The Chronicles of Janie

0400: We pick up the two that I will, at some point further down the road, begin mentally referring to as 'our Brazilians'. Sleepy goodbyes and kisses and Pedro telling too-loud stories in the front seat. We drive away into the dark. Exhausted, I settle in for what I hope will be a full day of catching up on lost sleep. - Sunrise over the scrublands. I open bleary eyes just long enough to drink it in, to admire the fact that Jon's music provides a nearly-perfect soundtrack, to savor that familiar, cozy sentiment of car travel. Then I give in to exhaustion once more. Silence, save for the road hum and the lilting of orchestral songs. A car full of somnolent peace. The 'good' road goes the way of all things. We lose not one, but two tires. We crack out the capulanas and the boiled eggs and wait for help to come. We amuse ourselves by politely greeting all of the people who walk by, staring doubtfully at us, and by watching the grou...

I sit here and watch the storm coming. Dark clouds gather above the dancing swallows. Tree leaves quiver in anticipation. Thunder rumbles distantly. Rain, here, is a sign of death: Houses flooding and rice crops washing away. Mud walls caving and killing people, and the persistent worry of a cholera outbreak. But it's also a sign of hope: Relief from droughts, a welcome respite from scorching heat. Water in dried-up riverbeds and wells. I sit here, and watch the falling drops splatter against the concrete, and I think about death and hope. Two such separate things, so closely linked in this, the place of extremes, where most of life seems to be either wonderful or terrible and there often isn't much in the way of a middle ground. I live in the midst of this seeming paradox.   In the space of a single day, I'll go from sipping cappuccino at a high-end café to walking the filthy pathways that thread between small houses with no electricity, no pl...

Just a random stock photo, because I'm too chicken to take a bunch of obvious photos when everyone's watching me March 8, 2017 I think I accidentally barged into men's hour. There are tables full of men - Somalis, Indians, Portuguese, Mozambican - and a group of them messing about with the ATM. Presumably they are restocking it (some are in uniform and the rest are looking impressive). There are two other women here, but they are with men... Oh well, accidentally turning up in 'men only' groups is one of my specialties. The original plan was to go to Riviera and pretend to be a character from Casablanca, but I was tired and footsore after hunting for a pair of shoes for Dino's wedding, so I succumbed, instead, to the nearest AC/bathroom combo. So here I am. The proprietor seems to be mostly toothless in front, and consequently, unintelligible. Well, to be fair, part of the problem is the absence of teeth and the other part if the presence of ...

Another unrelated image. But Mozambican rainstorms make for the best sunsets. Journal entry: January 24, 2017 When the water actually works properly, I aproveito to the hilt. Wash the hair! Wash the laundry! Wash everything! It began as a generic, zona -wide water shortage, which translates to practically non-existent water pressure in our fourth-floor apartment (or no water at all and having to dip into the reserve buckets). Then it escalated to our pump going out right before Christmas. No sooner did the new pump, after much trial and error and return visits from Sergio and Jorge, become fully functional, than the faucet in the tub broke off. So now the water supply to half of the bathroom is shut off to avoid having a mini fountain in our bathtub. Because, as posh as a mini fountain sounds, it isn’t terribly convenient. Fortunately, the mysterious workings of the Mozambican plumbing systems were in our favor this time around, and even though the tub faucet...

Here's a nice view that has nothing to do with the post. Enjoy! For me, in Mozambique, the unsettling thing isn’t the heat, or the dust, or the water outtages or the public transportation, or the weird food shortages (one time, the entire city ran out of eggs). It’s the fact that I am constantly under observation.  Sometimes the observation is hilarious. A few days ago, I unwittingly provided free advertising for a chappa by the simple act of getting into it. The coprador started yelling, “this is a great chappa ! Even the white girl’s using it! Everybody, get on! What are you waiting for?” and I really felt like I should print some stickers, WHITE GIRL APPROVED, for them to affix to the bumper. Sometimes, it’s disturbing. Like the creepy guy who knew exactly where I lived and kept following me around asking for my phone number so that he could be my boyfriend.  And sometimes it’s gratifying. Like the time I (completely unintentionally) blasted a ton ...

What do you do when you're sitting in the back of the car for hours and hours and hours? You start playing with your phone. And you film some random stuff. And then you make a video.

As so often happens here in Mozambique, I found myself seated in a shop, waiting for someone to show up so that I could ask about buying something. And, as also happens more often than not, I fell into conversation with the store owner, in this case, a Muslim guy from India. We started talking about our respective home countries, and what it's like to live in Mozambique, and then he commented on how well I speak Portuguese.  "Oh, thanks!"  And then I started in on the story about how I'd prayed to learn Portuguese when I first arrived, and how God had sent me my friend, Fifi, who didn't speak any English at the time, and that was how I'd started learning. And there I was, chatting to a Muslim guy about my faith. Jesus with Mary & Martha; African artist, unknown I was part of a Baptist church for a number of years, so I've been to  all  of the trainings about  all  of the evangelistic methods. I rea...

One day, God asked me, Are you willing to work for justice for others, even if it means that you are treated unjustly? It was one more step on a path I've been walking for a very long time; the path of total surrender to God. It's fairly easy to say, "here I am, God, send me." But it can be terribly hard to let go of the individual things that your humanity holds dear. So God asks me, from time to time, "Are you willing to let go of that? What about that? Can you trust me in this situation?"  There are many things I've fought to hold on to for a long, long time - friends, safety, dignity - but when I let them go at God's request, it's always such a relief. The more I learn to stop fighting for myself, the more I get to see God fighting for me. And He's a much better fighter than I'll ever be. Aslan & Lucy concept art | Justin Sweet Living as a foreigner in Mozambique is never dull. At it's best, ...

I originally joined the media team as a photographer.  And then I learned how to shoot and edit video, and how to arrange cables and projectors and slide shows, and the whole photography thing kind of got left behind in the dust kicked up by more important concerns.  When I got asked to go to the special women's service to shoot photos, I actually stared blankly at the camera for a couple seconds, trying to remember what all those buttons do. It'd been a while. I think it's good for a person to quit doing familiar things in order to learn something new, or to leave behind the things one likes to do in favor of doing what needs to be done. But it's also nice to go back every once in awhile and remind yourself of the reason why you love the things you do.  As I wandered around the church, jostling for good angles and better lighting, trying to capture the spirit and the atmosphere, I could almost feel my soul letting out a huge sigh of relief. Ahh,...

The experience of being thrown into another culture was once described to me as, effectively, attempting to sit down at an ongoing card game and begin playing with no prior knowledge of the rules. I think that about sums it up. It is incredibly awkward. The only thing that can really keep you going is - as Trey, the guy who used to sit behind me in church was fond of shouting - 'grace! Grace! GRACE!' I don't really need to say any more than what I've already said about the difficulties of learning how to live in Mozambique. Pretty much everything, from  initial culture fatigue , to  language   barriers  (two posts, there. Yikes!) to learning how to live with  friction , to constantly  standing out , to learning how to deal with  grief  has already been covered in probably needless detail. For here and now, let it be sufficient for me to say that I thank God for the extreme clarity with which he called me to Mozambique, because if I ha...

After being ignored one too many times, I finally felt the need (and had the opportunity) to have it out with him. Me: Nelito! Why don't you answer your phone? Nelito: You never called me. Me: But I did! I called you just now. Here, I'll call you again. We spend a few seconds of silence, eyes fixed on his phone. It doesn't ring. Nelito (examining my caller history) : That's not my number. I begin to laugh as realization dawns.  I have been sending texts to this number for upwards of three months. 'Won't make it to church today.' 'Where's the camera charger?' 'Where are the video clips?' 'Where are you ?' 'My chappa has been sitting in traffic for 20 minutes. I'm going to be late today.' And because I've always been able to get the information I've needed from him vicariously through other media team members, and also because Nelito is a legendary ignorer of phones, I never had...

Jon and Dino and Camacho were having a sciency conversation about geology and engineering and global warming and I know not what, and I was sitting on the fringes because I'm not terribly knowledgeable about these things, especially in Portuguese.  But then Jon mentioned a case of spontaneous combustion in India... That was my launch pad. "Oh yeah." I chimed in. "That thing of...how do you say 'spontaneous combustion' in Portuguese?...used to happen sometimes in England in the 1800's. It was because of the amount of gasses and other combustive substances in the environment and..." I looked up to see that all three of them were staring at me. Not eating their chicken. Not paying attention to Jariel. Just staring directly at me. Dino and Camacho didn't even seem to be blinking.  I don't think I've ever had that much undivided attention in my whole life, and it occurred to me that maybe I was blowing a couple mental circuit...

Some chap named Ted Grant said:  'When you photograph people in color, you photograph their clothes. But when you photograph people in black and white, you photograph their souls.' And since the people I've had the privilege of photographing over the past couple of days have beautiful souls, I thought I'd just share a handful of favorite black and white shots.

So Beira isn't the world's safest place to be out in after dark, and if I'm doing something at the church late at night, without Jon and Carla, my entire circle of acquaintances take it upon themselves to ensure that I make it home in one piece. It's like having a bunch of Portuguese-speaking older siblings.  Anyway, I was at church by myself tonight, shooting photos for the youth service. Afterward, all the siblingry began... Toninho: Do you have a ride home? Me: Yeah, I'm going to ask the Wilcoxes. Toninho *calls one of the Wilcoxes over*: Elias, can you take her home? Elias agrees, and Toninho and I have a conversation about violin lessons, which is always entertaining because Toninho invariably speaks English to me until he hits a linguistic roadblock, when he just sort-of fades back into Portuguese. When we conclude our conversation... Toninho: Okay, Elias. She's ready to go now. Elias, deep in a conversation, acknowledges briefly an...

The * coprador  bent at the waist, hovering precariously above the heads of his passengers, and I noticed that the worn spot on the back of his hat corresponded exactly with the worn spot in the fabric covering of the chappa roof.  I wondered how many hours he had spent in that place. How many miles of rough road had swayed him back and forth, up and down, creating friction between those two layers of fabric? I could read stories in the tattered cloth, and they were a small part of the repeating story I see every day.  It's the story of lined faces and bent backs. Worn-out shoes and pot-holed highways. Patches and wrinkles and fades. The process of living here creates a lot of friction. Surface appeal is quickly worn down; true character speedily revealed. I think the tailor realized this when he told me about his sewing machine; an antique Singer perched precariously on a stool in his tiny store. "It was given to my grandmother as a wedding pres...

I'm not sure that it's possible to understand the full import of Biblical footwashing until you've walked around Beira in flip-flops. There is dust everywhere. There is garbage everywhere. And those aren't even the really nasty things. Add to that the fact that sweat makes all of the dirt stick to your skin, and you're no longer surprised to find that it's fairly normal for a person to take several baths a day. As I stood in the shower, watching the brown water swirl around my toes, I marveled at the fact that, if Jesus were here, He would be washing my dirty, stinky feet. He'd be down on the floor with His basin and towel, and I, like Peter, would say, "No, Lord! That's no job for You to do! I'm too dirty." "If I do not wash you, then you have no part with Me." -John 13:8 God doesn't look down from Heaven and see us wallowing in our sin and say, "Well, they blew it. Time for plan B." Nor does He c...