A Selfish Prayer for Rain

We are currently in the rainy season here in Mozambique, or at least we should be. The rains have come some, as evidenced by washed out roads and the green weeds in our yard, however it hasn’t rained quite as much as it should. We therefore have been praying regularly for rain – the Mozambicans need it desperately so that their crops can grow. (Last year’s harvest wasn’t very plentiful due to the lack of rain and another year of poor harvest would cause great hardship). Anyway this past Sunday I found myself praying for rain yet again – this time perhaps with a bit of selfish motivation as well.

Before writing further however, let me back up and explain.

Last Tuesday afternoon the city water turned off. Now to a degree, this is a normal occurrence and not something to be concerned about; usually the water will turn back on in a matter of a few hours or at least the next day. (By my memory, the longest we’ve gone without city water was 36 hours and that was after a large storm destroyed one of the pumps.) When we first moved into our house we installed a water storage tank for times such as this - so that when the city water went out we would still have quite a bit in wait. It’s also at these times that we move into conserve mode – to make sure we aren’t wasting any water.

Unfortunately our yard-worker had just transplanted several bushes and clumps of grass and needed to water them a bit. Okay, we let him use some tank water and that night we took bucket baths in accordance with the situation.

On Wednesday I reminded Rabia, our house-help, not to mop the floors as the water still had not come back on and we wanted to remain in conserve mode. Despite our conservation, the reserve tank of water ran dry so Rabia grabbed a couple large buckets and went to draw water from a nearby well. (Actually we have a well also, but it ran dry last July and the rains haven’t been sufficient to fill it). That evening about 5 pm the water came on. Yeah – I quickly did 3 small loads of laundry (washers here are at least ½ the size of what is common in the States) before we took the kids over to a friend’s house so we could have a date night. For our date we came home to take nice showers before sitting down to eat and watch a video. I wasn’t too worried about doing more laundry – the water was back on and who wants to ruin a rare datenight by doing household chores?

Thursday morning I got up all prepared to do laundry only to discover the water was off again! Ugh. At least our tank had been able to fill some so we had water for bucket baths and doing the dishes. Rabia came into work and immediately went to draw a couple buckets of water as well.

We managed to make it through that day as well as Friday. By Friday evening the water still had not come back on so we switched to ultra-conserve mode, thinking that if it wasn’t on by that night we’d be out the entire weekend! Washrag baths replaced bucket baths, at least for a few of us!

On Saturday morning I did manage to run to a friend’s house and do a couple loads of laundry (they live in another area of town and their water wasn’t off). Late that afternoon we had a team meeting and hurried to get into the car as it had just begun to rain. As we pulled up at our teammates’ house we had to laugh, for there was Shawn running around the yard with buckets in hand and Jacob and Jaynie had lined an entire row of buckets and containers under the edge of their roof to catch the falling water. What a great idea! (I decided one could tell we haven’t been on field very long since the idea never occurred to us on our own). Dan quickly drove back home to put our own buckets out under the gutters. How excited we were to come back from our meeting that evening to discover that we’d amassed 2 huge buckets full (probably 20+ gallons each) and one smaller bucket. We now had water to bucket bathe again!!! Our guards were happy as we didn’t have to send them to the well the next morning.

Now fast forward to Sunday afternoon. We still had one large bucket full of water but that was all. The clouds were gathering however and the air had cooled. It was in this circumstance that I found myself praying for more rain. Yes, the rain was needed for the ground, but probably my greatest motivation was that I wanted to fill up the buckets again! How excited I was when it did start to rain (despite the selfishness in my prayer). I managed to get all the buckets set in place and then called Karunia outside. Why? To wash her hair of course!! She wasn’t so excited when she felt how cold the rain was, but we managed none to the less to wash each of our hair! I tried to get the boys outside as well, but they weren’t sure about things and then Esperansa woke up so I didn’t push the matter (washing their hair doesn’t take near as much water). By the rain’s end I’d filled the same 2 large buckets plus another very large tub, a 10 gallon bucket and a 5 gallon bucket! Yeah – plenty of water!

To end this tale – the water turned on Monday mid-morning with more pressure than we’ve had in a long time. Perhaps they’ve fixed whatever problem there was. We each managed to take real baths and I managed to run about 7 loads of laundry (had to stop at that point as there was no more room left on the lines outside or inside).

It’s now Tuesday. The water is thankfully still running, however the electricity just went out! :-)

Where and How We Live

Nampula, the city we live in, in northern Mozambique, has a population of 600,000 - though that can't at all compare to a city in the States with 600,000 people.

Our house is fairly large – probably the biggest we’ve ever been in. Walls are made of brick and cement, we have a cement floor, and a tin roof. Inside we have a false ceiling in some rooms, but in other rooms we can look up to see the tin roof sheets. The main house is 3 bedrooms with a dining room area, kitchen, bathroom, small corridor which we've made into a sitting room, and an office area/living room. I couldn't tell you the square feet/meters however. Then we have an attached, separate house that has a small sitting room and 2 lg rooms and a bathroom. The one lg room we have set up to be a guest room for any visitors from the States (hint-hint) or other missionaries traveling through town or nationals that come in from the bush. The 2nd large room I've set up as the school room though if we had visitors that needed to stay in there as well they could.

We have many modern conveniences, though not all. We do have electricity in the house - though we're on phases and sometimes one 1/2 of the power will be working (certain lights and certain outlets throughout the house) and the other not. Also all the electricity goes out on a fairly regular basis - sometimes for long periods, though mostly for just a bit at a time.

We have running water, though we installed a storage tank soon after moving in b/c the city water is often out and we'd have nothing. The tank reserve is usually sufficient; if the city water goes off - we then draw from the tank, however if the city water is off for a long period of time then sometimes the tank goes dry as well. We do have a well to draw water from as well, in theory at least; the well went dry last July and it hasn’t rained enough yet to fill. When desperate we can usually take a bucket (or send a worker with a bucket) to draw water from other wells around which aren’t dry.

Now also with the water - it's not always very clean. Sometimes when I see the water in the washer with the clothes I can't believe how dirty our clothes were and then as I fill the tub without clothes I realize the water wasn't starting out clear to begin with, but was very yellow by itself! To drink water we first have to boil it and then filter it (though we're ordering some filters from the States which will kill/remove the bacteria and microns and such so we can stop boiling it once those arrive).

We do have a microwave and other kitchen appliances, a hot water heater and fans - though no air conditioning. We have a tv which we use strictly with a VCR or DVD player. There’s only one national channel which we can’t pick up very well and we don’t want to pay for satellite.

There were no land line phones available when we moved in as all the circuits for this area were already filled. The phone company informed us they weren’t adding any more circuits either, but they then began a program using fixed cellular phones so we have one of those. They work like a cell phone in most respects but are paid for like a land line (though all land lines here pay by the pulse that you’re using the phone). We could take our house phone around the city with us if we wanted, though unlike a normal cell phone we can’t take it out of the city.

Finally, we have a huge yard filled with various fruit trees (papaya, mango, banana, custard apple and guava), bamboo plants, a passion fruit vine and pineapple plants. We’ve also planted a garden so we’ll see how things grow. The kids love playing outside in the dirt and sand and on their swing set!