mozambique

we're in mozambique! having a lovely few days in pemba after a very very long drive across from mandimba (where we jumped the border) to nampula where we slept before heading up...we stayed a night at russell's place and now are at pemba dive and bush camp...saturday we think we will head down to nacala...we do have a moz cell +258824508601 if you'd like to get in touch...have a merry christmas!!

trip plans

As we know it…leaving tomorrow for the lake…nice short day to start…just to get away and realize we are on holiday without killing ourselves to go…so somewhere south on the lake like monkey bay…then Monday morning early we head across the border at madimba and fly along until nampula…we think we’ll stay for a night (we asked about three nights before looking on the map and realizing it wasn’t on the beach) and then up to pemba…we’ve seen some amazing pics—yes on line so they may not be typical but we’ll find out…some days there probably through Christmas and then head down…nacala, quelimane and then across…to the Zimbabwe border where we can check out the chim…mountains and on through the masvingo province to visit ute’s friends and see the Zimbabwe ruins which we hear are not to be missed…spent time Saturday getting one dollar bills—usually we only bring over the big bills to exchange but in Zimbabwe their currency has devalued so much that they use American bills and we’ve heard they set up tolls for $1 and it is just easier if you don’t have to argue for change…we are also going to try and get a mozambiquan sim card for our cell phones…I’ll try to let you know if we are successful…and if not or we can’t get on line before we get back or before…may you all have a blessed Christmas and a wonderful start to the new year!

rainy mountain

So Saturday after my bout with sickness I was ambitious and thought I would join Ute and Taonga hiking up the mountain…rested in the morning and then we went for it…and about 15 minutes in it started raining…we made it to picture rock…waited, huddling under some cover (not really) and then decided it would have to wait for another day…but here is the view at the beginning of rainy season…
taonga (norwegian nurse-i don't know how to spell her norwegian name or pronounce it correctly so this is her chichewa name)
ute

triplets

two sets born within a week...one girls and one boys

I don’t remember what I’ve put in about the triplets before so I’ll do a quick overview. When I got back from Mozambique the first time there were triplets that had just been orphaned. We don’t know if they were premature as there were 3 of them and the mother didn’t do antenatal care checks…but they were tiny and not getting any bigger. They had an aunt taking care of them in the Kangaroo room (the mothers put the premie babies skin to skin on their chests to keep them warm enough.). I started to go in to help with feedings…out of syringes 10 mls at a time…every 2hours or so…so small and sleeping all the time…had to try to wake them up to feed them. The aunt had to go home to discuss with the family what would be done…none of them could really take them in but they didn’t want to give them up for adoption—different culture: adoption often means that the family takes care of them until they are big enough to help the family, not given up for good…I took 2 of them home for the day…jane and I watched a movie while the babies slept and ate…couldn’t put them down without them mewing for more…

Soon after that they went to live with two of the hospital staff. I don’t know that adoption has been decided or not but they are doing amazing. Tamanda is with Ellen who is the head nurse on maternity. Takondwa and Tadala are with Nyatipa who is the clinical officer on maternity and they are doing so well. Big girls…I think they’ve been traded out…

l/r (not left and right)

So I’ve also probably mentioned that Malawian pronunciation is very similar to English…except for their r and l. they reverse them both…and so spellings of words are fluid (fruid)…you can write (wlite) either one—as most people don’t write it isn’t much of an issue. But I find it in school—for spelling test for far I’ve gotten fal as the answer… and sometimes you see thing written and you don’t know what they are until you say them outloud…or change the letters…lots of the names would seem “normal” but they’ve switched letters—lodreck (rodreck), estere, lobert, etc…and they aren’t consistant…it isn’t every r that is an l and vice versa…but ok. At school the kids want to go pray…and at church we bow our heads to play for God’s lighteousness and glace…they have meetings for the church modelmen (I think they are moderators of some sort but I’m not sure).
Last Sunday during the announcements the abusa announced that Friday was going to be Christmas colors. I don’t know what that entails but I’m imagining a deck the halls type thing…he said we will be singing songs about Jesus’ birth not his death at the Christmas colors service. Ok then. It takes me about 45 minutes before I realize they have switched the letters…Christmas carol service…makes so much more sense…of course someone else heard that Friday was the Christmas cows service so…
It was a nice service…with lots of music and choirs. The youth did a skit and though it was all in Chichewa it was quite entertaining—pageant…angel Gabriel was a very energetic lacy mummy that made many appearances…the hymns out of the book were also in Chichewa which confused the students from the guest house as they found the right hymns in the English version. But it was a nice reminder that we are in the Christmas season…

power cuts-extended version

As we know things have been getting worse…but really last Friday was the monster…it was evidently (at least what I’ve been told) a main line problem…nkhoma was out for over 30 hours…from before I woke up until 10 on Saturday. It was the last day of school…I still wasn’t feeling 100% but went in and couldn’t do any of those last minute things to close up that need power but it was good…the kids had a short day (730-10) with Christmas presents and partys and fun…who needs power? Then iwent home to conserve my energy—I was keeping the veitch boys so mom and dad could go out for their anniversary. No problem because usually the power comes back around 2 when it is out before I get up…used my computer until the battery died…and then the power didn’t come back at 2…or 4…or 6 when they got dropped off…so we played outside until we couldn’t see…went inside to cook dinner over gas…then watched 45 minutes of Despicable Me until the computer they brought over died…then we didn’t know what time it was because all of our electronics were dead (my phone died around 10am). As two of the three I was keeping had already fallen asleep on me I deemed it bed time and right into bed they got. Easy as anything. Breakfast the next morning also over the gas…eggs and tomato and rolls. Then they played outside a bit longer and went home…the power came on at 10—lots of cheering…and then went out again at 11…not nice…but only gone for another hour or so…

fable from Mao's Last Dancer

by Li Cunxin
Frog in the Well
There was a frog that lived in a small, deep well. He knew nothing but the world he lived in. His well and the sky he could see above it were his entire universe.
One day he met a frog who lived in the world above. ‘Why don’t you come down and play with me? It’s fun down here,’ the frog in the deep well asked.
‘What’s down there?’ the frog above asked.
‘We have everything down here. You name it. The streams, the undercurrent, the stars, the occasional moon, and we even get flying objects coming down from the sky sometimes,’ the frog in the well answered.
The frog on the land sighed. ‘My friend, you live in a confined world. You haven’t seen what’s out here in the bigger world.’ The frog below was very annoyed. ‘Don’t you tell me that you have a bigger world than ours! My world is big. We see and experience everything the world has to offer,’ the well frog said.
‘No, my friend. You can only see the world above you through the size of the well. The world up here is enormous. I wish I could show you how big it is,’ the frog above replied.
The frog in the well was angry now. ‘I don’t believe you! You are telling me lies! I’m going to ask my dad.’ He told his dad about his conversation with the frog ont eh land. ‘My son,’ he said with a saddened heart, ‘your friend is right. I heard there is a much bigger world up there, with many more stars than we can see from here.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me about it earlier?’ the little frog asked.
‘What’s the use? Your destiny is down here in the well. There is no way you can get out of here,’ the father frog replied.
The little frog said, ‘I can, I can get out of here. Let me show you!’ He jumped and hopped, but the well was too deep and the land was too far above.
‘No use, my son. I’ve tried all my life and so did your forefathers. Forget the world above. Be satisfied with what you have, or it will cause you such misery in life.’
‘I want to get out, I want to see the big world above!’ the little frog cried determinedly.
‘No, my son. Accept fate. Learn to live with what is given,’ his dad replied.
So the poor little frog spent his life trying to escape the dark, cold well. But he couldn’t. The big world above remained only a dream.
“Dad, are we in a well?” I asked.
He thought for a while. “Depends on how you look at it. If you look at where we are from heaven above, yes, we’re in a well. If you look at us from below, we’re not in a well. Will you call where we are heaven? No, definitely not,” he replied.

sometimes how it feels?...

candlelight

We had a gathering to celebrate sophie’s 5th birthday and wish safe travels to Ken and Colleen. We had a braii (bbq) and a wonderful time chatting and being together…and the power went out. Nothing new but we had some talk about it…and we know that it is just beautiful to see the stars in the sky on nights like this without any light pollution, and so nice to eat by candlelight with the softer glow…but we easily lose sight of that as it seems to happen every 3rd day…just something that we have to keep reminding ourselves…it is a pain in some respects but we should be grateful for what we have and enjoy whatever life throws at us, knowing it is all temporary here on earth. And tomorrow will be different as well.

fat joe and mangos

I’ve said before that when you walk anywhere you are automatically singled out as the azungu-foreigner-soemone to ask for things…most common questions are how are you?, where are you going?, where are you coming from?, and what is your name? this is most often followed by “give me ______” (money, sweets, pen, ball, etc). and so often I try to ignore lots of what is yelled at me…but the other day I had 2 surprising encounters within 5 minutes of each other. I was leaving my house and crossing NKhoma to make some visits and came upon a group of boys…the average azungu walks much faster (even a slow one) than most malawians…so two of them ran up and walked next to me… “what’s your name?” jessi. “what?” jessi. “ok. I’m Kenneth. And this is Fat Joe.” He says with a big smile. I doubt that, I answer. Fat Joe is bigger than the skinny one but not fat as you would imagine. “do you have a pen?” fat joe asks. Yes, but I use it. “can you give it to me?” no. I use it. “oh ok.” Then Kenneth says “don’t give him anything. He is always asking people like you for things. At this point our paths split and we say goodbye. As we are getting further apart Kenneth announces to me that “this boy he is a foolish one”…obviously proud of himself to be using the word foolish. And you are the straight, normal one? I ask. “yes” lots of laughter.
About 2 minutes later I pass a girl eating something…after she passes me she asks “do you eat this?” I couldn’t tell what it was—some sort of whitish fruit? What is it? “mango”…oh yes, I eat mango… and she holds it out to offer it to me. Thanks, but I like it a bit riper…they eat them still very crunchy here. “ok” and she continued on her way.

laminating- 3rd times the charm

So I’ve been laminating for school for ages…flashcards for math and sightwords and blended sounds…and I’ve confiscated the laminator from the hospital…really—they asked for it back and I didn’t give it…turns out they didn’t really want it just to know where it was, but still. And so we got a donation for office supplies and decided that we would get a guillotine (paper cutter), a binding machine, and a laminator…Ken and Colleen were in town getting the new things along with other supplies and colleen said she thought I should be there to pick out the laminator as I was the one who knew the most about it…don’t know that I really do…but they picked one and brought it back…I saw it the next day at school and had to send it back immediately…it only takes A4 sized papers (the size that the rest of the world outside the US uses) as we get so many donations from the US and we had just gotten 300 laminating pouches from the US that were letter sized there was no way it would work. Ken asked if I couldn’t just cut all the pouches (haha). So they took it back and got one that would do anything from A3 size and smaller…perfect. Except for when I plugged it in. the lights came on but it never heated up and so wouldn’t melt the plastic to laminate the pages…the next one that came back they had tested in the store and it works! (I tried it at school as soon as there was power)…so I still have loads of flashcards to do but now I will be doing them at school whenever there is power…and when there isn’t power I’ll have time to cut them apart…

christmas plans

Thanks for all the prayers and well wishes...i'm doing much better...back on roughly tasty foods...still avoiding some but no longer fasting or eating only dry bread.


Christmas is coming…I hope you all have a wonderful advent season. School ends on the 9th of December and begins again on the 9th of January. The eye hospital closes on the 16th due to rainy season and the lack of patients they get…until the beginning of February…so we are going traveling…it started as a brainstorm when I returned from Mozambique in july…Jane, Ute and I were going to do a southern Africa tour…going through Zambia to Vic Falls, into Botswana to visit a friend of Jane’s, then Zimbabwe to visit one of Ute’s friends and then to Mozambique to see the ocean and then back ot Malawi…well, Jane can’t come back quite so soon and we’ve been told that Botswana in the rainy season isn’t a good idea at all…so our plans have changed but Ute and I are still going on a trip…roughly we are thinking of leaving around the 18th to go to Mozambique coast for Christmas and possibly new year…then make our way back inland to visit her friend in Zimbabwe and do some hiking in the beautiful mountains (not sure if they are on the moz side or zim…and then back to Malawi…I’ll let you know if we come up with more specifics than that but so far we are pretty unplanned…

sick

I hate being sick. Well I guess everyone does but really…I went to school on Monday and was feeling a little funny. I thought it might have been nerves (ok not really) as ken and colleen were leaving and I was therefore in charge of the school…I don’t want that much responsibility…but there you have it I’m headmistress for the last week of school with all sorts of administration responsibilities and the keys to everything. I made it through about 3 hours and then decided that was enough…went to the cottage to pick something up and laid down on the bed…couldn’t get up for an hour…then walked up to my other house where I crashed for the rest of the day…sore all over, nauseous, not wanting to move…made myself a cup-o-soup but after the first sip gave that up…Tuesday I was feeling better so I went to clinic…I made it until 930 when I crashed in the middle of clinic…actually had to have natasha walk me home where she made me a ORS drink (disgusting stuff—oral rehydration salts—8tsp sugar, ½ tsp salt, 1 liter water)…and I stayed there in bed until about 5 when Natasha drove me home again…Wednesday was close to the same—feeling ok when I got up…went to school for an hour and then came to sit on the veitches porch…the best place to be when you can’t move…people around and a great view…things are looking better this morning (thurs) but i'm still not really hungry...

house sitting part 2

Moved into another house…big one—family of 6 kids…still trying to find things in the kitchen…loving having a shower (the cottage only has a bath tub)…and as it is the medical director’s house it has an internet connection! Not that it works all the time or quickly but it is in the house—I don’t have to go anywhere for it. I once again have a great porch overlooking a beautiful yard. I’m on the other end of nkhoma—everything is downhill from here (which means coming home is all uphill)

creativity

Creativity seems to be lacking…and it seems to be a cultural thing. I know this is stereotyping and it isn’t all across the board but at the moment it is feeling quite pervasive. If one person has an idea, everyone around does the same…if there is one chips stall there will be 3 more right in a row…same in the markets with tomatos, potatos, you name it. And you find it in school too. They don’t seem to think for themselves…if I do one of the crafts as a model…just for ideas…the kids try to get the same color paper and make it look just the same. (I know that kids do this everywhere but I’m feeling like it is all the time and they don’t do anything for themselves) i know that they are usually taught (in the other schools) to just memorize and learn by rote but it is hard to understand. But then they probably usually don’t have all the same incentives to create…it is more to survive. the wood markets all sell the same stuff…if you see it one place you can probably easily get it somewhere else…unless of course you really like it and then it seems to be out of stock…

arts cards

Christmas cards for all the classes this week is the art project…well 3rd grade did last week but they are having end-of-term exams this week. So we’d done them last week. Cut out angels and put on other Christmas symbols (trees, candles, stars, etc) using small papers that we have and can cut more of. They were very excited about them. For kindergarten through 2nd grade we had cut outs of the manger and a baby Jesus that would fit inside it. So glue them on the outside of the card and then write the message on the inside. And then with the little ones I photocopied angels on half sides and merry Christmas on the other…turns out that I did them backwards but I’m sure they will still work…and then I went into the preK class and teacher Rabecca had already gotten hers ready…she just asked for help getting them to glue them on the papers. Lovely week done.
If you have other ideas for art projects for any of the groups (age 3-8) I would greatly appreciate them…for all times—not just for Christmas (and actually not for Christmas as it will be over by the time I can get it together…school ends on the 9th)

mango jam

When we returned to nkhoma after our night in town, ute dropped me at the cottage and we looked at the jars we had assembled because we knew that we had a lot of mangos and we wanted to try making mango jam before they all went off…but we thought we would put it off until Monday evening…well the mangos were at ute’s house and when she got home she said the smell of very ripe mangos was too much…so I headed over with the jars and we got to work with the mangos. Lots of mess—if you’ve ever tried to cut mangos…and then these were quite soft and squishy…but they still tasted good (it was like picking berries…some for the pot and some for me)…then lots of sugar and some water and boil until you think the consistency is right…we had two pots so we added orange juice to one and vanilla to the other…cinnamon to both (adapted from recipes found online)…and I’d have to say we did a pretty good job. We did run out of glass jars but we coped…and I think that it is a good thing we like it because ute has 5 mango trees in her yard and I have one out the back of the cottage and now at the new house there are more in the yard again…

rain and a pool

Took the Saturday afternoon and night to stay in Lilongwe with Linn who was in nkhoma for 10 months on a Norwegian nurse exchange and is back working at the big hospital in town through the norwegian peace corps. Her house has a pool and a nice yard and is in the middle of town. So we arrived and sat by the pool in the heat of the day…so nice. Got a bit cooler when the sun went down and we got ready to go out for dinner. Went for Chinese and then to listen to some music at Chameleons. The band we were told was good—had good lyrics about stuff that was going on but then it was in Chichewa so we just enjoyed the beat. And then it started raining…not too hard but a constant drizzle that lasted all night. It was cloudy and overcast Sunday and too cool to sit next to the pool. Just our luck really…but then it was a nice break away and relaxing…we’ll just have to go back again for the summer feel…

christmas tableau

the set
main movers (king, registrar, inn keeper, joseph, mary
wise men and star holder
our choir of angels and herd of shepherds
And the day after thanksgiving was our Christmas pageant. After a scare that we wouldn’t get the church as planned we just had to move the production up an hour. (the nurses’ graduation was kicking us out even though we’d booked a month in advance). We also had to share the stage set up with the graduation décor so our stable didn’t have quite the backdrop we’d imagined but then not much is the way you plan it here. There was no power so our attempt at getting a sound system working was thwarted (I was relieved as usually they are turned up so loud you can’t understand anything anyway). Our narrator was our kindergarten teacher and you could hear her very well. The songs were accompanied by Dr. Barbara Nagy on her guitar. We had a registrar and innkeeper, mary and joseph, main angel, king herod, star holder and 3 wisemen. Everyone else was in the herd of shepherds or in the host of angels. We sang silent night, away in a manger, long time ago in Bethlehem, twinkle twinkle little star and joy to the world. It was short and if you were late you most likely missed it…which was too bad but then we had to get out for the graduation. Here are a few pics that I have…wish I could put up a video but that would be pushing my internet capabilities and time…