We survived...barely!

Well we survived our first 5 days in Muembe. It was not a pretty sight, but we did it. We were a little unprepared. Our first mistake was leaving at 2:00pm on Saturday instead of right away in the morning. On the way, Jalea, our dog, threw up all over and caused a little bit of delay as we sat at the side of the road trying to wash out the car, Karis' foot, leg, and shoe with our limited supply of drinking water. We didn't end up arriving until about 3:30pm and the water pump was about to go off, so we had to really quickly run to the well and get the water we needed for the night. Then we thought we better get a fired started to start our dinner. We bought charcoal from some locals on the way up. Tim tried to start a fire for over an hour before Pastor Matias came over and let us know that we had bought bad charcoal. We didn't know there was such a thing as bad charcoal. So finally he helped us get a fire started and we started our dinner of rice and chicken. By then it was almost dark and we still didn't have our beds set up or anything. Our solar powered laterns didn't work because we didn't have time to set them out in the sun to charge and I realized we had left the silverware at home, so we had Kallen's baby spoon and a spatula for all 4 of us to eat from. So for the next four days that is all we had for utensils. We are perfecting the art of eating with our hands, although soup doesn't work that well with your hands, so we either drank our soup or shared the baby spoon. We took freezing cold bucket baths. Karis didn't even mind, Traeger threw a fit! It was pretty miserable I have to admit. Traeger got sick and threw up one night three times and it was really fun cleaning up throw up in the dark with buckets of water. The one night all of us were sleeping on the blow up mattress together because Traeger was sick, and Karis wouldn't sleep alone, so needless to say it was a sleepless night.
On the bright side, overall it was very valuable. We learned a lot and made a huge list of things we had not thought of or had forgotten that will make our next time there much easier. We were able to really get to know Pastor Matias and some of his family better. Traeger made great friends with one of his sons and is rattling off his portuguese again. The kids had a great time getting dirty and playing in the wide open spaces. The people were very friendly. We are literally the only white people in the village, so the first day we walked into the little market, everyone in the village stopped and just stared at us. The kids followed us around everywhere and at one point all surrounded Karis and pet her hair. she just stood there staring at me with a look that said, help mommy!!! The kids would all stand in the grass outside our door yelling "usungu"(white person). We would wave or say hi and they would all scream and yell and laugh. Overall it was good to really be able to walk beside the Africans, living life exactly how they live, but also makes us really glad to be able to come back here to Lichinga for a little break now and then.

Here is a picture of our bathroom(after it has been cleaned). It isn't a pretty sight, but at least we have a toilet. We flush it with a bucket of water.

Here is Tim carrying water on his head like the Africans do.

Cooking our dinner on the fire.

Doing dishes by the well.

Traeger playing at Jilo's house(one of pastor Matias' oldest sons, and one of his daughters is the girl in the yellow).

Here is Traeger's new friend, Armindo. They had so much fun together.

Giving Karis a bath in the trash can:)

This is why Karis needed a bath. I about died when I saw her like this, but of course I got myself together enough to take a picture. Oh and she dressed herself by the way. She sometimes just goes in the house and comes out in totally different clothes. This day she for some reason decided to wear my underware, pajama pants and a t/shirt(both inside out). Hey, it's Africa, I don't care!

Thankfully we were able to come home to this. Now that our container has arrived, we have everything put together and it is so nice to have a place to come home to. The girls on the couch are some fellow missionaries kids.

Here is Traeger and Karis' room.

This is Kallen's room.

Here is Kallen after having great fun with our spagetti sauce spoon. I was doing some dishes after dinner and came back to find her like this. I had left the leftovers on the table, unfortunately.

The kids all clean again.