Training galore!

I'm behind a few weeks, so I'm going to combine 2 in 1 and just hit the highlights....
 
    The economy is terrible and unemployment is 21% here. That means that 

1 in 5 people is unemployed and the average salary is $1.61 per DAY.   While

 I was out walking this week, I was stopped two different days by women asking 

if I had work for them. I felt so bad telling them no. One day, one of the guards 

stopped me and said that his sister was looking for someone to do laundry for. 

I didn't even try to explain that I had a washing machine.... It really is sad when you

 have people that want to work, but there is nothing for them to do. They seek out 

 doing whatever they can. We saw this guy on the beach washing out bags, 

that he found on the ground, to resale at the market.

This woman was drying rice out on the sidewalk. Isabel knew her, so I asked her to ask if I could take a picture. The lady couldn't understand why I'd want a picture of it, but she shrugged her shoulders and said "Sure." Or the Portuguese version, anyway....

These guys were making cinder blocks. Every block is made by hand by loading a metal mold with the sand/concrete (we think) mixture that's tapped down until it's compact, and then turned upside down to dry in the sun. It's a hot, tedious process.

These two were digging a trench, to get electricity to a house, with a pick-ax and shovel. Dad asked them how long it had taken them. 3 hours so far and they had a ways to go.

And you see the usual trades: people selling fruit and vegetables, used clothes and shoes, and anything edible from the sea.

Ladies are everywhere selling bread. They carry it in big baskets on their heads.

The ones that can afford it open small businesses: sewing, hair salons, and car repair are common. Actually, these are the bigger businesses. The smaller ones are the guys on the street that fix bicycle tires or repair shoes. This guy pumped up the exercise ball that the Hobsons found for me in Maputo. 

That was a happy day! It's not a tramp, but I was as excited as if I'd won the lottery. I bounce on it every day. Wahoo!!
It drew quite a crowd when they started pumping it up........

On Wednesday, we took the Dilles to the pharmacy and another store called PEP to get some things.

The next day, Sandi Dille and I went grocery shopping with Isabel for the weddings on Saturday. We had to stop at the District President's school, where he's a high school teacher, to pick up the check for the food. (The district pays for the food for the weddings.) Here's the local high school - here they call it 'secondary' school. 

That's President Camalizane, me, and Isabel.
Then it was off to the bank to cash the check. The banking system is... very inefficient. You can withdraw money, but you can't deposit money from an ATM. So people have to go inside the bank and wait in a huge line to deposit or cash the smallest amounts, because they can't do it any other way. Dad went to the bank last week to get a money order. He was the first one in line when the doors opened at 8:00 am and it still took him over an hour to get it. Sandi and I waited in the car while Isabel went inside. It took forever. By the time she came out, we were sweating puddles. That night, dad had a branch presidency meeting so it was a quiet night with a good book. ;)
The next day, we went out to the Buenos house with the Kretlys and Dilles to look at the extra furniture and items from the old apartments. The Dilles got some things for their apartment and we picked up a microwave for one of the elders' apartments because they needed a new one. It was SO hot! We were all dying by the time we finished sorting through all the stuff.
When we got home, our little shrimp dealers were there with some shrimp, so we bought some and so did President Kretly. The only person who likes shrimp more than we do is President K.! Sister Kretly doesn't like it, so dad and I went up and helped him clean and cook the shrimp.

Buying it on the street - nothing like home delivery!! ;) The view from our apartment.

On Saturday, we had a training meeting for our Seminary and Institute teachers in another city. We took the teachers from our city and stopped on the highway (I use that term loosely...) on the way there, to pick up a couple more teachers. It saves them so much time and the cost of the chapa if we give them a ride. We ended up having the best attendance that we've ever had. We were only missing 1 teacher and ironically, he was from the branch where we were holding the meeting. "Oh well, you do what you can." is one of our new mottos. 

The training went well. Chad helped dad download a Portuguese-dubbed version of one of President Monsen's Conference talks. It was the Saturday following Conference and the teachers were amazed that we had it because they hadn't seen it yet. It takes about a month for them to get the Conference CDs here. I gave them a lesson about adversity and told them the story about the little girl that wants to help the chick hatch out of the egg. Despite her mother telling her not to, she does anyway and the chick dies because it needed to peck at the shell to become strong enough to survive. I did an object lesson to demonstrate the technique. I had a raw egg and had the students squeeze it to show how tough the shell (adversity) is. Everybody wanted to try and nobody could do it until I let the biggest guy in the class do it. He squeezed and squeezed and nothing happened until suddenly it popped and egg splattered all over him, me, the floor, and the wall!! That got everybody's attention! After I got over the shock, I laughed and laughed. I always make a treat for them and this time I made a chocolate/vanilla swirl bundt cake. It was gone in seconds. I really didn't have enough to give them big pieces. Afterward, dad and I were talking about it and decided that we're going to bring rolls and butter for them along with the treat because some of them are hungry. It's not a refreshment for them, it's a meal... Here's our cute teachers - we love 'em!

I told them to be silly for this picture.

After the training, we did all our drop-offs and then zipped home because Dad had a big meeting with Pres. K. And all the priesthood leaders. I went to the weddings with Sisters Kretly and Dille.

Here's some of our great missionaries taking pictures of their couples.

Isabel with the wedding cakes that she always makes.

After the weddings, the meeting was still going with our husbands, so we decided to make pude de leche. Sis. Kretly makes the best pude de leche and I had asked her to teach me, so we all crowded in our kitchen and she taught Sandi and I. The sugar here is different than our sugar. It's very coarse, so it takes a long time to melt. We couldn't get it to melt and caramelize - it just crystallized - so we threw out the first batch and started again. It finally sort of worked. It tasted good, but not as good as hers, so I've got to practice. But we had fun trying!

After our pude fiasco, Sandi and I drove Sis. Kretly to the church to meet her husband because they were driving to another city 3 hours away and it would save them 40 minutes if he didn't have to go back to get her. When we got there, somebody noticed a snake.

 The African people are all deathly afraid of snakes but dad got down to check it out while they all watched from a safe distance. It was a baby one but looked like a black mamba. We didn't want it to get inside of the church so he found a broken cinder block and cut it in half. Oh boy, did the men love that!! They called him 'Goliath'. It was hilarious to watch them!

Sunday, all of the presidency was there, which was the first time ever, but no lesson was prepared so I winged sharing time again. We're going to sing "I am a child of God" in sacrament meeting. I asked the pianist (a young single guy that's taken lessons from Kelly B) to play for us and do a rehearsal in the chapel that day so the kids would know what to do. We were all ready to go when the power went out. Ugh!!! So, no practice. We sang their favorite instead, "Do as I'm doing."
Well, I had good intentions but I'm out of time, so I guess I'll try to catch up next week.
We sure love you guys lots and LOTS!!!!!