My House - in the Middle of My Street

Check it out, y'all, another post already... Several people have been asking me to put up photos of my house so you can see how I’m living over here in my third-world country. And yes, it is MY third-world country. And it will continue to be so right up until someone comes over here to visit me. Then it will be OUR third-world country :-)

First a disclaimer: This is one of about twenty houses of this caliber in Cuamba… Ironically, it’s nicer than anywhere I’ve ever lived before. The people I’m working with have dirt floors and grass roofs that blow away in a strong wind. They almost never have electricity and usually have to walk a considerable distance to fill a water jug each day. Without even considering the rest of the house, they think I’m rich just because I have a refrigerator. Seriously.

So needless to say, I feel a bit ashamed each time I walk in the door – and I feel like this is a barrier between me and the people I’m here to work with. I didn’t choose this house, and I wouldn’t have, but that doesn’t mean I’m not grateful for it. I am extremely grateful that this place has been provided for me. I’m also extremely grateful that 90% of my ministry takes place away from my home here so that people don’t see how much nicer my things are than theirs…

Okay, all that aside, first here is a pic of my apartment in Nampula where I lived for my first three months while studying Portuguese. The orange Volkswagen was a permanent fixture - apparently it hasn’t moved in a long time because I could use it to give directions. “Yeah, I live in that part of town, right behind the orange VW.” My apartment was the one with the lovely teal colored exterior on the bottom floor – right behind the car. A word to the wise: if you ever live in a third-world country, don’t live in an apartment on the ground floor. Beggars were constantly coming right up to the window. They’d just stand there for a while, looking in, and then they’d ask for money. I gave them food, and they usually walked away disappointed.

And here is a shot of my new house in Cuamba. The owner just renovated the entire place, so everything is new. Of course, that doesn’t mean that everything works, it just means that it all looks nice. This next one is my monster-truck-of-a-Toyota. I get complimented on the size of the wheels all the time… it turns some heads as I’m cruising the strip, let me tell ya. The majority of my work takes place out in the countryside where there aren’t really roads, so most of what I do would be called “muddin’” if you lived in Kentucky. I must admit that I have a good time with it, but all in the line of duty…

And here we’re entering my front door. Notice the microwave on the nicely tiled floor there, that’s because at the time of the photo I only had power on one side of the house (a whole other story). That’s my bedroom straight ahead, with my only collared shirt hanging to keep it wrinkle-free. And next is my living/dining room. That’s my water filter sitting on the table. Check out the table cloth, eh? I’ve never used one of those in my own house before, but I thought I’d try living the high life.

Here’s my hallway, nothing too exciting about it, but it’s funny to me that I have my fridge in the hall because my kitchen only has enough room to turn around (barely). And next we come to my water retention system. Remember how I said that new things don’t necessarily mean working things? Well, the house has pipes, but we haven’t been able to get water into those lovely pipes just yet, so I have my guards (I’ll get to them in a minute) fill the wash basin behind the house whenever the city water is running, and then I take buckets of water into the house from there.

And finally, I want to show you all the trees around my house. They very rarely plant a tree here that won’t produce something edible, so I’ve got all kinds of fruit trees in my yard. These are some papaya trees; I’ve also got mango trees, some type of pear, and several that I’m not familiar with. On a normal day I eat three to four different types of fruit, so no worries about me getting scurvy. Wasn’t that what sailors used to get because they couldn’t get fresh fruit? I read a magazine article in college about a guy who tried to live on a diet of Skittles instead of fruit, and he got scurvy… but I guess that’s a bit off topic…

So yeah, I’ve got guards for the house because I’m gone so often. I also broke down and got a house worker. The local Mozambicans really look at us poorly if we don’t employ a few people. They see us with nice houses and cars, and if we don’t contribute at all to the local economy then they think we’re stingy. Which I am, but I think they’re right on this, so I’m employing two guards and a guy to help me in the house for a couple hours a day. He doesn’t really do much, and he’s not a very good cook, but it’s nice to not wash my own dishes any more… I tried to pick guys with a lot of kids - between these three men they have sixteen children.

And that’s my house. It wasn’t what I expected, so I doubt it’s what any of you expected either, but it’s a place to hang my hat… Maybe I’ll take a stroll through town to show you around sometime in the near future-

Life is a Highway

Howdy y’all – did you miss me? Sorry it’s been a while, but I’ve had a very interesting time for about the past month. I’ve been on the road through Mozambique, South Africa and Swaziland since mid-December, and I’ve still got to catch a train tomorrow to get myself back to Cuamba.

It all started with a train ride that was supposed to take nine hours and ended up taking 24, so hopefully it won’t be the same going back again… The train itself breaks down all the time, and since it’s the rainy season a heavy storm can (and did) wash away the railroad tracks. It’s an interesting feeling when you’re just chugging along and the train suddenly drops several inches…

I spent Christmas with some team members in Nampula (where I studied language) and we took off early on the 26th to drive to Johannesburg, South Africa. It’s a four-day drive, so I was looking forward to the road trip. The roads are sometimes paved, but mostly dirt and full of potholes that could swallow a tank. I didn’t take a lot of photos, but the first here is when we were crossing the Zambezi River. We didn’t have to go across in those canoes; there is a ferry for cars. Which brings me to my next photo… I love this shot because the guard in front of the truck is looking very tough and intimidating, but the goat up on top isn’t concerned with appearances at all and was bleating like nobody’s business. It was cracking me up, but it would have been quite inappropriate to laugh – a lot of things are like that around here... And this was our truck when we reached the southern part of Moz where it became much cleaner driving. Actually we had someone wash the car while we were at the river, or it would have been much worse…

I arrived in Joburg Dec 29th and we had a big retreat for missionaries all around the southern part of the continent. It was a great time to relax in an American-ish environment, and it was wonderful to be able to speak English for a while and to actually feel clean for more than the five minutes after washing. I stayed down there until Jan 3rd and hung out with some other Journeymen – people my age and doing similar work. Here’s a pic from New Years eve with all the others. Yep, I’m the only guy – it’s a hard lot…
So the people I drove down with had to stick around Joburg for a few extra days for medical reasons, and I wasn’t too keen on hanging out in the city the whole time. Joburg is kind of just a big ugly industrial city with a high crime rate and not much going for it. So I mooched a ride off a wonderful family who lives in Swaziland, and then squatted at their house for a few days. They’ve got two young boys who were great to play with, and there was another missionary there my age that was willing to play tour guide for me.

Swaziland is GORGEOUS. It’s mountainous and forested and just great– you can see the green hills behind me in this shot. It looks a lot like Ireland actually. The city this family lives in is surrounded by rocky areas, and on the last day there I talked my tour guide friend into climbing this big granite mountain. This was what it looked like at the beginning, but it quickly turned into a sheer rock face at about a 45 degree angle. We decided to press on despite that it was raining, and we soon found ourselves stranded about 3/4 of the way up without the ability to go any further. Going down was more treacherous, and we both came out with a lot of scrapes and bruises after a few semi-controlled falls… :-)

Later that day I took a taxi-van to meet up with my ride in Maputo, the capital city of Mozambique. Have you ever sat in a position where you couldn’t move anything below your shoulders? At first it’s really uncomfortable, but after a while everything goes numb and then it’s alright… Well it was pouring rain for this leg of the trek, and I was half-hanging out a window because there just wasn’t enough room in the van. The driver didn’t know how to use the break pedal, but I still felt kind of safe because I knew that I was wedged into the back of this van so tightly that it would take the Jaws of Life to get me out anyway. I reached my destination after about five hours, and somehow managed to find the right address in the dark.

It took us five days for the return voyage to northern Moz, but we stopped at beaches, forded flood water, and visited other missionaries along the way. Like I said, I’ll hopefully be on the train leaving tomorrow morning and that will complete one very interesting journey.