...after all these years

Debbie celebrated her 2nd consecutive birthday on the African continent today.  It may have lacked a little in material rewards and remembrances, but it did contain:

1. A third dead rat trapped by our loyal guard.
2. Happy birthday wishes sung by a few and offered by many--including a skype chat with her slumber-partying quilting group in Alaska. All courtesy of our new home wireless network that works much of the time.
3. Special meals of tuna and chicken sandwiches for lunch and dinner.
4. No gifts (my contention is that she already has everything but a thoughtful husband and you can't buy one of those in the mercado central).
5. The after-hours visit shown below:

Earlier this week, we had the house full of visiting missionaries in Quelimane for zone conference and the mission president and his wife from Maputo and two visiting couples from South Africa.  We actually had other English speaking adults with which to converse for a couple of days.  It was delightful to dine and converse with them while here. The Hartmans (He is a psychologist whose "color" book I had read when it came out 25 years ago) and the Callahans (he is a MD)--both of these couples watch over the whole Sub-sahara area missionaries (at least their mental/emotional and physical condition).  They expressed that they who had travelled throughout Africa--thought that Mozambique was the worst of all places that they had seen.  Strangely, though there are days when I agree, I felt a little miffed at their criticism of "MY" home.  How dare they!!  If there is squalor here (and there is), we have stopped looking at it quite like that--at least on most days.

We played hooky from zone meeting for a while and took the visiting couples on a three hour tour (like Gilligan if I recall) drives to show them the "real" Africa--including a walk on the beach on what turned out to be a beautiful clear day.  Unfortunately it cost us our camera as it was dropped in the sand--and telescoping lenses don't seem to telescope too well following such an immersion.  The blog may suffer a bit in the coming weeks until a replacement can be found. 

We have been without running for a few days.  When we had a houseful of shower-taking, toilet-flushing missionaries, the city water stopped and our reserve tanks were quickly depleted.  We filled buckets for "baths" and such from the intermittent dribbles from the faucet--and somehow all survived--though in general we did not smell very good for a time.  There is an ancient cistern underneath the house that catches rain water--and I suppose that it constitutes our real emergency supply--you wouldn't want to drink it--but I suspect that it would be ok for bathing if one skimmed off the top layer.

yes, we do seem to make it to the beach on our p-days with increasing frequency--this time we supervised a spirited soccer match among the young missionaries, local and visiting--it was interesting to see that we generated a crowd of about 20 locals who lined the borders of our "field" to watch.  As an aside, most of the Elders who played soccer on the sand ended up with nasty blisters on their feet (we will see in a few days if amputations are required from the infections).

I have become accustomed to going anywhere I want in our little 4WD Nissan truck.  For our excursion with the South African couples, I borrowed the president's big van with two wheeled drive.  We got stuck a few times in the sand--luckily, burly Elder and Sister Callahan were there to push us out.

Our off-road drive

This is a coffin being carried (home for a family death he said, ) on a bicycle--which is how most, and even very large loads are carried.  you may note the width of the box and determine how your girth compares to the average Mozambican.  

Debbie negotiating in our Mercado Central. (she probably ended up paying only double the price for locals).

Debbie's now-traditional taco bar at zone meeting.  There was no lettuce however so we substituted cabbage unsuccessfully.  I still have not seen a scale in three months, but at least I think that I look like I have dropped a few pounds.

The outskirts of Quelimane possess an amazing number of coconut palms.  With a clear-sky background, they are always a beautiful sight.

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