Monday, May 28, 2007

Reunions galore!

It's been a good day on this end, I've reunited with many old friends and acquaintances today!
I rushed out of my shower when Joinha's aunt, my "prima" (or "cousin" -- we've called each other that for years now...can't remember how we figured it out) was here to visit. She works at the college dining hall. She brought a lovely "capulana" (traditional African cloth) for each of us girls.
visit with prima

Shortly after visiting with her, we headed into town with Dad to visit our old school, the Christian Academy in Mozambique. Classes were in session and students were hard at work (final exams), but the Weils (who taught us when we were here and who are now the acting directors of the school) gave us a tour of the place, even interrupting classes to introduce us to the kids. Mary got to meet some of the children she will be teaching next school year and got to see her classroom. She's nervous, but getting excited! She will probably be helping tutor some of the children during the summer (winter here) break, so that will help her ease into it.

From the school, we did some grocery shopping and headed back to campus. Classes were just getting out of session for the lunch break, so Mary and I headed down to the school to see all the professors. It was wonderful to see them again! Some had been my colleagues back when I volunteered in the library. Joinha had been busy teaching English, but was free for the rest of the day, so I spent the afternoon with her...it was wonderful to catch up with her again!! She is expecting a baby and is positively glowing!! We headed over to the dining hall and had some good, genuinely Mozambican bean stew, "feijoada" and "vuswa" (a stiff, white porridge made of maize meal). It was delicious!!

mmm...African food again!

We spent quite some time visiting with all the ladies who work there at the kitchen and then we went to the "escolinha" or creche, where all the students' children spend their time.

One of the little boys, Casmiro, was celebrating his 5th birthday and so his mother brought a cake, so all the kids were very excited! I got some good photos of the kids, but for some reason they think they are supposed to look serious for photos...it took much coaxing to get them to smile! I finally got to see Joinha's 4 yr old son, Noel, again. He was very shy but soon warmed up to me!! He's a real character!! Pretty soon he wasn't letting me out of his sight and when his mom scolded him, he ran to Tia (aunt) Beth... I can see this being a problem! Hehe!

Joinha and Noel

Anyway, I had a delightful time with the kids, just playing and chatting with them. Got to spend more time with my "chara" Elizabeth (here we are below)...

Two Elizabeths

The afternoon flew by and before I knew it, it was dinner time. Since then, we've been loading up the truck and packing to head out on our adventure tomorrow. We are going to the Limpopo Transfrontier Park tomorrow -- we really don't know what to expect... it's all uncharted territory to us and will be quite the adventure! We are camping but at this point don't know what sort of facilities there will be. We'll be in the Limpopo Park one night and then cross the border over to Kruger National Park, where we will be camping in two different campsites, Satara and Maroela. I can't wait to see some animals!! It's wintertime, so the trees are sparse and the grass dry... good game viewing! I'm hoping we get to see lions and leopards! I've got lots of film ready in anticipation!! We'll also have a full moon while we are camping, so should be nice!

Well, need to finish packing... we'll be gone until Monday and I'll fill you in on all adventures then!

Sunday, May 27, 2007

Pics


Mom and Mary getting vitamins ready to distribute to
the students and their families



Mary in front of our house



Me with Patches and Timmy


Well, it's been sunny but cool here, going up into the 80's during the day, but dropping again to the 60's at night. Being only 5 kms from the ocean ensures that there is usually a breeze too.

Am enjoying wearing my flipflops again, but have been using long-sleeved shirts and even a sweater to stay warm at night! It doesn't help that our house has only tiled floors (great in summer, when we'd sleep on the floor to keep cool, but bad in winter!)

Well, we didn't make it to Central Church for the 11AM service as I had hoped... the pastor of the Laulane Church (the campus church) insisted that we stay after attending the 7:30AM Portuguese service to attend the Shangaan service as well. He even talked our family into singing a special song. (I couldn't refuse him as we had gotten along so well the year I volunteered out here... I tutored him in English.) It was a good service however and I thoroughly enjoyed the music. Our special song, "All for Jesus" (in Shangaan) went over very well!

I have been thoroughly enjoying Mum's cooking! Today it was a nice Sunday dinner... roast beef and gravy, Yorkshire pudding (her specialty!), mashed potatoes, etc. I was given dish duty and it was a delight!! The reason being that there is a bird bath just outside the kitchen window and standing at the sink doing dishes I was able to see all sorts of amazing birds coming to drink -- laughing doves, red-eyed doves, bulbuls, hooded kingfisher, pygmy kingfisher, weaverbirds, natal robin, etc., etc. I really must make a list of them and keep track while I'm here!! (I think some plates are extra clean because I was so engrossed in watching the birds that I scrubbed the same thing for a good 5 minutes at one point!) It's a real paradise out there in the backyard!

This afternoon Mary and I were given the job of serving at "pharmacists" ... Mom , who is the school nurse, has received/bought(?) several large containers of multi-vitamins and it's time to dole out vitamins to everyone. So we were filling little containers with 30 or 60 vitamins in each. That took up much of the afternoon and we kept busy with that while our mom and dad went to the hospital to check on Gabriel, (the little boy suffering from kidney failure in the hospital) and take him a couple toys (Mom ended up taking toys for all the children in that ward... there were about 10 I think :o) Then tonight we showed a DVD (concert of the Drakensberg Boys' Choir) to all the Bible college students in one of the classrooms using our Jesus Film equipment. That was so much fun! They loved seeing the boys' choir and the kids of all races singing together. There was South African gumboot dancing accompanying some of the songs and that was a big hit (they aren't familiar with it here in Mozambique). Afterwards all the little boys ran outside and imitated the dancing. :o) My little tag-along, Elizabeth, came and perched next to me on the rickety wooden bench. It was chilly so she leaned in close (I think she liked my fleece sweater). She is so cute, very serious...doesn't smile much, but very cute!! I caught her staring up at me with large, curious eyes a couple times tonight. I'd love to know what she's thinking.

After the film, we bid everyone goodnight and came on back home only to have the electricity go off ...typical Africa! We were going to watch "The Queen" (and we did, later on), but it was so nice and relaxing to just sit together as a family by candlelight, listening to nothing but crickets chirping. This really has been what I've needed these last few months! I feel more like myself now than I have in ages! Well, it's getting late... hopefully tomorrow I'll FINALLY get to see my best friend Joinha and her little boy, Noel. They were away this weekend so I've not had a chance to see them yet.

Mary and I are also going to visit our old school, Christian Academy in Mozambique (CAM). It's moved locations since I went there, but some of the teachers are the same so we are looking forward to seeing them. We also need to get the tent aired out and look over our camping supplies as we are heading out on Tuesday (I'm so excited!!)

Saturday, May 26, 2007

First full day back

It's been a good first day back here... I slept in until about 10AM, got a quick shower and then was out romping with the dogs (got dirty almost right away! That's Africa for you!! Hehe!). Then Mom took me to visit with all the students' kids who were clustered around a marula tree (apparently they've been dying to meet Mary and me). We met them and especially the cutest little 3 year old girl named Elizabeth.

Here in Mozambique if you have the same name as someone you are their "chara" (pronounced "shara" -- it doesn't have an equivalent in English) -- being "chara" with someone though you have a real close bond...almost like family. Anyway, Elizabeth broke her arm a while back and Mom and Dad got her to the hospital and Mom took especial care of her and now she insists on sitting with them in church. Mom told her that my name is Elizabeth too and apparently she has been so anxious to meet me -- her "chara". She was very shy, but took my hand and led me to where her mother was scrubbing clothes so I met the rest of the family.

After a while, I went and sat under the marula tree with all the other kids. They were very busy making kites from tattered plastic bags, meticulously cutting out squares using shards of glass. Then they hunted about for sticks. They were using old maize bags (made from woven strands of plastic) for the string, carefully knotting the strands all together. They were really shy around me but were very anxious to show me how they could fly their kites, running as fast as they could to get them to lift off the ground. The littlest ones, two little girls were playing in the dirt next to me. They had very serious expressions on their faces but seemed fascinated with me. They were so cute!! I'm hoping to get to know them all much better over the next couple of weeks.

Sitting under that marula tree, in the sun with a mild breeze blowing, I felt so relaxed...sort of falling back into the rhythm of life over here. I feel like I'm on a high at the moment... I'm so happy!

This afternoon we went to the home of our fellow missionaries - the Scotts - for lunch and ended up staying there all afternoon, just visiting and sharing photos. I also spent time befriending their dogs and cats.

Then after that we called in at the Central Hospital to visit one of the students' children - a 7yr old named Gabriel - who Dad rushed to the hospital earlier this week. It was found that he had kidney failure and was convulsing. He was released from the ICU yesterday and so we were able to visit with him this evening. I didn't know what to expect in the hospital but was greatly encouraged to see it was clean, with beautiful bright pictures in the hallways...actually a pleasant place all things considered! Gabriels parents and uncle were with him and when we came in, he gave us a tired little smile, but the poor little guy is exhausted. Hopefully he is on the mend. No one is sure what caused the kidney failure at this point though. We'll stop in tomorrow to see him again.

Back in Africa!!

Greetings from chilly Mozambique!!! I'm happy to report that both flights went well....and they let me through without questioning the name discrepancy (praise the Lord!). The first flight was uneventful, Mary watched movies and I dozed off for most of it.

We arrived in London with less than hour to catch our second flight. We waited forever for the plane to pull up to the terminal. We had to transfer from terminal 4 to 1 via bus and the hallways in both seemed never-ending! I'm afraid I left poor Mary in the dust, trying to hurry along. We made it fortunately and (in true African style) they were running late. It looked like half of South Africa was trying to get on the plane. There was much confusion as British Airways is enforcing a new rule that passengers can carry only one piece of carry-on luggage. Fortunately we knew about this ahead of time and were prepared. Many people had to either fit their handbags in their carry-on luggage or discard them right there. It made for many disgruntled people!!

Finally we boarded the plane, but though our seats were in the same row, they were on opposite sides of the plane. We each had a window seat - we also had an empty seat each next to us, so we were able to sprawl a bit which was nice. Mary watched about 4 movies and I must confess I slept almost the entire way.

It didn't really, truly hit me that we were heading back to Africa until I woke up and looked out the window to find most glorious sunrise! (we were flying over Angola at that point) Reduced me to tears!!

All day yesterday was a feast for the senses... Dad got us some driewors/biltong (dried beef/antelope venison -sort of like jerky) to snack on and we were delightedly sniffing the smells and gazing out the window the whole trip. We drove through the Kingdom of Swaziland to Mozambique and got the chance to see the new highway from the cities of Mbabane to Manzini... and I must say, the roads more than rival those of Boston!!

We stopped in Manzini to stock up on groceries and unfortunately it was dark when we passed through the town of Siteki (where we lived back in 1991-2) we saw our old house though as we drove past. We made it through the border into Mozambique very quickly (always a blessing) and about an hour later...home again!!

It's pretty cool here and as expected, there is woodsmoke heavy in the air...with all the cooking fires and veld fires. I don't like to think about breathing it in, but it does make for GORGEOUS sunsets!!

We pulled out just what we needed for the night, had a bowl of soup and headed for bed soon after. Exhausted, but thrilled to be back!

Wednesday, May 23, 2007

The night before...

Well, my bags are packed and in the car.... I think the realization that I'm actually going home to Africa is sinking in!! WOW! I appreciate everyone's thoughts and prayers regarding my "situation" with the boarding pass, I am trusting that everything will work out just fine.

(For those of you who didn't know, the booking was made using the name "Beth", but all my official documents are "Frances Elizabeth". A note was made in my booking - stating my actual full name, but still.... I have to admit I am just a teeny bit nervous! Am hoping they will let me through! )

Well, time to get some rest.... 4AM comes very early!!

Tuesday, May 22, 2007

This is a first...


Ok so... this is a first for me. (My library school friends would be proud!) This is my first attempt at a blog. I've never been keen on broadcasting myself on one of these things to the world, but I thought this might be a fun way to share my trip to Africa with my friends... many of whom asked if they could be hidden away in my luggage (sorry!)

Anyway, am on my lunchbreak from work. Must get food... more to come later.

Beth