Sailing Sunday

Emily Wesson, the wife of my preceptor, is an experienced sailor and teaches sailing classes. I begged her to take me out with her as she gave instructions to the owner of a little catamaran. It had been storming before we set sail, so we were nervous it wouldn't be great weather. Instead, just the opposite, there were few winds and the clouds disappeared to blue skies and sunshine. (My sunburned legs can attest to the African sunshine.)

Let me just say, it is absolutely THE best way to see a harbor city. Gorgeous. These are just the shots before we left.

Emily making adjustments as the beach crew watched. :)

Building homes for Christ; under construction & constructed

I've already described Lisa, one of my first friends here.  She's working to build homes for families of up to 5 orphans to be adopted by Mozambique parents.  She took me out to the property that's currently under construction.  News on Friday was that 3 children are already set to move in with willing parents from an orphanage formerly run by Iris Ministries.





The property where the current house is being built got quite a bit of water with recent showers - so we had some sloughing to do through the mud and shin deep pond water to get to the house.  One of the things I love about how Lisa is doing what she's doing, is that she's hiring and training vocational students to do the labor on the house.  It's more work for her to help train them, but it's cost effective and gives them an opportunity to get work experience.  One of the workers asked Lisa to take a picture of him in his work gear because he was so proud and wanted to post it on facebook. :)

Proud worker!

On Saturday, I had my first Mozambican family meal with the family that is already living in the first house that she's constructed.  The couple has adopted 4 orphans, then had one child and is now expecting another.  We sat for a long time outside in front of the house as the oldest daughters washed and prepared the food.  The mother was trained to sew and so an old pushpeddle sewing machine sat next to us as chickens, children, and the beloved dog ran around.  It was a humble home - not out of the ordinary for Mozambique, so it was cool to see the kids thriving in a typical home environment.

Dinner began with prayer, the children each got served (special night with meat!).  Normally, dinner is eaten with hands and rarely not at a table.  If there is a table, I'm told, the husband sits at it and the wife and children sit on straw mats on the floor.  So our meal wasn't completely typical because our dinner was eaten at a table.

After dinner the children were all asked by Lisa if they had anything they needed or had questions about.  She acts kind of like a social worker in checking in on them, and there was nothing new from any of them.  Then the whole table took turns in praying out loud.

We got led home in the dark with a flashlight on the narrow path by the three oldest children.  On giving Lisa a final hug, the oldest daughter said, "I really enjoyed going to the beach with you that time.  Do you think you could find time to go again?"

Someone forgot to take a pic at dinner!

Too sweet.

[HEART] the heart

The Meyers, the couple I'm staying with here in Beira, are a Director and teacher at an international school of 94 students. Marilyn taught her class about the human body and managed to get her hands on a cow heart, lungs, liver, and kidney. She asked if I'd do a lesson on the heart... how could I resist?

Her class is made up of 7 third graders who have a diverse background.  I had forgotten how unqueasy the little tykes are, so I actually to had to warn them they wouldn't be getting to touch the heart today.

For anyone who knows heart anatomy, it was unfortunate that the heart had already been cut and was somehow missing the right atrium.  Yet we persevered... (I think the water balloon demonstration of pumping was particularly a favorite.... at least it was for me! :P)  It took a while, but the third graders also discovered how to listen to their heart beating with my stethoscope and how to count their pulse on their wrist.

The science teacher's 8th graders also joined us and here they are holding up the poster I made with sticky notes that the younger students could literally step on to walk through the heart.


I was sad to only get an hour with them!!

Sunrise, sunset

I can't get over the beauty of these African sunsets over the ocean, where the exact moment of the sun's disappearance can be marked on the horizon.  Mountain-westerners are used to beautiful skies, but rarely if ever does the sun literally melt into the horizon and never in such the fast sinking way it does into the ocean.

Doing some quick calculations at dinner, this is the 10,608th sunset of my life.  With most of mine recently occurring during working hours outside the hospital, I am all the more appreciate and mesmerized by these painted but morphing skies at dusk.  Such a great, grand thing this sky of ours, that gives one a little sense of wonderment if we'd just take time time to look up.  What a Masterful Painter to make such a colorful delight.

Beira city highlights

Beira is a large city and is widely spread out.  The best way to get around is by chapas - but I hadn't really explored much until today.

Club Nautico, which has recently been redone and has a nice overlook of the ocean, is expensive.  They have good pizza and a private pool (which costs 375 mets ~ $14/day).  I was deterred by the cost to go swimming - also there was too much else to do today. (!) 

Club Nautico

Have you noticed a lot of beaches?  It's kind of the neatest geographical element of Mozambique - such a long beautiful coast.

If you look close enough there are lots of canoes in the water with fishermen

 First stop on way into explore is to grab an 'African pineapple'!  Which is basically a peeled pineapple you eat like a carmelled apple.

'African pineapple' DELICIOUS!

Praca de Municipio "Coke bottle plaza"

Family getting photographs for youngest's 3rd bday

 I wandered the city with Dan, a 3rd year family medicine resident from Alaska, who is here for 3 weeks doing a rotation at the same clinic.  He is living with Peter (my preceptor) and Peter's wife Emily.  He and Emily had already been down to this same area before and so he showed me around today.

While enjoying a cafe - we saw multiple wedding parties coming to take pictures at the Praca

Chapa ride

Praca de Municipio

Dinner at the Millards!

Sometimes when it's hot, we wear swimming suits to dinner :P

Bananagrams

We also went to Praia Nova Market but didn't buy anything.  On the chapa ride back we randomly ran into the Millards who invited me over for Peter's special pizza.

Chapas

From the back of the chapa :)

I thought I would write this, since some of you have been asking whether I got a scooter yet. They’re rather inexpensive, but mostly imported and rather cheaply made. My friend Jabulani helped me look into it, but unfortunately the best stores only have full-fledged motorcycles, no scooters. I have been deterred by reasoning 1) likely to break down quickly since even the one I tried at the store (unused) had a broken battery they had to replace before I could even test drive 2) car vs moto (moto loses!) 3) it’s the rainy (monsoon!) season here 4) I’ve become comfortable with local transport…

Welcome to chapas. They’re vans revamped to drive as many people as they can fit. The US Consulate website says its embassy workers are disallowed from using them because of accidents in Maputo. The joke is that you’re lucky if you walk out with clothes on because of high rates of pick pockets. (Good joke.) They have their various destinations/routes on the front windshield. Estoril-Macuti, for example is my route. One ride to wherever is a flat rate at 5 meticais (~20 cents.)

Today was my second ride (back from work). My first ride was aided by a patient’s mother (seen the week prior) who randomly rode from my house with me, and who told me when to get off. Today I began talking to another woman as we waited for the right chapa. Little did I know as she got off before me, that she paid for me additionally in advance. So much for losing my clothes on the chapa – instead I made a friend. Such a kindness is no small trifle when 5 meticais is how much a loaf of bread costs. Thanks Mozambique, for the kindness of strangers and for unexpected friends.

Happy African birthday, MLK Jr and me!

Perspectives

Martin Luther King Jr and I share the same birthday some 54 years apart and we share many ideals.  He was so well-spoken on the topic of inequality, injustice, and true freedom... topics so pertinent to Africa today that as I celebrate my own birth and blessings in Africa it makes me consider how his efforts changed America and how a similar effort still needs a mouthpiece like him in Africa now.  Tomorrow Americans celebrate his day (his real birthday is today, just so you know) and yet Africans unaware perhaps of his significance, go about a normal work day tomorrow. 

Dinner with Lisa last night

What MLK realized, which is different than many relief efforts that take place throughout third world countries, is that real long-term change is rooted in essential change of the heart, mind and soul.  His call for liberty in America grew out of a knowledge not just of personal injustices and a desire for those to be righted, but out of a very biblical view of where justice, equality and goodness arise.  Martin Luther King Jr, named after Martin Luther a Christian reformer known for refuting rituals and false doctrines by returning to the Bible as the irrefutable source of truth, knew the Bible well.  He knew that manmade definitions, constructs, and relationships were faulty outside of a person's right relationship with his/her Maker.

Birthday bfast with waffles and omelettes!

His most famous quote is "Now, I say to you today my friends, even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: - 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.'"  Which is followed in the Declaration of Independence by "...that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights..." - all of which is based on a Biblical view of all men being made in the image of God.

Formerly a 5 star hotel... many buildings have assumed this look

Any other view of men is wrong, not because MLK Jr says it is so, not because I want it to be so, and certainly not because I have been persecuted (like MLK Jr and so much of the African world I have encountered) and am seeking vindication.  It is wrong to allow injustices, because in the Sunday School answer that MLK Jr also believed, 'The Bible says so.'  Some people follow the UN Declaration of Human Rights, others daily read the Human Rights Watch, different people donate to various wonderful charitable organizations like International Justice Mission.  None of those things are efficacious or good without recognizing 1: nothing apart from the Bible

Zionists are a large religious group here.  (left)

is infallible and as it says 2: your and my heart are the beginning of what is wrong with the world so 3: to change other hearts and lives, we must first change our own.









If you're interested in reading more of where the Bible supports viewing all men as equally valuable, calls for us to fight injustice, and why our hearts need to be changed see below:
Gen 1:27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

Prov 14:31 Whoever oppresses a poor man insults his Maker, but he who is generous to the needy honors him.

Jeremiah 22:3 Thus says the Lord: Do justice and righteousness, and deliver from the hand of the oppressor him who has been robbed. And do no wrong or violence to the resident alien, the fatherless, and the widow, nor shed innocent blood in this place

Psalm 12:5 “Because the poor are plundered, because the needy groan, I will now arise,” says the Lord; “I will place him in the safety for which he longs.”


Romans 12:2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

Jeremiah 7:5-7 "If you really change your ways and your actions and deal with each other justly,  if you do not oppress the alien, the fatherless or the widow and do not shed innocent blood in this place,
and if you do not follow other gods to your own harm,  then I will let you live in this place, in the land I gave your forefathers for ever and ever"

1 Cor 6:9-11 Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men  nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

Friday Friends #1

Someone told me the best mission blogs highlight people and I agree.  So today we commence Friday Friends where I'll highlight some of the people in Beira, Mozambique.  Since I haven't gotten pictures of many of the folks I work with at the clinica, I'm going to begin by introducing Lisa Brown who started an awesome project called Building Lives for Christ.


She is a Canadian who worked for 15 years as a dental hygienist before going on a mission trip to Gambia which started a spark in her for the people of Africa.  She then spent some time in Mozambique before feeling called to move here and work full-time.  Working at an orphanage in Beira or hereabouts, she saw orphaned and displaced children that were being institutionalized.  Feeling a calling by God to do more, she began a program (switching careers entirely to go into construction) that builds houses large enough to accomadate Mozambiquan families of 2 parents and 4-5 children.  She has already built one house in which a native couple has adopted 4 orphans and live as a family.  She was able to procure a larger piece of land that can fit up to 5 more homes.  Construction is under way for a second home.  Lisa has so much energy and charisma, such a passion for her work it's extremely inspiring.  For those of you who haven't worked in Africa, it takes a lot of time just finding trained, hard-working employees.  Lisa has done much of the work on her own and her bronze and darkened skin reflect daily excellence in working alongside her employees outside in the heat of the day.

Last night as she took time from a very stressful and hard day to have dinner with the newcomer to the area (me!), she talked about her work.  She's begun the building of the second house with only enough funding to pay for half of it praying that God will provide what is necessary to continue.  As she said, "It's not difficult finding children to fill these homes, though finding good couples to match is.... but I know God has me here.  When you ask me how long I'll stay, I don't know.  There's work here and I'm called to do it."

Awesome.  People working in much "nicer" working conditions often work half-as heartedly and have no zest for life.  She's working as unto her God and her passion is changing lives pouco a pouco (little by little).  Steady, hard-working, and faithful to her calling - what an inspiration!  Read more by clicking on her name or program above, or here: Building Homes

Watching the sunset at dinner with Lisa

Winding down after the first work week :)

2nd Day: Sink or swim

Walking across the field to the clinic at the beginning of the day; people are already waiting

Here's to immersion.  The senior medical student who spent 2 seconds in the room with me this morning as I was interviewing a patient told me my portuguese was good enough to start seeing patients on my own.   The pharmacist did come and ask me to change one dose because medications are different here, but beyond a few extended explanations for words I didn't know, it went fine.

At the end of the day

Patient room with a microscope

Two of my patients today were given new positive HIV results.  The first one I had to grab a medical student to explain the results because I felt terrible stuttering through something as grave as that diagnosis, but gave the news myself for the second.  I hope this gets easier as I feel terrible in feeling like a passerby of a hit-and-run that I was powerless to prevent.  [Note: My now cemented goal with patients is, regardless of the amount of time it takes, to do education on disease.]  Yes, I love public health in prevention of, as opposed to retroactive treatment of diseases.

Incredibly a soda pop that aids against malaria (it has quinine antibiotic in it!!) I had to take a picture.

New Year's in Africa

Rainbows were a significant symbol in the Bible and it reminds me of the covenant Noah had with God after the flood. God promised never again to send a flood to destroy all the creatures of the earth. It still serves as a symbolic promise of a future and a God who keeps His promises - since I saw this the last day of 2011, it was a personal encouragement for the year following, 2012.

The rest of the pictures were taken on NYE at a family's home that invited us for a private family celebration of the the new year.  I didn't realize that fireworks are set here like they are for July 4 in the US.  It was a great way to start the new year, especially as someone opened their family to us.