wafrica: week number 5

Salama salama!

(p.s. not sure if I have told you this yet BUT the reason for the “w” in front of the Africa in the title of my post is this—in the local language Makua you put a “w” sound in the front of most countries when you are talking about them…so right now I’m in wAfrica and in a little over a week I will be in wAmerica…yes it IS as funny in real life as on this blog)

Well we are about to begin our last week…very very sad. BUT I am also very excited BECAUSE on Wednesday all of the interns and the missionary families are going to a private beach in PEMBA, MZ! Yes you read correctly—private beach. ☺

But enough about what I to come…let me tell you about this past week!

MONDAY

Supposedly it was a “rest” day; however it was time for half of the interns to make dinner…the last two times we did boys vs. girls but this go around we mixed up the groups.

SO my group: Mark, Ted, and Kaitlyn Shaker (yes Shaker; one of the missionary kids thinks her last name is Shaker and not Schaefer so cute)

We decided to go for a wAmerican themed dinner including: burgers, fries, and lemon meringue pie. Headed to the market around 10 a.m. got our fixens including the goat meat…yes beef is scarce. We got back to the Howell’s house around 11.30 and started cooking. We made homemade rolls for the burgers and we actually ended up having to make two batches because the first batch came out not as burger sized buns but little dinner rolls buns…we gave the little girls mini burgers.

After lunch and during the bun fiasco Ted and Mark proceeded to cut up the goat meat…it took them 3 hours.

Yes 3 hours.

African eat the bone so the meat is not cut into nice strips like in America, where the bone is easily removed. No no here the animal is just hacked into whatever pieces are easiest, and because of this it makes separating meat from bone a pain-staking task.

Got the meat cut. Got the meat ground. Salad made. French-fries…oh the French fries.

We cut up the potatoes around 12.30…we covered them and then around 4 we went to cook them…they were covered in brown spots. We were unsure if this was a bad, good, or neutral thing…so after a slightly stressful moment we called Amy, found out they were fine and started to season them.

So bun fiasco; now we have the potato fiasco.

I got to make the pie! I love making PIES! And I’m an expert at meringue thanks to my Grandmother (thank you Granmommie Pat) because every Christmas she makes meringue drops with chocolate chips and she taught me how to make them.

So Kaitlyn made the crust. Great. I made the filling. A little miss colored because the egg yolk was orange and not yellow and the white sugar was brown and not white, but still excellent. The meringue was awesome. It peaked perfectly. Put the meringue on top of the filling—lovely. And waited until everyone got there to put them in the oven to brown the top….

We started dinner. Everyone loved the burgers. Awesome they took literally 4 hours to make. The buns were perfect. Salad good. Then the buzzer went off. I went to get the pies and the middle had partially liquefied.

Yes it had liquefied. I’m not really sure what happened. All I could figure was the oven was super hot from all of the baking and it baked the pie too quickly…so quickly it liquefied most of the middle.

It ended up being fine. But it was the third fiasco; so by that time we were all a little like “seriously?” ha ha (at least kaitlyn and I were…well the boys were pretty frustrated about that meat)

Everyone loved dinner! Everyone loved the pie. And then we played a South African version of scene it and my team won twice! Hooray movie knowledge.

TUESDAY

Village visit day!

Mark, Ted, Kaitlyn and I went out with Allen. We headed out to the village where Ted did his bonding; so we were greeted with a large crowd of children. All of them were excited to see Ted again.

Allen is memorizing Titus with some of the church leaders in the village; so that was great to sit and listen to them as they recited Titus in 3 different languages (respective to the person who was memorizing language of choice).

They fed us rice and matapa. Good.

We got back and met with our good friend Fawnetoo about some cultural differences between the West and Mozambique. The language barrier was pretty difficult but we pushed through and got some good answers for our culture study.

We each are responsible for a topic of our choice then we are supposed to interview locals to expand our knowledge of the local culture.

We headed over to the Howell’s to hang out; played a couple rounds of Bang…oh yes it is a card game that has been obsessively played since we’ve arrived.

Headed back to the Westerholms for dinner. Bed. Early. I know lame, but true.

WEDNESDAY

We had another round of cultural questions for some of the missionary’s workers. The topic I chose was the transition from childhood to adulthood—I got some interesting responses and found out of really sad things about the youth and the lack of regard for purity and marriage.

We attempted to print off some hymnals but the power went out so we could not use the printer. We then had our weekly intern meeting where we process our week together as a group.

It was a good meeting; I shared about the book I’ve been reading, “Teaching Cross Culturally” and we had a lot of discussion about evangelizing to Muslims; and we also had an encouraging conversation about the power of prayer and how we use prayer (it sounds weird to write what we discussed in a list form, but all of the things we talked about were full of life and information—it is just difficult to reproduce here. Forgive me for that)

Then we had team night at the Howells! Another missionary family (the Salwayer’s who have 4 boys all named after guns….yes so awesome) joined us as they were passing through town.

It was a really chill team night because the semi-finals of the World Cup was on so some of the guys went to watch it down the street at a restaurant.

The rest of us just talked and talked about how futball (soccer) players are apparently wimps…don’t ask me ask Ted; he holds this opinion very strongly.

THURSDAY

We ventured out all the interns Alan and his daughter Ellie to make a lorena stove, similar to a rocket stove. It is a simple mud structure that is used as opposed to an open fire; it helps to prevent burns and smoke inhalation.

The man we were supposed to build the stove for did not show up where Alan had told him to meet us so…we ended up talking to this other lady and decided to build the stove for her!

Got old termite mound dirt. Got dirt. Mixed them together. Got water. Mixed that in and wa-la you have mud for the stove. Throw in some grass and you’re ready to build. Mind you there were a lot of blisters, a lot of buckets full of dirt being carried, and a lot of mixing going on to get to this point.

Built the stove. Alan and Jon left to get some more water. Kaitlin Petty (KP) also left with them because she was not feeling well ☹

Finished the stove before they got back, but it was ok because the woman needed the water for personal use. She and her family were very grateful and we were glad to help!

That afternoon we went to our last ladies class with Rachel. It was bittersweet. It has been fun getting to know some of the ladies and singing with them every week has been a blessing.

Kim taught the lesson and she did a great job; all of us were tired from the late night before and from working on the stove all morning long SO the ladies kept asking if we were sad; they thought we wanted to go home…but really we were all just pooped.

All in all though it was a great day.

FRIDAY

Village visit with Chad.

Kaitlyn, Ted, Mark and I headed out around 10.30 a.m. went to the village where Mark did his bonding. We picked up Mark’s “dad” and other man and we drove through the BUSH on a tiny bumpy path to a village about and hour away.

We did a short study with them and then hoped back into the car and drove for about another hour to the village where Chad and the guys have been going every Thursday.

We were at this village singing and doing a study with them for about 3 hours. I got a lot of reading done. But it was fun to see where the guys have been going every week; AND the lady who cooked us lunch/dinner is an excellent cook (Jon has claimed that she is the best in Africa).

Headed back; it was pretty late and we had been driving a long time….and when we got to the village to drop off Mark’s “dad” we were immediately called over to another part of the village where someone’s hut had caught on fire!

It was very scary coming up, seeing everyone panicking and hearing women wailing crying. I just kept praying that no one was hurt. Chad and the guys helped to pull some of the grass off of the house next to the fire, so it did not catch. The fire died down; no other house caught on fire, and no one was injured. So it ended up being all right; and the family got most of their belongings out of the building.

So that was intense and very sobering. But I’m glad we were there to help, even if it was just a little bit.

AND

That night we helped Amy decorate cookies for our Fourth of July party. So fun!

SATURDAY

Headed out around 7; same group with Chad again and we went to the same village with the really good cook.

We sang for over an hour! It was so much fun! And they asked each of us interns to lead a song, so that was fun; a little intimidating but fun.

We did not stay at the village too long BECAUSE Saturday night was our FOURTH OF JULY PARTY!

So we wrapped up around lunch; ate with the family, then headed out. As we left the good cook asked for my dress…yes the one I was wearing. It is not rude here to ask for things you want or like…needless to say I declined her request.

Got back and got excited for the party!

Amy went ALL OUT. She made (mind you all homemade) egg rolls, spinach dip, salsa, home made chips, cheesy pita bread, pigs in a blanket, spinach croissant amazing little sandwich things, chicken, popcorn, and cookies!

It was amazing!

We had a water balloon toss. Alan and Jon won. Nice job guys.

Then we had a horseshoe tournament with a bracket and everything. I got to the semi finals against Kim but alas she beat me. THEN Kim went on to face Ted for the championship; and I’m happy to say that she dominated. Hooray girls rule.

Also a high light of our party was the intern fashion show…a couple of weeks ago we all went to the market by ourselves and bought World Cup themed outfits…we presented them in a fashion show format…it was hilarious and a bit disturbing. Ted had on some shorts that were a bit too tight and a top that could be called a mid-drift.

But the highlight of the evening was after we were done…Jon took Kaitlyn Shaker’s white jeans embroidered with colorful animals and put them on for all the see….they were so tight…oh so tight. My eyes were burning for quite some time afterwards.

We “presented” our culture studies and then played a rousing game of telephone/Pictionary. If you have never played you MUST! It was so so so funny we all laughed SO HARD!

I’m proud to say that we stayed up way past our normal bedtime! Ha ha Great day!

SUNDAY

Woke up at 5.15 a.m.

Boo.

Mark, Ted, Kaitlyn and I drove with Chad to church this morning. The church was about 2 and a half hours away. So we had to get up extra early to make it on time.

But when we got there we discovered that the church leader was working, because the Governor was coming to town and the man from Montepuez Chad had expected to be in town was seemingly no where to be found…Chad was unsure to begin with if the man could be trusted but no one knew where he was so we assumed we’d found our answer…BUT he showed up.

And because there were no members of the church Chad has help start we piled in the car and went to another church down the road. It was in an outdoor shelter and it was so much fun. Great singing and they asked Chad to preach; it was fun to meet some new people.

Hoped back in the car; hungry and ready for a 2 plus hour drive.

On the way home we stopped; climbed a mountain. Ha ha not out of the ordinary for this group. I went this time! It was beautiful! A little hard on the asthma, but I made it!

Hoped back into the car; bought some bajeas (those bean things we made a few weeks ago) for lunch.

Long drive. We were all falling asleep since we woke up so early. Finally made it home around 2 o’clock.

Went to drop the guys off but the Howell’s were not back from church yet, so they came over and despite the fact that we were all falling asleep we played a rousing game of nerts. And I WON! Oh my gosh! I don’t think that has ever happened. Ha ha

Chilled out for a while.

And now here I sit. Almost ready for dinner and excited for the World Cup final which is tonight!

I’m so to watch oh yes. I have to come on I’m so close I have to watch the finals.

Thank you for reading. Thank you for pushing through. Ha ha This time next week I will be on a plane to the United States…so I might not post until I’m home.

BUT this next week we have one more village visit on Tuesday then leave for the beach on Wednesday; fly out Sunday morning. Be back on the 19th.

Weird weird weird keep praying for the end of our time here.

Love you all.