Yesterday Kevin and I went out for our Valentine's Day lunch (early, 'cause we work on Sundays) at one of the big hotels in town, where they serve authentic Indian food (there are many Indians in town) and then enjoyed a bit of roadside shopping at the used clothing stalls. We bought a few things for Benjamin and a new purse for me. Mine was stolen in November and I never did replace it. Toby’s school had a little party, and I brought cupcakes for the whole student body and teachers (numbering 30), while Benjamin played at a nearby friend’s house. I did quite a bit of shopping this week, stocking up the larder with cans of black beans, a big can of powdered milk, spaghetti, and fresh produce in the fridge (lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, carrots and green peppers). Kevin has been meeting with the monitors, overseeing classes, preparing a sermon and he attended the funeral of our landlord’s father.
This morning we received word that the son of one of our monitors, Alberto Castelo, died. Earlier this week, I took his wife and this child around to several pharmacies in town to buy the medication that they would never be able to afford: Malaria treatment, antibiotics, and Tylenol. Total cost: about $8. We hoped that this treatment would send him on the road to recovery, but this latest sickness was too much for him. He had been sick off and on since birth, and didn’t walk even though he was almost 3 years old. He was as small as a 14 month old. It is another tragedy for Castelo, who lost a baby just last year in April. The funeral will likely be on Monday.
Today is also the funeral for Kevin’s grandfather. Lorance was his last living grandparent, and the sixth of our grandparents who has died while we were overseas. It is painful for us to miss yet another funeral for a loved one, and we are especially sad that we won’t be able to see Lorance again on this earth. He was 95 and a really good guy. We are thankful, however, that he knew the Lord and we will see him again in heaven.
This morning I went to a ladies meeting at my church. We met at the pastor’s house (20 minutes fast walk from my house), then walked another 20 minutes to the church, then afterwards walked 15 minutes to visit a lady with a baby, then another 20 minutes back to my house. With temps in the high 90s, I returned feeling rather limp! While visiting the lady with the baby, I noticed that the one-month old was wearing a charm around his wrist, to protect him from evil spirits. Almost all babies wear these, and they are put on by witch doctors. I’ll have to speak to the pastor’s wife, who didn’t seem bothered by it. She also announced that the baby was now a Christian, since we had prayed for him, which is another thing we’ll have to discuss. Just another example of the “heresies” that are present in all the churches here and are due to the lack of Bible teaching. At the meeting, they asked me to teach them an American song and dance (we dance while we sing here) and since I don’t have any praise dance songs, I taught them to do the cha-cha-cha while we sang “God is so Good” in Portuguese, Makua, and English! They enjoyed it a lot and it promises to be a fun time tomorrow when we do the cha-cha-cha in church. We also practiced a drama of the parable of the Prodigal Son for performance in church tomorrow.
Meanwhile, Kevin and the boys went to a yard sale of retiring missionaries. These kind of sales are a big draw for missionaries, because you can buy items that you’d never get in stores here. The big purchase of the morning was a used American-made standing fan for $20, and we were glad to have it! Most of the electronics you buy here are poor quality, and American-made promises to last for some time. They also bought some construction paper, watercolor paints, and a hot glue gun.
This afternoon, Toby’s Portuguese teacher will come at 3 pm to teach Toby for an hour, and he’ll teach me from 4 to 5. He is a very pleasant young man who is well-spoken, though his spelling is awful. I need to find out what the difference is for two words, which are similar to “put” and “place”, and when I should use which one. I also want to find out all of the words for “attend” and “go to”, as there are different verbs for different situations. You may attend a church service, but have another word when you go to a meeting, and another word when you are at a public event. Portuguese is a very specific language, verb-wise. Meanwhile, Kevin is off to oversee more classes, teach a class, and then will drive 30 minutes outside of town to find out when the funeral for Castelo’s child will be. No one out there has a phone. - C
Saturday, February 13, 2010
Kidnapping
Yesterday, there was a terrible event in our town: the young son of a Nampula family was kidnapped at gunpoint right outside of his house while on his way to school. This family was certainly targeted because they are very wealthy, and a ransom of about $8,000 has been asked. This is a huge sum for people here, though this family is doubtless able to pay. Apparently the same thing happened in another big town last year, and although the money was paid, the child was not returned and has not been seen since.
I feel terrible for this family and hope and pray that they get their son back unharmed. The whole situation makes me very nervous for my family as well, since we are perceived to be wealthy since we are white, and American. The car we drive is the same make as the one the president drives (though ours is 15 years old, it looks much newer than that) and we live in a much larger house than your average Mozambican. Here, unfortunately, “white” equals “rich” and although it is true that we are much wealthier than your average Mozambican, our bank balance is still not very high. It is often frustrating to us to be perceived as limitlessly wealthy, and we know it is frustrating to local people here sometimes that we don’t give out more money.
Anyway, we just have to hope that none of the missionaries here will be targeted by this kind of crime. It is the first kidnapping for ransom that we have heard of in Nampula, though in the capital of Mozambique it has been happening for some time. We hope that this is not the start of a crime wave of this type.
I was speaking to a Mozambican about this event yesterday, and he said “Now you know how we feel. Black people are kidnapped all the time, and their families never see them again.” There are foreigners (other Africans, mostly) who “steal” people in Nampula (and in other places) and sell them as slaves, sending them to other countries. Stories are circulating about people stolen during the night when they went out of their house to use the bathroom, and about children who are stolen in the middle of the daytime. I’m not sure how many of these stories are just rumors, because there are lots of rumors also about how white people eat black children, and how much human trafficking actually does go on. I have seen statistics, though, that do show that trafficking does come through Mozambique, whether it is people stolen from other parts of Africa and brought through Moz on the way to somewhere else, or people stolen from Moz I don’t know.
How will I protect my family? Mostly just pray. Also we don’t leave the kids unattended, or allow them to be escorted around town by local people, who are much more likely to be assaulted. It seems unfair that there is yet one more thing to have to be on our guard against, when there is so much already! But we are thankful that we live in a secure home and have people to watch out for us. - C
I feel terrible for this family and hope and pray that they get their son back unharmed. The whole situation makes me very nervous for my family as well, since we are perceived to be wealthy since we are white, and American. The car we drive is the same make as the one the president drives (though ours is 15 years old, it looks much newer than that) and we live in a much larger house than your average Mozambican. Here, unfortunately, “white” equals “rich” and although it is true that we are much wealthier than your average Mozambican, our bank balance is still not very high. It is often frustrating to us to be perceived as limitlessly wealthy, and we know it is frustrating to local people here sometimes that we don’t give out more money.
Anyway, we just have to hope that none of the missionaries here will be targeted by this kind of crime. It is the first kidnapping for ransom that we have heard of in Nampula, though in the capital of Mozambique it has been happening for some time. We hope that this is not the start of a crime wave of this type.
I was speaking to a Mozambican about this event yesterday, and he said “Now you know how we feel. Black people are kidnapped all the time, and their families never see them again.” There are foreigners (other Africans, mostly) who “steal” people in Nampula (and in other places) and sell them as slaves, sending them to other countries. Stories are circulating about people stolen during the night when they went out of their house to use the bathroom, and about children who are stolen in the middle of the daytime. I’m not sure how many of these stories are just rumors, because there are lots of rumors also about how white people eat black children, and how much human trafficking actually does go on. I have seen statistics, though, that do show that trafficking does come through Mozambique, whether it is people stolen from other parts of Africa and brought through Moz on the way to somewhere else, or people stolen from Moz I don’t know.
How will I protect my family? Mostly just pray. Also we don’t leave the kids unattended, or allow them to be escorted around town by local people, who are much more likely to be assaulted. It seems unfair that there is yet one more thing to have to be on our guard against, when there is so much already! But we are thankful that we live in a secure home and have people to watch out for us. - C
Say That Again?
I teach a Sunday School class at our local church. I teach it, but I often wonder if many of the children learn anything. Why? Because I teach it in Portuguese, and most of these children speak only Makua.
“Well, that doesn’t make any sense.” You say. You’re right. It doesn’t! So why am I standing up there blathering away about God creating the earth and such, in a language these kids don’t speak very much of? Their parents want me to.
First I ought to explain some things about Mozambique. There are over 60 tribal languages, though the “trade language” is Portuguese. When I go to town, I could walk around for a long time before I found anyone who spoke English, and many of the conversations are going on in Portuguese. It would be easy for a visitor to assume that everyone here speaks fluent Portuguese and would be just as comfortable in Portugal or Brazil as they are here. However, that is not the case at all. Among ALL of the people here (except perhaps a small subset), Portuguese is their second language. There are actually millions of people in Mozambique who speak no or almost no Portuguese at all. These are the folks out in the villages. If I wanted to go out and speak to a group of women in a village just 10 miles outside of town, I’d need a translator. In fact, right here in Nampula I frequently meet women who speak very little Portuguese. I’ve actually had women in the market stare at me panic-stricken when I’ve asked them a question like “Where did you buy that?”. They don’t know what I am saying.
There are quite a few men whose Portuguese is not so hot, either, but the level of the women tends to be lower. Why? Because for many children, Portuguese is first learned in school and not before. Since girls are less likely to go to school or stay in school, they are more likely to speak only their tribal language.
This is the problem in Sunday School. There are a lot of younger children who have not even gone to school yet, so they haven’t learned much Portuguese. At home and with their friends, they speak Makua. And there’s nothing wrong with that.
So, why do the church leaders insist that the children must be taught in Portuguese? Because Portuguese is the language of the church. Missionaries who come in rarely learn the tribal languages (after spending 2 years learning Portuguese, the idea of learning yet another language is daunting – let’s get to work instead!). Pastors who go away to Bible School always learn in Portuguese (too many languages, we’ve got to pick one that everyone speaks). Courses and seminars are always given in Portuguese for those same reasons. Because of this, the “religious words” that people learn are all in Portuguese. There probably isn’t even a word for “redemption” in Makua. One could be invented, surely, but at this point people use Portuguese words. All the Bible helps are in Portuguese, all the good Bibles, all the educated people in the city work in Portuguese. To have a Portuguese-speaking church is a major status symbol.
Therefore, to give the children a good basis in “churchiness” and in religious instruction, they must be taught in Portuguese. Eventually they’ll learn it, and doubtless it will be a help to them in school and such. But meanwhile, these kids just stare at me blankly when I ask a question. Part of the problem here may be that Makua children are not taught to speak to adults. They learn by observation, not by discussion. So, when I ask a question, even a child who understands will be reluctant to volunteer an answer. But mostly, they just don’t know what I am talking about. Last week, I asked the children who created the world. Blank stares from 15 children. We had had literally 10 lessons on who created the world. But very few of them had understood anything. I wanted to sink down on the ground and bury my face in my hands. Finally, I dragged the answer out of one of the four children that I knew understood. “God”, he whispered.
I’m meeting with the wife of the leader of the church this week and tendering my resignation. Not out of spite, not out of frustration, but out of a simple belief that I am not the best teacher for these kids. They need someone who speaks Makua, someone who can give a quick translation from the Portuguese when needed. And the church won’t look for more teachers unless they are forced to. So, I’m forcing them by withdrawing to the sidelines and offering to train teachers, but refusing to teach.
If I had my way, all of the teaching would be in Makua. Unfortunately, it is not likely that this will happen. It is also hard to find teachers in my little church . . . the ladies who could help with the teaching don’t read or write, and therefore can’t read the Sunday school materials that are written in Portuguese (which they also don’t speak very well). The men are all busy with teaching the adults, except for one man who is involved in teaching the kids. But he’ll need help. Keep them in your prayers and let’s see what God does! And by the way, we do plan to learn Makua, starting after we return from our home assignment next year. It is an extremely difficult language, so it will take some time to reach proficiency. - C
“Well, that doesn’t make any sense.” You say. You’re right. It doesn’t! So why am I standing up there blathering away about God creating the earth and such, in a language these kids don’t speak very much of? Their parents want me to.
First I ought to explain some things about Mozambique. There are over 60 tribal languages, though the “trade language” is Portuguese. When I go to town, I could walk around for a long time before I found anyone who spoke English, and many of the conversations are going on in Portuguese. It would be easy for a visitor to assume that everyone here speaks fluent Portuguese and would be just as comfortable in Portugal or Brazil as they are here. However, that is not the case at all. Among ALL of the people here (except perhaps a small subset), Portuguese is their second language. There are actually millions of people in Mozambique who speak no or almost no Portuguese at all. These are the folks out in the villages. If I wanted to go out and speak to a group of women in a village just 10 miles outside of town, I’d need a translator. In fact, right here in Nampula I frequently meet women who speak very little Portuguese. I’ve actually had women in the market stare at me panic-stricken when I’ve asked them a question like “Where did you buy that?”. They don’t know what I am saying.
There are quite a few men whose Portuguese is not so hot, either, but the level of the women tends to be lower. Why? Because for many children, Portuguese is first learned in school and not before. Since girls are less likely to go to school or stay in school, they are more likely to speak only their tribal language.
This is the problem in Sunday School. There are a lot of younger children who have not even gone to school yet, so they haven’t learned much Portuguese. At home and with their friends, they speak Makua. And there’s nothing wrong with that.
So, why do the church leaders insist that the children must be taught in Portuguese? Because Portuguese is the language of the church. Missionaries who come in rarely learn the tribal languages (after spending 2 years learning Portuguese, the idea of learning yet another language is daunting – let’s get to work instead!). Pastors who go away to Bible School always learn in Portuguese (too many languages, we’ve got to pick one that everyone speaks). Courses and seminars are always given in Portuguese for those same reasons. Because of this, the “religious words” that people learn are all in Portuguese. There probably isn’t even a word for “redemption” in Makua. One could be invented, surely, but at this point people use Portuguese words. All the Bible helps are in Portuguese, all the good Bibles, all the educated people in the city work in Portuguese. To have a Portuguese-speaking church is a major status symbol.
Therefore, to give the children a good basis in “churchiness” and in religious instruction, they must be taught in Portuguese. Eventually they’ll learn it, and doubtless it will be a help to them in school and such. But meanwhile, these kids just stare at me blankly when I ask a question. Part of the problem here may be that Makua children are not taught to speak to adults. They learn by observation, not by discussion. So, when I ask a question, even a child who understands will be reluctant to volunteer an answer. But mostly, they just don’t know what I am talking about. Last week, I asked the children who created the world. Blank stares from 15 children. We had had literally 10 lessons on who created the world. But very few of them had understood anything. I wanted to sink down on the ground and bury my face in my hands. Finally, I dragged the answer out of one of the four children that I knew understood. “God”, he whispered.
I’m meeting with the wife of the leader of the church this week and tendering my resignation. Not out of spite, not out of frustration, but out of a simple belief that I am not the best teacher for these kids. They need someone who speaks Makua, someone who can give a quick translation from the Portuguese when needed. And the church won’t look for more teachers unless they are forced to. So, I’m forcing them by withdrawing to the sidelines and offering to train teachers, but refusing to teach.
If I had my way, all of the teaching would be in Makua. Unfortunately, it is not likely that this will happen. It is also hard to find teachers in my little church . . . the ladies who could help with the teaching don’t read or write, and therefore can’t read the Sunday school materials that are written in Portuguese (which they also don’t speak very well). The men are all busy with teaching the adults, except for one man who is involved in teaching the kids. But he’ll need help. Keep them in your prayers and let’s see what God does! And by the way, we do plan to learn Makua, starting after we return from our home assignment next year. It is an extremely difficult language, so it will take some time to reach proficiency. - C
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