Once we arrived in Bunda we each got on the back of a pikipiki (a motorbike) – which was a lot of fun and a great way to travel- and went first to the local clinic. Each month Malucha goes to the clinic to pay, on behalf of Mavuno, any medical bills that the children have incurred during the month. Once the bills had been paid it was off to the first family house, again on the back of a pikipiki.
When we arrived we were greeted very warmly by Lucia (aka Mama-Richard), shortly joined by her husband Pastor Jeremiah Motomoto – fantastic surname! They have 3 of their own children, another child who they care for after Jeremiah’s brother died, and 3 Mavuno children. They are a lovely family and made us feel incredibly welcomed. By African village standards they seemed to have a fairly large house. The living room was full of armchairs with many photos on the walls together with calendars, a very big picture of Mary and Jesus and a large number of Christmas-type decorations hanging from the ceiling. It was definitely a very colourful and cheery place! Pastor Jeremiah spoke fairly good English and so we spent quite a bit of time talking to him and learning more about the problems and challenges that he as a pastor faces.
As we had to wait until the second family we were due to visit had got home we ended up staying a little longer than intended at the Motomoto house. So long in fact, that I got called out to help cook the rice! At first I hadn’t realised that I was helping cook lunch for us, I thought I was just being taught how to cook rice, the African way (which is actually fairly different from the English way!). It was good fun helping out, and I definitely proved to be a source of entertainment for the kids!
Lucy Cooking Rice
Lunch was served to us (at around 2:30, after having arrived at theirs around 11ish) and consisted of rice and meat, together with a bottle of soda each. We found out later that this was an extremely special lunch which they had treated us to as their visitors. Hitesh was told the next day that this is the sort of lunch you’d be given if you were going to meet your future Father-in-Law for the first time!
The next 2 families we visited ended up being very short visits indeed as we had to ensure we got the bus back home before it got dark. It was good to meet some of the kids though and to see the families that they are living with. All the families made us feel very welcome and it was such a privilege to be invited into their homes and meet them. We ended up catching the bus from Bunda at around 5, although this time it was a bigger and much quicker bus. We finally got back to Lugaye (the village closest to Kitongo on the main road) around 6:30 and after waiting around for a pikipiki Hitesh and I both squeezed on the back of one, back to Mavuno. It was a beautiful evening and was such a nice way to travel home… although it probably was more comfortable for me than Hitesh as I think he was kind of having to hold me onto the bike!
Esther was very excited to see us when we got to the Helsbys which was lovely to come back to… although I think we had missed her probably more than she missed us!
On Wednesday afternoon we had the kids Bible Club at the Helsbys, as usual. I managed to get some video footage this time of all the kids singing, see below. They were in good voice this week and there were a fair amount of kids there as it’s currently the Easter school holidays.
Kids Club
Hitesh didn’t have to work on Good Friday and so we ended up having a very chilled out day. Esther slept til 9:00… which was fantastic as so did we. We went over to the Helsby’s to pick up our weekly shop and catch up with them a bit. Then we went for a very, very short walk as a heavy storm was approaching. It was great to watch it coming towards us and then to run home as it started to rain – which Esther loved!
Saturday was a lovely day! We had a very chilled out morning reading and then I made us a bit of a packed lunch before the 3 of us headed off to explore our local area. Just behind our house there is a fantastic place to walk which we had kind of missed and not explored. The walk kind of runs in a ‘valley’ between two kopjes (big ‘hills’ of granite). It was pretty hot so we walked for a bit, then found some rocks to sit on and eat lunch. We then decided to climb one of the kopjes, which was harder work than we imagined, particularly as Hitesh was carrying Esther on his back the whole time. The view though was fantastic and well worth it! We then followed the ‘cowherders’ footpath down, which was a lot less steep a gradient (we had been trying to work our how the cows got up the Kopjes!)
Lunch Stop
View from the top
Later in the afternoon I heard the choir practising again and so went to watch. They had a keyboard this time together with 2 large amps powered by a generator stored between two large piles of grass! They were practising for their Easter service. There were more of them than usual and as soon as they say me they welcomed me in and one of the older ladies insisted I sat on her chair whilst she went and got another one. I filmed a few of their songs, partly because I love listening to them and wanted a record of it, and also partly because we had promised the choir leader last time that we would get some footage of them singing when they next had the keyboard there. We will post some clips of the singing later in the week.
Easter Sunday was definitely an experience! The Baptist church that the Helsby’s usually go to joined with 2 ‘sister’ churches to celebrate Easter. This, apparently, is fairly common and is often done on Easter and Christmas. This meant that the church service was in a different building, a very long way off the main road about 30 mins along a pretty pot-holed and bumpy dirt track. We arrived a bit late (which is culturally acceptable!) and the service had already started. We got there about 11:45am to find the whole church singing, which was very cool. There were probably around 500 people there, all singing together! The singing was then followed by about 45 mins of choir singing (with one choir from each of the 3 churches singing for about 15 mins each)! However, the singing was awesome! There was then some very impressive memory verses recited by the kids from the Helsby’s church. The kids were probably between 5 and 8 years old and managed to recite various verses from the bible for about 15 mins! After this there was a bit more singing and then the sermon. This meant that the church service itself didn’t finish until about 1:45 pm. We knew that lunch was to be served after the service and to be honest we were getting a bit hungry! However, after the service there were a whole series of baptisms. The baptisms were cool, including a few old ladies who were probably in their 60/70s. Apparently baptisms only take place about twice a year because getting hold of enough water to fill up the baptistery pool is such hard work. The baptisms lasted for about an hour! Esther, by this point, was becoming a little bit moody and was not a happy bunny. However, after a little more singing from the choir it was time to eat. We could not believe the size of portions that were given out to each and every one of the 500 people who had gathered there. There was a mountain of rice and some meat. For those of you who know us well, you’ll know that we eat a lot. But I couldn’t finish my portion and Hitesh struggled to finish his. The rice was served with what must have been a least a couple of cow’s worth of meat and beans. We couldn’t get over how much food there was. Easter day is such a big event over here that they seem to go all out to celebrate. However, I guess it must be remembered that this may well have been people’s only meal of the day. They would not go home to eat more, and from talking to locals here, most people don’t have breakfast either.
Easter Service
Easter Baptisms
Once food was over people began to go their separate ways. A truck came to pick up those from ‘our’ church. And it was quite literally a truck, see below! We then headed home. It had been a very long day but I’m so glad we did it as it was great to experience Easter in a completely different culture. It was quite all in all quite a humbling experience.
The "Coach" from Our Church (the words on the back say 'God Help Us' - indeed!)
Hitesh – Lucy’s already mentioned what we did at the beginning and end of the week. But during the middle of the week it was business as usual with the work at Mavuno. I spent Tuesday and Thursday working on the shelves for the store room for the first family house. I went well and I got them finished on Thursday afternoon. However on Wednesday, we were able to carry on with and finish pouring and casting the concrete slab to staff house 1. The ladies had been busy at the beginning of the week bashing stones to make more gravel! Below is a video clip of the concrete mixing and pouring. If you’re an engineer, or just like watching paint dry, you’ll find it interesting! ;-) I was helping place the concrete – working with the guy in the red top seen in the background. It was a hard day’s work, but we got a lot done.
Concreting
I’ve really enjoyed this week. I’m definitely feeling more settled here in our home. I’m beginning to get to know the locals, and am finding myself relaxing more and more. Though it’s a shame that we’ve only got another 3 weeks left here at Mavuno. I’ve especially enjoyed visiting the off-campus kids, and being welcomed into an African home. Plus the Easter celebrations today were great to witness and be a part of. Easter is big out here, and so it should be as Easter Sunday is the biggest day in the Christian calendar. It’s worth celebrating that we are forgiven and free “in Christ”, our relationship with God has been restored and we are God’s children. Amen.
Esther – I have had fun this week doing more exploring. I really enjoyed the walks I did with Mummy and Daddy, and liked playing with the water outside our house when the big storm happened.
Esther Watching the Rain Storm
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