1918--2012

My mother, Daphne Smart Osborn passed away today just a bit short of her 94th birthday.  I was able to chat with her a couple of days ago just before she lost consciousness.  Her passing was peaceful following a very very good and long life--leaving a posterity in numbers only slightly less than the sands of the sea. 

We expected mom to not live through our mission and said our in-person goodbyes as we left.  Though expected and welcomed, we still find this surprisingly painful.  Perhaps I will be more sympathetic now to the thousands of orphans of Mozambique, now that I am one of them.  After much thought, we have decided to travel to Salt Lake for her funeral and will leave after church on Sunday.  We confess that the thought of two and a half days of travel does not have much appeal.  We will be back on May 3rd.  If you are the mother of a young missionary in Quelimane and want to send a small (tiny) thing back with us to your son, contact us.



This is the Quelimane missionary district consisting of Elders Delgado, Homer, Barlow, McCullough, Petersen and Rios--and the Casal Osborn.  Very good missionaries, at least all of the young ones.  We really enjoy our association with these young men.  We parent them a little, but not too much and learn much from them.  We spend a fair amount of time together and really grow attached to them.

We were walking to a lesson today and passed this very friendly woman who greeted us. Debbie admired her beautiful baby (one month old) and she said, oh, I have another just like it inside, and showed us the first set of twins (above) that we have yet seen here. This is Veronika who also said she and her husband would like to hear our message. Veronica displays some attributes that are typical here, the first (and only one that I noticed) is her close cropped hair, which is immensely practical (and attractive if you have the head for it) and the other is cleavage--which is the norm here as far as the way women dress. Women like Veronika are not attempting to be provocative (though there is another element like that), just practical for the most part, as most women of her age seem to be nursing a child or two.

These boys are all playing the tire game, which we do not fully understand, but it consists of running through the streets and paths and alleyways using sticks to direct a tire in front of you at high speed.

Chameleons come from Mozambique.  But this is the very first one we have seen.  They are harmless but the local population believes that their bite will kill you immediately.  I nearly stepped on this one (and thus narrowly averted instant death).  We watched it for a few minutes and saw that it does indeed change color and pattern dramatically and quickly depending on the appearance of its surroundings.