More Life in Beira

The other morning I heard lots of car horns honking and when I looked out the window this is what I saw driving along our street.

 A private school "the Cinderella Princess Schools" was having a parade to celebrate 12 years of education.  They will be adding grade 12 to the curriculum this January,  Each of the trucks represented a nation as it was also United Nations Week.

 The parade lasted for about 1 hour because each float was accompanied by many cars with signs and balloons and horns honking.

 They ended just across the street at a park and very nice covered area and had a party.  This group of young men were on the Mozambique truck and played drums.  It was very fancy drum work and sounded wonderful.

 This boy was very enterprising.  He was gathering all the balloons off the cars and trucks and then re-selling them along the street.  They sell everything and anything to make a living.

These two boy wanted to be a part of the party.....but could only look from a distance.  At the other end of the block were two more boys in another tree.

 We are assigned to work with the Inhamizua Branch.   Sunday was our first day there.  It was General Conference so I did not meet many or see what Primary was like (or non existent?)  This is one of the streets we drove down to get there.  It is about 40 minutes from us.  This is a WONDERFUL road!  Very unusual.

 All our streets are lined with these little roadside shops.  They sell everything, food, cloths, shoes, coal, sticks, rocks, sand, live chickens, tires, repair cars and bikes and furniture. etc....

This is looks like the street we turn down when we drive to the Manga 2 building and the Manga elders apartment.  It gets worse.  There are not even any pot holes yet.

Life in Beira

 This is the "GO-TO" market.  All the street sides look more or less like this.  This market is on the way to baixio (downtown) where we shop for groceries.  I'm sure that whatever you want is somewhere in there.  We haven't gone there yet.  It is very crowded.

 As we drive by,  the streets are very challenging.  Three lanes of cars, trucks and bicycles mixed in with pedestrians all going which ever way they want.  It is also first-come as far as getting to the roundabout goes.

 These boys were playing on the sidewalk outside our bedroom window on a Saturday morning.  It was fun to watch them having fun with whatever they could find, in this case, sticks and old tires.  Hoops!

 This was our first shopping adventure to stock our kitchen, instead on relying on the Snelsons for supper.  As you can see, I picked the wrong cart, we just barely made it to the checkout.   All the stores (and banks) usually have an armed guard and someone who looks at your receipt and then stamps it with a big flourish.

 This is where our District President works.  It is a Secondary school.  I (Sandi) and Sister Snelson (taking the picture) drove Isabel there to get a check.  Then we helped her to buy the food for the casal weddings on Saturday.  We had 5 couples getting married that Saturday.  Isabel is the district RS president.

We thought you would like to see that Larry (Elder Dille) really does his work.  Left to Right:  Elder Martinez, Elder Jarvis and Elder Rameka

Girls Camp in Mozambique

 Our first Saturday in Beira Sister Kretly, Sister Snelson and I visited Young Women (Mocas) Camp for the Beira District.  Here the girls are having a fashion show and some really strutted their stuff.  They all seemed to be having a good time.

 The girls are learning a song in English and a few dance moves.  They were all given a t-shirt and skirt to match and looked real good.  The song was about Virtue is Beautiful.  Sister Kelly Bueno was working with them.  Her husband is the 2nd counselor in the mission presidency and works here in Mozambique for 'Care For Life'  They and two sons have been here for a year and are leaving at the end of November.  He will be back in February, but the rest of the family is undecided.  It is pretty hard to live here and leave all that High School offers in Salt Lake.

 Sisters from the district were out back of the rented  building cooking chicken, rice and french fry's for lunch.  That is standard fare and they cook outside on coal fires.  They always have rice and french fry's with their food.

Sister Kretly (with Sister Snelson helping) speaking about Virtue.  Sister Kretly and the lady in the picture taking the picture are wearing capulanas ( in Hawaii they are called lava-lavas).

Arriving in Beira

 We finally arrived at the Beira International Airport at 11:00 am on Wed Oct 2.  We traveled with President and Sister (who is taking the picture) Kretly and the Area Mental Health Advisor (AMHA) Dr. Edward and Sister Nancy van Gass.  We had to walk a long ways on the tarmac to get into the building.  Elder Snelson told us that the plane (One flight am and one pm) either comes on time or not, and elders and packages are either one the plane or not.  Never know until we drive to the airport and see what's up!

 We are on the 3rd floor on the right ( 2nd andar e direito).  The doors are not numbered and we only knew which one because our parking spot is labeled that way.  The Snelson are directly below us in a similar apartment and the Kretly's have one  a little different style across the hall from us.

Left: Pres. Paulo and Sis. Adrianna Kretly,                       Right:  Elder Brian and Sis Kim Snelson

This apartment is brand new with all the construction dust and everything.  We are very thankful because we have seen some of the other places that couples were living and I am very happy to be here.  We have a gate and a guard and we can hire them to help us carry thing up to our abode.

 This is what we see out of our South facing windows.  Nice looking apartment building, Tempting pool!

 Looking between these two apartments we can see the Indian Ocean.  It is a block south.  In the mornings we can see all the little boats out catching shrimp and sardines.

I am saved!!!  Sister Snelson had this huge basket on the table with two loaves of bread and
 peanut butter!  It is from South Africa and is REAL peanut butter and tastes wonderful. Life is GOOD!

Mission Home

This is our second day in Mozambique ,Sept 22, 2013.  (We finally got a nights rest and shower.  If felt great after traveling for three days - Friday the 19th to Sunday the 21st.)  We are in the Mission Home with President (Paulo) and Sister (Adrianna) Kretly.  It was good to be with them again.  They worked with us our two years in Sao Paulo, Brazil at the CTM (MTC).  He was in the CTM Presidency with President (Don) Clark and she was in the RS with Sister (ZaZa) Clark.  We had a wonderful, ful week there with them in Maputo.

 This is Sis Kretly and her housekeeper Isobel.  She was a delightful lady and was so happy when Sister Kretly got her several uniforms to wear at work.  She wants to be baptized, but her husband(?) won't get married so she is waiting.  This is very common in Mozambique.  The custom is a Bride Price (usually quite a lot) and an expensive party and no one can afford it,  so they just live together.  Her daughter is in Provo now at the MTC preparing to go to Madagascar on her mission.

 This is the view from the Mission Home deck.  Much building happening in Maputo (great for the country) and that is the Indian Ocean.  They hope that the apartment building being built right behind them is not going to completely block their view.  The Mission home is on what is called Embassy Street...about 10 countries have built there.  Not the US, they are in several blocks and kind of a non-nondescript building.  We didn't dare take pictures of it all because we didn't want to get hauled of to jail.

Our first days in Maputo

Surprise at what we found in Maputo!  Woolworth has a large store in a shopping strip under an large apartment building.  It is was very diversified and carried almost anything you would want.  Larry and Pres. Kretly are in a store that is somewhat like Lowe's and Kmart combined called Premier.  We found very bright colored toilet paper.  I wanted the bright purple, but Larry said if we got the brown, we could sent everyone a roll and because of the color it could be re-used and save a lot of money for everyone!  I nixed the plan.  Always thinking of all ya'll.

Trip to Nampula with Pres. Kretly

This is a  typical of the country that Larry drove through on his way back from Nampulu with President Kretly.  It took about 14 hours to make the drive.  They stopped in Quelimane for church on Sunday and a visit with the Elders there.  He said both sides of the road had streams of families walking along the whole way.

 These young men are selling their catches on the side of the road.  What you see here if the hind leg of a Gazelle.  Below they are showing a large rat creature for sale.  Want to buy?

C.

 Typical of the small villages and what the sides of the "roads" look like.

 The trucks, called" chappa"  haul everything and as many people as they can fit on.  The ones in the cities crowd as many people as can stand and sit around for work and school.  Below is a termite mound.