I'm In Seattle

I found a great way to meet chicks in airports. Practice juggling. They will flock to you. Unfortunately, all these women will be around the age of 35 and ask you if you do birthday parties for their kids.

If the title wasn't a giveaway, I've made it through the long trek back to Seattle. The three months I had in Mozambique flew by incredibly fast, and it definitely sucks to have left. The kids left a huge impression me and they will in no way be forgotten nor will it be the last time that I see them, that's for sure. The last day I was there it felt like somebody had died. The whole day folks were just kind of moping around and shuffling their feet when they walked. And then leaving, I think Christina described it best by saying my final day in Nampula was like a "sad wedding". My mom said it sounded more like a funeral as I felt like the head of a reception line to everybody paying their last respects.

While it does suck to have left Mozambique, I'm trying to focus on the positives. I had a hot shower last night that was pretty dang sweet. I'm able to do some hard core brainstorming and planning for the orphanage uninterrupted.

It is very hard to sum up a take-away from my experience, or to boil it down to answer something like "So, what was it like?" or even "what was the best part?" because there were so many different experiences that it is hard to boil it down to just a snapshot. The best snapshot I can give you is that it was absolutely amazing and the best part was knowing in full confidence that for the whole time I was loving the kids and serving Jesus.

Mozambique's Really Not That Different - UPDATE

I'll give you an example. The other day I'm in the market getting some produce with Victor. Victors out doing his thing and I'm hanging back guarding the car. I'm guarding the car because 1) People will smash the windows, slash the tires, or steal the mirrors and 2) because if people see Victor with a white guy he gets a bad rate on groceries.

While I'm hanging around the car, I of course get mobbed by people (because I'm so good looking). After I beat them all away one kid sticks around. He's about 10 years old and wearing super tight sweat pants and a t-shirt with the neck so stretched out he looks like he could be a high school girl circa 1988. This is how then conversation went happened (in Portuguese). Mets is the unit of currency, not a defunct New York baseball team.

An Open Letter to T-Pain

*Disclaimer: To all my readers who may not be in touch with the current state of popular culture, and more specifically popular music, in America you can ignore the clever and more wittier references in this update.

**Disclaimer to the Disclaimer: Given that I've been officially out of touch with popular culture for 3 months (and unofficially for pretty much my whole life) the aforementioned clever and witty culture references may no longer, in fact, be clever and witty. If so, please just ignore.

Dear T-Pain,

I would like to take this opportunity to officially thank you for having ruined the future of music in TWO countries, not just one. Thanks to you, hundreds, nay, thousands of people who realized they couldn't carry a tune in a bucket of water realized that they too can moonlight as somebody who actually has talent. I'll give you an example:

Yesterday I was hanging out after dark shooting the breeze with the night guards. They had a radio on, and the song that started playing was Carrie Underwood's "I Told You So" ft. Randy Travis. They listened with eager intent as I translated the song for them and went back and forth with emotion as if they were watching this poignant story of lost love unfold before their very eyes. Afterwords, they asked me if the song was sung by an angel because it was the most beautiful thing they'd ever heard (OK, they didn't really ask me, but I could tell they wanted to).

Cars

These updates have been flying off the griddle like hotcakes: sweet and filling with a hint of fruitiness, but then later you're like, Where did all my time go? and then you remember Oh yeah, I was eating those delicious hotcakes. I gotta get me some more of those!

First I want to apologize for the formatting/font issues as of late. If your eyes have been straining to read the ever-changing font style or size during the last couple of updates, get them checked.

Here is a great example of the better roads here in Nampula. I say that because it's really the only road into town that's paved. Its about one and one-half cars wide, and is shared by pedestrians, bicycles, motors bikes, minibuses, trucks, and big-rigs. And from time to time its also shared by tractors.


I've only seen two types of tractors here: Ford, and Massey-Fergeson. Ironically, the Massey-Fergeson dealership sits right next to the Mercedes-Benz dealership (it must be a collusion of hyphenated named stores). It should be pointed out that I've yet to see a Mercedes-Benz on the road, This is a tractor I saw working the lumber mill. The lumber mill was operated by a separate, stationary tractor. I sat there watching for a few minutes, and given the the quality of what was coming out the other end , I guarantee you I could run it just as good with my years of expertise WATCHING logging demonstrations (thank you, Lynden).
This tractor was particularly interesting because I helped these guys to push start it twice because the driver sucks at working a clutch and the starter on the tractor was broke.

The Bungle in the Jungle - Part III: The Fugitive

This update wins the award for longest name ever. Here's what went down when I reached the Malawi border.

After leaving the Mozambique border post there's another 2 miles of no-mans land where there is literally nothing until you reach the entrance to Malawi. The first that should have tipped me off that this was going to be a bad day was the border patrol is part of the Malawi Department of Revenue. I stood my turn in line, filled out my paperwork, and took a good look around the place. Most of the folks that were there were driving some sort of tractor-trailer combination (and in this part of the country, its literally a tractor and a trailer) and waiting to declare their goods.

As I handed my papers and passport to the gentleman (I use the term loosely) behind the desk, he takes his time looking at it. He takes a moment to arrange the paperclips neatly on his desk, sharpen his pencils, clean the pencil shavings from the sharpener, put them in the trash. Each task was done with such delicate precision so I would know that he really was serious and not just wasting my time. When he was finished with his spring cleaning, he picked up my passport, looked at it for all of five seconds, looked at me for another five and then stated, "You are not fit to enter Malawi." English is the lingua franca in Malawi so I didn't have to interpret that he was being a butthead. After about 30 seconds of just staring at him trying to figure out what he meant, he repeated, "You are not fit to enter Malawi. Go back to where you came." It still took a few minutes for what he said to sink in. I started asking him for a few details. "Is there some international scare I don't know about? Did the U.S. declare war on Malawi while I was gone? Is Malawi no longer a country? This is Malawi, right?" I was given a quick and stern reply. "Thank you for you business, now we have other matters to attend to." He tore up my papers and motioned for the next "customer".

I waited about 30 minutes and tried to go back in there and try to enter the country. Maybe he would leave and somebody else would be at the desk. I hadn't figured it out that a Malawi border crossing more than an hour from the nearest town wouldn't have more than three guards, so was out of luck when this time all three of them turned me away. I sat outside for a pondering my predicament. After talking with Christina on the phone for a few minutes, she assured me she would straighten the situation out with the embassy. And the advice I got from Victor was to assert myself and show them I'm not a pushover. I was determined to go back in there and get an explanation. Here was the exact explanation I received. Pretty close to verbatim.

Me: I would like to know what the problem is with my papers.
Mr Idiot: I will say again. You are not fit to enter Malawi.
Me: Why I am I not fit to enter Malawi?
Mr Idiot: We are a security agency.
Me: So I am a security threat? (*not the first time I'd been accused of this*)
Mr Idiot: We are not allowed to explain ourself to YOU.
Me: I think even if you were allowed to explain yourself to me that YOU wouldn't be able to come up with a good reason!
Mr Idiot: Do you think YOU are somebody special that you demand be allowed into MY country?
Me: I could call my embassy and we could have THEM tell you I'm special. Would that speed the process along?

If this were an episode of Arrested Development, this would be the point where I said "I've made a huge mistake". Apparently, mentioning the embassy did speed the process along. It sped me along right out the door by two men with guns.

At this point, I was left with no recourse but to turn back to Mozambique. After getting my driver (the guy pedaling the bike) to take me bake to Mozambique I hung my head with shame as I entered the Mozambique immigration shack. This is where more of my trouble started. After handing my entrance papers to the guard he looks puzzled, because according to my passport I left Mozambique but never entered any other place. He asks me what the problem is, and I tell him that the guards at Malawi refused me entrance. He confers with the other guard and says that I am prohibited from entering and I'm to return to Malawi (which if not for my current predicament I would find amusing being told to return to a place I've never been). I start to press him a little bit, and he exhibited the same amount of indignation that the Malawi guard did by saying, "Your problem is not with us, you need to take your problem back to Malawi."

To save you the boring details, this turns into about 15 minutes of heated discussion on his part. It was not so heated for me because I can't talk fast enough to convey the amount of pissed-offedness that I was experiencing at that moment. After our "conversation" I went outside and started considering my options. To make a very long story not quite as long, I ended calling Christina, and had the phone cut out repeatedly (I was miles from anywhere, if you recall). I spent the next two hours waiting for the Embassy to call to help with the situation, sitting at a convenience store next to the border station to charge the phone, frequently pleading with the guard to allow me to enter the country, and praying my butt off.

When the embassy finally was able to call back, they knew all about my situation because they had been talking with Christina back in Nampula. He asked to talk to the guard at the border station. The guard accepted my offer, grabbed the phone, casually pressed the big, red end-call button before feigning attempts to discuss how I was a threat to national security and was being denied entrance and acting like he was having a hard time hearing the man from the embassy, saying " The connection must be bad, you should try later." The embassy called back immediately, and passed the phone off to the guard, and again his finger casually hit the end-call button. I thought to myself, "What if my fist casually hit the end-call button on your face?" But, once again, the presence of firearms posed a problem.

This game went on three times, until the guard at the Mozambique border posited a solution to my predicament. "For three-thousand dollars I'd be willing to call the guard at the Malawi border and see if he won't be more willing to help you out."

If you're wondering to yourself how the Mozambican guard could possibly know or have any sway with the Malawian guard, just stop. You don't have to have been in Africa for long to realize that three-thousand dollars here means the Malawi guard will consider letting me in the country for another three-thousand, and then I'm cleaned out broke (the ATM machine that was 10 miles from another living soul happened to be broken that day, so I was out of luck).

After being “consulted” by my embassy that it would be better to return to Nampula and sort it out there, I jumped the fence and booked it back to Mandimba, the nearest town of more than 6 people. As I was going back to Mandimba on the bicycle taxi, every single car I hear I was positive was the enraged Mozambican border guard coming to deport me or hand me over to the local jailer. After making it back to Mandimba, I proceeded to stay out of site by slinking around back alleys and between food carts and behind the disco. I managed to get dinner for the night from a street vendor, who also let me know of a good place to sleep for the night (it was probably the only place to sleep for the night.

As a side note from all the drama unfolding, it is utterly hilarious when people try to help you out here. It doesn't matter if it is me being helped or somebody totally random. People go so far out of their way for things that are totally unnecessary. For example, the guy who I bought dinner from, when I asked if he knew a good place to get a room for the night, not only walked me to the "hotel" but he proceeded to tell the guy behind the desk that I was looking for a room, walked over to two different rooms with us, checked them out beforehand to make sure they were to my liking, and then asked if the room was satisfactory, made sure I paid the hotel, and then showed me where the bathrooms and showers were. I've seen enough of people to know that they'd do it for just about anybody, not just because I'm handsome.

In the morning, I was able to take my time getting ready and hiding because I couldn't return to Cuamba until the chopa that left Cuamba made it here. Once I was safely aboard the chopa, I did not have the luxury of being in the front. This meant that instead of my knees being in the chest for 2.5 hours over a dirt road my knees were in the chest of the person behind me for 2.5 hours over a dirt road. One point of mention: when we were approximately 20 minutes from any sort of town or village, an older lady in the chopa asked to be let out because she arrived at her destination. She exited the chopa, grabbed her bags, and started walking to what I think was her house. I'm not entirely sure if it was in fact here house, because the horizon was kind of obscuring my view and made it hard to see another living thing for 10 miles or so.

Then came the scariest part of my trip. Forget the burning train car, the back end of a bike taxi, being shown to door at Malawi, or faced with paying a ridiculous bribe to a pair of colluding border guards. This was much worse. As we neared the entrance to Cuamba on the chopa, we were pulled over by the police. I use the term pulled over loosely because he was just standing in the middle of the road directing any car who dare use the road over the the side where he could then search the vehicle and demand money to let you go any farther (this was not the first time I've been pulled over by the police here). If I were the driver, I'd be temped to just floor it and hope for the best, because for a completely non-descript (honest) car like we were in, there's nothing the police can do on a little 50cc motorbike that has a top sped of 20mph. In fact, if you actually do every need the police for anything useful and they're not too busy making money stopping all traffic into or out of the city, you need to literally go to town, find the police, and drive themto wherever it is you need them. If you get lucky, you don't have a car and the police will refuse to take the minibus or walk with you.

So this jerk with nothing better to do stops us takes 2 seconds to look inside the car, and asks me to step out. I'm thinking there's a country wide A.P.B. to detain with all unnecessary force any and all good looking 20-something white males who are in the country illegally. He direct me to open my backpack, and start rummaging through my overnight kit. The only thing it had in in was toothpaste and my malaria pills. After inspecting the toothpaste for what must have been two minutes (I felt like I was in an airport again), he packs my bag back up for me and tells me to get back in the car. I've been stopped by cops two other times, and this is the first time that one hasn't asked to see my documents. Praise Jesus! There literally would have been no way to explain to this guy the difficulties I had the day at the border and how I was just trying to get back to Nampula to sort it all out. He would have assumed I was a bandito (again, not the first time I've gotten that) and the next time you logged on to tjgoestoafrica.com it would redirect to tjgoestoprison.co.mz

After the terrifying non-event with the police, the chopa continued to town, I wandered using side roads and alleys to the house where I was at the first time through the town and laid low for the rest of the day. The next morning featured the all too familiar 3am wake-up call so I could wander down alleys and side streets some more to avoid police attention before boarding the train back to Nampula. After an extremely (thank God) non-eventful trip to Nampula, I made it back to my house safe and sound, put in a few calls to the embassy, and collapsed with exhaustion. Apparently God was watching out for me because the next day at the immigration office instead of paying a huge fine or officially being deported they apologized for my troubles and stamped me into the country.

For all those who got a little lost I've included a handy Cliff Notes version of my story. Click on the picture to blow if up full size in all its magnificent detail.

Now I can return to more normal updates about what life has been like, including tornadoes, car accidents, and the day it got so hot my frisbee melted.

The Bungle in the Jungle - Part II: FAQ's

So day two of my trip to Malawi picks up where day one left off (I’ll give you a minute to ponder the redundancy of that statement). I realize that most of the readers are not familiar with the geography of Mozambique, or travel here, so I hope to enlighten you with a section I call Malawi FAQ’s.

How do you get from Nampula to Cuamba?

Great question! What you do is you take a train that lasts anywhere between 10-16 hours and covers all of 250miles. Hopefully can find a seat and don’t get baked to death in the process.

How much does the train cost?

$5 USD. Yep. Its great.

What do you do when you get to Cuamba?

If you’re able to you can stay with Victor’s sister And if you are fortunate, his other sister Carmina, who you already know and lives here in Nampula, will be visiting the same time as you, so you won’t feel totally out of place.

Where do you go after Cuamba?

You wake up at 3:30 in the morning so you can start wandering around the town aimlessly. After about 20 minutes of wandering you find a chopa (minibus) that transits the 140miles back and forth between Cuamba and Mandimba. The reason you have to wander around so early is because you need to be the first person in the chopa so that you can sit crammed in the front seat instead of super-crammed in the back seats. The chopa regularly hold more people than a clown-car at the zoo (20).

After you’ve made it into the chopa successfully, be sure to ask the driver to cruise around town for the two hours picking up passengers until the car is full, and then hit the road. If he has a Shania Twain greatest hits CD, ask him to play it extra loud so everybody knows you are cool because you listen to music from America. If you get lucky and you driver is crazy enough, the trip should last about 2.5 hours averaging 60mph drifting around dirt roads in a van that looks like it got rejected from a dealership in Kiev (Vybachte to all my friends in the Ukraine).

How much does it cost?

$4USD. Again, Its great.

What do you do when you get to Mandimba?

The chopa will drop you off in the section of town known as Little Malawi which, as small as Mandimba is, should be known as Freakin Little Malawi. Try not to get mobbed as you get off the bus. The locals know you have money and will try to exploit you. Duck into a diner or local establishment quickly. Once in there, relax. You’ve just been sitting in a car for the last 5 hours (2.5 in Cuamba, 2.5 in the middle of nowhere), and you really need to use rest for a few minutes. Find somebody to go and negotiate an exchange rate for you. When they agree to the price its great to see their face light up when they realize they’re doing business with a macunya and they could’ve hit the jackpot. After you’ve exchanged your money into kwacha (which has an exchange rate second only to Zimbabwe before Zimbabwe decide the USD was going to be its official currency) have your negotiator go out and procure transport to Malawi. Again, watch the guys jaw drop when he realizes he missed an opportunity to hustle a foreigner AND he has to transport the only person in Mozambique taller 5’9”.

Why would his jaw drop because you’re so big?

Because the method of transportation from Mandimba to Malawi is 30 minutes on the back of a bicycle. No, not a bicycle rickshaw. It’s actually on the back of his bicycle. Cost: $1.10 USD.

What should you do when you arrive at the border?

Talk to the bitter old guard who is at the border outpost and get him to process your papers and pay the $2 tax to leave the country.

What does Malawi look like?

I don’t know. This is as far as they would let me go.

Stay tuned for the thrilling conclusion of The Bungle in the Jungle - Part III: The Fugitive.

The Bungle in the Jungle - Part I

So, about a week ago I hit the road for Malawi. I was taking a vacation and wanted to get out and see the country side and all that Southern Africa has to offer. I ended up getting much more than I bargained for.

Sunday morning I headed to the train station painstakingly early. After my 3:30am wake-call I boarded the train at about 4:30am. The reason that I was trying to get there so early was because the train that was leaving today was third class only. I needed to get there early if I wanted a seat. The train today was going to take at least 10 hours and could be as long as 15. If I had to stand, lean on the back of the seat, or hang out the window it was going to be a very long day.

Unfortunately, I was not early enough to guarantee myself a seat, so it meant I was standing. If you've ever taken a train in a third world country (or into NYC at rush hour) you know what it can be like. Third class was packed to the brim with people, most of whom were sleeping come our 5am departure. Of those who were not sleeping, everybody was looking right at me! Everywhere I looked, instead of making that split-second of awkward eye contact before both looking away, nobody would look away! I decided to relish the moment and take a minute or two to try to telepathically communicate or stare into their soul or see who would blink first. After successfully losing staring contests with everybody on the train, I had managed to pass the first hour of my trip.

Unfortunately, I have no pictures of the scene inside third class: people sitting on each others laps, men hanging out the window, people crowding the isle, mothers with three or four kids all screaming and crying. The last person I talked to that tried to take a picture on the train here ended his story with "and then the other passengers threw me off the train."

The other thing about the train in Mozambique is its a moving grocery store. It stops about every 30-45 minutes, where the train is mobbed by all the local villagers bringing their produce to the train tracks to sell to the passers by. Some favorite items include dried cassava, beans, onions, carrots, bananas, oranges, grilled chicken, fried chicken, live chicken, potatoes, sugar cane, mirrors, knives, or anything you grow... I wondered how people grow knives or mirrors, but it turns out they purchased them from the previous train that passed through the day or two before.

Bungle no. 1: After about two hours worth of train riding I was approached by the train security guard. This is a guy wearing full military fatigues and a fruity little beret (not a manly green beret, but a fruity one). He came up right where I'm standing and demanded that I leave. "Great," I'm thought. "Here this guy thinks he's the boss and is gonna threaten to kick me off the train." Panic swept through me as I feared that I would be abandoned literally miles from a phone or car or anybody that speaks Portuguese much less English. He started pushing me towards the front of the train car. I reluctantly went along fearing the worst. He pushed me on in through the next two cars until at last I had nowhere else to go. He opened the door of the final car before the locomotive, and in we stepped into the dining car. At this point he was content for doing his duty of removing a horrible distraction such as myself from third class, and went back to the rest of his duties.

Bungle no. 2: And then I almost died! After being in the dining car for about 2 hours, it was starting to heat up. Remembering that the train car is basically a big metal box, the windows are so poorly designed there's never any draft, the train averages about 40mph and slows to a crawl going up hills and stops in the sun for 15 minutes at a time for everybody to go to market its easy to see that inside the car can get much hotter than the 85 to 90 degrees it is outside the car. On top of this, regular readers of my blog know how the locals around hear like to clear their vegetation before sowing and/or after reaping the land. With FY-yuh.

All of a sudden, as the train was going up a long, slow incline (the only reason you know you're going up an incline is because the trains slows to a crawl) you could hear shouts coming from the front of the dining car. Eventually, the shouts migrated back to the end of the car where I was sitting and I discovered why. The locals had decided to burn the brush on either side of the train tracks at the precise moment the train would be traveling through. Rather that stop the train like any reasonable person, the driver just kept of going. On either side of the train, a raging inferno of trees, brush, and shrubs made the inside of the cab hotter than a [inert your own clever analogy here, or perhaps submit them as comments. Winner gets a high-five].

This sauna of a train car wasn't just a flash in the pan. The train rolled on through at least 90 seconds of burning jungle until there was not a dry brow in the entire car. In between thoughts of "This is going to be great for my website!" were equally as prevalent thoughts of "so... this is kind of a crappy way to go." and "I wonder who will inherit my guitars?" While being maybe the most scary and unbearable minute and a half of my life, it was also perhaps the best thing that could have happened to the proprietors of the dining car. After the incident, refreshment sales went through the roof.

Later on in the dining car, after temperatures had returned to normal. Two remarkable things happened. The first was when I managed to avoid having to pay for a meal after the third attempt from the waiter. The second was when I met Mangono.

Mangono first asked me if I spoke French. I told him I spoke English. I asked if he spoke Portuguese, and he replied yes. We had finally found a method to communicate. I know I have a knack for stretching the truth a bit (read: a lot), but I guarantee that none of this is stretched. Over the next few hours we talked about about sustainable agricultural practices, educational philosophy, cultural homogeneity versus lingual homogeneity, health care, and international trade practices. It was a very interesting conversation to say the least.

Mangono struck me as a person who was slightly more well informed than other folks that I have run into here. There is so little news generated in Mozambique and most of them do not know anything else of what is happening around them in Zimbabwe or South Africa, many people still think Obama was elected the king of Africa and are still waiting for him to visit their neighborhoods, and rumors and hearsay are believed more than what is read on the paper. Mangono knew all about the history of Southern Africa, and the continent as a whole, he knew what was going on in the rest of the world and how it would effect him. He was also very well read, which I found very distinct for a country where the literacy rate is about 38% and the HIV rate is about half of that that this guy would be talking about the Conference of Berlin or NAFTA, two things that most other Americans have no idea what they are (go ahead, take a reading break and look it up).

Its at this point I decided to ask Mangono what his occupation was. He replied that he was a Christian. I said "That's great, me too. But what's your occupation?". He replied with the same answer. It struck me as more profound of an answer than he probably meant it to be. At this I had to know more, so I asked him what his story was.

Mangono was born in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC aka Zaire). When he was a child, they lived out in a rural village that was the home of an American missionary (I'm told he spoke French, the official language of the DRC). It was at that point that Mongono, and eventually the rest of his family, met Jesus. He also learned some English from the missionary, which was very rough but passable, and also taught him to read and gave him some of the early education he received.

But due to the conflict in the Congo that seems to perpetuate most of its history, Mangono eventually crossed paths with the harsh realities of life in Africa. One night, raiders/rebels came through their tiny village and threw a grenade into the house of his aunt. She jumped on the grenade to protect her kids, and it would be the last thing she did. Mangono was the only relative that could step in to care for the children, and it wasn't long after that that he and his newly inherited family made it out of the Congo into a refugee camp in here Mozambique.

That was almost 9 years ago. Since then, Mangono has learned Portuguese, found "work", when people will hire him, and graduated out of the horror that can sometimes be the refugee camps into a country, language, and culture that is not his own. He was on the train heading out to Cuamba (town at the end of the line) for a few days to visit friends from his church that he helps pastor.

When I asked him what his plans were for the future, if he had any desire to go back to his home country, what he does for income, what is becoming of the family he inherited, he had big plans. The last few years he has been petitioning the government to grant him funds to let him build a library. The reason: because he knows that God wants him to build a library here in Nampula. I've heard from several kids here that the library is nothing to go out of your way to see. Mangono sees it as a way to increase access to information and resources that currently nobody has as a way to improve the quality of life. The governent, I'm guessing because Mangono is a foreigner, refuses to fund it. He said in the midst of the library and everything else he is trying for he is trying to use his refugee status to get to Europe, Canada, or the US, something he hopes will afford him the income to be able to come back here and start the library.

The more I am around here and the more I hear peoples stories and have experiences of my own the more I am convinced that Africa is completely jacked up. Its not jacked up because of lack of infrastructure or the AIDS pandemic or the economy or how people live. Its jacked up because in spite of all the adversity that people like him face - seeing family killed, being uprooted from your home, coming into an entirely new land and language, facing rejection and not finding work because you're a refugee - he knows that God has laid the way and is so incredibly thankful for all the blessings in his life. And when you grow up in Congo you probably know dozens or hundreds of people effected by conflict and bloodshed. And when you move into the refugee camp you're living among thousands, coming to Mozambique can seem like a lateral change if not a downgrade. Trusting that God is guarding you through all that, and that he's has purpose for you greater than being a second class citizen in a third world country, that's pretty jacked up.

Stay tuned for the rest of my adventure to Malawi. Its not one to be missed.

A Day In The Life

Like the sands of the hourglass, so are the days of my life. The much requested, much anticipated, and much expected post chronicling all the details of a day at the Evangafrica Orphanage. This was all recorded during one absolutely normal, nothing special, always out-of-the-ordinary day in Mozambique.

And as an added bonus, keep reading to spot the best picture in the history of the orphanage!

5:30 - My day begins when the megaphone goes off. Its literally the siren on a megaphone and its sounds like the Huskies scored a touchdown (if anyone can even remember what that sounds like). I usually shake the bugs off my net, out of my shoes, and off my clothes. After that, I sweep through the rest of my bungalow and talk with the animals, just like in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.This guy has been hiding out in the kitchen sink. Its a great place for him to hide, because my sink has neither running water or a connected drain line.

5:35am - I usually get my wits about me and head over to the watering hole. Here I get to wait in line with all the kids and collect all the water I'm gonna use for the day. My main uses are only for drinking and showering.
6:00am - After picking up breakfast, I bring it back to my house. Breakfast is rice porridge. Recently we started getting sugar in it. For the first month I was here I swear somebody confused the sugar with the salt because it was almost unbearable salty at times.
Breakfast is usually a good time for me to get my necessities out of the way. I usually sit and eat it while I'm boiling my water. It need about a gallon a day here with all the work and heat/humidity. Its also a good time for me to get some reading in and spend some good quality time with Jesus while relaxing in my easy chair.
This is my easy chair. It was just sitting around here, and nobody ever used it or wanted it. And I'm such a sucker for anything free (ask me about the other 4 pieces of free furniture I've acquired over the years).

7:00am - After finishing my water/Jesus time, I clean up a little bit, get a shave in (I'm now an expert in shaving without a mirror, by the way) and get ready to face the day.

I inspect the roof of my bungalow before heading out. It can get pretty windy here, so I just like to assess it from time to time, because it needs to hold up if it ever rains. We're in the middle of the dry season now, which only recently has been giving us trouble (stay tuned for a post about the well).
7:05am - This morning I decided to go and chat with the neighbors a little bit. I was being friendly, but I had a secret hidden agenda.

7:10am - I encounter the first neighbor. We hang out for a bit, talk about the economy, his 401k, Michael Jackson, the Mambas (nat'l soccer team). But I didn't find what I was looking for.
7:30am - I run into the second neighbor. They're an older couple. The invite me in for some coffee, he talks about the weather and what life was like back before the war while she shows me pictures of her grandkids. We have good little chat, but I still haven't found what I"m looking for. whoa-oh-oh-oh.
7:40am - I found it! If you recall an earlier story about a morning ritual in the jungle here, you'll recognize what I'm talking about. The morning practice of burning leaves and pollen to create fumes with the hint of something oh-so-slightly narcotic. I meet the neighbors to confront them with the issue at hand. We discuss the potential environmental merits of perhaps creating a compost bin, but I am quickly dismissed as outlanding and told to pack up my Western ways and go home.Here is a picture of a smaller version of the epic toke-fests that take place most mornings behind my bungalow.

8:30am - I sit in during one of Professor Tomas' lessons. Tomas is a friend of Victor who comes in usually about 4 days a week and helps the kids in primary school who are behind in reading and writing (which is just about everybody).I'm just about as far behind in the reading and writing as they are and most days, especially if we're talking about verbs or tenses, it's really helpful. Other days its not, like if we're talking about whether the snake ate it's food or if the snake ate its' food.

The lessons take place inside the dining hall. And for all my HHS alumni reading this, the Portuguese word for dining hall sounds like "cafetorium".

9:30am - After the lesson there is usually lots of work to be done. Below is an example of when the bathroom was being tiled. Victor and Christina are hard at work to get the brand/grand new boys dorm up and running. Yes, I know. Contrary to popular belief, Victor and Christina are not those do-nothing, stay at home orphange parents you all think they are.This day, however, there was not actually any work to be done. Construction stops when there is not money coming in, which is about 4 days out of 5.

So in my spare time, I will just hang around with the kids and chat, give help on homework, teach English, play games all of the above.
I made my way over to the boys "dorms" for a little while. I call it tent city, because while the boys dorm is being finished, this is where they're living. Don't be shocked, they've actually done quite well for themselves with the walls, roofs, porches, etc.

After that, I make my way over to the girls dorm. I'm enjoy checking out the "African re-bar" aka bamboo.

11:00am - The first of the days many mini-emergencies take place. On other days its driving people to the hospital, having gov't officials show up without notice (not that we're hiding anything, they just generally suck), breaking up fights between neighbor kids, the list goes on. Today, it was mechanical (hooray)! A local NGO was bringing in donations when the car bottomed out on the gate coming into the orphanage and knocked the tailpipe clean off the car. TJ to the rescue! Sorry, no pictures. I was actually working during this one and couldn't take any.

After a quick change into my work clothes I started inspecting the car. I discovered that the tailpipe didn't break when the car entered the gate, this was just the final nudge it needed to drop completely out from under the car. The tailpipe was completely rusted-out and the muffler was tied to the car with an old bicycle tire.

1:00pm - After using some scrap-iron and a dozen or machine screws I attached the muffler and tailpipe back to the car. As I was prepping the broken section of tailpipe to weld a collar I made onto it (we have welding equipment here, but just stick welding, nothing fancy) another car pulls up. This is the director of the NGO along with his favorite mechanic. The mechanic is probably the same one responsible for "fixing" the tailpipe the other two times it had rusted out. He literally drags me out from under the car and proceeds to augment (read: destroy) my mounting brackets. He throws the tailpipe in the back of the car and drives off to his shop.

The boss of the NGO talked with his associates for a few minutes, and I could hear him reprimanding them for letting an estrangiero (foreigner) work on the company car. And then as they drive away he has the nerve to ask me (in Portuguese) if the mechanic could borrow our welding machine to repair the car. I was tempted to reply to him that the welding machine is a estrangiero too so he probably wouldn't like it, but Jesus restrained me and instead I told him I didn't understand what he was saying and packed up my tools.

1:45pm - After getting my clothes changed and discovering that my lunch had been given away (shima and beans), I put on my teacher hat and start with homework. I don't think the kids here (or most people in America) fully understand the capabilities of a mechanical engineer, they just see me working on cars, a coincidence. But they do know and understand that I love math and science. I won't talk a lot about teaching, because it and the education system here are going to get their own post later. But this is most of my time until dinner.
Everybody is hard at work doing the examples on the board.

3:00pm - The afternoon today was filled with a particularly different brand of excitement. The girls apparently have an upcoming grudge match against some girls from their school and started soccer practice today.
After a few drill and exercises with a very serious Gabriel (in the yellow shirt), and not paying attention, which frustrated a very serious Gabriel (still in the yellow shirt) they started playing.

If I were them, I would opt for a medium than soccer, but none-the-less it was undoubtedly the highlight of the day as all the boys came out to watch the girls try their feet at the worlds game.


It was a source of endless amusement to myself and all the other boys, and a few of the workers even (the two guys far left) stuck around after their shift to watch the "excitement". When a goal was finally scored it resulted in all the 20+ boys watching the game to start jumping up and down and doing flips off the wall we were watching from.

The next day I didn't see a single girl who wasn't either limping or walking around as sore and as stiff as a geriatric. I made fun of a few of them by throwing their pencils on the floor and watching them pick it up (just kidding, I promise).

4:30pm - After the excitement of the girls soccer game most of them went to shower and ice down. I was held back because some of the little ones wanted me to be their choppa driver. Choppas are the little mini buses that regularly hold 20 people that dart all over the city. They wanted me to drive them to a restaurant for dinner. At the restaurant we had, you guessed it, beans and shima! I splurged and bought them for cake for desert. No big deal. After all, I had a little extra cash because it costs 5 bottle caps to ride the choppa.

When I got out of the choppa (a work bench) to get the cakes, I took what is quickly being known as the best picture in the history of the orphanage. If you click on it you can view it in full wallpaper size. And I know that all y'all are gonna eat this up and send it to all you friends and introduce them to (from left to right) Jose, Mena, Ofeita, Samito, and baby Dorcas.

5:30pm - When I first came here and didn't know the language I discovered that one of the easiest ways to serve people here was literally by serving - dinner, that is. Now they won't let me leave. Oftentimes I will be hunted down to make sure I am not running away and skirting my responsibilities just to serve dinner to everybody.

6:00pm - Dinner is served! The last few nights, thanks to a local donation, we've been getting chicken liver along with our rice instead of beans. So after I've divide up all the plates and then ring the dinner bell and get to dish them out to everybody. Usually there's about 60 plates for dinner needed to include everybody.

7:00pm - After dinner there's devotional. It consists of one-part singing and one-part of a little scripture lesson given by one of the older kids here.

7:30pm - Devotional gets finished up, which means its time to start homework. The younger kid that don't have much have gone to bed by this point, and there's anywhere from 5-15 kids that stick around that need help with English, math, chemistry, physics, history, and/or geography. The only thing I refuse to help with is biology, which I never liked and I quickly discovered is impossible to translate for.

10:00pm Usually this is when I will get time to myself to check email, listen to BBC news on the radio, brainstorm for the water supply and well, update the blog, or just crash and get some much needed sleep to get back up and try it all again tomorrow.

Site Upgrades

I made a few tweaks to the layout of the site and added topic labels. I'm still fixing a few minor bugs and adding more in depth labels in case you care about that sort of thing. If the topic-label-maker-magic device to the left doesn't work, please make sure Java and Flash are enabled on your computer. I don't know what it looks like if you don't have it.

Also, I've got a huge backlog of posts that have to make their way up, especially after being "out of the country" for a week. Stay tuned, because this time I actually mean it. There gonna start flying up on the web like there's no tomorrow.

And thanks for all those that have been praying for me. It was especially felt and needed this last week. Story to be continued...

Inselbergs

We're here today to discuss probably the fourth biggest blessing God has given me since I've bee here, the landscape. What the heck is an inselberg? I'm glad you asked. Webster's defines it as INSELBERG (in-suhl-bherg) : n A freakin huge piece of rock that sticks out of the middle of nowhere.

These things are everywhere in Nampula (my city in Mozambique) and they're pretty hard to miss. The one below I saw going out to the Congo refugee camp one day. It's name escapes me, but it has a lot to do with the fact that it looks like a man's head: chin on the left, super cro-magnum-esque forhead on the right
As for the picture below, I know what you're thinking. "He's not in Australia, so why is that huge rock from Australia there? Did it teleport? Is it in a rotating display being showcased across the world? Did TJ find the island from LOST?" No, no, and I wish. This one can be seen from my bungalow and while it's hard to estimate, I put it at about 10 miles away. These things dot the landscape everywhere and are still breathtaking even after all this time.
I climbed a small version of one of these a while back to spend the afternoon/evening praying. You could see a lot of city from there. Theres another small one that's on the opposite side of town we drove up. That was a pretty fun experience too. Seriously, whenever I'm having a down day Jesus totally picks me up just by demonstrating all the beauty that surrounds us here in the orphanage.

Above is a picture showing three or four distinct rocks that are in reality miles apart. In the foreground is some of our neighbors. While I'd love to make it out there to go climbing one day, apparently there is too much danger from landmines on the roads out there so nobody goes there. And there's at least one kid who's here from parents having a run-in with landmines, so I'm not gonna take my chances (although if I did I wouldn't post it here because I know my mom is reading this).

So how does one get rid of an inselburg? I've outlined the procedure in three easy steps you can try at home.

1. Find men that live out in the bush and offer them a job.
2. Purchase for them a pick-axe. (If you are benevolent, you can also purchase coal or firewood*. This will allow them to stay warm at night when they sleep up on the rock while at the same time slightly warming/melting the rock to make the work easier.)
3. Use the pick-axe to destroy the rock.
   

That is literally how it's done. Good luck, and happy de-inselberging.


*Note: It is both impossible to acquire as well as unsafe to allow the bushmen to use thermite to melt the rock. This is not recommended and the author will not be held liable for the irresponsible use of bushmen.

Cobras

So there was quite a bit of stir around the orfonato last week. One afternoon right as everybody was finishing lunch we noticed smoke from next door over the wall. The wall is about 8ft high, so even I had to climb it while simultaneously hoisting kids up on my shoulders. It was quite a sight, but unfortunately, no pictures. Once up on the wall is became obvious what was going on. After all: Where there's smoke...

...there's FIRE. Say it like "FY-yuh" for a more dramatic effect. Go ahead, nobody's listening.
and more FY-yuh! Upon questioning the neighbors, we soon learned that they were burning up the ground looking for cobras. "Interesting," we thought to ourselves. We just had to know more.

So we all hopped the wall (or walked around it) in order to aid in the search. Now I must clarify, when I say cobras, I mean it as the Portuguese word for snake. What we looking for was actually vipers, spitting cobras, and mambas. People were literally saying "Here, cobra-cobra," as if they were luring the snake out of its pit into broad daylight.

There were many false alarms caused by Christina's brother-in-law Mike (who was visiting for two weeks from Seattle). Its very obvious to see Mike in the picture above because he is the only one not wearing red. And for those of you who still can't find him, Mike is the huge white guy.

California ain't got nothing on us.

What were we to use in the event of finding the elusive cobra the neighbors were looking for? After much debate among the elder members of the orphanage, we came to a nearly unanimous decision: Use big sticks to whack the crap out of the snake. I say nearly unanimous because, as you can see, my solution was to baby Dorcas as a human shield.

Like Sherman through Atlanta that fire left nothing behind. Once everybody has surveyed the aftermath (and we concluded that the high pitch sound we were hearing was the fire hissing and not snakes crying) the neighbors informed us that the reason they did not salt the earth after scorching it was because the fire was intended to clear the brush to plant crops, and not because they found a snake as we thought (read: hoped).

In other snake-related news, I want to introduce you guys to Isac-peqeno (little Isac). Isac is the kind of kid that is always doing really creative, innovative things, and always leaving a trail of terror. He's the kind of kid that when he grows up is either going to bring the next big technological revolution to fuel-injectors or will accidentally blow up the Govenor's mansion in a pyrotechnic display. Anyways, back to the snake stuff. When you are climbing trees around here, the two things you have to worry about are snakes, and falling.

Isac-peqeno was worried more about snakes. He fractured his arm and they set it in a big plaster cast. For the first day, he walked around without a shirt, and I couldn't help but laugh at the cast (I'm a horrible person, I know). He was pretty miserable for about 3 days. But now he's fine and running around and playing games. Now I can't help but laugh whenever I see him because it looks like he has one arm (again, I'm a horrible person,I know). But how often does a one armed person run around playing soccer or trying to catch giant crickets.

Coming soon: Inselbergs. What are they and how do we get rid of them.

Basketball Jones

So, there are many hidden meanings in the title, and I'm sorry I have not put up the cobra pictures yet (its a great story, I promise). So, a couple of days back, courtesy of Christina's sister Ann, we got ourselves a basketball! We went to the secondary school that's about 2 blocks away. First of, its probably the nicest school in Mozambique because it was built by the World Bank within the last decade. Which means that parts of it are air conditioned and its not decaying on itself. It is also the place where we get our water, because they have their own well (we're still working on ours). Second off, anytime time I go anywhere is bound to attract attention. See Pictures about when I drive the truck.

Now imagine that the hype is now doubled. Christina's brother in law Mike accompanied us to the outdoor basketball court at the school. Now imagine that Mike is even taller and stands out more in public than me. I conservatively put myself at 6'3", and he's got 2 inches over me easy. So after the usual song-and-dance of arguing with security over whether or I am a threat to their existence before they let me enter their campus, we start walking through the school to get to the gym. It felt like all 200 students that were there came out to watch us, and for all I know they thought Mike and I were pro NBA players. Its was also cool then for the kids from the orphanage that attend the school because we could say hello to them and then they could tell everybody "Yah, they're NBA players. Yah, They know Michael Jackson. Yah, they're my friends."

The basketball was a blast for the kids to get to scrimmage with us. We just played a little 3-on-3 for a while. There were definitely some kids there want wanted to strut their stuff, so it was fun to steal the ball or block them every now and then just to let then know who's the boss (bonus points if you get the picture reference).
After Mike and I stopped playing it quickly devolved into what appeared to be an intra-squad scrimmage between the Washington Generals (more bonus points if you get THIS one).

The second meaning of the story is just something you can't experience until you're either here in Africa or at a Dave Matthews concert. Every morning, myself and the rest of the neighborhood have a few simple chores: get our water before it gets too hot, start on breakfast (if there is food) and rake the yard. Raking the yard consists of getting all the leaves that have fallen off of the tree, gathering them with all the huge clumps of pollen that have fallen off the tree, putting into a big pile, and burning it (potentially using it to roast peanuts, too).

The problem is that every day, everybody decides that the best place to burn the pollen is right next to the fence behind my bungalow. The other problem is that everyday the pollen has about the same aroma as Marijuana.

Yes, I know what you're thinking. Let me assuage your fears by assuring you that I am a good responsible kid, but I did go the University of Washington and would visit Fremont on occasion (by necessity, I assure you) so the aroma of wacky tobacky is not unfamiliar to me. I should also tell you that I am certain that the amount of burning foliage I'm exposed to is having no effect on me. I have, however, developed large lapses in my attention span and rather insatiable urge to snack on cheetos all the time. More on that news as it develops, if I remember...

Hop aboard the train to crazy-ville

So, Victor and Christina left for three days to Pemba, meaning that I am now king of the orphanage! Just kidding. People much more qualified than I are running the place. And while Victor's absence does not necessarily mean chaos, it does mean that everything is starting to go to hell in a lovely, traditional African hand-woven basket.

So far we've had: People learning to drive the big truck using the trial-by-fire method, boys dressing like girls, the girls holding a weight lifting competition (the real ones, not the boys pretending to be girls), people passing out from heat-exhaustion and smoke inhalation, killer rats on the roof, a freak dust storm, impromptu street-fighting lessons courtesy of yours truly (we watched Rambo 3 a few days ago, so that makes me an expert), a broken alternator, no water in the cistern, a flooded cistern, we lost power, people have been threatening to eat me, and I accidentally started two Michael Jackson rumors.

So far its been a pretty eventful anything-that-can-go-wrong-will first 8 hours without adult supervision. It only gets better from here. Be sure to tune in for the next post entitled: Cobras. Pictures included.

Pictures!!!

You want it, we got it. Just to give you a few snapshots of what life has been like up to this point. Whenever we go somewhere, its usually piling in the back of the truck and hitting the road. I've found that it doesn't matter if I'm riding or driving, I usually attract attention. If I'm riding, I usually get shouts of "Ihali" meaning 'how are you' or "ihali, macunya" which means 'how are you, white person". If I'm driving the truck there are usually atleast 5 or 6boys in the back. Usually we're out getting supplies, which only requires 3 people to do. The other 2 or three boys are to beat people off the truck because people jump on thinking that I'm hiring workers for the day.

Here's a shot of Victor in the back of the truck with us. As much business as there is needing to be tended to, I think he likes to passear (joy-ride) just as much as everybody else here. The other feet and passengers you see are when a group from South Carolina came out for 10 days about two weeks ago.


Here I am in my element. My portuguese is rough around the edges, but I'm fluent in math, science and physics. They were all shocked to learn I like math and even more shocked when I said "I would help them with their homework" that I didn't mean "I'll do it for you". The school system here works basically on attrition. How long can you fake your way through while actually learning enough to pass your exams at the end of the year. If you're not good enough you pay bribes, get somebody else to take it for you, etc. Some of their teachers are also horrible, and I am pointing out errors in their notes constantly. I'm also fairly certain that if I walked into any classroom and said I was an engineer from America, they'd just leave and let me teach. I might try it someday.

I just thought this was humorous. Christina had some cereal she gave to me the first few days to help me adjust. For those that can't read it says "Quad'z: The Bombastic Taste Experience". In other funny news, one of the first things I learned to say in Portuguese was "eu tenho Jesu Cristo" (ignore the spelling. I can speak it, not read it) which means "I have Jesus Christ". The reason I learned this was my refusal to shave when I arrived resulted in me getting several salaam alekums from muslims who must have though I was some sort of imaam from the west. I have subsquently reversed my position on shaving.

Here I am digging the septic tank out. Its not uncommon to have about 4 or five people watching you work. It only means that they're standing there taking shifts.

Here is a giant tree outside a lumber yard. This type of tree isn't the kind that is being used for lumber, but what I find funny is just about where the image cuts off at the top is as far as the branches go out.
If you’ve made it this far, please pray for the rampant spreading of sickness going around right now. About fifteen of the 50+ kids here have gotten a cold in the last week and I just joined those numbers today. And think it might be hard to introduce some good ol’ fashioned chicken noodle soup and 7-Up around here.