Sunday in Quelimane

We discovered frogs today on our lawn—Debbie was grateful that that the cockroaches do not get that bulky.  Actually, the roaches are not many, but the ants are, and they make Debbie, well, antsy.  She will learn to become one with them as I have—though I do try and rinse them off my toothbrush before I brush. 

My Portuguese alternates between being very proficient and very very bad.  I’m not sure what the relevant  factors are, but sometimes I am really on top of my language game, and other times not remotely so. 

I have been asked to lead the small group of saints in Quelimane (for my catholic friends, saints are what we call members of the church and it corresponds to biblical usage of the word).  There are only seven baptized members of the church here (the church has only been here about 4 months) but about 30-40 others who are being taught or otherwise are investigating the church also attend.  It is a fascinatingly different mission from elsewhere in the world—there is no shortage of people wishing to be taught and wishing to join the church.  We mormons however are big on long-term commitment and genuine change of heart—we hold out for that here and that slows down the numerical growth somewhat.  The numbers are far fewer than when I served as bishop in Anchorage, but the principles and concerns and issues are largely the same.  I may have massacred their language in my conducting of the service but folks were generally fine (we actually had an excellent spirit-filled service and Debbie spoke well (if briefly) without the aid of a translator.

Tonight Debbie and I were able to join a couple of younger missionaries in teaching a couple of young women (one a Muslim and one a Catholic).  Such a great experience it was—the likes I have really not had for decades.

We have this fascinating thing here in Mozambique (and I have heard that it exists to some extent in many parts of Africa).  We have scores of congregations of “fake mormons”.  They are people who have had some contact with church doctrine and materials (often 2^nd or 3^rd hand) and have created congregations of adherents calling themselves by our name but not really affiliated with us in any particular way.  There are many of these groups and some report many hundreds of participants (one over a thousand).  We don’t know much about them and some express skepticism about the degree to which their real beliefs mirror LDS teachings, and whether or not they are actually interested  in “the real thing”—but I have met this week with  three representatives of three such congregations (most are very very rural and distant and speak native languages other than Portuguese) who appear at first blush to be sincerely seeking further teaching, leading to real inclusion in the church (and they do seem to recognize that they are missing some essential things).  My task is to figure this out—it will be interesting to do so.  It is a logistical/operational challenge in addition to a spiritual one.  They are begging for us to come visit them in their remote locations—which leads to a sad but real issue of scarce resources (mostly human).  We simply cannot move forward or even survive using a geographical shotgun approach.  I believe that we will focus on just one of these groups for now.  It’s interesting that  they seem to possess a loose affiliation and communication among them—which led three of these leaders to show up together  to talk to me.  We are not bored.

Follow-up

 I know that these posts are a little sloppy--we do not have clean nor speedy internet access here yet.  We believe that in time it wll happen (that by the way is the schedule for all things in Mozambique--if nothing else, we will learn patience here).

On the drive to Quelimane, we stopped at a gas station and filled up with diesel.  As is the custom, the attendant asked me my name as a name is aways included in the hand-written receipts (recibos).  I pointed to my name plate affixed to my pocket--which has my name on top and the name of the church underneath.  He nodded and began to fill out the receipt, which he soon handed to me.  It read: "Sold to Jesus Christ, 25 liters of diesel).  Lacking much resemblance in any way, that mistake is not often made.

We have now been in Quelimane for 4 days and truly it seems like forever (in both the good and bad ways).  We spent a couple of those days without water--but did learn to shower from a bucket.  We have neither starved nor gotten sick, but in the stifling heat and humidity (a couple of days at 110 degrees).  The roads and traffic, to which I have already alluded, are beyond belief.  I remain in 1st and 2nd gear for much of the time a a result of both the conditions of the roads and the number of occupants on them (these are not rural roads--these are these are the principal roads of the city).  We have been welcomed and assisted by the six young missionaries who work here--they made this transitional week work out much more easily than would otherwise have happenned.  Our house, for which many more details will be forthcoming, is a massive affair--providing us a mix of living in luxury and abject destitution.  We have a guard/gardener who stands about 4'6".  he might not be terribly intimidating, but he does open the gates when we want to leave in the car and he does refer to me as Patrao (big boss), though I have not yet been able to teach him to bow and grovel.  We also have a maid (empregada) which may or may not work out, but she does cost $50 per month for her three days a week.  On the other hand, we live behind bars, have uncontrollable ants, unbelievable heat, sporadic plumbing, and mosquitos carrying malaria (one of the missionaries is currently down with it--his second bout while in Quelimane). 
We have already had fascinating cultural and church-related experiences.  More later.  Best to you all.

Road Warriors

Life has been, if nothing else, interesting, for the last few days.  We started driving around Maputo last Friday.  Though I had the occasional lapse where I forgot which country I was in, I generally remembered to stay on the left.  There are no discernible traffic laws in Maputo—speed and mass of your vehicle appear to be the controlling principles.  It was a madhouse of moving vehicles and people to which I can’t really provide narrative justice.  Suffice it to say that I cut my driving teeth in Maputo and generally learned how to get from point A to B—an interesting thing however, I was thinking that the well organized mission would provide me with maps for navigation both in the city and the entire country.  No such luck.  “What Elder Osborn?  You don’t remember how we got here through that endless maze of twisty back streets?”  I am navigationally impaired and am struggling mightily in this regard.  There was a $300 Garmin Sub-Saharan Africa map set which I had been tempted to buy for my GPS—which temptation I now regret not succumbing to.  Also on Friday we were issued our new cell phones—that appear to be functioning—but I think that I have determined that my illegal US habit of conversing while driving may be best avoided on Mozambique—though it isn’t illegal here.

We attended a delightfully small but thriving branch of the church on Sunday.  Many impressive people—all of which were speaking this funny language which was allegedly Portuguese.  Some people here are very easy to understand for me, but others I’m afraid are incomprehensible.  I suspect, or at least hope, that time and practice will develop my “ear”.  I was asked to speak briefly in church—I haven’t done that in a foreign language (especially not extemporaneously) for a very long time.  Who knows if I was understood or coherent—let alone inspiring.  It was 105 degrees in Maputo on Sunday.

Sleeping and jet lag remains a problem.  I generally have no problem falling asleep but I have had a few mornings awake and roaming around the Spendlove’s home at 2 and 3 in the morning.  (A beautiful 3^rd floor condo overlooking the Indian Ocean).  Unfortunately, one of those mornings, I neglected to turn off the alarm, so all soon became aware of my wanderings. 

On Monday morning at 5 am we were sent on our way—again map-less.  Our objective, we were told was to make it to Chimoio before nightfall (about 1200 km distant).  Chimoio, some may recall, was where we were first told would be our permanent assignment.  For us, it was to be simply our evening stopping place enroute to Quelimane.  Our vehicle is a small Nissan 4wd pickup, fairly new and in good shape—roof rack and covered bed.  Both the bed and 2^nd seat were packed full with our baggage and mail, packages, and supplies for missionaries in all the towns through which we would pass.  There was not a spare cubic centimeter (see, I’m now thinking and writing metric).

The trip was fascinating.  My kind staff at Doyon gave me a great little video camera as a going away gift.  It mounts on a dashboard, among other handy attributes.  I wish that I had done so and taken some footage of the trip like that.  The trip was fascinating and often beautiful—always interesting.  Imagine driving the length of a huge new country (well, new to us) for the first time.  Observations:

·         Not much wild fauna on display.  We had a family of monkeys dash across the road in front of us, and some spectacularly beautiful birds—and then no shortage of domestic cattle and goats.

·         Rural Mozambicans walk on the roads—always and everywhere.  There is a press of humanity on the roads that creates a driving challenge or two.

·         As we drive north, the terrain and vegetation becomes more like that of Tanzania, with which we became familiar in our January safari trip.  The familiar acacia and baobab trees became common on our second day of travel.

·         Roadside vendors are  many and varied—the favorite of ours was the “rat on a stick” of which there is a picture below.  Chickens, gasoline in liter bottles, fruit, beer, cashews, charcoal, roof thatching material, animal feed and countless other things were being hawked to travelers on the road.  It was tough for Debbie to withstand the grilled rat (actually, to be fair, it was more akin to a guinea pig).

·         Truck drivers rule the road and are not always inclined to brotherly love and concern.  There is a lot of commerce that travels over the roads—it becomes particularly intense toward Chimoio which is on the Zimbabwean border.  Big big trucks.

We had been warned that driving at night was unwise and dangerous and thus we were to hurry and get to Chimoio by nightfall.  We did hurry we thought—no stops for pictures or meals nor much of anything else.  Nevertheless, about three hours short of Chimoio we found ourselves driving in the dark.  Chimoio is in the western highlands of the country—about midway up.  The last 50 kilometers are on twisty, hilly roads.  Even after dark, the roadsides are filled with pedestrians with children (all dark-skinned wearing dark clothing), bicycles, and underpowered unlighted motorcycles.  The oncoming traffic lane was often filled with heavily laden logging or other freight-hauling trucks who apparently feel no compunction about taking a portion of our lane as well.  There were truly a few times when the avoidance of destruction was miraculous in a very literal way.  We have always been praying people, Debbie and I, but we have been praying particularly hard for driving oversight and felt a bit of divine intervention on that particular nighttime adventure.  We will not do that again.  Debbie is still shaking a bit from the memory.

We spent Tuesday night with Elder and Sister Banks in the Chimoio residence—a very nice place and we were immediately extremely jealous of their creature comforts (which included a Shoprite store next door (think a small Fred Meyer type store).  The Banks’ hail from southern California where he just retired as a school teacher.  His earlier mission to Brasil was also to Sao Paulo and we missed overlapping by a matter of a few months.  Let me pause here to say something about the other senior couples we have met thus far.  What impressive people they are!   Really, they are good, strong, faithful, and talented people (and universally better than I) who are going about doing good.  We have really enjoyed those we have met so far and regret that our interactions with them will be few.  I note that we were the only one among those we have met to have requested Mozambique—showing that they are also brighter than we are.

Our Wednesday drive from Chimoio to Quelimane was relatively uneventful, but interesting.  We did manage to get it all done in daylight hours.  We crossed many rivers some small and entirely dry, others quite picturesque and larger.  The Zambezi (here it is pronounced Zambezzi) among them which required a toll of 100 metacais to cross the new bridge over it.  There was beautiful picturesque bridge over a  very deep  gorge over another river.  We briefly slowed the car and took a picture of it.  We had not travelled a hundred feet further before we had a man in military dress commanding us to halt.  There ensued a bit of an ordeal as we were made to understand that taking a picture of a facility recently targeted by terrorists is not smiled upon.  I was asked to leave the car, the camera inspected, long discussion ensued regarding our intentions, history and general unsavory appearance.  In the end, formal apologies were made on both sides, no shots were fired and we were able to proceed.  The army guy was the first conversation that I have had with someone from this northern region.  He spoke so fast and had an accent so difficult (not to mention using words I have never heard of) that I began to fear a bit for my ability to communicate in Quelimane.   

From the air, this section of the country looks undoubtedly largely unpopulated.  But driving through, you note that there is not a linear kilometer without a group of mud thatched huts, often several groups—and there are always people walking on the road.  Approaching Quelimane in the evening hours, I was unprepared for the experience.  The roads are a mass of bicycles, and small motorbikes.   Really, they press in on the small amount of automobile and truck traffic so as to make passage extremely difficult.  When one reaches city center, the problem is multiplied ten fold.  The saving grace of Quelimane is that the roads are so very very bad—filled with such huge chasms and potholes (that word doesn’t do them justice, as our US experience with potholes is that they are rare and small), that you must drive very very slow to save your undercarriage.  Truly, off the main thoroughfares,  it is like an ATV trail, only a little rougher and one can walk at about the same speed at which we drive.

In the pictures below, forgive me as I for some reason was unable to get some of them right side up.  i'm sure that my blogging skills will improve with the passage of time.

Note to the civilized world

Dear Civilized World,

Since we won’t have internet for a while I thought I would give some first impressions of Maputo and Mozambique as well as Toby’s travel log.  Maputo is different in many ways from our previous travels in Africa, but then we find ourselves often saying “that’s so African” and see the similarities.  We still see beautiful babies being carried in a sling on their mother’s backs, people selling any and everything on every available  street corner, tons of garbage and genuinely friendly people.  It has been a long time since either of us have worn a name tag every day and that gets almost everyone who passes a pause and a second look.  We have seen a few white people here and heard more English than we expected because it is the capital and many people are from South Africa, Zimbabwe and other places.  Today while waiting for four hours at the Immigration Office we talked to a woman with a lovely  accent who runs a sugar cane farm with her husband about 70 miles south of here.  During the upheaval in Zimbabwe they lost everything, 401k’s bank accounts, etc and left with all of their belongings in a truck.  They run this farm now and send their daughter back home to private school.

As Toby mentioned, the Elders here are very thin.  One Elder who is almost done said he has lost 40 lbs.  They cannot get their shirts white anymore even with bleach as the red sand is impossible to get out.  It is a difficult mission because the LDS church here is very young and although many people love to hear about the gospel, but their actual commitment to living it is absent.  We see bread stands (pao) on the corner selling breadsticks, but are told not to eat them.  I have been instructed on how to bleach and rinse all my fruits and vegetables and told that a Coke once a week, kills lots of stomach bugs.  We are learning a lot about the “wicked” traditions of the fathers here that make change difficult.  People are very content to just get by; they don’t see upward mobility or progress as very important things in life.  We saw the great markets along the beach today with beautiful table clothes, house dresses and t-shirts blowing in the ocean breeze.  Every few feet someone is selling oranges or sodas and whatever they have from their yard, so I don’t know how anyone can make a living.

We have to take malaria medicine, worm medicine and ibuprofen up north with us to distribute to the missionaries.  We have water filters for our kitchen, mosquito netting for our beds and large bottles or water for the long drive.  As well we have to take church supplies, all household items for the house, since no one has lived there before, packages sent to missionaries that have been waiting for someone to drive north, groceries, our five bags, and many more things.  So, it will seem like a hunting trip in Alaska as we will buy a tarp and rope tomorrow and pile things high in the back of our little Nissan truck.  We have some worries as we here they stop white people on the street often; it is always your fault and thievery is very rampant we are told.  We cannot be as distracted as we sometimes are, but need to really pay attention.  The challenge will be to live here, not vacation here and we are excited and nervous about that.  So many more insights to come…..

Post #1

We have been in Mozambique for three days now.  Debbie has not yet openly wept.  She indicates that she is saving that for our drive up north to Quelimane, our new home for the next 18 months—scheduled for next Monday. 

Since we left the relative civilization of Alaska, we traveled first to Salt Lake City.  There we had a delightful week with family—parents, children, grandchildren, and siblings.  We suspect that all had grown rather weary of our interminable goodbye tour—but most were good sports and didn’t mention it.  We had a few family dinners, a last BYU football game, last minute shopping, financial arranging and, to everyone’s relief, eventual departure.   

We spent five days in the MTC (Mission Training Center for non-lds readers).   What a great experience that was.  About 35 “senior couples” were there and probably about 2500 young missionaries.  The seniors (I’m using the word even though I rebel at the label) have their own program independent of the more youthful missionaries.  We started by everyone introducing themselves and their respective assignments.  Truly it was a fascinating thing to hear the diversity of locations and responsibilities.  The group really covered the world.  There were medical assignments to Micronesia, youth-center administrators to Europe, and varied assignments to every other corner of the globe—even three couples to Africa.  We were the only ones of the group learning Portuguese though probably only a quarter of the group was to be learning a language.  We felt somewhat sorry for a couple in their seventies assigned to learn Greek, and another a Philippine dialect.  We were very impressed by this group of people—from widely varied backgrounds, all feeling varying degrees of separation anxiety from their former lives.  The most interesting assignment we thought to be the couple who was assigned to run a cattle ranch in Nevada.  They were bringing their horses, dog, and guns and bragged that they didn’t have to wear white shirts, ties, nor skirts.   We were inspired and really humbled by the program we experienced in those five days—it really started us out on the right foot.  We had heard Ed (our youngest son) speak of his experience there only a week before (he is now serving in Pennsylvania) but were quite pleased to have it for ourselves as well.  The businessman side of me was really impressed by the logistical and organizational expertise that it takes to move a mass of people through a program like that—truly impressive.  I was told (but have no idea if it is so) that the cafeteria is among the largest in the country—and I must admit that it was a pretty amazing production to see that many people in and fed in under an hour.

Our flight was endless.  We had a long lay-over in London and escaped the airport for a few hours and took the underground to a few sites and sights—the National Gallery and Victoria and Albert Museum among them.  I took drugs to try and help me sleep on a schedule that would have me arrive with my internal clock synched for Africa.  Since I have been falling asleep at inappropriate times for the last few days, I suspect that my efforts were in vain.

Let me talk about Mozambique briefly.  We have underestimated the adjustment and challenge of this mission (and we haven’t even done anything yet).  This place is deep third world—and we are in the most thriving and civilized part of Mozambique.  We spent four hours this morning standing in line at Immigration for our extended visas (something akin to a green card).  Nothing works particularly well here, many are impoverished, the place is pretty dirty and run down and the traffic and driving habits are something to behold.  I suspect that charm will emerge—but it hasn’t quite appeared yet.  The young Elders (yes, I see the oxymoron) are uniformly skinny.  I think that few emerge without a parasite or two.  We are staying in the home of the mission president and his wife—a very very nice roomy place with beautiful hardwood floors and spectacular overlook of the Indian Ocean.  We have learned that our dwelling in Quelimane could possibly be less impressive.  We spoke today (on my new cell phone)with the Elders who live  there who related just a few itsy bitsy challenges with our home (including the possibility that we may lack any water for a few days after arrival and maybe the promise of internet access was made a little optimistically).  We will cope.  We will have our first driving experience tomorrow (left side of the road and left hand manual shifting being the most feared challenges).   The Portuguese is going fairly well—it is not so difficult to converse as I had feared—perhaps too early to really tell, but it seems that the Mozambican accent and pronunciation is much easier than those in Portugal (though not so painless and easy as those in Brazil).

It is strange to recall that just two weeks ago I was still working—and rather fully immersed in a very different world—with far different concerns and interests.  If I let myself, I can easily slip into worrying about the future—so we try hard  not to—and for the most part are succeeding.