The last couple weeks in Moçambique were great. The camp went quite well. There were 14 kids who came and spent two nights at Rio Tembe Outpost (That’s the name of the camp). We had them do whole range of activities; from capture the flag, to a 10km trek following clues though the bush, to challenge activities and a relay. They all really enjoyed it. It was also a good opportunity for me to see what we have to work with and what a camp can look like there in the future. After the camp we had a meeting to debrief how the camp went, what we can change, and lay out a vision. Once I had a reference point to work off, it helped us to talk through some important issues, and I am really excited about the future potential of the camp. We weren’t able to finish the climbing wall before the camp, but we did finish it on Saturday. We are pretty sure that it is the first climbing wall in the country, so that will be a big draw for people to want to come to camp.

The last couple of days I was able to go on a trip to Ponta do Ouro, a beach town bordering South Africa. It was nice to get to see some more of the country and relax on the beach.

I am glad to be home, but I will really miss Moçambique and my friends there. It was tough to say goodbye to everyone from the organization I interned with and the Bowers. If you have any questions about my trip, let me know!

It looks a lot more impressive when it is up then on the ground

The classic camp group photo

At Ponto do Ouro with the boys (Ismael, Me, Mark, Cory)

Today I finished the my last bit of schoolwork-a ten page paper assessing my internship.  After finishing that, and five days of work at the camp I was ready for a celebratory adventure.  So this afternoon I got Cory, the Bowers’ 13 year old son, and we decided to kayak to an island off the coast of the city.  The Island is called Xefina, and it is about 4 miles away.  We got there around 3:30 and started exploring.  It used to be a prison, controlled by the Portuguese during the revelutionary war here, but has since been abandoned.  We were exploring the ruins of these enormous cannons and met up with some fisherman who offered for us to sit with them and eat fish they were cooking over a fire.  We were loving life, eating fish with the natives but realized that we should get going because it was getting late meaning we would have to kayak in the dark if we wasted too much time.

We followed the fisherman through a road to the other side of the island where we had hid our kayaks and parted ways when they reached their house.  As we were nearing the beach, some guy saw us and told us that it was prohibited for us to be there.  I told him, sorry, we didn’t know.  No worries, he replied.  We reached the beach and were heading towards out hidden kayaks when someone yelled for us from behind.  It was a guy in a military uniform.  He came over and started giving us a lecture because we were not allowed to be on the island without coming to him first and asking permission, that he is the commander of the island.  I apologized and told him we didn’t know, but next time we’d let him know.  However, he was a)drunk, b)unreasonable, and c)had a henchman with an AK-47.  He had no intention of letting us go on our own terms.  So he starts going on this monologue about he can kill us and any other white who comes to the island without permission and that we cannot leave-he is going to make us stay at least one night, I’m making my case before the court about us being innocent-how could we know this ‘law’, Cory is keeping his mouth shut and giving me a look of-’is this actually happening’, and some bystanders are pleading with “comandante” to leave us alone and let us go this time since we didn’t know.

There was about 15 minutes of discussion and confusion where he refused to budge while I layed on every reason why he was being unreasonable in as friendly a way as possible.  “Listen, my friend, look at this boy, he’s my friend and just a kid (pointing to Cory), he needs to get home to his parents tonight, it’s getting late”.  Finally, he somehow decided to let us go as we walked to our boats and paddled away under guard by his armed henchman.  We just paddled as quick as we could away from the island on pure adrenaline, in the dark, and have been laughing about it ever since.  This rivals my homeless night in Jo-burg on the rediculous scale.

Our climbing wall, which still needs hand holds

The men hard at work erecting a post

Scaling the post

I got to spend yesterday in South Africa at the famous Kruger Park.  If anyone hasn’t heard of the YouTube video called “Battle at Kruger”, you need to go check it out now and be amazed!!  We stayed with some friends of the Bowers who are South African.  I was able to see a ton of awesome animals.  Africa has what are called “The Big Five”, which include Elephant, Rhino, Buffalo, Leopard, and Lion.  The ultimate is seeing all of them in one trip.  We saw 3, which isn’t bad, especially since we saw the 2 rarest.  We also had a little friendly competition amongst ourselves, where we picked the animals before hand and rated them with point values, and the first person to positively identify an animal would get that amount of point in Rand (SA currency) to use at the gift shop at the end of the day.  When you are driving around the park, you often know when there is something exciting when you see cars stopped and people leaning out the windows with cameras.  At one point we hit a major traffic jam and it was because there was a leopard lying down under a tree about 150 ft away.  That was pretty awesome to see, but what was cooler was later in the day we were driving over a bridge and saw another one drinking water around this little pond by itself and I think we were the only ones to see it.  It was REALLY close too.   We also saw about 5 lions, all lying down and not right in our faces, but it was an awesome time!  I also won the identifying game!

Classic giraffe with birds on the back

South African braai (BBQ), they know how to cook my style!  MEAT!

Some monkeys

This is amazing!  There are a total of 450 cheetah’s in Kruger Park.  Kruger Park is bigger than the UK.  Cheetah’s generally hunt alone.  We saw TWO walking away after feasting on a recent kill.  I was going crazy!  They were literally 10ft away.

We had to back up in fear that it would come charge us

I have learned more and more how unpredictable Moçambique can be.  You have to be quite flexible.  My plans have changed about a million times.  As far as the camping ministry goes, we have tried to plan a couple camps, but they have both fallen through because of various reasons.  It looks like we probably wont actually have the first camp until the 14th of July.  We have been able to brainstorm quite a bit of activities and explore around the wilderness surrounding the grounds.

Last weekend I went to work with a different ministry that was pretty cool.  A missionary is starting an egg laying farm business that will be quite large here in Mozambique.  He has 8 different Mozambican interns who are actually living with him.  They will get experience working with the business (there is a major problem with unemployment here) and ministry.  The goal is that at the end they will have enough money and skills to be able to create their own business and run their own ministry self-supported.  I got to spend a few days living with them and being an intern myself.  We also went to a national soccer game between Moçambique and Madagascar, we won 3-0, it was quite an experience!

The last week I have been working full time with the development organization.  A guy from the states, Mike, has been here doing lots of training.  We have set up the office really well here and went up to Xai Xai and assembled a bunch of the lighting systems as he taught the workers there how to do it.  We have really had a good time together and I am more and more excited about the good things that will happen as a result of the work of the organization.

This is a very factual post with not much detail, I just wanted to let everyone know WHAT I’ve been doing.  Feel free to e-mail me with any other questions, and just to communicate, it’s always nice to hear from you!

Tons of crazy fans at the soccer game

I got some play in myself

The intern group at the game

Assembling batteries for the energy project (Mike, Eusebio, and Matias)

Got to see Naomi

Today I spent some time researching how we could construct a good climbing wall and what would go into it.  We are planning on building one soon, as well as getting a boat so that rather than driving an hour to the site we could take campers there in a boat up the river, which would be a lot more adventurous and cool.

On our way back from the campsite, we went looking for one of my friends from school, Erin, who is doing a 6 month internship in Mozambique.  All I knew is that she was living in a town called Massaca, which is fairly close to the camp.  So on our way home we detoured and went to find her.  After asking about 10 different people and following bits of directions we finally found the ‘white girl’.  She was shocked to see a familiar face.  Where she is living, no one speaks English, everyone speaks shungan and some Portuguese.  It was fun to surprise her.

Jim and Cory with weapons

Me cutting some sugarcane with Cory

View of the river right by the camp

Up a tree that will probably soon have a rope swing

On Saturday I came back to the Bowers house and for the first time met Jim, who is the one who brought me here to help him start a camp. He had been in the states and then I was in Xai Xai, so we finally met! I’m excited to start working with him, this afternoon we are heading out to the campsite to spend the night and for me to get a lay of the land.

Last night we went to the US Ambassadors house for a worship service. He is a believer, and invites people to come over every Sunday night. Afterwards we were introduced and it turned out I had a lot of connections with them! Their oldest son is going to be a student at Wheaton next year so they had a billion questions for me. So after everyone left, including the Bowers, I stayed over at the Chapman’s for another hour and a half. Kinda random that I was hanging out at the Ambassador’s house by myself. But, we really connected well, he shared with me his testimony and story of how he ended up joining the foreign service and encouraged me, as I’ve been considering that as a potential career. I was also able to help give them lots of the inside information on Wheaton College and make a first semester schedule for their son. He said I could come shadow him at the Embassy later in the month, and gave me a ride home! More to come soon…E-mail me and let me know how you are!

Presenting the energy project

My English class

Drive by shot of an example of the head balancing skills these women have.  The other day I saw a woman with about 60 lbs of firewood stacked on her head.

For the last week I have been in a small town called Xai Xai [shy shy] about 3 hours up the coast from Maputo.  As I mentioned, I am working with a development organization while I am here.  It is run completely by mozambican nationals.  The organization is called Luz para Desenvolvimento (Light for Development).  Basically they start by offering energy to people in communities who have no access to light or cooking stoves.  If a minimum of 250 households in a community are willing to undertake the project, they will be able to purchase a battery powered light for nightly use and a tank with gas and a stove for a highly subsidized price.  They will also have two building constructed in their community.  One is an energy center where they can recharge their batteries and purchase more gas, the other is an educational center where nightly classes will be held. 

The first project will be launched in October, so I have been helping to train people who will work for the organization out of the main office in Xai Xai.  I have been teaching English classes as well as some other classes in development. 

I am staying with the director of the org, Pastor Marcos, and his family.  It has defenitely been a good chance to work on my Portuguese and get a good vibe for mozambican life since I havent even seen another foreigner in the last week.  Last weekend on my first couple days off I was able to go to the beach with a few friends that I made who help out with the organization, Adriano and José.  The public transportation here is unbelievable.  There is such a lack of transport that everyone is waiting on the side of the road to catch a chapa (15 passenger van).  Let’s just say that they do not limit themselves to 15 passengers.  When I got in the van it already had about 18 people, and I got on with about 5 others.  When I thought it could not take even one more person, the chapa stopped and picked up 4 more! 

Missing you all, hope everything is well!  I head back to Maputo on Saturday.  Thanks to Daniel and Tarpit Creative for creating a website in my name.  Blessings!

Enjoying a day off at the sea.

Waiting for the chapa…

Just imagine being cramped in here with us!

I Tried to get some change to use a pay phone, but no one there had ever seen american dollar before and would not accept them, so I bummed some Rand (South african currency) off some nice people and called the bus company, who changed my ticket for the next bus-10PM. So i just chilled at the station stranded for about 7 hours total until the lodge people could pick me up again for a nap in their lobby rather than sit on the street. I went back to the station later and while waiting for my next bus was talking to a South African guy who turned out to be homeless for the time being, and was actually living at this station, guarding cars during the day and sleeping there at night. My bus came and I threw my bags in the back and boarded. The attendant asked for my passport when I got on board, and I informed her that I would need to get a visa for Mozambique at the border (these were my instructions). However…she threw a fit about it and refused to let me ride the bus. So, despite me trying to reason with them, they took my stuff out of the bus and drove off without me. Now I was REALLY stranded. Since I had no place to stay the night and there was no ransportation around, I arranged for another bus to take me to the border at 5:45AM the next morning, and the South African guy I met-Eric-and I slept on the tile in the gas station. So I can officially say I’ve been homeless in South Africa one time.

I finally made it to Maputo yesterday evening, the Bowers family is extremely nice, with two out of control toddler girls and a jr high boy. My first day had a little more action than I was expecting. I went with the family on a walk around the city, caught my first glimpse of the Indian Ocean. Then in the afternoon, my internship coordinator picked me up and took me to a youth group event and had me share my testimony in Portuguese. I knew I would have to do some work here, but I wasn’t expecting to speak the first day. The service was awesome, lots of dancing, great music. Loving it here so far!  Hope you are all well!

Homeless in Johannesburg!

Sharing, first day in Mozambique.