wAfrica: week number 3

(again...All right forgive me now…I am not going to go back through and check for spelling and grammar errors. I know I know it is a disgrace to my kind and my major BUT I am tired want to help with dinner…)


Well well long time no write. Hopefully the two consecutive entries will not scare you away.

I’m almost frantically writing about bonding and this past week BECAUSE I will not have Internet access for almost a week. EARLY tomorrow morning we are leaving for our survey trip! We are going to drive almost 13 hours to another village to survey the area for ministry needs. We are going to research what it would take to live as a missionary in the area and we are going to meet with and encourage some church members along the way. So yeah we will be gone for 6 days. Get excited!

Sooo this past week was great. Mark Berryman was here; it was fun to see him out of the classroom and “in his element.”

MONDAY

We went swimming at the Cotton Club..that was hilarious. It was so cold that the little girls lips turned a light shade of blue.

After swimming it was the girl interns’ turn to make dinner…we were proactive and went to the market early before we went swimming. We got all of our ingredients with the help of our language teacher. It was very fun walking through the market with all of the people and random stuff for sale. It was cramped but awesome.

On the menu: stir fry WITH goat meat, egg noodles, onions, green peppers, and tomatoes. Green salad, with homemade Asian dressing, home made croutons, peanuts, and tomatoes; and for dessert lemon bars!

I say that we did excellently; EVERYONE went back for seconds!

The funniest part of evening however was that the boys came dressed to impress: hair slicked back, pants pulled high and socks showing. Hilarious.

We of course played some games: celebrity and king frog. Boys won celebrity boo. Ted won king frog.

TUESDAY

Village visit: Kaitlyn, Mark, Ted, and I went with Allen. We actually went back to the very first village I visited to pick up some church members THEN onto the village about and hour further away.

We got there and walked around the town with the church members; they showed us some lorania (mud) stoves they have been making. These stoves are excellent because there is no open flame (which decreases the amount of burns) and there is less smoke.

We had a Bible study in the church, which was great. Allen talked about the selection of church leaders.

They fed us lunch: ixma (sheema) and matapa beans. It was excellent. Bible studying went a little long so we ended up staying until around 2.30…we would have normally left around noon. There were good conversations and hilarious occurrences including a church member reading out loud from the book Mark was reading—which was impressive because this guy did not know very much English.

On the way back we had to take tons of church members home…so all 6 of the white people had to pile in the front cab…it was more than cozy ;) A couple hours ride back…including a “guess the song” game we were home.

Because we had some time to spare (since we missed our language lesson) we played “Ticket to Ride”. (Promise we do more than sit around and play games) it was a fun game. Got pretty intense.
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WEDNESDAY

A sad day. We switched houses. Girls moved to the Westerholms and boys to the Howells. BUT we did not move before our market hunt. All of the interns were basically on our own the whole day: we went to the market with the goal to buy crazy outfits with the theme of the world cup! The goal obviously to experience buying stuff in the market; then we all walked to the cotton club for lunch.

It was fun to just be the interns. We laughed, talked, caught bees (guess which gender did that), and ate some good ole chicken and fries.

THAT night we packed up our stuff and brought it over to the Westerholms, where we had team night. So we all had dinner together and played games. We also had a great time of worship and prayer with the families and each other.

First night at the Westerholms was great. Amy is wonderful she made cute little signs that said welcome with our names on them. The boys were a little offended because apparently Amy did not make them welcome cards… ;) who knew boys were so into crafts.

THURSDAY

We woke up at our new home! The day was dedicated to cooking/baking. We all made bread with Amy early in the morning.

We broke up into teams and used different recipes with different ratios of white flour to the local kasva flour…Amy wanted to experiment with different ratios with the final goal of making a bread from an inexpensive readily available ingredient.

Mark and I were partners and we made the bread that was 50 percent white 50 percent kasva. This was the bread with the highest ratios.

It was hilarious having all 8 of us plus Amy in her little kitchen trying to all makes bread dough. So great.

The bread rose. We waited. Hung out, read, Jon and Zack sang. Then after it rose we rolled it out and put it in the pans! Amy put it in the oven for us because around 10.30 Rachel came and picked us up to go and make bageas (I have no idea it that is how you spell it). Bageas are like a bean hush puppy french fried thing. They are excellent. We helped grind the beans then we helped fry them up over the fire!

Rachel brought her little girl Katie who is 5-months-old, and I held her almost the whole time we were there. She is so cute and so sweet and I loved playing with her.

We made so many bageas; we were all a little sick by the time we left.

We went back to Amy’s and she had the bread cut up and numbered ready to be taste tested! So fun. We all voted on the bread based on taste—and the winner you ask? YES THAT IS RIGHT THE BREAD MARK AND I MADE WON! Which was even funnier because Mark hated our bread during taste testing.

After we taste tested it was time for ladies class and I was teaching! We drove to ladies class (and we were all, including Rachel exhausted, fighting sleep) we sang and I “taught” on the oaths section of the Sermon on the Mount. Rachel translated and I think I did pretty well; the ladies seemed to enjoy it.
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Onward to the Westerholms; we were all so tired, BUT we stayed up to play a new game (one that the boys are obsessed with) called Guillotine. Yes it is based on the French Revolution.

Then bed. (sorry some of these details are hurried or vague I’m tired and trying to tell you all about this week before we leave)

FRIDAY

Today is Mozambique’s Independence Day. Whoo hoo. And also a village visit day! Chad did not go out like normal because he had to take Mark Berryman to the airport SO 4 of us went with Allen to the village.

Ted, Jon, Mark, Kaitlyn, and I went with Allen to the village where we mudded a church. This was the village where I made a little friend, Fatima! When we pulled up she ran up to me and hugged me! (SO SO SO AWESOME!) We had bible on fasting. It was great except the whole time Kaitlyn and I were avoid little hands that wanted to pull our hair. Don’t worry though they pulled the hairs that had fallen off of our heads that were on our shirts and played with them………..our hair is so different I guess it is really that interesting…

So Bible study was great and fun; we walked around the village with the kids Fatima and another little girl (Kaitlin Petty’s friend) held my hands. In African culture it is acceptable for men to hold hands…so naturally the boys had little boys grad their hands too! It’s so cute seeing these huge white boys holding hands with ity bity African children.

We passed Fatima’s home and her mother stopped me and told me to wait; she gave me a bowl of peanuts! So kind of her.

Got to the car, piled in and headed back. Again it was a snug fit because we had people in the back, but none the less fun. We had an ipod this time so we rocked out to a wide variety of musical artists.

Got home and we are now helping Amy bake some snacks and goodies for the trip! Apparently our meals might or might not be regular…ha ha we are kind of going on faith and generosity SO the snacks are important.

WHEW

We got it done guys we did it!

Please be praying for our trip; we leave tomorrow morning around 5 and are going to be driving all day. We will be driving back on Thursday of next week. Thank you for your continued love and prayers.

I’m having a blast, learning a lot and growing closer to the Lord, He is so good.

Lots of love.

Caroline