Pumulani: "Rest" after a busy week

A tree frog, that I think is ugly, creepy even, rests in his favorite spot on our veranda on top of the dartboard. He doesn’t hang out on the floor with the cute but ordinary frogs because, after all, he’s a “tree frog”. He hunts where it’s high. The thought of leaving him behind when we move to our new house has been a pleasant one for me.

It's been a crazy week, here's a recap:

One morning this week during devotions we were asked to pray for a child who, it sounded like, was in a coma. He had been treated for malaria at the health post the previous day but had deteriorated during the night. As soon as prayer time was over we headed to where the child lived. Getting there was like making my way through a maze since all I had to follow was a footpath that meandered through the bush. Vehicles don't like bush footpaths.

and through village yards.

At one point we could go no further by car so I parked and we got out to walk the rest of the way. As we started off down the path we were met by 2 young men who brought the sad news that the child had just passed away.

This week we received our first lot of the new malaria treatment, Coartem, that the Health Department recently added to the socorrista kits (Ernesto and his kit).

The socorristas will now also be doing finger-prick testing in order to diagnose before treating, whereas before, treatment was based solely on symptoms. This is a huge step toward improved health care for rural communities.

This was the first week of VBS (Vacation Bible School) at the mission school. I only popped in for a brief moment but from what I could tell, they were having a great deal of fun.



The puppet show (above though hard to see well here) was a big of a job behind the scenes (below: Keren and Glenn),

but clearly a success even with little Tendai.

This is Bero with his suitcase. He will be making the trip to South Africa with us next week to consult a plastic surgeon re possible correction of burn contractures. He’s pretty excited about the trip!

A few of the week's critters:


Yesterday, while we were packing, this same tree frog sat perched on a shoe shelf we had to move. One of the guys scooped him up and flung him into the grass. There are plenty trees out there and he needed to find a new home anyway. So long "buddy.


Here's one of the ordinary frogs. Cute huh?

For the last few nights we’ve had an extraordinary number of Cicadas beating around our lights. Here, Murray “braves” the doorway to our place. I think he's actually starting to like them.

And last but not least in the week’s events, we moved! Well, at this point we’re halfway there anyway. Emptying the big cupboard (above) so we have cupboard space at the new house (the cupboards there are, as yet, unfinished by a long shot). But a big cupboard like this doesn’t do bush footpaths well either. All those trees get in the way! So the guys had to take the road. That in itself was kind of funny, at least from where I stood.

I told Dwight that in order to move into a house with unfinished cupboards, I at least needed a counter top.
Here, he, Murray and Gabriel do an amazing job with some local hardwood.

The almost finished product is installed with a gas stove-top. It’s beautiful and I feel very blessed!

This move called for a celebration since the house has been under construction for 3 years now, so we butchered 2 sheep and threw a staff party.

Here, rice and sheep stew gets dished up for almost 60 people.

For fun, we put Amanda’s (our daughter’s) old CD player on the veranda and popped in a CD of “Charamba”, a popular Zimbabwean-Christian singer who sings to upbeat, ethnic music. While we waited for everyone to arrive, some of our more demonstrative-in-dance staff (teacher, socorristas, office administrator) decided to practice a few local dance moves.

That had great appeal, and soon, different groups were being called up to show their moves as well.

This is the group of brick-layers. Peter (center) has been with us pretty much since day one when we moved here back in 1996. He’s built a few homes for us. Let’s hope this is the last!

The heads of departments dance

The “anyone who wants to” group, which meant, really, those who were least inhibited. They were pretty good.

Bero shows us a move only he can do!

I just knew we missionaries/volunteers would get called up to dance too, it was just a matter of time.

We did so bravely and not too badly either. Thankfully we had Simon to lead us while everyone clapped.

Dwight gave a short word of thanks for everyone’s hard work and participation with getting the building done. He also announced the name of the house, suggested by his dad, “Pumulani”, a Zulu word which means “rest”. This is the name Dwight’s parents gave their first family home in Transkei many years ago. It seemed very fitting to use it again.

And I guess that pretty much sums up the week. Last night, as we sat on our old veranda and rehashed the day’s events, we noticed that the ugly tree frog had found his way back onto the veranda and sat, perched, atop the dartboard, watching us. Almost defiant.

Yes, this is the same frog as the one at the beginning of this post. During the day he’s white and at night he goes dark. Like I said before, he’s a little freaky. Anyway, as he watched us and we watched him, we wondered what he’d do for a home when we move that dartboard to the new house. We felt kind of sorry for him so we decided that when the dartboard moves down, a stubborn tree frog will get moved down as well. Crazy, I know.

Let me close for now since there is still some moving/settling to do. On Monday we head for Mercy Air, South Africa, to do the Cessna's annual maintenance among other things that need to be done there.

Until then.

Making do, temporarily

It’s surprising to me how many supposedly “temporary” things in my life have become more or less permanent. Like when we moved to Mozambique 16 years ago we picked up a white plastic picnic table because we had no dining table (among many other things). “This is temporary” we told ourselves “until we get settled and replace it.” Well, that white plastic table has been through an awful lot since then and, due to a number of reasons, 16 years later still holds its position as our main dining table. I’m hoping that’s about to change though.

“Making do” and “temporary” is something we do a lot here at the mission in general, partly due to poor availability of supplies, and partly because there are just too many “Priority-A” items on our list.

The mission office is a good example. It serves not only as the hub for administrative activities, but is also used for:
1. housing the staff “First Aid Room” (in what will one day be the bathroom)
2. conducting a variety of classes and meetings

Here, Jethro, a Brazilian missionary/agronomist, conducts a mini agricultural seminar in the back yard of the office.

Summer holidays are now on, so students came to the mission to write letters to their sponsors on Monday. There were so many students they couldn’t all sit in the office, so Matthew arranged chairs on the front lawn. Most of them, plastic chairs, no less.

A lot of thought going into these letters!

Then the students did a few chores like cleaning the mission van. It gets a lot of use!

But back to the office though--it is also used for storage for:
a. camp supplies like tents, dishes, mattresses, beds, linens, etc.
b. used clothing awaiting distribution
c. intensive seminar items (cooking pots, blankets)
d. old computers/keyboards/etc. that could just come in handy one day
e. spare furniture—comes in real handy too. Usually.
f. Etc. (Because there’s a surprise in just about every bag or box in there.)
It’s also our main internet and modem set-up/hook-up spot.


Here, short-termers Keren and Glenn, along with Matthew, work on VBS preparation, school database updating, developing the women’s health section of the health manual, and so on. Note that it’s sort of squishy space-wise since they share the space with the internet system and boxes of stored items!

We’re very thankful for our office but we’re sure looking forward to the day when the training center is ready for occupation. At this point, we’re still back-filling the foundation though, so I guess we’ll be making-do with the existing office space for a while yet.

Last week I promised pictures of our weekend group trip to Paindane, so here they are.

Paindane Reef and crystal blue waters in the background, coconut palm thatched cottage in foreground.

Morning sun from the thatched gazebo. There were even whales tails to be seen splashing in the ocean.

I was so taken with this little local girl that I took about 30 photos of her. She smiled but her little brother on her back was sure shy.

The guys went to the local market looking for, ideally, surfboard wax. :) All they found were ordinary candles.

Which they warmed in the sun to help make the wax spread-able. Ah yes, making do. Actually, I got the whole gang (myself excluded) in this shot although those near the water look like mere dots.

It was nice to get away but also nice to get back to carry on with our work. We’re half preparing to move into our house next week. Even though it still needs a lot of finishing work like cupboards, screens, and more bathroom fixtures, we figure if the key rooms are functional, we can cope. I mean, it would only be unfinished temporarily. Right? ☺ Here are some photos to update you.

This is the shower I tiled. The pebble mosaic on the floor was a real nuisance to work with so if you think you ever want to tackle it yourself, I have some good advice.

Dwight busy installing the kitchen cupboard he and Murray made. If you’ve ever worked with plumbing, you know Murphy’s law that states (making this up as I go) that any pipe that has been wrapped, once, twice, thrice, even more, in plumbers tape and has been perfectly joined to another pipe will leak immediately as soon as the water is turned on. 10 times over. Arg! “Ok hon, taking a photo now. Can you smile?” He’s such a good sport!

I’m glad to say that the leaking pipe finally got sealed. The cupboard will remain as is though. Temporarily (no, really) so other jobs can get done.

And after that long post, I should run along. Got a house to work on.

TTYL

PS: Oh yes, presidential elections were held this week in Moz. So far, things are peaceful, so that’s good.

Tools to move the job along

I know. Mary Poppins actually sings that "a song”, not tools, will move the job along. But a song only goes so far when you have a huge field to plow and a year’s worth of maize to plant, all by hand. In the hot sun. Even on days when you don’t feel so good. So you can understand why Pastor Pedro and his wife are smiling here as they receive this donated plow. This year, for likely the first time ever, they’ll have cows and a plow to work their fields.

It was a happy outing for us and a bit of an adventure too for our newcomers as we bounced over bad roads and even bush whacked a bit in order to deliver this plow to Pastor Pedro’s home. We were welcomed with such warm smiles!

After the plow was unloaded, its blade and wheel had to be fastened and tightened. There were many hands to get the job done plus a fair share of “oversight” by little ones—just to make sure the job was done right!


This means it was a great photo op too!


This is Pastor Pedro’s granddaughter and her friends



It was quite the neighbourhood event. Even passersby stopped to see what was up.


These are the cows that will pull the plow. They were bought recently and are getting used to their new corral.

Here, the women sort through raw peanuts to select good ones for planting.


I can’t imagine preparing and planting huge fields with a cow and plow, never mind by hand, but I do know these “tools” will be a huge help to this family.


This week, Keren arrived from Three Hills, Canada. She’s a nurse and a short termer who will be with us for about a year. I have a number of jobs lined up for her including helping me complete the preventive health manual and do some home visits (and so on, and so on), so she’ll be a busy young lady! She also needed something to help "move the job along" while she’s here, so she went to Chimoio yesterday and got it:

She’s the proud owner of this set of wheels which, I can guarantee you, more than just a few around here envy her for right now.

And last but not least, I couldn’t help but get some shots of a Praying Mantis crawling on Murray’s stuff. The mantis seemed genuinely as interested in the camera and us as we were in him.





Below: He stretched up toward me in this shot and actually jumped right onto my camera!

Here, Glenn gets a shot while the Praying Mantis stretches up to get a better look at Glenn.


I better sign off for now. This post comes early because we are preparing to head out on a group trip over the weekend—a bit of a getaway at Paindane Beach. It’s about an 18 hour drive round trip which is the downside, but it is just about the most beautiful spot along the Mozambique coast and for that, it’s worth it. I’ll post photos of it next week.

Until then!

Family

Father and Son serving lunch.

Family is great! At least most of the families I took photos of this week are. Some aren’t, so I waged war on them. But we’ll leave that topic for the last paragraph.

Pictured above: Fernando (left) the mission school cook, and his son, Matthew (right), the mission office administrator. For the last few weeks Matthew and Glenn (our short termer, below) have been working on updating school files and doing vision screening with the school children. At lunch-time, they pitch in and help Fernando dish up food for +/- 200 kids!

Mom and daughter

This is Tendai and Heather. They are in the process of becoming family (they along with Heather’s husband, Rick, of course). Isn’t she cute?

Here are some of the other families who came our way recently.

These widowed moms and grannies (and the children in their care) are facing hungry times as they’ve run out of their year’s food supply and are still months away from a new crop. They have received some help from their local churches and now also receive mission help to feed their families.

This new family came for help this week. Here, Dwight, Rick and Charles (and Heather and I—not in photo) find out more about the family’s situation.

The kids pose for a shot.

Cute! The little boy showed us his scar from a crocodile bite that apparently happened earlier this year.

What a brave little soul!

And last but not least in the “Great Family” category, is my own family. This week we happily welcomed my cousin, Murray, from Canada. According to local culture, cousins are considered sisters and brothers, so here he’s referred to as my “mano” or brother. I can live with that ☺

He’s come to spend some time with us and get stuck into any work we send his way. Here, he and Dwight move a bathroom cupboard (that Dwight built) into the house. Yayyy!



So, now for the week’s family that was "not-great”. Big, yes, but not great at all!

These are stink bugs.

This is huge family of stink bugs figured they’d just move into my house. At first they clustered in doorway corners, 30-50 of them at a time. I lost no time at all with my handy can of RAID but they just kept coming back from goodness knows where. So I did a thorough search outside our house and discovered, to my immense displeasure, that hundreds of them had taken up residence (or hatched) in our rafters and between the mud bricks of our home!

(They would be the light dots all over the place.)

So I panicked and went crazy alternating spraying them with that trusty can of RAID, followed by a dousing them to wash them away with the water hose.

When stink bugs feel threatened, they…stink. So it was quite the smelly, drawn-out battle indeed as I kept spraying and they kept pouring out through the cracks of our house. At one point I decided I should do a Google search about the problem to see if I could get some ideas.

You know, any unpleasant experience in life can be a lesson of some sort. And even though this one didn’t have any kind of profound element (maybe one will occur to me yet...), I did learn something new. I had always thought that we had two types of stink bugs (and I think other people have also thought the same): big ones like this:


And small round ones like this:


But apparently they are one in the same, just adult and juvenile (nymph) forms. Aha. I felt both stupid and enlightened at the same time. And I'm now more diligent about killing the big ones whenever I see them.

Stink bugs (again, the dots) dropping onto the front step.

I’m not quite rid of this family yet, but I’m workin’ on it!

I’ll close with a few bug/frog shots for those of you who enjoy this kind of stuff. It is bug season, after all, so they present the best photo ops right now.

Praying mantises in the house:

By the kitchen window

And on top of the cupboard.

They eat bugs but I'm guessing probably not stink bugs.

A tree frog who hangs out on our veranda catching bugs, here on top of the dart board. #2 brave soul of this blog post! He's just lucky I wasn't throwing darts.

And, later, “window shopping”.

It's also cicada time again.

Cicadas are noisy, rather ugly, and clumsy in flight, but they're a rather likable “bug” in our family’s opinion.

Well, maybe not in ALL the family’s opinion. Here, Murray smiles wide as he catches one in the house with the full intent to turf him out the door.

Good job! Now let's see if those stink bugs are gone too.

Hang Around

That’s what this Green Mamba did in a nearby tree during our staff devotional time the other morning. Guess he needed the encouragement too? :D

So, did I pay attention to the devotional message? Good question. And yes, I did, which is commendable considering the fact that I have a very distractible mind. ‘Course, it also helped that we only learned of the snake afterwards. And since you asked, Glenn (our short term volunteer) was sharing about hanging on to faith--doing the hard part but the right thing: remaining faithful--and trusting God through life’s difficulties. Because God can bring good out of even the worst we go through.

It’s funny though, how these kinds of life lessons are put to the test over and over again. As if we might forget. Who knows, maybe we would. What’s not always so funny though, is how when we’re going through real tough times, we can be sorely tempted to decide otherwise and NOT hang around.

Our son, Russ, hanging around, during our early years in the bush.

By the time we moved out here to the Mozambican bush, we’d already been through a ton of life’s challenges that had tested our resolve to “hang around” to the limits. But we had decided to stay the course and pursue what we felt was the right direction for us. Moving to the bush.

The move was a major one: from city to remote bush. No electricity, TV, water, bathrooms, house…actually, there was pretty much nothing of anything! There was our stuff in 2 vehicles, our dog, our tents, very foreign surroundings, and us. Oh, and a drum with 200 liters of water we’d hauled from the nearest source some 65 km away. We didn’t even have a cell phone back then. So it was like us and God ☺

We drove into the bush on a footpath for several kilometers until we reached a dry riverbed with no bridge.

“Well, this is it guys. This is where we camp for the next month or so while we build the bridge that will take us across to the old farm buildings where we’ll build our house and the mission base.” My husband announced.

“Huh???” I thought. I’d heard all about this place. Dwight had been here before with colleagues (who were also due to arrive at some point) and his stories of bush-living/working were infused with a passion for the incredible opportunities and possibilities for making an impact. This was a new, exciting chapter in our lives!

I stepped out of the vehicle into what felt like total wilderness and vulnerability to lurking poisonous snakes, biting bugs and malaria-carrying mosquitoes. Thorns on shrubs grabbed at my legs and gnats flew at me from every angle. While Dwight pointed here and there excitedly talking about the bridge and visions for the future, I swatted bugs away from my ears and eyes. I think I managed about 5 or 10 minutes before I was totally overwhelmed with what had seemed (to me) like a real bad idea! Moving out here, to nowhere, with kids?? To do what?! Try to survive? Suddenly, it seemed like a very bad idea indeed!

I quickly crawled back into the car, shut the door securely behind me, and had a mini-melt down. “Nope. Can’t do this. I can’t live here. This won’t work…” Melt downs always come at the best times, don’t they? Dwight comforted me, prayed with me, and told me to just stay put while he put our tents up for the night. And I sat and thought about whether or not I could “hang around”.

Our daughter, Amanda, in our open-air makeshift camp kitchen.

I’m happy to say that I did decide to hang around. I think it came in small steps, like “Ok, I can do this tonight.” Then I’d do the same thing the next night. By the time we saw the first (not our) dog get bitten by a snake, we were freaked out but already pretty much there to stay, come what may. And I’m glad we did.

And with that, I’ll wrap up this blog post.

Oh, what about the Green Mamba?

The guys who work in the litchi orchard were concerned for their safety since the green mambas LOVE hanging around in the litchi trees…all those tasty birds and all. And they are poisonous snakes. So one guy went after him with a slingshot. He didn’t hit him but it was enough to convince the snake to climb a little higher. And I guess that’s another lesson we can take home ☺

New Cool Neighbors and Health Post News

Rock Monitor (juvenile)

Actually, since most of our new neighbors are cold-blooded reptiles, classifying them as “cool” rests on whether or not you’re a reptile lover. I guess after so many years of living around them, I’ve learned to rather like reptiles. Good thing since there are so many!

We recently discovered this Rock (or White Throated) Monitor living in our water tower. These guys can grow to 1.32 meters in length, but this one is still a baby. And yes, he dug a hole/home into the compressed dirt brick. Apparently they bite hard and hang on like a bull-dog when threatened, so I won’t go poking him with my finger. (more info on White Throated Monitors)

Rainbow Skinks like this one skitter and sun themselves among the rocks in our yard.

Tree Agamas and Ground Agamas hang out in the yard too.

This Rough-Scaled Plated Lizard lived among our rocks but then he found a safer, more convenient spot—a rain-water drainage pipe we installed. So he moved there instead. I bet he said, “Thank you, God!”

This is snake time, and a Twig Snake like this (there are actually 2 in the photo)

was lying smack dab in the middle of my path the other day while I was rushing to get somewhere. I stopped dead in my tracks and we just stared at each other for a long time. There is no anti-venom for the deadly bite of this snake. Thankfully, it’s a very shy snake. I hurled sticks, which he ignored because they didn’t land anywhere near him (I have terrible aim ☹). When I turned around to look for something bigger to throw (small target + larger weapon = increased probability of at least scaring enemy away), he slithered off into the bush. Phew. I didn’t have my camera on me so I used this photo I took last year.

And then there are these guys.

These Ghekos live IN our house WITH us. At night, as they chase bugs or each other around, they can be more entertaining than the TV or Facebook status updates. Supposedly, they make barking or chirping sounds. I, myself, have never heard them so for me, the verdict is still out on that :P

We have other neighbors right now too, like big hairy spiders, several varieties of wasps, more scorpions, centipedes, bats, monkeys and mice. Oh dear. If only we could choose our neighbors!

Moving along here.

We’ve been busy as bees trying to finish up our house. I spent hours down there tiling a shower. Straight tiles in an off-square shower = a time consuming challenge! Sure glad Mushu was such a big help.

Glenn and Matthew put a lot of time this week into updating school child photos and info,

plus doing vision tests on the kids.

And there are changes in the works for both of our health posts.

#1: Construction on a new health post, which will be situated right beside the school, has the official “go ahead”. The new situation will make the health post more accessible to not only the school kids but for the local community as well.

#2: The Health Department has requested our help in expanding the current Mucombezi Sede community Health Post (which the mission operates)

to a “Health Center”. (More building!) Health Centers, which are staffed by nurses and have regular visits by Dr.’s, provide a wider range of services. This would help to better meet some of the critical health needs in our area.

Now THAT’s cool!

Until next time.

Struggles

Yesterday, September 25th, was a holiday in Mozambique “Dia das Forças Armadas”. Or as it was explained to me, “The day when the first shots were fired at Portuguese Colonialists back in 1964.” And so began the long, armed struggle for independence which begat the civil war which plunged the nation into dire poverty and disrepair. The peace accord that eventually silenced the guns and brought a halt to the destruction was signed in 1992, more or less 28 years later.

Thankfully, the day commemorating this important date was a quiet one for us. We got up at a leisurely pace and I was just settling down with my 2nd cup of coffee when someone arrived at our door. A local pastor came to ask if I could come see a sick gentleman who had apparently been sick for quite awhile with “a stomach thing” and had been here and there for treatment without much success. Experience has taught me that in such cases, I will likely have about the same degree of success since our rural bush clinics can only provide a basic level of care. But we counsel people, offer help or any relief we can, and pray for them if they would like.

One look at the gentleman’s thin limbs and swollen belly, and hearing his history, told me he suffered from cirrhosis of the liver. I’ve seen other cases in this area. We gave him some vitamins, encouraged him to follow up at the nearest hospital, prayed for him then gave him a ride home. When I got home I reviewed the condition. Again.

Cirrhosis is the irreversible, progressive destruction of the liver. Although this disease can be caused by chronic alcohol abuse, in Africa there are other common causes as well like:

1. Hepatitis B infection
2. Toxins ingested from badly stored grains or peanuts: (Few out here have the capacity to store grain “well”. You’re lucky if you can keep it from rats, goats and fire and you’re VERY lucky if your crop will feed you for an entire year.)
3. Schistosomiasis or Bilharzia: Where this disease exists, it is the most common cause of liver damage. It is present in the water of most if not all rivers in this part of the world and the fluke, or “worm”, easily penetrates human skin.

People here depend heavily on river water for bathing and use at home. Some communities now have access to well water, but some do not. Even so, there are measures they can take to make river water safe for use. In the Preventive Health manual I’m putting together for communities, I think I’ll highlight that section in red, underline it, italicize it and put it in bold! (But then, I'm tempted to do that with all the sections...)


Speaking of water (and struggle), this week the guys tackled swapping the old 5,000 Liter water tank on our stand to a 10,000 Liter tank. It was quite the event.

First, you build a structure out of logs, wire, nails and boards that is strong enough to support the shifting weight of a dangling, oversized PVC tank and several guys who will climb around pushing and pulling the tank, rearranging the poles, pounding nails, moving boards, etc.

Then, you tie strong rope
(It doesn’t look strong, but it is. Really. ☺) around and around the tank then up to the top center pole then down again into the hands of 2 gangs of men on either side of the stand. You could call this a “bush pulley system”. And everyone puuuuuulls!

Next, you may have to remedy a few things that slip, creak or just aren’t high enough by sending guys scrambling up the rather dubious scaffolding.

Here, Rick demonstrates safety-consciousness by tying himself to a pole while he works. (Look Dear, no hands!) Charles, on the other side, decided to try that but with wire instead. We at the bottom helped by shouting advice and warnings, gasping, getting sweaty palms and taking pictures (thanks for the photos Heather!)

Last, you have the finale where the “Patrão” (Dwight) goes to the very highest point to release the pulley anchor and secure water pipe fittings.

Ta da.

This post is getting long now so let me try to close quickly with a few last photos.

We visited a community this week that has a half-finished health post. They have requested our help in getting this up and running so the community has better access to health services. I can hardly wait to get tucked into this project!

While there, we also visited the home of a widower in poor health who had almost no food and 2 small kids to care for.
The littlest guy really didn’t like the looks of us at all. No matter how much we tried, and maybe because we tried, he either cried

or hid his face the whole time we talked.

This (below) is their current home which I doubt will make it through the rainy season.

First item on the agenda is (besides food and clothing) a better home with better food storage capabilities. The orphan/widow home below has a spare room that will come in handy.

Who knows? We may just coax a smile out of him.

Let's just hope it doesn't take 28 long years for that!