Today I've been thinking of the line in
that song, "I hear it rains down in Africa," because it has been
pouring rain. We've actually had really nice weather with only a few
rainy days, but today the wind is blowing like crazy and it's coming
down in buckets! Metaphorically speaking, it poured this week too.
On
Monday, I met the African version of Aubrey. Her name is Anita. When I
went for my morning walk, I heard a shout and looked down the street to
see a little girl hollering to me. That's not so unusual, so I said,
"Bom dia" (Hi!) and kept walking. A couple minutes later, I heard her
again and when I turned around, she was just rounding the corner and
acted like she was trying to catch up with me. I said, "Do you want me?"
and she said, "Sim," (yes!) so I waited for her. When she reached me,
she grabbed my hand and started chatting away. I asked her if she was
going to school and she said "yes". Then I asked her if she wanted to
walk with me and she said "Sim!" again, so we continued down the street
with her keeping up a running conversation. She got a little impatient
when she realized that I couldn't understand everything that she was
saying, but she hung onto my hand and kept her stride. We passed a
lady that knew her and she called out to Anita, probably asking her
where she was going with that strange white lady, but Anita tossed an
answer and kept right on walking with me. She was hilarious!! I asked
her where the school bus (it's really just a battered van) picked her up
and she pointed ahead. Finally, after a few blocks, she said that this
was the place that she needed to wait for the bus, so we stopped and I
told her that I had to keep walking. She made a pouty face and told me
to stay, but this is Africa and the bus could be 10 minutes or it could
be 40 minutes, so I told her that I had to go but that I'd take her
picture. Here's Anita.....
When I said I'd take another picture, she immediately struck a pose. :).
6 years old and she has chutzpah out the wazoo!! And in typical
African fashion, I could've been a crazy lady, but nobody
stopped us......
That night, we went
to dinner and had Family Home Evening at the home of the first counselor in
the district presidency. He works for a construction company so he and
dad had things to talk about. He and his wife have been married for 3
years and have 2 year-old twins. His wife has an 18 year old daughter
that she had before they met. They live in a nice apartment with a big
refrigerator and stove, which is the first I've seen in a home. We had
fish, spaghetti with vegetables, meat, and rice. (every meal here has
potatoes (usually French fries) AND rice - so many carbs, so few
vegetables....:( I made a marble cake with chocolate frosting and
they loved that! I've never seen chocolate frosting here. After dinner,
the husband gave a lesson, which I didn't understand, but I did read a
scripture...:) The wife and daughter are quite shy but afterward,
the wife asked me if I wanted to sing in the choir for district
conference in 2 weeks. She said they were all wearing white shirts and
capalanas (the material they wrap around their
waist/body/head/groceries - everything). I told her that I had both of
those and I'd love to.
Tuesday - We had staff meeting.
Wednesday - We went grocery shopping , but otherwise pretty quiet.
But Thursday, we had to go shopping for weddings with Isabel and
another woman named Beatrice from the branch. There were 8 weddings
scheduled for Saturday at two different chapels in two different cities
and they were at the same time, so there was a lot of juggling because
the branches have to share the tables, etc. Plus, Isabel always mans the
kitchen and makes the cakes but she couldn't be in two places at one
time, so Beatrice was going to handle the weddings at our chapel where
there were two, and Isabel was going to the other city to oversee 6
weddings. But we had to shop for groceries for all 8 weddings! (Are
y'all following this??) So, dad and I had to go to the chapel and pick
up the tables/plates/glasses/flowers to take to the other chapel.
Then it was off to the store.....
Three grocery carts and 132 pounds of potatoes later, we were
done........at the store. Then it was off to the market for the rest of
the produce, the eggs, and the rice.
Here's Beatrice and Isabel at the market. The piles down on the ground to the left are garlic.
That's a turkey inside the cage!
Four (very hot) hours later, we were done, and it was off to the other city to unload everything.
Here we are, waiting for the zone leader to come and let us in.
Then back to our chapel to drop off the rest of the groceries. Whew!! Our A/C felt so good when we finally got home!
That night, we went over to the Buenos for dinner and a party, to
celebrate the District YW President, Amalia, getting her doctorate
degree. She's a mother of 3, teaches at the university, big church
calling, and just finished her doctorate. She's an anomaly. There are
very few people with university degrees here and particularly women. An
advanced degree, male or female, is unheard of. She's a bundle of energy
and even though she speaks good English, you have to pay close
attention because she talks a mile a minute with a Zimbabwe accent! I
like her a lot!
Mozambiquens are reluctant to say
how they feel, but Amalia is frank and straight-forward. I could ask her
if "these pants make me look big" and she'd say something like,
"Yes, I think you should not wear those pants." ;) Anyway, Kelly Bueno
had a party to celebrate and asked the district president and his wife
and their 6 kids, their branch president and his wife and baby, and
Amalia and her husband and their 3 kids and a niece that's living with
them. It was a houseful. Kelly made sloppy joes and potato salad and I
brought a veggie tray.
And here's Amalia with her 12 year-old daughter on the right, the
niece at the back holding another daughter, and her youngest on her
back in a capulana, the all-purpose clothing item.
After the party, we gave the district president and his
family a ride home (they don't have a car) and then stopped by Ana
Maria's house to take her the matapa and shrimp that I made and some
candy for her kids. It was about 9 pm, so it was dark, and her uncle
answered the door. When he saw me, he got this shocked look on his face
and slammed the door and ran away, like he'd seen a ghost, which is
maybe what I looked like to him. A couple of minutes later, one of the
children came to the door and I asked if his mom was home. He said yes,
but just stared at me. So I asked him if he would go get her. The door
shut again. A few more minutes and then it opened and Ana Maria came
out, with a child on her hip. I told her that I'd brought her matapa
for the next day and she said, "Oh, marvelous! Thank you!" and hugged
me. People don't hug here but Ana Maria does. She's effervescent. I
wanna take her and her 8 kids to Disneyland - she'd like it as much, or
more, than the kids. ;)
I had told Isabel that I'd
help with the wedding food prep, so on Friday at 8 am, we picked up
Isabel and headed to the Manga city chapel to fix the food. They had one
dull knife and no cutting board to share among 6 women. The elders were
there cleaning the chapel to get it ready, so I asked if one of them
could get some knives and a cutting board from their house. We chopped
veggies, baked cakes, and gutted chickens. (I was on veggies - I haven't
tried the whole "gut the chickens" yet). I left at 2:30pm and they were
still working.
Here I am "peeling" carrots before I
chop them. They don't have vegetable peelers, they just scrape them with
knives. It's tricky. I was the only one with a cutting board - they cut
everything in their hands. Oh yeah, capulanas are aprons too. I've
learned to take one with me to all the activities.
Notice the chickens....down
on the floor. Yikes! The girl next to me is peeling and smashing garlic.
She just got back from a mission to Brazil a few months ago.
Here's dad demonstrating how to carry things on your head - he did make them laugh....
On our way home, we got a call asking if we could
pick up some members from the branch that were at the store buying food
for a RS activity so we made a pit-stop and picked 3 girls and the
groceries up and took them to the church. Then we went home, ate
dinner, and hit the road again to pick up 5 new elders that had just
arrived from the MTC. We got 5 elders and 5 sisters on this transfer!
That makes 9 sisters total, plus 2 native sisters that have gone to
Maputo to begin their missions because their visas are taking so long to
come. One of them is Elisa, a seminary teacher that we've gotten close
to. She's going to Zambia but has to go to the Provo MTC to learn
English. I asked Megan C. if she could have the YW put together a care
package for her and they are. I'm so excited because she has so little and
the package will be such a fun surprise for her! The people here LOVE
photos but very few have cameras so I emailed some pictures that I had
of Elisa and Megan is going to get them printed and put them in the
package so she'll have some pictures to take with her on her mission.
It's interesting because with the visa situation, we
have missionaries that start their missions before they've gone to the
MTC or temple. We just had an elder that served here for 7 months before
he left to Brazil for the MTC and to go through the temple. You gotta do
what you gotta do. :)
Anyway, when we picked up the new
elders, it was too many for the truck, so we had to drive the 12
passenger van for the first time and on the way home from the airport,
there were 2 detours and we got stuck in one of the detours (they're
always crazy, narrow, muddy roads) so the elders had to get out of the
van and push us out. They did it on the first try! Welcome to
Mozambique, Elders!!
Saturday, we had the 6 weddings in Manga and these were quite different from the others we've been to. The brides just sat on the front row, instead of walking down the aisle, and when each couple stood up, the people chanted "Para bens", which means "Congratulations!" One branch really wanted to welcome the couple into the branch, so they wore matching bright green t-shirts and chanted and danced when the couple stood up. They were pretty funny!
Two girls were following me around and touching my hair. After
about an hour, one of them asked me a question, but I couldn't
understand her, so I had an elder translate. He started laughing. The
question was: "Where did you get your hair?" Because she wanted to go and
buy some like mine. Haha!! We had to give her the bad news that I was
born with it and she couldn't buy it - at least not in Mozambique.......
Look at them leaning on Dad, singing the hymn on his iPhone. Not a shy bone in their body.....
8 marriages!!!
Kids in their nice wedding clothes getting a drink from the spigot.
After the weddings, we zipped back to Beira for 4 baptisms. Then
we stopped and got something to eat, went home, and crashed. Long day!
Sunday, I taught the kids "I am a Child of God". Ok, I really taught
myself because it was in Portuguese. We had a slow start, but they finally
mostly got it. I bribed them by saying that if they sang really well, I
had a surprise for them. So they did and then I video-taped them
singing it and showed it to them. Showing a video to 40 people on an
iPhone doesn't work the greatest, but they thought it was amazing. The
adults got as much of a thrill out of it as the kids. :) But it worked -
they belted it out while I taped them. I'm trying to get them ready to
sing in Sacrament Meeting. Here, Primary has a stigma and nobody wants
to serve in there so these kids haven't had anyone in there for awhile.
I really want to show them, their parents, the new presidency, and the whole
ward, really, that Primary isn't just a babysitting place for their kids
to be dropped off. They can, and should, learn and it's a wonderful place
to serve. We'll see if the kids freeze up or not. They don't do talks
or a Sacrament program, or anything, so it'll be a new experience for
all of us! I did a short training with the primary presidency after
church and gave them materials that I had printed out from the internet,
but we have a LONG way to go. They still haven't done singing or
sharing time without my help.
Well, that's our week! Busy, busy, busy!!!
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