Nampula Jesus Film Training Trip

Tuesday 27th June
It was 10pm and I was walking back from the Naval after eating some gorgeous apple pie – Just got to the driveway when I was stopped by Felito, the head of evangelism and asked if I wanted to go to Nampula the next day to attend training given by Campus Crusade for Christ on the old school projectors they want to give us. I say yes… I ask Cassandra my housemate to accompany me; she is a writer and can take her work with her.

Wednesday 28th June
I was meant to meet Felito at 11am to get the Landrover and money and then we’d be off. Finally at 2pm I get the money – they want me to buy a motorbike while I’m there. Then at 3pm we find out the car is not available now, have to wait till morning to leave. 9pm that night I get a phone call to say that I may not use the Landrover, they have a little Opel Corsa non4x4 for me to use instead. Fair enough except that the battery is bad and the papers are not really in order… but they will try and sort that in the morning – so I guess we’re not leaving at 11am then…

Thursday 29th June
The training started this morning and I am still in Pemba. To waste some time I went to the bank at 9am to cash the cheque I got, the computers are down so I wait for a what seems ages to get special permission to get the money, about US$2000. Then when I get back to the base I find that they managed to find a new battery but locked the keys in the car.

So we waited for 30mins while the spare set of keys came – at least I know that our guards make bad car thieves! Finally we get into the car and then the car wont start – 1 hour later the car is running fine and at 12:20 we are off in the little non-4x4. Barely out the gate and I hit a stone or something in our driveway and the tire starts feeling funny.

Near the airport (2km later) its finally flat. We stop and change the tire – 4 guys materialize and do it for us – we have to ‘tip’ them of course and they wont take ‘no we can do it ourselves’ for an answer. There was a huge gash on the side of the tire, I have no idea how it lasted as long as it did! The rim on the spare is a bit bent and I know that its not good. Also as they pump up the spare tire there is a sound of rushing wind. The spare got a little hole too. So back to the base we go. Its1pm now…

When we get back to the base I get a phone call and am told we are NOT allowed to drive the little green non4x4, the papers are not in order and the battery is not quite good yet. I could have told them that… BEFORE we nearly set off the trip! Then I get another phone call and I am told that we have to take a 16year old Mozambican with us… then a other phone call to say that the 4x4 they want to give us first has to go to the airport at 3pm.

I wanted to leave at 11am…. YESTERDAY!

I finally convinced my boss that taking a Mozambican schoolboy is not necessary – he doesn’t ever do any sound anyways. Besides there isn’t room at the place we were gonna stay and if we bring back a bike then there would be no room at the back either. They got another car for the airport run and finally we left again at 2:30. Only 28 hours later than planned!

The drive to Nampula fairly smooth – only about 5hours – I let Cass drive for a bit – it was so scary she was all over the place the first while – stuck pedantically to the left side of the road and kept honking at people and goats and bicycles and chickens that dared walk on the road – she couldn’t seem to understand that the car didn’t really have the right of way! I feel: why stay in your lane when you have all that tarmac open next to you??? I could see the hordes of people and bikes rush past real close – eventually she got the knack of straddling the middle line! I think now I know what my father felt like when he first let me drive in Mozambique on our road trip from South Africa to Pemba last year! But it was good after a while, and I could relax. She was tired after an hour so I took over again – I love driving!

We found the SIL Guest house and stopped at Shoprite to buy something to eat for supper.

Friday 30th June
I wake up at 8am and immediately called the Jesus Film People to find out what is happening and they told me that the session starts at 8am (that would be… right now). OK. I am still trying to figure out where the church is!

It’s a full on training on evangelism etc. I had only come for the technical part! So I was glad that I was actually a day late cos the previous day had only been theoretical on evangelism! The technical training went well – I am confident that I can teach it to the people back home. I had a great conversation with the leaders of the training – they are from Kenya and Zimbabwe and speak good English, actually all the training is in English translated into Portuguese! So I am happy – I am also the only white person there, but not the only girl!

I excuse myself after lunch, they are going to be doing more theory stuff, so instead I go pick Cassandra up and we go shopping for the motorbike. Find at 125cc ‘super bike’ for 32 million = approx US$1260 - we managed to barter down to 30million! = US$1181! So proud of ourselves! Then the next obstacle was to get it into our vehicle. We have a single cab Mazda 4x4 with a canopy. And the doorway aint that big!

Eventually the 4 guys that were helping us load took one of the benches out of the back of the 4x4 (it was semi broken anyways…) and dismantled the front windscreen bit of the bike and did something to the handle bars and finally an hour later it was in the back! I wonder how we’re gonna get it out again, but we’ll figure it out later. The only problem is that the lock on the backdoor doesn’t work, but I doubt that anyone will get the bike out easily! Asked the Indian guys that ran the store where the best place was to eat – hadn’t had lunch so was really hungry – gave directions and we found it – a 4* hotel in town. The prices are better than in Pemba and the food was very very very very good! Yum! Then it was back to the house – chatted to the other people staying there and then it was off the bed!

Saturday 1st July
I was told that I could be there at 9:30 as the morning was devoted to theory stuff – that was great, so I got to sleep in a bit. I tried to get the backdoor lock fixed this morning before going to class, but the Toyota dealership was shut. So I got some boxes of cheap mineral water – I’m having a bit of trouble with my water purifier at the moment…

The equipment was scheduled to arrive from Maputo at 10:30am and I offered to go pick up the stuff that was for Pemba, 2 full systems. A little while later, Alfred, the Pastor from CCC came up to me and said “I understand that you offered to drop me off at the airport now when you go fetch your equipment” OK – I don’t recall saying that, but what ever! So we hop in the car and off to the airport we go. I love the freedom of having my ‘own’ car!!!

Alfred gets checked in OK, but there is a problem with the cargo… today is the dawn of a new currency in Moçambique. Its called the Nova Familia do Metical – basically they are dropping 3 zeros – so now my weekly budget wont be 1 million mets, it will just be 1000! So anyways, because they needed to distribute all the new notes and coins they filled the plane with money and left any ‘non-essential’ cargo in Maputo! It should (meaning maybe, quite possibly not) be arriving late on Sunday night, but I have to be back in Pemba then… So I had to make plans to have it shipped up to Pemba.

I get back to the church at 2pm and its lunch time, they hadn’t covered the maintenance part yet and I really have to organize things and the shops close at 5pm and nothing is open on Sundays – So I really want to get some meat and other essentials! Steve ran thru the maintenance with me quickly while the others were having lunch, then I was off home to pick Cass up.

We get to Shoprite at 3pm – We leave loaded with goodies at 4:30! I bought (amongst other things) a cooler box and some ice bricks so that I can take some mince meat and real ‘boerewors’ home!

At Shoprite we ran into Antonio, a guy that works as a medic for the Portuguese Air Force. Cassandra had met him in Pemba! He invited us to go watch the Portugal vs England game at the Mozambican Military housing where he was staying – but we hadn’t eaten yet so declined and went to watch the game at the restaurant we were at the previous night.

I am so tried by now, this whole trip has been busy – and now I have to find out if I have to stay in Nampula for another night and hope that the equipment arrives. Felito is out of town on a weekend bush outreach so I cant ask him… instead I call our centre director, Aguinaldo and ask him what to do. YAY I can go home the next morning! We have a guy driving up from Maputo in 2 weeks and he can pick up the stuff from our base there when he comes past.

Sunday 2nd July
Finally I can sleep late! At 8:30am the phone beeps and it’s a text message from Antonio – he wants to know if we want to have breakfast with him at a café? OK! We packed quickly and by 10 we were out the door – we meet up with him at a cute sidewalk café and order sugary donuts and a latte! Mmmm delicious! Antonio’s English isn’t that great, and our Portuguese isn’t that great, but we managed to have a decent conversation – I love the fact that I am able to understand Portuguese! He is going back to Portugal in the week – and he was absolutely delighted that they were through to the semis in the World Cup.

He had a meeting at 11, so we hit the road for our drive back to Pemba.
5 hours later (we stopped for photos and I bought some furniture) we were back home in Pemba – and after we had unloaded the car and restocked the freezer I flopped down on a chair totally exhausted, glad to be back home!