Back in Pemba

I am back in Pemba after my quick 10 day visit to South Africa to write 3 exams - it was a nice break: hot running water, pork ribs - need I say more? :-)

I am back just in time for our annual Pemba conference - the place is a beehive of activity getting the big tent chruch expanded to fit in the extra 3000 people that are coming, and then finding them all place to sleep...



Pemba is blossoming - Summer is coming! The big baobabs are are green, and the mercury is rising and rising... its HOT here!

The sound systems are OK - they survived my absence, although the room was a mess with cables and speakers and stands lying around everywhere - I made my annoyance known and the guys came in and tidied, apologising profusely for being too lazy to pack things away properly... *sigh*

The conferennce kicks off tomorrow night with the JESUS film - and of course at least 2 hours of singing and dancing!

Até Logo! (Until Later)

Sad News

I received some sad news this morning, they said it better than I ever could.

" There are times when we don’t know what to say.
When we feel the emotions, but the words are so few, so,
so empty, or not close enough.

And such is the time now. Baby Lori is home now, in Jesus' arms.
She left us this morning, and, and He took her Home.

She just stopped breathing.

Just yesterday she seemed fine, was her usual darling self,
the laughing, joyous, cute, baby girl we all love so much,
and now, now she is gone and we are left trying to cope. "



You can read her story here: A Little Miracle

I will miss her so much.

Getting to Malawi

Mozambican immigration were being silly and had decided to take the end of Ramadan as a public holiday – this meant that my passport was still in their possession on Thursday when I was meant to be flying to Malawi with Rolland… We called and even sent someone to the office to ask for my passport – they refused to give it to me before 2:30pm. So frustrating!!!

Eventually I had to accept the fact that I wasn’t going to go to Lilongwe for the Iris Central Malawi Conference. I walked back to the little plane and took my suitcase out and sat on the front steps waiting for a driver to fetch me. Rolland and his other passenger cleared customs and took off.

I let everyone know that I was going to be in Pemba for the next four days and set about preparing for the next day. Suddenly I got a phone call – arrangements had been made and a Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF) plane will come pick me up in Pemba the next morning and take me to Lilongwe. I was astounded. WOW! Someone had sponsored me a flight!!

The next morning bright and early I was at the airport – it was deserted and the few staff that was there must have thought I was slightly crazy, being there so early when there were no scheduled flights for the next 5 hours. It wasn’t too long before I saw the plane land – the guy at the gift shop kindly let me onto the runway and he also called the immigration guy to let him know I was there. He arrived 30 mins later and stamped me out the country. Finally we were off.

The pilot, Dave, had been working with MAF in Mozambique for 10 years! After we took off he let me fly the plane – quite a challenge trying to keep it level and on course! But it was fun – we had to dodge the clouds because MAF regulations require that they not fly thru clouds - I think that made the flight even more interesting! It wasn’t long before I saw the clear blue water of Lake Malawi below us, the next thing I knew Dave had taken the controls and we had landed.

I was really happy to be in Malawi!

(continued...)

Malawi - Conference in Lilongwe

I was a day late, but it didn’t matter – finally we could set up Rolland’s 2 powerful speakers to help the other 4 weaker ones! (he doesn’t like anyone else using his speakers, its me or nothing)
We gave a new meaning to ‘surround sound’ placing the 6 speakers in a circle around the stage to accommodate all the people staring at us from all directions!

Mo, the base director for Iris Malawi had a really cool worship drum track which we played at full blast to get the people’s attention – they were entertained by Mo dancing to the beat – some laughed and others joined in!


Dancing to the Drums

The Malawians as such a friendly people, and they differ in many ways to the Mozambicans we work with daily, but in some ways they are still the same, for example: The worship times were as usual a mixture of dancing and aerobics lasting about an hour and a half. Preaching translated into the local language, Chichewa, followed the energetic worship time and then we prayed for people and allowed God to move. There were so many testimonies at the end that blew me away. The Malawian culture does not often allow women to participate in church services, much less allow them to testify on stage. One after the other they described how sickness had left them or their families, how even in the face of extreme poverty they have discovered joy they never knew before and how they will go back to their villages refreshed and filled with more of God’s love.


The conference at night

The 3 days flew past – and before I knew it we were having our final service. They had arranged for a little variety concert, a showcase of singing for an hour before church started – young kids, old men, a man with an accordion, a family – but the group that stole the show was a group of women with babies tied to their backs. They started really quietly and had a pretty nice song going when suddenly they stopped and did a little ‘doe - doe - doe - tchaaaaaa” and then carried on with the song. The crowd went wild, cheering and clapping. It was great! Who would have thought, little African ladies being hip?


Me doing my job

We had an interesting time at the airport trying to convince the immigration people that we were on a private flight, seeing that Rolland was not wearing a pilot’s uniform (shorts, a blue Iris T-shirt and a baseball cap doesn't seem to be an acceptable pilot outfit). Also our statements of, “NO, we do not want to check our luggage in at the check-in counter” was met by strange looks. “So how are you going to get those 3 luggage trolleys up the stairs to the departure lounge?” *sigh* eventually they twigged that we were on a PRIVATE flight, meaning our own plane, meaning we had to wheel the trolleys onto the tarmac to get to the plane. They let us take the trolleys through the transit lounge on the ground floor – I got stuck trying to wheel the 2 speakers through the metal detector – it didn’t go off, the speakers were just too wide! But finally we got to the plane, loaded it and took off.

The flight back was uneventful; we missed the 5pm cut off for landing in Pemba by 15mins, so we had to pay the fine for a late landing – all because we had stopped to buy cokes in Lilongwe! (maybe the hassle at the airport was also to blame). But it was nice to be home again!

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!