I wanted to take a moment to introduce you to Emilia. Emilia is our house helper who helps all of us keep this house running amidst the business of language learning.
Emilia comes at 7:30a Monday through Friday and leaves somewhere around 4-4:30p with an hour and a half for lunch break. Emilia helps keep the house clean, helps with the laundry, sometimes makes us tortillas (called apas here) and pizza, and helps care for the girls while we’re in language school. Obviously Emilia does not do all of these things every day, since Matt and I work hard around here too. hehe. But she is certainly CRAZY helpful in picking up where we have yet to get to some chores.
My favorite thing about Emilia, though, has nothing to do with chores or cooking. My favorite thing about Emilia is her gentle and kind heart, encouraging all of us in our Portuguese learning. Emilia will often take the time to identify objects or actions in our home to aid in our learning. Emilia speaks no English, but patiently encourages all of us to learn, even little Eden. She’s also sweet to happily receive our mime actions and butchered Portuguese with shared joy. She even acts things out to help us understand her. She’s a trooper!
And while the language and culture barrier certainly has it’s challenges for the younger kiddos, Emilia stoops down to them, smiles a lot and is quick to run and scoop them up whenever they fall or get a bump. You don’t need language to see her heart. And I love how she goes around and gives each of the girls a hug before leaving each day.
Emilia is quick to praise any effort the girls make in speaking Portuguese (smiling and celebrating Eden’s “obagaga” instead of “obrigada”) and so patiently extending her arms to have them “help” her in her work. Few things are more precious than watching her wring out soapy towels while the girls “skate” the downstairs floor joyfully to princess music, help little hands to kneed apa dough, or patiently wait on a rambunctious six year old to mount the step-ladder and fumble the clips to hang the next piece of laundry on the line. She is patient. She is gentle. She cares for us all so.
-Thankful, grateful and blessed by our dear Emilia.
I thought I’d share with you a “daily living in Africa” reality. Before we moved here it was hard to grasp the concept of what life was really like here. So since we have this big pond between us, I figured I’d try to share some of our differences in daily living.
Today’s Difference: Water!
Water is pumped at nights here into our (now) two storage tanks.
John may not look like he was working in this picture, but it’s not an accurate representation AT ALL. Hehe. John walked Matt through installing and connecting our second water storage tank in a morning-long project.
If the power goes out for a day, then water is not pumped to our house from the street and we can only use our reserves for 2 days/1 night until the following night when the city pumps water again.
Once we get it pumped into the house from our storage tanks (using electricity to pump it to the house), we have to take it from the faucet and put it into two filtration tanks before we can drink it/brush our teeth with it.
On a side note: Teaching kids to use bottled water to brush their teeth instead of sink water was a learning curve! We refill the water bottle with filtered water every few days as we go through it.
Thank you, to my two eldest for their demonstration skills. 😉
When the power goes out, our water cannot be pumped to the house so we have to go to the storage tanks, stand on a stool and remove the water from the tops of the tanks with a bucket.
Then we can bring it into the house to pour in the back of the toilet to flush toilets, pour in the sink to wash dishes, use it to wash our hands, or pour it into the filter tanks to filter drinking water. Needless to say, it’s hard work, but certainly worth it. So when the power goes out around here, many things kind of shut down a bit while we all adjust to “village living”, drawing our water from our happy little river AKA storage tank. 😉
-Clean, pumped water is an utter privilege.
-Thankful, grateful and blessed despite the extra effort.
Life here in Africa requires a new level of vulnerability than I am used to. Have you ever been through phases of life like that? Times to grow and change? Times to self-reflect and question your own motivations behind your actions? Oh good, I’m glad we can just share a cup of tea and chat about it as old friends then.
Oh you know how it is here, how everything has changed. It goes so much further than those mystery hotdogs in the store. It’s not even the fact that Africa has found a way to make apple juice super different. Maybe it’s the sugar level. Maybe it’s the fruit. Maybe it’s the heat and the paper carton. Maybe it’s just everything. 😉
But it’s in the transparency. Everyone knows how many bug bites you have. Everyone knows how dirty your feet are by the footprints left on the kitchen floor. And then there’s all your personable out on the back laundry line hanging out there in public for hours… and hours. Oh sure it’s just a part of this culture. It’s totally normal. A totally different normal for this modest lady.
Windows wide open. The general public may not understand our language, but the use of a parental tone, however infrequently, is cross-cultural. The baby’s crying transitions are highly familiar to our guards. Speaking of our sweet guards, want some vulnerable transparency? How about someone hearing your every conversation throughout the day while outside your home. Oh no, people, our guards are wonderful. Sweet men from the community. But still their mere presence bucks the American culture of privacy.
Their presence begging to question if privacy is indeed as critical as it was once termed. Oh friends, we have nothing to hide. We are who we are, you know? Mistakes and all. The good, the bad and the ugly.
No we’re not postcard to send home. No poster children here. Just real. And honestly transparent.
Vulnerability is not a negative trait.
Like how would you define vulnerability? Generally it’s pretty undesirable, huh? But Africa pushes me to redefine it and live in the new definition. Oh sure, I still cringe a bit at my underwear hanging out on the line. Super awkward still. Practical? Yes. Awkwardly immodest? For me, yes.
But there’s something about it all. A rawness to live in. No room for dreaming, creating an escape or living in an alternate reality. Oh no, right here is the beauty. Right here in the middle of the push. In the middle of the pinch and the stretching.
No, friend, it’s not comfortable. And then sometimes it’s just normal and there’s comfort in that. Normalcy to laugh at your own mistake in language, even when you’re a bit embarrassed. Nope, you really don’t remember the name of that type of cup today. It’s just gone. Like it never existed. And no matter how simple of a concept that may be, you’re still fighting to compose even a toddler sentence.
But I’m just thankful. It really is a privilege to be stretched. Nope, it doesn’t always feel like a privilege. And sometimes you just have to choke back tears and say “one moment at a time”. That’s how endurance is built. That’s how you build a new life. A new life with the same old people. The same old joy and thanksgiving and sorrow. In a new setting.
Vulnerability.
The song came to my ears from the kitchen windows as I hung the clothes on the line that morning. I wanted to get all the sunlight I could get. I had two loads to rotate out that day. Music has ministered so to our hearts here. From Eden dancing to a silly veggietale song to Disney song dance-breaks and worship songs. Soundtracks of familiarity have brought such joy. Such joy flooded my ears as I chewed on these thoughts that morning. And then the song lyrics hit, making brunch of these scrambled-egg thoughts.
“This cup, this cup I want to drink it up. To be right here in the middle of it. Right here, right here. This challenging reality is better than fear or fantasy.”
No, Lord, don’t let me pass this cup. Oh sure it has its bitter spots and its hurts. This cup has its fears and its challenges. But you have set this cup before me and I desire so to drink it up for Your glory. You know the best for me. You know to Whom you have called me and then to who you are sending me. Lord, may this cup of challenge overflow with delight and love onto others. Lord, but may I never forget amidst the transparent vulnerability that this cup is so worth drinking. This growth is for Your glory. Thank You for the reminder, sweet Father.
We have enjoyed Left-Over Night (thanks for the idea, Brad and Julie!), rotating after 30 seconds at a time through the plates with the roll of the dice. We ate until we were full or the plate was gone. If you like the dish, then eat fast! Otherwise, fake eat. 😉
We found Leechees (no idea how to spell it) at the store. Leechees are little fruits with a hard outer shell (don’t eat that!), squishy sweet inside and an olive-like pit (don’t eat that either!).
Matt and the girls like them, but I can’t get over the similarity to eating an eyeball – especially since Matt calls them “eyeball fruit”.
(Of course I didn’t ask her to pose for this picture. lol)
Oh and speaking of that cute kid, guess who lost a second tooth this past week?
(She carried that tooth around in that bag all day long. 🙂 )
We found a park nearby and had some fun bonding with our house helper, Emilia, by playing together.
We’ve also enjoyed some outdoor water play with the warm 100 degree weather lately.
Our first Sunday here, we got the privilege of going to a nearby city church. Church here is long, but happily filled with many worship songs. Despite the patience test under hot and less comfortable conditions, I am thankful that Mozambicans have great joy in celebration of Christ’s gift of salvation. It’s loud and full of drums and clapping and even some dancing.
The following pictures were taken during Sunday school, which was divided up into age groups. Sunday school walks through a curriculum written by a missionary here, John. The curriculum explains our Christian faith and the Southern Baptist practice of Scripture.
Rachael and Abi’s Portuguese nurturer is Elsa, who is also the children’s Sunday School teacher at the city church.
Elsa is preparing to study English at the university, and therefore, was able to give the girls a few English cues to the Sunday School games they played. That Sunday they played a game of Cherades, guessing the animal a particular child acted out.
The girls really enjoyed participating and when Eden was tired of sitting quietly in the adult class, she also enjoyed watching the children’s games. As Eden becomes more comfortable, she will be able to stay beside her sisters in the children’s Sunday School.
I am thankful for Wanne’s help in easing Eden through this sometimes confusing transition.
In the city church, the children are free to sit or play with the other children outside when their attention spans give out. The littles and I made it until the sermon began (some hour+ into the service) before we enjoyed the sand outside. 😉
We went to the village church building for a reading group last week, but the littles and I stayed home our second Sunday morning due to some sickness (it was all me, so no one panic. nothing serious ;)). The following are a few pictures I took of the village church while waiting for reading group to begin.
The village church is a dark mud/stick building constructed about a 30 minute drive from our home. The length of the drive is mostly due to rough roads requiring slow speeds verses physical distance. It was a bit surprising to me how much I felt like we were “in the middle of nowhere” when we were only just “across town” from our home. How quickly the scenery changed to the typical African village scene with it’s mud/stick homes, roaming chickens, and barefoot children running about.
Wanne and I brought Rachael with us to the reading group and we enjoyed sitting on our straw matt outside of the church building to go through a reading book with some 3rd-5th graders. Despite the sand blowing into our eyes, Rachael and I enjoyed our time there. In the pictures this church may look large, but in reality this church is VERY small, pretty dark, and contains 6-8 skinny log-benches in two rows with a middle aisle. There is one door in the front right of the designated altar area and one door in the back of the building. A barebones tin-roof tops the little church building and sunlight comes in through stick window slats.
These are the two churches we will be getting familiar with and attending for the next while as we continue our Portuguese and culture learning. =)
