I'll be home one week from today!

Well I made it back to South Africa. Dara and I had quite a pleasant 15 hour bus ride to Maputo (capital of Mozambique) on which we had comfy seats, A/C, tea and sandwiches. It was nice to be able to see more of the landscape, and process leaving Mozambique. The land is very green now after the rains, hilly, and has lots of banana and mango trees. We spent a couple of nights in Maputo, explored the city a bit, bought last minute souvenirs, and made it to South Africa on the 15th.

We left Mozambique with mixed emotions. We were sad to leave Carlos and his family, the volunteers, and the friends that we had made, but we were glad to see everyone back in South Africa, and are excited to see our families and friends back home soon. It was quite a strange feeling to leave our Mozambican family and the volunteers behind. Most of the people there have no hope of ever leaving Mozambique, as just surviving day to day is a challenge. While we get to go back to North America with every opportunity before us, they will continue to live off their gardens, strive to be a light in their communities, and struggle to rise above AIDS and poverty.

Last week Dara and I went to Cape Town for four days as we heard that it was very beautiful, and a must-see. We enjoyed our time, and got to go to Table Mountain, Robben's Island (where Nelson Mandela stayed as a prisoner for so many years), and did all of the touristy things. It felt really weird being a tourist after all the time we spent with suffering people in the community.

I think it would be easy to go back home and slowly forget about our time here. To forget that there are 7500 new children becoming orphaned every day, and to forget about Carlos and the volunteers who work so hard to care for these kids. I pray that I won't forget, and that I will be faithful with what I've been shown.

coming home soon....

It’s hard to believe that in just a few days my time in Mozambique will be finished! It has been an amazing time, and I have seen and learned so much. On Monday, Dara and I will head to the coast, and will take a looooonnngggg bus ride down to the capital of Mozambique, Maputo. We will spend a couple nights there, and then head back to South Africa. We will have three weeks in South Africa before we head home in early February. We’re hoping to see Cape Town for about a week, and spend a couple weeks at the Hands at Work headquarters.

Mozambique was such a crazy experience- here are a few things that I experienced which I probably won’t experience back in Canada…

1. Chasing a goat. The other morning I was outside talking to Nana (my 78 year old neighbor who I like to swap books with) and we saw a little girl standing close to a goat. The goat had gotten out, and the little girl was having a hard time catching it. I offered my goat catching skills, and tried to help her. Nana and I teamed up and had the goat cornered when it broke out to freedom again. I started chasing the goat- out of the yard, past the wood mill, and up to the church. At the church I saw a man walking and yelled “Desculpa- Ajuda” (sorry, help). The man didn’t think twice, he just started chasing with the help of one of his friends. So now, the little girl, two men and I are chasing this goat- past the baby sick bay, up to the orphanage, past the main house, and down to another missionary’s house. At this point a pastor from England joined in- chasing the goat around the house, and finally successfully capturing the goat with a football tackle. As he got up the two Mozambican men rewarded him with huge smiles and thumbs up.

2. Scary Bugs- One day Dara and I were driving with our Mozambican friend, Paula. Paula looked over at a bug on Dara and screamed. To hear a Mozambican scream about a bug is a bit alarming. Dara brushed the bug off her neck, and it turned out to be a scorpion. On her neck.


3. Spiders the size of mice- we have a new volunteer living with us now named Hannah. Hannah does not like insects at all, and doesn’t even like to use the fly swatter. The other night, Dara and I were in my room, and we heard Hannah yell- “I just saw a mouse! I just saw another one”. So Dara and I ran into the room equipped with shoes, and prepared to kill whatever came out from under the desk. I was not prepared for the spider the size of a mouse that came running out- with a body the size of a baby kosher dill pickle and legs the size of hairy carrot sticks (only slight exaggeration here). At the time we had no electricity, so we were doing this by candlelight and headlamps. After panicking at the first sighting of the spider and letting it get away, we gained enough composure to look for it again. When he reappeared I somehow managed to kill him with a two fly-swatter, mid air attack (I being in midair). After a sufficient amount of screaming, and tearing the room apart, we convinced ourselves that Hannah had only seen one monster spider- mouse, which manifested itself as two separate spiders.

So, I am looking forward to not having to worry about those kind of things upon my arrival to Canada. I am confident that Canadian spiders and insects will no longer strike fear into me.

A Christmas like no other…

This Christmas was wildly different from any other than I’ve ever had. Different, but good. It was my first Christmas in Africa, and my first away from Canada. I have made some great relationships with friends and families here so don’t feel sorry for me that I was away from home :) I thought maybe I’d give you all a little play-by-play, just so you get an idea of what Christmas in Mozambique is like…

December 24…

The day started off like most others do here- hot and extremely humid. All of our Christmas decorations (lights, little tree, nativity scene, advent calendar, etc) tried their best to convince us that it was indeed Christmas. By late afternoon a huge thunderstorm rolled in- just in time for the Christmas concert. It went from feeling like the 4th of July to Halloween in a few hours. The Christmas concert took place in the Church – the church has an A-frame roof, but is not fully enclosed- this led to an interesting evening…

The night started off with a group of the girls from the mission singing a few songs for everyone. As they were finishing up, the rain stopped. This resulted in a huge swarm of “flying ants”. During this season of famine, many of the Mozambicans live off of flying ants and mangos. The ants are quite large- the body is pretty fat and almost an inch long, with a two-inch wingspan. The ants come out after rains and are attracted to light -we’ve gotten used to sitting in the dark reading with flashlights :) So anyway, the ants were attracted to the fluorescent light by the thousands. When the girls finished, the next group of entertainment, the boys of the mission wanting to do a dance, went up the front (the dance floor was under the light). Although the boys didn’t seem to mind too much, I was terribly distracted by the dozens of crawling ants climbing up the boy’s shirt and swarming their heads. At one point in the night, the generator went off (and with it the light), and all of the ants swarmed the candles on the tables. At this point I temporarily lost composure and ran to the back of the church.

After the program, we had a delicious meal of potatoes, rice and beef stew. It was really good, and at this point it could have resembled a church potluck back home- with a few little differences. For example, the salt shaker at our table was a guy named Antonio who had a hand full of salt to which we helped ourselves. At the end of the night a couple ladies swept up all of the ants (lunch for the next day), and we headed home.

We came home to discover that the bunny that we are bunny-sitting , BunBun, was in a terrible state of convulsions on the floor (possibly bit by a scorpion?) . We kept a close eye on him for the evening, and asked the Lord to take him quickly. We were surprised to find a completely recovered BunBun the next day. A Christmas Miracle! Anyway, while we watched BunBun that night, we also opened a few presents, ate chocolate brownies, and sang “O Holy Night”.

December 25…

On Christmas morning we went over to one of our favorite families here- a family from Ireland who have been here for 16 years, and who run an elementary school for the local children. While at their house we had lovely pastries, hot chocolate, and got to open another present. We love to be at their house which is equipped with good food, a comfortable couch, and a nice mom and dad.

At about noon we headed off to the local prison. People from the mission go to visit the prisoners once a week, although this was the first time that I had gone. The prison was just one large room filled with about 60 young men. Carlos, my boss, brought his accordion along, and everyone enjoyed singing a few local songs- even the guard, who played his AK-47 like a guitar- this was slightly alarming. After the singing, one of the men gave a Christmas message, and food was handed out to all the prisoners. It was very sad to see the despair in these young men’s eyes, as well as sobering to think of how their Christmas was compared to ours.

When we got back from the Prison we had a nice lunch with Carlos and the family. Later that afternoon we had lovely cake and coffee at a Dutch family’s house- about 6 different kinds of cake, and a good opportunity to spend time with everyone who lives on the mission.

So, it was an interesting Christmas! I hope everyone back home had a great Christmas! I miss everyone and look forward to seeing you all when I get back in February! Merry Christmas (Feliz Natal)!

Zimbabwe

Last weekend I got a chance to go to Zimbabwe with three friends. What an experience! The Zimbabwe border is only an hour and a half west of us, but it is a totally different world. It is currently a country in crisis. Their economy is plummeting downwards, and the people are suffering. One US dollar is now worth ten million Zimbabwean dollars- this is since they cut ten zeros off the end of their currency a few months ago. Driving through town, we saw crowds of people standing beside banks- trying to take out money- money that is worth more in the morning than in the evening. People there are literally getting poorer by the minute.

Zimbabwe is a beautiful country- once the “breadbasket of Africa”, but now on the verge of collapse. Carlos is now helping to start home based care in Zimbabwe- striving to reach the thousands of children orphaned by this thing we call AIDS. It is hard to imagine that such a beautiful country is having such troubles.

We met a lovely couple who worked at the hotel that we stayed in. They had retired a few years ago but recently had to start working again. Because of the crazy inflation, and cutting ten zeros off the currency, their life savings is now worth about seventy cents. Less than a dollar. The schools are in danger of closing- teachers are no longer showing up to work because they aren’t being paid. The hospitals have no medication in them. We were told about a child who died because the hospital didn’t have Tylenol to give to get a fever down. Just staying alive is a huge challenge- thousands of people have to cross into Mozambique just to get food.

The country itself is beautiful- lovely rolling, green mountains, beautiful birds, exotic flowers and trees… we stayed up in the Vumba mountains in a lovely little lodge that had an amazing view and a fireplace (it was cool enough there to actually use it too). We drove to a very fancy hotel called “Leopard Rock” that used to entertain celebrities, and had a game park and a pro golf course on it. It was empty. There were staff, but no guests. The restaurants were the same. Beautiful with excellent food, but we were the only ones there. We had the opportunity to ride horses in a game park. We actually rode right up to giraffes and zebras. It was very surreal. Please pray for Zimbabwe.

Here is a picture of Me, Brooke, Sarah and Dara half way up the mountain.

This is Dara in front of the giraffe (she's on a horse).

Here is a picture of Dara and me at the restaurant- our bill was over 50 million Zim dollars

needs...

We were driving with Carlos and Pascua the other night when Carlos got a phone call- it was from the chief of one of the communities that Rubatano does Home Based Care in. Over the phone, Carlos learned about a child that just become an orphan. The child’s father had died years ago, and the mother had just died the previous day. The grandmother had taken the child and gone looking for help. She had no money, and no food. Carlos drove to Rubatano’s main center and got some maize, beans and salt for them- the last food parcel that the center had, and we drove to meet the grandmother. When we arrived it was already late- out of the darkness walked an old woman carrying a small child on her back. The grandmother had been traveling all day- trying to get help- desperate for help. She gratefully took the food which would last her for just a few weeks, and left with the child…

A couple of days ago a woman named Maria came to Carlos to ask for help for her neighbor… her neighbor is a girl who is about 13 years old. This girl is an orphan and lives with her two young uncles. Her uncles don’t want her. They are trying to sell her for money. Maria came to Carlos to see if he could help the girl somehow. Carlos and the volunteers are now trying to find a place for this girl to live. Maybe an old granny or a sick patient that she could help in exchange for a place to live. Rubatano will give her some food- an incentive for a family to take her in. Just imagine being this girl. Your parents are dead - the family you do have is trying to sell you…
These stories are not rare here. People come to Carlos and the volunteers almost every day with needs like these. AIDS is rampant here, and turning kids into orphans every day. Rubatano needs help caring for these children.

Currently, volunteers at Rubatano provide orphaned and vulnerable children like these with a monthly food parcel, assistance with education, and visit them at home twice a week. It is amazing to see the care and dedication of these volunteers. Most of the volunteers are very poor themselves- many with holes in their shoes and hungry kids of their own. As of January 2009, Rubatano no longer has money available to cover their operating costs. This is due to their two main government donors completing their commitments. It is now time for the church to step in- for us to help the church in Africa to take care of these little ones.

It is the goal of Rubatano and Hands at Work to provide each orphaned and vulnerable child (OVC) with basic health, education, and food security. This costs about 15USD per child/month. Currently Rubatano cares for almost 650 OVCs in the Gondola area (where I live), and over 400 in a new area called Nhamatonda. As Rubatano is expanding to four other new areas, hundreds more OVCs are being added to this these numbers.

I have been so impressed by what God is doing through Carlos and the volunteers at Rubatano, and I encourage you to be a part of it. If you want to donate to Rubatano, please let me know, and I’ll send you more info about tax deductable donations. My email address is lauraeliason@hotmail.com

"Defend the cause of the weak and fatherless; maintain the rights of the poor and oppressed." Psalm 82:3

another cake...

Here is one of the latest cakes that we’ve made… it’s a unicorn. We made it for our 15 year old friend Matthew- not sure why we picked a unicorn- just seemed like the thing to do…

fruit...

A few weeks ago, four of us girls went away to the beach for the weekend. Here is a picture of us- our friend Jess from the USA is here for a few months, then me, Dara, and Jenny from the Peace Corps (she’s leaving next week and we are very sad!).

Believe it or not, this is how cashew nuts grow! They looked like a joke fruit- like someone has hot-glue-gunned a plastic cashew on top of an apple, but they were real… The cashew nut is inside of a larger, harder shell, and grows on top of an apple-like fruit that has a pink, kind of sweet/kind of bitter flesh… who knew?? This is Jen and Jess with our new discovery.

One of the things we enjoy a lot here is all of the fruit… mangos are the fruit that we’ve been enjoying lately! When we went to the beach there were so many people selling mangos on the side of the road, that we got a bit carried away… here is Jess buying us mangos- she bought eighty (80) mangos for eighty (80) cents! They tasted so good! Jess later developed an allergic reaction from all of the mangos she ate- swollen eyes and sores on her lips- I think she learned a valuable lesson that weekend…

a few pictures...

Pascua, Carlos’ wife, cooks all of her meals outside on a charcoal stove. She’s mastered baking carrot cake on this stove-something one of the last western girls showed her how to cook. This is a picture of me teaching Pascua how to make ‘no bake chocolate cookies’. We had a great time… Carlos loves the cookies and calls them “his heart”.

We have a lot of fun hanging out with Carlos and his family. This is his baby, Jessie. She was born in the same month that my nephew Mason was, so I have a fun time watching her grow and thinking of Mason. Here she is taking a bath on their patio… so cute.

Have I mentioned that there are a lot of bugs here? We’ve learned to cohabitate quite nicely with the spiders - it’s the cockroaches that I have not learned to love yet. When we first moved into the house we saw giant spiders like this on the walls, and were told, “oh, those are ‘crack spiders’ we don’t kill those”. So, Dara and I never really questioned why we don’t kill them, but we’ve gone along with it….

tv show

A couple months ago a film crew was here to film the work that Hands at Work/Rubatano is doing in Mozambique. This Sunday (the 19th) the program will be shown on the "Living Truth" Ministries program. You can look at their website for the time and channels that it will be shown:

http://www.livingtruth.ca/.

It is a great way for everyone to see where I work, and the people that I get to work with. There is a chance I might be on it as well (possibly not though as I had a little spot on the South African Living Truth episode that was shown last week).

I hope everyone will get a chance to watch it!

Vovo

“Vovo” is the Mozambican term for Grandmother. Vovos are holding this country together. AIDS is devastating Mozambique and many other African countries. It is wiping out a generation of mothers and fathers, and aunts and uncles, and is leaving thousands and thousands of orphans. Every day in Africa 6000 kids are orphaned- that is 180,000 every month. Can you imagine? In Zambia, where I was last month, 23% of the children are orphans. It is usually the Grandmothers who take in these children. It is heartbreaking to see these old women, baby on back, walking miles and miles to carry firewood, fetch water, or work in the fields.

A couple months ago our friend Lynn from Hands at Work South Africa came to Mozambique on his way to Zimbabwe. While there, he met an old Vovo who was taking care of 17 kids. Some were her grandkids, and some were orphaned neighbor children. They were all living in one room- renting the other room of their house out to make some income. She was taking care of 17 kids in a country where it is extremely hard just to feed yourself.

The woman in this picture is a Vovo from one of the local communities. I love this picture. It shows the strength that these women have. Strong, stoic, and proud. We need to be helping these women and children.

Zambia...

For the last two weeks I have had the opportunity to help train 6 nurses in the country of Zambia. It was very interesting, and it was an honour to work with these seasoned nurses. The nurses work in remote villages running mobile clinics that take place in classrooms or sometimes even under trees. Mobile clinics provide medical care to people in communities that are that far away from hospitals. Two or three nurses will see up to 300 patients a day- can you imagine? We taught a two week course about HIV and childhood mortality- most childhood death are caused by preventable problems- dehydration, malnutrition, malaria, etc.

Most of our time was in the classroom, but we also got to take part in two mobile clinics. They were overwhelming! So many sick kids, women and babies. I got to spend some time with a midwife, and I learned so much from her (I would love to be a midwife some day). I was amazed by the simplicity of the instruments too- forget an electronic fetoscope! I was listening for the baby’s heart rate through a plastic tube- simple, effective and efficient- primary health care at its best.

One patient that I saw at the mobile clinic really broke my heart. She was a lovely little girl- 10 years old, although she looked much younger. She was too thin, had a rash and peeling skin, a cough and stomach problems. The nurse had her tested for HIV. She came back positive and it appeared that her disease was quite advanced. She was orphaned- her parents most likely dying of AIDS, and was living with her aunt and uncle. One of the nurses in our course, Helen, took special interest in the little girl. Helen will make sure that this little girl will get anti retroviral treatment, and that she will be visited twice a week by home based care. All I could do was pray for her.

It was good to see a home based care project in a different country (also part of Hands at Work). I was able to go out with a few of the volunteers and visit some patients and orphans. These volunteers are so inspiring. They have so little themselves, but they are going out into their own communities showing God’s love. They are dedicated. I am so glad that I have been able to meet them, and walk with them as they march on.

Dara and I are with Carlos and Pascua's kids here (Carlos is our boss). We get along great with the family and really enjoy spending time with them. Last week we had a dance party at their house with Carlos playing the accordian!

The lady in this picture in Inish- she's one of the volunteers that we go out with. This picture was taken way out in the bushes- we walked so far that day! There are lots of paths that go through the bushes with huts spaced out about 500 meters apart.

It's pretty common to see trucks like this on the road. Scary. There are constantly vehicles broken down on the side of the road. They are so hard on them here.

On Sunday I'll be flying to Zambia for two weeks. I'll be going with my American friend Jean Aimee who also works with Hands at Work, and lives in South Africa. We'll be doing some teaching to local nurses there about primary health care, HIV, AIDS, childhood diseases etc. I have no idea what Zambia will be like, so it'll be interesting. I'm anticipating it'll be hot.

a few pictures

Here I am with Santos- one of our favorite volunteers. He does a ton around Rubatano- lots of administrative work. He's so friendly- we love to work with him. He can speak about 4 words of English, but he told us that this is a "special" hat. We find it so funny because the sun shines right through the hole in the brim and into his eyes!

In this picture I'm with our good friend Jenny. She is working with the Peace Corps- she's so brave- she lives in a little house all alone in a village. We have lots of fun with her. I title this picture "Christmas come early". Dara got FIVE packages in one day! Don't worry though- she's really good at sharing and I got some mail last week, so I was just as excited as she was. We pulled a mattress into the living room (we don't have a couch), had tea and cake, and opened "presents". It was really fun.

This is me with one of the older girls on an orphan day. We're playing some sort of a hand game- I don't think either of us knew what hand game we were playing, but it was fun. Last weekend Rubatano had the first meeting for just the older orphan girls- aged 13 and up. The goal is to teach these girls a skill that they can support themselves and their younger siblings with. It's also to give them a chance to talk with each other about thier challenges and to hopefully prevent them from turning to men to fill their needs. The volunteers will teach the girls how to garden, cook little donuts to sell, and once we have sewing machines-how to sew. The first meeting went really well with around 60 girls showing up.

lesson 26- watch where you sit.

Well, I’ve still got a few things left to learn about Africa. This morning I got up early to take a walk, and found a nice, quiet place on the side of the dirt road to sit and think. As I was “sitting” and “thinking”, two nice Mozambican ladies came walking along the road. We greeted each other as they passed, but instead of the normal length “stare at the white girl”, they stopped and lingered. They were staring at me and pointing at where I was sitting. I stood up to talk to them and they asked me if I spoke Portuguese. A little I said. They rattled off a string of Portuguese- I missed most of it, but I did catch the key word- “cobra”. I was sitting right in the middle of two snake holes- about a foot from each hole. Needless to say I didn’t sit back down. After thanking them profusely I decided to walk a bit and watch where I sat next time…

Cakes...

We don't work all the time here... we make cakes too. Here are a couple that we've made for birthday parties. The one cake is supposed to be a monkey, but it turned out more like a rabid bear. This is our Irish friend, John, next to the "bear" on his 18th birthday. Tom is another good friend here- he's from England and has just turned 19... we hear that "theme cakes" are all the rage with the young kids these days...

a new home for Chico and his family

Here are Joao and Luisa- Chico's children in front of thier newly built house! The volunteers in Nhamatonda built it for Chico and his family after they saw what the family was living in (I have a picture of it in an old blog of mine).

servants

I am continually amazed, challenged and humbled by the volunteers that I work with. These people work so hard.

The man on the bicycle is a new patient named Louis that Rubatano took on last month. His elderly sister stopped us on the road and asked us to come help her brother. We walked about a kilometer into the bush and found him in a tiny little shack- his wife was gone at the time to her garden- it was about 10km away, and she would stay away from home for days at a time. On Wednesday three of the volunteers went to his house at 7:30 am and brought him to the road on their bicycle as he was too weak to walk. From there he was able to get to the hospital.

The two volunteers washing the kids are Inish and Adao- in this house there are three orphans that are being cared for by their grandmother. To wash an orphans feet- this is true religion.

To bring a sick, old man 1 km through the bushes at 7:30 am on your bicycle- this is true religion.

James 1:27- Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in thier distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

made for t.v.

The last week has been a very interesting one! We have had a film crew here from Toronto filming first in South Africa, and then in Mozambique. The People's Church in Toronto sent a film crew along with their head pastor, Pastor Charles Price, to film Hands at Work and Rubatano Home Based Care.
They will be doing three, one-hour specials about Hands at Work and will be airing it on their television show, "Living Truth", in the last three weeks in October. One show will feature South Africa (where I worked the first two months of my time in Africa), one in Mozambique, and one in Malowi. I may even make it on t.v. myself. They filmed me doing some homebased care visits and asked me a few interview questions.
You may notice in the picture of me with the stethoscope that I'm not actually listening to anyone's chest! I had listened to a woman's chest moments earlier, but they wanted me to do it again to get a close up of my face so I'm just pretending- looking deep in thought about what I'm listening to! In the group photo I am with a woman who is sick- probably with tuberculosis. The two men in the picture are Santos in the blue shirt, and Fransisco- two of our favorite volunteers. They had alot of fun being on camera as well.
I'm really excited about the shows, as now everyone back home will be able to see where I work, who I work with, and what I do!
The picture of the little girl was taken by Jayme Chotowitz on one of the filming days. We've had Jayme and Lynn stay with us for the past week, and have had a really great time catching up with them.
Lynn, Carlos, and George (head of Hands at Work) have all just returned from Zimbabwe this afternoon. They are planning on expanding Hands at Work into Zimbabwe and Carlos will be a huge part of it. Talk about a challenge! I am excited to hear about their experience as Dara and I will probably be playing a small part in it as well. Lynn just showed me a Zimbabwean money bill that was for 50 BILLION Zim dollars (their dollar used to be stonger than ours). When they went to Zimbabwe on the 21st a bottle of coke cost 100 Billion dollars- now, three days later a bottle of coke costs 400 billion dollars. Zimbabwe needs our prayers!

a picture from the last story...

This is Chico and his family next to their "house".

One of our favorite home care volunteers...

I've been trying and trying to add pictures, but with the slow internet here it hasn't cooperated until today. This is Adao teaching a little orphan how to multiply and divide using kernals of corn.