Learning to Live in Nampula

We have now been in Nampula for a week and are starting to learn the ropes.  We have driven around town enough to know most of the main streets and have learned a few back roads to get between our house and the hanger.  We spent much of the week learning to shop, trying to get cell phones, and working on getting our immigration documents.  We also got to meet our new dog, Charlie.  He is still pretty shy around us, so hopefully he will warm up to us by the time we get into a house and he comes to live with us. 

9 month old Charlie

 Shopping has been quite an experience.  As first time shoppers, we definitely needed a guide to help us find the stores as some of them seem a little hidden to the newcomer (there is no one-stop shopping superstore here in Nampula).  There used to be a larger grocery store in town, but it burned down recently (causing prices to go up) and probably won’t be rebuilt for another year.  Our first day of shopping, we went to three different stores to find ingredients for the meals we had planned to make.  Only finding a few of the necessary items at the first store, we went on to a meat store nearby.  It has been confusing trying to convert kilos to pounds and meticais to dollars to be able to get a feel for what we are actually paying for stuff (hopefully that will come soon!).

Back road to the Airport

 The third store we went to was in the central part of the city.  When you park, men will race to your car offering to guard it while you shop.  When you come back, you pay your guard about 5 mets (less than 20 cents).  We were told the unemployment rate here in Nampula is about 80%, so many look for opportunities to make money any way they can.  After this shopping trip, we had several ingredients for each meal we planned to make, but we didn’t have all of the ingredients for even one of them!  We borrowed some items from some fellow missionaries who were already stocked up and managed to make homemade tortillas and refried beans and have some pretty good burritos!

Burrito and a Coke!

Later in the week, we found a few new stores to go to, including the central market.  Unlike the other stores where prices are set and you go to a cash register to check out, this is an open air market where you walk past the live chickens to get to the various vendors selling produce.  It was a little harder to buy items here without knowing Portuguese, but we were able to get some items we couldn’t find in the stores. 

Center part of Nampula

 We needed to make notarized copies of some of our documents (so we don’t have to carry around passports everywhere), so we went with one of the guys who works in the hanger (who doesn’t speak English), to the office where you can have that done.  It was pretty interesting having Dave drive while getting Portuguese directions, but we made it there and they took our passports and driver’s licenses and told us to come back later.  It was not a good feeling to let those items leave our sight, but we came back an hour later and got them back along with the certified copies with no problem.  Later that day we got our immigration paperwork started which will allow us to stay for one year (currently we only have a 60 day temporary visa. We will get the other renewed each year).  Pray that the paperwork will go through smoothly so that we can stay, and also so that we can start the process of having our shipment sent over. 

Here is a little video of some of the driving here.  The first clip is the road we drive on to get from our house to one of the main roads.  It would be a dirt bike enthusiast’s dream!  The next clip is on the back road to get to the airport.  You can tell the rainy season wreaks havoc on the roads!

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First Two Days

We have now been in Mozambique for two days now.  After our long flight to Johannesburg, we took a small regional airline into the Nampula airport, the same airport where MAF is based and that Dave will be flying out of once he gets going in flight operations.  As we were flying in, we observed the green landscape below (greener than we expected due to this being the rainy season), the small isolated mountains, and the noticeable lack of roads.

A view from our flight into Nampula

 Moments after we landed and walked into the terminal, a rainstorm hit, missing us by minutes.  We were able to quickly move through customs thanks to the help of our new MAF teammates that were waiting on the tarmac to greet us.  As we left the airport, we immediately got to absorb the sights and sounds of our new city, starting with the children playing in the water that had pooled in the road from the rain. 

 We were taken to guest housing at the SIL complex which is where we will stay until we find a house to rent (one may be in the works already).  We were immediately put at ease by our new colleagues helping us to settle in and inviting us over for meals.  On the way to one of our teammates house for supper, we were stopped by a man trying to sell a pangolin (similar to an armadillo, but extremely rare).  Later we were told that he would probably sell it to a witch doctor.

Our temporary home at SIL

Despite going to bed around 11:30pm last night, we were wide awake this morning at 4:30am, which is when it gets light outside here (It seems to get dark around 6pm).  We were told that yesterday was unusually cool for this time of year, being in the 80s, however, today we got exposed to the typical heat of January.  In the morning we went to a sale that another missionary family was having as they are preparing to move to a new country.  We found a few kitchen items to help us get by while we wait for our shipment to arrive.  Following that, we got a quick tour of the MAF hangar and office and then headed to a restaurant where we had a team meeting.  This gave us a chance to get to know everyone a little better and plan out the next week.  In the next week, they will help us get oriented to Nampula, get things started with the immigration office, get cell phones, exchange money,  go shopping, etc.   Language training should start the following week.

Red bishop bird

On the drive back from the restaurant, Dave got his first taste of driving on the left side of the road while sitting on the right hand side of the car.  While there are not too many cars on the road, motorbikes seem somewhat common.  By far, walking seems to be the main form of transportation and people are seen walking everywhere.  Because the roads are so rough (especially after the recent rains) four wheel drive is a huge help and cars tend to drive on whichever side of the road has the least potholes (you just have to remember to go left instead of right when you come head on with another vehicle).  Luckily the roads are so rough that you are going pretty slow and have plenty of time to react.  There doesn’t seem to be street signs, so we are learning landmarks such as “the pile of concrete” or “the green fence” to learn our way around.  The ultimate test today was returning from our coworkers house to the guest housing by ourselves in the dark while it was raining!

Thank you so much for your continued prayers as we settle in and become familiar with our new city and the culture.  Little things like brushing our teeth with bottled water and sleeping under a mosquito net remind us that we aren’t in Texas anymore, however, hopefully it won’t take long for Mozambique to feel like home.

Final Countdown

January 11^th is coming up soon!  We leave dark and early Wednesday morning from Lubbock to Memphis, and then on to Atlanta.  From there we will catch a 15.5 hour flight to Johannesburg, South Africa (gaining 8 hours on that flight due to the time change) where we will spend the night.  On Friday January 13^th, we fly to Nampula, our final destination in Mozambique.  To start off, we will stay at SIL guest housing while we look for a house to rent.  We can’t have our shipment sent until we are already in country, so it will probably be 3 to 6 months before our stuff arrives. 

Please pray for safe travel and for the adjustment period that we will go through trying to live in a new country.  We know that the first few months will be pretty challenging.  Not knowing the language, the culture, how to get around/purchase things will probably leave us feeling pretty helpless at first.  Thank goodness that when we are weak, He is strong (and for the MAF team already there willing to help us get on our feet)!  While we can’t wait for God to use us in Mozambique, we know He is certainly going to grow us first!  Likely our first 6 months will consist of language learning so that we can really communicate with the folks we are going to serve.  Pray for our ability to learn the language quickly!

Some of you have asked about how you can communicate with us while we are in Mozambique.  Email will be the best option, although don’t be surprised if there are times when we have problems with our internet connection.  We have also set up a Skype account and phone number (email us if you want that information).  If you would like to mail letters, you can send them to MAF headquarters (P.O. Box 47, Nampa, ID 83653) and just include our name and it will eventually get to us.  Some folks have asked about mailing packages…we will get back to you on that once we get there and find out the most reliable method given the expense that is involved on both ends.

Thank you so much for all of your prayers and support over the last months and years getting us to this point!  We are so blessed to have such great friends and family who lift us up to our Father and send us out.