Dogs, Monkeys & A New House!

While I was in Morrumbala building the house for the orphans I bought a puppy! She belongs to both my housie and I, and we decided to call her ‘Bala’, after Morrumbala, but it also happens to mean, ‘bullet’!


Bala 2 months old

Its like having a little baby in house – the landmines and the puddles… *sigh* but we are getting the hang of it – trying to train her to be a good house dog. Not too sure what kind of dog she is… or how big she’s going to get!

She and Charlie the monkey get on really well – he escaped the other night and when I woke up to let Bala out the next morning I saw a monkey sitting on my kitchen wall!



He jumped down and Bala and he played for about an hour, chasing each other, tumbling, and tugging ears and tails! It was so cute.




Jessie and I have moved to a smaller house – so just the two of us live there now, and we have a bathroom INSIDE the house as well as a kitchen! And they finally hooked us up to the water too, we had been paying kids (with candy) to carry water for us… so now when the city has water I can take a real shower and walk back to my room in only a towel and not worry that half the base can see me! The only thing that needs to be fixed is the meter high gap between the roof and the wall in the kitchen/verandah area… It’s a security risk - I’ve hopped over it before, hopefully they will put bars and mosquito netting in soon!

Its so nice to live in a little house, they even planted a pretty little garden outside it! Sad thing is that we don't have a yard anymore, so Bala has to stay inside, else she runs around and eats the food scraps and fish bones out of the buckets the Mozambicans leave outside their houses!

Grrrouwf!!

Police...

One lazy Saturday we decided to go to the beach, to Murrebué, about 20mins away. I borrowed the Landrover and we see who all is going – so Will says he will take his car too. But he wants to go the long way round and drive on the beach, so the girls pile into the Landy and off we go. There is a Police checkpoint just as you leave the city and they stop everyone, but today they weren’t there – yay! But then as we were nearing the turnoff when we saw a little uniformed man wave us down… he asks to see my license and the car’s papers. No problem.


“There is a problem here, these papers do not say there is a roof rack added to the car. And also the payload weight written down is 1 ‘4’ 80 and on the car is says 1 ‘9’ 80. We go talk to the chief”

I get out the car and follow him to the side of the road where his supervisor is standing with another lady cop. “Please sir, let me call our head driver, he speaks better Portuguese than I do”… “No, your Portuguese is good”. Well at least I got a compliment out of it. I still try to convince him that the ‘4’ is just a poorly written ‘9’ and that I was so so so so sorry that we didn’t amend the papers to include the roof rack. He’s not buying.

He suddenly asks me, ”are you married?”
No I’m not married. I’m too young.

“Do you have a boyfriend?”
I don't have a boyfriend either.

“but you are so pretty, will you be my wife?”
Actually there was a guy I like a little bit.

“but we can just sleep together”
NO! I have a boyfriend.

“your boyfriend is in Pemba?”
yes…

“why is he not with you?”
ummm… he has to work today

“so do you sleep with him?”
NO.

“But how do you know if you like him if you don't sleep with him?”
I am a Christian, you must only sleep with your husband.

→ The other 3 police officers were cracking up; they thought it was the funniest thing ever. And they still had my license and the car’s papers else I would have punched him and ran.

“OK, so do you want to go on a date with me?”
No

“Don’t you like me?
NO.

“Why not?”
umm…

“So do any of the other girls in the car want to marry me?”
No, they ALL have boyfriends.
Please I just want to go to the beach to relax.

“But your paper’s are wrong”
I am so sorry.
Please can we go to the beach?
I will fix the papers on Monday.

“OK. Go. Maybe we can have a date some other time”

They hand back the papers and I get back in the car. I think that from now on the extent of my Portuguese when dealing with police will be, ‘now faa lou por chew ges’ (I don't speak Portuguese)

I really felt horrible, like he had molested me in some way with his words and the invasiveness of the questions. And there was nothing I could do about it either, anyone else I would have punched, but he had my driver’s license, and I was in an Iris Landrover, with the Iris logo on the door, so he would know where to find me…

And just incase you were wondering, I DON'T have a boyfriend. I invented him for the moment!

Other than that the rest of the day was good – the beach was good, Bala got to go swimming for the first time and we ran on the beach. She doesn’t like the waves too much but when the tide is out there are tons of sandy bars with puddles she swam thru.

I decide that I don't want to go the short way home, just incase the cops are still there – besides driving on the beach sounds like fun. I am following Will’s pickup and on the first sandy hill we come to I stopped too soon and got a bit stuck – but I put the DiffLock on, 4 High and there I go, reverse out the sand. Then the DiffLock off and I pick up speed and we clear the sand bar easily. There is a silence in the car as the girls process what just happened. But I love it! The tide had come in too much for us to drive on the beach itself, but there was a path right next to the beach we drove on. One part was on an angle, I’m sure it was close to 40 degrees, because it was scary, felt like we were going to roll, but so much fun! I like this kind of driving, off-roading!!!

Sunday after church I was invited by the same bunch of people to have a barbeque on the beach – Will had bought a whole goat and we grilled that on a huge grill they had made for their 4th of July party. It was so good. The goat I’ve eaten in the villages and at the center has always been in a stew, so to have a huge chunk of grilled goat was fantastic! The dogs loved the bones, the one we gave Bala was nearly as big as she was!

We dug a deep pit in the sand on the beach and after the BBQ we moved the hot coals over there and built a fire. It was great, the stars were out, there was NO one around, and the moon was a huge red ball, reflecting over all the rock pools formed by the outgoing tide. It was beautiful.

Collecting Kids

You might remember the village called Miegane that I mentioned in the Safari story… well I spoke to Heidi about the kids and Heidi said ‘why didn’t you bring the kids back with you???’ :-)

Well it isn’t that simple, there are documents that need to be filled out and we decided that we would go back later with Rodolfo, director of our children’s center here in Pemba. The kids would go to Maranghania, a new base that was starting about 20mins outside Pemba, one that is much smaller, with fewer kids. The vision is to have boys aged 6-10 living in little ‘families’ of 12 kids with two ‘parents’. They are still building, but there is one house ready for kids. The missionary couple running that base, Michael and Julie were excited that they would maybe get some kids.

Monday the 5 of us packed into the car and set off for this village – its exactly a month later, October 2! We arrive in the village and ask people until we are shown to Joao Assane’s house. Fortunately he is home, and he remembers me from the bush camp. He was surprised that we had come back! Word quickly spread and soon there was a crowd around the chairs that had been set out for us.



We had no idea what condition the kids would be in, and asked to see the kids. They were sent for, but it turns out that all of them are staying with their grandparents, and 4 of the kids’ caretakers refuse to let us have them. One lady, a grandmother with an 11-year-old daughter, was looking after her 2-orphaned grandchildren, a 3 1/2 year old boy and a year old baby. She is too weak to work the fields to get food for the kid, so the 11-year-old aunty looks after the baby. Both kids are slightly malnourished, but do not look like they are starving.

Michael and Julie are not ready to take a baby, but they do not want to split the family. Its a hard decision to We go to the bush camp for and hour to think and pray – it’s a huge decision to take a child away from all he has known. The camp is just as beautiful and peaceful as I remembered it to be!

Finally we think of a solution: we will buy her 2 goats, and then she can sell the goat kids and make money. That way we can leave the kids there and they would have food and be looked after. I think that was the best solution!

We get back to the village and quickly a man is found that has goats for sale: we buy 2 female goats, one is already pregnant, and we hire a man to build a pen for them to be kept.

The lady is covered in witch doctor paraphernalia, and so are the kids, so we want to pray for them – Michael preached in Portuguese and the assistant chief translated into Makua (hardly any of the villagers spoke Portuguese), then he asked if anyone wanted to give their lives to Christ. No one. Oh well, so we prayed for the grandmother and the kids and got ready to leave.

The crowd scattered, and suddenly Julie realized she didn’t have photos of the kids with the goats! So we drove to the lady’s house and took some photos, then went back to the assistant Chief’s house. And there, standing outside the gate were 2 guys. As we got out the car they said ‘we want to receive Jesus’. How AWESOME is that???? We prayed for them, and Michael led them in a prayer. It was so exciting! They had heard about Jesus before, but never really understood it. Now we have the start of a church.


Adults from Left to Right: Rodolfo, Michael, Julie, the Grandmother (she is holding the orphan baby)
The little boy in the front, dressed in blue, is the 3 1/2 year-old orphan. Also posing for the camera are the 2 goats we bought them!

I had already told Joao (the assistant chief) that I wanted to bring a team out there for a 3 or 4 night outreach, and this just made me want to do it even more! So that is my goal, to get an outreach scheduled in the village, and then also do outreaches in the other 2 villages you drive through to get there. I think it will be great – Iris hasn’t been there yet, this was the first time!

I also realized that I liked being in the villages more than I liked being at the base in Pemba, I mean its nice to have a home to go to, but I like going out to the villages and just being there…

So we left without any kids, but that’s better.

A Little Miracle

A grandmother showed up one day and brought a tiny starving baby to us. Baby Lori was 2 months old, and she had been surviving on watery shima (maize porrige) after her mother died giving birth. She looked horrible, weighing a mere 2 pounds with nearly every bone in her body visible. We did not have much hope for her survival and it made us so sad so we prayed and prayed that she would live.



Today, 4 months later we have the cutest fattest most adorable baby! Lori has gained so much weight and is developing normally! She is 11 pounds and so healthy! It is a miracle – she is a little fighter, and every day as we watch her grow we can hardly believe this is the same baby we took in those few months ago!

Monkey Business

I have a monkey – a real monkey!!! We have had him for about a month now, he belongs to my room mate and I, his name is Charlie, he is 10 months old and he is the naughtiest creature I have ever met – but so adorable!

We built him a huge cage outside our house, but for a while he lived in our kitchen and it gave new meaning to ‘child-proofing’ because if he could pick it up he would. He loved stealing the matches, running onto the roof and then patiently chewing the carton open and dumping the contents onto the roof before throwing the empty box back down into the kitchen! And when we take something out the oven his paw would be right in there…

He loves candy, and after he realized the world was bigger than just our house he would go explore the neighbors yards and then we would have to go out there and bribe him with something sweet to get him onto our shoulder and then we could walk him back to his house… these days he stays in his cage, but he still loves having his back scratched!

Safari

September 2 is Jessie, my ‘housie’s’ birthday and she really wanted to go away for the weekend and just relax.


So we asked around and met up with a guy that had helped with the horses. He knew a guy that owns a bush camp in an elephant reserve about 2 hours outside Pemba. We got his number and walked about a kilometer in the hot hot sun to his house to chat about things. It was so good – he would let us stay in a bungalow for free, and they would take us out on a game drive to look for elephants that Saturday, also for free! How cool is that?


Our little Bungalow

Friday morning we packed the Landrover we borrowed and headed into town to go buy some goodies for the weekend – meat to barbeque and lots of snacks.

The directions we had were pretty comprehensive cos we had to twist and turn thru 3 villages to get there, drive thru a dry riverbed and over a very odd little hill. But it was breathtaking. So peaceful and quiet. The camp is situated in a valley at the base of 3 huge rock mountains.


We unloaded the landy and then we all just lay outside on the verandah listening to the stillness that was only interrupted by the cracking sounds of huge seedpods bursting open. There were baboons running across the rock face right in front of us, but other than that NOTHING.

It was Jessie, Josham (her brother), Laura (she’s working with the horses) and me – we where all staying in a bungalow that had cold but running water, and at night they switched the generator on so we had light! Us girls pushed the 2 beds together and we shared, and Josham slept on the floor. The owner and 2 of his friends had come out too, so they made a huge fire in the pit and we barbequed, so good – then we roasted marshmallows over the coals!

The next morning early we all piled into the Unimog, an old army vehicle, and we drove down the dry river bed and up a mountain. We stopped at the ‘Salvador Dali’ rocks and walked over a carpet of rock hydrax (dassie) poo. The water erosion had created an interesting abstract paint effect over the huge cliff and the rock hydrax had smoothed some of the rocks so it was a great place to stop for a while. Jessie and I climbed up a rock that was really high up… scary!


We drove for hours but all we saw where the elephant tracks, finally we got to Montpuez River and some trackers we saw next to the river said that a huge herd of elephant had crossed the river bed about 2 hours before and were on the other side now. But it was getting dark so we had to turn back. So disappointing!

The next morning we went to the waterhole really early, and watched the sunrise! We had to climb up one of the rock mountains and went to an overhang that looked down over the waterhole. We stayed there for about 4 hours, but all we saw where some baboons and guinea fowl… but it was still breathtaking!

The bush camp was in the newly formed ‘Quirimbas National Park’, and they still have to fence off the park and then there are some investors who are thinking of helping repopulate the animal population – it’s a beautiful area!

Sunday afternoon and we had to pack up and leave. So sad – I had such a peaceful, relaxing time, who wants to go back to the bustle and noise of Pemba???

We said our good byes and were just about to leave when a Mozambican came up to us and asked us, ’what is Iris Ministries?’ (we were in an Iris Landrover) – ‘we help children, orphans’ – ‘Oh, in my village there are 6 children without a mother or a father’ It turns out that he is the assistant chief of the 3rd village, Miegane, we had passed on the way in. I take his name, and promise to get something done for the kids.

So the weekend was over, and back to work!

How to Build a House for 50 Orphans...

This is not a step by step instruction guide, but I will do my best to give you handy pointers should you ever attempt this amazing feat…

I am in Morrumbala, a town close to the Malawi border, just north of the mighty Zambezi River and I was asked to go build a house. A big house. Big enough to house 48 kids! I think I this trip has the dubious honor of being the trip with the longest delay in leaving – by about 3 weeks!
At first our team was 2 missionaries, 1 Landrover, a flatbed truck, and me. Then 2 missionaries gave me 1 week’s notice of leaving for America…

Then the team was 1 missionary, 1 Mozambican builder, no vehicle, and me. Then builder was told he had to stay in Pemba do finish his projects and the missionary went to South Africa for his visa…

Then the team was 1 missionary, 1 Mozambican foreman, 1 Landrover and me. The night before we leave I am told that I cannot be the only girl and the missionary may not drive, so I have to get a Mozambican driver and another girl!


Anton, Travis and I

But all was well and the team that finally left Pemba at 4:45am on Thursday morning was: 2 Missionaries (Travis and Octavia), 1 Mozambican foreman (Antonio), 1 Mozambican driver (Baros), 1 Landrover and Me (Nikki).

The drive down was great. I love road trips and Mozambique is a fun place to drive, with huge holes to dodge! The first day we drove to Mocuba – give or take 850km from Pemba. Last time I drove that road it was terrible. There were huge ruts in the road, so deep that you had to balance your wheels on the little ‘mountains’ else you’d be stuck if your wheel went into a ‘valley’ – they are busy repairing the road and its mostly solid packed dirt and tar. It was wonderful!!!

We got to Mocuba at about 5pm and finally found rooms at the 3rd guesthouse we tried (the 1st one had hot running water, the 2nd one had cold running water) this one had no running water, but has employees who constantly keep the huge buckets in the bathrooms filled with water (cold water!)

The next morning we set off at about 9am – arrived in Morrumbala at 2pm and immediately we went to see where we were going to build. There was a dilapidated little house that Iris had build for the orphans earlier, but it was made out of sandstone and the roof was all but missing and the social welfare had said that it was not good for the kids to live there (have they looked around at where the other people live?!?) so it had to be a proper house and apparently they have to have beds too… I priced 24 bunk beds and 48 mattresses in Quelimane and the total came to US$9000. I kid you not. $9000. Are these people crazy? The house I’m building is only $4000! So do they want the kids to sleep on beds outside or on grass mats inside? No one else sleeps on beds. Oh well, I think we found a carpenter who would build us the beds for $730, so now I am hoping to get cheaper mattresses.

The house we demolished



Anyways, back to the building: We had to demolish the little house and that was fun, we got 3 guys to smash the walls! Then I designed the house – about 16m long, 8.5m wide, with 8 rooms, each being 4m x 3.5m with a corridor down the middle. It will have a tin roof and a front door, each room has a window, and curtains in the doorways. The floors will be dirt. So that is the plan if the money stretches that far. First we are going to build just the 4 outside walls and put on a roof. Then if there is money left over we will do the corridor and rooms, and if there is more money, the floor will be cement. But we will see what happens.

Because Iris didn’t have a flatbed truck to spare we have to hire one and its expensive! We need lots of rock, sand, and bricks – there is no big shop to go buy from – we drive into the village and go to people’s houses where they bake clay bricks in their backyards. But the quality varies and the sizes too – so after we had bought 4000 bricks of one size from one guy we ran out and we had to search the entire area to find bricks of the same size!

Then we have to go far out to a quarry in the mountains and buy loads of rock, driving over treacherous tire popping terrain (well the tread on the truck’s tire was non-existent so I don’t think it took too much to pop it – I had to drive out there to bring them an equally worn spare tire!)

The water we get from a tap about 3km down the road, through a muddy field the car couldn’t go thru - we had to buy 20L bottles and then we got 3 girls to help us – they filled the bottles and carried it on their heads to the Landrover. We could only fit about 8 bottles in the back per trip… after a day of me going to and from the tap we struck a deal with a guy – he would fill the 2 huge pots we had (500L each) at night, using his bicycle to carry 40L at a time.

Next we needed wood – this was my favorite part - I could drive at least 20mins into the bush bush, middle of nowhere, sometimes just a footpath to get to a man’s house where he chops down trees and makes 2x4s! Many times it was a person that someone knew and then we’d drive, see them next to the road, pick them up and go to their house – more often than not their assurances of ‘its very close’ meant that it could be 25kms into the bush and take us an hour to get there! But it was great fun, I loved it – going up rocky hills in the Landrover, dodging rocks and holes, literally going where no car has gone before to stop at a little mud hut on a hill, overlooking mountains and there I was, buying a few of the 80 planks of wood we used!

The workers were another story – they are charging us at least double the going rate for manual labour! But then again we are working everyday 6am – 5:30pm… with only an hour for lunch and they are working very hard (with much encouragement from Antonio and I of course – I’d see them jump up back to work whenever the Landrover came around the corner!)

We started digging the foundation on Sunday – with the trucks going to and fro constantly. We hired 2 trucks – we pay per load so might as well get everything quicker for the same price!

Monday we filled the foundation with rocks and cement, and made sure it was all level. In all honesty, I don't do any of the actual building work - I mainly drive to buy stuff – I have all the money with me in cash, and I need to account for every centavos spent, so I go everywhere! The workers do all the work, although I did help fill some rocks in the foundation!

Tuesday we packed the first row of bricks, to raise the floor. We have used 25 bags of cement already! The shop is in the market, with roads not made for cars, but I squeezed the Landrover in there – and made a 12-point u-turn in the small dead-end to get the car out – always fun!

We could buy pretty much everything in Morrumbala, except wheelbarrows or shovels. So we had to beg and borrow shovels off neighbors. We found a guy with a wheelbarrow and we have to rent it from him, so we are sorted with that – but my number 1 tip for anyone wanting to do this kinda thing: BRING YOUR OWN TOOLS! And my number 2 tip is: BRING YOUR OWN FLATBED TRUCK! And my number 3 tip is: Have a good foreman, one that speaks Portuguese, English and the local dialect. We have one and he is amazing!

I am filming this whole trip, and I plan to make a little short DVD – maybe it will raise funds for us to do this more often! But I wanted to have a picture of each kid – to I got them to line up, say their name and age, and then I did a 2 second shot of each one. So I’m writing and writing and writing and finally all 48 kids have been filmed. I count the names to make sure we got them all. 1…2…3…10…20…30…40…47…48…49…50! 2 extra, but Pastor Sabala, the man who is looking after them says that those are all the kids! He doesn’t have food to feed them, so I went out and bought 10kg of corn, they will grind it and make ‘shima’ (maize porridge/ meilie pap) for the kids. And I plan to leave each kid 10kg of corn, like we did when I went on the food distribution outreach a few months ago.

I also got a list of veggies that would grow well here – the land we are buying will be big enough for them to have a little farm to grow food for the kids. The orphans will have to work it, but it will be good to get food to them! You might have noticed I said ‘the land we are buying’… the land we started building on isn’t actually ours yet – but I am assured that it will be easy to buy it – no worries… I really hope so! We submit the papers tomorrow, and give them about $100.

The building went quite quickly – I think I was pretty ‘slave driverish’, the workers worked 10 hours per day for 12 days, but it was needed – we got the walls done just in time for the roof to go on before we left! (and they were paid double to usual rate!)

The trucks we had hired to deliver the bricks just sped over all the bumps and only towards the end of construction did I realize just how many bricks had broken in the process – 2000! I wasn’t going to hire the trucks again at those astronomical prices only to have ¼ of the bricks break, so I had to drive a 26km round trip to find the right size brick and then the Landrover only had enough space to carry 200 bricks at a time!

It was nearly a week and a half later and the walls were not finished yet – the workers had started getting slack and after we paid 2 of them some of their money so they could buy food for their families, one guy stopped showing up. In desperation to get the walls done I put out word that we needed more workers, I will pay them a fixed amount for each wall they complete – we got 3 guys, 1 was excellent, the other 2 worked slow and then moaned about the wage. Then the guy we hired to carry water for us every night decided he wanted to be paid and after I gave him his pre-agreed wage he was unhappy because he had jumped into the Landrover every time we went to get wood and he had expected me to pay him extra for his help. I should have known that no one does anything out of the goodness of their hearts here in Africa. The next morning there was no water, the waterman was ‘tired’ so we got 10 ladies to walk to the hand pump and get us water – we paid them 0.07cents for every 20L bottle they carried… don’t be shocked, that was the payment THEY asked for!

Then I had a look at what the carpenters were doing – they seemed OK, showing up early, and working hard throughout the day. Our deal had been that they would make us 8 beds. 8 special beds – each bed measuring 3.6m x 1.9m (that is big enough to fit 4 mattresses next to each other). We had drawn them pictures with measurements and settled on a price. They worked out the amount of wood we needed and I went off in search of it (there was a lumber yard of sorts close by, but the wood was for export so the prices were stupid – each plank cost $8 instead of the $1.75 I could pay in the bush). They made the beds and finally when they assembled the parts I went to look. They had decided that 3.6m was too wide so they made me 8 beds that were 1.8m wide instead. And then they demanded payment for the beds, but payment for 16 beds and not just for 8. It took nearly 5 hours to reach a compromise, and in the end I paid more than I had wanted to and they received less than they demanded. But I was furious. I had tried to work out the best way for all the kids to sleep off the floor on a mattress, and seeing that I couldn’t afford a mattress or a bed per child, I had made a plan and the carpenters had just messed it all up. It was 2 days before we left and there wasn’t time (or money) to have another 8 double beds made. So we had to put one bed in each room and 2 of the mattresses on the floor. It was horrible, I was so disappointed because I really wanted all the kids to sleep on a bed, even if they had to share it would still be better than the floor.

The house as seen from the side/back:


The house as seen from the front:


But it was all worth it - when the house was done and we were getting ready to leave the site for the last time, all the kids came together and started singing, then we opened the door and in great excitement they all ruched in, singing and dancing and cheering and it was so so so moving. All the frustration was worth it!





This is something that I would REALLY LOVE TO DO AGAIN! I think there are 40 more places waiting for houses… now Iris just needs the funding to get us there to build!

A list of things you need to build a house for 50 kids:
86 wooden planks 300cm x 24cm = $264
140 wooden poles 3cm x 6cm x 300cm = $213
10 150 bricks = $383
10 truckloads of sand = $38
84 sheets of tin roofing = $620
3700kg cement = $731
7400 liters of water = $28
5 truckloads of rock = $94
28kg of nails = $127
the equivalent of 66 workers = $732
Truck hire for 25 loads = $528
Mattresses for the kids = $1509
The Land = $328
Seeds for vegetable garden = $20
Food for Kids = $83

And of course, 1 Nikki = priceless! ;-)

Out in a Dhow

I went out on a real life dhow, the fishing boats they have been using here on the eastern coast of Africa for hundreds of years. It was a day off and I was invited to go along with some of the other missionaries, and to top it off, one of them offered to pay for me – its about $20 per person for the day, snacks and drinks included, so that was amazing to start with!



We left at about 8am and set sail for the bay. First we went to the peninsula opposite Pemba and dived off the boat and went snorkeling, and then we headed out to the opposite side of the bay. Pemba bay is the 2nd largest natural harbor in the world, so it took quite a while to get there (by car it’s a good 4 hour drive) – but it is gorgeous, unspoiled beach. We lazed in the sun for about an hour or two until the tide had come so far in that we had to wade back out to the boat! There was a village quite close to the water and we saw some of the village girls on the beach. Their face’s were painted white, a natural beauty mask, except they have to wear it the whole time else they think they aren’t pretty!




Then they put up the sail and cut the motor, and we sailed across the water.

I lay at the edge of the boat with my hand trailing in the water - it was gorgeous. At about 3pm we had started heading back to the mainland when we all needed to pee. So they stopped the boat and we all jumped into the water and… well it was very funny ;-)

One of the missionaries has 2 dogs and they accompanied us – they had such fun in the water!