Chocas

For debrief, our team visited the beach at Chocas, where stayed in charming bungalows, lounged around in hammocks (I slept in one!) built bonfires on the beach, made friends with the shell-sellers and an excitable dog, visited a beautiful old village by the sea, watched the sun rise over the Indian ocean, and drank in all of the beauty. Here are some highlights, in a thousand words:

Food!

Yes. I love food. Acually I was rather notorious among my team members during the trip for eating so much...a couple of times I became nervous that I was eating us out of our entire Discovery budget!

Anyway, there was some lovely food in Mozambique. Nothing fancy, really. Nourishing, though. Like the chicken stew in the above picture, and matapa and beans, below. Matapa is made with manioc leaves and ground peanuts.

mmmmmmm.

One of the staple foods in Mozambique is called shima. (I've seen it spelled several different ways; I'm using this one because it sounds like it looks). Shima looks and tastes like cold cream of wheat. It is served in globs. You eat it with your hands. I happen to like cream of wheat (cold or not), so I liked shima!

Shima has a hierarchy, though. A hierarchy of taste. I am told that shima made from manioc root flour is not tasty at all. Shima made from millet flour, from my own experience, is barely edible. Shima made with corn flour (the kind we had most) is quite tolerable.

But here's the thing - its served with caril, which is pretty much any kind of sauce. Like the beans in the picture above. Every kind I tried was delicious: beans and cabbage, chicken and potatoes, greens and tomatoes, even fish.

While I stayed in Tete, I stayed with Jenni and Mikael Bister, who are helping to translate the Bible into Nyungwe. I had the pleasure of meeting Mikael's parents, who were visiting from Sweden. They had lots of stories about thier lives in Sweden and about being missionaries to Thailand. Mrs. Bister was always cooking something. One day she made us orange cake...
(no more words are needed. Bask in its glory.)

Last, but not least, I decided to be especially adventurous and try grasshoppers. I have to try at least one wierd food, right? They were so good.

...just kidding. They were actually one of the worst foods I have ever tasted.

But we probably just cooked them wrong.

Capulanas

A capulana is the simple cloth with a bright pattern that Mozambiquan women use for absolutely everything: skirts, baby slings, bags, tablecloths, curtains...mostly skirts though. The girls on the Discovery team adored them - I alone bought ten capulanas and brought them all home! I began to master the art of capulana-wrapping, and found them extremely comfortable and handy, and ended up wearing them most of the trip!


Here's us (well - our capulanas) on the last day in Mozambique:

and a few of my favorites:

Most Frequently Asked Question: “So what did you actually DO??”

There were plenty of linguists on my Discovery team, and they did all kinds of wonderful things: gathering information about the many languages of Mozambique, editing dictionaries and writing scholarly-sounding papers. (Portuguese is the official language of the country, but it isn’t the heart-language of most Mozambiquans). There was also Brad, who was always fixing the iffy internet, Jess, who designed the logo for lidemo.net, and Megan, who could do just about anything.

I, not being a linguist, or a Brad, filled in. Throughout the trip, I was able to help propel a Nyungwe primer towards being published, edit databases of information about dozens of publications, attend a dedication ceremony for the newly-translated book of Mark into Nyungwe, and edit the publications for the website, lidemo.net (check it out). I did other various and sundry jobs as well– some of the most enjoyable of which were teaching Bible club for a day at a school in Tete, and planning all of the meals for our debrief beach-trip to Chocas.

Even though sometimes I felt like I didn't have a specific niche, I was glad to be able to help out where I could. The above picture is the office where we spent our work hours.

Some important things to know

Everywhere I go, I look for home.

“Home” is different every time. It comes upon me suddenly, in the middle of cluttered, loud, wonderful moments: on a front porch with red chairs and twenty friends, or in the wild excitement of a thunderstorm, in the daily messes and stresses that life likes to tumble our way –

Home is a mosaic, then, of places and people and memories. Often home is where I don’t expect. Or when I expect to find it, it isn’t there. I do know one thing, though: Wherever I feel the presence of God, I find home there too every time.

I went to Africa looking for the presence of God. Hoping to see the Holy Spirit move mountains before my eyes, to see miracles and feel His indwelling and watch hearts change.

I went to Africa and learned that these things do happen.

But.

I also learned a few other things. Like:

-Just because I want to see all these things happen doesn’t mean I will.

-Just because I don't see these things doesn't mean they're not happening.

- so trust matters.

- and little things matter.