Point of view

(written 9/24/11)

The longer I am gone, the harder and more challenging life becomes. This 6 weeks in Mozambique may just turn out to be the hardest 6 weeks of my life, but they may also be the time when I see God move the most. It all depends on my point of view.

After traveling for 70 hours on a public bus, not counting stops and layovers, we arrived in Mocuba, Mozambique. We were let off of the bus on the side of the road and waited for our community partner, Donnie, to go for our transportation. Before we knew it, here comes Donnie, on the back of a 49 cc motorbike with 13 following behind him...one for each of us. So we strapped on our packs, some more hesitant than others, and climbed on. I have to say, I have never ridden on the back of a bike with a 50 lb. pack on, but it was by far a highlight of the trip and a much needed surprise after 5 long travel days.

After 4 days of orientation at Bernadette's house (the local missionary who is our contact in Mocuba and doing great things with and for the people here), we headed out to our host families. My avõ (grannie in Portuguese, yet another language we are trying to tackle) takes care of 2 children, Jame and Esperansa. They are her great-grandchildren and the children of her albino granddaughter that she took in when the rest of her family, including her mother and father wanted to kill her. Jame and Esperansa are the third generation of kids Avõ Rosa is caring for and raising. The house we live in is about as large as my room at home. There are 2 bed frames with bamboo mats on top that the kids sleep on in one room and avõ sleeps on in another. I sleep on my own bamboo mats and a sleeping pad I brought on the ground in my own room under my own mosquito netting. Malaria is very prevalent here, but avõ Jame and Esperansa don't seem to worry or take any precautions. In the other room of our dark, mud hut covered in twigs, the chickens live. We have a few chickens and some chicks that roam the property during the day but know as soon as the sun goes down to come back inside the house for shelter and food. My first day in the house, I was woken up by a chicken mistaking my open doorway for the escape to the outside world and tried to jump through my mosquito net. I jumped awake and avõ Rosa just laughed and picked him up and took him outside. Avõ Rosa and the kids wake up with the sun around 5 am. I am left to sleep until around 7 when she wakes me up to wash my face, brush my teeth, and eat breakfast. We sweep the porch and some of the property and then sit on the stoop under the shade for hours. Sometimes, avõ sends me back to bed until its bath time, where I am taken out to a large bush in the field behind our house and given a pail of water that her or one of the kids went and fetched from the well for me and she graciously heated over the fire (that doesn't usually happen, it's usually freezing cold water). In the culture here, everyone sees everything about each other and unless its a male seeing a female, no one thinks twice about it. In addition to bathing, there is a naturally made pit shortly past the bush where I go to the bathroom. There are leaves and loose dirt to cover up any mess I leave behind, and at night, when it's dark, we simply dig holes near the house and do what we need to. After I bathe, it's back to the mats for lunch. Food here consists of a maize and cassava mixture that serves as the staple for picking up food, we eat with our hands, beans, rice, and sometimes leaves of a plant similar to a pumpkin. In the morning, we have ground cassava and sugar know as pop or porridge. Sometimes, someone brings sugar cane that we rip apart with our teeth and chew, sometimes, small peanuts appear and we eat them. Other than that, food is very basic and prepared in a very basic way over the fire. For special occasions, they will kill and eat one of their chickens, but that includes the chicken being literally divided into how many people are there, bones and all. Most meals are the exact same, but some have one different dish or a different order in which they set it out in order to change the flavor. Everyone eats with their hands. Everyone shares the same bowl or plate. Everyone washes their hands in the same bowl of water before and after the meal. Everyone sits together on the ground. Everything in the society is shared and from a communal stance. No one is alone, nothing is done simply for one. If there is left over, it is shared among all, no matter how poor the ones are who are sharing it. After lunch, avõ and I lay on the bamboo mat that she has laid out for us under the shade. She positions me perfectly on the mat and pulls my ponytail every time my head moves to put me back in her perfect place. When we wake up, we have lessons. Not of Portuguese at my house, no, avõ speaks lomway. A native language. She speaks about as much Portuguese as I do, but unlike me, she is in her 70's and has decided she doesn't need to learn anymore and anyone who makes fun of her, she is going to simply laugh at. Which she did the other day as we visited the market. She put on her one pair of sandals, without any bottoms, and her most beautiful printed skirt, and grabbed her basket and we went. We walked to get potatoes and stopped to get some fried bread on the way, because she insists on feeding me tons because I am far too skinny to ever find a husband here (good thing I'm not looking). Once we made it to the market, after stopping to feed her daughter and grand kids bread that I hadn't eaten, she bought the potatoes, put them in her basket, hoisted them on her head, and back we went. She bent down to fix her shoes, she stopped to see more friends, we walked down hills, and that basket never moved once, nor did she touch it with her hands. From what I can guess, she has been carrying things this way, as well as all the other women, since she was no more than 5 years old. After we went to the market, we went back to our mat until it was time for dinner. We sit together, sometimes I learn lomway, sometimes we sit in silence, sometimes I read my bible, sometimes kids from the surrounding villages come to see the mazugu (white person), but always, always I am praying. Sometimes, actually many times, it's for God to allow me to see with His eyes because not being allowed to do anything, sitting all day long, being waited on, is not why we a here. But His plan is perfect and His timing is everything. We are the absolute first group to ever stay with these people in their homes. The mentality of Africa is that white people are closer to God than they are so we must be served. We are guests to people that are more frightened of us than we are of them. We understand and speak none or very little of their language. Building trust and earning our rights in the community is going to take some time. Emotionally and psychologically its extremely hard to sit with a complete stranger, in silence, quite a distance from the closest person you know with nothing but endless time on your hands to think and for the devil to mess with and plant lies in our minds. However, it is my choice, my point of view when I look at my situation and the place God has called me to that I can change. Sure, I can look at it and count down the amount of days till I'm on a bus out of here (and honestly, I do know that number and sometimes can't wait) but if all I'm focused on is when I get to leave, what is the point of being here? God didn't call us here just to survive these 6 weeks, He called us here to start challenging the norms and to learn from a culture that is completely different from our own. He called us here "for such a time as this" and His plan was never for us just to survive. My flesh may struggle every single minute we are here, but that doesn't mean my spirit has to. If I change my point of view to see what He sees and love the way He loves, how much more will we accomplish here, rather than just surviving?