A fine winter day (Maputo style)

There was quite a bit of haze in the early morning atmosphere as I looked out on the surrounding landscape.  It didn’t really seem too different from any other day except Rachel said, “oh, it is cooler out here than I thought,” as we went down the stairs.  However, she was not wearing a coat or jacket. 

 

When lunch time arrived we went up on the patio to eat our ham sandwiches (ham from South Africa, not to be found in Maputo) when she commented the sun was quite warm.   I was reminded of working out in Chokwe last week with Zulu the guard.  We were using a hack-saw to cut through some #6 re-rod and he was doing the sawing  (he wouldn’t let me do it). 

 

After a dozen cuts, he said to me, “ei, this sun is hot, we should move to the shade.”  Since I had slept in the container-turned-bunkhouse at Pieter’s the night before, I was really enjoying the warmth.  So I said, “yes, but it was cold last night.”  He agreed and then added, “but you know this is the kind of sun that will make you sick.”  “Hm, it felt good to me,” I said.  He cut a few more lengths or rod and then moved into the shade to cool off.  (They say good help is hard to find.)

 

So I said to Rachel, you know, this kind of sun can make you sick! at which she laughed.  It was probably 75 degrees Fahrenheit.  “Well, it is winter,” I said.  Her response, “I will take this kind of winter any time!”  It seems strange to sleep under a blanket and a mosquito net at the same time.  It seems the mosquitoes like the warmth of the inside of the house too. 

 

It also gets dark early as in 5:30 pm.  It makes a bit of a challenge for safety if we are traveling or when the neighborhood kids get out of school after 5.   But generally, we have 11.5 hours of daylight per day which beats 8-5 during the winter back in northern Indiana by a long shot. 

 

Because it is the dry season it feels like the great football weather of the mid-west in early October.  Some of the smells, like burning leaves are even hanging around as people burn grass and weeds in old gardens and in fields. 

 

In the cities it becomes a time to trim trees.  Here the trees get “buzz cuts” that pretty well strip all foliage and branches from the trunk.  They say, they don’t need the leaves since it is the cool season and I guess you could say it takes care of the overgrowth.  However, it is quite a shock to see the street after all is cut back and some of the trees look pretty knobby since they have been cut back so often.  Most of the trees seem to survive to get chopped back another year. 

 

Yesterday we participated in March for Jesus in Maputo.  There were about 200 people and we were the only whites (their publicity wasn’t too great and we just happened to find out about it).  We sang and walked about 2 km to a park.  Then they had a full-fledged 2-hr service planned, including a sermon.  (We ducked out early.)  It was fun to be in a march in Africa after having been involved with them in the 90s in Elkhart.

 

In the afternoon we visited an orphanage run by a young woman in her 20’s.  She worked at Iris for awhile and then decided to start her own home.  She has some great stories of how God has provided in many ways for them.  She has 15 people under her roof now and they are mostly teens with a few younger ones.  She will probably get more young ones soon.  We were impressed with the sense of order, of love for each other, of being family.  A couple of Mozambican young men are helping her in the home.  She is looking for land to build and to have a place for them to learn agriculture and other life skills.  Jennifer has a lot of get up and go, a willingness to serve even while she is still learning the language and culture.

 

The number of orphans in Moz keeps increasing.  On TV this week I heard an ad for people to contribute to the “social security” program so that when they die their children will have some support from the government.  It’s almost becoming a given that children will become orphans before they reach adulthood.  This is a huge issue with many repercussions for this society.  God help us know what our part of the solution should be.  I guess in a small way we are already doing something by providing businesses for people, some of whom have AIDS.  When they pass away, their children will have a source of income.

 

And on that note we will end this rambling letter.

 

Steve and Rachel