Nampula Radio: All hits, all the time?

One of the highlights of listening to the radio, aside from the ones I’ve talked about before, is getting to hear the weekly hits chart. The weekly hits chart is described as being “the ten songs most popular coming from and by America”. It comes on every Friday morning starting at 8am. It’s the can’t miss half hour program of the week.

It starts with number ten. The DJ even tells you how many weeks its been on the chart, where it peaked, and where its heading. The song starts playing in the background as the DJ introduces all the information. He finally says the name and artist and then cranks the volume up. The problem is sometimes he gets sidetracked and will talk so long he needs to restart the song. He plays the song for as long as he wants, cuts the volume, and then puts on the next tune.

What’s more is that the DJ has the discretion to play as much or a little of the song he likes. About a month ago for some reason known only to teen girls Taylor Swift was fairly popular, notching 4 songs on the countdown one particular week (you’ll see why later). The DJ was not a fan of hers, apparently, because he played her song only long enough to get through saying its chart information and then when right on to something by some rapper (who’s probably from Senegal or West Afria) and played the song twice.

The most confusing thing is that often, the DJ will announce the song over the end of the previous song, and then never play it. He then puts on the next songs and announces it just the same. At first, this was not a problem I cared about because it usually meant skipping at least two Taylor Swift songs. But then one week they announced they skipped a song that was, “making its premier on the countdown at position 6. Let it Be, by the Beatles”.

After doing enough sleuthing to put the Hardy Boys to shame (about 2 minutes) I finally figured out what was happeing. I kept track of the tip ten chart for the next two weeks to compare notes, and sure enough I was right. The Nampula Radio Top Ten is actually the iTunes Music Store Top Ten. And it is each and every single week. It turns out that while I (and everybody else here) were thinking we had our hands on the pulse of America, what we really had our hands on was the pulses of the people in America that for some reason actually buy music instead of downloading or just listening to it on YouTube all day long. Several weekends ago, this theory was further confirmed by skipping two songs by hip brand new artist “Glee Christmas Episode Special”.

The one about Christmas

I have a “go-bag”. Like all spies, pregnant mothers, and boy scouts (I assume, I’ll have to ask my cousin) I keep a pack full of only essentials that I can take to leave at a moments notice. What does this have to do with Christmas? I’ll explain in a bit.

First, let me say that its not really a “bag”. Its more of a shoulder pack. A shoulder pack is halfway between a purse and a messenger bag, super manly in every respect, because otherwise there’s no way I’d ever be caught dead with it. The contents of the bag are as follows: Wallet, spare change, green-card, international drivers license, a pocket bible, and a 50 ounce water bottle. The first few items are pretty explanatory, the second are when it gets really boring and I’m stuck out in the heat for a long time.

Just why do I need this bag. Part of my responsibility is to be on-call 24/7. On call means something like this. Victor says, “TJ, you need to go the [place] to [do something / buy something / pick somebody up]. Hurry because you only have [very short amount of time] to get there before [something very bad happens].”

Recent examples just in the last week include:

• Picking up a friend after he got off work to he could give me the proper documents for applying for government grants.
• Taking him back home after we photocopied the documents.
• Driving out to a chicken farm to get chickens.
• Taking one of our staff to the hospital because he collapsed on Sunday after church (he recovered).
• Leaving to pick up people from the airport 10 minutes after their plane landed. The airport is 30 minutes away.
• Going out on Christmas eve to do last minute shopping for our Christmas feast.

A daily occurrence of me using my go-bag is getting bread. We eat tiny loaves everyday for breakfast, and it doesn’t keep more than a day, so I have to buy it daily. This involves waiting for the orphanage’s truck to gather a list of errands to run and going with it into town to get to the bakery. Once at the bakery, it means standing in the bread line for about 20-30 minutes. And yes, for people that aren’t old enough to remember the Depression, bread lines do exist. Except they’re not free here, you have to pay the same, but the supply is limited, which is why there’s only a few bakeries and everybody need to use the same three. Then, after waiting in line for thirty minutes, when I tell the bread lady that I need 54 loaves I have to hear everybody yell at me that, “You’re stealing the bread from us poor people.” and the ever popular, “Why don’t you take all your money and go buy a chicken.” and usually accompanied by, “Don’t sell it to him, he can’t eat 54 loaves.”

Sometimes, especially when it rains and not everybody can cook outside with fire (which is how everybody cooks here) the bread line is 45 minutes. Today, Christmas Eve, it was 90 minutes. Yep.

So what does this have to do with Christmas? Well, this post is all about my go-bag, which I said is also used by spies, pregnant mothers, and (I assume) boy scouts. All people who like to have everything set and packed read to leave at a moments notice when a foreign government topples, your water breaks, or wolves attack. Well, spies use go-bags, and one of my favorite Christmas movies is “The Battle of The Bulge”, a tale of war and espionage that takes place Christmas 1944. Pregnant mothers also have a go-bag, and you can’t get more Christmassy than a mother waiting to deliver (Mary birthing Jesus, for those of you who are a little slow). And lastly, what do you do in America after Christmas and you need to get rid of your tree? You give it to the Boy Scouts to shred up. Unless you have an awesome sparkly aluminum Christmas tree like in “Charlie Brown”.

Merry Christmas. And remember, Christmas is about Jesus.

Rainy Days and Support Update

So what's been happening around here lately? A whole lot of nothing.

Its been raining on and off (mostly on) for the last three days, and life has moved from slow to dead slow. Luckily, there are some things we can look forward to here.

You can relax on the spacious veranda of the boy's dormitory.

You can talk about life and work and cooties with Isaty, Martinho, Maparato, Dionisio, and Ganito.

Instead of showering, you can just stand outside for a while. But people will give you never ending grief for it.

And when it clears up and the moon comes out you can wait for that lunar eclipse everyone was talking about only to remember that it doesn't even occur in our hemisphere.

The moon eventually became eclipsed by our palm tree.

Moving on to support: Jesus has been very faithful, through you guys, to have had me almost at budget every month. I'm gonna be honest, I haven't quite hit my target of $300 a month, but support has been far from zero, and I'm super grateful. However, that doesn't mean that every month is going to be fine. Much of the giving is of the one-time-donation type. So especially at this time of year, if you look in your wallet or at you bank statement and think, "Golly! Where did all this extra money come from? I should use it before the expiration date at the end of the year or it will go bad. I wish there's somebody I could really bless with it, like the Salvation Army, or that kid working with the orphans in Africa. That's seems like a far better use of my money then getting this or this, or even this for that special someone in my life." then I know one guy and about 50 kids that guy is serving that would be really grateful for you gift. If that what Jesus want's you to do, then you can send a check out to

TJ Werle

16428 10th AVE SW

Burien, WA (USA)

Please, checks are much easier than sending "Christmas Story" replica leg lamps. $10, 20, 50 or whatever you can do makes much more a difference than you think.

And after the end of the year, I'll get out more precise numbers on how support has been so you guys know how to help and, more importantly, how you can be praying with me for those things.

Merry Christmas, Bom Natal, and Happy New Year

A day at the beach

A few days ago, thanks to the Department of Social Services, the kids all got to take a road trip. There's been lots of activities that Social Services has been putting on lately as a run-up to Christmas. This week, it involved going out to the coast for the day to visit Ilha de Moçambique (Island of ... wait for it... Mozambique). School is mostly out, so the kids were free for the day and we headed out, arriving after the 2.5hr trip late in the morning.

Mozambique Island is the very first placed the Portuguese settled when Mozambique was colonized. The island is about 3m long and 1m wide. It sits about 2m off the coast in shallow water and is connected by a one lane bridge to the continent. And when people are there they refer to heading back to the continent (as if they'd left Africa). As a result of it being so old and a tiny island (and the Portuguese having left) the island sits mainly vacant. That worked to our advantage that day, as there were plenty of empty buildings to squat in while we were waiting for lunch. Its may become hard to tell the kids apart due to the fact that we all got free orange/yellow t-shirts that day.

Empty buildings, like this one, are full of timeless

history and a portal to the past boredom.

After several hours, the kids got lunch and were able to walk around the rest of the compound we had taken over. We sat out on a really old little square that was right above a mangrove patch on the edge of the ocean. Then our band did a concert for the other kids (there were two other orphanages there also).

Mini plaza just temping the kids with the sights and sounds of the ocean. So close, yet so far away.

Moz101 Hiatus

Hey guys, just letting you know that I'm going to be taking a little break from adding content for the "Mozambique 101" series. Basically, I am trying to put more effort into them than I have the time to devote to doing so while pumping them out on a weekly basis. While much of the information is wikipedia or awesome rumors that I hear, I'm also researching it a lot. Because I really want to do a good job at producing this particular series I'm going to hold off on posting until I have the rest of them written. This way they will continue to remain coherent and not repeat the same information all the time. If you want to read the old ones us the link at the top or click the Moz101 tag on the topic-sphere, knowledge-node, blog-blob, or as my mom would say, the spinny thingy over on the right.

Until then, I'll just be putting up anything I want to on Wednesdays. I can do this because its my site. Pretty convenient if you ask me. To keep the alliteration I'll just call it "Whatever Wednesdays" which will slowly slide into "Why I am still doing this on Wednesdays" will will eventually become "What?" when my rants become too blurred and incoherent to make sense.

So just why is R. Kelly popular?

The easy answer is: I have absolutely no idea. R Kelly is an American RnB singer who nobody here had ever heard of until one tiny little performance in the world cup in South Africa.

Now, he is the second-most famous person in Africa that nobody had ever heard of until one year ago. Second most only to Michael Jackson. In fact, I think all musicians who are having trouble with their careers or public image should take a hint from R Kelly and do a show in Africa. In a sense, it’s like the slate has been wiped clean and all the wrong that you’ve committed will be ignored (or in this case, applauded). I don’t know what’s changed since I left America, but maybe that being the case Kanye West should consider doing a concert in Cape Town. There is a long line of people who lose favor with the American public over scandals and then become heroes in Africa. OK, I lied. That list is only two people: Michael Jackson and R Kelly.

When I tell the kids that I don’t like RnB music they say I must be crazy because R Kelly sings RnB and as popular as he is surely there isn’t anybody alive who doesn’t like RnB. So then I tell them that I don’t like him based on moral grounds.

For those of you who aren’t sure why R Kelly is somewhat blacklisted in America, let me explain it for you. First, there’s the matter of him marrying a 15 year-old girl. This may not be a huge problem had he not been at the ripe old age of 28. This is the thing that occasionally will garner him respect over here, not admonishment. They say that its not such a bad thing. People here marry at 15 all the time, and girls marry older (and much older) guys often, so I need to be more accepting of their culture. Also, for those of you not familiar with R Kelly, there’s also the matter or him having made some very disturbing child pornography videos (as if child pornography wasn’t bad enough). There’s really no way for me to explain this concept to the kids. In fact, there’s really no way for anybody to explain what he did at all.

Although goodness knows people will try.

As for Michael Jackson, I just have to tell the kids that in fact I am the only person they have ever met that does not adore the gloved one. Them thinking I’m crazy is a small price to pay for being sane.

The One where the kids get the camera

So, Joe had a great idea. Instead of trying to take pictures of ourselves, why not just let the kids have a camera and go crazy. Well, that just what they did, and 412 pictures later, about 50 of them were not blurry or pictures of the ground!

The day started with a soccer game and moved to hilarity after dinner. Click on the pictures to make the image slightly bigger. This post is split up into two parts, with the second one just below this. Click more to expand the post. Captions are below the photo.

The afternoon kicked off with a game of soccer on the big field a couple minutes outside the orphanage. There were still a couple of puddles from rain the day before, but nobody seemed to mind.

Zaqeu and Salmon get out of the way

Everybody from the orphanage came to watch the monumental smackdown on the field, including Claudia and Dorcas.

Jordao (far left) with Dorcas, Leonora, and Atija

The one where the kids get the camera again

The kids kept the camera and just kept on rolling. Below this post is the first edition of when the kids got the camera. Double post today to make up for being sporadic the last week. Sorry if the text and formatting look weird. All captions are below the pictures today.

Here we got a bunch of kids lined up in front of the girls house.

Samito and Francisco acting like they like eachother (just joking, they really do)

Mena, Nolita, Graça, and Manuel

Another large group

A larger group

Here is that weird pose again. Its a combination of swooning and a military salute.

I'm On Vacation

There will be no music related post this Monday. Sorry if anybody was actually looking forward to reading about R. Kelly. You'll have to wait till next week.

In the meantime, I've been relaxing out at Pemba with my great friend Estefano. Pemba is out on the coast, meaning that as of now, all I need to do is go swim in the Arctic Ocean to have gone to all 4 oceans in the world. I'm not looking forward to that.

What's In A Name

There are several groups of kids here with the same name. This can make it just as confusing as when you when to school with four Mikes, three Sarahs, and two Saras. We’ll start with the easiest of the pairs first.

This is Felex and Felex. I only wrote it that way because I don’t know how to write the plural (Feli?) They just finished 11^th and 10^th grade. We can’t say Felex S. because both of their full names start with S, so the one on the left Felex Sepova, and the one of the right is Felex Seleve. Now pay attention, because the pairs will get progressively more confusing.

These are the Isaques. On the left is Isaque Piqueno (pronounced “Isaacy), and on the right is Isaque Grande. Yes, you are correct. Piqueno and grande are not their birth names, we just use those to make it easier. This is where the plot starts to thicken. Isaque Grande has always insisted that his name is actually Isaty and writes that on all his school papers and his clothes (so people know they’re his). Peope made fun of him thinking he doesn’t know how to read or write. This was also absurd because Isaty is not a normal name and the alphabet here doesn’t use the letter ‘y’. Well, a little less then a year ago, Isaque Grande’s family showed up with original birth documents that show his name is indeed Isaty. So now we call them Isaty (with a heavy empasis on the ‘t’ sound) and Isaque Pequeno.

This get weirder as we move on to the Canitos. On the left is Canito Grande (wearing my favorite shirt of all time at the orfonato) and on the left is Canito Pequeno. Well, low and behold, the same time we found out that Isaque was actually Isaty, we found out that these dudes don’t have the same name either. In fact, neither of them are names Canito. The one the left is actually named Ganito. We attribute this to the fact that illiteracy is around 85% for women and his mother just took a guess at how to write his name when he was born. The one on the right is called Maparato. I have no idea what it means in Makuhwa (local language) but is sounds suspiciously like “The Plate” in Portuguese. This is ironic, because he is a ferocious eater, and we’ve taken to calling him “The plate” in English as our nickname for him.

This pair is easiest to tell apart. This is Jose and Joe. Joe is traveling around the world and is stopping here on his way through Nampula for about 3 weeks. To be politically correct, Jose is a kid with special needs. Very special needs. We love him a lot, but he was so distraught when this new person showed up and everybody was also calling his Jose. After about two days he warmed up to it and now has a new best friend. If you still have a hard time noticing the difference between the two, let me illustrate. Jose grande has a giant beard and is an honors student and University of Washington. Jose pequeno refuses to wear anything other than long sleeve shirts (even though is been 100+ F for the last three weeks) and last night during the middle of bible study tried to smack a very agile spider with a very small stick. It took him three minutes of trying, much to everyone’s amusement, but he finally got it.

The one about North Korea

I’m a little of track with the topics this week. The power outage last weekend ate into my time to write and kind of threw off my mojo. Until then, he’s this little tidbit.

Most of the news/entertainment/culture that is here is imported from Portugal and Brazil. This is because in terms of TV, recorded music, sports, and film, Mozambique has got almost nothing. Because of this, all the kids know all the players on each of the Portugal and Brazil national soccer teams and think they are the most famous players in the world because they’re the only ones they ever hear about.

They also followed them in the World Cup this last June. Even now, Portugal’s 7-2 Victory of North Korea is somewhat legendary and will be talked about forever. Details of the game have also blurred with time to where Cristiano Ronaldo scored four of the goals that game (he had one, and it was an accident).

So, whenever we play soccer here in the yard, every now and then the game will turn into a blowout, and somebody will take it upon themselves to hurl the worst insult they can think of…

…”You guys are playing worse than North Korea!”

This is the equivalent of the baseball team telling the other pitcher he throws like a girl, or saying your momma’s so ugly they mistook her for Kim Jong Il.

Today was one of those blowouts. I was on the Portugal side of things, but Joe (visitor, if you've read of Christina's blog) was on the North Korea end of it. Before the game we were joking and the kids suggested double-or-nothing on dinner, with the winner getting the loser's food (we were only joking, so don't worry).

Things got really funny when Joe headed the ball into his own goal (I think that made it 8-2). At that point, our team got together and decided that Joe could eat tonight because he helped us win. He was not happy when I translated the message fore him.