Good-bye Mozambique

Well tomorrow morning I shall head off on my journey back to Michigan. I have loved Mozambique and hope I will be able to come back someday.

My flights are as follows:
Maputo-Johannesburg: 11:50am-1:00pm
Johannesburg-Frankfurt: 7:25pm-6:10am
Frankfurt-Detroit: 2:10pm-5:20pm

I am thankful that the time doesn't change until after I leave Frankfurt. It's easier on my brain that way. And hopefully I'll rest enough to stay awake on the drive back to Grand Rapids from Detroit.

Right now it's hard to imagine that I will really be leaving Mozambique tomorrow. It's easy to think I'm going to head of to Lichinga again like I did last time I was in Maputo. But alas, I must return to finish my last year of school.

I think it will be interesting to see how my life changes and how I have changed as a result of my three months here in Mozambique. It will take some time to know the answer to that however.

Saying Good-bye

This morning Tim and Michele left with Michele's parents to spend a few days in Malawi at the game park before dropping Mike and Nancy at the airport on Sunday for their flight.  They will not be back until Tuesday afternoon or Wednesday. Since I leave Tuesday morning on the flight out of Lichinga they will not be back before I leave.  It was really sad to say good-bye.  I'm going to miss the kids a lot. It's hard to think that the kids will all be 2.5 years older when I see them again.  I can't imagine how big they'll all be. That is, unless I find a way to come back to Mozambique sooner.

It's hard for me to even imagine leaving here. I don't really believe that I am going to get on an airplane that is going to carry me away on Tuesday. It doesn't seem possible. I get excited when I think about hanging out with my friends again and going to church and college group again. But overall, I really have no desire to leave Mozambique and I try constantly to figure out how I can stay a few more months.

One thing I do know for sure, I will come back to Mozambique as soon as I can.

Mapuje Homestay

Me, and the family I stayed with outside the house.

Doing laundry at the river.

Making Shema

Kids gathered around me to look at the pictures on my camera.

I really had a great time in the village of Mapuje, where I lived for 4 days. Tim and Michele took me out there on Tuesday. First we had some baptisms, then communtion, and around 4 in the afternoon they left me out there. I was the only white person around and no one spoke much English either. I had to rely on the Portuguese I have learned over the past few months as well as hand motions and body language. I realized very quickly how much you really can communicate. I am understanding about 70% of the Portuguese I here too, which is exciting. I can't speak it much at all though, which everyone tells me is normal.

I was downright terrified when they left me out there by myself. I really had no idea what to expect and was just overwhelmed and couldn't believe I was actually going to stay there for 4 days. Tuesday night went well however. I slept quite well and woke up in the morning ready for my first day in a village.

Wednesday was an extremely long day. We really didn't do much. We had breakfast, then sat around visiting until lunch. After lunch we sat around visiting until dinner. It was good and is really how they spend many of their days, but for really was very long and boring for me. This was partly because it was my first day, partly because of language barrier, partly because I just didn't know what to do or what I could do, etc. By Wednesday evening I was having a difficult time and was really struggling. I almost turned on the phone to call Tim and Michele, not because I wanted to go home, but just to talk to someone and here someone say I was doing well. But I decided to push through it until bed time and see how I felt in the morning.

Thursday morning I felt a bit better and more relaxed. God is good and we went to the river to do laundry which was something to do all day. It was about a 2 mile walk to the river. Once we got there, we found a place on the rocks along the water and began washing. We washed, and washed, and washed, and washed....Then they laid some of the clothes out to dry on the grass and continued washing again. At one point we stopped and ate some bread for lunch, then continued washing again. Yes, I stood in the river for probably about 4 hours and washed clothes. It was hard work, but standing in the water kept you nice and cool. I wish I had a picture of me in the river washing, but I was the only one who could use my camera. When all the clothes were clean we gathered them up and walked back to the house. Once back at the house we hung up the wet clothes on the line. At bed time, I felt very good and tired and slept well. I was glad I had pushed through the night before and hung on.

Friday was much like Wednesday. We just were around the house and visited. I attempted to make Shema, which was fun. I discovered that it is a lot harder to do than the women make it look. The stuff is actually really hard to stir.

Saturday was again much like Friday, but I did try a few more new things. I carried water on my head, which was really a lot of fun. It was the one thing I did that I thought was not nearly as hard as it looked. Once the bucket was up there, it really was easier to carry than it would have been in my arms. These African women are on to something!! I also tried pounding corn and that was the biggest workout ever. My arms are still sore actually. I came away with a new appreciation for how hard these women work. They are physically as strong as the men and sometimes even stronger I think. They can carry a lot of weight on their heads, and can do so much that I could never do. And they start doing it at 4,5,6 years old; they grow up doing it.

Saturday evening, we went for a walk around Mapuje and I saw the school. Then we walked back to the house a different way. From my walk, I could tell that the family I was staying with was more well off than some of the other families. The family I was with has everything they need, and even some extras. They have a nicer house, beds, lots of chickens, 4 buildings (house, kitchen, storeroom, and bathroom), etc. Other homes simply were homes, and many were in states of disrepair.

And this morning Tim and Michele picked me up on the way to the church were Tim preached the sermon. All in all it was a great experience. I think it's the best thing I have ever done and I will not come away from it unchanged. It would be impossible not to be hugely impacted by it. It will take me some time to sit and think through and process it all though. One thing I learned is that people are people. There are cultural differences, yes; but human beings are more alike than I ever realized.

That's the jist of my 4 days living in a home with an African family. If you want to hear more you'll just have to ask me :)

Lake Malawi - Meponda

Fruit of a Baobab tree. It is used to make Cream of Tartar and is essentially pure Vitamin C. It's actually pretty good.

Sunset

Some people from the local church came on Saturday to be baptized. It was a beautiful service.

One afternoon some people from the church came and we sang songs together.

The Radaz family put on a worship concert for us.

The first snake I've seen in Mozambique. No one knew what kind it was, but it wasn't venomous.

I just got back to Lichinga after spending a week at Lake Malawi. It was a great, relaxing week and I really enjoyed it a lot. It was a lot of fun to be with all the SIM missionaries from Mozambique and get to know them. And a family from my church came and did worship for us all week. It was really great to sing and be together. I've only been here for a few months, but already I missed having worship and fellowship like that so much. I can only imagine how it must feel to only have worship in English and fellowship with friends once a year.

We had great food all week and more than enough time to just hang out, sleep, relax, swim, read, etc. We saw a snake one day, but no one knew what kind it was. We saw a giant centipede which is not venomous, but has a painful bite. We also saw lots of fish eagles, monkeys, and.....fleas. That was the worst part of the week, all the flea bites I ended up with. But I survived. And I stepped on a rock the first day which made my foot sore all week long. But oh well. It was all totally worth it. Such a great week.

On Saturday some people came from the local church and we had a Baptismal service. It was so beautiful and just cool to experience. It's so great to be able to have a service like that despite any cultural differences or language barriers that are present. And I find it especially neat to have the knowledge that someday I will see those people again, even if it's not in this lifetime.

Malawi

So I spent a few days in Malawi which turned out to be really enjoyable. On Thursday on the way to Lilongwe, we had to stop and wait on the side of the road for about twenty minutes so that the president of Malawi could go by. That was a rather neat experience, although apparently it's really not all that uncommon.

I spent a couple days in Lilongwe.  We went shopping and ate at a couple really great restaurants. It was fun to see a new place. On Sunday, we went to a Baptist church in Lilongwe and it was really great to have worship and a sermon in English.

After church we picked up a family at the airport and then headed to Liwonde where there is a game park. Early Monday morning (about 5:30am) we got up and headed out to the game park after a quick breakfast. 

As we drove through the game park we were able to sit on top of the car on the luggage rack. That was really a lot of fun and allowed us to see so much. We saw warthog, impala, water buck, baboons, etc. as we drove. The scenery was also spectacular.  After about an hour or so of driving we saw a herd of elephants. They were moving through the trees and some of the younger ones looked at the car. Then suddenly we saw a huge elephant in the middle of the road ahead of us. He was a big elephant. We drove a little closer and just watched him as he stood there and then slowly meandered off the road and into the bush. So cool!!!

Shortly after 9am we stopped at a resort/hotel that is inside the park to stretch our legs and use a toilet. We ended up decided to do the boat tour there and it was totally worth every minute. We saw tons of hippos and crocodiles, as well as two herds of elephants, and lots of birds including two fishing owls which are really rare to see. At one point on the boat tour we got near a large crocodile and it jumped toward the boat into the river! I was in the front of the boat and jumped back. It was funny. In the first herd of elephants we saw a really small baby which was stumbling through the mud, it was adorable.

The president of Malawi is in one of those cars.

Some of the landscape in the park.

Crocodile. Not sure if that's the one that freaked me out or not.

Baby elephant

Elephant in the middle of the road. He was huge.

Hippos, birds, warthogs....Africa :)

I took 200 pictures in the park, but unfortunately it takes too long to upload many onto here. But I picked a few of the better ones :)

Itepela

View of the mountain from the Mushamba in the morning

The road to Itepela

Testing for Malaria

HIV test strip. It's negative.

The kids at the school. They to there three times a week to learn to read Portuguese.

I had a great time in Itepela. So much so that I ended up staying the whole week and coming back today instead of coming back on Monday like I was originally supposed to.  It's a beautiful village and I felt so welcome with the family I was staying with.

It got to do lots of things, mainly just living there.  It was great to see what life is like in the middle of no where.  They do not have internet or phone service. There is a land line, but it's not used very often. And the electricity is solar powered and only used when it's needed.

One thing I did was go to the lab with Ariel (the woman in the picture holding the slide) and learn how to test for Malaria. It's actually a rather simple process and most people with a Western education would be able to do it. First you poke the end of a finger to get a few drops of blood onto a slide. Then you put the slide in the sun to dry. Once it's dye you put it in a dye for 10 minutes, then you let the slide dry again. Once the slide is dry the second time, you put it under the microscope and look for Malaria.  The trick is to know what you're looking for and know how to identify it.  Malaria has a round head with a body. The head is very round. Under the microscope you're looking for something that looks like a period with a body on top of it. I saw a few examples and given a day or two I probably could have diagnosed Malaria rather easily.

I also ate a number of things I've never eaten before. Kasave, which is like potato only more fibrous. Sugar cane. Sardines, bones and scales and all.

I learned a lot about life in a village. You eat lots of rice and beans, rice and peas, rice and mutapa. Sometimes you have bread and in season you have veggies.  For someone from America where we eat a variety of foods it is difficult to get used to a simpler diet. But it's really not that bad. One thing to remember is that food here is not something you do for pleasure, you just do it because you have to.

I also went to church on Sunday, which was good. Africa is so funny. Church is supposed to start at 9, and every great once in a while it does. Generally it's more like 10:30 or 11, even later when church finally starts. And all of life is that way, you just go with the flow and if something goes wrong do something else. Getting stressed because plans change or something breaks is just unheard of.

What else did I do in Itepela? Oh we played "Uno" and "Spoons" a lot with the kids. One night we played "Spoons" for an hour and a half. It was a lot of fun.

Ariel, the other American, and I played a lot of games as well.  It's something to do. When you do not have all the crazy things we have in America you find stuff to do. Actually I'm beginning to like games and enjoy them more. I'm learning lots of things about myself and about life in being here.

Cuamba & Muapula

I really enjoyed my trip to Cuamba and Muapula. Cuamba is south of Lichinga, it took about 6 hours to get there. In Cuamba I went with one of the missionaries to the school where she teaches a Bible story every Saturday morning. The kids were so sweet and she told the story of Moses. Then they sang songs and played a game. Later we went to another place and told the same story to the kids there. Again they are all so adorable.

Sunday we went on to a small village called Muapula. It is about 3 hours north of Cuamba and about 3 hours south east of Lichinga. The drives were beautiful and I really enjoyed the whole trip a lot. Muapula was especially beautiful. I was amazed at how dark it was at night. You turn out the lights and cannot even see your hand in front of your face, and it's dead silent too. The first night was rough. I could hear every little noise and could not see a thing, which scared me a lot. But the second night I slept really well and the darkness didn't seem so bad. I knew that I was very safe in the house and decided that I needed to enjoy the dark silence anyway. And I got to see stars too, which was amazing :)

In Muapula we had to heat water in what the South Africans call a donkey. It a big water tank set in a brick base with a spot underneath the water tank for a fire.  You light the fire under the tank and it heats the water. I was appreciative of a hot shower for sure.

The kids we taught the Bible story to in the morning

The kids we taught the Bible story to in the afternoon

I'll let everyone figure out what I'm eating

View near Cuamba

Wood stove

The donkey we heated our water in for a hot shower

View from the top of the rock

View from the rock

Baboon

Mozambique highway

I loved the quiet, peacefulness of Muapula.

Thursday I leave to go to a village called Itipela until Sunday or Monday.