Happy New Year! We wish God's blessings in 2022!
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| Crowd of people waiting at Baixo Pinda |
We thought we would take some time to share a few pictures of just daily life as the seasons change here in Mozambique.
We had a pretty low key Christmas, but were excited to
celebrate with our colleagues, especially our new family that just arrived in mid-December. We thank God their visas were issued and they
were finally able to come after such a long delay. It has been especially hot, so homemade ice cream was our Christmas treat!
The Sunday after Christmas, we enjoyed a special church service that even included some Christmas music we were familiar with, only in Portuguese. Afterwards, we had a potluck style lunch and we gave out little glider airplanes to the kids in the church. It was fun to watch them flying them around while we sat and visited over lunch.
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| Special Christmas music |
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| Helping kids put their airplanes together |
Recently, Dave drove one of our guards, Armando, to the village of Meconta, to visit his brother and other family. They walked from house to house in the village stopping to visit various families. Armando’s brother showed him a mud oven he made to cook bread he sells.
On one of Dave’s flights, he was hanging out with the kids while the medical team was doing clinics. He took a video of a boy making a soccer ball. They are often made with plastic sacks and string they make from sacks, nets, etc.
We are still living in our “temporary” house on the property while our house gets renovated. The workers made the bricks for the house right here on the property. Fortunately the new roof was up before the rains came.
One morning when I was going for a run, I spotted an injured animal near our house. Upon closer inspection I discovered it was a genet. It only lived about 30 minutes from the time we found it, but it was interesting to get to see one up close.
We have been so thankful for the bore hole that was dug. Several times we have run out of water on the
property and have been able to fill the tank with this new well. A couple of days ago, Dave found that the pump controller case was
broken and asked our night guard what happened.
Apparently Bosco, our Rhodesian Ridgeback guard dog, was chasing a genet and
ran into it. It was good to know we
still have some genets around and that Bosco wasn’t harmed in the incident, but
now more maintenance is required so it doesn't get ruined in the rain. Recently, after some heavy rains, we had some leaks in our temporary house. Dave went up on the roof to find the problem and discovered some genet scat/nests caused the water to back up.
Dave got the opportunity to change the oil in our truck using the new pit in the shop for the first time. He discovered that mosquitoes like to hang out down their too!
We’ve been enjoying pineapple season (my favorite time of year), but prior to that, the
trees were loaded with mangoes and papayas.
We are sometimes able to get masuko, a gourd like veggie that makes really
good zucchini bread, or masuko bread in this case.
For MAF’s worldwide “pumpkin” contest, I painted a couple of them (about the size of
a grapefruit).
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| Mangoes and papaya ( top right) |
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| Masuko "pumpkins" |
Some friends have stored their truck and trailer on the MAF property and were doing some maintenance on it in preparation for a trip. After getting stung by a bee, they discovered a large hive in the trailer. They were able to find a local bee expert who relocated the bees to another area… a win for the bees and the trailer maintenance!
We have finally seen some big rains and it is interesting to see what comes out after the long dry season.
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| Velvet mite |
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| Dung beetle |
It has been fun to interact with Robin, the tortoise. It has been so hot, that when I took out fresh water, she put her whole head in the pan.
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| Tortoise toenails make me smile |
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| Tortoise tracks, in case you were wondering |
And our blog wouldn’t be complete without some bird pictures. Living in a different house with different types of trees, means we sometimes see different birds out the window.
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| Magpie Mannikin |
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| Magpie Mannikin |
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| Village Weaver in an almond tree |
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| Green-backed Camaroptera getting a snack |
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| A view of the "green back" |
