News April

Greetings from us here in Mozambique!!

April - Homeschool conference!

This is already our sixth year of homeschooling! Definitely a good time to attend a homeschool conference and a good reminder what a privilege it is to homeschool our kids! About 12 families attended the conference and it was good to build stronger relationships with other homeschoolers and realise you are not alone!

Anchor education/SIM presented the course here in Lichinga. While the moms were learning new things and were again reminded of others, the children had a wonderful time playing with their friends for 4 full days! I also had our three boys tested to see how they were doing and if there were areas where we needed to work more on, but they all did really great! I am proud of them! The exams were even fun for them as they did it with their friends and the ladies who tested them made sure that they were never really stressed! J It was more stressful to me, the teacher, to see what I have taught them!!

To homeschool in your own country is nothing compared to homeschool here in a cross-cultural situation and so some of the sessions included - dealing with lots of transissions, dealing with the unique needs of Third culture kids (that’s the missionary kids!), parenting, etc! It was a wonderful week of recharging our “school” batteries!

Wild@heart!

While Belinda and the boys were at the homeschool conference, I (Alfred) visited a friend that stays about 1 ½ h drive from us further north. As Belinda had the car, our friend came to pick me up to go and help with a small project. To ease matters for him, I loaded my bike on his Land Rover and off we went! (yes there are Landies here that still actually go!)

The next day, instead of him driving me home, I jumped on my bike and started the 55km rocky road back home. I am by no means a fit bike rider and the terrain is really not good for riding any bike on, but I was ready for the challenge! Many Mozambicans only have bikes as transport and their bikes are far worse than mine! My language helper travels this road every second week and I wanted to find out how it will be and I also thought it would help me to identify more with the local people.

It is 11:00 and cloudy when I depart. All along the road I greet people friendly and receive friendly, though surprised reactions of the people which help me to keep going! After about 10km I left the third village and my encouragers behind. Now it is only me and my bike and the rocky road. Every now and again a motorbike passes me, but mostly I see no-one now and I’m getting really tired and hot as the sun also came out behind the clouds!! In 2 hours I reach the 35km mark – a small town where two friends live. I use the opportunity to rest while I visit with them – they were really surprised to see me and even more so when they looked for the car but only saw the bike!

After resting a bit, drinking some water and practising some Yao, I am on my way again! I still have 20km to go and certain areas were getting really painful to sit on!! ;) About 6km from home I visited another friend, who was so surprised to see me on my bike that he didn’t even offer me any water! (Tough guys don’t need water? J) Another pit stop at the Chefe do Posto (The local government official) and I was home in 4 ½ hours! I thank the Lord for a safe trip, but also in giving me a glimpse of the hard life that the people around us face daily! I also pray that it would help me in my relationships with the villagers!

Language learning:

My main “job” is to learn the local language. Yoa is not at all like Portugese or English! It is a very ancient complex Africa-language! Here and there I see some similarities in the Yao grammar that is the same as the Swazi grammar which I studied when working in SA. I am progressing well, but as I really need to speak very fluent, lots of hard work still lie ahead! Speaking about abstract things like religion uses mostly more complicated language! Here is a glimpse of some sentences for you!

J

English	Portugees	Yao
We have a big vegetable garden with many beds. There are lots of weeds. We have lots of carrots, tomatoes, onions, spinach and lettuce. We also sowed beans which sprouted. One pumpkin is ready, but the tomatoes are not growing well during the rainy season.	Nós temos uma orta grande com muitos canteiros. Há muitas folhas. Temos senorra, tomate, cebola, abobra, espinafre e alface. Também semeámos feijão que já germinou. Uma abobra já está pronta, mas os tomates não crescem bem no tempo chuvoso.	Uwe tukwete ditiimbe dyekuluungwa. Dyana mabeedi jejinji. Pana makoonde n’nope. Mutiimbe dyana senora, mpweteceela, anyesi, diwuungu, dipoonda ni alface. Sooni twapaandile mwbaanda. Mbwaanda jimisile. Diwuungu dimo dikumala, naambo mpweteceela ngasikola cenene ndaavi dyacuku.
Last month I visited a friend who lives on his field in the deep bush. We travelled together on our bicycles. It was very far and it rained. There was lots of mud. When we arrived we ate green mielies (corn). Afterwards we went for a walk to look at his crops. He has lots of corn and beans. I came back at 17:00 and was very tired.	No mês passado eu fui visitar um amigo que vive na machamba no mato. Fomos juntos de bicicleta. Foi muito longe e choveu. Havia muito matope. Quando chegámos, comemos masaroca. Daí fomos passear para conhecer a machamba dele. Tem muito milho e feijão. Eu voltei ás 17:00 e estava muito cansado.	Mwesi sicipatile wune nabiite kukwalola ajaango ku miguunda wawo. Twapiite umpepe pa njiinga. Nikweeta dice ni wuula janyile. Gaapadi matope n’nope. Pa twayiice, twadile yimaanga yiwisi. Pele twajerile-jerile kumaanya nguunda wawo. Akwete yimaanga yejinji ni mbwaanda syejinji. Nawurile ma 17:00 ni nabesile n’nope.

We hope to have learnt the language by middle 2013! Please pray us to progress well!!

Practical work in and around the house:

The building work has been finished now for quite some time, but we still have some work in and around the house that needs to be finished. We need to make some inside doors, some cupboards, make curtain railings, put up gutters, etc! Alfred usually works on these things on a Saturday and some afternoons during the week. At the end of the month we will have Colin with us again! He turned 70 last year and still serves the Lord with all he has – what an inspiration!! He is coming to help us build a new storeroom (which is sloping quite a bit now!) and a new guard house for our workers. We are very thankful for his help! Next week we will also have Claude here for a week. He is a SIM short-termer who will be giving computer classes to our workers and Alfred’s language helper – we pray that one day they will be able to help more with translation projects in the future Y church! He will also host a Floorball week for the older youth in our villages! Busy, busy!!

And on this high note….Greetings from the 5 of us!