Random

We had a day today that made us feel like missionaries.

• We started by teaching Lourdes (a very common name among women here), a very traditionally-built African woman here who has really impressed me at church. She has great wit and wisdom in her eyes and attends our services without fail but none of the missionaries had really succeeded in beginning to teach her. Well, we met with her this morning and visited and taught her a lesson--and then invited her to be baptized which she happily accepted.
• We taught Raul and Clara in the afternoon and had a great lesson with them--they were highly engaged and grasping things well as is usual for them. We taught them the second half of a lesson that we had begun a few days ago--covering "why on earth are we here and where the heck are we going". It was actually a great lesson. The 2nd to last picture below is of me trying out Raul's bicycle in front of their home. A couple of laps convinced me that I am glad to have a truck. I should add that Raul, though trembling from fear, gave a great talk in church on Sunday, and his wife Clara, though scowling at me when I called on her, prayed for the first time ever in public.
• Debbie taught her keyboard students in the late afternoon (we are actively trying to get an African playing in our services before too long),while I taught a lesson on the veranda to Ignacio and Mimi with Elders Brogan and Barlow. Mimi is an active catholic who was at first reluctant but then quite engaged and enthusiastic about the concepts we taught. I had met her a couple of nights ago and simply asked her if we could teach her the gospel.
• After the keyboard lesson, Debbie brought me her students who had gospel questions that needed answers. As usual, I took and hour and explained to them how to build a clock when all they wanted to know was what time it was. I do enjoy teaching.

We call this man the "tie guy". He wanders the city carrying his ties--with new ones appearing daily They cost $2 apiece and I have restrained myself until now. But today, I spotted the tie below and purchased it (believing that it would go ok with a white shirt of mine that I wear occasionally). To my surprise I found that it, like most of the ties in my closet is a Jerry Garcia tie. I am curious to know the circuitous route that brought this tie to my doorstep in Quelimane. By the way, I think this tie costs about $35 or so in the states.

In the states, a man would never be seen on a woman's model pink bicycle. Never would anyone here in Mozambique even think that such a thing was an issue--it is a bike that works. It gets Raul the ten miles into the city every day. he rides Clara on the back or front into the city to come to church. It is by far his most valuable possession.

Raul and Clara

I simply remember my favorite things...

This is a Leatherman, the original "multi tool".  Created by a  guy from Oregon.  The company is still headquartered there.  It started with an original model but now (of course) there are many.  Pictured above is the Leatherman Wave model, which is my favorite.  They are sturdy, attractive, practical and versatile (like I aspire to be).  I would have added "lightweight" but then my personal metaphor would have failed.  There are legions of disappointing immitations.  Don't be fooled.  Over the years, I have literally purchased hundreds of leathermen for personal use and gifts--both corporate and personal.

Words cannot describe how often my leatherman is called into service.  We don't travel without it.  It slices fruit and spreads peanut butter.  It cuts rope, and paper, leather, fabric, and unfortunately skin.  Its saw is a real saw and cuts through heavy branches and thick plastic watertanks to create baptismal fonts.  It is the most effective phillips head and standard screwdriver that one can find in Mozambique. I have used it to replace door lock sets (which in Mozambique entails far more work than it does in the states) including chiseling new holes for deadbolts.  It has helped to repair and replace fuel lines and waterhoses.   It has cleaned and scaled a huge fish for the meal of a visiting general authority (to which I wasn't invited--but I did get called upon to do something with the fish). In Alaska, Leatherman have been used to clean and skin many a moose, bear, and caribou.  Sometime before I leave, I should probably skin a gazelle, just to have the experience here.

If you have a loved-one going to a spot without a WallMart close by, I suggest that you buy him or her a Leatherman Wave.  It is very durable but not impossible to break--it does however possess a long warranty (25 years or lifetime I think).  I have had a couple of them repaired or replaced for free.  It is not often that I express such praise for a product, nor wax so effusive, but I consider the leatherman, coupled with a roll of duct tape, to be the twin marvels of the modern industrial age and essential companions for any individual or missionary.

Roadtrip

We made a quick trip to Marromeu today, attending a baptism and meeting with the the elders and the branch president for a while.  They have weathered the the cyclone with not too much damage.  The trip was more grueling that usual with the 150k dirt road (following the 200 k paved) in awful shape after the storms.  We came home exhausted.  Herewith are some photos of the day.

A family swimming beside the road--it actually looked wonderful in that setting.

This is a typical community well--human powered  The yellow containers formerly contained vegetable oil.



Another community well.  Water is what everyone needs.



no shortage of baboons today.  We may have seen a hundred.  Some on the road and some in the trees as we ventured off in search of them.  Some of the baboons are actually huge--and we would be well advised to not chase them too much lest we catch one.  In their proximity today, we can confirm that they smell like monkeys and that their hygiene is unimpressive.

Who would think that the jungle would also contain tortoises?  There were mongooses too but they were too quick to catch with a camera.



As I mentioned there were nasty patches on the road today.  We picked up our first dent in our truck as we pulled off to let a big truck go by and had a log flip up and smash our door  So completely not our fault.



But as you can see, the storms have passed and the weather was spectacular.

I like to take pictures of random African women in their unique local attire, shopping in the market.

Recovery

So the cyclone was a bit more serious than we had thought.  It just seemed like a lot of rain to us.  But apparently, it was a catagory 4 (that is high it seems) and sat kicking around in the channel between Mozambique and Madagascar for a few days--moving north and south erratically.  It was far enough off shore that we didn't have horrible winds here--just a whole lot of rain.  The single north/south Mozambican highway washed out yesterday and we were warned of food shortages--but apparently the got at least a temporary fix in to let traffic through--so starvation at least has been averted.

We have shared many a picture of the typical Mozambican mud and stick house.  They are simple, but can either be engineered and built well--or built poorly.  The well built ones will have sturdy corner posts made of heavy wood--a cedar which doesn't rot and can be anchored in the soil to serve as strong foundation corners.  Stronger homes will have other heavy timbers at reasonable intervals along the walls.  All of these will have cross pieces of lighter branches woven between them and tied to them and all filled in with lighter horizontal and verticle sticks and branches all tied to the main structure.  Then this framework is filled in with mud. 

If corners are cut, no heavy timbers are used to anchor the corners and nothing is anchored into the soil, and the various pieces are not tied to each other nor into the main structure of the home.  Three people with whom we are close lost entire walls in the storm and flooding.  Our maid, had a wall fall inward on her sleeping grandson.  Others fell outward.  We spent a part of Monday and Tuesday finding and providing wood for the reconstruction of homes.  For those who we helped, they simply did not have the resources to do it themselves.  When you think of it, it is really quite amazing: an entire wall (25% ) of someone's home, can be reconstructed in Mozambique with materials costing less than $50.

Angelina next to her falling and eroding rear wall

After doing the first load of wood in a white shirt and covering it with mud and wood stains, I switched to more workin-man apparel.

The next load we solicited the help of younger workers as well in Elders Miller and Ostler.  Elder Miller is being transferred tomorrow after six months in Quelimane.  He professes to love the place but is also quite ready to see it in his figurative rear view mirror.  He, along with Elder Derrickson who is also leaving, has been a great missionary here and will be sorely missed.

Raul and Clara and part of their family (dad and granddaughter) who we dearly love--but they earn about $30 per month--the wood to repair their home cost more than that.  They simply have nothing, yet serve others tirelessly and provide a home for several beyond their own.  He is speaking in church on Sunday. Clara is such a fascinating charming woman who we taught to say "I love you" to her husband in English--she says it with such a breathy sultry voice that is so completely entertaining--and Im trying to get Debbie to learn to mimic her. 

As long as we are talking about people in need, let me mention the two young women who were baptized this week.  As the rest of the city began school this week, we noted that they were not doing so (they are both 17).  They are both bright and articulate so we asked why.  Apparently, primary school is fully paid for by the government, but secondary school is not--and the cost of supplies and uniforms were prohibitive--about $40 each.  They were simply not going to finish high school.  Well, giving them money is not soething that we are supposed to do for a number of reasons.  But we did remember that we have a little money left in the Osborn Literacy Foundation--which we set up last year for African educational projects.  We found a discreet way to bring some of those resources to bear and Debbie spent part of her day doing school shopping and the girls will start on Monday. .

These little projects are not the focus of our mission here--I just mention them today as they seemed to have all converged at once.  Because of the tremendous and unrelenting needs here, the church cautions us to never be seen as a source for a hand-out--it would quickly paralyse us and reduce our future ability to serve and function.  So the small ways that we do help are always cautious and discreet, quiet and confidential.  It is impossible however to see the unending basic and simple needs of people without wanting to find some way to help,  Throwing money at a need is rarely a productive long term solution--but sometimes, a tiny bit of cash, carefully applied to avoid diminishing self respect and self reliance, can accomplish a bit of good--at least we hope that is what we hope. 

Cyclone Funso

We had been noticing a lot of rain lately.  Really more rain than I have ever seen in my life and it never stops.  On the upside, we have slept without the air conditioner on for a few days, which was nice.  On the down side there is flooding and mud and humidity and creeping things like you cannot believe.  Oh yeh, then there are the power outages.  But, when we finally looked at the weather on-line we found out it wasn't just a typical rainy season in Quelimane.  It was a cyclone and we were in the middle of it.  So here are a few pictures thought they don't do it justice.  People who live in low area simply sit on their front porches and watch life passing them by since there is a lake in front of them that cannot be forded.  Many people have had their homes flooded as well.  Then the vendors on the corners and the markets who rely on daily commerce to eat are struggling as well.  The Elders went out and bought sturdy rain boots yesterday in hopes of being able to actually get to their investigators homes.  PS  The last two baptism pictures are for the moms out there who are faithful blog readers!

The wind tears off these metal roofs in the storms.

This is after only two days of the storm; it got much deeper.

This is on Sunday, on Monday you couldn't see the hubs.

Life goes on....

Camera problems, but you can see the water coming down the walls
inside the house here.  That is a shower curtain on the floor
trying to absorb water.

What a surprise, the Elders pulled out their suits for the baptism.
Some Elders had left their suits at the mission home, so
three of them wore Elder Rios's suits.

Life doesn't get any better than this!

You can see the wall of this house falling in because of the rain.

Transformation/Rebirth

An abandoned water tank on our property--big crack in the top and leaky holes in the bottom.

We cut the top of the tank off--including the offending cracks and fissures.

We repaired the holes in the bottom of the tank and cleaned it thoroughly (or rather we had our hired plumber and hired manservant to do both of those tasks--as well as repair the external plumbing to facilitate the filling of the tank.  We rigged up an ingenious use of the house water pump to draw from the rain-water cistern under the house and shoot water to the tank--taking less than an hour to fill the 3000 liter tank.

We called upon Elders Miller and Ostler to both clean the paint and filth from the exterior as well as experiment on best methods to gracefully enter and exit the filled tank.  The best cleaning tool we discovered for exterior paint on plastic is a small cheap teaspoon.

The new baptismal font of Quelimane in all its glory following its transformation and cleansing.  Also shown are Aissa and Edna, the first ever individuals baptized in Quelimane, alsocleansed and transformed.  Shown here with their newly adoptive mother (you can see the resemblance).  They have been devoted English students of Debbie and have formed quite a bond with her.

madman accross the water

What a fascinating day we had today.  Our investigator, Amizade, has founded three or four churches in the general vicinity of Quelimane and he has long been asking for us to visit and teach in them--especially the "mother church" located on an island about 65k out of town.  Well, today was the day.  Debbie has been somewhat apprehensive of the experience and we had to get Amizade's promise that we would have something larger than a canoe to cross the river--an allegedly ten minute trip.  I had this planned in my mind to get in and out in the early morning and back around lunch time--in time for appointments in the afternoon.  It didn't quite work out like that.  The boat ride (powered by two strong young men at the oars of the 25 foot flat-bottomed homemade boat (not a dugout canoe) took about 40 minutes rather than ten.  The island is in the mouth of a river just a very short distance from the ocean--so it is salt water.  We had about a mile long walk through the mato to the church--trailing a singing procession as we walked.  In the end, we never did make it to those afternoon appointments.  It was a rich and beautiful as well as long day there.  We really enjoyed the people and the teaching experience.

Debbie walking among the singing procession that welcomed us to the island and afterwards walked us back to the boat.

Debbie spoke for about five minutes and I spoke for about 40.  The pastor said that they were up for more, but it seemed best to end before they threw us out.  Following our speaking, there was something of an lds "testimony meeting" as people stood and expressed what they felt and thought of our message.  They were all speaking in dialect, but you could here the references to the honorific "Mother and Father" And we got the translation as well.  It really was quite touching.  We were begged to return as well as to visit the other congregations that had representatives there.

Debbie seemed drawn to the singing and dancing--I couldn't get her off the floor.  She actually made a great impression and did really try and interact with everyone. 

We had a break of coconut milk (more like water) and coconut meat before another round of music and dancing.

It seems that Debbie was unusually taken with the drummer and tambourine player (two different hunks pictured here).  It is not the first time I'm sure that a young lass like her has fallen for one of these musical types.

After collecting cash offerings (they sing a "collection" song while people come forward and leave their offering on these two chairs), they brought out another offering of their bounty--fruits, vegetables and of course a live chicken (you can see it on the ground under the basket).  All of this, including the cash, was given to us.  We tactfully gifted back everything but did retain a bunch of delicious bananas of a type we hadn't seen before.

When the service and dancing and offerings were done, we thought that we would finally get home--not so fast it seems.  It turns out that they had prepared a spectacular lunch of rice and fresh crab (and chicken).  The crab was truly excellent.  It was the strangest thing: we ate on china and stoneware on a white table cloth (with a suit-clad waiter with towel on his arm).  Words cannot describe how incongruous the fine meal was with our setting.  But we can live with incongruity and enjoyed the meal immensely).

Our welcome to the church included a flowered arch through which to enter the building.  The framework construction of the chapel, that you can see here, allowed a breeze to flow through the building--which kept it quite pleasant.

It seemed like everyone from the service walked to the boats to see us off.  They sang their version of "Master the Tempest is Raging", before we set out to sea.  I am fascinated by the dugout canoes which I used to think were an item from ancient history--they are not--they are the principal small boat conveyance here and seem to be remarkably useful and seaworthy.  The ride home was made against fierce head winds--at times all forward progress would end--but nearly two hours later, we made it back to terra firma.  I tipped our oarsmen handsomely.

I try and objectively evaluate the day-long experience on the island of Iduga.  Was it a productive thing to do?  We we honored, feted and deferred and catered-to (literally and figuratively).  We were treated like visiting apostles.  It was certainly enjoyable (and culturally fascinating) for us. But did we accomplish anything?  The island is too distant from the base of the church to realistically contemplate ongoing work there in the neart term.  But beyond the cultural trappings and personally gratifying experience--there was a very good spirit and intelligence among them that is not often present in these types of congregations here.  Many were truly looking for more truth and were moved by both our effort to come and the content of what we taught (which was the condensed version of the plan of salvation, apostasy, restoration and doctrine of Christ).  I think that their pastor, Amizade, who is a very humble and truth-seeking man, accounts for much of the spirit that we felt there.  He has taught them the truth as far as he was able to discern it.  So we conclude: yes, it was a good thing to do.  We will see what if anything comes of it. 

We arrived at shore only to find that Amizade had promised rides (in our truck) to a number of people who needed to get into town.  We had 5 inside the cab and six or seven in the back.

Ethnocentricity

 First, I have to say that it is a pity that you didn't read my post from yesterday.  It was witty, cogent, and emotionally moving--and the pictures were all colorful and of Pulitzer quality.  It brought Africa to life as well as providing deep insight into the human condition.  Unfortunately, I noticed this morning, that I had deleted rather than posted it.
_________________________________________________________________________

It probably takes an experience such as the one that we are having to see just how ethnocentric we are (though that might not be the right word at all).

My background has thrust me into a fair amount of public speaking--including a lot of cross cultural interaction--so I shouldn't be a stranger to these issues.  But here, where the culture is so very very different--we find that the pool of common experience between us and those with whom we regularly speak and interact is very very small.

I love to draw parallels and parables, metaphors and mental images in my speech--and particularly in my speeches--or talks in church or even in counseling sessions.  Many is the time that Debbie and I have drafted remarks and then as we edit each others remarks, we will identify references or concepts, attitudes or objects, that will not be recognizable by a Mozambican audience.  For example--I couldn't refer to washing windows (because they generally have none made of glass), shining shoes, movies, entertaining, health insurance, or hundreds of other things and topics.  Perhaps the best example was a talk the Debbie was preparing for church in a far off city.  She was attempting to show how destitute someone was by referring to their inability to by gas for their car for a period of time.  Yes, you see the problem--any destitution scenario that would be relevant in American culture--would appear to a Mozambican to be a paradisaical condition beyond their wildest dreams. 

Unfortunately, the problem also exists in the church--which produces a worldwide curriculum.  I am certain that they make a huge and conscious effort to eliminate cultural inconsistencies--but for Eastern Africa--the gulf is just too wide and we often fail.   We often catch ourselves trying to say things that people here simply do not have the cultural context to understand--and it is our error, not theirs.  We were trying to find an LDS general conference talk suitable for sharing/discussion in a church meeting here.  The messages were beautiful--but each one contained subtle and not-so-subtle cultural references or implied norms that could make them shockingly foreign and bewildering to the people here.  When you thint about it, it really might be an impossible task to devise a powerful message where the images and examples that you call upon are equally relevant and comprehensible to a prosperous business manager or artist in wintery Duluth as well as mud-hut-dwelling rice farmer in Camaroon. 

Debbie and I taught "our own" pesquisador (one who is inquiring and seeking to be taught the gospel) today--rather than just assisting the young missionaries.  Not that we have lacked for teaching experiences--but the nature of the relationship is different--being primary rather than supplemental.  Good experience--I suspect that we will learn tons in this process. 

The mission president officially gave us the city of Marromeu to fall within our stewardship--this city had always been in the plans for us--and now it is ours.  It is way off the beaten path some 6 hours to the south--which makes now gives our area a span of about 14 hours on the road from north to souths.  We will try and spend time with the missionaries and leadership of both areas twice each in each six week period (how weird that in the Mormon mission field the predominate time periods are of six weeks duration--its like going to a distant planet where their day is 37 hours long).

Yes I look hot and sweaty and tired (and maybe a little old)--but I do like bananas.  I was told today by one of   my favorite younger sisters that I look like I have lost weight--not that I needed to of course.  I haven't ever seen a scale here, but it might be possible that a little has dropped off in the last months.

On the road yesterday, I negotiated for the purchase of this little gazelle--thinking that it would make a memorable dinner for the young missionaries if bbqd on the back porch.

Bikes transport everything.  We often see people riding with lumber stacked like this.  One has to spread his legs pretty wide to avoid the splinters.

Our living room--please note the spectacular floral arrangement on the newly constructed coffee table--proving to all that I did not entirely ignore Debbie's birthday--though I did get all the flowers from the yard.  I know that it the room doesn't look like much--but it is space that we call ours--and is relatively comfortable, if sparse, and we are so grateful to have it now.