a step back in time

We have finally completed our well project on the island of Idugo.  (I say that as if we were major contributors though we were not--but we started the ball rolling so we maintain a little possessiveness.  We organized a closing ceremony on the island to officially hand over the wells to the populace and to encourage them to take care of them.  We had a feast of sorts with goats and chickens and plenty of rice and spagetti and Mozambican Matapa or crushed-leaf sauce.  I even brought ice to the island in coolers to provide cold drinks--I suspect that it had been a long time since anyone there had had something cold.  All in all it was a good time--not without incidents of the darker side of human nature--but overall positive and we think that the project was a good and valuable one that will bless the lives of the 10,000 or so people who live in the island.

Passage accross the River Supinho is in this very seaworty vessel.  Half way accross we discovered that we forgot something so we waited in the river while someone returned in a canoe to get it.   Being a little bored after a time, I went overboard--discovering that we were not in particularly deep water as you can see below.

The tide was out so we had a long walk through the mud to get to dry land once we hit the island.



Debbie always likes an entourage.

This is a completed well in all its glory.  Here is a Youtube video of what the water looks like that comes out of it:

 http://youtu.be/klS2i33tdHU

We are here pictured with the eldest daughter of Amizade who lives on the island with her husband--both of them are are HIV positive.  She is a sweet woman who knows how to read and Debbie always brings her a copy of the church magazind Liahona whenever we come.  At her side, is her brother Rocha who is our branch clerk and is preparing to serve a mission and who heard the gospel from the missionaries while he was in jail.  We no longer are quite so quick to judge others as perhaps we once were.

Sisters Osborn, Wollenzien and Merkley (the other two being humanitarian missionaries, decided to get into the spirit of the occasion today and decided to wear matching capulanas.  Thereafter, most people mistook them for native Mozambicans.

Those who helped in the construction of the wells were given these t-shirts--that we thought were really quite cute with a palm-surrounded well as the front design.  Hundreds were gathered for the ceremony.

One of the lessons I learned from the day was to leave politicians out of things like this.
Following my remarks to the assembly, in which I remarked that we were all children of God and people just like them in our church like had contibuted their hard earned money so that they could have this water, one of the government officals stood and urged the to remember that "you are children of the government and the government will always take care of you".  And another offical, who only appeared for this ceremony, claimed that this project only occurred because the government had requested and authorized the church to build the wells.  Another official was more practical--he thanked the church for its effort but gave us a list of other things that he would like the church to pay for (a a motorized ferryboat was high on his list).  All in all, we were pretty fed up with these guys in the end.

The first ceremonial drink of water from the well.

There was plenty of dancing and celebrating as part of the ceremony.  The video follows:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8UQUFBYuTE&feature=plcp

Claudia, daughter of our friend Amizade, was with us on the Island.  Shown here with her two chickens.  Claudia is nine years old (Which is a very frightening thing).  She forgot her chickens in our truck so we awoke this morning to find them there.