beginning to look...

This is our actual Christmas tree--shown here in its actual magnificent size.  Below it are three mangoes, currently in the height of their season.  There are so many different types of mangoes (manga in Portuguese) (and three different varieties shown here), all of which I love and Debbie tolerates.  I try and eat least one a day and currently the fridge is full (they are even better chilled on a hot day).  Below is a little market on the street which demonstrates the current abundance of mangoes.  A you drive down the highway out of town, you find the road littered with orange colored mango seeds--as everyone walking on the road (which is EVERYONE) is picking mangoes, eating them and discarding the seeds on the ground.

This is Santos Gideon--our temporary guard/gardener.  Our full timer, Bernardo, lost a brother and asked for 40 days off to go to the jungle to be with family.   He brought me a relative to interview and hire in his absence.  I liked Santos and hired him for the 40 day period.  After 3 days he came to me with hands cupped in front of him (the Mozambican begging pose that we know oh so well).  I asked him what he needed and he responded that he had no food (and hadn't for three days). You can see that he does not have alot of excess meat on his bones.  But apparently, he wasn't going to last until month-end when he would be paid.  We gave him some bread and bananas and mangoes (of course) and a little advance on what he had thus far earned--and today he seems to be a little more energetic with a few calories in him.

Back to Christmas, the holiday does not pack the punch here as it does in the states (of course--who can commercialize and secularize like we Americans can)?  But even the underlying religious significance of the day is not widely known, recognized nor celebrated.  It is a bit comical to see commercial establishments here with western decorations which feature snow and sleighs etc.  Not one in a hundred Mozambicans have ever seen snow and most have no idea what it really is.  We are not likely to have a white Christmas this year (unless you count most of my hair).  I recall my first mission to Brazil which featured no gifts nor traditional trappings on Christmas--yet was one of the very best of my memory.  We have been working with the young missionaries to plan an activity for the church group--not quite sure how to address it culturally--though we are told that food is always a hit--and they do love to sing--so we have much of it covered there.  Sometimes it is hard for us to both realize and accept that some cultural things of ours things don't translate readily to Mozambique--no matter how much we want them to.  Debbie desperately wants to go caroling--but it is just something that I can't quite see happening here.