Ten day bush outreach

     Note: my camera broke the first week I was in Africa so most of the photos you see on my blog are from someone else. The girl who had a camera on this outreach didn't bring it out until the last days so, unfortunately there aren't a lot of photos of what we did. 

    After graduation I got to spend 10 days dropped off in a bush village. Only about 30 Harvest School students chose to do this. They gave each person a box of water which was only 12 bottles for ten days and most of us would drink two a day. I had a pump which I was able to bring once I saw how little water we were given. This turned out to be a really good thing, as no one else had one, and we were the only team that could not buy water in the village. I don't think the pastors knew we could only drink bottled water. The pastor my team was staying with did not seem to understand what my pump was or how it worked. We were divided into teams of three and four. I was on a four girl team. Early on a Monday morning they loaded us and our supplies onto a flat bed truck for a two hour ride to the village. 

 
     They had given us enough food for us and some to share. We had pasta, tuna, rice, beans, tomato paste, cassava flour, tea, sugar, peanut butter, and jelly. We were also given a rather large sum of money (approx $200 US) to use as we chose, either to buy things while we were there, or to bless the church with when we left, or what ever we felt God led us to do.

    Each team was placed in the care of an Iris village pastor (each village had an established Iris church). When we got to the village we were met buy at least a hundred excited kids, the church mama, and the pastor. They led us to a house with a large fenced yard. This yard was to be our home where we would sleep, eat, and spend the majority of each day. We each had brought our own two man tent which felt like a quiet sanctuary after living with 13 people in a house on the base.

     There were a lot of people around and with our limited language skills it would take us many days to learn names and begin to understand who was related to who. We had no translator but one of the girls knew some Spanish and the pastor spoke Portuguese so she worked as our translator. We spent the morning trying to talk to the pastor and get to know some of the kids and mamas that were hanging around. Every woman in the village is called a mama.

  

     Each village has a chief and it is expected that visitors meet the chief and bring a gift, we brought him a Bible. On the way to visit the chief we stopped at the church and had a short service with lots of singing and dancing. On the way home from seeing the chief we stopped to pray for some sick people. After dinner they found a table and a TV and got everything hooked up so we could watch some Mozambican dance videos. It is rare to have electricity in the village and this house probably only had it because it was right next to the market. It was not the pastors house, it was actually the house of his father and one of the nicest houses in the village. The music was played far too loud; it was almost painful, and the dancing was terrible. We had to stay and watch to be polite and it was nice of them to set it up for us. At 8:00pm we told them we needed to go to bed. They get up around 4:00am so going to bed this early is normal.
                                      This is the man who owns the house we stayed at.

      The family did wake up at 4am and the mamas swept the yard and scrubbed last nights dishes with sand. We stayed in our tents dozing until 5:30 and finally gave up and got up. We started the morning by going out to buy bread. Traditional Mozambican breakfast seems to be bread and tea. Since we had all we needed except the bread, we went to buy enough bread everyday for the group of people we were staying with. We had brought two jars of peanut butter and one of jelly. We did not expect this to last long since we had been given jars of peanut butter during the school. One jar of peanut butter would last one house of 13 people one day, once it lasted two days. But the same jar of peanut butter lasted us for three days in the bush and we put it on all 40 pieces of bread! The whole ten days we were there we always had either peanut butter or jelly to eat on our bread and so did every one else. We bought 40 small rolls everyday which only cost about two American dollars. 

    After breakfast we had our individual quiet times and a group devotional time. We tried to include the pastor in our group time by telling him what scriptures we were reading. The pastor ate breakfast with us and had his bible reading time along with us.

    We wanted to get to know the women and girls that were hanging around and doing all the work, so we got out some nail polish. They loved getting their nails done and soon all the women and children had painted nails on both hands and feet. The guys then decided that they didn't want to be left out. Since no one has explained that nail polish is only for girls we soon had a group of young men with brightly painted nails including the pastor. That evening the pastor preached his sermon with bright red nails which was rather distracting.
                           After getting their nails done it was back to work for the mamas. 
                                    This is the kitchen of the house we were staying at.

                                            This is the mama cooking inside the kitchen.

 

 

     We had brought along some cards that had daily objects and animals on them that Iris uses to teach English. We got them out and tried to learn some Makua and Portuguese. We worked on learning language the rest of the morning, except when we took a break to help the women pick matapa leaves for dinner.

               Lunch was xima, pronounced Sheema, and fish.  

              Pounding cassava root for Sheema. This little girl was a very hard worker.

                                 

                                             Sifting the ground cassava root for sheema.

                                                                 The fish.

 

                              Pink and blue fish are common here. I don't know what they are.

 

        We went to church again for worship, followed by a short sermon. Mostly kids showed up but some women came and a few men. Then we went out to pray for the sick and to pray for the baptism of the spirit for one family. Every time we went out we would be followed by a hundred kids. We made a huge parade that took awhile to get anywhere. The kids loved to hold our hands and walk along with us. I loved the kids and spent the whole time learning names and encouraging them to sing, dance, and teach me Makua. I also encourage the kids to pray in church and for the sick.

  We ate diner and then had a quiet evening and another early night. Wednesday morning we got up at 5:00am so we could help with the sweeping. We ended up sweeping outside of the house and it was quite a bit of work. We used short little brush brooms and had a pretty large area to sweep. They do the sweeping early because it is so hot but we still worked up a good sweat.

    After our hard work we had tea and bread and then some time with God. I was watching all the kids trying to get through the fence; listening to them yell acunya, acunya which is white, white. I had decided that I should try to do something with them, when one of the guys decided to open the gate before the kids wrecked the fence trying to look through. About 30 kids came in and he had them all sit in a corner of the yard. I decided to try and make some friends and went over and sat with them. They immediately all wanted my attention and to touch me and talk to me.

     I got them playing the guess which hand it's in game, but soon had too many hands and they started pushing too much. One of the little boys pulled some cards out of his pocket and organized the other kids. He picked which kids got to play and got everyone sitting in a circle. The other kids didn't seem to mind just watching and went along with the plan. We ended up playing super simple all luck card games for a long time but then once again the group got rowdy and the other kids wanted to play and more kids kept coming in from the street. Things were getting pretty interesting when one of the older guys came over to chase the kids away so we could eat lunch. 

      After lunch we met the pastors wife and two little boys who had walked for two hours to meet us, and ended up staying with us, for the rest of the time. We got out some coloring books so we could color with the boys and tried to talk with his wife but she didn't know Portuguese and was really quiet so we weren't able to talk. Then we went out to the church again and prayed at about 5 houses before going back.  This is the pastor and his family.

    We wanted to shower after diner, so we went to the well to help them haul water to fill the storage tank in the yard. The people love it when we try to haul water on our heads and they even enjoy watching us pump the water. We caused quite a stir because the well was near the market and there were a lot of guys that would yell at us and come over and kids flocked around us, but had a good time and all of us took a turn pumping and hauling water. We ate diner and showered.
 This is the shower. It's usually in the same "room" as the potty, just a little set apart. You stand on the rock to keep your feet out of the dirt and pour water over yourself with the bucket. There is no drain.

        This is the toilet.  I guess when they get full they just dig a new one. Sometimes there are roaches coming up out of the hole and rats in the corners.

    In-between showers we learned some clapping games the girls play a lot and there are a lot of them to learn. They insist on being perfect and quickly grow tired of playing if the other person makes mistakes, so there was a lot of pressure to learn them quickly and correctly.

    Thursday was another early morning and we decided to help sweep the church and area around it. Then the normal breakfast and God time. We just relaxed for awhile and then I got up to play with the kids. We did more of the same games, clapping games, cards, guessing the hand game, and drawing pictures in the dirt. Then we ate lunch and took naps.

     We did not go to the church this day, I don't know why. We had been feeling and acting tired all day so I think they realized we needed to rest. We did still go out and do house to house prayer and it was nice to get out of the yard and take a walk. It is super draining trying to play with the kids and trying to come up with stuff to do all the time.

      Other than cooking there was not much work to help with and they didn't seem to have any plans for us so, it was a lot of trying to come up with stuff to do and trying to build relationships through the language barrier. We had a solar bible in makua so we played that a couple times but only a few people would listen to it and it was hard for a group to hear. We were all ready for an early night but most of us stayed up until 8 which felt much more like midnight.

    Friday we woke up refreshed and ready to once again jump in with learning all we could. Another girl and I went to sit by a mama who was weaving grass into a rope that would later be used to make a bed. She happily taught us how to do the braiding. We took turns braiding for quite awhile. Our hands would get tired pretty quickly and it took a while to figure out how to make the braid neat and even. We had to keep adding more grass as we braided and it was hard to get the right amount and make a neat braid.  Here is what the rope looks like.

  A man came by who was making a basket so I went and sat by him. He showed me how to make the basket. It was really fun but I needed lots of help so we handed it back and forth with him doing most of the work. He was super fast at making the basket and I was slowing him down but he seemed to enjoy letting me try. 

 

      After lunch we didn't go to the church right away so we decided to make some popcorn. They had never seen popcorn before and we had to convince them that we didn't want to plant it. They were very excited to see what we were going to do with it. We had a hard time stopping them from taking the lid off the pot every few seconds. They loved the popcorn even though it didn't turn out that great. We made three batches and it was eaten very fast. After the popcorn we went to the church for a worship service. 
     At the end of the service three people came forward to except Christ, then we went house to house to pray again. By the time we left we had prayed for all the sick and saw many of them healed and had prayed at the house of every adult member of the church. We prayed for a lot of people and while we didn't see any instant healing we did pray for a guy who was so sick he could not even sit up and had been that way for a couple of days. The day after we prayed he walked over to where we were staying to thank us for praying and said he felt completely better. 

                                                                This is the him.

         After getting back they did not eat diner right away like normal so we just hung out and the guys taught us worship songs in Makua and Portuguese. There were two young men who spent all day with us. They served us meals, and went out with us when ever we left the fenced yard. There were also three girls, one 12 year old, and two 11 year olds, who did all the cooking and cleaning. Every evening we spent time with them. The guys were always willing to work on English or play cards and the girls loved to color and play hand clapping games. During the day many other people would come and go and there were always endless kids. We were so honored by these young people and their willingness to spend all day, everyday for 10 days serving us. 

 This is one of the young men who served us all day and who went with us when ever we went out.

                                                 This is the other young man.

          Saturday we brought out some mini chalk boards we had. We showed the kids, who had never seen a chalk board, and they immediately wanted to know how to write their names. We were a little surprised by this, most African kids just want to draw and have amazing artistic talent. We showed them how to write their names and then realized most of them did not even know how to write the alphabet. Surprised, we asked the pastor if the village had a school. We had seen what we thought was a school building so we assumed the kids went to school. We learned that they did not have a teacher and there had been no school in the village for several years. We ended up using the chalk boards for hours teaching first the alphabet and then how to write their names. We also brought out some coloring books and let them color. There would often be as many as 8 kids coloring in the same book 4 to each picture at the same time. Yet they never fought and were good about sharing the few crayons that we had. The adults even came over to color since they had never seen coloring books or crayons. 
     After lunch we headed to the church to watch the worship team practice for Sunday. The only instruments were two drums but there was a group of girls who would sing and dance. After that we prayed at homes before going home to eat dinner and hang out until bedtime. 

        This baby is making a funny face, sometimes they cry when they see a white person for the first time. 

    
     Sunday we got up excited to go to church. We had met most of the church by this time going home to home praying for them, but had yet to see the full adult congregation in one place. We got to church early which turned out to be a good thing since it started to rain around 9:00. It was a good hard African rain and anyone who went outside or who got caught in it while walking to church was soaked. The church had a tin roof that leaked in several places. The rain was so loud on the roof that we had to wait for it to stop raining before church could start. It was a quick rain so church started around 9:30 and went until 12:30. It was a good service with lots of singing and dancing. We didn't always know what was going on. At one point almost the whole church got up one by one to go to the front and share. We enjoyed the experience and the worship. The church decided to give us a love offering so, near the end of the service they called us up to the front and spread a capalona out in front of us. The whole congregation filed past us and shook our hands or hugged us and laid a gift down on the capalona. We felt so touched and humbled. The village was not rich and most did not have much to give but they still wanted to bless us. We got coconuts, baskets, braided grass ropes, bread, nuts, and a little money. 
Here are the things I was given and now have at home.  This little basket.

                        A bundle of the grass rope.

  

     After church we headed back home to a late dinner and an afternoon of playing with the kids. After dinner we just hung out with the family and friends who serve us all day. The girls were really starting to open up and be more comfortable and out going. The girls are often really quiet and shy compared with the boys and it takes a lot longer for them to open up. They started trying to communicate and to try and teach us Makua. 
                                          This is a game like Jax, they are really good at it.

     Monday was to be our last full day. We knew we would be picked up on Tuesday we just didn't know what time. We planned on having chicken for dinner since it would be our last night. Early in the morning the pastor sent the young men out to get the chickens. We all thought that they would be back in less then half an hour but they took two hours to return. 

      They quickly killed the chickens and started to pluck them. The heads were given to the kids who excitedly plucked them, put them on a stick and cook and ate them!

                   He is just pretending to eat a chicken head raw. Note the painted nails.

    They were so happy and we were so shocked. We didn't watch them kill the chickens but after they were dead we wandered over to watch the rest of the show. They eat every part of the chicken and we watched them prep the feet and guts for cooking.

We planned on blessing the pastor and the family we were staying with. We knew we would be expected to give gifts so we had come with things like capalonas to give away. We also divided the rest of the money to give. We gave the remainder of the coloring books, and chalk boards to the young girls and we gave flash lights and the cards to the young men. We gave money and a capalona to the family we stayed with and to the pastor. We also left 30 Portuguese bibles with the pastor for him to hand out to the church. We were able to hand out 30 bibles to people in the ten days we were there. Other than the pastor, we only saw one or two people who had bibles in church. So we gave bibles to the people we got to know as long as they knew how to read Portuguese. Sadly, a lot of people can not read. We only met one lady who could read but the majority of the guys we asked said they could read. We gave the girls their gifts last and they were so excited. They did not expect to receive anything plus they had missed out on a lot of the fun because they had to work. Their faces lit up and one of them danced around with her coloring book. It was a special moment. We had chicken again for dinner and then went to bed for the last time.
       Tuesday morning we got up at 5:30 as usual and packed up but we didn't worry about hurrying or taking the tents down since we doubted we would be picked up until after 9:00am, and possibly not until after lunch. We were just sitting down to breakfast around 7:30 when we heard a truck pull up. It was our truck and we were so surprised. We quickly packed up our tents and had a hurried breakfast. We did not want to keep the driver waiting. We said quick good byes and were on the road by 8:00 am.