Pangolin and Genets...

Most of you know, I love animals. God has given me some amazing opportunities to view wildlife here and actually interact with it. One of my friends here, Veronica, has taken in some baby Genets. Genets are nocturnal wild cats. They were in a tree that was cut down by a local and Veronica is raising them until they are old enough to hunt and find food on their own and then she will release them back into the wild at a conservation camp. I have been able to hold and play with these beautiful cats.
Then today, a man came to my house trying to sell me something, a Pangolin. I knew it was some kind of animal, but not what type of animal. He wanted me to buy it for about $6,500. I told him to bring it because I was curious what type of animal it was. After he left to go get it, I called Veronica, because she knows animals like this. She said that it was highly illegal to sell these animals. She said that when he brought the animal to my house, pretend I am interested and she would send guys from the department of argiculture to my house to confiscate the animal. So that is what I did. He brought the poor thing tied into 2 burlap sacks and then put into a duffle bag. The four guys from department of Agriculture took him and the Pangolin back to their office. Apparently, you receive a huge fine for this type of thing and if you can't pay it, you stay in jail until you pay it. However, this guy just got a stern warning not to do it again and was released. Most people could never afford to pay the fines, so they often just get away with it. But the Pangolin will be released at a conservation camp. The Pangolin is an amazing animal, like nothing I've ever seen before. He is covered with plate like scales and eats ants and termites with a long sticky tongue like an anteater. Here are some pictures of these animals.

Veronica gave it some termites to eat.

The guy who tried to sell me the Pangolin said that if I took it back to the States, I could get about $20,000 for it. If any of you are interested in paying me that much for one of these, I'll see what I can do:)
When they are scared or sense danger, they curl up into a ball, completely covered by these plates.

Here is one of the Genets. They are only about 6 or 8 weeks old.

Their fur is so soft. They have the most amazing tail.

An unforgettable story (reader discretion advised)...

For our Chiyao language classes, we have been telling stories and recording them and then listening to them and translating them. I tell a simple story about my life or my childhood and then my language helper, Beatriz, tells one about her life. It has been very interesting. Well the other day we went to her house and her mom told us a story about her life during the Portuguese/Mozambique war, when they were fighting for independence. We recorded her story in Chiyao and then with the help of Beatriz translated it into Portuguese and now into English for you all to read. It is an incredibly tragic story that depicts life here during the time of war and all that the people faced during this time. This is her and her story:



During the time of the colonial war against the Portuguese, I had my first child, a boy. We ran away into the forest because of the war. When we lived in the forest, we built homes out of grass. The sides of the house, the roof, everything was made of grass. During the second year of the war, some lions appeared where we were living. Goats and other animals slept outside the houses and us people would sleep inside the houses. When one lion appeared, he hit my house where I and my child were sleeping. I tried to scream, but no one heard me. At this place, there were many people, but no one could hear me. That lion ripped my house and came inside until he was able to take my child. I left the house to call help, "come here and see, a lion came and took my son." When people came and saw me, they found me wounded badly and my whole body covered in blood. After, the people began to scream, and many more people appeared. When they arrived they didn't find the lion. He took my son and ate him. There in the forest, where we lived, was only his head. The people found the head and they brought it back to me to bury. The lion returned a second time to take the mother of the child (me), but he found the place full of people screaming, and he ran away. This happened during the time of the war. During this year, we left for Malawi because we were afraid of the war of guns and the war of lions. There in Malawi, I gave birth to 5 more children. I then returned to Mozambique and had 7 more children. After this, I lost my husband. This is when I began to live with my children.

Here are some of the scars from the lion that attacked her. She also has many scars on her legs that she showed us, but we didn't feel comfortable taking pictures of.

This is me, Beatriz, and her mom. I look like a giant compared to them. They are both so small. Beatriz is 5th or 6th in line of the children and her mom gave birth to 14 children in all.

Likoma Island...

We spent the past weekend on Likoma Island. It is actually an Island owned by Malawi, but is only 6 kilometers off the shore off Mozambique. We boated across and stayed one night on the Island. It was very beautiful and relaxing, and we had a nice time with friends.

We went with some friends of ours, Jan and Bonnie and their son, Joseph. They also have a daughter, Deborah. Jan is from the Netherlands and Bonnie is from the States.

Keith and Bronwyn. They are from South Africa, and have a daughter, Zoe.

This is Hugo and Esti and their son, Samuel. They are from South Africa as well.

This is where we stayed on the Island. It was beautiful from the outside, but the inside wasn't so great.

This is a view from the chalets.

After a rather large scorpion ran across my foot in the shower, we found this guy under the bed Karis was sleeping in. It is a centipede that has a nasty bite!

This is called a water scorpion, but is relatively harmless, but very scarey looking. We found him in our closet.

Relaxing on the beach!

We boated around the entire Island. It is about 18 square kilometers. The Island is pretty much empty, except for a few lodges and villages. This was one lodge that was beautiful.

Another Chalet.

This was the very tip of the Island, just a big bunch of rocks. It was interesting how diverse the landscape was for such a small Island.

We stopped to get some fuel for the boat and we were instantly surrounded (an unexpected stop at the zoo).

This little girl watched us the whole time, but wouldn't come near us.

Girls, Girls, Girls...

Karis turned 5 years old on February 15th and we had a little girls party for her. It was really fun. She had a great time with her friends. Here are some pictures of the party. It was actually a joint party with a colleague's daughter, Abigail, who also turned 2 this month.

Just to give you a feel for how "international" life is here, I'll tell where all the girls in the picture are from. Starting from the left is Abigail, her mom is Romanian and her dad is Mozambiquian, Zoe(behind Kallen) is from South Africa, Deborah(next to Zoe), her dad is from the Netherlands and her mom is from the US, Clara and Victoria(in front of Deborah) their mom is from the US and their dad is from the Congo, the two girls to the right of Karis, Samara and Natanya, are from Singapore. We Americans are actually the minority here. Tim made the girls animal balloons as they arrived.

The cake.

Karis eating the cake.

We put out all our playdough and all the girls made something out of playdough. They loved it and played and played.

Karis opening gifts.

Here are the girls opening their goody bags.

"At the Zoo"

Life in Africa many times feels like life in a zoo. Just like the picture above, this is our life here. We are constantly being observed. When we stop our car, people flock to our car and stand around observing us like we are an exhibit in a zoo. Many times it is funny or almost flattering how people find us so interesting to watch. However most of the time, it is very difficult. The kids get shy and hide and refuse to talk. It can be very overwhelming to them when kids climb the car and look in the windows or try to touch their hair through the open windows. But one of the hardest times for me is when we are at church. I consider going to church like going to the zoo, not to see the animals, but to actually be the animals! This is especically true when we visit new churches. The past couple of weeks, we have been visiting new churches. This church we attended a couple weeks ago, was a baptist church in the area. We went because the new church that we have been a part of in Namakula has joined with the local Uniao Baptista Church and they were having an ordination service for our pastor and another church leader. It was really a great service over all. But for me, not so great. They had Tim sit in the very front with all the church leaders and so I was stuck in the back with all three kids by myself. The church was packed. We sat on a bench in the back and at first it was just me and the three kids. We fit comfortably on the bench just us, well as the service progressed, another lady joined us and then another and another, until it was me, the three kids, 3 other ladies and another girl, so Kallen was on my lap and Karis was on Traeger's lap. The kids were not too happy about this and by now it is also starting to get very hot. The whole bench in front of us is turning around watching us and laughing at the kids. Kallen keeps climbing the lady next to us and Traeger and Karis are fighting about sitting on each other and bumping into the lady in front of us. They are crying because they are hot, and hungry and I can't even move enough to reach our bag to get food. I eventually reach the crackers and end up feeding everyone in the last 2 benches of the church. Finally after we can take it no longer, I decide to just go outside with the kids. So we go outside and about 1/2 the kids follow us out. We then go find a place to sit down and are immediately surrounded by people. The kids have to use the bathroom now, so we search for the outhouse. We have kids follow us there and wait outside until we are done. Then Traeger and Karis start fighting about something and I am trying to discipline them without anyone knowing what I am doing as the whole world is watching. Kallen wanders off and I can't find her. Eventually I find her with some other children, with someone's, who knows whose, half eaten sucker in her mouth(like the zoo, maybe I should make some signs, 'please don't feed the children'). Of course she is the only one not shy with the other kids. I get my kids gathered once again and then someone else has to use the bathroom, so back to the outhouse we go, with another crowd of kids following us...and so it goes until church finally ends and after much shaking of hands and greetings, we can pile into our car and head home for some peace. Until next Sunday, when we go back to the zoo...

This is the Uniao Baptista Church. This is our group of people from our little church in Namakula singing a special number at the church. Our pastor Geoffery was ordained as well as the other leader in our church, Peri-Peri.

The next Sunday after we visited the Uniao Baptista Church, we visited this little church, not far from our house. This is the church we have matched funds with to build a new church building. Tim spoke at the service and presented the rest of the funds we matched for them. They were so grateful and as you can see truely are in need of a new building.

This is a picture of the outside of the church. They will be building the new building where the cornfield is, behind the church.

Here is Tim presenting the money to the pastor.

Here is Kallen with one of the girls she befriended at the Uniao Baptista Chruch.

"Your will is that I should praise you, O Lord my God, who gave life and a body to that infant: you will me to praise you who equipped him with faculties, built up his limbs, and adorned him with a distinctive shape, as we can see. You implanted in him all the urges proper to a living creature to ensure his coherence and safety; and now you command me to praise you for those gifts, and to confess to you and sing your name, O Most High, because you are God, almighty and good, and would be so even if you had wrought no other works than these, since none but yourself, the only God, can bring them into existence." St. Augustine (the confessions)

This picture is of Rosa and Kanita, two of the children of the family we lived next to in Muembe. Children are so fragile here. Almost every week we hear of another infant or child that has died of malaria or some other sickness. Just this past week, we know of two who died of malaria. It seems so hopeless at times and scary to think of raising our kids here, but then we are reminded of who gave life and body to that child, who brought them into existence, and He is good. We praise God for the lives of these children and our own. We praise God that we can be here sharing the hope He brings because we already have this hope living inside of us.

All heart...

I love this picture, because it is so Tim. He talks to anyone and everyone. He is always practising his Yao, even with the people who don't speak Yao, because well, there are some words similar in all these African bantu languages. I often get annoyed and I am always saying, "Tim, they do understand Portuguese, why don't you just use that." Or when he is in Malawi, "hello, they speak English, what are you thinking??????" But really I am just jealous. I am so much more timid to use my Yao or to even try to communicate that I just stand there and smile. I miss out on so much because of this. I mean look at the lady in this picture. How amazing is that, because he is willing to try and doesn't care if he messes it all up and just has this incredible desire to connect with these people in their heart language, he gets responses like this all the time. And every where he goes, people love him, because he is willing, because they know he cares and truely wants to get to know them. Man, do I need to take a lesson. I pray God gives me the courage to follow suit!