hotel Cuito, 100 yards from the war's front line. Dozens of fires on which maize- meal and beans are being cooked fill the rooms with a thick smoke that burns the eyes and throat.

A relentless chorus of coughing children announces the onset of winter.

Housed behind the walls of the hotel and most of the adjacent buildings is an entire society, complete with tiny markets, cemeteries and even cobblers.

Antonio de Castro has been fixing shoes for the past 30 years, and, war or no war, he shows no sign of stopping. Today he works in near pitch dark under the stairwell of the hotel, fashioning new heels from strips of rubber sliced from the tyres of blasted vehicles which litter the streets.

'When I have the materials, I can fix seven or eight pairs a day,' he boasted. 'Since there is no way to find new shoes in Cuito, I just keep fixing up the old ones. That is my job.'

Regard for duty and the urge to carry on is infectious among Cuito's civilian population. Near the hospital, driving classes continue, even though there are few private vehicles and virtually no petrol. In the centre of town, little boys sift through the rubble of the Cuito court building, searching for material to sell to anyone trying to rebuild their homes.

With the help of the Irish aid agency, Concern, 500 teachers instruct nearly 6,000 primary and secondary school children in 20 reopened schools. All the teachers work for no pay.

The sense of solidarity among Cuito's civilians has made for strange bedfellows. Olegario Cardoso, a businessman, has opened his shop to more than 300 refugees, many of them barefoot street children. 'The kids from the street wreck everything, but there is nothing we can do. They have nowhere else to go,' he said.