Chapas, Church, and Coconut Rice

Last Sunday we had a great introduction into Mozambican culture…public transportation, a church service (not a bit in English), and authentic Mozambican food.  Sunday morning we walked down the road from the center we are living on to meet with one of our MAF teammates, Erica, for a lesson in riding a chapa.  What is a chapa you ask?  It is a basically a twelve passenger van (that may have up to 25 people on it) that serves as public transportation.  For about 5 mets (20 cents) per leg, you can travel all over Nampula.  They have color coded stickers across the windshield with roads or areas of town on them to help you know where it is going (if only we knew the parts of town…all I knew is we were looking for the green ones).  You don’t have to wait at a stop, just wave at one as they go by and if it is not too full (or even if it is), they will stop and pick you up.  If you end up getting an edge seat by the door, you will get in and out over and over when the chapa stops to let people off along the way.

A group catching a chapa

We took the chapa to a church where they only speak Portuguese and/or Makua, a common tribal language in the Nampula province.  We got off the chapa on a main road and then proceeded to walk between buildings through narrow passageways making several turns to get to the church (I don’t think I could find it again on my own!).  When we arrived at the church, Erica’s husband, Jonas (who is from Mozambique), saved us a spot up front.  At the beginning of the service, everyone prayed out loud together at the same time.  Then a leader called up the worship leaders, for a time of singing and most of the songs were in Makua.  Then they had the different choirs (children, youth, and women) come up to sing.  They started in a line at the back of the church and sang as they walked to the front.  Jonas introduces us as visitors and translated as we said who we were.  Afterwards, many in the church came up to us and greeted us.  When the pastor got up to preach, he spoke in Portuguese, while another man translated into Makua for the people in the congregation that do not speak Portuguese.  Jonas whispered to us during the service so we could follow along. 

Children singing at church

Women singing at church

(Sorry for the poor picture quality...we had some good videos to post from church

and spent the last 3 days trying to upload them with no luck!)

After the service was over, we took a chapa to Erica and Jonas’s house.  Erica had this stool that she sat on with a scraper on the end that is made for scraping coconut.  The juice from the coconut was used to make the rice and beans that we ate, which was delicious! 

Scraping the coconut

We visited the afternoon away, learning more about the culture, before it was time to take a chapa home.  We waited awhile for a green one, but it never came so Erica and Jonas decided to go with us on a pink one to another spot where we could catch a green one.  While on that chapa, it broke down and we all piled off.  Fortunately, we were in a spot where you could catch a green one, so we were able to get on one to make it back to the road to our house.  We managed to make this trip by ourselves armed with the one Portuguese word that means “stop”!