Road Weary

We made a quick trip to Beira the last few days to pick up some things.  We took the "jungle road" and visited Marromeu and did a little church work on the way.  We saw our fill of our known three species of monkey and, for the first time, saw a couple of wild deer-like creatures.  There is wildlife here after all it seems.  On the trip down, we were waved to the side of the road by a cop who informed me that he had a couple of people there with him who needed to get to Beira, and would I please give them a ride.  Not wanting to explore the consequences of refusal, I let them climb in the pick up bed for a very miserable six hours on dusty and bumpy dirt roads.  They seemed not to mind.

Our purpose in the trip was to pick up some extra chairs for our chapel and a new amplifier/speaker system as well.  We accomplished both in record time and were back on the road home.  You can see our expertly packed load here in the shadow of one of the more peresonality-laden boabab trees.  I liked the shape of this one.

This is an enormous termite mound from which has sprouted large trees over time.

Back home in Alaska, you can see occasional warning signs for bears in certain places.  They lack the mutilation graphics like this crocodile warning has however.  Our Humanitarian missionaries told us that they recently received a request for a well from a village which used as its justification that people kept getting eaten by crocodiles when they took water from the river.  It seemed like a pretty good reason for a well to me.

I couldn't get this picture to lay on its side, but you get the point I'm sure.  How many goats can you fit atop your minivan?

When mom has a bad day.

The young man in stripes (appropriately) came --to a youth activity tonight at the church, or rather, showed up at the tale end.  He asked for some water and attempted to enter the house--rebuffed, he demanded a cup of water then threw it down when it wasn't cold enough.  A few minutes later, our guards caught him in my car.  He ran, dropping many of my possessions as he did so.  The guards apprehended him after quite a chase and brought him back.  It was interesting to see the public participation in the event.  Our yard was full of law and order supporters.  Had there been a rope handy, we could easily have had a lynching.  He denied having come to do anything but pray at the church (or was it prey?).  We then spent some time at the police station and have to return tomorrow as well.  I had an internal debate about how to deal with this.  The items were of little value.  But he struck me as particularly nasty so I thought that some aversion therapy might help more than turning the other cheek.  I actually don't know what the right thing to do was.  But he is going away.

The twins spent time in our car as we helped their parents more on the endless process of getting marriage documents.

 

Colorful market in Beira.