Tata Wooo!

The next day we returned to Nanua, to bring paint for marking the edge of the property and to see the progress. Since Nunu had to run to the store to buy the paint, we arrived around noon.

We set off on the path to our property, winding our way through tall grass and small trees, and then BAM a clear field! Sure there was a huge pile of cut trees and grass, but you could see the Baobab tree from so much further away! The guys had been out there since 5am, what did I expect?!

Nunu set out to find the property boundaries with his managers, while Sandy, Matthew and I set out to start cutting grass.

Have I mentioned yet that Nanua in Macua, the local tribal language, means snake?! As you can imagine with each step and swing of our hoe, this thought is in all of our minds. Latino told Matthew a story about a guy he knew getting bit and how they had to suck out the venom out of this guys leg. A couple times Matthew jokingly mentioned that we needed to keep a Mozambican close by, incase we needed someone to suck out some venom! I’m happy to report that other than a possible mouse, we didn’t see anything.

We left that day excited having new friends and a clearer image of what our property really looked like… but mostly excited to come back on Friday to play soccer!

When we arrived on Friday, all the cut greens had wilted and we got an even better glimpse of the property. We walked as much of the edge as possible and I used a walking app to get a better idea of the properties size. I’ve used this info, google maps and photoshop to estimate that the property is about 540’ x 650’ which is about 8 acres!! We paid less than $1,000 for this =)

Don't you just love technology!

We are currently talking with the Chief of the Village to get his approval for what we are wanting to do (Community Center for ministry and farming). He is sort of flexing his muscles and we are trying to play by the rules. Nunu basically told him that we would like to do some farming and if the community is supportive and good to us, then we will expand beyond that. Basically saying the nicer you are to us, the more jobs we will have for your village over time!

After walking the property, we went down the paved road a little bit to the local field at the school. As we were following our friends to the field, we walked past a couple of mud buildings with bamboo benches. When I saw a white board, it hit me, “this is the school?!” I don’t really have words, but imagine kids beg to be sent to school!

 

Local School

Sandy and I were led to someone’s “porch” and told this is where we should put our chairs to sit. It didn’t take long for a group of children to form around us and a couple of women came to say hello. One lady told us she was going to get water to take her bath… I love the randomness of that!

 

Sandy watching the game.

What a beauty.

We sat and watched the guys who had worked so hard on our property this week, now running full speed with huge smiles on their faces, chasing a little yellow ball. Isn’t it amazing?

The kids were just as fun to watch. I made a little friend, we raised eye brows at each other a few times. Sandy and I laughed as the first goal was scored and the kids went crazy, all jumping and running out onto the field. Cartwheels and karate kicks galore! I thought I was watching the last 20 seconds of the World Cup!

 

I dare you not to be pulled in by his face. 

It was also great because Matthew was playing. As the only white guy out there, every time he touched the ball, the kids would laugh and point. It was great. At one point the ball was heading out of bounds, and two guys in unison did bicycle kicks (basically doing a back flip, trying to kick the ball backwards over your head, and you land on the ground on your back). It was AMAZING! I yelled “Woooooooo!” And then I heard an echo and a lot of giggles. So naturally I kept wooing and the kids kept echoing me.

The day ended, selfie stick in hand, walking off the field with more excited kids than I could count trailing behind. As I sat in the car trying to wave goodbye, one little girl looked at me and said, “Tata Wooo” (Good-bye Wooo).

Tata Nanua, until next time.

Love, Wooo

Clearing the Land

We arrived in Nanua, about 45 minutes from our home, midmorning on Monday. Armed with hoes, a machete and a grass cutter, we were going to talk to the locals about helping us clear the land that was overgrown with small trees, bamboo and tall grass.

Living in Moz, you hear people talk about the “bush bush”. They are usually referring to green property that is typically farther out from town. This property is the perfect example of the bush bush.

As we walked through the small village of Nanua to our property, the trail of hopeful workers kept growing behind us. Traversing through the bush bush, getting whipped by thorns and small branches from the person in front of you, with a large group of men all armed with machetes who didn’t speak my language, I thought to myself, “If we didn’t know a few of these guys, this would probably be the scariest day of my life.”

Each time we go to Nanua, Nunu figures out who speaks the best Portuguese and that guy becomes our point person. Having Latino, a fluent Macua (local tribal language) speaker, is always great because he understands what everyone is saying. On days like this one, we get a good laugh. One of the guys asked someone where the driver was, referring to Nunu.

Nunu & Latino talking to all the men with machetes.

Matthew walking through the bush (he is 6' tall)

While the property is huge, we didn’t know just how big it was because it’s difficult to really measure in the bush. I knew that it would be costly to have these men clear it, though. During the negotiations, they came up with 30,000 mzn to clear the whole property. It’s really hard to explain the cost of things right now, because the dollar is SO strong (we get more than double the mzn than we did less than 2 years ago). We typically see the mzn price and go “Oh that’s too much!” but then we think in USD and get excited because it’s actually really cheap. It’s much easier to explain mzn amounts in terms of what we pay our guard. He makes 3,000 mzn a month, which is a normal wage for that kind of a job.

Even though 30,000 mzn is actually a good price for ALL of that work, at just under $500 USD, we just didn’t have that much, so we made a deal for them to do half of the property for 15,000 mzn. Before we even gave the go-ahead to show the managers where the property lines are, the guys started going. There were 15 guys total and they just took over, decimating the trees.

For you nature lovers who are wincing at the thought of so many trees being cut down, we plan to use them to build animal shelters on the property and we aren’t cutting any of the big trees down, just the small ones that were a few inches in diameter. By doing this we should be able to build sooner and will avoid having to try to come up with the money for the materials to build.

Sandy, Matthew (our visitors) and I had farming hoes and, while they aren’t ideal, we realized that we could cut away all the grass and even take out some of the small trees. It was the perfect working day, totally overcast with a little breeze. I’m not going to lie, there were moments before we started working that I was actually cool. Being cool during the day in Moz… this is a first for me, but what can I say? We’ve had a “cold snap.”

Matthew!

I worked as hard as I could, but was so glad that Matthew and especially Sandy were there. I’ve been sick for an entire month, first with malaria and then a horrible cough (that still lingers). I hate appearing lazy to the locals because they are used to foreigners just sitting around, pointing, and giving them orders. But with Sandy working so hard, I just hoped they paid attention to her instead of the winded girl who keeps taking water breaks, even though I knew I needed them.

At the end of the work day, we had made a huge dent in the property, but this was not our greatest impact that day. Three white people in Nanua at the same time is likely to be a record for this village. Not to mention three white people who were working alongside locals rather than just sitting and pointing, which was also a first. The locals were talking with Latino and said, “We can tell they don’t despise us.” While that might not translate very well, it basically meant that because we worked, they could tell we valued them, or that we are good people.

Overcoming stereotypes and letting people get to know us is one of the many small steps it will take to start a ministry in Nanua..

End of the day. That's our baobab tree!

Mountains in the distance, on our drive home. 

Sticky Fleas & Pasty Butts...

I arrived in December to one of our chickens sitting on four eggs. It was a great homecoming. Within days all three of our hens were sitting on eggs and at times fighting over whose eggs were whose. After a couple of weeks we had right around 20 eggs!

Eventually we would like to get to the place where we are producing eggs to eat but for the time being we are trying to grow our flock so that we have more egg layers. But this hasn’t been as easy as it might sound.

In 2015, we didn’t have one chick live past 2 weeks.

When I saw the eggs, I knew I would personally be giving the eggs and these ladies a lot of attention. I made sure the hens had food and water while they were spending day and night in the coop sitting on eggs.

The day I went in and saw a broken egg my heart sank a little, until I realized the egg had hatched! Each day I would go out and there would be another cracked shell, I would clear it out and try to sneak a peek at the chicks but they remained cozy under their mommas.

One of my first glimpses at the chicks!

One morning I brought out our veggie scraps and as soon as the food hit the floor all the birds got up and I got my first glance at the chicks. I told Nunu I could easily put a chair in the chicken coop and just watch the birds all day.

One hen must have gotten a week or so head start on the other two, because we did have lull in hatchings. As the second round of eggs started hatching the first few were off to a good start but with in a few days I kept finding dead baby chicks! I wasn’t sure what it meant.

I read online about causes of death for chicks and one thing it mentioned was “pasty butt.” Basically it means their poop gets stuck in their feathers and so then it backs up… something along those lines, remember this is all new to me. So I went out with my paper towels and warm water to check their little butts, I had also noticed that one of the baby had been pooped on by an adult and so it’s whole back was poop, the little guy wasn’t looking like he would live. For the poopy back I sort of made a wet paper towel blanket and just let him sleep under it while I looked at the other.

I picked them up and on two of them I found a little bit of crusty something… so I began slowly rubbing with the warm water and paper towel. It was so funny, when I would pick up the chicks they made a bunch of noise in protest but as soon as I started rubbing they would close their eyes and completely relax in my hand.

The poop was a lot harder to get off then I imagine, as the water spread, I noticed something weird… another opening? After a quick search online, I realized I was trying to clean off their belly buttons. =) Not one pasty butt in the bunch! I was able to get a good amount of poop off the back of the other bird but left some as it was really on him. So I was still confused how these babies kept dying!

I went into the chicken coop another day and discovered what I thought was a dying chick under the feed tray. I put him in the nesting area and moved another dazed little guy over with him. I realized later in the day that the chick wasn’t dying, he had actually just been born! 

New born under feeding tray!

Same new born. 

First picture with a chick =) 

Shortly after we realized that the hen whose eggs hatched first was actually pecking the other babies and because they were so little she was killing them. By this time we were down to 8 chicks: 4 of the head hen’s chicks and 4 chicks who were less than a week old. We did lose a couple of eggs, but this hen was taking out the babies left and right. So completely unsure of what to do, I moved the chicks out of the coop and into a bucket of their own. The yellow chick in particular may have already been pecked some, as it was very dazed and not very active on it’s last day in the chicken coop.

Unsure of what to think about their new bucket home.

The next day the yellow chick seemed a little better but it was obvious that the bucket didn’t offer much space. I was at a friends house and they had just purchased a generator and the box was on their porch, one look at the box and I asked if I could have it.

Bucket chicks, doing well and eating out of my hand. 

Bucket chicks in their new box home with
window screen as a top.

Almost 2 weeks later the chicks are still in the box and they are doing really well. I did read online that we shouldn’t bring them back into the flock until they can fend for themselves and even then it should be a gradual introduction. So we might have to build another enclosure or something.

Another sad confirmation that we did the right thing is that one of the bigger chicks died from stick-tight fleas. They are fleas that are so hard to remove, even with tweezers. In the states they have something you use to repel them but I can’t find it here. When I showed Bounassa he said you put petroleum on them. While I hate that idea with every ounce of my being, I could tell the bird was going to die and petroleum was the only chance to save it. We were too late.

See the brown around her eye? Those are
stick-tight fleas. 

The bucket chicks have no stick-tight fleas, which is good because the smaller the bird the more likely they are to die from the fleas. So says the internet. =)

This week I went out the feed the chicks and was happily surprised to find another egg!! I was hoping we would be able to build some nice nesting boxes for the hens but we just haven’t had the time yet. But we were able to find another box and build something temporary! Now they can stay at the Super Star Inn, or so says the box!

 

The eggs pictured above, I put into the box and today
I found a third egg! Yay, the ladies get the point!!

Current Chicken Count:

Roosters: 2

Hens: 3

Chicks: 7

Eggs: 3