So here we are…. Chokwe, Mozambique in the hottest month of the year! We’re all sweating like crazy and even the locals are suggesting we sleep outside to be cooler because they feel it’s hot as well (I guess when you shower and then you’re still wet, but because you’re sweating not wet from the shower that means it’s pretty hot) …. glad it’s not just us!!
So, here’s a little about Mozambique thus far… Currently we are 8 hours ahead of central time. The sun sets around 6:30-7pm and rises about 4:30am… and… as I mentioned it’s warm here… like 105 degrees warm! The currency is Mets. So 43.7 Mets = 1 USD! The locals speak Portugese, Changana (I don’t know if I spelled it right, I’ll correct it once I ask) and some speak English. Our host speaks 11 languages fluently and has been a blessing! Our days usually start with a small loaf of white bread (1 per person) with a fruit Jam and Tea with raw sugar (you know the brown kind that’s still in good sized crystals). For lunch it’s bread again with a light salad of vegetables usually tossed with some oil and maybe salt…or some fruit (today it was a banana) and Passion Fruit Juice! At night we eat the most! Usually lots of white rice with something to go on top. One night it was Kale cooked down with shrimp, coconut and peanuts… all hand cut, crushed and scraped. Another night it was pinto beans cooked with fresh garlic and carrots! Oh so yummy!! (Don’t ever let anyone tell you eating in Africa is bland!)
Ministry here right now consists of painting the school here and preparing for the children to return at the beginning of February from their winter/holiday break! Hopefully I’ll have pictures up soon but internet is a little tricky here so please have grace and patience!
Now… about those buttons…. sounds funny right… I was thinking all day today about what I should blog about… nothing was coming to me except to share the little about our first couple of days here (which you just read) but this afternoon we were talking with our Ministry host, Sybil. She was sharing with us that the children here learn to cook meals and do their laundry sometimes by the age of 5. We watched as some of the children here at her facility washed their clothes by hand in a tub, rinsed them and hung them to dry! We commented that most Americans never learn to do laundry for themselves even by high school (I think we said age 14). She was shocked. One girl from my team said, “And that’s just putting it in a machine with soap and pushing a button.” “Ah yes,” Sybil replied, “America, the land of buttons.” She gestured as though pushing a button. How true… the land of buttons… everything is convenient. Everything is at our touch from our meals, to washing our clothes, to being entertained… the list goes on. Nothing here is convenient and no one is upset about not having buttons… No one is concerned or troubled about the fact that they take literallly all day to make our night meal. The children don’t know what’s it’s like to look down at screen all day so they run and play and interact with one another. More importantly no one complains or has anything negative to say about how several of them WALK for over an hour to come to church and Bible Study several days a week and most of them are under the age of 18! (Fun fact: 50% of the population of Mozambique are under the age of 18) One of the teenagers this afternoon in Bible study made the comment, “We are going to have hardships. We are. We need to not make our hardships excuses!” HELLO!?! What a huge wake up call… and I’m only in week one of month one.
All that to say… we have some learning to do from a culture and place that has so much more than us in areas we need it most… I have nothing to offer these people except love and a helping hand, but while I’m here I’m going to take a few notes and hopefully come home using a few less buttons!
Challenge for you: See how many things you can do this week without buttons. Try doing your laundry in the tub one day this week and hang it out to dry. Try going without your iPod or laptop for a day. Cook a meal one night instead of sticking one in the microwave… it might take you a few extra minutes but you’ll be ok! 🙂
