WHERE Is the Road?

Bon Deah!

I hope all you Portuguese speaking readers aren’t flinching over my spelling, but I chose to write words the way they sound in order to pronounce them more accurately.

Come with me to our first well repair site. You may well be surprised with how many people are walking along the roads wherever you go. I certainly was. Mozambique is definitely a land of contrasts but some of the dramatic changes are very recent. The beautiful, smooth pavement we are now driving on came in within the last six months so try to imagine what it was like before that!

Since it is their winter time the landscape is dry and desolate but interesting because of its very strangeness. I kept half wanting one of Africa’s famous animals to show up somewhere off to the side but this is far too populated an area for that to happen! Every year the grass is burned and the mice and rabbits flushed out and eaten so obviously there isn’t enough vegetation, or small game left for the mightier beasts.

Soon we’ll leave the highway behind, and then we’ll get a more authentic picture of the ‘real Africa.”  Before we left Tete, Milton picked up a slim man by the name of Antonio who could speak Portuguese. Since he would be directing us to the well site I got my first chance to hear my son having a real conversation in a foreign language. Why did I suggest that this man was slender? I quickly observed that most of the natives were not over weight, probably because of all the walking they do, and the heavy loads they must carry.

If you are like me, you are wondering about now if Antonio knows where we are going. Having Milton say he had forgotten his GPS doesn’t help, but I’m not really concerned, because I know he has gone on trips like this countless times. Sometimes we are on rocky excuses for roads, but other times the track disappears completely as far as I can tell, but we keep plunging across the uneven terrain. Sometimes we see a little brick shanty or two or three, and of course even way out here black people show up, going somewhere or maybe just sitting and watching us as we manoeuvre along. The ‘roads’ we are traveling on were not in the so distant past mere walking trails that evolved into something for motorbikes, then eventually vehicles like ours pushed their way through.

AH! Here it is: the well site! I watch with interest as the men quickly and efficiently unload the truck in preparation for the repair job. Now where did all these little black children come from? They seem to have arrived from all directions! Even some mamas with their babies are observing from under that tree over there. The children are shy, especially at first, and hang together and a little back. How I longed to be able to talk to them. Some are so bright-eyed and giggly but we couldn’t communicate! My stammering efforts to speak Portuguese wouldn’t even help here because they only knew Chichewa. How can we tell them about the wonderful Heavenly Father when there is such a communication barrier between us?

Even here there is the suggestion of class difference. One wee urchin was wearing a seriously ragged T shirt. I mean it had huge holes in it, while others were clinging to their school satchels and seemed better dressed. They were obviously the more fortunate ones. One little girl had a constant nagging cough and I tried to express my sympathy through sign language but I don’t think she quite got the message.

Milton tried to explain to them that I was a Mama and a Grandma. It saddened me tremendously that children like these are still being taught that white people want to steal little black children and eat them, although I’m not quite sure they really believed it.

On the way back I understood better why Milton remarked about wishing he had the GPS along. Antonio stayed at the village, and we ended up doing some back-tracking because one clump of brush and wider area in the sand looked pretty much the same as the next, but obviously we made it out or I wouldn’t have gotten this written!

 Ate’ Logo: Ahteh Lawgo (Until later)