The one where TJ gets some action...

...shots. The one where TJ gets some ACTION SHOTS. I think there's a character limit on the title. How misleading.

Anyways, its a day late and a couple of dollars short due to internet outages (I warned you) but here the latest happenings around here. When it gets too hot (8am-4pm) to play soccer in the field, the boys will move under the trees in the back to play a little two-on-two in the shade. They use trees as the goal, run and kick the ball as hard as they can at eachother from about 20 feet away. Here are the boys watching the action. I thought I'd throw this in only because for some reason this gives a really funny angle for Canito (front) and his pants. I'm not sure why...

These two are Merecido and Manuel. They never lose. The object of the game is to outscore the other team by two. Most of their games end 2-0.

Here, Celso is about to make a valiant effort to save a goal.

And Francisco follows it up with this jem.

Martinho ended up blocking this one with his face. His partner Isaque was ecstatic because it preserved their lead.

Eventually, the ball always gets knocked over the wall. The kids try to get the neighbors attention any way they can. Normally they climb the tree.

The smarter ones just jump on top of an empty water barrel.

And then there's Francisco...

Eventually, we got the ball back. After another five minutes the game ended after Jeremiah blocked the ball with the one part of his body he should never use to block the ball with.

In other happenings, this week turned out to be fairly intellectual.. On Monday. I had a conversation with Lazarus. He is in 12^th grade and one of the smartest kids here. He came out of his room talking about his Philosophy homework (yes, that is a subject in school here). Upon learning that he too enjoys philosophy, I found something we both enjoyed and could talk about. Unfortunately, the next hour was spent discussing the philosophy of philosophy and, after finding zero common ground we abandoned the conversation.

On Wednesday I spent well over two hours lecturing some of the older boys about foreign trade, currency trading, international lending, and international monetary policy. It started when one of them asked my why the news said China is hiding money from the US (this the quality of the reporting here). The most profound question asked that night was “What would happen if China needed money and wanted all their money back?” Yes, America. What would happen?

On Friday, Victor and Christina left for a week to visit down in Beira. That makes me, as I told some American friends of mine here, the captain of a sinking ship. Friday stayed intellectual when around 9pm some of the boys started screaming. Mainly, it was Isaty screaming. He's the one next to Jeremiah (soccerball to the stones Jeremiah) in the picture above. It turns out he found a cobra crawling through the dorm and then killed it by stomping on it. Stomping a lot. He then grabbed a stick and took it outside so we could observe it.

It was only about 3ft (1m) long, but that didn't make it any more unsettling. After describing it to my missionary friends the next day, they shrugged it off. It was probably just a spitting cobra or a viper. All the kids gathered around for a photo op.

Literally 3 seconds after the picture the snake started twitching and wriggling around and every scattered faster than I've ever seen. We then properly disposed of the snake (yes, with fire and gasoline). Obviously, being right before bedtime, most of the boys under the age of 12 (and myself) were pretty scared and unsettled. Isaty tried to assure me that I was safe in my bed and the cobra couldn't climb up into it. When I asked just how he acquired that knowledge he told me, "I watched one once. It tried for about 10 minutes but couldn't make it up. So you'll be safe."

Lastly, with the school year ending and exams coming up there’s been lots of cramming going on around here. Here, I’m using cookies to illustrate valence electrons to Zacceu. Dorca thought the electrons were tasty, and thus we went from Oxygen to Nitrogen to Carbon.

And for the people that think I keep using her as a prop to stage photos, I don’t. She follows me around most places. Its fun.

And if Victor and Christina happen to read this while they're on their vacation, the orphanage's kitchen might have accidently caught fire in the middle of the night and I might have been able to put it out before it consumed most of the firewood. See you when you get back.

Mozambique 101 - Government Part One

This is the next post in a series titled “Mozambique 101”. This post explains how ridiculous political parties are here and talks about widespread corruption. This series is my attempt to answer many of the questions that I’ve been asked about Mozambique, other than the ever-popular “where’s THAT?” These articles should help you understand what things are like in Mozambique and just how they came to be that way.

I feel like this portion is funny enough on its own, so I’m just going to outline some fundamentals. People don’t like the government here. The people that love the government or support it are either part of the government, or some aspect of their life relies on people that are part of the government. As for the rest of it, I believe it’s a country that’s literally being held together by foreign aid from Europe. Let me explain…

Despite being a democracy, Mozambique has elected the same political party for every position in every election ever. Now, granted they don’t quite get elected with Sadaam Hussein or Hugo Chavez numbers around 98% of the vote, but its pretty high. In the 1990’s the margin of vote for president was in the 80% range for the FRELIMO party (the Galactic Empire, Darth Vader people). In the last presidential election, that number has been coming down and in now around 60%, but change is still a long way off.

The reason that change is so hard is because supporting the opposition party RENAMO (the Armies of Mordor) can sometimes be hazardous to your health. In a country where everybody in power is connected to Darth Vader, the cost of opposing can mean you and the rest of the Orcs get Middle Earth blown up by the Death Star. Try to keep track of the analogies, cause they’re gonna start coming fast.

For example, if there happens to be a RENAMO rally in town and your boss (who is probably a FRELIMO supporter because, after all, he’s a boss of something) finds out you attended you’re gonna be fired. Last year, people were shocked when in our city over 10k people showed up for a rally in town for RENAMO. And it was on like a Tuesday or something. That means there were that many people willing to risk their job or reputation on showing up to protest the Government. Now, before you think these people are super noble or say something profound like “The tree of revolution grows from the roots of blah blah blah – Sam Adams” keeping in mind that, in my opinion, the government is already doing a lot. Furthermore, nobody on either side has their act together enough to turn things around. And for people to care about politics would mean that they’re not worried about the 400 things higher on the priority list (food, shelter, flooding, child mortality, sanitation, getting malaria three times per year).

The last time I was in Mozambique happened to be during election season. After FRELIMO vehicles went around the city passing out free rice, cookies, t-shirts, and condoms a judge ordered that they hand over their bank records because most people knew that the money to pass out rice and condoms was coming out of the general budget.. In other words, tax money is being used to make cookies with the Presidents name on them to pass out to an orphanage full of children that can’t even vote. Anyways, to their credit FRELIMO actually tried to turn over the bank records, but when they went to the bank the next it turns out someone had burned down the bank and stole its records. Up here in the northern outskirts where FRELIMO’s control isn’t as strong (we’re like Tatooine, and that makes me Obiwan Kenobi) they were not so subtle and just outright set ablaze the oppositions headquarters and throwing your enemies in jail.

Last year a group of FRELIMO party leaders came to the orphanage just before election merely to “educate the children on how to vote”. In an odd coincidence they also brought along about 330lbs (150kg) of rice and two cases of cookies as a “gesture of good will”. They spent thirty minutes telling a room full of 60 kids what a ballot looks like and how to use it. It didn’t really bother them that only 3 kids could vote and the majority of them are all under the age of 13. Then, as they were getting ready to leave the lead everybody in some good old fashioned cheering.

FRELIMO: What country do you live in?

Kids: Mozambique!

FRELIMO: Are you proud of your country?

Kids: Yes!

FRELIMO: And who helped build this Orphanage?

Kids: God!

FRELIMO: umm… But who makes sure you have food?

Kids: Jesus!

FRELIMO: No, its FRELIMO! Who makes sure you have food?

Slighly more confused Kids: Jesus???

FRELIMO: No, its FRELIMO. Who makes sure you have food?

3 or 4 kids that have no idea what’s going: Frelimo?

Lucky for us, their Jedi mind tricks do not work on the weak minded (except for those four kids at the end). After they left, we spent an hour talking to the kids about how they were right, that God is the one that provides for us, and money makes people say crazy things. We tried to explain to them that its slightly misleading and wrong of them to go and pass out freebies in exchange for a vote. Except that’s exactly what they do all over town. They show up with a pickup and a megaphone, throw cassava into the crowd, and ask for a vote. At least they’re more honest about buying votes it instead of calling passing out cassava a “special interest project”. Hear that, America! And the other good thing is that the election season and campaigning here is only allowed to last for 6 weeks. Again, you hear that, America!

And of course, it wouldn’t be a third world pseudo-democracy with a little bit of corruption here and there. Aside from a bribe being able to get you out of literally any situation, failure to pay one can sometimes get you into trouble (hit the Malawi tag if want to know why). When I came through immigration entering the country I had paid for my visa in America before I came. It took me 4 minutes to explain that I was not going to pay for a new visa because even though, according to this immigration officer, “Visas from America aren’t the same because they’re bought with American money”.

Also, I’m sure it has something to do with “safety”, but all 10 of the roads going into our out of town have police checkpoints on them. And (un)lucky us, our orphanage is about 200 meters outside the checkpoint. I have only been stopped once so far, but that’s because most the time I’m driving the jeep. If you have a truck or semi with a flatbed (there’s no container here) you are guaranteed to be stopped and searched100% of the time. The police are looking for three things: driver’s license, truck permits/licenses, and crooked wiper blades. Because most people drive with licenses (but you’d be surprised how many don’t) they can’t get anybody on that. After that there are various licenses you can get for you truck. To carry gear/food/equipment you need a business license, to carry people you need a much more expensive transport license. Most people don’t pay for that one, so when they stopped carrying people they’re threatened with a huge fine. It’s a fine that most of the time a bribe will take care of. And if all else fails they will try to fine you for not having your headlights bright enough or your tires not full enough (true story).

Next time we finish our look at the Government through the lens of the masses. Riots will ensue. No, really. They’re gonna ensue a lot!

Open Mic Night

Music Monday kicks of with a bang here as we talk about a cultural staple in Nampula: The radio. There are about 6 radio stations here in Nampula. One of them is BBC News Africa, which I try to listen to as much as I can. Several are nationally broadcast stations, and at least two of them are based here in Nampula. There’s also a Christian radio station that plays sermons and other things and a muslim station that only plays those annoying whining Arab music that we’re forbidden from listening to here at the Orphanage.

Anyways, on most nights there’s a radio station here in Nampula that has what amounts to basically an open mic night. I’m not sure which one it is that has the program, but it is for sure not the muslim station. Here’s how it works. The music will be playing and the DJ will just pause it to talk over it and when he’s done talking it comes right back on where it started. It is very annoying for trying to listen to music, but listening to music is not the point of open mic night.

Open mic night starts with the DJ. He uses his powers of control to decides that 20 seconds into the song the intro was important so he’ll reset the track and play it again. He’ll also pause the song simply so he can repeat the lyric. The other night they played “Say you, say me” by Lionel Ritchie and he paused it every line so he could translate. For some reason, having a song play on its own is not enough for people here. They need the DJ to comment on it.

Once the DJ has run out of things to say. That’s when the fun really starts. Somebody will call in with their radio turned way up, and for three seconds there is nasty feedback until they realize this and turn their radio down. Then the airwaves are theirs for literally as long as they have something to talk about. Come to think of it, most of the time its less an open mic night than it is a community CraigsList where people can advertise whatever they want. I’ve heard people asking for car parts, people saying they’re selling car parts, people lost a wallet with money in it, people saying the found a wallet but there wasn’t any money in it, people talking about where to get cheap food. And as always, people are allowed to request songs, as long as its anything by Celine Dion. I heard this request once, and yes, the DJ played Celine Dion. Twice. The same song back-to-back.

Perhaps the best time to listen to the call in portion the night of a national holiday. There is about one every other week here, so you’re never far off from some sure-fire entertainment. Its basically entertaining because everybody that calls is sure to be out of their mind. Not as far out of their mind like Coast to Coast with Art Bell or anything, but drunk.

The best one I’ve heard was this one guy. lets call him Jack. He was calling to talk about his wife. Lets call her Jill. “Good evening, you’re on the air,” said the DJ.

“Hey, I’m wondering if you’ve seen my wife,” asked Jack.

“No I haven’t,” replied the DJ. “What does she look like?”

Jack seemed to ignore the question. “We started drinking this morning and I can’t find her,” he said. “If you see her, let me know.” I’m sure Jack thought the DJ was his neighbor or something.

But the fun didn’t stop there. About a minute later another guy called in. Lets call him Bobby. Based on the tenor of his voice, I’m guessing Bobby started partaking several hours before Jack and never stopped. Bobby said “Hello, is this Jack?”

The DJ, cool as a cucumber replied, “No, this is the DJ. Do you have a message for Jack?”

Bobby said, “Yeah, I found somebody’s wife. I think if might be his.” The DJ asked what her name was and Bobby responded with, “Her name is Suzie.”

Bobby, upon being informed that he had found somebody else’s wife, told the audience where he was and to come find him if you know who this woman is.

The one where TJ explains the site upgrades

Hey everybody. Just wanted to say a big thank you to all of you who have been sending me emails, notes, singing telegrams the last week or so. I’ve really appreciated it and its really encouraging to know that such a broad audience is praying for me and the kids here.

I just wanted to put a few site notes up for everybody. It looks different and, I think, better and easier to read. I’ve added a few page links at the top. Most of them are just general info along with permanent links to the Mozambique 101 posts. I’m doing a series of them over the next several months. They will show up in the main page right here, but will also be linked there for your convenience.

Also, I’ve moved a few things around. I’ve moved the about me to top links, added the info for how to support, and added a section with FAQs. All that stuff is new today, so read it. After today, any and all updates will show up here on the home page and then archived in the sections so you don’t always have to click on them every time you visit the site. Its there for when you say “how can I support TJ financially” or “I want to read Mozambique 101–Arachnid Subspecies just one more time”. I’m still making one or two tweaks, but nothing more major.

Furthermore, some of you may notice that if you’re fast enough on checking updates or subscribe by RSS (way easier than always refreshing the page) stuff is actually posted in the future. You may be asking yourself “Does TJ have a time machine?” Yes I do, but I don’t use it for silly little things like web updates. I use it to bet on past sporting events and to see if the my future self is really as good looking as I think he’s going to be (we are). As for the posts, I have the time zone set to Mozambique so it’s easier for me to keep track of. That means I’m posting things a good 6-9 hours ahead of the US.

Anyways, for those of you that never know when to check for updates, put it on your calendar because here is the schedule for the next several months (provided the electricity stays on, the internet doesn’t go out, I stay healthy, and I don’t go on vacation, or the government censors me).

Music Mondays: Check in every Monday for music themed posts. Music is a large part of the culture here and an infinite source of humor/entertainment for me. So basically, that means music themed posts until I run out of source material. After than, we’ll move on to Malaria Mondays when everybody gets sick or Monsoon Mondays when the rainy season starts or something else alliterative.

101 Wednesdays: These is going do be the day we continue our introduction to Mozambique. My desire isn’t just to necessarily humor people, because Mozambique is a dirt poor country with serious problems, so some of the posts will be serious. Its to help give you, the reader, a basis for understanding what goes on here and why we can’t just build a factory and give everybody jobs and be done with it.

Whatever the heck I darn well please Fridays: No alliteration here. Just pure, unfiltered posts like you’ve been used to getting. Upcoming topics range include Canito’s pants, TJ gets appointed high priest, and the perpetual drama of soccer rivalries. We’re gonna stick with the same naming scheme for a while until I run out of catchy titles. I like it because they’re pretty easy to come up with. I can just write, “The one where TJ cures cancer”. This also makes it easier to talk with your friends, coworkers, Rabbi about my blog because you can ask them “Hey, did you read the one where TJ cures cancer?”

Lastly, the internet here is so slow. How slow is it? It’s so slow that is makes having AOL dial-up circa 1996 look like an upgrade. It’s so slow that it’s literally faster to send stuff by carrier pigeon. It’s so slow here MB/s stands for milli-bytes per second. It’s so slow… well, you get the point. As a result I don’t always have the time or the patience or the ability to make everything on the site appear 100% uniformly formatted concerning fonts, colors, sizes, etc. If something major is broken, I’ll know and fix it.

And more lastly, a big hello to my readers in Romania (yes, I have readers in Romania). Cred că o mulţime de oameni se vor traduce aceasta să descoperi că nu are sens. Multumesc pentru lectura.

Life in a fog

Our city has been experiencing rolling blackouts for the last week, and they've finally hit us the last couple of days. So how am I using the internet? Magic. and the power just came back on, but mostly magic. Just when the power comes back on long enough to do anything it goes out again. Christina blames everybody using their outdoor air-conditioners.

So, I'm keeping it short because there are more important things to be doing. But about all we can do is wait and pray for it to come back on and stay on, so if you could be praying with us it'd be cool.

The one where we finish our good deed for the day

So here’s where we left off. See if you can catch up:

Victor and I in the city. A group of strangers in trouble. TJ goes to translate and help them out. Victor changing clothes with random street people. TJ and Victor bring the strangers back to the orphanage to give them a hand. Now you’re up to speed.

So, when we got back to the orphanage, I went around getting names and introductions from people. The funny thing was that they were doing the same thing among themselves. I did a little digging. and it turns out that they all happened to be on the same lonely bus going to Nampula in the morning and had another common destination in the afternoon and so they decided to hitch-hike/hire random people to drive them 1000km into the middle of nowhere. Nearest I could gather they were traveling in two groups (maybe three) and were from England, Holland, and possible Norway also. Half of them went back into the city with Victor to figure out their transportation while the other half stayed at the orphanage and rested up.

Victor got back about 2 hours later and their group decided that the best way for them to travel was to take the bus. The problem was the bus didn’t leave for two days. Victor was busy and decided to go back wandering into the streets righting wrongs and trading for people’s obscene clothing while I and Visado (a staffer here) took them in the pickup back into town to buy their bus tickets and get lodging. We bought their bus tickets no problem (it still took 30 minutes because the service was soooooo sloooow) and then I decided that we’d get them set for lodging.

Now, in order to explain why I drove these strangers all over the city for two hours looking for an empty hotel room, I need to stop and explain a little something about the culture here. People here will go so far out of their way to help you its almost funny. A couple of days before this Janeti (another adult staff) and I were in town to do errands. We were coming out of the bank when she saw some fabric that caught her eye. When we asked on the price, she thought it was a little high. Then, some random dude says “I know where you can get it cheaper, and its just a couple of blocks over over here.” So he climbs in the car with us, we make it a couple of blocks over, and he takes us to where they were selling it for cheaper. After that we brought him back to where we found him, thanked him, and he left. That’s absolutely the everyday kind of help that (most) people will give you totally unsolicited.

So, in my attempt to embrace the culture, I took the delegation from England/Holland/possibly Norway all over the city as we tried at least four motels that were all either full or out of their price range. Then, as they are looking through their guide books, one of the gals suggests that we go to a place called the “Hotel Mosqueda”. Visado (remember him) starts flipping out. He starts taking way too fast for me to understand and starts pointing and yelling like something is really wrong. One of the tourists asked why he keeps saying “No, no, no, no, no, no, no!”. It turns out that the gal had a little trouble pronouncing the name of the hotel. While she had been trying to ask about the Meresqueta Hotel, what she had said was Mesquita. For those of you not current on your Portuguese, she was asking Visado if they could stay at a Mosque.

Once that got cleared up, it took a little time but we finally found a place for them to stay. After, I gave them my phone number and directions on how to get back to the orphanage to come visit the next day. Well, sure enough the next day about 3pm here the six of them come wandering in with two brand new soccer balls for the kids and looking to get a game in. They were pretty good I’ll give that to them, but we’ve got a pretty good goalie on our side.

I want you to know that about 10 meters past the left side of the photo is midfield. My team does not believe in playing defense, leaving yours truly to guard those two sticks behind me that are the goal.

That we kicked their butts (okay, we split the teams because us vs. them was just way too unfair) the kids put on a concert for them and I got to talking with them. Inevitably they asked the question of just why the heck I would stop for them and take over half of my day to help them out. It was a great chance for me to explain what we did was exactly was Jesus does. That day we rescued them from the problem they had and helped them far above anything they could have expected.

And that’s the story when we did our good deed for the day.

The one where we do our good deed for the day

Victor, and I were driving back from town with the flatbed pickup recently when something caught our eyes. We were on the main street (Avenue of the Worker) when Comrade Victor and I spotted a strange group of people in front of us. It was a group of 6 white people in the back of a tiny little Toyota pickup that was about twenty years old with the springs were bottomed out under the weight of all of them, their backpacks and suitcases. We found it strange, because whenever people come in any sort of official capacity (World Vision, Peace Corps) they get picked up in a land rover with a logo plastered on the side.

Well, aside from looking extremely out of place, we didn’t pay much attention as they beat us on the last stoplight out of town (there’s like 12 in this entire city of over ½ million people). We went about our business talking about how the president must be coming to town soon because they suddenly fixed all the roads. Then, something caught Victor’s eye and he said, “I have to stop for something.”

Once the car was stopped Victor hailed a guy from the other side of the street. Let me preface this part by saying that in a country where people cannot read English, or have a knowledge of the American culture that donated the clothes everybody is wearing, fashion can be a little strange. There’s a post coming on that much later that will be well worth the wait. Anyways, this man was wearing a baby blue shirt that read “sex, drugs, rock & roll, then more sex” overlaid on top of the Playboy bunny logo. Victor went on to tell this absolute stranger how obscene his shirt was. The man was obviously ashamed and next thing I knew Victor was taking of his shirt to trade with the guy. Not that Victor is a Hugh Heffner fan or anything (I think he burned the shirt when we got home) but he decided he was going do his good deed for the day.

While Victor went on to check out the rest of the guys clothing to see if they needed to swap underwear or something I noticed that parked in front of us was that same little white Toyota we saw back in the city. The white people were all flipping through language guidebooks and the driver was yelling at them and complaining about who knows what. I got out of the car, ran to the nearest phone booth, put on my superman cape and ran to their rescue. I asked them if they spoke English and they got a big look of relief on the faces and said they had no idea what was going on. I started talking to the driver to figure out what had him so angry. About that time Victor showed up wearing a completely different set of clothes then when I left him and started talking to the driver and his navigator. I introduced myself and explained that situation is extremely confusing but not out of the ordinary. It turns out that these people had contracted with some random truck to drive them about a day’s trip south. Except the amount they were paying worth enough diesel make it two hours out of the city in the middle on nowhere before their driver abandons them and extorts them for more money.

It turns out the reason the car stopped is probably because the driver and his partner were arguing about how way to split the money they were conning these guys out of. I started translating this argument for them and Victor was trying to negotiate a realistic price that would get them to where they would go. At this point Victor and I decided the best thing to do would be to get these guys out of the car and figure out exactly where they were trying to go. Then Victor just start loading their luggage in our truck they begin freaking out thinking that he was in on the con. Had I not been the only other white person they’ve seen in the last week they honestly and probably would not have come with us. Victor drove us the ten minutes back to the orphanage while I sat in the back of the truck telling them why exactly they were going to be dropped in the dessert in the middle of nowhere and that its just better to not ask questions and come with us (we’re nice people, we promise).

The whole ride I spent explaining who I was, what I do, how long I’ve been here, where we were going, and who this Victor guy with me was. I didn’t exactly ask a lot of questions about who they were because it was pretty obvious to me.

Gimme a ‘T’. Gimme an ‘O’. Gimme a ‘URISTAS’. What’s that spell?

These guys.

When we got back to the Orphanage they were still on high alert and tired and confused and extremely freaked out, and Victor kept stopping every three blocks to swap clothes with strangers. Lets just say that didn’t help things. We got to know them a little bit and found out where they were from, where they were trying to go, their names. Just the essentials. Victor took two of them back into town for a couple of hours so they could find some legitimate transportation to their next town while I kept the other four entertained. There’s was lots of standup comedy, Dorca did a monologue from Hamlet, they got a tour of the orphanage, and we gave them some clean water and fed them lunch.

Check back in a couple of days for the other half of our good deed for the day.

The one with a bunch of random thoughts

I mentioned a couple of weeks back that baby Dorca was helping me with my laundry. It was way fun at first and super cute. She would hold my bar of soap as I would rinse and wring out my clothes. Yes, we suds up our clothes with bars of soap and then wash them by hand. Well, last week Dorca turned from cute to not so helpful. I had all my clothes washed and had pulled them all from the bucket of clean water they were rinsing in, had wrung them out, and took about half of them over to the clothesline. When I came back, she had all of my clean clothes in the first bucket of muddy dirty water and proudly exclaimed “TJ, I’m washing clothes!”.

Not including the time it takes to rewash half my clothes, it is a little unnerving that it takes longer to wash my clothes than it does for them to dry. And we’re not even to the hot season yet.

Right now I have a splitting headache because the neighbors are burning all their leaves/pollen/garbage and it smells like Hempfest back in Seattle. While its not relaxing, I am extremely paranoid and have the munchies.

For some reason, all the kids here in our orphanage call each other “Johnny”. It took me a while to figure out just what they were saying, it took me a little longer to figure out that it’s the equivalent of calling somebody “bro” if you’re in a fraternity. It took me even longer to discover the reason behind this phrase.

That’s right. They lifted it right of one of the dozens of water tubs we use for cooking, laundry, showers, anything. They get a ‘C’ for effort but an ‘A+’ overall because I’ve even heard their friends at school say it.

Its very endearing, and a little creepy, that it seems everybody in the orphanage knows where I am at ALL times. It’s mainly because they love me and want to know what I’m up to, but I can ask anybody to tell me everything I’ve done in the last 24hrs and even if they weren’t here for it they’ll have already gotten the info from another person and tell me exactly where I’ve been. For instance, every time I have to run into the city for something unexpected as soon as I return there’s a mob of people wondering where I’ve been and if everything turned out allright.

They also know when something is wrong too. Take today for example. Right in the middle of church I started feeling like my body was trying to destroy itself. I broke out in a cold sweat, got very dizzy, and had a fever coming on. I excused myself and had Christina drive me back home before I passed out. Once there I laid down in my bed and just tried to wait for it to pass. Gabriel helped move a fan into my room to try to help, and that was the only contact with anybody I had. Several hours later I made my way out to get some water and everybody was asking me how my fever was. It turns out what happened was Victor, Christina and I went to a graduation party for his cousin the night before and had gotten some bad food. Shortly after church Victor started feeling sick as well and we both have the same stomach bug. Christina didn’t eat because she was busy with Yohani, and so she’s fine. Serves us right. We’re both better, by the way.

Check back on Tuesday to read about part one of the British Invasion. Just in case you missed it, that’s Tuesday. Unless an emergency happens, or there’s riots in the city, or a soccer game on TV, or we get invaded by locusts, or the electricity goes out for a week again. And also if the entire of Sub-Saharan Africa loses internet for an entire month –something which has happened three times in the last year but has never made the news (presumably because the internet wasn’t working to email the story to news outlets).

Mozambique 101 - History Part Two

This is the second post in a series titled “Mozambique 101”. This post is the story of Mozambique until about 20 years ago. This series is my attempt to answer many of the questions that I’ve been asked about Mozambique, other than the always popular “where’s THAT?” These articles should help you understand what things are like in Mozambique and just how they came to be that way.

When we last left Mozambique it was 1950 and small percentage of Portuguese were controlling all of Mozambique. This meant limited access to land, wealth, education, and opportunity for the native Mozambicans. Then things started to change in the 1960’s (what didn’t).

Mozambicans, upon hearing about similar efforts in other countries now known as Zimbabwe, Malawi, Zaire, the Congo, and Angola, began demanding equal opportunities and control of their lives. They won small concessions at first but it was far from fair, so they kept pushing. Around this time, the Portuguese army and their Special Forces/Blackwater freelance partners had control over cities, ports, and inland trading posts. Because they were no match for a full force assault, the Mozambique bushmen started staging guerrilla attacks with gorilla tactics (jump out of trees, bash a few heads, pound your chest as your enemy flees). They would attack remote outposts that more than anything equated to a small scale casualties and destruction of property.

Under the banner of FRELIMO (an acronym in Portuguese meaning “Stop treating us like crap” or something like that) the Mozambicans started gaining traction and won approval for several reforms like the right own their house and go to school. No matter what rights the Portuguese decided to “bestow” upon the people it was never full equality. And even if it was, they would never be happy because the Portuguese had everything and the Mozambicans had sore backs from working the fields.

Well, it wasn’t enough, and finally after years of gorilla attacks and fighting Mozambique declared itself independent from Portugal in June of 1975. Granted, they just happened to declare independence at the same time there was no control back home in bankrupt Portugal because a military junta was wrapping up a hostile takeover. That’s just one little fact that the Mozambique history books tend to overlook. Don’t get me wrong; I think its great they got out from under the Portuguese, but its kind of like independence by default.

This is where things start to get really really crappy. FRELIMO ordered all of the nearly 250,000 white people, mixed white/native people, or white-loving people living in Mozambique to leave overnight. And when they left, they practically invented the phrase ‘salting the earth’. Soldiers literally salted the earth, poisoned and poured cement down wells, torched buildings and crops, and destroyed what infrastructure hadn’t already been destroyed during the war for independence.

It was at this time that FRELIMO set up how it was going to govern. Let me give you a hint. The capital building is located on Karl Marx Avenue and the main road through my town of Nampula is Avenue of the Workers. Yep, they went full out Communist. At the same time FRELIMO was getting used to calling each other “Comrade”, a new group of people decided that the policies they set up inherently benefefited FRELIMO as well as people located in and around the major cities of the south. This group was known as RENAMO (an acronym in Portuguese meaning “two can play at that game” or something like that).

It wasn’t two years before RENAMO declared civil war on FRELIMO. And it was bad. Now the tables had turned and FRELIMO controlled the cities and trade centers and RENAMO was waging one of those guerilla/gorilla chest-pounding things. This is when things started to get some international attention. Granted, it still probably didn’t make the nightly news in America. Walter Cronkite was probably busy telling Americans what evil commie food Gorbachev had for dinner that night.

So here’s how the next twenty years played out: On one hand you have FRELIMO: independent, anti-white, anti-colonial, and communist. They started receiving money and arms from places like the USSR, China, Algeria, Darth Vader, and the rest of the Galactic Empire. On the other side there was RENAMO: guerrilla, rural, and ready to sink to whatever lows to accomplish their goals. They were rebel militia supported by South Africa, Rhodesia, Europe and the US, Sauron and the Armies of Mordor. These guys failed to gain the support of Admiral Akbar and the rest of the rebel alliance because these guys fought dirty. Well, then again, both sides fought dirty.

Things got interesting in 1986 when the FRELIMO president died in a plane crash. They blamed the United States for using radar jamming and lasers to shoot down the plane or something. The United states pointed the finger to the crappy Soviet technology in the airplanes. The soviets pointed a finger to the substandard aluminum mined in rural Mozambique (RENAMO territory). RENAMO miners refused to take credit for it publicly but privately were happy they mined substandard aluminum.

The new FRELIMO president, in an attempt to extend an alive branch, announced that Marxism was not a viable solution and switched the country over to “capitalism”. Coincidently, this concession came about three months after the Berlin wall came down. Around the same time, with the cold war ending, support for RENAMO died out, and both sides eventually ended the war with peace talks in 1992 and elections in 1994.

In all seriousness, the Mozambique civil war was ugly, ugly, ugly. Both sides raiding random villages and killing everyone in site. Almost an entire generation was lost. From 1977-1992 when a peace was finally reached historians estimate that at least 1 million were left dead from the conflict, and over 1.7 million people were displaced or fled to neighboring countries to seek asylum from the conflict. Countless more millions fled their home within the country to somewhere else until the conflict reached there and they moved again.

The unique thing about the Mozambique Civil war is that unlike other conflicts in Africa in the latter half of the 20^th century, it was not about race, unlike other wars happening in the Congo, or the genocide in Rwanda, the ongoing conflicts in Sudan etc.

We’re now at about 1995. Tune back next time when the post-war Government will be on full display and comically lampooned in every way possible.

Support Update Oct 2010

So, if you have had a chance to read the letter posted in September, that does a great job at explaining what is taking place and my heart for the orphanage. Now, to give you an update and some specifics, because I know you have been asking how to support. So I’m gonna tell you exactly how to do it (for some reason Evanjafrica has a policy against stealing peoples’ identity and clearing out their bank accounts, so I’ll have to do this the old fashioned way).

There are two ways to support. Both of which are great and help the orphanage in different ways. The first way is the way I would prefer. This involves supporting me directly. The two major expenses I have are travel from Seattle to Nampula and the cost of my visa. After that, it goes to help me get a little more well rounded diet, cell phone, general cost of living things that are above what the kids receive in the orphanage. I’ll accept just general donations, tithes, Christmas bonuses, your child’s allowance, pocket change you stole from a public fountain. I’m not too picky where it comes from, what matters is that you’re excided to be giving toward the work God is doing here.

All things considered, my monthly budget is around $300 minimum. In order to do things like put gas in my stove and some meat on my plate, I’d like my budget to be around $400/month. Both those number factor in things like air travel and visa, which right now I have been paying out of my own pocket.

If donating to support me is something you’d like to do, just know that I’m not taking a salary out of this at all. If Jesus blesses me with awesome donors like you and I have extra money that will all go towards buying coca-cola for the kids, replacing the textbooks we have at the orphanage, or the part of the budget designated solely for soccer balls. If this is how you’d like to support than you can make a check to TJ Werle and mail it to:

TJ Werle

16428 10^th AVE SW

Burien, WA 98166

And my parents are authorized to take care of that while I’m half a world away, so you won’t have to worry about it not clearing for 1, 2, 10 years till I decide to come back home.

If you would not like to support me but want to support what is happening here at the orphanage you send you check directly to Evanjafrica. I don’t personally get any of this, but it goes straight to helping the kids. Checks for that can be made out to Evanjafrica and sent to:

Evangafrica

308 Tuggle Lane

Ridgeville, SC 29472

In either case, please donate whatever you can to whichever way. Please feel free to consider giving something you do monthly, or quarterly, once, or whenever you can. And as always, email me any questions (in the contact section on the left side of the page) and God Bless.