Prayer Requests Jan 2012

Here's a quick rundown of prayer requests for this week. So you know what's going on with on and how we could use prayer.

In short, people are sick. People are pretty much sick here a lot. I think just statistically having over 40 kids, somebody is always going to be sick. But also, just with the lifestyle in general here people tend to get sick.

==> Right now we have three kids with malaria just because it's that time of year. The rain has come (finally) and there's more standing water around and these things happen. Usually they get stuck with a fever for a day or two and then the medicine kicks in and they're back on their feet in a week. It's still not very much fun, as routine as it is. (Average Mozambican gets it nearly two times a year).

==> Times when malaria can be really dangerous---when it's caught early and treated it's not dangerous unless you're really young or really old--- is when a normal case turns into cerebral malaria. That's the case for Pedro, a staff worker in the office, right now. You need to undergo an aggressive treatment and be under supervision of doctors/nurses and lots of rest. It also means that our office work has ground to a halt. Unfortunately for us as well as him, cerebral malaria is affecting the part of his brain that controls speech, so when we talk or try to ask questions what comes out is blabber and non-sense. It's a really scary disease and he can use a lot of prayer.

==> I'm sick and had a bad stomach ache for the last two days. I've just become accustomed to the fact that from time to time everybody's stomach gets out of joint here. I told the kids and they just kind of shrugged and said, "Yep, you're probably due for one."

More Kids Out and On Their Way

Having mentioned earlier in the week about a few of the kids that have left/graduated/moved on, I thought it be good timing to mention the most recent kids that have gone on their way. They are all going off to pursue extra-curricular studies a.k.a. vocations. In Nampula, that is a surer way to get work than earning a degree from a university (or even diploma from high school).

Their responses to the questions are in italics.

ISATY

Isaty is a very hard worker and very adept at learning with his hands. He wants to do a year long course in auto-mechanics. We basically told him him that we have full confidence that any skill he puts he hands to he is dedicated enough to learn it and master it.

Age: 18, came to the orphanage at 10 years old and in 2nd grade.

What will you be studying? Why? General mechanics because it is a service oriented job and I don't quite have the skills to do something academic.

What do you hope at the end of 2 years to be able to say? I want to be in Nampula and be close to my family. I want a job at a respected garage, not just as a call-for-hire mechanic.

What are your favorite things to do (at the orphanage)? What will you miss? Miss my brothers that are here and for everyone else as well as the work and projects that we do around here.

How would you like us to pray for you? For me to understand the subjects and stay healthy, as well as for my relations with my classmates and instructors.

ZAQUEIO

You might recall from this time last year about we mentioned Zaqueio in a group of kids that didn't leave. We had wanted to sent him to a trade school in Beira, but shortly before January rolled around he came down with a mysterious stomach illness that saw him do at least three stays in the hospital and the doctors were contemplating surgery. Because of that, he stayed around waiting the start of the next school year (Jan).

He is one of the best kids we've ever had. It kind and considerate to a fault, and takes initiative in helping others and with the maintenence and construction projects here.

Age: 22. Came to the orphanage at 15years old and in and 3rd grade.

What will you be studying? Why? Electricity. Its something that I like to to and enjoy doing it when we have work around the house. Its a trade that I picked up a while ago. I like getting shocked, it'll help me live longer.

Have a Coke and a Frown

If this country were to ever revolt and overthrow the gov't, I would completely understand. You see, here in Mozambique, we don't have stock tickers and 401k's and 18 month t-bonds and Standard and Poor ratings to gauge our economic strength, we have prices. Prices are so fixed on a vast majority of goods that when they are raised it usually makes the national news for days at a time. In 2010, the gov't attempted to raise the price of bread. It would have made a hoagie-sized loaf go from 5 mets to 7.5 mets. The city responded with four days of rioting. People died and the gov't nixed the price hike.

Here in Nampula, on January 1st the price of a bus ride across town went from 5 mets to 10 mets. IT DOUBLED! The effect, lots of angry people pleading to ride for only 5 mets and in about 8 trips this year, not once have I been on a full bus. This is vastly different from before when I don't think I ever rode on an empty bus. Ridership is way down.

But that I could deal with. For me, it is the difference in paying 20 cents or 40 cents for a bus ride. The thing I could not put up with is my coca-cola.

I love coke, and I'm so glad that it's the only thing available here (and Fanta orange). There are only two choices for pop here. It's incredible simple. Coke or Fanta. And a year ago at this time, a case of 24 bottles of coke (trading in your old bottles) cost me 180 mets.

This price increased little by little until coke plaster official signs and billboards across the country saying the official price is 205 mets. I was fine with that, actually. It was an increase, but a standard one. And then everybody knew the price was always the same because it was plastered all over the city.

Then last week I went to buy a couple cases of coke for the kids. To my surprise, a case of coke now costs 250 mets. For those of you keeping track at home, thats just shy of $10. After being steady for about six months, the price of coke just jumped by 22%. It also means that in a year's time, coke has increased by almost 40%. And, just to rub it in the nose of doubters like me, the new price is actually printed on the bottle cap. It adds insult to my already injured wallet.

Not that this is really hurting my wallet, because I don't often buy coke, and I can always not buy coke, this could start hurting my wallet. So now when you read the news about the coca-cola riots in Mozambique and don't hear anything on this site for a week or two, I hope you'll be smart enough to figure out where I am.

In Which the Kids Give Back

I can't really call them kids, because they're men now, but yesterday we got treated to something special thanks to these two.

Last year at this time we sent these two kids (along with about three others, all from the orphanage) down to Young Africa Vocational School in Beira, south of us.

Carlitos (left) had finished 12^th grade and Felex finished 11th. They both did six-month courses; Carlitos in accounting, and Felex in refrigeration and air conditioning. We helped them find internships up in Nampula which they performed for three months and at of the start of November each got hired as full-time, salaried workers in the same places they interned.

In Which We Talk On Phones

Communication happens at the speed of technology. (I should totally trademark that as a slogan.) Throughout history, technology has taken various forms: letters, telegraph, fax, email, whatever they're going to be using tomorrow. Maybe after the coming war with China we'll be reduced to sending messages by falcons.

Modern communication takes place, essentially, instantly. That's part of why they call it “modern”. You call somebody and can talk in real time. You can play video games and pretend to kill the Russians in Call of Duty and actually be playing against real Russians trying to kill the Americans. You can sit in the same room as somebody else and text back and forth instantly, and repeatedly, instead of walking over and actually talking to them. (Oooh that's right, 14 year-old girl demographic. You just got burned. I still love y'all, though.)

In Mozambique, communication happens at a different pace. Yes, there are cell phones galore here. No, it is not stapling a message onto a zebra and sending into the neighboring village. Infrastructure in Nampula largely skipped over installing land lines and just went straight to cellphones. That's actually pretty common in most of the third-world. Still, just because people carry cellphones doesn't mean they work. Also pretty common in most of the third-world.

The phones themselves, Chinese and hastily put together, have a short shelf life if any at all. It's not uncommon for people to buy phones and a month or three later have them stop working. But finding a good phone isn't the only difficulty you'll encounter if you want to talk here in Nampula.

The other difficulty is the networks. There are just two of them here, so there's not a lot of options for service. Reliability is non-existent for being able to send/receive calls as well as text messages. The trouble is there exists a paradox in how people view the reliability of the network. Even when the signal is strong and your meter is full of bars, you are no more likely to get service. Often times with a weaker signal the call goes without any problems. Lets throw some examples from just the last seven days.

Calls: Really, to be honest, they just don't go through all the time. When they don't go through phone will just ring and ring as if nobody is picking up, but in reality it can't find the other phone. Other times when you try to place a call it just goes dead and flashes a warning that network is not responding. Even though you have full bars there is no network. And yesterday, twice, I was sitting when my phone beeped and alerted me I missed a call. The call supposedly came five minutes earlier but my phone never rang. Than later in the day my phone beeped to tell me I missed a call. The only confusing part was it said the call came two days ago. I believe it.

Texts: Here, we call them messages, and they have a much higher chance of going through into the network. They also have a much higher chance of never making it to the recipient and getting stuck inside the network. Several days ago some visitors came by late in the afternoon to check out the orphanage. While we were talking my phone rang receiving a text. It was a message from these visitors, sent that morning, saying they were going to arrive at 3:30. I got the message after they had already been there for an hour. Later, I was in a staff meeting with Victor and Marta here. Then I got a text from Victor saying the meeting was going to start. “Pretty quick message, got here only a few minutes late,” I said to the others. Then Victor read the message and assured me that it was not a quick one. He sent it for the meeting that took place the day before.

Text are sometimes so notoriously slow that, after the events of the last week, I've started putting my own time-stamp on them. My time says when I sent it and differs from the one in the phone that says when it was received. This saves on the confusion when I get a text telling me to go somewhere in the truck to meet somebody, only to find out I'm three hours late.

And that is what its like to use a phone in Mozambique: Slow, spotty, inconsistent, unreliable. You may all now commence your AT&T and iPhone tethering complaints in the comments section below.