Mozambique 2013 - A - Beira

Mozambique – a country with 24 million inhabitants. It gained its independence from Portugal in l975, but just after this a Civil War devastated the country, from l977 to 1992. Now it is a Republic. The only official language of Mozambique is Portuguese, which is spoken mostly as a second language by about half of the population beside native languages. The largest religion in Mozambique is Christianity (Catholicism), with significant minorities following Islam and African traditional religions.(Google)

I flew from Cape Town to Johannesburg and then to Beira on 29 July 2013.

Mr. Micas, the driver of Project Kuwangisana, and one of the TEE (Theological Education by Extension) students, Mateus, met me at the airport and they took me to the Hotel Moçambique.

Beira is the second largest city in Mozambique, after the capital Maputo. It lies in the central region of the country in Sofala Province.

Beira seems to be a nice city viewed from the 9^th floor of the hotel,

with several sky scrapers, a nice club with pool,

having the Indian Ocean as frame.

But when you walk on the streets, trash lays all over, and the traffic is chaotic.

The port brings lots of development to the city.

Mozambique 2013 - B - The Guesthouse

The day after we went to Sena, 500 km and a 9-hour drive on a terrible road. But we reached Sena safely and this house was waiting to host me during the next 10 days.It's the same house that hosted me two years ago.

Shadreck, the house keeper, was my helper to warm water, to wash the dishes, to buy bread and fruits (bananas and tangerines), mineral water and to clean the house.

Papaya trees guaranteed fresh papaya every morning.

The water pump was broken, unfortunately.

This house was the only brick house…

in the midst of a straw hut village in one end of Sena Village (Picture taken from my guesthouse). The students were hosted in a guesthouse in the other end of the village.

Some huts had electricity, others didn’t.

I could hear early in the morning the women crushing maize and millet in the mortar

Children all around, always coming to the gate to say Hallo.

As there was no running water, I had to have a wash in this basin. Shadreck brought me warm water every morning and every evening.  It's hard water. 

The house had a good lounge, that serve as my office as well.

a kitchen…

and three bedrooms.

Mozambique 2013 - C - The TEE Students

The students were waiting for me and we came together on the night of my arrival (Tuesday).

– The Director of Projct Kuwangisana, Mr. Gabriel Miandica, came to visit the students the day after.

I took some samples of the Mensageiro Luterano (Lutheran Witness, in Portuguese) to the students with reports about the TEE classes in 2012.

They became excited as they saw their pictures and names in the articles.

As reaction of the article written by Rev. Horst Kuchenbecker, who was in Sena last year for the TEE program, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Brazil decided to collect a special offering for the students.

They were very happy when I told them about the donation and asked them to make a list of their needs.

These are the students: Júlio Albano Castomo…

… and his family.

João Luis Nota…

…and his family.

Rui Jolene Sousa…

…and his family.

Ernesto Domingos Raposo…

…and his family in front of their house. 

Paulo Ernesto Mineses…

…and his family.

Jolinho Mineses Nhapigode…

…and his family.

Manuel Jone Jambo Macualo…

…and his family in front of their house.

Mateus Domingos Sifa…

…and his family in front of their house.

This is the fourth stage of the TEE program, sponsored by the Seminário Concórdia, São Leopoldo, Brazil. The local expenses (food, guestroom, hotel, transport) are sponsored by Kapasseni Project, Canada. My flights, visa and other expenses are sponsored by LCMS donors through LCMS World Mission. St. Thomas and FELSISA give me two weeks every year for this TEE program, according to a MOU signed by all the partners. 

We had the classes in this room, in the other guest house, where the students were hosted.

Mozambique 2013 - D - The TEE Venue

This was the kitchen of the guest house…

the toilet…

(I think that’s why the papaya tree grew so high…)

 I got fresh papayas several times here too.

Mrs. Branca (branca means: white) and her daughter were the cooks. 

All the food was prepared outside,

on this coal stove.

Mrs. Branca is a good cook…

and big pots were necessary to feed the eight students + me.

Mrs. Branca has a small garden,

from where she collected fresh leaves.

These are pumping leaves and flowers, which she prepared with crushed peanuts.

(A head of a goat on the roof of the kitchen…)

This is the way she was ironing her clothes…

…with a coal iron.

She has grandchildren…

…and one of them was always helping granny ,

…crushing some grains.

The train full of mineral coal passed two or three times a day from Tete to the port in Beira, making a big noise and we had to stop the classes for a while because of the noise.