Power Lines.

A little bit of funny :)

The Tribal Goat Meeting.

Pretty sunset in Chiguidela

Last Friday and Saturday we had a big meeting with a village called Chiguidela. This village is right next to the land that we are in the process of obtaining in order to start our crop project. We had to sit down with the village leaders to get their approval on the tribal level. We got their approval! But we had to sit through a lot of the weird Mozambican "traditions" in order to receive their approval.


Friday night, we pull up in our green Toyota 4 runner to the village. There are about 15 people sitting side by side in a line with 4 empty blue plastic chairs evenly spaced, set up directly across from them, waiting for us to arrive. We walk over to the village people and walk down the line shaking hand after hand after hand. Then we sit down across from the line looking at them. Silence. Nobody talked. People eventually started talking amongst themselves, but no one would take charge of the meeting. I was so confused. I kept asking Alex, "What is going on? What are we waiting for?" He shrugged his shoulders and said, "This is how the Mozambican culture is." So after 20 minutes of people talking amongst themselves, somebody finally took charge. (thank goodness, I was freezing to death with the wind chills!) We presented them with a (cute) goat, 4 chickens, rice, corn, and (of course) alcohol for them to prepare a meal for the next day's meeting at 10:00 am. 


The Mozambican culture has traditions that they are very strict with. For instance, we HAD to give them a goat for them to kill and cook for us to eat the next day. We HAVE to eat the food they make, or else it is bad luck. And we HAD to supply them with alcohol, they believe they use the alcohol to get in touch with their ancestors (?) Maybe its just an excuse for free booze though. Mozambicans love their alcohol!


Saturday morning rolls around, we drive up to the village at 10:00 am, empty chairs are waiting for us, once again. We go down the line shaking hands, once again. And we sit. Silence, once again. And we sit some more. 10:30 passes, 11:00, 11:30, the government officials who are part of the meeting FINALLY show up at 12:00. 2 hours late, which can be expected here, very classy.


Once the government officials show up, we sit around while things are being discussed. Everyone was speaking the dialect Machangana, so Alex was being translated to in Portugues, and I was in la-la-land watching all the ducks, chicks, chickens, goats, cow, dogs, and small children run around the village. After discussing, we got in the cars and drove to our land. (This is part of the tradition too--it was totally useless to drive around the land like we did) We drove around for an hour or so.


We arrive at the village once again; we went and sat again in the blue plastic chairs. Another hour passes of animal watching, then they finally break out the alcohol. They have 2 glass cups in the center of a circle of 20-25 people. They presented the leader of the group with the first cup of wine. She did some type of ritual with the wine where she pouring a few drops on to the dirt and everybody cheered and clapped. After the ritual, it started to rain (apparently this means the ritual was blessed) Then they all took turns with the two glasses, pouring themselves a glass, drinking the whole glass, then passing the cup to somebody else. 


Finally, it was time to eat (or pretend to eat). There was no way anyone was going to make me eat that cute goat that I saw 12 hours prior. I had already seen its skin, blood, and guts around, but I wasn't going to eat it. Sorry village people. They presented us with a huge bowl of rice, huge bowl of xima (pourage), and a huge pot of goat pieces. I took a small scoop of rice and put it on my plate and stopped. They kept offering me xima, goat, more rice, everything. Alex had to fend them off. They continued to ask us over and over again why we don't eat more, they were almost offended. (Maybe they really were offended, who knows?) Alex didn't eat any goat either- he thought it would be easier for them to understand  us not eating any goat if he said something like, "we don't eat goat in America." I only had a few bites of rice so I wouldn't cause any bad luck to come. I just kept thinking of the water the used to cook the rice. Probably straight from the river we drove by where we saw people peeing in it, swimming in it, bathing in it, washing their clothes in it. In fact, I know that's where they got the water from. 


The village leader was sitting right next to us at the feast. She ate like she hadn't eaten in months. She filled her plate so full (multiple times), and she ate with her hands (she had a fork to use). When she would turn to talk to Alex she had food pieces stuck on her nose, I had to hold back from laughing. That village probably thinks Americans are weird now, because we didn't eat hardly anything. Oh well!


After an hour of the feast, everyone started to get a little tipsy, we decided it was a good time to leave. So we did.  

The great village leaders of Chiguidela

The lady in the tan is the leader in her Mozambique uniform

The tribal meeting was a little uncomfortable, it was a little weird, it was a little long, but we survived! Phew!

(We wish we could have taken more pictures. It is hard to pull out a shiny camera in front of a bunch of people who can hardly pay for food.)

Johannesburg.

Last week we went on a road trip. We decided we need to start doing the fun stuff before I go home in a couple weeks. So we got in the car and drove 8 hours to Johannesburg.

I got some good buns for the ride.

The drive was full of wide open fields, and a lot of farms on the South Africa side of the border. On the South Africa side of the border we also drove by a giraffe who was standing on the side of the road, and 20 or 30 monkeys who were running  around on the sides of the roads. We really felt like we were in Africa at that point-- having to slow down so we don't hit a monkey! But, when we drove into the city, it really felt like we weren't in Africa! There are high rises, huge highways, and infrastructure! Totally different world from Mozambique.


The main reason for the road trip was to attend the Johannesburg temple. We had the opportunity to take our friends with us who got married last Saturday with us to be sealed in the temple for time and all eternity. They were so excited to have this opportunity, a lot of people never get to have this blessing in their lives.


We spent most of the time in the temple while we were in Johannesburg, but we did some shopping as well(of course). Mozambique is really low quality, and everything is really expensive, so we had a list of things we needed to buy in Johannesburg since we had the chance. We had to be careful though, we were warned by many South African friends that when people hear our American accent they assume you have money, Alex got a lot of practice with his South African accent. Did you know Johannesburg is the #1 most dangerous city in the world? There are 50 murders per day, 700 assaults, 356 aggravated robberies, and 150 rapes. Can you believe that? It is so hard for me to believe! We were definitely watching our backs while we were in that city. I never felt safe! But we got home safe, thank goodness!

Me and Al outside the temple

Milion and Julieta on their sealing day.

Milion and Julieta on their sealing day

Mozambican Weddings.

Yesterday we had the opportunity to go to a friend's wedding. Weddings here are interesting. They look really fun when you are watching them, but when you aren't involved it is pretty boring.

  Alex made this little video for them

First we arrived at the civil registry office where the 2 were to get married. The ceremony was to begin at 10:15, it finally started around 11:15. So, we all crammed into a small room and they stood in front of a desk where a lady read the proper words, and they exchanged rings, and kissed. And that's it, they were married!

We then went to a garden that is in downtown Maputo. It is really pretty, it has all kinds of greenery, and it over looks the ocean. This is where everyone goes after they are married. (and it is where the church was dedicated in Mozambique). We spent an hour or so at the garden, walking around, taking pictures, and more walking around.

After the garden we went to the beach. We got out of the car, walked on the beach, took pictures, and walked around some more.

Then we went to the Maputo chapel. They had tables and chairs set up in the chapel. They had a small session where people offered advice. 3 or 4 people stood up and gave a few words of advice, we ran out of time because the time was taken up by the first man who offered "advice" he stood in front of all of us for more than 30 minutes teaching us the story of Adam and Eve. I don't know where the marriage advice was in the story.

After the advice, everyone went out side. This is the part that looks like a lot of fun. They have traditional wedding songs that they sing in their dialect (called Machangana) and they dance in celebration. It just looks like a big party. By this time it was about 4:00 pm and they were still singing and dancing, we decided to go home and skip out on the dinner, and whatever other festivities that were to follow.

Mozambican weddings are an all day event.

Tofo Dancers.

Lately we have been hanging out with our friend who works for the U.S. embassy here. He always has the inside scoop on stuff. We seriously learn new things every time we go over to his house.


Anyways, he told us about these dancers.





Pretty cool, right? These guys live in Matola, which is the neighboring town to Maputo. We go to Matola all the time.


Beyonce wanted to use these guys' dance moves in her newest music video. They tried to learn the tofo dance moves just from watching their youtube video someone happened to post from their cell phone at a wedding. They weren't able to get the moves down, so she decided that they needed to bring the dancers to Los Angeles to teach the dance moves.


Our friend who works for the U.S. embassy had 2 days to find these guys from the youtube video, get them all passports, plane tickets, and send them to the U.S., and it happened!


We watched a short documentary on all this, it was awesome. I wish I had the video to show. When Beyonce walked up to these three Mozambicans in LA to meet them, they asked "What is your name?" Pretty funny.


Here is the final product. The video is a little weird, but the part with the Tofo dancers is awesome.





It is amazing what an opportunity these guys had. They are as poor as they come, from Matola, Mozambique. Now they are in a Beyonce music video. Crazy, huh?


Now, a small update on what were doing.
Right now we are still waiting on government officials to move forward with our land. Waiting is what we do best nowadays.


Also, We have been looking a new place to stay- we need a new house. Rent is ridiculously expensive here if you want to good security, so its been tough. We have looked at alot of houses and apartments. We'll see where we end up I guess.


Ok tchau!

Security Guard.

We came home to our house tonight, and since our garage door recently broke, we have to go through the front gate and use the front door. No one has keys to the front gate, because there is a security guard to open the gate 24/7.
So we walk up to the gate, and ring the bell. We wait. Ring again. No answer. Alex yells for security to come. No answer. After a few minutes we realize no one is going to answer the gate. We are locked out of our house. We are out on the street at 9:30 at night.

Outside our house there is a small sign with the security's phone number, so we call it. The immediately assure us someone is on the way. And we wait 5 minutes. We call again. Same thing again, someone assures us a car is coming to our house. This happens three more times until 20 minutes later a car finally pulls up to our house. 2 security guards get out of the car.

The 2 security guards assure us that there is a guard inside the gate. The walk to the gate and ring the bell. (As if we didn't try it already) And they wait. They ring it again. Wait. Then they walk around, yelling at the person who is supposed to be standing guard. No answer. They continue to walk around looking up and down at the fence, and electric fence. After 10 minutes of them walking back and forth around our house, 2 other security guards pull up on their own motorcycles.

These 2 security guards with the motorcycles are better security guards. They have body armor, they have guns. They are ready. (And we felt safer standing outside on the street at night) The hard core security guards go up to the gate, they ring the bell. No answer. They walk around. They look over the fence. They continue to walk around for a good 5 minutes until they decide they will have to climb over the fence. You can tell no one wants to try to climb over an electric fence. Finally one of the hard core security guards man up and takes off his armor to climb.

He reaches up to grip the top of the cement wall and asks for a boost. 2 security guards lift up each foot. The climbing guard finally gets his knees on the very edge of the top of the cement wall without touching the electric fence. He carefully moves one arm over the electric fence. No his body is straddling the electric fence. At this point I am trying so hard not to laugh. The guard is stuck awkwardly on top of the fence. He has no where to go. Then all of a sudden he yells out in pain and uses an english swear word (he probably doesn't even know what the word means). At this point I have to walk away so I can laugh out loud. So now we know that our electric fence does really work. We had our doubts. He finally gives up and asks for help off the tall cement wall.

All six of us continue to stand outside our house with no keys.

A few minutes of discussing, the 2 security guards leave to go get a ladder. Me and Alex continue to stand out in the street with the hard core security guards. 15
minutes later, they return with a ladder, and 1 more security guard.

The ladder is shorter than the cement wall, so there is still an electric fence to hop over. So its not much help. The same guard that tried to climb over the fence earlier climbed up the ladder. He tried again to get balanced on the edge of the cement wall without getting shocked. Alex finally gives up hope and tells him to come down. Alex climbs the ladder, does the awkward balance thing on the edge of the wall, then holds on to the tree on the other side of the fence. Somehow, he gets over the fence without getting shocked. The 5 security guards are amazed. They talk amongst themselves of the courage Alex must have. Alex then opens the garage door. The 5 security guards rush in the house, go outside and search. And guess what they found? Our guard. Asleep. He was sleeping like a baby. I can't believe he didn't wake up through all the bell ringing, yelling, horn honking. That guy got fired right there.

I feel bad for him, getting a job in Mozambique is not an easy thing. I saw him grab his things and walk out the gate. You could totally tell his had just woken up. He looked so sad. But come on, you're sleeping! We were outside trying to get inside for over an hour! I still feel bad.

We now have a new security guard outside our house tonight.

I will sleep well (hopefully)

Relax.

Lately, it has been nice. We are waiting on the government to work up a contract so we can sign the contract for the land for our crop project at the end of this week, so there hasn't been alot that we have had to do this week. We have had the chance relax a little bit. We have had meetings here and there, but nothing big.
Today we went to the art market again and bought a few things. It cracks me up to watch and listen to Alex negotiate with the artists. He puts the money we want to pay in their hands or pocket, grabs the piece we want and tries to walk away. More than half the time, the artists will accept the price because they have the money in their hands and they can't let it go. We are finally purchasing the things we want so I can take them home when I head home in a few weeks.
We haven't been good with taking pictures lately, it hasn't been very eventful though. Tomorrow we will head up to Gaza once again to (hopefully) sign the contract for our land.
Next week we will head to Johannesburg to go to the temple. I am so excited.
Ate Logo.