Friday, 5 April: Nos Vamos (We Go Now)

This morning, the roosters were sufficient to wake me up earlier than I would have liked. They seemed to like to crow from the hours between 5:00 and 9:00 am. The rain from the day before kept the camp nice and cool.

At 8:00 am, we made our way to breakfast. You can probably guess by now that it was beyond delicious. The main course was boerewors (pron. "bore-vors"), the ubiquitous Afrikaans sausage. This was my favorite meal so far, but at the rate we were going, it looked as if every meal was going to be my favorite so far.

After breakfast was the first session. We opened by singing It is Well with My Soul and then John had us split into groups. Our focus during the retreat was the books of Acts, so each group was supposed to come up with themes, stories, and questions we had from the book. This activity helped John to focus future sessions on what the missionaries wanted to learn.

We took a short break for tea and returned for the second session. The second session focused on the story of Pentecost found in Acts 2. First, John handed out paper and markers. He had us explain the story by drawing a picture. Then we were to use inductive Bible study to learn about the section we were given (Inductive Bible study is the method where you read a passage, focus on the details of it, come up with the main theme, and determine what applications it has for your life.). Each group shared the details of their section and then we had to write a one sentence summary of the theme. My group's sentence was, "The Holy Spirit empowering us through Jesus Christ as witnesses to save from corruption." We ended the time by coming up with applications or "I" statements from the passage.

When the second session ended, it was time for lunch. Our meal consisted of potato fritters, bran muffins, coffee muffins, and skewers of fresh fruit. Afterwards, Heather and I walked back to the campsite with Micah. Today his name was "Excavator". We asked if he was building anything and he told us he was building a tree house, a blue one for Heather, a purple one for his mom, and a blue one for me (each of our favorite colors).

Even I'll admit this is probably the cutest thing ever.

The rest of the afternoon was free time until 4:30 pm. Then we gathered for "Sundowners at the River". This is a South African term for when a group of people go down to the side of a river to hang out and watch the sunset (usually involving alcohol, but not in our case). We met at Piet and Ria's house. Steve, Doug, and Sakkie each drove a vehicle. I rode in the back of Sakkie's truck with John Spurrier, Heather, and Tonya.

Our fearless leaders, Sakkie and Steve.

Our destination was a large rock overlooking the Púnguè River. Nearby were the remains of an abandoned cotton mill that had been destroyed during the civil war. The rock was the former location of a cable car where cotton from the mill was transported across the river. The view from the rock was marvelous. The only downside was that it was inhabited by a massive amount of ants.

If you look closely, you'll notice this is a picture of a person taking a picture of a person taking a picture.

I gave this to Micah and he promptly thought it would be a good idea to show Heather. I don't she appreciated it as much as I did.

Sakkie led a group of us down a trail to the edge of the water. After hiking down the side of the mountainside, we came to some large rocks. This spot is used as a swimming hole during the dry season, but the water was high and Sakkie discouraged us from swimming because of crocodiles.

Beautiful sunset.

After the sun had set, we returned to the top and headed back to the house for dinner. Like always, a delicious meal waited for us. On the way back to Julie and Heather had a good time “scolding” me for leaving a black olive on my plate. In Zambia, they are hard to come by.

For devotions, the Mozambican and Zambian teams gave ministry updates and shared prayer concerns. Then someone prayed for each person. Afterwards, everyone headed to bed to get much sleep before an early morning for our trip to Mt. Gorongosa.

Thursday, 4 April: First Day of Retreat

I awoke the next morning to the sound of roosters crowing in a nearby village. Breakfast was another magnificent meal. To drink we had lemon juice which is similar to lemonade, but without as much sugar, but still delicious.

After breakfast, Steve, Chris, and I decided to take a drive to the park entrance to see if we could see any animals (unfortunately the park was closed due to all the recent flooding). It was extremely hot so we doubted if we would see very many animals, but we were still hopeful.

Entrance to Gorongosa National Park.

At the turnoff of the main road to Gorongosa, there stand the remains of a burnt primary school with the date 1963. It was burned down during the Mozambican Civil War. It stood as a grave reminder of the impact the war had on the people of the country.

Remains of the school house.

As we drove down the road a ways, we came to a clearing where we could see a few birds. Chris identified them and we continued on our way. A little bit later, we came across a small troop of baboons. I snapped a few pictures before they left the road and re-entered the bush. Steve got out of the vehicle and tried to call them back. Steve ventured a few feet into the tall grass and Chris cautioned him to look out for old landmines, another grim reminder of the effects of the war.

If you look closely, you'll see a little baby on the middle one's back.

We didn't see anything else except rain (cue Africa by Toto which I sang to myself) and tsetse flies so we returned back to camp. It was soon lunchtime so we headed to the dining room. Another delicious meal awaited us upon our arrival. This meal consisted of banana fritters (I could have eaten the entire dish), boerewors (pron. "bore-vors". Beef sausage), and a cornbread and cheese dish. After lunch, Steve headed out to the main road to make sure everyone found their way to the camp. The rest of us walked back to camp.

On the way, we heard an unusual bird. John and Chris stopped to try to find where it was. I walked ahead to see if I could get a better view. As I looked at the canopy of the trees, the bird flew to the top of the tallest tree. I called the rest of the group to my vantage point and Chris identified it as a Crowned Hornbill.

What does he have in his beak? A very large caterpillar.

A magnificent looking bird and a nice sport for posing for me.

Between 4:00 and 5:00 pm, all the other missionaries showed up (Everyone was able to get their visas at the border, a major answer to prayer!). The first to arrive was the Zambian team consisting of John S., Mary, Julie, and Heather. Next were Jake and Nancy Shenk from Zimbabwe. I would be driving to Zimbabwe with them after the retreat. The last group to arrive was the Malawi team of Doug and Barb, Earl and Lois, and Jonathan, Becky, Micah, and Rachel. As Doug (at least 6'4") greeted John Hawbaker, he put both arms around him, squeezed, and lifed him off the ground. It was quite funny to watch.

John Hawbaker and I helped everyone move their luggage into their tents. When we were helping the Jonathan and Becky, we learned that Micah (about 4 years old) was going through a phase where we chooses a new name for himself on a daily basis. Today he was "Basketball Player".

Later in the week when he was "Koala".

Once everyone was sufficiently settled in, we gathered at the food area for tea—or in my case, bottled water—and cashews and chocolate. During this time I had a good chat with Doug and told him the story of how I started working in the missions office (I'll tell this story later.).

As it neared 7:00 pm, groups of people started gathering to head to supper. Steve led one group, I led another, and Chris led the final group to the house. During the walk I caught up with Heather whom I met briefly before she left for Zambia. She also used to work at the missions office prior to my employment. When we arrived at the house, we found another wonderful dinner (are you starting to sense a theme?) of BBQ chicken, potatoes, and mixed veggies.

After dinner, we returned to camp and had a devotional time. We started by singing a hymn. Then Steve began by asking us the question, "Who would you like to meet in heaven—one Biblical and one non-Biblical person?" The goal of this exercise was to learn a little about each person's personality from their answer. The Biblical person I chose was Bildad the Shuhite from the book of Job. I explained that I would want to meet him because of his wisdom and knowing when to speak the truth when Job's other friends were telling him to curse God. I did not reveal the other reason why I want to meet Bildad: he is the person responsible for the greatest pun in the Bible ("Who is the shortest person mentioned in the Bible?" "Well, some people think it was Zacchaeus for he was a wee little man and a wee little man was he, but they are wrong. Others say it was "Knee-high"-amaih [Nehemiah], but they are also wrong. The shortest man mentioned in the Bible is Bildad the "Shoe-height".). The non-Biblical person was C. S. Lewis whom I've always admired for his writing.

After devotions I did what any good running nerd would do and talked running shoes with Doug who was training for a marathon in the fall. I was supposed to bring a pair of brand new Asics Gel-Kayanos for him, but I had no room for his size 14 shoes (although, I had had worn them through the airport, it would have made taking off my shoes at security checkpoints much easier!).

Tuesday, 2 April: Camarão Grande

Canoe made from the trunk of a coconut palm.

Steve and I had an early morning today which began at 5:30 am. We were headed to Praia Nova (pron. "pry-a nova". New Beach.) with the quest of finding shrimp for the missionary retreat. We drove through a market where the vendors were just beginning to set up shop. Steve wasn't quite sure of the way so he stopped a couple times and asked, "Camarão?" (pron. "cam-are-ow". "Shrimp?") We continued driving into the market. The road narrowed until it was just big enough for us to fit through. We drove until we came out on the beach where you could see a bunch of fisherman in their dugout canoes. We know we were in the right place so we parked the car.

We got out of the vehicle and walked around, but none of the fishermen had anything yet. We stopped by a group of fisherman preparing to launch and Steve asked when they would how shrimp. They said to come back at 2:00 pm. We thanked them ("Obrigado") and headed back to the car. We drove back into the city and headed up the coast to check another spot.

On the way, Steve drove past the Grande Hotel. The Grande Hotel was a 5-star resort which was built in 1953 and was the premier resort on the entire eastern coast of Africa. It featured the only Olympic-sized swimming pool in all of Mozambique at the time. The business went defunct for a number of different reasons (you can read about it here) in 1963, only 9 years after it had opened. It was then used as a military base during the Mozambican Civil War. Afterwards, it was abandoned. Now thousands of squatters are living in the hotel in slum-like conditions. The Grande Hotel has been stripped of everything of value down to the concrete walls by its new residents. This once extravagant luxury resort designed to attract the wealthiest whites is now ironically home to some of the poorest in Mozambique.

The Grande Hotel today.

We continued up the coast and parked at the end of a street. To get onto the beach, we climbed a small set of stairs up the sea wall. Trash was strewn all over the beach. The smell of the trash combined with the fish drying in the sun was a pungent, but a normal odor on the beaches in Beira. Steve and I walked along the waters' edge until we came to a group of fishermen consisting of mostly young boys. They had a bucket of fish and some shrimp. Steve negotiated a price of 50 meticais (pron. "meta-cash". The metical is the official currency of Mozambique. Meticais is the plural form. Roughly 30 meticais is equal to $1.) for a small bag of coconut shrimp plus a few muito grande (pron. "moi-to gron-day". Very large.) prawns that were 6-8 inches long. He also bought two flounder for another 50 meticais. We still needed quite a bit more kgs (kilograms) of camarão grande, but at least we had a start.

The fishermen told us they would have more camarão around 10:00 am. We walked back to the car through the groups of tiny fish lying on the sand to dry. When we got back to the house, we ate breakfast. Then Steve left for attempt #2 at getting his vehicle licenses renewed. He returned successful! He was near the front of the line when the office opened and when they saw his white hair, they brought him to the front of the line.

Around 9:45 am, Steve and I headed out in search of camarão again. We returned to the spot where we had some success earlier. This time we parked close to a rusty relic of war, an old naval gun. Unfortunately, the fishermen didn't have any camarão grande so we settled for the smaller coconut shrimp. When Steve went to pay for the shrimp, I got to experience the art of haggling, which Steve has down to a science. The fisherman set the initial price at 500 meticais by writing it in the sand. Steve got the price down to 400 and handed him the cash. Then the man threw a curve ball and asked for 50 more meticais. Steve calmly "fumbled" through his wallet and produced a 20 meticais bill. The fisherman couldn't help but laugh as he handed over the seafood. We returned home with a plastic bag full of camarão and a realization that getting enough shrimp was going to be trickier than we had planned.

After lunch, Steve and I went to the airport to pick up John and JoLene. We loaded up their luggage and brought them back to the house. Then Steve and I took John to Praia Nova to try to buy more shrimp and to give John a true Mozambican experience.

Good ole SAA. I highly recommend using this airline if you're traveling anywhere in Southern Africa.

Steve went a different way than we had gone earlier that morning. We ended up turning down a wrong (well, technically it wasn't a wrong street, just not the one we thought it was) which meant we had to drive through the slum that’s beside Praia Nova. As we drove, the people glanced curiously at the "lost" white men. Eventually, we made it to the beach.

On the beach we saw a group of people huddled in a circle. This was our clue that a fresh catch had just been hauled in to shore. We walked over and inquired about camarão. They didn't have any large prawns, but said there would be some in about an hour (though at first one man told us to come back tomorrow) so we decided to wait.

A fresh catch!

To pass the time, we decided to walk down the beach. We came to the beach adjacent to the slum we had driven through. At one point, we had to cross through some runoff from the slum. These pools were full of water turned green and brown from the sewage. It was pleasantly warm between my toes, but the smell soon brought me back to the stark reality.

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but they'll also build a house.

We found another group of fishermen that had just brought in a catch. Still no shrimp, but they did have a large stingray. We returned to the spot where the first group of fishermen was. They still didn't have any large prawns. We checked a few other groups of fisherman without any luck.

Our search for the elusive camarão grande was then interrupted by a large commotion. A group of 20-30 men were working together to get one of the large boats off the beach and into the water. They did the Portuguese equivalent of "1, 2, 3, PUSH!!" When they had successfully gotten the boat into the ocean and a loud "Hurray!" went up among those pushing.

Just a bit bigger than the dugout canoes...

As we were reveling in the excitement, a man walked up to us and greeted us in English. His name was Miguel and he was more than happy to test his English (which was excellent) with us. He rightly guessed that we were in missions and Steve gave him his card so he could get more information. He was friends with one of the groups of fishermen so we asked where we could get some large prawns. Miguel told us he would ask his friends and give Steve a call when they had some. We thanked Miguel and drove home passing the Grande Hotel for John to see.

After returning to the house, we decided to take a stroll through the Club de Golfe to go birding (Steve and John are avid birders. Steve set of lofty goal of showing John 100 new species of bird on this trip.). John only saw one new bird on this excursion. I, on the other hand, got to see numerous birds that I had never seen before. The rest of the night was spent relaxing and enjoying the fresh pineapple Steve had bought when he went to renew the car licenses. I went to bed early since the Newcomers were adamant about sleeping on the couches to accommodate John, JoLene, and I in the two bedrooms. 

Gray heron

Lilac-breasted Roller

The perfect end to a wonderful day.

*A special thank you to John Hawbaker for all pictures in this post which are not things that can fly or the last picture.

Saturday, 30 March: Beira

The plane I took to Beira was very small. It could only hold at most 30 people, but there were only 11 people on board. Even though the flight was less than 2 hours, we were still served lunch. Again I poorly choose chicken (but it was so good!). This time it came with sliced peppers on it and other spicy tidbits in the couscous. I made a final trip to the bathroom after I finished eating and then sat back to enjoy the descent into Beira.

It was extremely cloudy so I peered out the window expectantly waiting to catch a glimpse of the city. The plane seemed to be lost in the sea of clouds. When we finally broke through, I was met with the most spectacular view of the Púnguè (pron. "Pun-gway") River. As the plane banked, I watched as the delta spilled into the Indian Ocean. Seeing this view, I knew without a doubt that this was where I was supposed to be. The plane seemed to bank forever until it finally touched down on the runway.

View of the river delta.

As I walked off the plane onto the tarmac, the heat and humidity hit me. Wearing blue jeans and a hoodie was a bit much for the tropical climate. It was sprinkling slightly as we walked across the tarmac towards Beira International Airport (Aeroporto Internacional da Beira).

Inside the airport I filled out my Immigration form and got my visa stamped. Next, it was off to the baggage claim to get my two suitcases which thankfully had both arrived with the flight I was on. The customs officers only gave me a little hassle over the suitcase I was carrying for Jonathan and Becky Owen, missionaries serving in Malawi. Now that I was through customs, I was officially in Mozambique! Reality check #5 that the Lord wants me in Africa. Now the question is, "What does the Lord want me to learn in Africa?"

As I headed into the lobby, I was greeted with a hug by Steve. We loaded my suitcases into his white Toyota Land Cruiser Prado and headed for his house. I tried desperately to adjust to driving on the opposite side of the road as Steve explained the rules of the road in Beira. Basically, they don't exist. Avoiding the potholes takes precedence.

The airport is outside the city. As we drove, we passed by endless rice fields (except where new construction was happening). Beira is built upon a marshland so most of the open fields are underwater and provide an excellent environment for growing rice. Beira is a very poor city with little in terms of economy besides the port.

There were two things that really stuck out on my first trip through Beira. First was the smell as we drove by the Bay of Mozambique. Combine the salty ocean smell with sunbaked trash and sewage and you can imagine it for yourself. Strangely, this smell seemed to grow on me with each visit to the beach (Figuratively, that is. If it had literally grown on me, I'd probably have a much different opinion of it.).

The second was an abandoned hotel. Steve explained that there are two hotels in Beira that are now abandoned. The one we passed had been stripped of everything right down to the concrete. He also explained that somehow the owner had been able to keep the squatters out. This is not the case for the other one, the Grande Hotel. Thousands of squatters have moved into the Grande Hotel, turning it into a slum. There are many abandoned buildings in the city showing that at one time there was a lot of promise in Beira. But, this was before the Mozambican Civil War, one of the longest and bloodiest in Southern Africa.

Abandoned hotel we passed coming back from the airport.

After a while, we left the paved road (still in the city, mind you) and came to a gate. The guard lifted the gate and we continued into the compound, made a right turn and parked behind a red Toyota Hilux. Chris came out of the house to meet us and we carried my belongings into their house. Walking into the Newcomers' house, the first thing I noticed was the temperature difference. The air conditioning was a welcome relief.

After moving my stuff into the guest room, I was able to take a shower to wash away the greasiness of flying 15+ hours. The shower was a bit perilous as the non-skid bath mats became detached while the water filled the tub. Fortunately, I didn't have any major slips. Feeling clean and changing into a fresh pair of clothes added to the refreshment of the air conditioning.

Steve & Chris Newcomer

I spent the rest of the evening relaxing and catching up with Steve and Chris. An early bedtime of 8:00 pm was much appreciated after not sleeping well on the plane.