MOZAMBIQUE 2010 - Musings and Untold Stories

Lichinga, Mozambique

December 21, 2010

.

Musings and Untold Stories

A while back we sent out an email with these musings that our team sat down and came up with. I have included them below here on this blog post. But there have also been a lot of other stories that we haven't shared on our blog. We wanted to be able to write them down and share them with people. Some of them are funny about our life in Africa. Some of them are more serious aspects concerning the culture in Mozambique. We hope you enoy them.

.

Sometimes I just get a craving to go get a good burger and fries, but then I have to take the cost into consideration and when factoring in the plane ticket it just seems too expensive. ~Jesse~

.
You know your in Mozambique when you are on your fifth day of Malaria fever and rats are crawling between your mattresses on your bed and biting your butt. ~Christian~

.
In Lichinga the difference between the city and the villages is that in the city many people approach you wanting to be your friend in order for you to give them something or take them to America, but when first arriving to a village everyone flees from you in terror confident that you have come to cook them and eat them for dinner. ~Jesse~

.
You know you are in Mozambique when what is suppose to be the main road reminds you more of ski moguls or a motor cross track. ~Jesse~

.
You know the feeling that someone is watching you? Try every time you walk anywhere seeing that everyone is watching you, talking about you, with many pointing and calling out “Whitey”! ~Tanya~

.
There can be embarrassing moments while learning a new language. Once when I was trying to say to a local, “to drink water” it came out instead “to poop water”, and we did not know why they were laughing. ~Christian~

.
Evangelists in the States often have to come up with a good method to gather people to hear the message, like a good band or performance etc. Here all you need to do is show up in a village and be white and within minutes you can have hundreds gathered waiting to see why you came. ~Jesse~

.
You know you are in Mozambique when two showers a week is a luxury ~Christian~

.
You know you are in Mozambique when you think you got a good tan, but then you take a shower and turn two shades lighter, ~Tanya~

.
You know you are in Mozambique when you are at church and the Lady giving her testimony flops out her boob to feed her crying kid and even when the kid is finished, leaves it hanging out there the rest of the service. ~Christian~

.
When crossing Mozambican bridges, while hearing the cracks and pops of rotted logs shaking beneath us, Our hearts jump at the possible free car wash and swim that might occur any moment.
~Christian~

.
Being honest people is hard when the entire country is run through bribes. ~Jesse~

.
It is good and considered healthy to be fat here. Once I was politely complimented by one of our Mozambican coworkers about how fat I was looking, and I replied that I hope to lose the extra wait soon, he answered, No! You will get bigger and bigger and bigger until you walk like, BOOM, BOOM, BOOM! (it was a compliment) ~Tanya~

.
We have a good variety of shops here in town, until going inside you realize they all carry the same limited supply of the same 36 items. ~Jesse~
.
Can somebody please invite Smokey the Bear to Mozambique. ~Christian~

.
While shaking or holding peoples hands in the villages, the crusty feelings of their hands reminds you that they don't use toilet paper here, and again you are reminded when sitting to eat with them while digging your hand into the same food plates of Shema and sauce. ~Jesse~

.
The word for breakfast in Mozambican means (kill-the-bug). But in reality you are just giving more nourishment for the families of worms in your stomach. ~Christian~

.
In Mozambique drunk, corrupt police walking around with AK-47's in hand causes you to feel safe?
~Jonas~

.
In Mozambique an eight passenger van converts to a twenty-five passenger van without changing anything but your comfort. ~Jesse~

.

Getting Struck By Lightning

One day, Jesse and I went outside our house in Lichinga to check out a storm that was rolling in. The rain was on it's way, but hadn't arrived in it's fury yet. We had heard the thunder and seen some lightning flashes nearby. Jesse and I were talking facing eachother, when all of the sudden a very bright light surrounds us and we hear the loudest snap we've ever heard, all while we feel the electricity entering through our heads and even leaving our bodies. My chest felt like my heart had stopped and restarted and my elbows hurt, as though the electricity made its' exit out my arms. Right as it happened, we were just in shock, looked at eachother and said, "Oh no!" We then ran into the house to get out of the storm. We had both been wearing shoes with good rubber heals. But we honestly believe that the Angel of the Lord encamped around us and saved us from death. In Mozambique, witch doctors often call down lightning to strike people they have been paid to curse and kill. If this was the case, it was once again proof that our God is bigger and stronger and makes their curses upon us null and void.

.

Rats! Rats! Rats!

I believe that I have written in an earlier blog post the time that we had rats in our house when I was sick with malaria. But what I didn't explain was that there was a time when we were being overrun with rats. It was so bad that rats had actually found their way into our Nissan Terrano. I started seeing something that looked like rat feces. We weren't sure how it had gotten in. Perhaps through a small space in the vehicle's firewall. Anyway, one say I went into our truck to go somewhere. I wanted to use our GPS that was in the glove box. As I opened the glove box and reached in, I nearly grabbed a huge rat that was sleeping there. I believe it was then I screamed like a girl and ran out of the car. It made its' way further back under the dashboard after chewing through the GPS wires. Not long after that, we put out rat poison in the truck and never saw that particular rat again.

.

Another time we were having a problem with rats coming into our house from underneath by actually biting through the cement floors. We had heard some noise one night in our room. We had heard them in our house before during the night, so Jesse had a machete next to his bed and I had an axe next to my bed; we were ready for our night visitors. I ran after the rat and it headed under the door into Jesse and Tanya's room. I yelled out to them that a rat had gotten into their room. Jesse spotted it and chopped at it with his machete, but missed. This rat was crazy-fast. As it ran out of their room and down the hall, I tried to smash it with the axe head. I hit the rat, but the axe head simply bounced off of this resilient rat. The rat then ran into the closet shelves up in the closet in our living room. Jesse began removing things from the closet. I was aiming a flashlight into the closet so he could see. All of the sudden we spotted the rat along the wall on the top shelf. Knowing it was cornered, the rat literally lunged out at me, nearly hitting me in the genitals. I lunged out of the way as it flew between my legs. We chased the thing into Jonas' room and finally killed it after striking it numerous times with the machete.

.

MORE STORIES TO COME REAL SOON...

.

Christian Young