slight change of plan

so right now we should be on our way to Zimbabwe enjoying the luxury of a people carrier and cheesy music. However Jills car is still not fixed, the part that came from Australia on Thursday was faulty, so instead we are still in Beira, and probably getting a chappa tomorrow morning at FOUR O'CLOCK! madness! but we will deffinately be in Harare at some point tomorrow!
So since I am here I can tell you all about our lovely Christmas party that we had at Lees on wednesday. We had planned a day of games, biscuit decorating, games, singing, games and making christmas trees out of the kids handprints, so on tuesday morning we bought and prepared all our resources, including forty cards to hide for a treasuree hunt (four sets of Feliz Natal in different colour, very pretty). Wednesday morning I went to pack my bag and couldn't find the cards anywhere! Typical me, i know i had purt them in a sesible place where i wouldnt forget to take them, and had cleverly forgotten where it was. i turned my room upside down, looked in the bin, under matresses, everywhere. In the end just grapped any scraps of coloured paper i could find and legged it to the oasis prayer meeting. The meeting was the last one before closing for christmas so we had cake and juice and played jenga which went on forever and ever, it was amazing! But we were panicking as lee was picking us up at eleven and we had to go back to the others house to pick up stuff, write out words to christmas songs and remake the cards, we finally escaped from the office at twenty past 11 with half an hour before we would have to leave their house. But being GAT girls we got everyhting done, and were back in town by 11! It was quite an acheivment. Nicely Lee was running late so we got to relazx with a drink for a bit.
The party went really well, even the treadsure hunt, so maybe few of the cards blew away buitthey all had fun and enjoyed their prizes. The christmas tree making was really cool, I drew round little Ines hand and then she flipped over the paper and drew one of her ownb, it was so cute lee loved it. I have lots of random pictures that the kids took, including of amber and sohphie dancing and be having my hair plaitted, it was much fun!
We had our last english lesson in Vaz on thursday, Ambs and Soph had prepared a special Christmas lesson for their church which they never used so we did it a tVaz which was fun, reading out the christmas story in Ebglish and getting them to stand up whenever they heard certain words. One ppoor laddy had the word mary and she had never been to an english lesson before, but she kept smiling. I found the msissing cards that morning, they were in my bag all along, of course, so we did the trerasure hunt there as well. I dont think Valentin really understood though as once he had found the biscuits prixze he kept on looking for something, despite us explaining that they were the prize, I want to know what else he was looking for!
Soo yet again HAPPY CHRISTMAS rachelxxxx

One week till Christmas!

time is going so fast here, I am sure that only yesterday we got off the plain, and now we are thinking about Christmas shopping(being in Africa we are running on typical African timing and leaving it till the last minute). But we still have work to do!
Last week was a bit unusual, as ever, because of the big rain. There was majpor flooding all over Beira which is mainly below sea level, and two of the worst hit places were Munhave and Vaz, what a coincidence. So it meant that on the Tuesdau there was no way we could work. Wednesday was our training day, but then Thursday moring the three of us went over to Vaz to teach my Eng lesson. Normally they are really good at my church about being on time, you wonder where they are when only 15 mninuts has passed, whereas at Sophie and Ambers church they can be an hour and a half late and still arrive before anyone else. But anyway, we went over on Thursday and were met coming of the Chappa by a group of Kids I recognisewd form Kids club. They asked where we were goign so we said to the church and off we went. Walking down the central road there were a few puddles, you could deffinately tell that it had been raining, then we turned off on a shortcut to the church that I dont usually take cos it smells. So far we are stioll dry, then we are directed another way because there is what apopears to be a lageish puddle in the way, so we go backj to the normal route tro churh, and walk into a lake. to get to the church we had to wade through water nearly up to our knees, whilst weraring long skirts and flip flops, quite an adventure. I wasnt really expecting anyone to turn up to our lesson at that point. but we eventually get to the church a little bit wet, and decide to hang around and just play with the kids a bit. So we did, then Pinto came along in a suit and bright blue wellies, and tells us that noone else can come so we all play with the kids together. They love Pinto he is so funny, and knows great songs and games.
we did end up teaching the lesson though as eventually some others came along, it was fun, we were doing places around town and directions, so played snap, Amber and I can get quite competetive! Eng;lish lessons are great at Vaz, we teach the youth group basically, who all have varying degrees of English, Pinto and Miquitio speak quite well, the other guys less than I speak Portuguese, and the girls practically none, so they are quite challenging as well. Normally we write up a passage on the board relating to whatever is being taught and get them to read and translate it, then we teach vocab/grammer/ sebntences, Then play a game. The games are great, even though they are mainly my age or older they really enjoy silly stuff like simon says and snap.
The kids at Vaz have just recently started being friendly to me, instead of just laughing, I have about four groupies who fight to siut next to me or hold my hand, it is so cute. Very gap year in Africa! I taugfht them to say School, and good morning the other day. OOOOOh and at Kids Club on saturday Pinto suddenly announced that there missionary (!) sister Racquel was going to come up and teach a bit. So I got up wondering what on earth i was going to say, and he suggested teaching a song. So the kids in Vaz spent the rest of Saturday delighting everyone with various Mozambican styles of Little Donkey, my favourite being Mr Donkey. Bless.
I havent been on a friday afternoon for a few weeks, the last time was our walk to Manga (incidentally Manga is Portuguese for Mango), but I hope that after Zimbabwe we will be able to start an evangelism/discipleship programme!
We aren't going to Lee's anymore since they moved to Dondo, which is a shame, wee loved it there, but Oasis are looking into other Kids projects we could go to. However on Wednesday we are going to take the girls in Dondo over to the Boys new house in Manga for a Christmas party, really looking forward to it! Lots of silly games planned, and biscuit decorating!
Yesterday on the way to Church at 8 Pinto told me that since we are goign away on Saturday,m I would have to 'give a word' in Church, PANIC!!!! Pinto can speak a bit of Englih, but not enough to translate, plus some peeps don't even speak Portuguese! So.........I went for it and 'gave a word' in Portuguese. Very scary . It was also very chessy what I came out with, about how even though my Family are England, Christmas wouldn't be sad because now I have a family in Mozambique, lol. Please email if you would like a copy in the original Portuguese, it must have sounded quite amusing as I am still only really able to talk in the present and future tense, but they managed to translate in into Ndau ok so yay! I must have preaching in my blood! I was quite impressive that in a really short space of time I managed to make them laugh (in a good way) and say amen in agreement!
The latest on Lizzie is that she is freezing back in Oxford, and should be getting her test results back later today so I will let you know. Whjen she went to Interhealth for the tests on Friday they said that it as probably either Glandular fever or an Amoeba that she somehow picked up over here. But she's in the best place to get better know, maybe having proper Christmas dinner will help her recovery?
Amber and Sophie learnt yesterday that you have to be very careful when tellin gchildren that you don't like tarantuals, becase they then think that it is very amusing to throw them at you! We are still managing to be ridiculousy clumsy, Amber walked into her church yesterday and has a lovely graze on her arm, and I think i broke my toe earlier walking into a concrete thing round the swimming pool, all good fun! We had a really nice morning off today, the pool was really quiet and warm so we just spent most of the morning in the water, having handstand contests and underwater tea parties!
So in case I dont write agin before Zimbabwe, or even until after Zimbabwe(!) Have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Rxxx

Less than two weeks till our holiday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Not that I am excited at all.
had a random African evening last night. I stayed round at Amber and Sophies house and their dad Edgar told us to come next door and meet the neighbours, who were in the middle of a wedding reception. They invited us to stay and we had dinner and I was forced to dance, very embarrassing. Its weird how noone seemed to mind that three white girls noone knew were joining in the wedding reception, they even asked someone to translate for us. So I have now, sort of, been to a Mozambican wedding!
Lizzie went home yesterday, we managed not to cry till just before she went through security, so thats quite impressive! But it's deffinately going to be weird. Jim and Jane invited us round to their house for lunch after the airport and distracted us with moving of furniture, and then the wedding took our mind of it as well, so all is good.
OOOh there was much excitement at the airport when we got there. The winner of the FAMA show (Mozambican pop idol) was coming back to Beira after the final oin friday night so the whole population of the city had turned out to welcome them. So many people, quite a lot waving frelimo flags for some unknown reason. there were packed buses with people climbing onto the roof to get back into town! Madness!
Dont think that there is anything else to report at the moment. So byeeee
Raquelxx

Lizzie

Things are chanign a bit here at the moment. After 6 weeks of being ill , and various diagnoses and tablets, Lizzie is flying home on Sunday night to go and see a specialist in London. Its really weird knowing that she is going home, but its deffinately the best thing. She is really at peace about the whole thing as well, as she had a while to get her head around it before they decided on Monday. the rest of us are really upset and abit surprised, but getting used to the idea. She is deffinately goin gto still be part of the best team to ever come to Mozambique, and she will be prayin gfor yus loads, and sending us photos of her weraing coats!!!!!
So I have to decide now whether to stay where I am living now, or move in with Amber and Sophie. I am goin got keep working in Vaz whatever though, and they are setting up a system of people to come and pick me up from town, so I dont have to go alone.
But we are off to Zimbabwe in two and a half weeks, now for longer than we expected because the Zim girls have invited us to go with their cell group to stay at someones house by a lake with a pool, Yay! Jill's cars we think is being fixed as I write this, she had the part couriered up from South Africa so pray that goes all ok, dont much fancy being stuck in a Chappa with fish or chickens, all the way to Zim, still I guess it would be an experience!
So thats us, please pray for Lizzie, especially that she gets through the journey ok, as she is quite worried about feeling ill on the plane, and also for the rest of us as we get used to not having sister betty around, especially as Marina is flying back to Engand for Christmas tomorrow!
xx

Retreat

We are back in Beira!
Our retreat was amazing! We stayed on Savane which is abslutely gorgeous, a postcard sort of place, and it was practically deserted so we were the only people on lovely long sandy beaches surrounded by palm trees. I have loads of photos, mainly of the sun set and then the sunrise. We got up at half four on Ambers birthday to go down the beach and watch the sun come up which was really cool, and we stoood in the sea which was really warm. The really good news is that I am now no longer the joke of the team with a stunning missionary tan, i am properly brown now, yay!
However I am still the joke of the group beacuse of an embarassing incident, known as the Ipod crab! i was sharing a room wiuth Amber and Marina and on Tuesday night we had all settled down to sleep. At 11 o clock, I am absolutely positive I saw something crawl across me, even though my eyes were shut, so I sat up in Bed to look for wehatever it was and felt something toch my leg, I sort of screamed, and woke myself up properly, realising that whatever it was was now clinging to my pyjama leg, being near the sea and having seen the crabs all over the beach I was convinced there wqasd one in my bed, so too scared to move ofr my torch in case it decided to crawl up my leg i called out for marina and said there was something crawling in my bed, she though i said someone so she got really panicky and tuyrned on her torch, and when i looked down there on my leg... was my ipod. I still had the headphones in my ears, the fact that Snow patrol was playing hadnt registered with me at all, and it was just hanging down. They are never going to let me forget it!
We were really blessed with our accomodation, in Shoprite on Monfday wee bumped into the guy who runs Savane and Marina managed to persuade him to let us have a proper bungalow with beds bathroom and Kitchen, for the same price as three barachas (SP?) that are just rooms with a pole for mozzie nets, and they give you matresses to put on the floor. So it was great. We even had a hammock and a realy cool log just outside. It was a really safe place so we all enjoyed being allowed to wander off on our own, down to the beach on just wandering around, it was so beautiful. And now we are back we are allowed to venture off into Beira on our own as well which is cool. Really good chance to practice Portuguese, without the others laughing at you. Also uselful for buying Christm,as prezzies without them knowing!
OOh the journey to Savane was fun. Jills car is still broken (pray it will be fixed in time for the trip to Zim) so instead Marina got hold of a guy and a chappa. Only when Rui turned up on the monday morning it wasnt a chappa, it was a standard car, for five extra people and their luggage which included a bif cool boz and loads of food. But we all squeezed in , Amber ended up sitting on my lap the whole way. Twas only an hour though so we surevived. We got a chappa on the way back though. It was weird being in a minibus with only 7 people instead of about 20!
Afetr we got back yesterday we went to Sophie and Ambers house for a 'surprise' prepared by their family. It turned out to be a lovely chocolate cake in the shape of a bible(!- you know you are a missionary when you get a bible cake) , samosas and rissois. jill bought a big typical beira cake as well, so after eating that lot, they then served us dinner as well. mwe were completely stuffed, it was really nice though. As well as a tonne of earrings we gave her a comedy coca cola capulana (all purpose piece of material, generally used as a skirt, but also for carrying babies adn loads of other stuff) and we wrote her a cheesy christian novel to follow on from the one Lizzie was given for her birthday.
So now we are back in Beira, you may wonder why i am noit at work on a friday afternoon, well, i am wonderingtoo. We rang the Pastor earlier and he said that none of the youth were around so I didnt need to come, hmmm, wonder where they all are?
last friday was really good though. Jonas, Angela, Manuel Valentin and I walked from Vaz to Manga, about a mile, forty minutes at Mozambican pace, and visited some eople form the church who live therew. At the first house we were given a huge bowl of mangoes to eat, but Mozzies have huge srtomachs so they all disappeared, then at the second house the lady aked manuel and jonas to get mangoes for us, by climbing up a really tall tree in her garden monkey style and shaking the branches till they fell down. It was great wtaching them, if slightly scary.
It is so weird that Christmas is coming up, we made each other advent calendarsa adn are planning on decorating our room so we feel christmassy., We are also going for a carols by candle light on the beach later which will be different, a whole lot warmer than the carol services i am used to. Marina is going home for christmas, and matt and Sjheen a are goign home for three months to get married, so Jill is being left all on her own in their mahusive flat, so we are going to cook Christmas dinner for her, complete with bread sauce that Nanna has sent out for me yay!
just realised that you probably dont know who these people are so
marina- our lovely overseer who was oin the first gat team in moz, she is a really good cook and lives with jill and sheena
Sheena- heads up kids action at oasis, she is scottish and very cool she is getting married to matt in february
Matt- head of community action, he is not scottish, but is very tall and has one eye that is two differen tcolours, split diagonally blue and brown,
Jill- head of youth action and one of the first oasis staff out here, she is an aussie but her accent is quite weak as she has been here for so long, she has a big car (sadly broken:( )
Nanna- my grandma who the others think is a legend because she is the only grandma they know who emails!
So there you are, thats me for now! byeeeeeexxx
Irma Raquel