Another week in Mozambique.
The time seems to fly by here, despite the slowness of our work project. We’ve
spent most of the week trying to
make progress with the materials. The building requires about 15,000 bricks,
which must be moved by hand into a large trailer that is pulled by a tractor.
The distance between the land and where the bricks are is about 4km, which
takes long with the tractor. Basically, one load takes 2 hours and contains 700
bricks. Which means that moving bricks in itself is a long and arduous process.
Also, the person that we are working alongside in the project is omitted to
many other people, which makes things go slow. He’s also not too great with
communication. We spent three days waking up at 4:45am
to begin work and never actually accomplished anything those days.
Two days this week we’ve been able to do a medical clinic,
which was awesome. Since Pam is a nurse, she went to a pharmacist in South
Africa on our way here, and was able to get
a bunch of medicine donated. So Pam played doctor and I played nurse. She
examined about 100 men, women, and children and would tell me how much of what
medicine to give each of them. And—you ready for the kicker? I even ran malaria
tests on some of the children, which involves pricking the kids with a small
lancet and drawing some blood. I think I’ve come a long way from the girl who
used to be scared of needles!
Another new adventure we’ve begun to take part in is
bicycle-riding. Every few days we ride bikes back across the 5km bridge to the car
and retrieve a 12pack of 1.5L water bottles, strap them onto the back, and ride
back to Mutarara. Speaking of water—it is so ridiculously hot in Mutarara that
on a typical day, I would drink anywhere from 3 to 5L of water—which is about 3
to 5L more than usual for me!
We had our first taste of rain this week. Some days it
sprinkles for a couple minutes and other days it’s poured for a good hour or
so. Normally I love rain, but that’s when I’m sitting inside, watching a movie,
wrapped up in a blanket, drinking coffee. Sitting in a tent that’s getting
caked with dirt doesn’t really have the same effect.
We’re still trying to find other ways to minister to the
people. Obviously the work project was our number one goal coming here. But we
also want to use the other spare time we have to do other things, because hired
men are beginning to do much of the labor. So we are praying and trying to
figure out God’s will for us with this extra time.
It is all starting to pick up here though. The land has been
cleared, we have some of the bricks, and we’re preparing to get the land marked
for the foundation. Praise the Lord—his will be done!
