Life here can be a bit tough, especially when you live off the generosity of others, donations and gifts, and no fixed income! So justifying treating myself to a little luxury like chocolate or apple pie, or some meat can be hard - so a SCUBA dive for $50 was totally out the question, even though I have semi qualified (I still need to do the Open Water Course, I have the Resort Certificate) and I live at one of the most beautiful reefs in the world, the Wimbi Reef!
Charles, one pastor that was in Malawi with us said he wanted to treat me to a dive, and he would pay!!! That was just brilliant!
Saturday morning dawned and I had thought he had forgotten, but then I got a phone call telling me to be ready in an hour!
The dive was fantastic, we did the whole fall over backwards out the boat thing - the fish and the reef was stunning, so tranquil, so many bright vibrant colors! To think that this was the cheap dive – there are other even bigger more stunning dive sites! We were down there for 50mins and it was easily the best 50mins of my time in Pemba!!!
Tuesday, August 15, 2006
Malawi
Our center in Malawi, in the tiny town of Bangula was having their regional conference. I was at this same conference last year, before I had even started working for Iris! I still have the same journal, and I flipped back to where I had written of my experiences… things have changed so much, well the conference style has stayed the same, its my attitude towards it that has changed! I will let you read some excerpts of what I had written then, and my thoughts of now!
Rolland, Heidi and I were flying down to Bangula in the Rolland’s little Cessna 206, it’s a fairly short flight, about 4 hours, with a quick stop in Blantyre to do immigration – and stock up on cookies and ice-cream!
Malawi law does not permit anyone to fly after official sunset, and everyone had to be out the air by 5:45pm. That meant that we only had 15mins to get our passports stamped, refuel the plane and take off before airport officials would ground us for the night… Then Heidi went into the only shop at the airport!
About 20mins later we finally got into the plane and the tower gave Rolland special permission to leave – the flight to Bangula is only about 30mins so they allowed us to leave on condition that he called the tower and let them know that we had landed safely.
The scenery is beautiful, so rugged and mountainous. From the air you can see all little farms on the hillsides and it looks lush and green. It is hard to imagine that this area is the most impoverished part of Malawi – more people are dying of starvation here than anywhere else in Africa – drought and rains at the wrong time has completely wrecked this part of the country.
The sun was gone and it was getting dark – Rolland had called Mo (David Morrison) from the airport and asked him to start clearing the runway. “Activating goat-on-runway detector” – in the distance we could see the 2 pin-scourers’ headlights flashing on and off guiding us to the small dirt airstrip next to the church property. The landing was pretty smooth and as we taxied to a halt crowds and crowds of people started running next to the plane. Once we had stopped the crowds surrounded us, hundreds of people! We got out and unloaded the plane, then Matt, a long-term missionary took me to the stage.
I did a quick setup, and we started the meeting at 7 – all the others had gone to Mo’s house for dinner, I had to wait until after the meeting!
An excerpt from my journal – May 2005:
“…at 6pm they started, I was the only white person there, the others only started to think about coming when they heard the sound of the music and finally arrived 2 hours later and I don’t think that the sound system is powerful enough, its difficult maintaining the balance between maximum volume and distortion… I’m so tired. Its hot. I want to go home. I don’t think that Africa is the place for me. I just need strength or something. I’m so tired…”
This year was not much different, again I was the only white person there for a while and the sound system still wasn’t powerful enough – although having a monitor speaker facing us made a huge difference! I loved the conference, there were so many people all dressed so colorfully all so hungry for the Word – it was just awesome. And the dancers just amazed me – their stamina: 1 hour of aerobics, twice a day!
Excerpt from my journal – May 2005:
“…I’m still trying to decide if I should quit my job in England and move here. It’s a great opportunity…I’m out of my comfort zone. I want to stay in England; I don’t want to be in Africa. BUT I do want to be in Africa. It will be such a difficult life and I don’t know if I can handle it…”
“…I think I’m going to say yes…”
I am glad I made my decision, although things have been really hard at times. Often I have just wanted to leave, to go back to a regular job where you are guaranteed a paycheck at the end of each month!
At the conference there were so many people healed, especially deaf people – they just strikes a chord with me – how can you appreciate the beauty of sound when you cannot hear? The smiles on their faces says it ALL.
On Friday night there was so much dust as they were all singing and dancing and some of it got stuck under my contact lense… the next morning I woke up to severe pain and discomfort, my eye was swollen shut and puss was oozing out and it was just nasty. At first I thought that it was conjunctivitis, but then because of the pain we started thinking there was something stuck in there. By this time I couldn’t even open my good eye, its movement hurt my other eye, so I was basically blind.
They took me to the clinic and the doctor tried to see what was in there – he couldn’t see anything. We went back home and I asked the girl helping me to look in my contact lense case – one had a lense in it, the other was empty, with ½ a lense stuck the outside…
We rinsed my eye, eye-dropped it and covered it with a bandage. I just lay there. It was horrible – just waiting for the pieces of contact lense to come out. Heidi and Rolland were due to speak at a conference in South Africa so I had actually come to Malawi to be here specifically for those 2 days. And here I was, not able to do anything.
It made me appreciate my sight so much – my independence especially.
The conference ended, me having only done 5 of the 8 sessions (still a good 10 hours of work per day!) and on Monday morning we loaded up the plane. Two of the visiting preachers were coming back to Pemba with us – they had flown into Blantyre from the States on Wednesday so we had all their luggage, plus the sound system plus all our stuff and everything that Heidi had bought at the little airport store!
Rolland carefully weighed each bag, and asked each of us our weight! I think we were over the limit the plane could carry – In Nelspruit, the airfield in South Africa where he gets the plane serviced they call him the ‘Holy Man’, and its not cos he’s involved in missions – its because he carries loads heavier than any of them dare to, they all think he’s crazy!
Before takeoff Mo drove up and down the runway – his pin scourer (ex-Swiss military vehicle) has a small speaker attached to the roof – announcing in the local dialect, ‘clear the runway, remove your cows, chase away the goats and clear the runway!’ It was funny. I remember last year watching as the plane took off, standing next to my father. Never in a thousand years did I expect to be in that plane!
Because my eye was still sore and light sensitive (although getting much better) I sat with it closed most of the flight. We had to refuel in Blantyre and I managed to clear immigration without my pink eye patch, I wore sunglasses instead!
The flight was quite smooth; once the plane got its heavy belly off the ground we were fine. I was feeling airsick so I closed my eyes and slept.
We were nearing Pemba and the chatter in the headphones would occasionally wake me up as Charles and Steve chatted to Rolland. Suddenly I woke up and heard,” Oh no, we’ve lost the vacuum line, gyro compass and artificial horizon is gone!” That kinda freaked me out, and one of the passengers asked the BIG question: ”So what does that mean exactly?” Fortunately it was all-OK – landing would be a bit tricky, but it was all fine.
Another normal day at Ministério Arco-íris!
Rolland, Heidi and I were flying down to Bangula in the Rolland’s little Cessna 206, it’s a fairly short flight, about 4 hours, with a quick stop in Blantyre to do immigration – and stock up on cookies and ice-cream!
Malawi law does not permit anyone to fly after official sunset, and everyone had to be out the air by 5:45pm. That meant that we only had 15mins to get our passports stamped, refuel the plane and take off before airport officials would ground us for the night… Then Heidi went into the only shop at the airport!
About 20mins later we finally got into the plane and the tower gave Rolland special permission to leave – the flight to Bangula is only about 30mins so they allowed us to leave on condition that he called the tower and let them know that we had landed safely.
The scenery is beautiful, so rugged and mountainous. From the air you can see all little farms on the hillsides and it looks lush and green. It is hard to imagine that this area is the most impoverished part of Malawi – more people are dying of starvation here than anywhere else in Africa – drought and rains at the wrong time has completely wrecked this part of the country.
The sun was gone and it was getting dark – Rolland had called Mo (David Morrison) from the airport and asked him to start clearing the runway. “Activating goat-on-runway detector” – in the distance we could see the 2 pin-scourers’ headlights flashing on and off guiding us to the small dirt airstrip next to the church property. The landing was pretty smooth and as we taxied to a halt crowds and crowds of people started running next to the plane. Once we had stopped the crowds surrounded us, hundreds of people! We got out and unloaded the plane, then Matt, a long-term missionary took me to the stage.
I did a quick setup, and we started the meeting at 7 – all the others had gone to Mo’s house for dinner, I had to wait until after the meeting!
An excerpt from my journal – May 2005:
“…at 6pm they started, I was the only white person there, the others only started to think about coming when they heard the sound of the music and finally arrived 2 hours later and I don’t think that the sound system is powerful enough, its difficult maintaining the balance between maximum volume and distortion… I’m so tired. Its hot. I want to go home. I don’t think that Africa is the place for me. I just need strength or something. I’m so tired…”
This year was not much different, again I was the only white person there for a while and the sound system still wasn’t powerful enough – although having a monitor speaker facing us made a huge difference! I loved the conference, there were so many people all dressed so colorfully all so hungry for the Word – it was just awesome. And the dancers just amazed me – their stamina: 1 hour of aerobics, twice a day!
Excerpt from my journal – May 2005:
“…I’m still trying to decide if I should quit my job in England and move here. It’s a great opportunity…I’m out of my comfort zone. I want to stay in England; I don’t want to be in Africa. BUT I do want to be in Africa. It will be such a difficult life and I don’t know if I can handle it…”
“…I think I’m going to say yes…”
I am glad I made my decision, although things have been really hard at times. Often I have just wanted to leave, to go back to a regular job where you are guaranteed a paycheck at the end of each month!
At the conference there were so many people healed, especially deaf people – they just strikes a chord with me – how can you appreciate the beauty of sound when you cannot hear? The smiles on their faces says it ALL.
On Friday night there was so much dust as they were all singing and dancing and some of it got stuck under my contact lense… the next morning I woke up to severe pain and discomfort, my eye was swollen shut and puss was oozing out and it was just nasty. At first I thought that it was conjunctivitis, but then because of the pain we started thinking there was something stuck in there. By this time I couldn’t even open my good eye, its movement hurt my other eye, so I was basically blind.
They took me to the clinic and the doctor tried to see what was in there – he couldn’t see anything. We went back home and I asked the girl helping me to look in my contact lense case – one had a lense in it, the other was empty, with ½ a lense stuck the outside…
We rinsed my eye, eye-dropped it and covered it with a bandage. I just lay there. It was horrible – just waiting for the pieces of contact lense to come out. Heidi and Rolland were due to speak at a conference in South Africa so I had actually come to Malawi to be here specifically for those 2 days. And here I was, not able to do anything.
It made me appreciate my sight so much – my independence especially.
The conference ended, me having only done 5 of the 8 sessions (still a good 10 hours of work per day!) and on Monday morning we loaded up the plane. Two of the visiting preachers were coming back to Pemba with us – they had flown into Blantyre from the States on Wednesday so we had all their luggage, plus the sound system plus all our stuff and everything that Heidi had bought at the little airport store!
Rolland carefully weighed each bag, and asked each of us our weight! I think we were over the limit the plane could carry – In Nelspruit, the airfield in South Africa where he gets the plane serviced they call him the ‘Holy Man’, and its not cos he’s involved in missions – its because he carries loads heavier than any of them dare to, they all think he’s crazy!
Before takeoff Mo drove up and down the runway – his pin scourer (ex-Swiss military vehicle) has a small speaker attached to the roof – announcing in the local dialect, ‘clear the runway, remove your cows, chase away the goats and clear the runway!’ It was funny. I remember last year watching as the plane took off, standing next to my father. Never in a thousand years did I expect to be in that plane!
Because my eye was still sore and light sensitive (although getting much better) I sat with it closed most of the flight. We had to refuel in Blantyre and I managed to clear immigration without my pink eye patch, I wore sunglasses instead!
The flight was quite smooth; once the plane got its heavy belly off the ground we were fine. I was feeling airsick so I closed my eyes and slept.
We were nearing Pemba and the chatter in the headphones would occasionally wake me up as Charles and Steve chatted to Rolland. Suddenly I woke up and heard,” Oh no, we’ve lost the vacuum line, gyro compass and artificial horizon is gone!” That kinda freaked me out, and one of the passengers asked the BIG question: ”So what does that mean exactly?” Fortunately it was all-OK – landing would be a bit tricky, but it was all fine.
Another normal day at Ministério Arco-íris!
Thursday, July 27, 2006
Guess what I did today!!!!
I had a shower. I mean a REAL shower. One where the water comes out of a showerhead and you can stand under it. It was exciting. Freezing cold, but so wonderful!
Monday, July 17, 2006
The Story of the Uncomfortable Chair
There was a fair amount of outcry at our ‘cruelty to cockroaches’ – so this time we decided to turn our attention to inanimate objects. Like uncomfortable wooden chairs…
We had run out of gas for our cooker, which meant that we couldn’t do anything – no cooking of veggies, no re-heating of food, no hot drinks, no toasting of stale bread, no hot water for showering. We let Julio ‘the keeper of keys’ know, but 2 days later we still hadn’t gotten a new bottle of gas.
It was late on night and I just really wanted a hot drink. So I said (to no one in particular), “We could cook over a fire on the kitchen floor, if only we had wood”. My roomie heard me and said, ”Well we can chop up one of those wooden chairs…”
NO WAY. Some villager had spent ages bending the sapling branches to make that pretty chair, we cant burn it! Well OK.
Our kitchen is practically outside, just walls of bamboo with huge open spaces for windows and there is a 30cm gap between the top of the bamboo and where the roof starts – so there is good ventilation, and our floor is just concrete.
We stacked the wood, tore up a box and lit the fire! It went up beautifully! We had kept the legs and seat of the chair so we put a pot of water on the seat and it boiled really quickly.
YAY! I had my hot chocolate and now I could go sleep!
The next morning I lit the fire again and made a cuppa and heated some sausages over the coals – I even heated water for my shower!
Finally Cassandra saw Julio and led him into the kitchen to see our fire place – needless to say we got gas an hour later!
Cass had also recently received a parcel from the States containing marshmallows!!! So one night we re-lit the fire (the wood is nearly finished now) and using sticks we roasted marshmallows over the fire! Yum!
Now I’m saving the last few wooden sticks to have a ‘braai’ (barbeque) – I bought some ‘boerewors’ (SA sausage) in Nampula – I’m excited and looking forward to it!
We had run out of gas for our cooker, which meant that we couldn’t do anything – no cooking of veggies, no re-heating of food, no hot drinks, no toasting of stale bread, no hot water for showering. We let Julio ‘the keeper of keys’ know, but 2 days later we still hadn’t gotten a new bottle of gas.
It was late on night and I just really wanted a hot drink. So I said (to no one in particular), “We could cook over a fire on the kitchen floor, if only we had wood”. My roomie heard me and said, ”Well we can chop up one of those wooden chairs…”
NO WAY. Some villager had spent ages bending the sapling branches to make that pretty chair, we cant burn it! Well OK.
Our kitchen is practically outside, just walls of bamboo with huge open spaces for windows and there is a 30cm gap between the top of the bamboo and where the roof starts – so there is good ventilation, and our floor is just concrete.
We stacked the wood, tore up a box and lit the fire! It went up beautifully! We had kept the legs and seat of the chair so we put a pot of water on the seat and it boiled really quickly.
YAY! I had my hot chocolate and now I could go sleep!
The next morning I lit the fire again and made a cuppa and heated some sausages over the coals – I even heated water for my shower!
Finally Cassandra saw Julio and led him into the kitchen to see our fire place – needless to say we got gas an hour later!
Cass had also recently received a parcel from the States containing marshmallows!!! So one night we re-lit the fire (the wood is nearly finished now) and using sticks we roasted marshmallows over the fire! Yum!
Now I’m saving the last few wooden sticks to have a ‘braai’ (barbeque) – I bought some ‘boerewors’ (SA sausage) in Nampula – I’m excited and looking forward to it!
Monday, July 10, 2006
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!
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!
Saturday, July 01, 2006
Cockroach and toilet story
We have a bug problem in our bathrooms, to be more specific a cockroach problem! This night there was one in the toilet bowl, and with the water shortages we didn’t have much water to just waste it on flushing it down, so instead we tried to kill it with bleach. That didn’t work so we went searching for something flammable…
we came up with a lighter gas and 3 matches.
Try 1 – There was just a small small woosh of flames in the bowl and we just laughed. Roach still alive. Think it ducked underwater or something.
Try 2 – Another small woosh but its still alive, and now we are getting desperate...
Try 3 – loads of gas and the match: there were huge flames that leap out of the bowl and then the vacuum created by the lack of oxygen caused the water to rush up to fill the space - there was a pop and the water spurted up like a fountain and splashed all over the floor. Cockroach included. But it was still alive!
Luckily there was a boy around to witness this last try and he squished the roach for us. We were screaming with laughter it was so funny. Never before have I ever done something like that but it was great.
It was myself, and my 2 house mates: Cassandra and Jessie!
Who says being a girl missionary aint fun???
we came up with a lighter gas and 3 matches.
Try 1 – There was just a small small woosh of flames in the bowl and we just laughed. Roach still alive. Think it ducked underwater or something.
Try 2 – Another small woosh but its still alive, and now we are getting desperate...
Try 3 – loads of gas and the match: there were huge flames that leap out of the bowl and then the vacuum created by the lack of oxygen caused the water to rush up to fill the space - there was a pop and the water spurted up like a fountain and splashed all over the floor. Cockroach included. But it was still alive!
Luckily there was a boy around to witness this last try and he squished the roach for us. We were screaming with laughter it was so funny. Never before have I ever done something like that but it was great.
It was myself, and my 2 house mates: Cassandra and Jessie!
Who says being a girl missionary aint fun???
FRELIMO visit to our base
FRELIMO is the current ruling party and the governor sent some very important people to visit our centre and see what we are doing as a direct result of the recent accusations against Iris Ministries. This is an update to the earlier ‘front page news’ article I wrote about.
It has been revealed that there is a RENAMO (opposition party) supporting pastor in one of our districts that has been holding anti-government meetings in the name of Iris. He had been removed from the position of district leader some time ago but still had the official ‘Iris stamp’ that he used for his own purposes. The government feels quite threatened by our ministry here seeing that we have a network of more than 3000 churches across the country and could in effect topple the balance of power should we wish to mobilize all our churches.
The RENAMO / FRELIMO struggle is an ongoing story. The civil war that ravaged Mozambique for the best part of 17 years was a north/south, RENAMO / FRELIMO struggle. This war ended in the 1980’s, but there is still a delicate line. People have been murdered over it, and last week we were chased out of a village because the messenger we had sent to say there was going to be an outreach was a fervent RENAMO supporter and FRELIMO supporting villagers didn’t like that.
I had never realized that this was such an issue, but now that the government has taken an interest in the Pemba base it has become real to me.
Heidi has had some serious problems on her hands trying to convince the government that Iris is a non-political, un-biased organization. We love everyone. We welcome anyone. And a few of our higher-ranking pastors have found it hard to accept that they cannot preach politics from the pulpit.
The FRELIMO government published an apology to the article they had written, but it was not un-conditional, it still basically warned us that we are on perilous ground and have to keep a check on all aspects of the ministry.
Right now we would appreciate your prayers for the ongoing favour in the eyes of the government and that a good relationship can be built. They were very impressed with out Primary school (grades 1 -7) and they were also given a chance to speak at our ‘International Cross-Cultural Training School’ formally known as ‘Mission School’. So all in all the visit was a success and they have been welcomed to return anytime!
It has been revealed that there is a RENAMO (opposition party) supporting pastor in one of our districts that has been holding anti-government meetings in the name of Iris. He had been removed from the position of district leader some time ago but still had the official ‘Iris stamp’ that he used for his own purposes. The government feels quite threatened by our ministry here seeing that we have a network of more than 3000 churches across the country and could in effect topple the balance of power should we wish to mobilize all our churches.
The RENAMO / FRELIMO struggle is an ongoing story. The civil war that ravaged Mozambique for the best part of 17 years was a north/south, RENAMO / FRELIMO struggle. This war ended in the 1980’s, but there is still a delicate line. People have been murdered over it, and last week we were chased out of a village because the messenger we had sent to say there was going to be an outreach was a fervent RENAMO supporter and FRELIMO supporting villagers didn’t like that.
I had never realized that this was such an issue, but now that the government has taken an interest in the Pemba base it has become real to me.
Heidi has had some serious problems on her hands trying to convince the government that Iris is a non-political, un-biased organization. We love everyone. We welcome anyone. And a few of our higher-ranking pastors have found it hard to accept that they cannot preach politics from the pulpit.
The FRELIMO government published an apology to the article they had written, but it was not un-conditional, it still basically warned us that we are on perilous ground and have to keep a check on all aspects of the ministry.
Right now we would appreciate your prayers for the ongoing favour in the eyes of the government and that a good relationship can be built. They were very impressed with out Primary school (grades 1 -7) and they were also given a chance to speak at our ‘International Cross-Cultural Training School’ formally known as ‘Mission School’. So all in all the visit was a success and they have been welcomed to return anytime!
Independence day – 25 June
Mozambique celebrated its Independence from Portugal today! We had regular church and then everyone rushed to the dining hall/kitchen for lunch.
CHICKEN!
Georgian Banov was here, a fantastic musician from Bulgaria, so we carried all the sound stuff up there and set up the band in the dining hall. It was a blast, the drums, the guitars and the djembes. We had kids dancing in front with their coke bottles.
The Mission School students served everyone, and when I say everyone I mean everyone – Sunday lunch is open the whole community – and there were loads of people, but everyone got food – lots of food!
It was a fun day – I was thinking that if I had a camcorder then the band playing in the hall would have made the most interesting music video!
CHICKEN!
Georgian Banov was here, a fantastic musician from Bulgaria, so we carried all the sound stuff up there and set up the band in the dining hall. It was a blast, the drums, the guitars and the djembes. We had kids dancing in front with their coke bottles.
The Mission School students served everyone, and when I say everyone I mean everyone – Sunday lunch is open the whole community – and there were loads of people, but everyone got food – lots of food!
It was a fun day – I was thinking that if I had a camcorder then the band playing in the hall would have made the most interesting music video!
Wednesday, June 21, 2006
Nampula Conference (Day 3 & 4)
The day’s session was due to start at 10am, but because of transport problems I had to go in at 8:30am and wait around! We were set up really quick, the guys helped me a lot – then we had an hour to kill till it all began. The plan was that I was to go into town again and get the generator and other bits that we needed (I had a look at the system when I got home and it had an Indian power plug… so I needed to change that to the Mozambican 2-pin plug!
I was surprised when the pastor actually came to start on the dot 10am! I had no idea what the program was, so I just winged it – turns out that the first hour was performances by each of the smaller churches in the province… some of it was good, some really really really bad – although the last act was fantastic, just guys singing a cappella –I think I prefer male Moçambican voices. The girls/women tend to be way off key and very shrill.
They were done at 11am and Heidi was just on her way in the door! Perfect timing! (and on time too!) They sang just one more song all together before the preaching started, Heidi came to the front and was holding a little baby boy, he was fast asleep! Suddenly she holds him out at arms length, but he had already peed all over the front of her top! A puddle was also forming on the floor, with 3 of my microphone cables running right thru it! Yuk! I have a little towel that used to be my favorite when I was little, that I use now to wrap the little sound desk in – I figured that in that way I can see it everyday! So when the baby peed on Heidi I passed her the towel to dry herself off. She is a remarkable woman, she kept her composure, wrapped the baby in the towel, covered the wet spot on her top and stayed at the front for at least another 20mins before carrying the baby to the back! She took my favorite towel with her and that’s the last I saw it. Very sad. But now someone else can enjoy it.
The session lasted till about 2pm, then home for a quick lunch (1 hour, service is shockingly slow), and then I was back to set up for the evening conference outside on the field. The people (us included) were getting very tired, its been long busy days and we wanted to be finished by 8pm. We had to setup the screen to show Christian Swahili music videos. As soon as the people saw the screen go up they all crowded round and sat down. Argh, it made life so difficult because I still had to run the cables to the projector and get the bench set up and they were so tightly packed and making such a noise that I had to really raise my voice to be heard! But I got it done eventually and the DVD started. There was one little girl, maybe about 2 or 3 years old, she was dancing to the music, adorable!
That night there were more miracles, it was great – but I was just so tired! We got packed up in record time and loaded the trucks, then back to the hotel where they had prepared a buffet meal for us: chicken, beef and salad! (I think there were fried potato chips too, but they were gone by the time I got to the food!) I just sat down, ate and went to bed!
Its 11:30pm and I had just fallen asleep when I have the most severe stomach cramps ever. Diarrhea! I was up most of the night – thankfully I didn’t have a roommate! In the morning I text messaged Will, the Iris co-ordinator for this conference. He came to my room looking really gruff and wanted to know what was up. I told him and his expression lightened a bit. “Oh Josham has it too” *sigh of relief* misery loves company! I stayed in bed the whole day, alternating between sleeping and visiting the loo. Turns out that about 10 people in our group got it. Couldn't quite decide if it was food poisoning or not, seeing that everyone had eaten the same food (after we got back to Pemba some of the other people also got it, so now I think it was a virus). Heidi came and prayed for me, and made me take my malaria medication because I had a fever. She also loaned me her iPod for the day so that I could listen to music!
The guys that had been helping me with sound were on their own for the last day of the conference – they came and got the equipment out my room (I didn’t even hear them come-in!)
The day passed by really quickly, the medication I’d been given stopped the diarrhea and when the guys came back with the sound stuff I was awake.
“One of the speakers doesn’t work that well anymore, and one of the cables broke” *sigh* turns out that one of the cables broke, and to compensate for the decrease in volume they turned the remaining speaker up till it went ‘pop’. And these speakers are only 2 weeks old. They are BRAND new. So that’s another sound system gone, and JBL just aren't getting us the replacement parts – I have been waiting for over a month now!!!
Originally I was meant to stay in Nampula for another 3 days to drive back the car that Heidi had bought (she had bought it on Thursday, sent her daughter’s boyfriend to drive it back to the hotel and he had crashed it into a stationary vehicle before he even left the vendor’s yard… oops! So it had to be repaired, panel beaten and would be ready on Tuesday). So now that I was ill (and so many others) another plan was made. Shara (Heidi’s assistant) popped into my room on Saturday night and handed me her plane ticket – “You fly and I’ll drive the Landrover back, be ready at 8am tomorrow” WOW!
I had to finish up the last few cables for the Nampula sound system, so I set my alarm for 6am and fell asleep, I was wide awake at 1am – probably since I had been sleeping nearly non-stop for the past 15 hours! The cables got done and I packed. Was still a bit woozy when I walked around, and I was getting a chest cold!
I ate for the first time since I had got sick, just a small bread roll, and got on the truck to the airport. Our flight was at 10 and we got there at 9:30! But all was good and it was amazing to be back in Pemba only 30mins later!!!! Sure beats a 7 hour bumpy truck ride!
I was surprised when the pastor actually came to start on the dot 10am! I had no idea what the program was, so I just winged it – turns out that the first hour was performances by each of the smaller churches in the province… some of it was good, some really really really bad – although the last act was fantastic, just guys singing a cappella –I think I prefer male Moçambican voices. The girls/women tend to be way off key and very shrill.
They were done at 11am and Heidi was just on her way in the door! Perfect timing! (and on time too!) They sang just one more song all together before the preaching started, Heidi came to the front and was holding a little baby boy, he was fast asleep! Suddenly she holds him out at arms length, but he had already peed all over the front of her top! A puddle was also forming on the floor, with 3 of my microphone cables running right thru it! Yuk! I have a little towel that used to be my favorite when I was little, that I use now to wrap the little sound desk in – I figured that in that way I can see it everyday! So when the baby peed on Heidi I passed her the towel to dry herself off. She is a remarkable woman, she kept her composure, wrapped the baby in the towel, covered the wet spot on her top and stayed at the front for at least another 20mins before carrying the baby to the back! She took my favorite towel with her and that’s the last I saw it. Very sad. But now someone else can enjoy it.
The session lasted till about 2pm, then home for a quick lunch (1 hour, service is shockingly slow), and then I was back to set up for the evening conference outside on the field. The people (us included) were getting very tired, its been long busy days and we wanted to be finished by 8pm. We had to setup the screen to show Christian Swahili music videos. As soon as the people saw the screen go up they all crowded round and sat down. Argh, it made life so difficult because I still had to run the cables to the projector and get the bench set up and they were so tightly packed and making such a noise that I had to really raise my voice to be heard! But I got it done eventually and the DVD started. There was one little girl, maybe about 2 or 3 years old, she was dancing to the music, adorable!
That night there were more miracles, it was great – but I was just so tired! We got packed up in record time and loaded the trucks, then back to the hotel where they had prepared a buffet meal for us: chicken, beef and salad! (I think there were fried potato chips too, but they were gone by the time I got to the food!) I just sat down, ate and went to bed!
Its 11:30pm and I had just fallen asleep when I have the most severe stomach cramps ever. Diarrhea! I was up most of the night – thankfully I didn’t have a roommate! In the morning I text messaged Will, the Iris co-ordinator for this conference. He came to my room looking really gruff and wanted to know what was up. I told him and his expression lightened a bit. “Oh Josham has it too” *sigh of relief* misery loves company! I stayed in bed the whole day, alternating between sleeping and visiting the loo. Turns out that about 10 people in our group got it. Couldn't quite decide if it was food poisoning or not, seeing that everyone had eaten the same food (after we got back to Pemba some of the other people also got it, so now I think it was a virus). Heidi came and prayed for me, and made me take my malaria medication because I had a fever. She also loaned me her iPod for the day so that I could listen to music!
The guys that had been helping me with sound were on their own for the last day of the conference – they came and got the equipment out my room (I didn’t even hear them come-in!)
The day passed by really quickly, the medication I’d been given stopped the diarrhea and when the guys came back with the sound stuff I was awake.
“One of the speakers doesn’t work that well anymore, and one of the cables broke” *sigh* turns out that one of the cables broke, and to compensate for the decrease in volume they turned the remaining speaker up till it went ‘pop’. And these speakers are only 2 weeks old. They are BRAND new. So that’s another sound system gone, and JBL just aren't getting us the replacement parts – I have been waiting for over a month now!!!
Originally I was meant to stay in Nampula for another 3 days to drive back the car that Heidi had bought (she had bought it on Thursday, sent her daughter’s boyfriend to drive it back to the hotel and he had crashed it into a stationary vehicle before he even left the vendor’s yard… oops! So it had to be repaired, panel beaten and would be ready on Tuesday). So now that I was ill (and so many others) another plan was made. Shara (Heidi’s assistant) popped into my room on Saturday night and handed me her plane ticket – “You fly and I’ll drive the Landrover back, be ready at 8am tomorrow” WOW!
I had to finish up the last few cables for the Nampula sound system, so I set my alarm for 6am and fell asleep, I was wide awake at 1am – probably since I had been sleeping nearly non-stop for the past 15 hours! The cables got done and I packed. Was still a bit woozy when I walked around, and I was getting a chest cold!
I ate for the first time since I had got sick, just a small bread roll, and got on the truck to the airport. Our flight was at 10 and we got there at 9:30! But all was good and it was amazing to be back in Pemba only 30mins later!!!! Sure beats a 7 hour bumpy truck ride!
Nampula Conference (Day 1 & 2)
Wednesday morning dawned and I was awake to see the sunrise, so something HAD to be wrong! Nope, just the usual: On my way to Nampula, the 3rd largest city in Moçambique for a week long conference!
There are about 40 Americans from the ‘Global Awakening’ Team with us and it took 2 camiões and a Landrover to get everything we needed there! We set off fairly on time and 7 very bumpy, very uncomfortable hours later we arrive. I was fortunate enough to sit in the back of the Landy, so my ride wasn’t as crowded as the people in the trucks!
The Global team had basically asked to hold this conference, so they are sponsoring the Iris staff that will make it happen – we got checked into a fairly nice hotel, the ‘Bamboo’ and all my meals were paid! Yay!! That’s pretty cool – there are advantages to being the sound person… Also I was meant to share a room, but the girl hadn’t seen her 2 friends for a long time so we moved her matteress into their room and I got to have the luxurious hot shower flushing toilet sattelite TV room all to myself! It was great!
The conference kicked off that night, held on a large open field, about the size of 2 soccer fields (actually I think they were soccer fields!) and the sound went smooth. They had quickly hammered together a wooden platform for Heidi and the other speakers to stand on – I think it could safely hold about 10 people, as long as they didn’t dance, or make any jumpy movements! I would guess that there were over 2000 people there – kinda hard to count cos the light was mainly focused on the stage!
Randy Clarke was the guest speaker for this conference and he opened the whole thing. While he was talking Heidi suddenly turned to me and said, ‘I want you to go buy a sound system for this church. How much do you think it will cost? Something simple. I will give you a cheque tomorrow then you go buy it. OK?’
So I thought to myself. “Okie dokie… No problem. I speak Portuguese fluently and I know EXACTLY where to go to find a sound system in this strange city I have never before in my entire life been in, bring it on!” OK, so maybe my thoughts were more like, “How on earth am I going to do that?”
What can I say, life here is NEVER dull!
Thursday came and I had pondered for part of the night what a simple, yet powerful and preferably indestructible sound system would cost here in Mozambique… Heidi grabbed me at the breakfast buffet table and asked me the cost: I guesstimated that it wouldn’t be more than US$2000. “No problem”, she said, “I will give you a cheque for US$3000, I need $1000 to buy a car”. So I was going to cash a cheque for $3000 and walk around with over 75 million meticais for the whole day. In Moçambique. Fun.
First problem though: Who will do sound while I was gallivanting around town? Fortunately there were 2 younger guys on the Global team and they were roped in to help me out – We set off for the church at about 8:30am, and drove across the soccer field. The church is just next to the field, down a steep little incline. Josham drove under the goalpost and down the hill. Suddenly we hear a loud grinding noise! OH NO, we had hit the top of the posts and had dented the roof-rack... but we wer also stuck. Couldnt move forward or backwards. FInally we unloaded all the sound stuff and go tsome of the guys standing around to pile into the back of the Landrover. Everyone in, and we cleared the top of the posts by at least 20cm. At the bottom of the hill we opened the door and the guys started getting out. 1..2..3...4...5..6......10...13....15....18...19! I think we set a new record! We had gotten 19 men in the back, plus 2 on top and 2 hanging on the back door... no wonder we cleared the post so easily! After that little aside the set up went fine, and they guys were pretty confident they could handle it.
So off we went, Josham and I, with a rough idea of where to find the local sound store and the bank. First stop was the bank to cash the cheque (75 000 000 meticais isn’t that much, I was expecting a mountain of money!), then to find the ‘big 3 story shop on the right hand side of the road just before the funny cross road’ Well we found, but its not really 3 stories high and the cross road, well I wouldn’t call it a cross road. But we found it and hey, it looked half decent. It took us about 2 hours to get the 2 mics, a pair of speakers and a decent/simple mixer amp. And my Portuguese stood the test – although the pictures I drew helped loads! The only name brand in the store I recognized was ‘wharfdale’ so I was going to get a set of them, but they only had 1 speaker of each instock! Who on earth will ever only buy 1 speaker??? So the system I got was made in India: Ahuja amp and mics and Tovaste speakers… They plugged it all in and tested it, didn’t sound too bad! Now we had to find a shop that sold speaker cable.
Josham and I drove Nampula flat, I think I can find my way around it easily now! There is only one set of traffic lights, and we kinda didn’t see them, so we treated it like a traffic circle – we were halfway around the circle when we saw that we had gone over the red light… haha, oops!
We found everything we were looking for, bar the halogen spotlight with legs (they only had the spotlight part) and a generator. Time to head back to the field to set up for the film.
The screen is in its final stages of death. We had patched it with bamboo splints and electrical tape on the last weekend outreach, but we needed another splint now on top!
While we were working the kids were being entertained by the Global team. They had split the kids into 5 groups and I was amazed to see them sitting quietly – in their groups! One group was playing ‘duck duck goose’ or since Erik didn’t know the Portuguese for goose, it became ‘duck duck chicken’! It is a game where the kids sit in a circle and hold hands, then one person walks around the outside of the circle saying ‘duck’ as he pats each head. Then he picks someone by patting their head and saying ‘chicken’ – then it is chase time. The aim is to run around the circle of children and sit down in the ‘chicken’s’ place before the ‘chicken’ catches you. The kids loved it!
The movie started about 15mins late because we were struggling with the screen, but that was OK. I lay down to nap on the stage while the movie played – its nearly 2hours long, and I’d seen it plenty of times now! The crowd was enthralled (as usual), and before I knew it the movie was over and Heidi and Randy got up to preach!
There were some amazing miracles that happened, many many people got healed, but the special miracle for me was a little 6 year old boy, Edvaldo, who had never before made a sound. Not laughed, not cried, nothing. His mother brought him forward and Heidi prayed for him. ‘ba ba’ his first sounds and then he laughed. Such a sweet sweet sound. I just was awestruck, how amazing is that??? For 6 years, and now he can express himself verbally! His mother was all smiles – it was awesome, just wonderful!
There are about 40 Americans from the ‘Global Awakening’ Team with us and it took 2 camiões and a Landrover to get everything we needed there! We set off fairly on time and 7 very bumpy, very uncomfortable hours later we arrive. I was fortunate enough to sit in the back of the Landy, so my ride wasn’t as crowded as the people in the trucks!
The Global team had basically asked to hold this conference, so they are sponsoring the Iris staff that will make it happen – we got checked into a fairly nice hotel, the ‘Bamboo’ and all my meals were paid! Yay!! That’s pretty cool – there are advantages to being the sound person… Also I was meant to share a room, but the girl hadn’t seen her 2 friends for a long time so we moved her matteress into their room and I got to have the luxurious hot shower flushing toilet sattelite TV room all to myself! It was great!
The conference kicked off that night, held on a large open field, about the size of 2 soccer fields (actually I think they were soccer fields!) and the sound went smooth. They had quickly hammered together a wooden platform for Heidi and the other speakers to stand on – I think it could safely hold about 10 people, as long as they didn’t dance, or make any jumpy movements! I would guess that there were over 2000 people there – kinda hard to count cos the light was mainly focused on the stage!
Randy Clarke was the guest speaker for this conference and he opened the whole thing. While he was talking Heidi suddenly turned to me and said, ‘I want you to go buy a sound system for this church. How much do you think it will cost? Something simple. I will give you a cheque tomorrow then you go buy it. OK?’
So I thought to myself. “Okie dokie… No problem. I speak Portuguese fluently and I know EXACTLY where to go to find a sound system in this strange city I have never before in my entire life been in, bring it on!” OK, so maybe my thoughts were more like, “How on earth am I going to do that?”
What can I say, life here is NEVER dull!
Thursday came and I had pondered for part of the night what a simple, yet powerful and preferably indestructible sound system would cost here in Mozambique… Heidi grabbed me at the breakfast buffet table and asked me the cost: I guesstimated that it wouldn’t be more than US$2000. “No problem”, she said, “I will give you a cheque for US$3000, I need $1000 to buy a car”. So I was going to cash a cheque for $3000 and walk around with over 75 million meticais for the whole day. In Moçambique. Fun.
First problem though: Who will do sound while I was gallivanting around town? Fortunately there were 2 younger guys on the Global team and they were roped in to help me out – We set off for the church at about 8:30am, and drove across the soccer field. The church is just next to the field, down a steep little incline. Josham drove under the goalpost and down the hill. Suddenly we hear a loud grinding noise! OH NO, we had hit the top of the posts and had dented the roof-rack... but we wer also stuck. Couldnt move forward or backwards. FInally we unloaded all the sound stuff and go tsome of the guys standing around to pile into the back of the Landrover. Everyone in, and we cleared the top of the posts by at least 20cm. At the bottom of the hill we opened the door and the guys started getting out. 1..2..3...4...5..6......10...13....15....18...19! I think we set a new record! We had gotten 19 men in the back, plus 2 on top and 2 hanging on the back door... no wonder we cleared the post so easily! After that little aside the set up went fine, and they guys were pretty confident they could handle it.
So off we went, Josham and I, with a rough idea of where to find the local sound store and the bank. First stop was the bank to cash the cheque (75 000 000 meticais isn’t that much, I was expecting a mountain of money!), then to find the ‘big 3 story shop on the right hand side of the road just before the funny cross road’ Well we found, but its not really 3 stories high and the cross road, well I wouldn’t call it a cross road. But we found it and hey, it looked half decent. It took us about 2 hours to get the 2 mics, a pair of speakers and a decent/simple mixer amp. And my Portuguese stood the test – although the pictures I drew helped loads! The only name brand in the store I recognized was ‘wharfdale’ so I was going to get a set of them, but they only had 1 speaker of each instock! Who on earth will ever only buy 1 speaker??? So the system I got was made in India: Ahuja amp and mics and Tovaste speakers… They plugged it all in and tested it, didn’t sound too bad! Now we had to find a shop that sold speaker cable.
Josham and I drove Nampula flat, I think I can find my way around it easily now! There is only one set of traffic lights, and we kinda didn’t see them, so we treated it like a traffic circle – we were halfway around the circle when we saw that we had gone over the red light… haha, oops!
We found everything we were looking for, bar the halogen spotlight with legs (they only had the spotlight part) and a generator. Time to head back to the field to set up for the film.
The screen is in its final stages of death. We had patched it with bamboo splints and electrical tape on the last weekend outreach, but we needed another splint now on top!
While we were working the kids were being entertained by the Global team. They had split the kids into 5 groups and I was amazed to see them sitting quietly – in their groups! One group was playing ‘duck duck goose’ or since Erik didn’t know the Portuguese for goose, it became ‘duck duck chicken’! It is a game where the kids sit in a circle and hold hands, then one person walks around the outside of the circle saying ‘duck’ as he pats each head. Then he picks someone by patting their head and saying ‘chicken’ – then it is chase time. The aim is to run around the circle of children and sit down in the ‘chicken’s’ place before the ‘chicken’ catches you. The kids loved it!
The movie started about 15mins late because we were struggling with the screen, but that was OK. I lay down to nap on the stage while the movie played – its nearly 2hours long, and I’d seen it plenty of times now! The crowd was enthralled (as usual), and before I knew it the movie was over and Heidi and Randy got up to preach!
There were some amazing miracles that happened, many many people got healed, but the special miracle for me was a little 6 year old boy, Edvaldo, who had never before made a sound. Not laughed, not cried, nothing. His mother brought him forward and Heidi prayed for him. ‘ba ba’ his first sounds and then he laughed. Such a sweet sweet sound. I just was awestruck, how amazing is that??? For 6 years, and now he can express himself verbally! His mother was all smiles – it was awesome, just wonderful!
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