Ilha de Mozambique

Pictures: First - the beach where we spent most of our time, second - I had just gotten my face painted with paste that the women make from rubbing a type of wood on a rock with water, third - the dancers, fourth - inside the room I shared with Kaleb, fifth - outside my room.

I don't know where to begin about last week. I spent the week in Ilha de Mozambique, translated to Island of Mozambique. It was like nothing I have ever seen or experienced. We were there because Steve had a conference so we went along to enjoy the Indian Ocean.

The Ilha is about a 2 hour drive from Nampula but it turned into three for us. As we were pulling out onto the road to start our trip, we were about 5 minutes from the house when a police pulled us over. I guess we had been speeding, I don't believe it, but that is what you get here. So to pay the ticket, first Steve had to go to their car with his license and get that ticket written up, that took a while. Then we were off to the station so he could pay it. It isn't that easy though. The guy who can take the money actually has to be there so we had to wait for a good 45 minutes. Then after he pays it we have to take it back to the officer who gave him the ticket so that they can sign it. It was an amazing process.

So we were finally on our way. I was a little nervous when we first got to the place we were staying because the outside looks like it has been through a beating. I realized though as I got to know the Ilha that it was beautiful because of what you can't see about it. Half of the island is old Portuguese houses that have been deserted and most of them are without roofs and many families live where one would have lived before. Several of the homes are being redone and I got to go into them. It is amazing the vision that people have, to see where they can take a broken building.

Everyday we did almost the same thing. I started my day with an early walk and greetings to almost everyone I saw. To give you an idea of how many people I would see on my walks, the island's capacity is about 5,000 people, right now there are about 15,000 living there. The difference between the people on the island and the people in Nampula, they are used to seeing travelers come and go and are more friendly. After my walk I would go shower do a little reading and then have breakfast. Then the kids, Sarah and I would pack up and walk to the beach. The beach was about a 10 minute walk depending on how fast the kids wanted to walk and how many people stopped us to chat.

We met a lot of boys that were somewhere between 15 and 25 years of age. They are the guys who sell all of the jewelry, so they follow you around and talk with you, well the good ones do anyway. The funniest thing about them is they ask around where you may be and them come and wait for you there. I got a couple necklaces. One was custom made by Megel. It is really cool. They make necklaces out of things that they find and one way is they find broken pieces of china and they make them into medallions. They are really pretty.

Back to the daily activities. After the beach we would come back for lunch and then head to the pool. We would stay at the pool, that was in one of the hotels, until around 4 and then head back to our rooms. I would shower again and then head out for dinner. For dinner I got to try a couple of new things. I had goat the first night. It really tastes like beef but the texture is different it is a bit mushy. I also had lobster, banana flower, and fried fish balls. I liked non of them except the banana. That was good.

One day we watched some dancers. That was fun. I like the singing that went along with the dance better then the dance itself. The women did a great job. Another night we went to Lighthouse Island. You have to take a boat there and that was a little scary but the island was worth it. It had a huge beach that we had all to ourselves and a light house of course. That was it thought. There was plants in-between the beach and the light house and a couple trees but it was a small island.

It was a fantastic week. I love the island. I was a nice break from Nampula. Speaking of Nampula, let's talk about how it welcomed us back. I believe that at least 5 cockroaches were killed between 7 and 11, the water didn't work, the drier fried, on Sunday morning a rat died on the onions and by Sunday night Sarah was diagnosed with malaria. I guess you could count the second to last one as a half blessing. First the rat died and second it died out in the open so we could get rid of it fast. The last one died where we couldn't, or thought, we couldn't get to it. Oh yeah, that was another delay before we left, we found the dead rat that we thought was in the ceiling it was in the electrical box and there were maggots everywhere. I heard it was disgusting. I chose not to go look at it.

I guess after reading that paragraph you may think that I don't want to be back in Nampula. I would say that your thoughts are right. That is my prayer request. Pray for an attitude change because I can't do anything about my location right now. Thank you all for reading and I hope to hear from you soon! God bless.

On Holiday!

This week was another good week aside from the panic attacks the rat caused in me. The beginning of the week feels so far away I don't know if I will be able to remember it!

The first 3 days of the week were spent doing school work and just hanging around the house for the most part. On Monday night Terri and Brian, a couple that lives a few houses down, invited us over for supper. It was really good and Terri and Brian are amazing people. They are from Southern US of A and are hear studying the language so when they move to a village they will know all that they need to. I am glad they are not leaving until January.

Thursday was a glorious day in the Snider house, Steve came back from America. He not only came back but he came back bearing many gifts. He brought some Halloween candy and books and cloths, very exciting. We are all glad he made it back safe and is here to fight off the rats!

I almost forgot to tell you about the rat. I can't remember what night it was but Sarah and I were just sitting on the couch watching BBC Life and writing emails when a rat, a big rat came running through the dinning room and behind the TV. I jumped up on the couch and finally got the words out, "a rat!" Sarah went to get the brooms and we positioned ourselves on either side of the TV stand. By that time the rat had gone all the way around the room and through a couple rooms and back into the kitchen. About a half hour later he showed his face again. All I could do was say, "there it is again". I couldn't move I just looked at it. I couldn't believe it would come back through the room again! We were on our to getting up when it went back the way it came. At this point we went to made sticky traps which besides catching a lizard caught nothing. Not to worry though, Steve caught one of the rats this weekend and a another trap is out tonight.

On to this weekend. On Thursday I decided to go with Angie and Alison to Chocas. I left with Angie and a few other people on Friday night. The three of us, the three single girls, slept outside. I loved that. I got to sleep in a hammock, that was tricky business. Alison and I woke up early and went to the beach to watch the sun rise. It was so beautiful to watch it rise over the Indian Ocean. Later that day we went to the ocean to swim and play. It was so fun and so freeing to just run and "play" in the water. After lunch we had a tree climbing competition(that is what the some of picture are) then the whole group, about 17 people, got into the water and we played chicken and sward fight with noodles. It was a very silly afternoon. On Sunday I slept in a little and when straight for the water. We had lunch and a little fellowship then right back into the water. I met up with the Sniders' at Sunday night worship. I missed them so much, they are wonderful people and I am so happy to be here with them.

Nampula, week 2

Ok, here is the house I am living in. The first picture is of the outside of the house and my room is in the back on the white side of the house. If you are wondering what the large cement structure is, that is the long drop, where the guards go to the bathroom. This is my bedroom, I didn't get a picture of it but there's another bed in the room for a guest! The next picture is my bathroom, very spacious as you can see! The orange bucket is incase we run out of water. And the last picture is the classroom. This is a great room with a desk for each student and a big book case that is full of our books. I will be posting the next portion of the house soon!

Verse this week is from Isaiah 41: 10 "fear not, for I am with you; do not be dismayed for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand." This is the verse that the kids and I are memorizing this week for school. I thought it was a good one because of the events that unfolded last week.

Now it has been 2 weeks in Nampula and things are good. Steve left for the states on Tuesday so we are here without a man of the house. Honestly it is a little harder without him here. I am a little more jumpy at night. I guess I can't blame this on him completely though.

The first night Steve was gone, Sarah offered to let me sleep in one of the girls beds so that I could be on the same side of the house as them since my room is through the kitchen and the school room as well as a bathroom. I thought that I would be fine in my own room so at about 11:00 I headed that way. As I was about to go through the kitchen I decided to turn on the light so that I could just see what was ahead of me, see if there were any obstacles and then I was going to turn the light off. Well, right when I turned on the light I heard a noise above me, as I looked up a rat appeared and fell from the shelf. I tried not to scream as I jumped back because Amami and the rest of the family were sleeping not to far away. Unfortunately I woke Sarah, there was nothing we could do. The rat has shaken off his fall and run behind the fridge. That night I did not sleep well. I kept hearing sounds and waking up. So now I am sleeping in the girls room!

That was Tuesday night and since then we have been keeping ourselves busy with all sorts of activities during the day besides school. Oh, on Tuesday we also went to library at SIL which is the school for the missionary kids in the area. They have open library every Tuesday which is really nice. We got to meet some of the other mothers and were invited to a ladies lunch on Thursday.

On Wednesday though, our activity was to have guest over from Maputo. Some friends of the Sniders' were up doing some work and came over to have dinner. I can't tell you how nice it was to see familiar faces even if I had only seen them once or twice before. One of the men who came over, his name is Barbosa (sorry if I spelled it wrong), has been amazing for me. We had gone over to his house while we were still in Maputo a couple of times to have dinner with his wife and son. I don't know if I wrote about it but I have told many of you, he is the one who made us poa de quaju. They are little rolls that are mostly cheese. Everyone should have them at some time in their life. Anyway, he and I started talking and he was really encouraging and kind. I have been kind of over whelmed, I guess you could say because NOTHING is the same here as it is at home so my brain feels like mush. So the reason I am telling you this is he gave me lots of hugs (not nearly as good as your's, Dad but as good as it gets right now) and told me to call whenever I need to! What a guy!

Thursday: that is the day we went to the ladies lunch. That was good but overwhelming as well. Trying to remember all those names and faces to go with and who's kids are whose and who their husbands are. Even though it was over whelming it was nice to be with adults and to talk about what they are doing here and have time to pray. I am excited to get to know these women better! When we got home, the kids and I were walking down to a new friends home to see the puppies that are at there house. The puppies are 2 weeks old and are just starting to open their eyes. They are so cute, Lucy and Mia loved petting them. They are looking forward to going down to see them often. On our way to see the puppies we ran into two girls that were coming to meet us. There are 3 girls who live in an apartment who either teach at the school or are doing some language development here and they are my age. I am so excited to get to know them!

For dinner last night, we had home made tortillas. They are so good!


Friday morning started with coffee! It was our first real cup of coffee for about a month. Believe it or not but I thought it was good. It was a treat to have something familiar. During our wonderful cup of Starbucks coffee, Jamie the guy who works in the house, pulled down the mouse traps. He had caught 2 mice last night. I new he had caught at least one because I heard it scraping around in the night, but 2! Gross! he showed them to us and I was totally discussed!

The morning went on as normal. We had school and Kaleb and I went on our run. At 4:00 we all piled into the car and went out to Claire's house to got horse back riding. That was so fun. We just did a small ride because of the small kids and making sure that they love it before we go big. After riding I went over to some new friends house for dinner and a sleep over. They are some great girls. Angie and Allison are both from the states and have been here just over a year. Angie is a teacher at the school for the missionary kids and Allison works for the same orginization but does linguistics. She has the rare talent for learning languages easily. I had so much fun with them. We had dinner and talked and then watched a movie.

This morning they found out that thier gaurd was really sick and decided to take him some medication and money for food. Here, when you have a gaurd that is trust worth you keep him well. Also I should tell you that the guards are not for safety but for petty thefs. Any way to get to this guy we had to pick up his brother because he had a cell phone and could get us to the gaurds house then we drove a good 15 minutes through, what people call here, the stick villages verses the cement villages. When we got to the gaurds house his brother took us in and while Allison and Angie were explaning things to them the brother was translating into the tribal language so the wife could understand. Allison read a couple verses from Mark chapter one and then we prayed. That is an experince in and of it's self. Praying here, everyone prays at the same time, aloud. Just one more thing to adjust to.

After we got back Sarah picked us all up and we went to a BBQ out at Claire's house. It was a whole bunch of families and their kids. It was fun but I am ready for a night to just chill.

Thanks for all of your prayers and thoughts. I am thinking of you too and miss you all. Please keep me updated on all the happenings of home!