African: Time, Food, Football, and Stories

Greetings, my dear family, friends, and random people I don’t know who are possibly reading my blog,

Life goes on here in Africa. I just finished reading a book about ministering cross-culturally, and it had a fascinating chapter in it about how different cultures view time management and being late. I’ve been told (and have observed myself) that Mozambicans are very laid back about time. On one hand, things take forever to get done, which can be really frustrating if you’re trying to accomplish a lot. But on the other hand, everyone has a very relaxed and carefree attitude, the study of which Americans would benefit greatly from. Most of us really don't know how to stop and enjoy life, and society doesn't make it very easy to do so. Speaking of time, I have loved being able to spend time with my sister Carla and brother-in-law Jon again. I look up to both of them so much, it’s so cool to live with them and see the work they’ve done here. And, they’re both such amazing Christians, I learn so much when I’m around them. Besides being awesome missionaries, they’re hilarious people with senses of humor much like my own (scary, right? You bet!). We’ve enjoyed many a game of Settlers of Catan, which I discovered I actually enjoy a lot (I didn’t use to very much) now that I really understand how it works. I’ve even won a few times *woot* which may explain why I like it so much better now. =)

The food here is very good (though as I said before, there isn’t much variety), I have liked just about everything I’ve had, maybe excluding the definitely fermented, warm, lumpy corn mush drink thing. Oh, and the “shrimp” dish that tasted like canned dog food. Other than that, I have loved the beans and rice, fish and rice, spinach and rice, goat and rice… it’s a good thing I love rice, I guess. All of the afore mentioned toppings for rice are also served for lunch on ‘xima’ (pronounced ‘shee-ma’), which is kinda like really, really, thick grits, for those of you who know what grits are. 

The other day, I played my very first (believe it or not) game of football, or soccer, to you Americans. Yes, actually my first real game of football, or ‘futebol’ as they call it here. I became an instant fan of the game and I plan on playing it a lot more when I get back to the states, though I am wondering if it will be as much fun if I speak the same language as the people I’m playing with. I played it with a bunch of girls from an orphanage place called “House of Blessing” I got to go to couple of times. It was started and is run by a really awesome lady from Alaska named Lee. She’s given a safe and loving home to over 30 kids who really didn’t have any hope. I know this because Janie and I were put on the task of interviewing some of them while we were visiting. Among other questions, we asked for stories of their lives before they came to HoB. Some told long, heart-wrenching accounts of abandonment, death, sickness, and hopelessness, but the one that impacted me most was from a little girl of about 8 or 9 named Rosina. She was very somber and quiet and we couldn’t get much out of her, but we tried asking her if she had any stories. Her reply was only nine words long:

“We didn’t have enough food. My mommy beat me.”

I had just listened to lots of other kids who had similar stories, many of them honestly worse than that, so this was nothing new. The difference was none of the others told it with such a downcast face or with so much pain in their eyes as Rosina did.

Lee (or, 'Mama Lee' as all her kids call her) is an artist and loves to do lots of arts and crafts but especially jewelry making. She’s taught all her girls how to make all sorts of neat stuff that they can sell. I got a lot of really cool and creative ideas from them (I honestly had never thought of making wallets out of juice cartons) and I actually got to teach them how to make friendship bracelets, a skill I just recently picked up from Carla. I'll close with a picture of me showing Rosina the ways of bracelet weaving: 

 Photo courtesy of Janie Smith