The other day I went to the bush. To World Racers the bush is equivalent to the
promise land. I think every World Racer
dreams of spending a month out in the bush in the middle of nowhere- unfortunately
we didn’t get to spend a month out there but at least we got to go for the
day.
My morning started at
4:30am with someone hitting my mosquito net and telling me the chapa (small
bus) would be here in about 30 minutes.
So I got in line for the bathroom to brush my teeth and attempt to wake
up. 5am came but the chapa didn’t-
welcome to Africa, nothing ever seems to go as planned. Eventually around 6 the chapa arrived at our
compound. We loaded up and headed into
Maputo to take the ferry across the bay.
Once we got to the other side of the bay the paved roads turned into
sand and the telephone and electrical lines started to disappear as did most of
civilization. And I started to hear one
of the most beautiful sounds on earth, the boys singing African worship songs
in Portuguese as we drove through the bush.
After a 40 minute drive we reached the bush. We eventually stopped outside a school
building surrounded by nothing but brush and grass. Our contact got out of the chapa and talked
to the headmaster of the school to see if we could talk to his students and
hang out with them for a little bit. He
said yes and all the students came flooding out of the door carrying their
desks. They placed their desks in a nice
row under the shade of a nearby tree and we did a small vbs with them. After an hour or two we left the school and
headed to see where David (one of the boys at Beacon of Hope) grew up.
We walked for about a mile winding all around on sand roads
and small paths until we reached a small clearing. It was where David grew up. In the clearing there were two houses made of
sticks and sheet metal, a chicken coup made of branches, and two smaller
buildings made of thatch and grass. We
sat under 2 large trees in the middle of the clearing that provided shade for
most of the buildings eating fruit from nearby trees. We sat there taking it all in and watching
the boys catch a goat, which we brought back as a gift- tied up and stuffed
under the back seats of the bus.
Living in the bush is life in the simplest form- but it’s a
hard life.
To get to school David had to walk 30 minutes each way every
day. The closest water source is about
30 minutes in the opposite direction. There is no turning on the faucet in the
bush. When you need water you carry a
bucket down to the small pond and walk back to your hut. The bathroom is the bushes that surround your
hut. In the bush you don’t have
electricity, running water, refrigerators, washing machines, grocery stores, or
a bathroom. There aren’t video games, giant TVs, movies,
or the internet to entertain you. Even
without all of the stuff that we think we need to survive they are happy and
content because they have their community and their family. They spend their days with each other.
Sure life is hard but it’s their life- they survive and even
thrive
Stuck in the sand
Road into the bush
