The last few days have been a couple of my favorite days from my entire trip. My horrible rash cleared up completely around Wednesday or Thursday, and I've been trying to see as many things that I haven't seen yet as possible, since I may be leaving Cambine as soon as the middle of this week.
Candido has been looking for a good time to take me to the city of Inhambane, and Friday was the day that it finally worked out. Inhambane is the capital city of the province we are in, and it is located on a peninsula in the Indian Ocean. To get there, one must take a ferry across the bay the peninselu forms, from the city of Maxixe.
The two of us were joined by our German friend Elischa. He is 18 and his family has been very involved in the mission, so after finishing high school, he decided to take a year off from school and come to work here. Dieudonne drove us to Maxixe and dropped us at the ferry. There are two kinds of boats you can take across. There is one big boat that is not much different from what we would normally think of as a ferry. Then, there are smaller ones, that are basically wooden boats, maybe 35 feet long and 8 feet wide, with motors attached. That is the one we took. It was a rickety little boat but made it across without a problem, except at one point we almost tipped over because there was too much weight on the left. So a few people shifted, and we were OK.
As it is the capital of this province, Inhambane has a number of much nicer buildings where government people live and work, and it is also one of the few tourist destinations in the region. So this combines to make it a quite beautiful city. At least, the area closest to the water. As you go farther in land, it becomes like most other cities here. We met with a couple of kids from the orphanage who just begun studying at the university in Inhambane. They showed us the house they are staying at, and then we walked around the city for a little while. I stopped at a street market to buy a few gifts, and Candido got a huge kick out of me bartering with the guys. He said that I did a good job and got about as good a price as I could get, although still paid more than he would've paid. The ongoing joke is that there is one price for Mozambiquans and another price for outsiders.
After this, we went to a bar in a very nice spot by the beach and hung out for a while there. It was a beautiful spot, as we could watch the sun set over the hills on the other side of the bay, which was a great back drop as we sipped beers and munched on an assortment of fresh seafood.
Yesterday, we had been planning for a while a trip to the beach with the kids from the orphanage. This also was a lot of fun, except for the fact that I got some pretty nasty sunburn, astonishingly the first sunburn I've gotten the whole time here. All of the kids came, along with a few other people who are working in Cambine, including the 3 German missionairies, Dieduonne, myself, and others. We drove about an hour north from Cambine to get to the beach, which was called Morrumgola. It was beautiful, huge, and almost completely deserted. We all had a great time swimming and playing soccer in the sand.
There is another beach closer to Inhambane that Dieudonne had wanted to take me to see. My understanding is that it is more beautiful, but also more crowded, and it's easier to take the kids to the less crowded beach. However, with only a few days left in Cambine, I'm not sure that I'll have time to see this. If not, at least I was able to make it to the one beach, and now I only need to swim in the Arctic to have swam in every ocean.
Depending on a few circumstances, I am either leaving Cambine on Wednesday or Thursday, or next Sunday. From there, my plan at least is to see a safari in Kruger National Park in South Africa. Depending on the schedule, and how much money I have, I might also visit Cape Town. I also have no idea what kind of internet access I will have in these places. Therefore I will try to write once more before I leave Cambine, once I know what my schedule will be for the rest of the time I am here.
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Rash from Hell
Well I've had a very uneventful 10 days or so since I last posted, although not out of choice. I think I said that I was going to visit the beach last Sunday and see the city of Inhambane, but that plan fell through when it rained all day Sunday.
Then Monday, I had another problem on my hands, as I had a rash that was growing on my legs. It started Monday, and by Tuesday it was covering both of my legs from ankle to knee just about, and had also started to spread to my left arm. By Wednesday, it was so bad that it was starting to become difficult to walk around without being in a whole lot of pain just from moving my legs. So that day we went to the clinic here in Cambine. They said it was an allergic reaction to a kind of grass that grows here, and gave me a couple of pills to treat it. But, by Friday, it hadn't improved at all, in fact in a few places it started getting worse. So, we went to a hospital in the nearby village of Morrumbene. This seems like a good time to mention the hospitals here. They're not good. There's a pretty creepy smell of disease everywhere close to them. Most are just a couple of really worn down looking buildings, and a huge crowd of miserable looking people waiting to see the very few doctors available.
Anyway, in Morrumbene they prescribed some different pills, and wrote down a lotion that I would have to take. We got the pills there, then went to Maxixe to find the lotion, but couldn't find it anywhere. Dieudonne called his son Chico, who was able to go to Inhambane and get the lotion for us from a pharmacy. Well, the lotion worked and didn't work. If there was enough of it, it probably would've been fine.
By Sunday, I was out of the lotion, because so much of my skin was now covered with the rash. I saw immediate improvement in the places the rash had started, on my lower legs and around my left elbow, but unfortunately at the same time it was getting better there, it also spread to my right arm, my shoulders, chest, stomach, and lower back. The good part about this change was that it no longer hurt so much to walk. The bad part was that it just started hurting more all the time.
So yesterday, Dieudonne went out to do errands, and while he was out went to get more lotion, and I guess a doctor reccommended a different one to him, which he brought back for me yesterday. And this one seems to be working the best, it has at least reduced the itching and pain a lot, which I'm very thankful for, because the last two nights I've had a lot of trouble sleeping, and I haven't been able to get out of the house much at all in the last week.
So, with my body appearing to be on the mend, I now have less than 2 weeks until I plan to leave Cambine behind. I'm surprised how quickly my time has gone by, but I'm also starting to get to the point where I feel ready to return home. But, I still have to see Inhambane, which I understand is a very interesting city, and the beach, and then after leaving Cambine I also have my safari to look forward to before I head home. I've spent so little money during the time here that I might try to treat myself to a little more luxury than I normally would when I go on my safari, as I'm pretty well under my budget at the moment. And after the last week, I feel like I deserve a little luxury!
Best wishes all
Then Monday, I had another problem on my hands, as I had a rash that was growing on my legs. It started Monday, and by Tuesday it was covering both of my legs from ankle to knee just about, and had also started to spread to my left arm. By Wednesday, it was so bad that it was starting to become difficult to walk around without being in a whole lot of pain just from moving my legs. So that day we went to the clinic here in Cambine. They said it was an allergic reaction to a kind of grass that grows here, and gave me a couple of pills to treat it. But, by Friday, it hadn't improved at all, in fact in a few places it started getting worse. So, we went to a hospital in the nearby village of Morrumbene. This seems like a good time to mention the hospitals here. They're not good. There's a pretty creepy smell of disease everywhere close to them. Most are just a couple of really worn down looking buildings, and a huge crowd of miserable looking people waiting to see the very few doctors available.
Anyway, in Morrumbene they prescribed some different pills, and wrote down a lotion that I would have to take. We got the pills there, then went to Maxixe to find the lotion, but couldn't find it anywhere. Dieudonne called his son Chico, who was able to go to Inhambane and get the lotion for us from a pharmacy. Well, the lotion worked and didn't work. If there was enough of it, it probably would've been fine.
By Sunday, I was out of the lotion, because so much of my skin was now covered with the rash. I saw immediate improvement in the places the rash had started, on my lower legs and around my left elbow, but unfortunately at the same time it was getting better there, it also spread to my right arm, my shoulders, chest, stomach, and lower back. The good part about this change was that it no longer hurt so much to walk. The bad part was that it just started hurting more all the time.
So yesterday, Dieudonne went out to do errands, and while he was out went to get more lotion, and I guess a doctor reccommended a different one to him, which he brought back for me yesterday. And this one seems to be working the best, it has at least reduced the itching and pain a lot, which I'm very thankful for, because the last two nights I've had a lot of trouble sleeping, and I haven't been able to get out of the house much at all in the last week.
So, with my body appearing to be on the mend, I now have less than 2 weeks until I plan to leave Cambine behind. I'm surprised how quickly my time has gone by, but I'm also starting to get to the point where I feel ready to return home. But, I still have to see Inhambane, which I understand is a very interesting city, and the beach, and then after leaving Cambine I also have my safari to look forward to before I head home. I've spent so little money during the time here that I might try to treat myself to a little more luxury than I normally would when I go on my safari, as I'm pretty well under my budget at the moment. And after the last week, I feel like I deserve a little luxury!
Best wishes all
Thursday, February 18, 2010
The Halfway Point
Well I'm considering today the halfway point of my trip to Mozambique, because I left the USA on the 18th on January, and my flight home leaves on the 18th on March. But, with the length of travel, I guess there are a number of days I could consider a halfway point.
Regardless, since I'm at the halfway point, I wanted to commemorate the occasion with a blog, even though not much has happened since I last wrote. Dieudonne has been out all day every day this week, and without him around, I've been pretty lazy, pretty much the only work I've done has been feeding the chickens.
I think in some of my posts, I have talked about things that have been difficult for me to get used to here, and I don't think I've put enough emphasis on the fact that honestly, even though the lifestyle I'm living would not be considered particularly pleasant in America, that I consider myself incredibly lucky to be living the way I am. This is because compared to probably 95% of the people I see every day, I'm living the high life. It's a bit annoying that the only way to cool off is by taking cold showers, but, at least we have running water. It's a bit annoying how repetitive the meal selection can be, but, at least we have enough food to go around. It's annoying that bugs and little lizards climb around your room at night, but at least we have mosquito nets and a house. And I absolutely am not allowing myself to get annoyed when it takes 10 minutes to load a page on the internet, since I'm at one of a handful of places in the entire area with the internet at all.
On this same note, everyone has been asking me about how much pictures I've been taking, and I'm doing my best to take pictures, but what I've found from the moment I left the airport in Maputo, every day, the most compelling thing about Mozambique is the people themselves. Since I don't feel particularly comfortable taking pictures of people going about their daily lives, I'm not capturing very much in photographs what to me at least, is the essence of Africa.
One of the things I didn't realize was that there would be people everywhere. It's difficult even to explain. You can drive off road for a mile, and there are people there, living. Driving along the highway in the country, there are people walking on either side as if you were in the middle of a city. Dieudonne said it very well, when I mentioned this. He said, "you see, in America you are always inside. What are you doing? Watching TV? They do not have TV. Using the computer or the internet? They do not have computers. Playing games? They do not have games. Reading books? They do not have books. So, what do they do? They go outside, they walk, they talk, or they just sit."
One of the coolest things has been when we go for drives. Cambine is at the end of a long dirt road, that comes up from the main paved road. When we get to the paved road, and start driving along it, every few miles we come to small village centers, or to crossroads where other dirt roads go off. And at every one of these crossroads, there are hordes of people, most of them selling things. It's quite something to see. If we stop the car anywhere near here, within 5 seconds, there will be a crowd of 20 people around the car, holding up fruit, vegetables, fish, shrimp, craps, chickens, etc. It's absolutely incredible to see. When you pass a river, there are always people there who are selling fish that they have just caught, they'll shove the fish right into your window if you're dumb enough to roll it down all the way. And, after buying food from these people, one usually comes away with the feeling that you have stolen, because they charge you basically nothing. We paid the equivalent of 75 cents one day for a huge bushel of bananas. Another day, we paid the equivalent of $1 at a store for a six pack of Heineken.
On the work front, I just wanted to let whomever it may concern know that work has just started on the new dormitory for the boys at the orphanage. It is going to be separate from the rest of the orphanage, giving them a little more independence. As for me, I've still got plenty I can help with. I've seen most of the things I had hoped to see, the one major exception being we haven't been to the beach yet. That won't be the case much longer, as our current plan is to go to Inhambane and the beach this weekend.
Well, when I sat down to write, I was thinking I would just write about whatever came to mind, and didn't think there would be much to say. Was I ever wrong. I could keep going for some time, but that might leave less to write about in future posts. So, I will leave it here for tonight. I miss all of you, and I thank you for continuing to read these posts and posting replies, even through the very weak medium of seeing your names accompanied by a few friendly words, I feel a little bit closer to all of you.
Regardless, since I'm at the halfway point, I wanted to commemorate the occasion with a blog, even though not much has happened since I last wrote. Dieudonne has been out all day every day this week, and without him around, I've been pretty lazy, pretty much the only work I've done has been feeding the chickens.
I think in some of my posts, I have talked about things that have been difficult for me to get used to here, and I don't think I've put enough emphasis on the fact that honestly, even though the lifestyle I'm living would not be considered particularly pleasant in America, that I consider myself incredibly lucky to be living the way I am. This is because compared to probably 95% of the people I see every day, I'm living the high life. It's a bit annoying that the only way to cool off is by taking cold showers, but, at least we have running water. It's a bit annoying how repetitive the meal selection can be, but, at least we have enough food to go around. It's annoying that bugs and little lizards climb around your room at night, but at least we have mosquito nets and a house. And I absolutely am not allowing myself to get annoyed when it takes 10 minutes to load a page on the internet, since I'm at one of a handful of places in the entire area with the internet at all.
On this same note, everyone has been asking me about how much pictures I've been taking, and I'm doing my best to take pictures, but what I've found from the moment I left the airport in Maputo, every day, the most compelling thing about Mozambique is the people themselves. Since I don't feel particularly comfortable taking pictures of people going about their daily lives, I'm not capturing very much in photographs what to me at least, is the essence of Africa.
One of the things I didn't realize was that there would be people everywhere. It's difficult even to explain. You can drive off road for a mile, and there are people there, living. Driving along the highway in the country, there are people walking on either side as if you were in the middle of a city. Dieudonne said it very well, when I mentioned this. He said, "you see, in America you are always inside. What are you doing? Watching TV? They do not have TV. Using the computer or the internet? They do not have computers. Playing games? They do not have games. Reading books? They do not have books. So, what do they do? They go outside, they walk, they talk, or they just sit."
One of the coolest things has been when we go for drives. Cambine is at the end of a long dirt road, that comes up from the main paved road. When we get to the paved road, and start driving along it, every few miles we come to small village centers, or to crossroads where other dirt roads go off. And at every one of these crossroads, there are hordes of people, most of them selling things. It's quite something to see. If we stop the car anywhere near here, within 5 seconds, there will be a crowd of 20 people around the car, holding up fruit, vegetables, fish, shrimp, craps, chickens, etc. It's absolutely incredible to see. When you pass a river, there are always people there who are selling fish that they have just caught, they'll shove the fish right into your window if you're dumb enough to roll it down all the way. And, after buying food from these people, one usually comes away with the feeling that you have stolen, because they charge you basically nothing. We paid the equivalent of 75 cents one day for a huge bushel of bananas. Another day, we paid the equivalent of $1 at a store for a six pack of Heineken.
On the work front, I just wanted to let whomever it may concern know that work has just started on the new dormitory for the boys at the orphanage. It is going to be separate from the rest of the orphanage, giving them a little more independence. As for me, I've still got plenty I can help with. I've seen most of the things I had hoped to see, the one major exception being we haven't been to the beach yet. That won't be the case much longer, as our current plan is to go to Inhambane and the beach this weekend.
Well, when I sat down to write, I was thinking I would just write about whatever came to mind, and didn't think there would be much to say. Was I ever wrong. I could keep going for some time, but that might leave less to write about in future posts. So, I will leave it here for tonight. I miss all of you, and I thank you for continuing to read these posts and posting replies, even through the very weak medium of seeing your names accompanied by a few friendly words, I feel a little bit closer to all of you.
Saturday, February 13, 2010
Rice Farming and heat
Hey!
Well yet another week has passed by and I'm closing in on the halfway point of my trip. This has been a good week, although the last few days have been the hottest since I arrived here. We only have cold showers here, which is perfectly fine, in fact it's preferable in the heat, but it's gotten to the point where it's so humid, I can take a long cold shower, and within 10 minutes of it I am sweating again.
Aside from the heat though, it has been a good week. I watched the Super Bowl by myself Sunday morning, and enjoyed it a lot, although I thought The Who was morbidly depressing. I noticed the sky outside lightening right around the time Manning threw that interception, and I could hear roosters crowing as I went to sleep. At halftime I went outside to try and call home, but I was unsuccessful, cell signals are hard to come by here. But the reason I'm mentioning it is I don't think I've mentioned the stars yet here. The sky is practically alive with light, the stars are so clear. I thought all the stars in the Southern Hemisphere were different, but it must be a mixture of the same and different ones, because I definitely spotted Orion, or there's a carbon copy of Orion in the Southern Hemisphere, I don't know.
The first couple of days this week we worked more on preparing a chicken coop and pig pen for the orphanage. On Wednesday, we brought in 500 chicks which was one of the cutest things ever until one of them peed on my hand. So the orphanage now has all these chicks, although of course they won't be able to get eggs from them for a while, but work is still not complete on the pig pen, so obviously the pigs won't be able to come in until that's done.
The last couple of days I've been working on the rice farm again. It's been pretty strenuous work, but I enjoy it. When you're growing rice, it grows on one field for a while, and then it has to be dug up and moved to another field. That's what we've been doing. It grows in huge tufts that look like big tufts of tall grass. You have to pull these tufts up, cut them down shorter with a machete, then we'd move them to Dieudonne's truck, where he would drive close to the other field, then we had to carry them out to his field, and dig little holes to put them back into the ground there. Friday I spent pulling the rice up at the first field, and then yesterday I was one of the people planting it at the second field. Both were quite tiring, although I still think the heat was the most tiring. We started before sunrise, but even really early in the morning, once the sun comes up it gets pretty damn hot. The rice fields are out on a plain though, and both days we had an absoluutely beautiful sunrise and I was smart enough to bring my camera the second day and got some great pictures of it.
That's about all I can think of at the moment, although of course it's hardly all that has happened. Thanks as always for taking the time to read, I look forward to hearing your responses.
Well yet another week has passed by and I'm closing in on the halfway point of my trip. This has been a good week, although the last few days have been the hottest since I arrived here. We only have cold showers here, which is perfectly fine, in fact it's preferable in the heat, but it's gotten to the point where it's so humid, I can take a long cold shower, and within 10 minutes of it I am sweating again.
Aside from the heat though, it has been a good week. I watched the Super Bowl by myself Sunday morning, and enjoyed it a lot, although I thought The Who was morbidly depressing. I noticed the sky outside lightening right around the time Manning threw that interception, and I could hear roosters crowing as I went to sleep. At halftime I went outside to try and call home, but I was unsuccessful, cell signals are hard to come by here. But the reason I'm mentioning it is I don't think I've mentioned the stars yet here. The sky is practically alive with light, the stars are so clear. I thought all the stars in the Southern Hemisphere were different, but it must be a mixture of the same and different ones, because I definitely spotted Orion, or there's a carbon copy of Orion in the Southern Hemisphere, I don't know.
The first couple of days this week we worked more on preparing a chicken coop and pig pen for the orphanage. On Wednesday, we brought in 500 chicks which was one of the cutest things ever until one of them peed on my hand. So the orphanage now has all these chicks, although of course they won't be able to get eggs from them for a while, but work is still not complete on the pig pen, so obviously the pigs won't be able to come in until that's done.
The last couple of days I've been working on the rice farm again. It's been pretty strenuous work, but I enjoy it. When you're growing rice, it grows on one field for a while, and then it has to be dug up and moved to another field. That's what we've been doing. It grows in huge tufts that look like big tufts of tall grass. You have to pull these tufts up, cut them down shorter with a machete, then we'd move them to Dieudonne's truck, where he would drive close to the other field, then we had to carry them out to his field, and dig little holes to put them back into the ground there. Friday I spent pulling the rice up at the first field, and then yesterday I was one of the people planting it at the second field. Both were quite tiring, although I still think the heat was the most tiring. We started before sunrise, but even really early in the morning, once the sun comes up it gets pretty damn hot. The rice fields are out on a plain though, and both days we had an absoluutely beautiful sunrise and I was smart enough to bring my camera the second day and got some great pictures of it.
That's about all I can think of at the moment, although of course it's hardly all that has happened. Thanks as always for taking the time to read, I look forward to hearing your responses.
Sunday, February 7, 2010
Another Week Gone
Hello again everyone.
It's been a great week here in Mozambique, although there isn't a lot to talk about. Most of the week, I've been working down at the orphanage, where we have been building a little structure to house some pigs that are the orphanage is going to receive. It's been strenuous work, but I've enjoyed it a lot. Aside from the work, I haven't been doing a whole lot. On Monday, we went to Maxixe again and I met the family of Lola, Dieudonne's fiancee. They were very nice although they didn't speak English, so our communication was limited. I'm learning some Portuguese just from speaking it with people a bit, and Dieudonne is giving me lessons, but I'm still a ways from being able to have real conversations with people.
On Wednesday or Thursday, I can't remember which, I went for a walk with a few kids from the orphanage to the river near Cambine. We had to walk about half of a mile on trails and when we got to the river it was very cool. It felt like you were pretty much in the middle of the jungle, even though we knew the village wasn't far away. The plants were beautiful, and we even saw a couple of monkeys. After coming out, there was an organized soccer game going on on the field in the middle of town, so we stopped to watch this. I was really impressed with how well the guys playing could control the ball, because they were playing on about the worst field I've ever seen. The whole field was on a slope, and on one side it sloped down really steep. There were sections that were pretty tall grass, and other parts that were just dirt. But, they didn't seem to mind. The game ended abruptly though, when one team walked out in protest of a decision the referee made, even though those of us watching all thought it was clearly the right decision.
Today I went to my first church service here, and it was really quite interesting. The service is done in the local dialect Shiswa (don't know if that's how it's spelled), which I thought was very good, although I of course didn't understand a single word of it. Dieudonne doesn't speak Shiswa either though, since he isn't native to Mozambique, so for the first time I was actually with someone who also had no idea what was being talked about.
The service was really nice at times, and painful at other times. The greeting time was probably my favorite part of the service. As opposed to in the US, where the preacher will usually say something, and then everyone half-heartedly greets the people sitting in front of and behind them, at the service here, everyone started singing a song in Shiswa and clapping or banging their hands on the pews, and then everyone ran around the whole church trying to greet as many people as they can. The pastor even came down and started circling around shaking hands. But the singing and banging and all made for a really exciting atmosphere.
As a guest, I was asked to introduce myself to the congregation. Dieudonne translated for me, as I didn't want to butcher my Portuguese and embarrass myself, and it ended up being him who embarrassed himself as he tried to translate what I was saying into Shiswa. His attempts to speak it brought the house down.
The first half was really nice because it was mostly singing, which I enjoyed even though I didn't understand the words. The second half was sermons and prayers, and it was brutal. I even saw the pastor making the classic John Paul II face at one point while someone was reading a prayer. And as for the sermon, well, I always thought people tuned Rabbi Koch out, but it was nothing compared to this. I could actually look around and count how many people were paying attention. After about 2.5 hours (yes, 2.5 hours) Dieudonne said to me that we should probably just leave. He said nobody would be offended that I didn't stay since I was with him, and he has a reputation for leaving early. For the most part though, that was a cool experience. I doubt I'll be going every week though.
Thanks again for reading. I look forward to reading your comments. And go Saints!
It's been a great week here in Mozambique, although there isn't a lot to talk about. Most of the week, I've been working down at the orphanage, where we have been building a little structure to house some pigs that are the orphanage is going to receive. It's been strenuous work, but I've enjoyed it a lot. Aside from the work, I haven't been doing a whole lot. On Monday, we went to Maxixe again and I met the family of Lola, Dieudonne's fiancee. They were very nice although they didn't speak English, so our communication was limited. I'm learning some Portuguese just from speaking it with people a bit, and Dieudonne is giving me lessons, but I'm still a ways from being able to have real conversations with people.
On Wednesday or Thursday, I can't remember which, I went for a walk with a few kids from the orphanage to the river near Cambine. We had to walk about half of a mile on trails and when we got to the river it was very cool. It felt like you were pretty much in the middle of the jungle, even though we knew the village wasn't far away. The plants were beautiful, and we even saw a couple of monkeys. After coming out, there was an organized soccer game going on on the field in the middle of town, so we stopped to watch this. I was really impressed with how well the guys playing could control the ball, because they were playing on about the worst field I've ever seen. The whole field was on a slope, and on one side it sloped down really steep. There were sections that were pretty tall grass, and other parts that were just dirt. But, they didn't seem to mind. The game ended abruptly though, when one team walked out in protest of a decision the referee made, even though those of us watching all thought it was clearly the right decision.
Today I went to my first church service here, and it was really quite interesting. The service is done in the local dialect Shiswa (don't know if that's how it's spelled), which I thought was very good, although I of course didn't understand a single word of it. Dieudonne doesn't speak Shiswa either though, since he isn't native to Mozambique, so for the first time I was actually with someone who also had no idea what was being talked about.
The service was really nice at times, and painful at other times. The greeting time was probably my favorite part of the service. As opposed to in the US, where the preacher will usually say something, and then everyone half-heartedly greets the people sitting in front of and behind them, at the service here, everyone started singing a song in Shiswa and clapping or banging their hands on the pews, and then everyone ran around the whole church trying to greet as many people as they can. The pastor even came down and started circling around shaking hands. But the singing and banging and all made for a really exciting atmosphere.
As a guest, I was asked to introduce myself to the congregation. Dieudonne translated for me, as I didn't want to butcher my Portuguese and embarrass myself, and it ended up being him who embarrassed himself as he tried to translate what I was saying into Shiswa. His attempts to speak it brought the house down.
The first half was really nice because it was mostly singing, which I enjoyed even though I didn't understand the words. The second half was sermons and prayers, and it was brutal. I even saw the pastor making the classic John Paul II face at one point while someone was reading a prayer. And as for the sermon, well, I always thought people tuned Rabbi Koch out, but it was nothing compared to this. I could actually look around and count how many people were paying attention. After about 2.5 hours (yes, 2.5 hours) Dieudonne said to me that we should probably just leave. He said nobody would be offended that I didn't stay since I was with him, and he has a reputation for leaving early. For the most part though, that was a cool experience. I doubt I'll be going every week though.
Thanks again for reading. I look forward to reading your comments. And go Saints!
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
1/4 of the Way?
Hard to believe it has already been over two weeks since I left the US and that 1/4 of my trip is already past me. Not a lot has happened worth writing about since I last posted, but as a quarter of my trip is already done, I wanted to just write about some of the daily experiences I've been having that I haven't mentioend yet.
Yesterday and today have been the two hottest days since I've got here, so hot that you really don't feel like doing anything but lying around all day. At night it can cool down nicely (which is probably still like 90 degrees, but it feels nice), but in the middle of the day, it's devastatingly hot. I've started getting used to it a little bit only because you can't escape it with air-conditioning, because there is no air-conditioning. But, I've found that the only way for me to stop sweating is to take off my shirt and socks and lie completely still. If I do that, after like 20 minutes I stop sweating.
Every day, from the moment I step outside I am constantly conscious of how different a world I am in now, because EVERYTHING looks different than it does at home. Even the grass looks different, not to mention the trees and plants. The scenery around Cambine is beautiful, but it gives you a strange feeling, especially when we are driving around, because one moment you will be looking at a beautiful natural scene, the next moment you are passing by houses made of sticks and people in rags and stuff.
However, the thing that stands out to me the most about the poverty here is not how little many of the people have, it's how different the things people do have are. Some people have cell phones, but they all look like models from 10 years ago. Some people have TVs, but the ones they have are small with what we would consider horrible picture. A very small percentage of people have cars, but the cars all almost all old and run down- the choppas I talked about last week were so old that people had to push them before the drivers could coax the engines to life.
I think the greatest experiences I've had so far are when we have gone out of town and off the roads to meet people who are pretty much living in the bush. When we were planting rice, we came across one fellow who was living under a makeshift shelter, which was basically a bunch of bark held up by some branches, and had a little area around it where he was growing a few vegetables. The same day, I went for a walk by myself and came across a 3 or 4 year old kid who surely had never seen a white person before, because he stopped walking when he saw me approaching and stared at me very apprehensively until I got to him. I greeted him and asked him how he was in Portuguese, which I guess made him feel a little better. To me, I think the coolest part of my trip has been moments like that.
I talked about this with a few people before I left, and I just wanted to confirm that it looks like I will be able to watch the Super Bowl. Dieudonne gets ESPN International, and they showed the Jets-Colts game, but not the other. I didn't find out until a few days later that the other game had ended partly thanks to a terrible Favre interception, which brightened my day considerably. Everyone here is big soccer fans though, this month there was a tournament to determine the African champion that people had been coming over every day to watch, but it ended on Sunday with Egypt winning. So that was also a fun experience.
I want to again thank everyone who has been taking the time to read this. I can't tell you how much I appreciate all of your comments, it's great to hear from everyone. So far my internet success rate is around 50/50, so I will try to have another post up Friday or Saturday. Until then...
Yesterday and today have been the two hottest days since I've got here, so hot that you really don't feel like doing anything but lying around all day. At night it can cool down nicely (which is probably still like 90 degrees, but it feels nice), but in the middle of the day, it's devastatingly hot. I've started getting used to it a little bit only because you can't escape it with air-conditioning, because there is no air-conditioning. But, I've found that the only way for me to stop sweating is to take off my shirt and socks and lie completely still. If I do that, after like 20 minutes I stop sweating.
Every day, from the moment I step outside I am constantly conscious of how different a world I am in now, because EVERYTHING looks different than it does at home. Even the grass looks different, not to mention the trees and plants. The scenery around Cambine is beautiful, but it gives you a strange feeling, especially when we are driving around, because one moment you will be looking at a beautiful natural scene, the next moment you are passing by houses made of sticks and people in rags and stuff.
However, the thing that stands out to me the most about the poverty here is not how little many of the people have, it's how different the things people do have are. Some people have cell phones, but they all look like models from 10 years ago. Some people have TVs, but the ones they have are small with what we would consider horrible picture. A very small percentage of people have cars, but the cars all almost all old and run down- the choppas I talked about last week were so old that people had to push them before the drivers could coax the engines to life.
I think the greatest experiences I've had so far are when we have gone out of town and off the roads to meet people who are pretty much living in the bush. When we were planting rice, we came across one fellow who was living under a makeshift shelter, which was basically a bunch of bark held up by some branches, and had a little area around it where he was growing a few vegetables. The same day, I went for a walk by myself and came across a 3 or 4 year old kid who surely had never seen a white person before, because he stopped walking when he saw me approaching and stared at me very apprehensively until I got to him. I greeted him and asked him how he was in Portuguese, which I guess made him feel a little better. To me, I think the coolest part of my trip has been moments like that.
I talked about this with a few people before I left, and I just wanted to confirm that it looks like I will be able to watch the Super Bowl. Dieudonne gets ESPN International, and they showed the Jets-Colts game, but not the other. I didn't find out until a few days later that the other game had ended partly thanks to a terrible Favre interception, which brightened my day considerably. Everyone here is big soccer fans though, this month there was a tournament to determine the African champion that people had been coming over every day to watch, but it ended on Sunday with Egypt winning. So that was also a fun experience.
I want to again thank everyone who has been taking the time to read this. I can't tell you how much I appreciate all of your comments, it's great to hear from everyone. So far my internet success rate is around 50/50, so I will try to have another post up Friday or Saturday. Until then...
Friday, January 29, 2010
First week in Cambine
Hey everyone.
It has been a relatively quiet first week for me here in Cambine. Today was my first very busy day, and I think next week and in weeks to come, it will be more like today.
On Monday Candido took me around Cambine, showed me his school, the church, Dieudonne's farm, and then we went to the orphanage for the rest of the afternoon. I met most of the other kids and some of the women who work there, although none spoke English. The biggest problem at the orphanage just appears to be there are too many children. There were 2 women who were trying to take care of about 6-8 babies at once, which they just aren't capable doing, and the older kids are just too crowded. They're all very nice though, and we played a game of cards and then played a game of soccer.
Tuesday Dieudonne showed me around some of the other places in Cambine and showed me where I would be working. I started working a little bit Wednesday and Thursday in the mornings, just doing small jobs like feeding the animals and stuff, and in the afternoons I've been going down to the orphanage to play with the kids. Pretty much everyone in Cambine, us included, gets up super early and does all their work in the morning before it gets too hot. Then everyone just sort of lies around from around 11-3 because it's so hot you don't want to move. It has it's good and bad sides, the good part is we usually are done with our day's work by 10 or 11 AM, the bad part is we are waking up at 4-5 AM to do this.
Today was a wild day. Dieudonne has been growing some rice, and I guess in the rice growing process you at some point have to move it from one field to another- I don't fully understand what we were doing because not everything gets explained to me in English. But anyway, we got up at 4 this morning to go to the first field where the rice has been taken out of the ground. With the help of a few kids from the orphanage, and a few of his workers, we loaded all the rice into the back of his truck. Then we had to drive about 2 miles on these paths through the woods until the road ended, then get out and carry the rice another half mile or so to where it was going to be re-planted. Well, I always thought people in poor countries eat a lot of rice because it's easy to grow, but this certainly is not the case. Without a car it would've taken all day. We made 4 trips carrying rice to the fields.
So later in the day I was going to go with Candido to Maxixe, which is a small city on the Indian Ocean maybe 45 minutes from Cambine. He had to buy some books, and I was just going to see the city and the ocean. We took the Mozambiquan form of a taxi, which is called a choppah, and is actually a pick up truck with about 20 people standing/sitting in the back. People sit all around the sides, then more people stand in the middle, the ones who can hold onto something do, the others hold onto those people - I was one of the people holding onto other people. I've always felt that there are certain things everyone should experience at some time in their life. A choppah is not one of these things. It probably wouldn't be as hard on paved roads, but on the bumpy clay road from Cambine, I was literally holding on for dear life.
That is pretty much everything I've been doing for the last week. It's been a very interesting week, I've seen some amazing things, and expect more of the same in the weeks to come. Thanks for taking the time to read this, and I will be writing again before long I'm sure.
It has been a relatively quiet first week for me here in Cambine. Today was my first very busy day, and I think next week and in weeks to come, it will be more like today.
On Monday Candido took me around Cambine, showed me his school, the church, Dieudonne's farm, and then we went to the orphanage for the rest of the afternoon. I met most of the other kids and some of the women who work there, although none spoke English. The biggest problem at the orphanage just appears to be there are too many children. There were 2 women who were trying to take care of about 6-8 babies at once, which they just aren't capable doing, and the older kids are just too crowded. They're all very nice though, and we played a game of cards and then played a game of soccer.
Tuesday Dieudonne showed me around some of the other places in Cambine and showed me where I would be working. I started working a little bit Wednesday and Thursday in the mornings, just doing small jobs like feeding the animals and stuff, and in the afternoons I've been going down to the orphanage to play with the kids. Pretty much everyone in Cambine, us included, gets up super early and does all their work in the morning before it gets too hot. Then everyone just sort of lies around from around 11-3 because it's so hot you don't want to move. It has it's good and bad sides, the good part is we usually are done with our day's work by 10 or 11 AM, the bad part is we are waking up at 4-5 AM to do this.
Today was a wild day. Dieudonne has been growing some rice, and I guess in the rice growing process you at some point have to move it from one field to another- I don't fully understand what we were doing because not everything gets explained to me in English. But anyway, we got up at 4 this morning to go to the first field where the rice has been taken out of the ground. With the help of a few kids from the orphanage, and a few of his workers, we loaded all the rice into the back of his truck. Then we had to drive about 2 miles on these paths through the woods until the road ended, then get out and carry the rice another half mile or so to where it was going to be re-planted. Well, I always thought people in poor countries eat a lot of rice because it's easy to grow, but this certainly is not the case. Without a car it would've taken all day. We made 4 trips carrying rice to the fields.
So later in the day I was going to go with Candido to Maxixe, which is a small city on the Indian Ocean maybe 45 minutes from Cambine. He had to buy some books, and I was just going to see the city and the ocean. We took the Mozambiquan form of a taxi, which is called a choppah, and is actually a pick up truck with about 20 people standing/sitting in the back. People sit all around the sides, then more people stand in the middle, the ones who can hold onto something do, the others hold onto those people - I was one of the people holding onto other people. I've always felt that there are certain things everyone should experience at some time in their life. A choppah is not one of these things. It probably wouldn't be as hard on paved roads, but on the bumpy clay road from Cambine, I was literally holding on for dear life.
That is pretty much everything I've been doing for the last week. It's been a very interesting week, I've seen some amazing things, and expect more of the same in the weeks to come. Thanks for taking the time to read this, and I will be writing again before long I'm sure.
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