Memories of a Tete winter...

This is one of my favorite writings. I wrote it as I was packing to leave our African home for furlough. I come back to it often for the memories. It is a little long, but there is a lot to miss, I guess! Hope you enjoy! Mikael flies to Mozambique today for a conference and will be back in a couple of weeks. We appreciate your prayers!

• Bananas… green, but ripe. Scarred, but sweet. African bananas are half the size with 10 times the flavor.

• Baobabs… giant trees hung with velvety, mossy green pods and silvery smooth bark, leafless most of the year… they dot the landscape of Tete, ancient and immovable, storing precious water and survivors in the arid climate

• Beans… brown beans or pinto beans or red beans… weekly staple food stewed with tomato and onion and loads of garlic and a dash of curry and served with rice… Jakob’s favorite food… Katie’s second favorite… John likes everything. We will have them one more time before we go. At home there is so much variety that we forget about beans and rice!

• Birdsong… a hundred tiny voices and a flutter of wings in the trees around the yard. Long-tailed shrikes in the treetops, parakeet-like peach and green birds… the tiny blue and brown birds that cluster in the sand… the flock of 50 tiny yellow ones that rise from the bush as the car passes… weavers weaving nests… fledglings learning to fly…

• Blue sky… with sunshine for at least half of the day every day of the year!

• Bread… here we miss the variety we get at home, but we do get rolls baked over wood coals in clay ovens… when it is fresh, it is very nice!

• Capulanas… the African sarong that is used as a skirt, apron, baby sling, cape, tablecloth, or bedsheet... Bright colors and intricate patterns… I have about 6 and I will never use them where you are, but I might wish I could some days!

• Drums… distant and thrumming… they mean something to someone, but I don’t know how to distinguish the messages

• Fashion freedom… Rags to evening gowns, bare feet to high heels, people wear what they want or what they have. We ourselves are more free from prescribed fashion… matching colors? If it is clean, wear it! Decency is more valued than beauty.

• Geckos… wall art… alive… eating the menacing mosquitoes!

• Market… second-hand clothing -- designer stuff for a dollar – fruit and vegetables for a dime – shoes for everyone. If you are patient you can find it all.

• Massanica… shiny, nickel-sized leaves flutter on the willow-like branches of the thorn tree with Tete candy… size of a cherry with an apple texture, tart-sweet when green, but the brown ones are almost fermented… kids cluster below any branch they pass and collect the treasures of the season. MY kids leave them in their pockets and backpacks… they SMELL of massanicas… the sticky pits dig into my heel when they are dropped in the house… miss them? The kids will!

• Muliwo… greens… any kind… kale or collards, bean or pumpkin leaves, finely chopped cooked with tomato and onion and eaten with maize mush (Nshima). Vitamins, iron, fiber we aren’t suffering malnutrition!

• Matapa… OH, MATAPA! Muliwo in a coconut and ground peanut sauce… hard work, but sooooo good! It doesn’t look that nice or sound that great, but you would be surprised!

• Moonglow… under the full moon there is a silvery glow that turns the world monochrome… and most surprising are the stark shadows cast in this magical light!

• Mount Kalawera… dominating the horizon across the Zambeze River, crowned at night with a ring of white lights surrounding the communication tower on the top… They say there is a dragon sleeping in the mountain that sometimes growls, and if it ever comes out it will shake the mountain!

• Pedestrians… everywhere… always… every trip down the road we find something to smile about: the lady with her hands free and a single coke can balanced on her head… groups of children in the blue or green uniforms, carrying their books, thumbing a ride… the salesmen with an assortment of cloth or flip-flops or bras and underwear hanging from their arms… women with 20 liters of water poised on their heads never spilling a drop or walking tall under a load of firewood twice their size!

• Rooster calls… every morning in the city or not… there is always a neighbor with a noisy, early rooster

• Stars… the southern cross… the milky way in all its glory… an inky expanse of velvet lavishly studded with diamonds

• Sunrise… sunset… red glow on the horizon marking the passing of time… the silhouettes of baobabs and acacias reminding us we are in a land far away

• The Bridge… suspension bridge spanning the kilometer-wide river bounding the town of Tete. From a distance it gleams in the afternoon light… at night its beacons mark the way across the dark waters below.

• Tomatoes… always fresh tomatoes. Sometimes expensive, usually abundant, indispensable plum tomatoes every day, all year long.

• Zambeze River… shimmering turquoise or dull brown… smooth as glass or choppy with waves… skirting the town in a journey to the sea… crocodiles and hippos hidden in the depths… bathers and washer-women busy at the edge… “without water there is no love” is the theme of the city utility company… without the Zambeze, I don’t think I’d love Tete.

So there is my counting of the blessings in my world. I was struck as I realized that in the last line I wrote that I ‘love’ Tete. I thought about changing it and NOT loving Tete, but that wouldn’t be honest. There is love for this place where we have raised our kids and made friends. A place that isn’t really nice and pretty, but it is where we serve God and our neighbors. Nowhere is perfect. Tete has a few nearly perfect weeks every year… this week is one of them.

June 2007