things where persons should be

The other night Drew and I were driving late at night. We were carrying some speakers in the back seat from an outdoor movie that Drew had set up for. We only had about a 15 min drive to go, but were stopped by police before our destination. We were not speeding and were curious as to why we were pulled over. After greeting the policeman, he told us that the problem were the things in the back seat. Really? We asked. He went on to explain how you cannot have "things" where people should be, and vice versa. Mind you, that in this country one of the main forms of transportation is riding in the back of the truck. He is telling us that is illegal, as well as having items on seats that are meant for people. When we questioned, he replied that it is true, and "haven't you read?" assuming we have access to said rule book (which we don't). The fine was said to be 1500 metacai, which translates to about $45. For having "things where persons should be." Oh dear. Thankfully, Drew was able to stroke the ego of this policeman who was then essentially asking for a bribe, and we drove away without a fine. This is just one of the may examples of silly fines and stops here in the third world country.

coffee shop musings

I’m sitting in a coffee shop this morning. This is a rare experience and one that I miss since moving to Mozambique. Drew had an appointment with the Embassy this morning for a new passport and then had a list of errands, none of which required my presence. I was quite excited to come to a coffee shop for a couple of hours. It’s reminiscent of the many many hours I spent at coffee shops in Lincoln during college and grad school. I found this coffee shop in Maputo that reminds me of an American coffee shop. There are people from so many different nationalities here! I even think that the people sitting 2 tables away from me are American (WOW!) Different colors and different languages. It seems that when you travel outside of the US you find so may more people that are traveling too. I have so many things to blog about that I don't know where to start. Perhaps I'll start by making a list 1. A trip to a surprisingly abandoned resort with a hand-drawn map 2. The abandoned hotel adventure in Xai-Xai 3. The may fines and rules of Mozambique a. Things where people should be b. Hand out the window c. Inside of car being unorganized d. Cannot use bright lights, even when no one is on the road? e. Cannot use horn 4. Different terminology, for example, white coffee. 5. Adventures of Geckoing 6. Meeting new people in Nelspruit, SA. Hiking, and the long drop 7. My puppy and the soon addition of a kitten! 8. Growth of the Nursery & the "Rat" 9. Security at our house, guards 10. Electricity problems 11. My NEW FRIDGE!! (well, new to me) 12. Much much more I think I'll start with "white coffee." Appropriate as I am in a coffee shop currently. The other weekend while I was in South Africa, I noticed that there was two types of coffee - Black and white. I've never heard coffee with milk called White coffee and I find it quite interesting that in a country where color is such an important issue, semi-recent Apartheid (segregation was the law). Why would they call their coffee with milk "white coffee." Interestingly, I haven't seen the term "white coffee" anywhere else. More specifically, I haven't seen it here in Mozambique. Random musings from this morning...

17 April, 2015 - Late Entry I can’t believe how long its been since I have blogged. I also cannot believe how long I have been in Mozambique now! It’s over 4 months, and the time has flown for sure. I do love being married. I am thoroughly enjoying this honeymoon phase of our marriage. Thankfully I am not naive to think that it will be this way all the time, but for now, I will just soak it up. Drew and I were just commenting on how things are just so much more difficult here than they should be, or than they are back home. Everything takes forever. Take, for example, cooking. Everything is from scratch, and takes more prep time than I ever imagined possible! I truly could spend all day in the kitchen! Thank goodness I don’t (sorry Drew). But since I have been here I have added significantly to my ability to cook (which was almost non-existent before). In fact, I have learned how to make tomato soup from actual tomatoes instead of a can, as well as various other tomato based substances such as several varieties of pasta sauce, a vegetable soup, and an Indian curry with a generous amount of tomatoes. I have accomplished crock-pot black and brown beans that are edible, and we eat Thai curry probably 2-3 times per week. One thing we were missing greatly here was tortillas for burritos. For both of us, in our single lives, we ate burritos as a staple. Myself, I would eat burritos probably 2x per week on a regular basis. Even every day for certain weeks! When we finally found tortillas in South Africa at about the 12th store we looked in, they were about a dollar a piece. Seriously? So I have also braved making my own tortillas. They have been edible, though not always round. And after about my 3rd batch, we found a Mexican restaurant in South Africa on one of our supply trips. As we were eating there, Drew said the most wonderful thing: “Your tortillas are better.” Those are beautiful words to a floundering cook. Other small examples of how things are just more difficult here... well, this is a silly one, but on my mind as I just did laundry today. To do laundry, I take all the laundry outside, to the back side of the house. Here we have a garden hose hooked up to our washer in the back hallway (yes, outside the house), and then another hose leading out for the drain. You see, there are no easy hookups for appliances and the water line is through about 10 inches of concrete. One must unplug the security lights (good thing I don’t do laundry at night anymore), plug in the washer, find the soap that has to be kept inside (otherwise the guards will use it up), load the washer, put in some soap, and start the washer. Its usually at this time that I realize I haven’t hooked up the water yet. So I follow the garden hose out to the faucet, connect the hose without getting sprayed, and turn it on. The washer then makes some awful noise as the air bubbles move through the hose and into the washer. This also means that I only have the “cold” setting available on my washer, though when the hose has been sitting in the sun, it is then only HOT. The above is just a small and seemingly fickle example of how things just take longer here. Everything is always just a little more difficult, taking many more steps to complete, and an unexpected amount of time. Truly I am blessed! I am blessed to have a washer! I walked down to the river by our house the other day and as I got closer I heard these loud snaps, like a gunshot. As I approached, I realized the sound was coming from the ladies washing their clothes in the river. They wet, scrub, then slap the wet clothes on a rock. Wow! It’s so loud! So interesting, and so labor intensive. I am truly blessed that laundry takes me almost no effort (in comparison) and my clothes are cleaner! The lady that works for us during the day taking care of the nursery, Victoria, said that there was a crocodile in that river, about 2 meters in length a couple of months ago that they killed. No thank you. I would not want to wash my clothes in that river. This is also the river that, a little downstream, closer to a larger town, there is a car wash in. You see, there is a nice bridge with a great flat part of the river and cars literally drive in the river (it’s shallow) and get a drive through car wash :) How fun! You see them there on most afternoons, but especially the weekend. It’s also a place where many people swim, and there are many children playing. Mind you, the crocodile sighting is miles away from this location... even still...only miles. Today while we were driving into town, there was a car that pulled out to pass. They barely were able to squeeze back in before a large semi zoomed past in the oncoming traffic. No one batted at eye. There was not horns blaring or people yelling. In the states this would have been an event that people talked about when they got home, saying “you wouldn’t believe what an idiot I saw on the road today! I thought I was going to witness a bad crash today!” Yet here, it’s just normal. And the thing is, if the car didn’t have quite enough space to pass, both the semi and the car being passed would have patiently accommodated his reckless behavior. People here are much more aware of their surroundings when they drive. Though there are plenty, it is truly amazing that there are not more accidents. A couple weekends ago we took a few friends through Kruger park. I do love that place. It is so wild and ever changing with such a large population of big game. We saw so many animals, and one of my favorites is watching an elephant crossing. There is a certain road that is along the river where the elephants like to hang out. Here, we have caught a couple of elephant herd crossings. It’s so entertaining to watch the elephants come up the hill from the river, and then across the road in front of you so close! The big ones have water lines showing you just how deep they went, and the little ones are all wet (they got covered!). Sometimes the juvenile boys are play fighting, and other times the mother elephant is shaking her head, flaring her ears, and trumpeting at you. You often hear the low grumble sound of an elephant off to the side, in a bush that you did not expect an elephant to be! I do love the elephants. I think that is my favorite part of Kruger. Also, this trip we saw giraffe that were swinging their heads at the others neck. It was like a battle of the necks, haha! Throat combat. I’m not sure what this means, but its quite funny to watch! It also looks quite painful getting hit in the neck like that. I am about to the point where I am starting to miss medicine. When I left Ardmore, I was burnt out, and needed a break. I have quite enjoyed my sabbatical. I am enjoying the newlywed life, I've learned some accounting, and lot about farming. I have gotten dirty, and realized that the red dirt that was in OK is here too, and it stains! Darn it. I have worn out my sandals and gotten a wonderful sandal tan, trained my dog, and learned some Portuguese. I also made my first video using iMovie! That was an adventure! Depending on how things go here in the next few months, I may try to get back into medicine. I met a pharmacist a few weeks ago and after I described my role in medicine in the states, she said that the equivalent is a “medical technician” here. This was a bit surprising to me, as a technician is almost the lowest paid person in medicine at home, and only runs the EKG machine, or moves patient’s back and forth from CT. But apparently, a medical technician here sees patient’s and prescribes medicine. She knows a dentist who recently went through all the paperwork to start working here through the Ministry of Education, so that will be a nice starting place. When I’m ready. :) For now, I’m enjoying helping Drew, being a wife, learning a new culture & language, and generally being as useful as I can.

Is that a Goat or a Baby?

"Is that a goat or a baby?" I asked the other evening as we were sorting tomatoes on the veranda. Victoria turned her ear, and stated it was a baby with a large smile on her face. It can be difficult to determine the difference and has become a running joke around here. I have tried recording this phenomenon as an audio clip, I'll attach one here to see if you can hear how confusing it can be

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