I'm in AFRICA!!

Bummer I blogged yesterday, but it didn’t upload. Sorry about that.

Well I made it to Pemba, Mozambique on Wednesday Feb 16^th after about 24 hours of flying. I was met at the airport by a bunch of the boys. They had each drawn me a picture, they were all very shy about saying hello. That night Julie cooked for me and while she was cooking the boys all poked their head in one at a time to quietly say hello. One boy popped in and said “Peter” and I thought “strange I don’t remember that name. I wonder if this is Pedro my helper.” Sure enough that’s who it was. He doesn’t speak a word of English but introduced himself as Peter!

Speaking of my helper he has come in very useful. My first night here I put a bug bomb off in my room. When I went back in there were a dozen or so cockroaches! I was just gonna sweep them out but I went to open the windows first and one fell so I jumped back. Pedro came in and started picking cockroaches up off the ground throwing them outside. He also recruited a few more helpers and they did a through job checking to make sure they got them all.

If you haven’t heard yet the boys waited for me to celebrate Christmas. I was so sleep deprived that it didn’t even click that my plan was to be here for Christmas. It was an amazing day though. We ate fried chicken, fried potatoes (like French fires), salad (cabbage and onions) and of course rice. Julie shared about Christmas and Sumate interpreted for me, because Portuguese is the national language. The children got a truck, a backpack, stickers, a fork and other small toys. The were so happy it was unbelievable! The boys also took a liking to my video camera and we had a party in my room that night, so I could record them all singing and dancing. First they did a Portuguese rap for me and then one of the boys wanted to dance to Michael Jackson! Good thing I didn’t know that we were only supposed to play Christian music, so Isaac’s MJ skills were a one night only show and I got it on tape…

On Sunday morning the power went out at 6am and didn't come back on till 11am on Monday. 29 hours without power, the hardest thing was that the kids kept saying let's make a movie or let's listen to music. Or at least they would get that point across and I couldn't figure out how to tell them that since the power was out I couldn't charge my electronics.

Okay well I think that is the basics of what I wrote yesterday, moving on to today….

Exhale. We just got to the internet café, but on our way we came across an accident. A man was laying in the road, who had just been hit by a motorcycle.  We pulled up behind the man and Julie (a Physician’s Assistant) jumped out of the car to see what she could do. In the time that it took her to get out the car and walk 5 feet to the man there was a swarm of people looking at him lying on the ground. Another truck pulled up in front of the man and before I knew it they were picking him up like a doll. The crowd was carrying him only by his arms and legs. It was crazy. I wasn’t scared just couldn’t believe what I just saw.

Julie just kept saying they needed to support his neck and depending on his injury they could have just killed him when they picked him up. We followed them to the hospital, and they didn’t treat him much differently. Not being careful of his neck while they picked him up.

We were dropping one of the older boys off to get a Malaria test. Adriano had to coach him through demanding that he get tested. Apparently health care is a big problem in Mozambique. Doctors often send people home with medication when they should be spending a night or two in a doctor’s care. In the case of Malaria they have had another guy go in to get tested and sent home with Tylenol.

Whew.

Where to go from there?

A few things that I forgot to mention yesterday. I have yet to get sick, well sorta. I threw up my first morning (Thursday) in Pemba. I took my Malaria meds on an empty stomach which I also did at home, but I think combined with the heat it did me in. I’m not really counting that though, so thank you for your prayers about my health =) The rest of the day I just sat in front of a fan, helping Julie sort and wrap Christmas presents.

I’ve had jet lag before, but never have I had such a temperature difference. It’s about 85 and humid. It’s so humid here, that there must be another name for it. I just feel like I’m constantly covered in yuck, I think it’s getting better but for the first few days it was hard.

Adriano and Julie take one day off a week. This week, on Friday, they went to Pemba Bush & Dive Camp ( I think that is what it’s called), and I joined them. Going to the beach here is strange too. The water is so warm. It’s the opposite of back home, you search for cold spots rather than warm spots. I was so hot laying the shade that I actually didn’t even want to get in the water, but once I got in it was great! It was also interesting bc the tide rose about 6 feet in the 4 hours that we were there.

Every Sunday the kids go to the beach, Wimbie Beach. It’s a secluded beach on the out skirts of town. They go to this beach so they can bring the dogs, because the Muslims don’t like dogs. They think their teeth have venom so they are afraid of getting bit.

I was unable to upload pictures, but click on the link below to find them:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2020325&id=102500461&l=51b516af63 

Well that is probably enough for today, I’ll leave you with some prayer requests:

-          The man hit my the motorcycle. That the doctor’s would take adequate care of him.

-          My continued health.

-          My ability to learn Portuguese.

-          The children’s ability to learn English.

-          One of the children, Amido, was living on the street and at the garbage dump before come to house. He would sell things he found to survive. It has proved a hard habit to break. He sold 2 small cars that he got for Christmas and got 2 metical, about 7 cents. I ask that you would pray that he would come to understand that The Dream Project will provide for his needs and that we will continue to provide for him.

Thanks again for all of your support on this journey of mine.

God Bless,

Amanda