Mozambique history

I learned something about Mozambique today that surprised me very much. I was reading that there was slavery in Mozambique even before whites came and took Africans to be slaves elsewhere, back in the 1400's. I was so surprised! People think of Africa as such an innocent place that was taken advantage of back in the days of slavery, and, as it may be true that they may have been taken advantage of, I'm not quite so sure they were innocent. It was common to buy and sell humans here in Mozambique, and they themselves had slaves. When the white man came, they sold humans to them too. Why not make a little more money? They could probably charge more too. Also, I've been reading about the history in Mozambique. In my very abbreviated version, this is what I have learned: Mozambique was colonized by the Portuguese late 1400's who took control of the ports so they could do trading - spices etc. They built things and educated, started companies, corporations, and the like. Then from 1964 to 1974 (10 years!) there was the Portuguese colonial war. Mozambique did not want to be "ruled" by the Portuguese anymore and fought their way out. They gained independence in 1975. During the last year, some 250,000 Portuguese fled the country, but when they gained independence, they ordered all Portuguese to leave the country in 24 hours and were only allowed to take 20kg luggage with them. Many returned to Portugal penniless as they were unable to salvage their assets. The president Samora Machel, was Marxist, and established a one party state. But within 1 year civil war broke out with a growing opposition party. These two parties duked it out for 15 years with massive bloodshed. During the rule of Machel the people experienced war, collapsed infrastructure, lack of investment in productive assets, widespread famine, almost no healthcare, indiscriminate targeting of civilians, mass executions, economic collapse. Thousands of people were sent to "re-education camps" where they subsequently died. An estimated 1 million Mozambicans died during this war, 1.7 million took refuge in neighboring countries, and another million were internally displaced. Machel died in a plane crash in 1986. When his successor took over, he started peace talks, and essentially put an end to the Marxist ways of leadership. Peace finally returned to Mozambique in 1992. That is a long war! Remember, they actually started fighting in 1964! That's 28 years!!! I have read and heard stories of child warriors, especially up in the North of Mozambique where most of the fighting was. This poor war-torn country has only had 13 years of peace. Can you imagine? What a way of life! The life expectancy in this country is 49, and I'm guessing that it's mostly because of the war. I have only seen 2 or 3 old Mozambicans. It's a wonder that they have made it through, and by God's grace, are recovering. I simply cannot imagine the terror of ongoing killing for nearly 30 years. The thing that truly boggles my mind is that in the city of Maputo (the capitol) there are several statues of Samora Machel (you know, the guy who ruled when everything went to pot) and his face is on every piece of currency. Mozambicans revere him and think that he was a great leader. I'm baffled by this looking in as an outsider. I'm interested to learn more Portuguese and see if I can understand what the true feeling is about what happened. I wonder if they will talk about it?

Weekend in the Mountains of Nelspruit

A few weekends ago I experienced my first taste of the mountains of Nelspruit, South Africa. Drew and I frequently go to Nelspruit for supplies, averaging about once a month, and end up doing lots of errands, picking up equipment and parts, and groceries, blessed groceries. Well, Drew got wind that the South African family he previously lived with in Mozambique while working for Maranatha were at their homestead just outside of Nelspruit. He had not seen them in years! We checked further and found they truly were in town and were off to Nelspruit to combine a supply run with a nice visit with friends. They live about 15 min outside of Nelspruit in the beautiful mountains! They have a home and cottage as well as several outbuildings, one of which was like a spare bed and bath, a schoolroom, a shop, storage, etc... They work for Maranatha and hadn't been to their home in Nelspruit in about 1.5 years, as they are currently working in Zimbabwe, so they were trying to catch up on everything, and were semi-camping. They were so happy to see us and catch up with Drew and get to know me. We had such a great time with this family, it's like they are our family away from home. We met up with them for the first time just after church. We ate a quick lunch and headed off for some exploring. They know the area well and took us to some of their favorite places. First, we went to the most quaint little town of Kaapsehoop, up the mountain from Nelspruit. This was a small little gold mining community and has turned into what appears to be sort of a hippie community. Here they have wild horses roaming free, rumored to be the remnants of the Anglo - Boer war from about 1900. Apparently these were war horses that got away, or their owners were killed. In any case, there were wild horses just roaming about. Quite exciting! You could see them eating random people's lawns. Haha.

Then we went on this amazing hike through what looked like a rain forest, with mossy trees and small creeks. It was a beautifully rugged hike. We were rewarded at the end with a stunning waterfall with very refreshing water. Such fun, and what a fun group!

From the waterfall we drove back to the little village (not far) and a few of us rode on the back of the truck. Just hanging on. No big deal. Quite fun!

We went poking around some old buildings, back from war days. The old jail from this very old quaint gold mining town, we hiked back amongst the rocks. It looked like the perfect place for an ambush! I imagine many people used to be ambushed there, which is kind of creepy. We traversed through the rocks and pretty soon all of these rocks started looking the same. One could easily get lost here without someone who knows where they are going. All of a sudden the group in front of me disappeared into the area under a rock. As I approached, I saw their heads poking out, and you had to go down about a 4 foot rock to this new small little trail into the crevice of a pile of rocks. Here was a pleasant little treat of a small cave with a waterfall. How amazing! Then we hiked out to the edge of the cliff. SOOOOO BEAUTIFUL!!! I almost felt like I was flying and my feet hadn't left the ground

Broiling

I looked at the temperature in Lincoln, NE today and it was 21. That temperature seems it would be so refreshing after today. It was so, so hot. To boot, we have been having trouble with our electricity. It's always fickle, and always on the hottest day it seems. Our pizza oven of a house only takes about 3.5 minutes without AC to become hot enough to sweat in, and we were without AC for an hour or two this afternoon. We don't yet have an oven, and I've been itching for some chocolate chip cookies. I thought about trying to see if I could bake cookies on the roof, and was planning on it, when I realized that it gets much hotter in the car. Drew was working from home for the afternoon meaning the truck was available. So I mixed up chocolate chip cookies, put them on pans, and put them in the dash. I found an oven thermometer and put that in a little later. To my surprise it went immediately up to 160 degrees! My cookies were coming along nicely on one of the hottest days yet, when an afternoon breeze blew in some clouds. This was (and probably will ever be) the only time I was sad to see the sun go behind the clouds. My cookies are half baked, but still delicious

Falling in love with Moz

This last weekend we ventured up to the most beautiful beach! I am totally in love with Mozambican beaches! The whole country is filled with them! (at least the east side of it) We started on our trek after church and a quick lunch. We took off down a road that technically is not even open yet as it is still under construction, but there are people driving on it already. Many people. Including us. It's interesting here, how they construct their roads... this is a major road, running up the coast line from Maputo and north, but they construct it in segments. We drove on a nice paved road (without police I might add! It's not technically an open road.) for a short segment, then on a dirt path, then through a small little village, then through loads of standing water, then back on the large open highway again. Very interesting. Also, as they road is not technically open (though there is traffic on it) no one really cares where you drive. Lanes were sometimes closed, and we were occasionally driving on the left hand side of the road, other times on the right. Some people would go to the right around a round-about, others to the left. Interesting... The road would go from open, and wonderful (the best road I have been on in Moz) To this: We finally got to the ferry which takes us and our car over to the other peninsula with a certain, more beautiful beach. This sketchy ferry can take 6 cars at a time. There were at least 20 cars in front of us. Drew got out to scope out the situation. When he came back he had a small pamphlet promoting a service that would come and pick us up on the other side and take us to the beach. This sounded appealing as we would just park our car and walk right on to the ferry, but it's hard to know who you can trust. We called the guy and he sounded legit, so we left our car and went across on this rickety ferry (which had been broken down just the week before). We were met by a nice South African named Fritz who took us down a winding path, and through deep sand to a small little gem. Here there was a small compound which had a restaurant, bar, observation deck, and a pool, as well as housing. There were only a few of us there and we felt very safe. We then went through the coolest mangrove tunnel as a walkway to the beach with small little stairs and a great atmosphere. It was like a movie! Then we burst out to the most beautiful beach! It was almost deserted as well! White sands and blue water with waves crashing onto the shore. The hot day then turn I love the ocean. I could truly just watch it for hours. It was pristine. Nothing like the beach in Maputo, strewn with glass and trash and packed with people, most of them drinking "2M" the famous Mozambican beer. Its party central there, and not my cup of tea. This beach was the complete opposite. Everyone we came across was polite and very friendly, as well as the pristine beach without a piece of trash anywhere! We watched the crabs run back and forth in the surf, and played in the ocean. It has a little steeper grade on the shore, which makes for a bit more powerful waves. They wear you out quick! It was very enjoyable. This next photo is driving into Maputo from the north side. You can see how many cranes are just in this one photo! There is a lot of construction here, for sure! Drew and I counted 6 that we could see just at one time. We guess there is about 15 to 20 cranes in use currently in the city of Maputo

HOT HOT HOT

So HOT! I was taking care of the nursery plants this morning and it was already boiling hot outside before 8 am. Just from minimal exertion I was very sweaty. I checked the temperature and it's only 81 degrees. That's it! It just seems soooo HOT. The humidity is about 65%. Yesterday it was about 82% humidity and just felt terribly sticky. Last night Drew and I looked at the average temperatures for the hottest months here in Mozambique of January through March, and was quite surprised to find that they are high 80's to low 90's generally! That's not so bad, one would think! But its the humidity that just kills you here. The other day the weather said "86, feels like 101". I believe it. It's a hot that I've never experienced before. I am SOOOO thankful that Drew acquired AC. I'm not sure I would survive without it. The seasons here are opposite north america. I checked the weather this morning in Lincoln, NE and found there temps to be only at 9 degrees and snowing, and in Lake Elsinore it's 41 with a high of a pleasant 70 today. That must be nice, Phillip! But on the positive side to this heat, the beaches are perfect. Drew and I are headed to the beach next weekend (after all the vacationers are off the beach from the holidays), and I believe we will have a fabulous time swimming in perfect temperature blue water.

I am in Mozambique!

I killed a snake yesterday. Or took part in it anyway. It was about 3-4 feet long and in our front yard. Google and the locals identified is as a cobra! The locals say they have plenty of spitting cobra’s around here. This one did not spit. At least not at me. Yesterday afternoon after the snake killing venture we trimmed bushes and shrubbery (after poking a long stick into them and rustling it around to scare out any snakes). Drew and I have kind of a large place, with several areas for snakes to hide with cute bushes and trees. This is the second snake we have had since I’ve been here, and they seem to like to hide by the water storage container. We have these beautiful flowering bushes that have grown in front of the water container to shield us from it’s ugliness. Needless to say, we butchered those plants yesterday. I’d rather look at an ugly water container than a snake. Drew is organizing a clean up crew to trim up all the rest of the low lying shrubs and cut the grass. Interesting thing about grass in Mozambique: no one has a lawn mower. I have yet to see a lawn mower in this whole country! Instead, they use a blade with a curve on the end (kind of like a golf club) and essentially slice off the grass by hand. We have hired someone to do this. It is tedious. We may have to look into a lawn mower. Is anyone coming to visit soon? Perhaps they can pack that over in their carry on ;) Here is a picture of our lawnmower currently

Xai-Xai is such a funny dog. She has the most unladylike way of lying around. During the hot part of the day (9:30-3) You will find her trying to move as little as possible on the porch with her back legs sprawled out and in the air, but still sleeping on her side. I'll have to get a photo I’m thinking of shaving her, but I might just start with her belly first. She has thick black fur and is persistently panting. She has been a wonderful dog and is very receptive to training! I have now taught her to fetch, “drop it” and even to dance (for food). She follows me around everywhere I go (except in the house), and is forever watching me. We bought her off the street when I was here to visit in April and I’m still not sure what breed she is. She appears to be part border collie, but at certain times she reminds me slightly of a wolf. Surely not, but her legs are kind of spindly and her movements are often wolf-like. It may be my imagination, and I an definitely no dog breed identifier, that’s for sure.

I’ve been here for 3 weeks and a day now, and I’m staring to really get used to it here! Drew has thankfully installed AC, which has made me sane, and he has kept me busy with Christmas parties, traveling around seeing all kinds of cool things, and other adventures. Life is settling down, and I love spending time with my husband. I now see why people disappear for a while after they get married, it’s just so wonderful to have uninterrupted time with each other. This is something that I never understood while single. In the first week we had a Christmas party with Drew’s friends. He organized it and there were about 25 people there. It was in the backyard of the Mozambique Coca-Cola’s CFO, who Drew happens to know. It was to celebrate Christmas before everyone left, but looked suspiciously more like a pool party. There was volleyball, foosball, table tennis, slides and swings, plenty of music, and of course, the pool. It was fun time! Everyone brought something a little different, and as there were many cultures, we had multicultural food! We had Mozambican piri-piri BBQ chicken, a Peruvian potato dish, Portuguese desert, and American mashed potatoes and pumpkin cheesecake pie amongst much more. It was a great time to meet Drew’s friends in a relaxed environment and we all had such a splendid time.

A week or so ago we went for the monthly supply trip to Nelspruit, South Africa. This is the closest place that you can get many supplies that Drew needs, as well as cheaper grocery shopping with specialty food availability. On google maps it is supposed to take 2 hrs and 20 minutes to get there, but unfortunately, everyone in Mozambique was trying to get to SA to do Christmas shopping and the borders were plumb full. We stood in line for hours at the border just to get a stamp, then wait in another line. It ended up taking about 5.5 hours to get to Nelspruit. Speaking of driving, the drivers re are crazy! It’s a general rule, that if you are driving a little slower, you drive on shoulder, so that people can pass you at any time. You will find people passing you within inches where you can literally reach out your window and touch their vehicle, occurring while there is oncoming traffic. But there is no particular side that you will be passed either. Left, right, doesn’t matter. I have seen a car passing a vehicle that is already passing on the shoulder. I have a picture of this... but I cannot find it right now. I must have taken it on Drew's camera. It will follow I do have a picture demonstrating car painting facilities here in Africa that is interesting

It is Africa, and there seems to be no other place like it. There is poverty everywhere, trash and filth abound.

I am adjusting to a slower pace of life, with a significant change in schedule. I’m used to waking up at 7-7:30 and being into work by 8:30 or 9. But this is Africa. All of Africa gets up significantly early. This morning when I got up at our normal time (5:30) one of our neighbors was already playing music fairly loudly. But this is the confusing part: it’s vacation time (holidays), people aren’t working this week and will likely not work until after the new year. Why are they getting up so early?! But the answer is simple: This is Africa. It starts to get light outside around 4:45. People get up early here. Last Thursday morning when Drew and I left around 5:20 am, there was already a worker next door doing manual labor. It’s just the practical way to do it when it is this hot. It’s also typical to have a 2 hour lunch break, to cook, eat, and nap. Good idea when your day starts sooooo early. I’ve always been a night owl, and this has completely changed my whole way of living! Within the last 2 weeks I haven’t gone to bed after 11! And usually I’m in bed by 9 or 10. Wow! My mother would be astounded. I told Drew on the way over here that I need to immediately switch to his schedule while I’m recovering from jet lag and time zone confusion. Apparently it worked, and I’m functioning ok on the new schedule. This appears to be a long post! Apparently my typing skills have improved significantly while I’ve been working with EMR at the hospital and the words are flowing off of my fingers... Here is a photo of our house. It has a rooftop area that is nice for keeping an eye on things! Our property is probably a little over an acre with a large cement wall surrounding it. It’s wonderful for Xai-Xai, and we don’t have to worry about her running off. We have 5 mango trees, 2 lemon trees, and 2 avocado trees. We also have the nursery in the back yard housing a multitude of small plants.

It’s quit a pleasant place, and I’m growing quite attached to it already. One of my favorite features is the roof. There are stairs up to the roof and you can see for miles from there. It's a nice place for contemplation, and a nice place to have an evening worship. Well, enough for now, I'm off to be productive! More to come soon

The vanhouse left this morning with almost everything. Loaded, not quite full, with a canoe on top. My mother was at the wheel, graciously taking my things for storage for the next couple years. It was quite a sight! Then, walking back in my house this evening was quite different. The front room has a suitcase sitting on the floor. No curtains, and essentially barren. My bedroom is also completely empty. I am now resting in the guest bed which is the only comfortable place in my house. This may seem depressing to some, but not to me. This is exciting! This is the start of my new adventure! Soon I'll be headed to Mozambique with a few bags to meet up with my new husband. What lies ahead is life's adventure