Fun at work!

Last week one of the translation teams (for Macua) left Bethel to move to their new Remote Translation Office. It was a bittersweet goodbye since many of these friends have been here at Bethel for years. One of the translators is named Castro and his wife, Ancha, worked in the kitchen with me. Of course, the kitchen crew had a little going away party for her. Here we all are.

Here is Ancha and her husband Castro.

Here is Cremildo, Abilio and Alita. Cremildo apparently thought his "special" stance was noteworthy. And Abilio thought his 'sandals with socks while working in a kitchen' was noteworthy. Anything for a picture! 

Now. Let me just warn you. This is the single most fantastic video I have captured during our entire stay here. Sorry that some of it is shaky, but it is worth it. There is a traditional song that is sung in Tsonga or Tshangana (not sure which) when someone is leaving home. The sisters insisted I should preface the video by saying that this was outside of the work day so that you won't get the impression that they're a bunch of goof-offs. That is one thing I've noticed about the brothers and sisters here. They take their jobs very seriously and consider it a great privilege to be at Bethel. They are almost hesitant to show a smile or giggle for fear that you won't think they're serious. But the fact is, this was a fantastic peak into the warm love and joy that these brothers and sisters share. Enjoy!

Praia

Hello! Sorry its been a while since we have blogged. Time seems to fly by awfully fast here. Its hard to believe we only have a little over 2 weeks left. We're glad that we've made the most of our time here, yet there still seems to be so many things left that we wanted to do! 

On our way to "lala"

Fortunately, one of those things was go to a beach that was a tad nicer than the one across the street from Bethel i.e. not covered with trash. Last weekend a brother in our hall asked if we would like to go with him and his family to a beach. We enthusiastically agreed! I've decided I'm calling this beach "lala" because when we asked Joao Paulo (the brother who brought us) where the beach was, he said its "la la" which means sort of "over there." There's no official name for the site I guess, and I honestly have no idea how he even found the beach in the first place. Its in the middle of nowhere.  You literally drive down a road for a while, then keep driving down the dirt road, full of "ondas" which are like huge waves of speed bumps in a pothole filled dirt road (not a ride for those who suffer from motion sickness). Then you take a right down a smaller dirt road, through a village, then through a field, through some bushes and all of a sudden you're on the beach! 

This beach was unlike any I've been to before. Peaceful and serene do not even begin to fully capture the calm that surrounds you. We were the only people on the beach for a few hours. Around noon time a bunch of women came on the beach who were there to meet the fishermen coming in on their boats. The women take the fish, crabs, or shrimp that the fishermen have caught and haul it into town to sell. We stuck around for a while to choose our dinner. 

Fishermen coming in to sell their catch

Ian's first clam

In the meantime we were digging for clams on the beach and were fairly successful as a group (I only found 1 or 2, but I'm pretty sure that is relative to the effort I put into digging for them. Clam digging. Not my thing). We gathered maybe 1lb or so on our own and then bought another 3lbs from one of the women. We call these clams, but they tasted more like mussels to me. Their shells were really thick though and they did look like clams. Either way they were the most delicious clams/mussels I've ever had! 

This is the lady we bought the rest of the clams from.
Cutest baby on her back.

While "shopping" around for our fish/crabs, we saw some interesting catches. One fishermen had a huge eel, about 6-7' long which he was repeatedly bashing against his boat to kill it. Interesting. There were all kinds of big fish the fishermen were offering, but I thought this little boy had the most interesting catch. 

He was playing with it in the water like it was a toy boat or something. Poor fish :( 

We decided on some crabs. I suppose we could have caught about 5 bazillion little crabs on the beach, because there were that many. I kid you not. Check out this video. If you look towards the horizon you will see them. They were EVERYWHERE. Fortunately they seemed to scatter and run once you stepped in their general direction. Still, I was not a fan. 

However, I was glad that I had not come face to face or toe to pincher with any of these slightly larger crabs we planned to eat... 

Lucas (Joao Paulo's son) had his own catch he carried around. 


All in all it was a great morning. We headed out to cook up our fresh catches. However, Joao Paulo decided he had a hankering for chicken and french fries instead. To our surprise we stopped at Costa do Sol on our way home. Its a sort of famous restaurant right on the beach. You can tell its sort of famous because I've never seen so many foreigners in one place here! I am quite glad we did because it was a fantastic meal. Sangria,  salad, calamari, and a massive plate of fish, shrimp, lobster and french fries. 

Needless to say we were all stuffed by the time we left. Fortunately we were past the biggest "waves" in the road, otherwise that would not have been such a pleasant drive back! 


We went back to their house and had crepes with honey and cinnamon for dessert. Then we watched Happy Feet 2 together. It was great. 


Since we were so stuffed from the restaurant, the family insisted we come back Tuesday after meeting to eat all the clams and crab we had bought. 

That was a fun night. We ate the most delicious clams ever and listened to fardo music. I think I forgot to mention this family is from Portugal. Joao Paulo works for a European company that has various branches around the world. When he heard they were considering a Mozambique office, he and his wife and son volunteered to be sent here. They've been here about a year and love it. There are quite a few families in our congregation who have moved here from Portugal in order to help in the field ministry. They are a great asset to the congregation. 


After all that talk about food I'm starving! Hope everyone has a great weekend. More later!

The 14th Class of Bible School for Single Brothers in Mozambiqe

Last weekend, the 14th class of the Bible School for Single Brothers graduated with much rejoicing. Many traveled to Maputo for the joyous occasion, including family members of the graduates from all over the country as well as missionaries and those in the traveling work. On this special day, it would be the first time that each graduate would receive an assignment during the graduation program. The graduates were anxiously anticipating their new assignments as revealed by their serious faces.

The graduation program was quite moving and was followed by a reception staged in the branch's garage. Hors d'ouvres were served and the graduates treated the guests to more spirited singing of two kingdom songs (video at the end). All of the brothers and sisters were filled with such joy on this special occasion--they were laughing non-stop, they were posing for pictures, passing babies around and playing with children.

The graduation reception in the branch garage

Sheri and I with Marcelénio and Mesaque (Meshach)
They sat at our table for morning worship during the school

Sheri with Francisco Coana

Sheri with Eluisa from Brazil

Here are the graduates singing at the reception:

Polana Cimento

Our congregation that we were assigned to is called Polana Cimento. Its in the city and is a double kingdom hall (1 hall upstairs, 1 downstairs). There is also a missionary home right behind the kingdom hall.

I wanted to share some of the pictures of the friends in our congregation. 

Some of the kids from the hall.
4 of them are bible students and come to the meeting on their own and always comment...without their parents!

This is Charles and Stefanie.
They are missionaries here from France originally.
They've only been here for about 8 months, but they love it.

This is Nora getting ready to leave.
All the moms carry their babies in a long piece of material called a  kapulani.
They use it for many things...a baby carrier, a blanket, a skirt, a towel, a hat...whatever they need at the moment!

Here's another mom and baby, front carrying :) There are lots of babies in our hall!

This is Gabe and Karen Dries.
They've been here (from Patterson) about 1 year and  a half.
They give us a ride to all the meetings and field service.

Here I am with all the foreign sisters in our hall.
Left to Right: Stefanie (France), Maria (NY), Karen (CT), Suzanne (Portugal)

Walter and Maria.
He was one of the instructors for EBIS (Bible school for single brothers)

Casimiro e outro irmao que nao me lembro o nome! 

That's all I have for now. We had the graduation for EBIS yesterday and we took about a million pictures so I will try to put those up later this week.

9 Years Later...

Not to get all mushy and sentimental, but seriously, who would've thought 9 years ago we'd be celebrating our wedding anniversary here in Mozambique? Definitely not me!

At any rate, in a funny coincidence, one of the other American couples here has the exact same anniversary as us! Same day, same year! Weird huh? We thought we could go out to dinner together or something but then we realized we're all either broke and/or without transportation. So instead, Ian and I had dinner in our room. Fortunately for us, it was Matapa for dinner, which I love (its a very traditional Mozambiquan dish made with shredded squash leaves with coconut milk and crushed peanuts, served over jasmine rice). So that was fun. Plus one of the other sisters heard it was our anniversary and dropped off a little card and a bottle of beer and some cashews. So sweet of her.


In other news... I started working in the accounting department this week. Right now I'm basically just doing a lot of data entry type stuff that had gotten rather back logged. One of the things I did was enter all the congregation contributions for the past couple of months. Since the internet is not necessarily familiar or accessible to all in the country, nearly all of the congregations make a bank transfer to the branch, then send a copy of their deposit slip and their form indicating the allocation for each fund (i.e. Kingdom Hall construction, Worldwide Work, special funds like Assembly hall projects, etc.). Then we enter this information into Admin2000 (an enterprise management software designed by some brothers that pretty much all the branches now use to manage basically everything from accounting to scheduling haircuts) and match the electronic bank transfers with each congregation's contribution. In fact some congregations still send in cash if they don't have access to make a bank deposit or transfer. 


Something about handling all those handwritten forms made me feel especially close to the brothers all over the country. Just seeing the forms and knowing what it took for them to get to me here was kind of touching. Plus, just imagining what a sacrifice it is for the brothers to make the small contributions that they do. This really helps to reinforce the appreciation I have for the Kingdom Hall construction assistance arrangement for the poorer countries. Literally some congregations are only able to contribute a very very small amount (we're talking $10 or $20 USD) each month, which would never allow them to be able to fund construction or maintenance of a KH on their own. Its just so loving and wise of Jehovah to arrange for all of our brothers and sisters around the world to have a dignified place of worship, no matter what their economic circumstances.


I asked one of the accounting brothers if the forms all come in the mail and he kind of looked at me strangely and was like, 'well, I guess they could send them by mail. I never have used the mail here, but I know we have a mail system.' So apparently the way they send in the forms is through the monthly literature delivery route (a rota) that the brothers make from the branch here in Maputo to the rest of the country. Once a month a truck loaded with literature is driven from the South Africa branch to the Mozambique branch (about an 8-10 hour ride). The truck is unloaded and then re-sorted and re-loaded onto smaller trucks to make the monthly literature deliveries throughout the country. Its pretty amazing actually. The brothers said the trip usually takes anywhere from 5-8 days, depending on which route they are assigned to. The brothers along the route are waiting patiently for the deliveries each month in designated places along the way. Sometimes they end up waiting hours and hours, but they won't leave and miss their delivery!


Anyhoo, we miss everyone back home. Can't believe our time here is already half way through! Time is definitely flying by, but we can't wait to see everyone again. Love to you all!

We're Part of History!

We had a special lunch today! Here a special lunch meant hamburgers and french fries with all the fixin's. Including a fried egg! Plus coca cola. Plus ice cream (side note, dairy is not big here, so the "ice cream" has no dairy in it. Its made with vegetable fat). Also, just so you can fully appreciate the effort it takes to prepare a meal like this, consider the following. They made the hamburger buns from scratch. They even made sure to place a cluster of sesame seeds on the top. They hand made all the hamburger patties. Almost 500 of them (they were sort of small patties). The french fries are all freshly cut potatoes. The good thing is they do have this cool machine that washes and peels the potatoes and then spits them out all clean. Then they use a food processor type machine to cut them into fries. 


You can see the kitchen staff enjoying their late lunch.

The special announcement was that starting with the July edition, the Watchtower is now being published in Macua which is one of the native languages here in Mozambique. This is an historic event and we were very excited to be here for it (Also, the ice cream + coca cola = yummy ice cream floats!)

Fogueiro and Cremildo showing the July 1, 2012 edition of the Watchtower in Macua

In fact, Macua is the most widespread language among the Witnesses here, though it is not the most common language spoken in all of Mozambique. There is an interesting reason for that. Back in the 70's, the brothers were sent to re-education camps in a region called Carica, up in the northern part of the country. The idea was to "re-educate" the brothers so they could learn to support the new Mozambiquan government. The brothers were essentially exiled. Years later, after they were released, many of the brothers stayed in that Northern part of the country. Thus the large concentration of witnesses in that region to this day. 


There is a lot of excitement in general here at the branch. Two couples also arrived today who will be helping with some of the construction projects going on in Mozambique. One couple was from Scotland and the other from England. Plus they're expecting 5 more couples within the next few weeks. Not only are there the kingdom hall projects that are on-going, but there is also the remote translation offices and new missionary homes to be built and/or remodeled. Plus they will be starting on temporary construction of some residences here at the branch. Basically they're carving out some very small rooms in the warehouse space. In September, they will be starting the Couples School here, so they need somewhere to put the students! The branch has been waiting for approval for a branch expansion project, and they desperately need it! Right now, there are several single brothers sharing single rooms. Plus there are some small condo properties that they are using to house some brothers and sisters off site. Our dining room is crammed with 16 tables, and with the new couples coming, there won't be anywhere to put more tables. The brother mentioned the need for expansion specifically in his prayer this morning, so they are certainly eagerly awaiting further direction.


That being said, in the next few months the branch will also be losing quite a few people as the translators move to their remote translation offices and the brothers from the current School for Single Brothers leave in a couple of weeks. All in all, that's around 50 people who will be leaving the branch. This is good news, in a way, since it makes room for the expected branch expansion. 


It seems like they are constantly bringing people in here. Just a week after we arrived, a sister from Brazil came. Her name is Eloisa. She is here for 1 year. She had just finished getting her specialized medical degree in Endocrinology in Brazil. She had put in her application for Brazil Bethel and was waiting/hoping to hear. In the meantime, she met a couple from the Mozambique branch while they were visiting (Osten and Sylvia Gustafson). Osten encouraged her to apply to Mozambique, so she did. After accepting the invitation to come to Mozambique, she was invited to serve at Brazil bethel. She said it was a very very hard decision to stick to her obligation here, since she had been dreaming of serving in Brazil. But she is quite happy here now. 


There are so many amazing stories that we've been able to hear from the friends here. More on that in another post. Soon, I hope!

More from the kitchen

I finally got a new assignment in the kitchen today! I was assigned to dish washing duty (lava louca). There are 2 of us and true to the name, we wash the dishes! They do have an industrial dish washer, so it is not so difficult, and there are only about 130-160 place settings at breakfast/lunch. It was sort of fun actually. But since Ana and I were so fast, we finished about an hour early both in the morning and afternoon. That meant that in the morning we assisted with preparing the shrimp for tomorrow's lunch. The shrimp here are about 6" long on average. So mostly it was just ripping off the heads, removing the shell and de-veining them. Not fun exactly, but I managed. 


Here's a picture of Ana.

She and her husband are here for the current Bible School for Single Brothers that is going on at the branch. Sadly, the school is ending next month and Ana and her husband will most likely be going back out to the circuit work where they previously were. I've found there are many transient friends here. There was another sister I worked with in the kitchen who was a special pioneer with her husband. He was here for some medical treatment or care and they just got sent back out over the weekend with like a day's notice. We didn't even get to say goodbye!


Finishing the dishes also meant that in the afternoon we helped prepare the fish for Wednesday's dinner. Ugh. They call them carapa, which I think is like carp? They're about 12-14" long. They come in huge frozen packs. But its not like frozen fish in America. They are still very fresh. So we have to defrost the fish, then, you know, clean them. Like cut off the fins and tails and cut open the head and remove the, um, insides. Gross. To me anyway. I guess if you're a real cook or you're from a different country cleaning and preparing fish is no big deal. But it was to me. I literally had to psych myself out for a few minutes before digging in and cleaning out the head. Basically I fully cleaned and prepared about 3 fish. In the same amount of time Ana prepared about 20. But hey, at least I did it! I wish I had taken pictures, but then again, that would be not so pleasing to look at.


I did, however, take pictures last week when I thought I was doing another pretty gross task. But, I still hold that the fish were most gross thus far. Last week they made sal picao. Which I thought was sort of funny since that's a typically Brazilian dish, but they have a pretty international menu here :) Anyway, if you know what sal picao is, you know that involves shredded chicken. For those of you who aren't familiar with it, the way it's made here is shredded chicken mixed with carrots, lettuce, french fries and mayonnaise. So they boil whole roaster chickens and then we have to take them apart and shred the meat by hand. That was fun. Not. For your viewing pleasure...

Yum. But on a tastier note, that day we had lula for lunch. That is calamari. Sooooo delicious. They make this tomato salsa to serve with it. Definitely my favorite lunch so far. 


Here is our overseer Mafere frying the calamari.

That day, I actually ate in the kitchen for lunch. They let the kitchen staff stay in the kitchen and eat during lunch if they don't feel like going back and changing to eat in the dining room. It's a fun bonding experience I think. We all sit in the back on stools and carts and eat. 

That's one thing that is pretty cool about being at this branch. Back in Brooklyn, the rule about no jeans or casual attire in the dining rooms was pretty non-negotiable as far as I knew. But here, they allow the kitchen staff and even housekeepers or anyone else who doesn't dress up for work, to come for dinner to glean without changing. That's pretty convenient!


That's all for now. Hope you all are having a great time back home! Love ya.

Teeming with life...

So I don't really know where to start. Ian already posted about our trip to Kruger Park, but there are literally hundreds of pictures that we took. There's no way to post all of them, or even all of our favorites, but I wanted to at least get a few up here to give you a taste of what we experienced. 

I will say I don't think there is anything coming close to the experience at Kruger Park in the states. I could be wrong. I think I was just mostly shocked at how many animals we actually saw. The park itself is enormous, and we really only covered a small fraction of it. Yet in that small fraction and in that small amount of time, we saw soooooo many animals! When I considered that, it made me realize how huge the population of animals must be in this park. Mind blowing actually!


Anyway... here is a sampling of what we saw...

The first animal we saw just seconds after crossing the bridge were Impala. We were very excited to see these beautiful animals, but our tour guides were slightly less impressed. I guess Impala are to Kruger what squirrels are to Elm Park hahahaha. Still, we found them very beautiful and probably about 1/5 of our pictures are of Impala.

Not long after, we had a real treat when we saw a rhino crossing the road. These are one of the less common animals, so we were really excited to see him. And he was BIG. I don't think I realized how big these animals actually are. But especially just 20 feet or less from your car, you realize how big they really are! 


We went on for a little while not seeing anything but more Impala... but finally we got our first of many looks at elephants!

Not long after and we saw the iconic giraffe! In fact, on the second day we came across about 20 giraffes all along the edge of the road feasting on some sort of tree/bush. Whatever it was, they were really enjoying it!

Once again, its crazy the awe you feel when they're walking right past your car. In fact, when they crossed the street I think my jaw just about hit the floor. Talk about grace and elegance!

And here's some of the other animals we encountered...

Probably one of the most frightening sites I saw all day :)

We came across a herd of literally hundreds of water buffalo crossing from the river.
It took several minutes for them all to get across!

Slightly rarer antelope called the Kudu

A mongoose. I'm surprised we actually saw him. We think they were dwarf variety.
They weren't much bigger than a chipmunk.

Right before we left the park, we even got a glimpse of 3 lions and lioness. Mostly we saw their tails wagging in the grass, but the lion stood up long enough to get a picture.

On our way to camp the first night, we also discovered the favorite place of one of the leopards. This was a really rare site. We were able to see him just off to the side of the road, but hidden under a tree among leaves and branches and tall grass. One of the other cars let us know that this was a favorite place for the leopard. So we gawked as much as we could that night. On our way out of the camp the next morning, we figured we'd give it another try to see the leopard better. On our way down the road, there he was, in the middle of the road! Sadly he hurried to the other side of the road before we got there, but we were again able to see him in his favorite spot. We had some technical issues with the camera, but we were able to get a couple of fairly close shots of him.

We caught just the very last bit of the sunset that night... 

 so that was a lot of pictures I ended up posting, and yet hundreds more that I didn't! :)


Love to everyone. And thanks so much for your comments and e-mails. We love getting them, so keep them coming!