africa--week numero 2

(so sorry there will be no pictures this week and as of now no added pictures to last weeks entry. the bandwidth just isn't strong enough i guess---but eventually there will be pictures. not sure when that eventually is though...anyways enjoy)

Salama! (Hello/Greetings)
Nhavo? (How are you?)

As you can clearly see (from my greeting) I have been diligently practicing my Makua, which is the local language in this part of Mozambique. :) Diligently practicing yes, retaining a lot…that’s debatable BUT I am learning.

The last time I spoke with you I had just climbed a treacherous mountain and was about to partake of a meal wholly shopped for and made by the boy interns.

In a word the meal was excellent.

They did a great job! They came back from hiking and pretty much immediately went to market and cooked the rest of the day. On the menu: chicken with a tangerine and papaya (I’m pretty sure papaya) glaze [the chicken was killed and plucked by jon and ted…. Great job guys] grilled mixed veggies, pita bread [yep made from scratch] potato chips [IMPORTED FROM AMERICA!] and for dessert banana frozen yogurt with a chocolate mocha drizzle….Yes at this moment you should be amazed. Ha ha

So tonight is the girls turn to make dinner…and obviously I cannot divulged our menu to you but it is going to be excellent—a rival to last week for sure.

TUESDAY

Tuesday was a village visit day! This week KP, Jon, Mark, and I went with Chad. We had language class early in the morning then around 10 we left down the paved road.

We went to three villages. At the first we hung out while Chad taught one of the church leaders to read. Also in that village we visited the daughter of the man we taught to read. His daughter was very sick and very young. It was very jarring to see this skinny, sick, precious child and not be able to do anything. It was a helpless feeling and was the first time I’ve really felt a deep sense of sadness since I’ve been here. Chad thinks she might have AIDS because her mother died a few years ago most likely from AIDS. Chad said he could hopefully get the girl some medicine or take her to the hospital sometime this week.

Also in that village we met this hilarious old couple! The wife basically put on a show for us. She taught us how to plant and how to cook food. At first when she saw us she grabbed Mark’s hand and led him under an awing to sit down; she grabbed my waist to “help” me sit down. But the best part was the whole time when she was “acting” her husband was just giggling at her (SO CUTE!) ha ha Mark got some video footage so hopefully he will eventually put that on facebook.

Second village we went to was for a bible study. BUT when we got there a family asked Chad if he could take a pregnant women to the hospital; she was having complications with the baby. So what to do? Leave the interns in the village for a half an hour to “teach” the bible studying or take the woman to the hospital?......He took the woman to the hospital. Ha ha

It was completely fine because Chad has a really cool teaching tool that all you have to do is crank this box/speaker and it teaches the lesson in Makua; then the other person turns the pages of a picture book when there’s musical cue. EXACTLY like those books you read as a kid :)

So there we were four white people sitting with 26 Africans alone in the middle of a village. Ha ha priceless.

Chad returned after about 40 minutes and we headed to the next village ;)

The last village we went to was for another Bible study. We drove up got out and this precious little toddler ran up to Jon and stuck his arms up so Jon could pick him up! Precious.

We were at this Bible study for quite some time. Soooo we found ways to occupy ourselves since we don’t really understand Makua or Portuguese. I wrote in my journal, KP made faces at the kids who were watching us (always), Jon wasn’t feeling too well so he sat, and Mark played “Mozambican Math.” Example: World – Ellie (the Howell’s daughter) = world not living in. oh the things we do in times of boredom.

So after Bible study it was getting late…around 4.30-5. So we hopped in the car and headed back to Mozambique. About and hour drive down the paved road and we were home.

WEDNESDAY

Early morning language lesson with Faw.knee.two (that is the phonetic spelling of his name) THEN we had girls hang out time! All of the girl interns went with Rachel and Amy to the “Cotton Club” which is the cool hang out around here. It’s just a small little restaurant and it actually has a small pool that we are swimming in today! (ha ha how awesome is that) We talked and had lunch it was really nice to get to know Amy and Rachel a little more and just connect with all of the girl interns.

At 2 p.m. we had our intern weekly meeting with Chad. We all got together and talked about our weeks: Our highs and lows, what we had seen, what we were thinking. I really really love that time!

Wednesday night was team night at the Howell’s. And Rachel made the most delicious dessert I’ve ever had in my whole life: chocolate cake with chocolate icing and pink peppermint frozen yogurt….all made from scratch. Please just pause and think about the awesomeness of this for just a second….ok good? Yeah it was amazing. Ha ha

We played a couple of really fun games too. We played celebrity: which is the game where you play three rounds, the first is like catch phrase where you can say anything to get your team to guess the celebrity, second round you can only say one word, and the third round is like charades. Of course we played girls against guys…at first we thought we’d tied then kaitlyn recounted and we discovered the boys won by one point….boo.

So we moved on the another game….King Frog. It was HILARIOUS! It’s kinda like big.booty. You each have an animal movement/noise and you do your motion then another person’s motion and then they do their motion and another persons…got it? You get out from pauses/hesitations AND the catch is when you get out everyone moves up a seat (like in 4.square) so you end up changing animals! Ha ha I got down to like the final 4 or 5 BUT in the final two was KP and Ted. I laughed so so so hard!

We hung out for a while after the game talking about spiders….and other poisonous bugs. Invigorating.

THURSDAY

We woke up early early early ALL eight of us piled into Allen’s truck and we drove about an hour to mud a church building! Yes mud a church building.

We got there and the bamboo structure was already completed so our task was to get dirt piles while Allen and the kids got water in the truck. There were a lot of dirt clods that we had to break up…a lot of them were filled with ants….gross. I got blisters from breaking up the clods with random metal objects. And we all got bitten by ants OH and there were stickers everywhere.

Once we got all of the water we needed we started mixing it in with the dirt to make a thick mud paste. Several of the boys took off their shoes and stepped into the mud pile to help mix it but I just used my hands. After it was mixed we started to put the mud in between the bamboo structure. It was messy but really fun. We had a crowd of course. OH AND I made a sweet little friend pretty soon after we had gotten out of the car her name was Fatima and she held my hand when we walked to the church and every time I looked up she was standing on the other side of the church building where I was mudding!!!!

We mudded and mixed all morning. We got over half of the building done which was great. They made us lunch sheema (ixma) and beans: classic. Then we headed home. Poor boys in the back got bounced around—Kim actually switched with Jon because he wasn’t feeling well. And I don’t know how he did it but Mark read in the back…talent.

We got back around 2 and soon after the girls headed to ladies class. Love those women so great. They fed us rice and beans. KP did the lesson and Rachel translated; Kaitlyn and Kim both prayed AND next week I’m teaching the lesson. We are going through the Sermon on the Mount!

Came back. Ate. Got reading for bonding.

Bonding is where each one of us stays the weekend with an African family. So this past weekend we were each by ourselves, in Africa, with a church family, speaking little to no English.

I’m going to write a separate blog entry about this experience ☺ BUT I can tell you it was fun and it was enlightening, but I am glad to be back with the Howell’s and other English speakers.

So for now I hope you’ve enjoyed this installment.

I’m off to eat breakfast THEN the girls are headed to the market to shop for our meal. AND we must not forget swimming at the cotton club at 11.

OH AND….mark berryman is here!!! He is our teacher/African internship coordinator from Harding. He’s going to be here this whole week hanging out with us. Really glad he’s here!

With lots of love to all of you. Please continue to pray for safety and health! (We are all doing relatively well health wise praise the Lord)

<>< caroline