One year on...

Well it is almost a year to the day that I left for my Mozzy adventure, and although I don't know whether anyone will read this I felt I needed to write again. So much has happened since I last wrote. So I will pick up where I left off.

Our last week in Beira was crazy busy, packing was a nightmare and it felt like we would never find places for stuff. Sophie and I were a bit more relaxed as we just needed to pack the stuff we would need for travelling and take everything else round to Marinas to be sorted when we got back.
Our Children of God party at Manga went really well. The children were lovely and we did a bit of teaching, singing, banner making and playing games. I was amazed at the boys ability to jump really high over a rope, sort of inverted Limbo.
On the last friday afternoon we all went down to the beach with the Vaz youth group and had the most amazing time, it was such a great way to say goodbye. We broke down all of the cultural boundarys that we had been observing for the six months, by wearing board shorts that showed our knees, shock horror! But when Pinto, who is a country lad and therfore very traditional in things like that, was encouraging us we figured it was fine. Most surprising was Leonora stripping off to just a skirt and bra to go in the sea. And Marcelina and some of the boys had come prepared with spare clothes in order to go in the sea, it was like we all instinctively knew that we were going swimming. We played games, (Marco Polo, made all the more special by Valentims little head in the sea shouting polaay polaay) and had a dance contest. I think that Miqui won, closely followed by Manuel, they were doing the Macarena!
We finished up by singing our favourite song, Rumbiza, on the beach, we were all very tearful, especially Marcelina who said that it had been amazing to get to know us and she only wished that she had met us sooner.
The journey back into town from the beach was brilliant, all of us crowded into a chapa and started singing Maari Wakanaka and Acuna Wakaita. The other people on the chapa , not that many more could fit in, were amazed and some even joined in.
The saturday was our despidida (leaving party) at the church. After a rushed goodbye to Jill, who gave us the most amazing mix-cd, we arrived at the church with Marina to find not many people there. Gradually a few more people turned up, but eventually all of Kids club turned up, it was fantastic and made me cry. At kids club that morning Pinto had told them alll about it, saying that they should go home and have a wash and get changed so they could come, and they obviously had, so amazing! There was an odd moment half way through when Miqui had to leave to go to the Bible School so I didnt have a chance to say goodbye to him properly which was a real shame as he had been a big part of our time there. But the rest was really good. Emma and I presented our gifts with a word or two and they all went down really well. Then Manuel read an official, stamped and signed, report of our time there, right from the beginning, but as he did so he was in tears, it was sad but amazing to realise how much people were going to miss us, we had become such good friends. Then the church presented us with matching Capulanas and head scarf in the latest capulana style, and also a little woven purse. Lots of photos were taken amid dancing and singing, and bizzarely enough they took the opportunity to take a collection. It was lovely to have Beth with her kids Sarah and Johnathon there as well, and Marina preached. A very good end. Afterwards we went back to Pastor Samuels for a final Ricoffy, very fitting.
That evening we tried to spend as much time as possible with our family. The girls knew that it was our last night and were a bit upset, and even Lulu looked teary when we gave him his chocolate, but Rosa was very distant and actually asleep for most of it. She also seemed very unimpressed with our presents for her, it was a bit strange and sad. I had to leave very early ( I think four) the next morning so we checked that she would be up to say goodbye then and went to bed for the last time in our now very bare room.
The next morning the girls were up to see me off, but sadly no Rosa, and as the taxi left we were all crying. Marlene gave me some leaving cake that she had iced especially last thing at night. It was so hard to leave them there and I miss them so much.
But Sophie and I were off for Winston and Margins big adventure. I won't go into much detail but we had a great two weeks, snorkelling, lazing on beaches, swimming with the beautiful whale sharks, getting stung by jellyfish, and watching some very impressive surfing, stopping at Vilankulo, Tofo, Maputo and Durban. We did realise however that something seemed to happen to everywhere we wanted to visit, Vilankulo was the worst hit place by the cyclone, Tofo had freak spring tides, Maputo had the massive explosion in the ammunitions dump, and Durban was hit by massive waves. Very strange.
Going back briefly to Vilankulo, it was very eerie being there. Having missed the worst of the cyclone in Beira we weren't really prepared for the devastation that we saw there. One massive building that looked like a sports centre had all of the metal sheets ripped from the sides and the structure looked all bent. Many places were missing their roofs and loads of power lines were lying all over the place. There were practically no other tourists there so it was very bizarre. Marina has since been back to the same place that we stayed at, (they remembered us!) and says that it is looking better but there are still lots of houses without roofs.

We flew back from Maputo to Beira on Monday 2nd April and stayed over at Marinas, actually having to sort out stuff and pack properly this time, quite a task, I left loads of clothes and toilettries to make way for all the touristy stuff and mementoes. Our last morning in Africa (!) we tried to go to Biques for breakfast but the kitchen was closed for cleaning so instead went into town to cafe riviera. Beira felt very strange, even the chapas weren't busy and we weren't hassled once!
And then we were off! flying to Jo'Burg and then on home. I was fine all of the way and we watched the sunrise over Paris, very beautiful. That is I was fine until I saw the English channel, then I started crying. It was so overwhelming to be actually coming home after so long.
Our entire families were at the airport to meet us, very strange seeing them in new clothes! It was FREEZING seriously cold, especially as we only had flip flops( i had handily left my trainers in Zimbabwe).

So being home, I actually seemed to adjust fairly quickly, but did, and still do miss it so much. I gave a couple of talks, one at the Wednesday club at one at a brilliant Worship Space service on Africa. At the Worship Space one we dressed up in Capulanas and made shakers and sponataneously started making music, and then afterwards we had African food, including my homemade Massa and Matapa!

A week or so after Soph and I got home we all met up again, including Lizzie, for our debrief in London. It was a great chance to meet all the other teams again and share our experience. We talked about reflecting responding and ummm, another re- word. It was really useful. Afterwards Soph and Emma came back to mine for a girly dance movie fest, something that we realised we all had a passion for whilst in Moz.

I am still in contact with the whole team and Marina, occasionally speak to one of the guys from the Oasis office online and speak to Moleen on the phone. I email Marcelina as well which is fantastic as she provides all the news from Vaz. Just recently I received a fantastic email from her, saying that in answer to all of our prayers, she had found some Dutch missionaries who could pay for her to study medicine at University. She also said that Brother Miquitaio was now Missionary Miquitaio, having done a course, and that they were thinking of setting up an outreach project for street kids.
News via Emmie from Tim and Beth was also great. Pinto is saving up to get married in the new year, and the Sunday School has grown huuuuge, with five different ones happening round Vaz. Things are going really well there.

As for me, being home has really made me see how I was affected by all things Moz. I have deffinately grown in my faith which is cool. And I have a whole lot more confidence, still shy soemtimes but not half as much. I was also worriedthat Moz would be my last 'missionary' experience, but in fact I really feel that God is calling me to go into the missionary field after University, although where, when or for how long is still being kept a secret, but still quite excting stuff, if a little scary!
And now I am at University in Aberdeen, studying German, Anthropology, Sociology and an Introduction to the Hebrew Bible! I started up here two weeks ago and am gradually settling in, getting to know a new 'team', commonly known as flatmates, and finding my way round another city. And of course getting ready to turn 20 tomorrow!!!!!! Who knows what will happen next!

So yet again, Bye
Rachelxxxxxxxxxx

lasts!

Less than one week now. Gulp, thats a lot of stuff to do in not very much time.

Soph and I bought our last tickets this morning, from Maputo to Durban and back again. The lady looked thrilled to be serving us, really pleased that soemone would actually want to buy something that would go towards her salary!

We are into our 'lasts' phase, they started yesterday with our LAST church service, a lovely joint one at Inhamudima, we were there from 8 till 2 in the end. Yesterday wa quite mad, there was no bread in the house so we had bananas and biscuits for breakfast, then we didn't have time to go home after church for lunch so had bananas and biscuits for lunch, along with a random fried thing than tasted nice but havent got a clue what it was!

Then we met the others at Marinas house and went off to Macuti to present our football kit to a team there. It is a guy who was trained by youth action and now runs a sports ministry programme so they were really grateful for the strip and 8 footballs. Amber said a little something about the kit and we watched a buit of a game with it in action.

Then we ran home quickly to grab all of our stuff for leading sunday schoolfor the LASTtime at International fellowship. It was really sweet because all of the kids had made a goodbye poster for us and we were presented with it in th eservice, we had no idea they were going to do it. Sweetness.

Then after that we had our LAST sleepovers, I went round to Sophie's and Amber came to ours. Soph and I had much fun taking silly pictures, that noone else will ever be allowed to see!

And today is our LAST day off. We are going to print offphotos for various people and spend our LAST afternoon at Nauticos, then we are having dinner at Jim and Janes! Yay!

We are going out loads this week, in between everything else that needs to be done, tonight, wednesday(nauticos, just because it means we get to see the sunset on the beach) and friday is Jills birthday.

Last week went really quickly. It completely poured on Thursday morning so Emma and I had to wade to get to the church, but we had a really good lesson, I made them do interpreting, it really showed up how much some of them had improved saince being here which wa sreally encouraging. Thursday afternoon it was still raining so we couldnt go over to Manga, which was a shame as we really weanted to go, but we are having a 'we are cghildren of god' party this week to make up for it. So instead we went to the office and made books for HOURS for youth action, so much paper! We also bought our youth group a guitar as a leaving present. We recently found out that Valentin Miquitaio and Marcelena have a worship practice session on Wednesdays where the boys get to play Marcelenas guitar, so now they have their own, but they dont know yet! Pastor Samuel seemed quite excited when we were talking to him about it, he said it would be really fgood for kids work but he didnt like it played in church. We are also going to get them a study bible so they can carry on studying Philippians together. Normally they would just preach to each other so we really wanted to encourage them to ask questions with each other.

On Friday we made a 'surprise' visit to Sophie and Ambers house. We had had to let them in on the secret so they could be there and plan everything they needed to in the morning. When i got to theirs at hal two Miquitaio was waiting outside and excitedly told me that he had had to hide behind a tree when he had seen them earlier. Then we saw them peeking over their balcony, so he went to hide across the road to make it look like we were just passing. We waited ages for the others to turn up, and eventually just Em adn I went to the flat, telkling the girls that bnnoone else had showed and Miqui had had to go home. They fewll for it so five minutes later when Miqui, Valentin, Marcelena, Pai and Joaquin turned up, they could act genuinely surprised. Then all nine of us, plus euridice who appeared just as we were leaving, went down for an afternoon of fun and games atthe beach. We played fish in the net and cops and robbers, had races, sang song, heard a message from marcelena, got very wet doing titanic remakes in the sea with euri and laughed a lot. It was amazing, we were just a bunch of teenagers down the beach. i think it made us realise just how close we had all got recentyly, and how hard it will be to leave them here. But was so much fun we didnt think about it, and we are going to do it agin this friday!!!

Just before i go, to make you all jealous, this time next week Soph and I will be on a snorkelling trip to the Bazaruto Archipelago enjoying a seafood buffet on a deseret island, shame!

And if I dont get the chance to blog again before I get home, Thank you all so much for support and prayers, and hope you enjoyed reading all about my Mozzy adventures!

Rachelxxxxx

2 weeks!!!

Look a miracle, I am on Blogger!!!!
Anyway we ot back from Savane this mornng, Jill was preaching at international fellowship so we went yesterday morning and stayed over last night instead. It was reall lovel we swam and lounged and i watched the sunset whilst sitting in/on a palm tree!We seriously overdosed on Protein, I managed to eat an entire chicken yesterday!(only because the menu is limited and I dont like prawns or Crab curry ) and got beautifully burnt, particualarly behind the knees, a reall great way to spend our second to last day off.
I have decided that i am really going to miss palm trees, might even try to bring one home with me, it would make my lion cub and elephant feel at home!
As we were driving back this morning Marina got a call from Sirley the PEPE coordinator and we all listened with baited breath,then jumped for jy when we heard the words 'ate proximo semana'. We all feel quite bad for not wanting to go to our PEPE programme, but last week was a nightmare. Amber and I are working together and we went to what we had thought was quite a small PEPE, armed with blow up balls and colouring things, but it turned out that there were seventy four year olds, and we were stuck with them in a church hall for over two hours. It was horrible, they didnt all understand Portuguese and couldnt get the games we were trying to teach them ,especially as one teacher had to constantly guard the door to stop them riunning out onto the road, and the other just didnt seem interested in helpin us at all! In the end they were just runninj g all around the hall like mad things, dragging chairs about and attacking the drum kit, we ebven resorted to teaching a group of them the macarena at one point we were that desperate. To make it worse when Sirley came to pick us up the teacher who hadnt helped came out and was complainging about us, we were not happy bunnies!!! But we spoke to Marina about it and she is oing to talk to Sirley and explain that it is really hard for us top handle seventy kids on our own when we dont speak Portuguese! And now there is only one PEPE left!
Em and I started sorting our stuff out at the weekend, it is very bizarre starting to pack up your life, so different forom getting ready to come here as everyhting has to be taken back chucked or passed on! Our sisters are quite excited at the thought that we will be leaving most or our clothes ere in favour orf touristy things, Euridice has fallen in love with all of Ems tshirts! Soph and I had our flights home confirmed the other day which is really cool, it feels strange knowing exactly when we will be back, much more definate!
Oooh yeah the freak wind! We went to Nauticos for dinner last Monday as we hadnt been out in ages and wanted to see the sunset on the beach, so we staed there all afternoon and had a lovely meal(i have turned into such a meateater, steak and chips all the way!) the as we were waiting for the bill the wind sunnly picked up, one mitute we were sitting there perfectly normally, the next chairs and tables were beiong blown all over the place, glasses were bein smashed and everybody ran to shelter in the kitchen. I almost lost my swiumming stuff but some random lady picked it up as it flew past her! Then just like that it was over again and we went home ratehr cold and shaky, very strnage, but otherwise it was a really nice evening, lots of girly giggling.
I have been to the cinema twice in the past few weeks, the first time Amber Soph an I went with a load of Oasis staff and others 'missionaries' to see a Mozambian film, "o jardim d'outro homen". It was reall good and we got what was going on despite the portuguese. It was all about a girl who wants to be a doctor but in order to getthe rigt grades is forced to sleep with her teacher, which is a real problem here in Mozambique. There were other side stories as well dealing with fathers having to work in south african mines, sleazy foreigners, HIV/Aids and having to pay for good grades. It was such a real film and really helped us to understand more of the problems that people here are faced with.
The second film Amber and I went to see was children of men which was horrible becaue everyone died and it thoroughly depressed us. But oh well, i gave us an excuse to get cake in Riviera to cheer us up.
Em talk in church went really well on Sunday, she even had it translated into Ndau! There were chuckles in all the right places and Pastor Samuel was gruting approval all the way through. She even streted with the Required HALLELUJAH!
And we have a despidido(sp?)arraged for saturday 17th at 2pm to which you are all invited!
See you soon. Rachelxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

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e-mails from Rachel

"heyo, here briefly before amber and i go off to watch 'children of men' so will write another blog, very hot and sunny again today."

Then.....

"I just lost my entire really long and lovely blog! aaaaaaaah."

"Anyway just quickly before i run off, today (Wednesday)is the start of Oasis Mozambiques 24/7 prayer week for the churches in Beira. It is amazing because last friday there were only 6 names on the timetable and now it is nearly full up. We have planned hours to do with our youth groups at church on Saturday and the four of us are doing 2-4 on Monday mornin. So prayers for the week would be much appreciated.
We are going to Savane again on Sunday nioght as a mini retreat/ debrief so won't be blogging, but have lots to say about cinemas and freak winds, so watch this space!
Byeexxx"

Please could you stick this on for me!

Hello everyone, I am blogging via email again, but it really is me!

So after the cyclone last week we went to Vaz on Saturday morning and there wasnt too much obvious damage, and people werent talking about it. We visited a couple of our guys houses and they looked ok, so that is great. Apparently though the places Soph and I were planning on visiting have been flattened so we are trying to get in contact with our hostels! The weatehr has finally brightened up again today after a week of grey and rain which is nice but we found out last night that Beira would be experiencing severe water shortages for the next two weeks which will be lots of fun I am sure!
We are leaving Beira in less than three weeks! That is scary close, we have t start sorting stuff out soon like packing and saying goodbye and present buying and all sorts! its like getting readfy to come here all over again, we are even having to start thinking about debrief and readsing up about reverse culture shock!
The girls ahad a really horrible time at Manga the other day (i was poorly:( ). it weas the day of the cyclone so the kids were really excitable, but all was going reasonable until they handed out pens for drawing. Normally we take pencils and there isnt a problem but they think that it was the sight of pens that set the kids off, suddenly they were surrounded by all of the kids begging them for pens, like they do for mnoney in town, and when they dropped soem the kids would all leap at them grabbing. They kept trying to tell them to sit sdown and that they would all get a pen, but they wouldn't and the girls found it really hard. When Pastor Manuel came back in the kids settled down though and he explained a lot of stuff about them, like how some are just thrown out of their houses for months and forced to go and beg. Its such a shame that it happened though as we were really starting to get into our work there and I think that it wil be strnage going back this week so please pray that all goes well and that we have the confidence to do it!
In complete contrast Em and I had a really ghreat time with ur youth group on Friday afternoon. They came round to visit us and we ended up spending about three hopurs playing games asinging songs hearing a message and praying together, it was just like a youth group at home. We discovered that Miquitaio really likes the Kooks and Marcelena likes James Blunt. Best bit wa sthat Euridice came in to join us, despite being completely emabarrassed by Rosa introducing her as 'this thing that lives in my house but doesnt like going to church', and then she came with us to church yesterday!
Speaking of I gave 'a word' in church yesterday, not even remotely cheesy like last time. It was very scary but i Spoke on Philippians 4v13 'I can do all things thourgh him who strengthens me' , which is quit a confidence booster. It aklso helped that Euridice had gone though it with me before hand and helped put it into proper Portuguese! So all went well and there was amen-ing involved! Emmas turn next week :)

So thats about it for now byexxxx

She is still there!!

Hi, this is Rachel's dad.

Rachel has been having difficulty getting on to Blog this last week and today, so she e-mailed me to ask if I could do a posting so that you know she is o.k.

It's the morning after the cyclone hit Mozambique and I asked Rachel what it was like in Beira and had she heard from anybody at Vaz as she was very worried for their saftey last night as the wind was 175 to 200 km/hr and torrential horizontal rain.

"havent heard anything from vaz yet but there should be some peeps coming round later so we might find out. Isnt too much obvious damage in town, klots of leaves and twigs everywhere, apparently we were just outside the actual cyclone and in the tropical sorm area, we missed the type one area by about 10km and the eye where it was type 2 was about 20 km awaywhen i spoke to you last night. The tropical storm area was huge, reaching to the zim border, so the whole thing lasted a long time s the entire diameter went past us, does that make sense? the second ione is currently in Madagascar we think so shoulnt get us, but it is a type 3/4 so really big(katrina was a four), the third one which last night was just a tropical storm off india is now a cyclone heading down towards the bottom of Africa, if it stays on course it should just carry on and miss africa alltogether, but thats what the one yesterday was supposed to do and it changed its mind so came up towards us!
so thats about all i know! "

Hopefully she will be able to do a posting soon, but if not I'll keep you informed.

Grrrrr

I dont like power cuts, i had a lovely long blog for you all and it has now disappeared and i dont have time to recreate before we go out for PIZZA!!!!!!!!
We had a massssssivve storm last night, when we went to bed(quite early absolutely shattered) we could just see lots of lightning but at quarter past 11 it broke over the top f us, the sky was lit up constantly, it was so bright i could see flashes with shut eyes an eye mask on and facing away from the window, and the thunder was so loud that our windows were rattling! But it has cleared the air a bit, so t is now slightly easier to breathe.
We had a really long(over four hours) joint service yesterday, Emmas first. We were let of doing the dance presentation though as we didnt know the songs, although it turned out we actually did, so we sang along anyway. Then we spent the afternoion at tim and Beths learning loads of stuff about Mozambique Vaz and Polygamy. they have been here since 1995 so know kloads of really interesting stuff, as a future anthropology student i loved it!
Saturday night was Marlemes 14th brithday poarty, the girls and rosa had spenmt forever cooking(i helped make biscuits) and Rosa hgad bout a huge and very extravagant cake, pik white and glittery icing. There was sooo much food, and just our famiy, Euridice's two brothers and us GAT girls to eat it. We had fun listening to cheesy old music and watching novellas with the sound off. One classic moment listenign to 'how do i live without you' which fitted rerally well with the action on the TV, I dont think the family understood why the four white girls were rolling around in Hysterics. We also listened to Enrique Iglesias (Marlenes favourite) and played mUsical chairs. So now we know all about how to party Mozambican style!
Sophie and I are actually getting somewhere with our travel plans. We have booked hostels and everything, and a day trip to thge Bazaruto islands inc snorkelling. Think that we might tyr and visit the Amos project while we are in durban as well. I have read Tom Hewitts book since being here and it sounds amazing stuff!
So off to feed rumbly stomach now
Rachelxxxxxxxxx