Pemba

After what felt like a full vacation in itself.  We hoped a plane from Maputo to Pemba.  What an amazing example of God's variation in his creation just a few hundred miles away.  It did feel sort of like a 180 to go from the savanna grasslands of Kruger to this tropical paradise

Flying into Pemba

Larry and I exploring the beach in front of Bekki and Alan's House

And into a third-world country

Bekki and Alan live in a beautiful home right on the ocean.  It was so comfortable to stay and we woke up every morning starring at the sunrises.  The sun gets up very early in Pemba, which demands that you get up as well and soak up every last bit of potential the day has in it.  I loved that about Pemba.  Contrary to many "tropical" environments, the Pemba mindset isn't exactly one of leisure.  Everyone is busy.  As Larry would say, many, especially the locals, are "busy doing nothing," but very busy indeed!  There seems to be a gender difference and the degree of work one does in Mozambique.  Its hard not to notice.  You see women with babies strapped to their backs working in the garden or carrying firewood and water down the long roads.  You also see the tiniest of children taking care of infants, or walking down the roads carrying a cup on their heads like their mothers with a 10 gallon urn balanced unwavering. 

Very few men seem to work, or at least their jobs do not occupy a great deal of their day.  I became very interested in the "whys" of Mozambique.  It can be very confusing how different we seem.  Our "common sense" is not common to them.  For example, a timber business owner who employees a great deal of men for his business has difficulty keeping his employees during casava season.  They will, in essence, quit their jobs to go plant this traditional crop.  In their timber jobs they make 3 times in one month what they would selling this plant in 3 months!  One might think that it was something deeply rooted in tradition and culture, and that may be, but it is very hard to see this on the surface.  This may be due in part to the case of colonialism in which large numbers of people depended on the large plantations for employment.  When the Portugese left, so did the jobs.  Soon thereafter a great civil war ensued between the Frelimo and Renamo vying for control of independent Mozambique which forced many off their land and in attempts to be near clean water and safety.  Many settled along roadsides where they remain today.  Perhaps its not lack of initiative, but broken spirits.  The Mozambiqans, similar to other native populations are tribal.  Many tribal leaders were killed when the colonials settled and certainly any that got in the way of the civil war.  So the people were left without leaders and land.  The family dynamic was forever changed.

In a culture where the life expectancy is somewhere in the late 30s and people have been exposed to the atrocities of war for over a century, life must seem even more of a flash than we see it.  I don't want to go into the horror stories we heard about how this is evident for the people and animals of Mozambique.  Instead I ask you all to pray for these people, that they may know Christ like we do.  In attempts to make sense of these things, I know I'm trying to apply my own sensibilities, cultural patterns, and religious beliefs to gain understanding and this cannot be done. 

Change of gears here!  Back to our wonderful friends~
I think we all thought that Bekki was relaxing at the beach everyday while Alan was working.  Sipping cocktails and doing the occasional deworm, vaccination, etc.  Well boy were we wrong!!!  Bekki and her partner have a very demanding vet practice, without all the luxuries of "modern" medicine.  I am so impressed with Bekki and her doctor skills!  If you want to be further impressed check out her blog!

I'm so happy that Bekki and Alan have made so many friends there.  In fact, there are actually a great deal of ex-pats that are in the region for various regions.  One reason that Bekki is so busy, but selfishly the reason that there are SO many AWESOME restaurants.  Starfish - South African, the Indian place - absolutely divine, Russell's place - a fav for backpackers and really great pizza and although we didn't make them all it was incredible to get authentic Italian food from Il Pirata.  The scenery wasn't too shabby either!

I wish this was my back porch!

I think Larry is getting used to this vacation thing

Ok, maybe we both are =)

The closest Larry and I are ever going to get to a beach vacation

Il Pirata

While in Pemba we celebrated Alan's birthday....again ;-)

Larry got a coconut out of the Watts' tree

We ate well!

We went on a very expensive 8 hour tour of the Indian ocean.  We caught 1 wahoo, which the deckhand knocked off the line, but Larry touch the leader so apparently that counts.  We saw a sea turtle and enjoyed the beautiful day with friends

As I mentioned earlier Bekki and Alan have GREAT friends there in Pemba.  When someone throws a party or event it is a really big deal and EVERYONE comes.  We got to experience this first had through the Famous People party.  They celebrated everyone who had a birthday in November and had it at Russell's place.  There was one special performance by Bekki and her 4 dear friends which I got to help them prepare for nightly leading up to the big party.  These gals performed Beyonce's "All the Single Ladies" dance.  It was magnificent!

Tina Turner, Marilyn, Mulan, Nelly Furtado

Bekki and I were having so much fun, we sent the boys home to pack for our Luwire trip while we danced the night away.  I think I only slept 2 hours that night but it was worth it.  What a great night!

To be continued....

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

John 1:1



Where the Wild Things Are

Well, not that wild....

One of the great things about Kruger Park is that these magnificent creatures big and small are very used to cars.  People, not so much.  A quick peek out of your car window would incite quite a few turned heads.  Great for pictures, not so great for safety.  Animals or people.  However, at Kruger we were up close and personal with some of the most breathtaking scenery and animals in God's creation. 

We saw absolutely EVERYTHING there was to see.  The park rangers hand you a list of mammals, vegetation, birds, and reptiles to "tick" off as you see them in the park.  Well lets just say that the 2 days we were there we saw the "Big Five":  buffalo, rhino, lion, leopard, and elephant on both days, and just by driving out of the park we saw 4 out of the 5!

By then end of day 1 we had seen so many animals (and had enough wine) that it became a great game to "tick" off the various tree species in this South African paradise.  In fact, Larry once sang "mark it off the list" when we saw something new and this immediately became a theme of our trip where we would all sing when something new was spotted.  Whether it be a sea turtle or a man walking a goat, each experience was "on the list!"  Its possible we took great lengths to read the signs of what each species of tree or bush was while we were hauling tail to get to our campsite for the night, Skukuza, by park closing.  I'll let you use your imagination about what that looked like =).  We laughed a lot!

Bekki and Alan made sure our photo safari was first class by bringing a beautiful arrangement of meat, cheese, and wine!  None of which are easy to procure in Mozambique.

Here are some highlights of the aninmals we saw in Kruger.

The Big Five

We watched these two play fight and had to back the car up several times to keep from getting hit!

 Bekki's amazing photography.  She absolutely made me want my own SLR

Pride of female lions and their cubs at a zebra kill

This little guy had his fill of zebra....look at that belly!

Never was I so glad to be inside a vehicle.

We had a slight delay as a huge herd of these crossed the road.  Trust me, you do NOT rush them.

This was my first leopard sighting!  There was an impala kill in the tree.



Unfortunately all of our day 1 pictures were left in Africa due to a faulty memory stick.  I will post the highlights from those when we get them, but for now here are some more of my favorite kruger memories!

If it weren't for these guys we wouldn't have seen half the animal we did.  They are true hunters to the core!

 I can't believe how close this pride was.

 Wild Dog.  They don't stay still long, we were so amazingly blessed to see them. 

 

The suprisingly cute hyena

My favorite African animal!

The Kudu:  On Larry's bucket list of things to hunt

Elephants in the distance

We stayed the night in a camp in Skakuza in the middle of the park.  We were so exhuasted we couldn't keep our eyes open to watch the slide show of all the pictures we took. 

Some new breakfast items:  Rooibos tea with biscuits, long-life milk, and Larry and Alan's favorite "drinkin yogurt." 

It was hard to imagine that there could possibly be more to see and do on our African vacation, but sadly our time at Kruger came to an end.  As soon as the gates of camp opened we booked it back to Maputu to catch a flight to Bekki and Alan's home in Pemba.  We saw a cheetah on the way out, one of the only animals that had eluded us!

Little did we know we were on our way to paradise......Pemba!

To be continued................

Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.

Revelation 4:11



I Dream of Africa

Looking back on our recent trip to Africa, I am daunted by the task of somehow putting into words all of the amazing things we saw and experienced.  So if you bear with me I'm going to try to accomplish this a little at a time.

I'll never forget the night that Bekki told Sara and I that her and Alan were leaving the U.S.  We were at Sara's parents farm when Bekki dropped the bomb on us.  As happy as I was that she and Alan were FINALLY going to live in the same place I was so sorry to see her go.  The Lord has definitely worked in my life through Bekki.  She has taught me so much and inspired me in so many ways.  She is always encouraging me in my marriage, my walk with Christ, and my running workouts! 

Larry and I knew immediately that we were going to do anything we could to go visit them, so the dream of Africa began....

After a lot of planning and prayer the day finally came to travel 22 hours, 2 layovers, 3 security checks, 2 customs departments....in Africa....no sweat right????  Wrong!  I was sweating this one...big time.  One, Larry and I have been known to miss a flight or two, and with the way that the plane schedule is, a missed flight is an almost 3 day delay.  Two, life in Pemba doesn't provide for Netflix, taco seasoning, and many of the "conveniences" of life in the USA so Bekki's parents loaded us up with as much as we could carry over to their children.  We had precious cargo, plus a last minute surround sound entertainment system that can not be checked due to the pesky fact that anything of value seems to disappear at the Johannesburg airport.  Third, Bekki has an extremely busy vet practice and she was in need of some pharmaceutical support, so my mom scrambled to get as much medication and supplies and we were set. 

I think this was best summed up by my friend Marty, " I can see them now... so you're tellin me you're a PHARRRRmacist taking drrrrrugs to a veterinarian in AFFFrica.... oh sure, walk right through ma'am."

Lucky for us the security leaving the US is WAAAYYYY easier than coming back.  So although we got a few odd looks, when I referred to the medication in the South African customs office as "drugs" and for Bekki's bicycle tool, we made it through relatively unscathed.

So in the matter of a few days we went from here

to a final destination here

but first Bekki and Alan met is in Maputo, Mozambique for an extended layover to drive to Kruger National Park and we stayed in this gorgeous place

where we sat on the veranda, had a few cocktails and planned our trip to Kruger the next day.  It was here our African adventure began!

To be continued..............

I am a friend to all who fear you, to all who follow your precepts.
Psalm 119:63