CSI: Mozambique

It’s the rainy season. Days filled with hot sticky heat but in the distance you can hear the booms of thunder gradually coming closer. Eventually the sky opens up and the rain pours, filling buckets with clear water and cooling off the air.

Tuesday was exactly one of these days, it cooled off and I began looking forward to getting a good night sleep. By 8pm, I was showered and in bed reading, Nunu went out to turn on the generator and as the fans kicked on I was in my happy (cool) place. We asked our guard Bouanassa to shut the generator off at midnight and fell to sleep.

The night was just as any other, a noise prompted me to ask Nunu if he locked the door and when he said yes, I was right back to sleep.

Until I heard Bounassa talking outside, I don’t even know what he said. I looked at my watch, it was only 10pm, I thought to myself, “He isn’t supposed to shut the generator off till midnight.” That’s when Nunu frantically said, “My motorcycle was stolen!”

What! Wait! How? It was sitting on our front porch. Where was the guard? Where was the dog? How did I not hear anything?

Nunu rushed outside, cellphone in hand and he and Bounassa were off. I felt helpless. Honestly I wanted to call 911, but that doesn’t exist here. So I got dressed and put on shoes. I went into the front yard to try to see where Nunu had gone and I shut off the generator, so I could hear if Nunu called for me. I grabbed Molly’s leash and while she apparently isn’t much of a guard dog, she makes me feel safe.

Nunu comes back, no sign of anyone. He is really mad, wondering how a motorcycle could have got passed our guard. We both really like Bounassa but you can’t help but wonder was he involved, motorcycles don’t just disappear. That’s when Nunu goes back to the porch and looks for the tire tracks. He finds them and they lead to the back of our house, not the front. He realizes that someone cut a hole in our fence (chicken wire that we installed to keep our beautiful view and ocean breezes). He goes around our fence and he and Bounassa take off in that direction.

The fence from outside the yard.

I go back in the house with Molly and I walk in circles in our living room, praying, freaking out, praying, I should lock the door, more prayers, I need to do something. I pick up my phone and start typing a message asking some friends to pray with me and as I lift my finger to hit send, the screen on my phone changes… it’s Nunu calling, he found the bike!!!!

But he doesn’t have the keys and with the bike in it’s locked position it’s really hard to move. He asks me to get the neighbors guard (our neighbor is out of town) to bring him the keys as he doesn’t want to leave the bike. I walk toward the neighbors screaming “Guard! Excuse me! Guard” in Portuguese. The only response is two dogs barking and growling at me. We have some friends, Jonas and Erica, who just moved about 200 feet up the road and so I ask Nunu if I should go to them, knowing he is thinking of my safety first. He says I should. I realize Molly is in the house and my best bet for passing the dogs at night is to have her.

I lock the house and Molly and I make our way down the road. I’m calling our friends cellphones as I run in my hot pink PJ’s, while making kissy noises at the growling dogs (I hope someone got a good laugh)… they don’t answer their phones. As I get to the house, their guard is gone and so I’m left shouting for their help.

I hear the deep sleep in their voices as they try to figure out who is calling their names and just what is going on. Now the three of us are on our way to find Nunu in the bush behind our house.

Nunu tells me which way to go and we are blindly going by the light of our cell phones. He says he can hear me getting closer and we keep shining our lights toward each other. Eventually I can hear him clearly without the phone.

Nunu and Bounassa had tracked the tire marks of the bike for about half a mile, maybe longer. And found it sort of hidden behind a bush. I told Nunu that I have a new nickname for him… CSI =)

We have no clue who did this or how many. At the very least 3 to 4 people because they had to lift the bike up over a fence that is a little over 3 feet tall and the only damage was to one of the handle bars, I’m guessing from the impact as they tried to throw it over the fence.

The creepy part of it all is knowing that we were watched. The night before we didn’t run the generator, no doubt in my mind the generator made a great cover for the noise. They knew our routine.

As with so many things here, I hate that we have to go through it but we do learn. We will be meeting with our guards later today talking about how important it is to not get into such a fixed routine. We will have to put up a better fence, one without our beautiful view and we will need to get some dogs that bark! Lastly a block fence will need to be moved up on our priority list.

Thanks to all of you who regularly pray for us, we so appreciate and feel your prayers!

Motorcycle in it's new nightly home, our living room.

Fence two days ago. They had to lift the bike up over the bamboo part!

It's Good to Be Back, But...

As I step off the plane and make my way down the steps, the heat and humidity wash over me, it finally hits… I’m back in Mozambique. I continue to walk from the plane to the entrance marked “International Arrivals,” I look up. Standing in the second floor window, I see Nunu. I smile, wave and feel the tears creep up behind my eyes. I have to look down. The last thing I need to do is go through customs with tears running down my face.

I make it though customs and bag checks without much incident. The bag checker was curious about a few of my items; the main concern is people brining things in the country to sell without paying the import tax. Of all things, she asks about a pile of pencils. There are maybe 40 of them, Nunu tells her they are for kids. I stand there thinking to myself, “Does she think I’ve come to make millions off of selling these pencils, I’d be lucky to sell them all for $10!”

It’s good to be back, but it’s more overwhelming than I had imagined. I’m having to take more time to adjust emotionally and to the pace of life. The biggest adjustment is that the last month or so in the states has been non-stop and the speed of my life didn’t gradually slow down… it came to a screeching halt!

Arriving here I feel helpless in so many ways. For five months I’ve been in the states, sharing stories and vision of what we plan to do. Now I’m here and I just want to hit the ground running, but that’s not how things work. I have to get back into the Mozambique mindset.

I have to rely on Nunu for just about everything; he is the one who will contact the electrical company; he will run to the store to buy food for dinner; he will… he will… he will…  You get the point. I don’t have a problem relying on Nunu but it’s just a form of culture shock; rather than me running around like crazy, he is – and I’m sitting at our house basically doing nothing.

My first morning here, I thought I might explode waiting for Nunu to wake up. When he did wake up, the explosion happened. As we started talking, I found myself crying and not really sure why. Being the great husband he is, he reassured me and let the tears fall.

Each day we come up with a to do list for Nunu and I make myself as useful as possible. But let’s be real: I’ve mostly sat around pondering how hot it is and eating mangos. Or at least that is how it feels.

My first full day here some of Binti’s kids showed up bringing us water. I was sitting in a chair looking for the motivation to unpack my bags when I glanced over at the kids, one of them waved and with a huge smile on her face said “Hi friend.” It was exactly what I needed.

I couldn’t believe that she remembered that from 5 months ago. It was just the encouragement I needed in the moment; God is so good.

So I do what I can each day but really spend most of my time just taking it all in. Enjoying time with Nunu and being able to be excited together about the next steps for The Widow’s Might.

A Glimpse... Malaria

Malaria is very common in our area and for that reason I’m very careful about mosquitos. I’ve never had it and so all I know is what I’ve been told, which is basically that it’s sort of a flu & head cold combination that effects everyone differently. But it’s easily treatable through over the counter medication that costs about $5. I thought as long as you caught it fast and took the medication it was not that big of a deal.

For the life of me I couldn’t figure out why so many people die from malaria in our area. I have noticed that if you feel a headache coming on people often say that is malaria… so any sign of sickness is thought of as malaria. Because of this thinking I wondered if people were dying from other undiagnosed issues and without proper medical evaluation they were just self-diagnosing with malaria.

Then about a month ago Nunu, my husband, was feeling ill. He went to the doctor, who confirmed it was malaria and Nunu began taking the medication. Little by little that week he was feeling better. We spoke on Sunday and he said he was doing well.

On Monday morning, I awoke to a Facebook message from one of our friends saying that he had taken Nunu to the hospital that morning. I found out that Nunu hadn’t slept well because he felt like someone was punching his stomach and he had the chills/sweats. Our friend went on to say that after 3 hours on IV and shots that Nunu was looking and feeling a lot better.

Nunu getting an IV at the clinic.

When I talked to Nunu I found out that his type of malaria was much more severe than typical. Don’t quote me on this, but I think the typical case of malaria is classified as level 1 and Nunu had level 3. The parasite (malaria) had spread to his liver and was therefore in his bloodstream. He spent one full day in the hospital, returned the following day for another IV and round of shots and then a nurse came out to the house for 5 days to administer shots.

Nunu had tried to go to the public hospital where he had been originally diagnosed, but the wait was so long and he didn’t feel confident in the care he would receive. At the clinic he received great care and was surprised at how nice the doctor was to him. In the end his medical bills were about $700, which he had to pay in full before leaving the office.

It might seem to you like this story is about Nunu but it’s not. By the time I even knew he was in the hospital, he had already been there for 7 hours and was very much on the mend. Sure it was scary, but as soon as I talked to him I was at peace. That is until I started thinking about our neighbors.

Minimum wage is about $150 a month, but many make less. So imagine not having health insurance and not being able to receive medical care until you could prove that you can pay a medical bill equivalent to 5 months of your salary.

It’s heart breaking.

But once again my compassion has been stretched, I have been given a glimpse into the lives of so many in our village.

From the beginning I’ve said that water and electricity will come in God’s perfect time. Honestly I wondered just how God would use this season to teach me and stretch me. Whether we get running water and electricity tomorrow or in a couple years, I will always be able to look back on this time when my compassion was stretched and my faith grew in ways I didn’t know possible.

I believe this is a bold and powerful prayer. I challenge you to say it until you see results. When God answers this prayer, you will know it. If I had to guess when I first prayed this prayer, I would say that I was probably living in the states working in an architecture firm not even knowing where Mozambique was on the map. Boy have my eyes been opened!! 

Open up my eyes to the things unseen.

Show me how to love like You have loved me.

Break my heart for what breaks Yours.