Move out time has come… sort of.  We ‘moved out’ of the old Kedesh the 31^st of Oct.  The new tenants who are friends of ours wouldn’t be moving in till the first of Dec.  So as a favor we agreed to stay in the house for a couple more weeks.  Thieving is a huge problem here, if the house was left empty, the roof, sinks, toilets, even down to the electrical wires and tin roofing would be stolen in short order.  Since our friends couldn’t move in we stayed… and got robbed.  The thieves, boys of old, that were in Kedesh and kicked out for stealing, (Bebe, Carlitos brother and Suzi, for those of you who know boys from about 7 years ago) broke into the office more specifically the safe and got 250 USD, Dave and Jo’s Computer, movie camera, and web cam.  I lost my Mozambican Documents and some cash.  One of the workers, Joao Simao another boy from days gone by, was keeping his money in the safe and lost 50 USD.  I had been showing a movie on my computer the night before at the new property and didn’t bother returning my computer to the safe that night.  Laziness paid off for me. 

There had been talk going around that 3 ex boys were planning on robbing Kedesh so when it actually happened we knew exactly who to look for and where.  We realized we had been robbed about 6 am.  We went straight to the police… who told us to come back at 8:30.  After returning to the police station at 8:30, they just said write down what was taken and turn it in.  Even though being told who and where the thieves were no interest was taken they did not even bother to come to the house to even verify the break in.  Dave and I went to the work site of one of the boys (Lino) and he was willing to go with us to the police and tell what he knew.  He claimed he knew nothing of it and had no part of it. Bebe who was undoubtedly part of the robbery lives not too far from Kedesh and we went to the police station near his house and reported it to the police there.  They took Lino, who was trying to help us and put him in jail until he ‘turned in’ his partners.  When the police received the information that one of the thieves lived not 100 meters from the police station they wrote out an official piece of paper that this person was summoned to the police station. Joao Simao, (who was with us and helping us with all the run around) just 19 years old was told by the police to deliver the summons to this notorious thief’s house.  The wife received the document, called her husband and told him the police were looking for him and not to come home.  This guy has now fled to another village, we even know which it is.  The police said that if we had transport we could give them a ride up there to arrest him.  ‘Gee thanks! Hop on the handle bars of my bike!!’  I returned to the police station and paid my disrespects on how the situation had been handled.  The shift had changed at that point and time and I told the Police Chief in no uncertain terms my displeasure of the corruption and laziness of his department.  He very humbly accepted my tirade.  But then refused to even go to the house of the fugitive (just 100 meters away) and even talk to the wife, he simply said ‘she won’t tell us anything’.

I have been struggling with anger this week.

Mango season is upon us.  There are a lot of mixed feelings about mangos but basically they are pretty good and we enjoy them.  They are high in Vitamin K and I have been told that the volumes of Mangos that are eaten here (Mango trees are every where here!!! Probably the most common tree) give people enough vitamin K for the year.  The first draw back with mangos is Matequenha, the little flea like thing that seems to start it’s life on the mango flower then finds and burrows it’s way into your foot to lay its eggs, we’ve been there so I will just say they are abating.  At this point and time the mangos are just starting to get ripe.  That means there will be a group of people tossing rocks, sticks or mostly green mangos that have fallen off, to knock out of the tree that nice orange or red mango that teases everyone from 5 meters up at the tip of a branch.  Everywhere you look most everyone is sucking on a mango, literally.   The favored way of eating a mango is to beat the mango up against something and roll it around until it is pretty much juice inside it’s peel.  Then you bit off the tip and suck it out, like some spider sucking life out of it’s prey.  When people are done with the Mango they drop (not even toss to the side) its corpse right there where they are at not missing a stride nor a thought.  That brings on the next problem, squashed up sucked up mangos laying EVERYWHERE!  Flies have started appreciating the offerings to them, and multiplying.  I particularly hate it when I step on a mango and its remains squirt up between my toes, since the Matequenha have abated I have gone back to bare foot.  We all know the joke about slipping on the banana peel have you heard the one about the Mango pit?  They are a  tasty fruit with out a doubt and we do eat them pretty much non stop.  Because of fibrous nature of mangos for the next 3 months we walk around feeling the need for a good floss.  When you talk to people there is that thought always in the back of your mind ‘do I have orange strings between my teeth?’  Smiles sometimes take on the look of a beaded curtain from the 70’s.  Everyone say ‘hey!’ for vitamin K!!

The goats are great at this point in time.  If you really enjoy something REALLY stupid looking, imagine this.  All these mangos, eaten and not eaten, are laying all over everywhere… goats obsessively LOVE mangos.  With a knife or even the ‘suck the life out of it’ technique, mangos are messy and you need a good wash whenever you have had one.  Now picture this… no apposing thumb, well actually not even fingers!!  Pick up and eat a mango like you were dunking for apples!! In this game the goat eats the whole thing without help from bodily appendages.  So he bites down on the peel and throws his head back and forth, like a puppy with it’s toy.  The mango skin rips open-- the pit, still attached by a million little strings that didn’t get stuck between someone’s teeth, slaps the goat on one side of the face then the other, between the eyes, this ear that ear, between the horns, on the throat, like a pair of clackers gone out of control! (I think clackers was just an American mindlessness).  Have you ever seen a goat grinning orange mango juice ear to ear?  Just one clean spot right around the lips where his tongue was able clean himself!  Now that is happy!!!

The mango wars have started as well, this is just kind of a Kedesh thing that the Mozambicans will stop to watch.  Pick up said mango and chuck it at someone like a snowball!!  Right now you make sure you miss cuz they are pretty hard.  Next month we get ruthless.  The mangos will be falling out of the trees faster then the population (and goats) can eat them.  They are getting soft and when you chuck them they break apart in the air, mango going everywhere like someone turned on the juicer with out the lid.  We get some pretty grisly fights going. You thought the goats were a mess?

I don’t think anyone has died of fright… yet… but as the mangos start falling out of the trees (or someone throwing them) on to tin roofs it sounds like gun shots going off just above your head, everyone in the house jumps, shoulders coming up and heads down.  That gun shot begins the inevitable race between the boys and goats for the mango that just hit the ground.

Our Bamboo and mud huts are nearly done now they are looking very nice on the inside.  We have had several people drop by and be a bit surprised how nice they are on the inside.  We have running water, flushing toilets, and electricity in our little mud huts.

Our water is becoming a bit critical.  The city water comes in just at a trickle.  We  have many, many people coming to use our city water.  The tap is flowing, sometimes non stop.  I would say it is possible a hundred people may take water throughout the day.  Many if not most wells are running dry so the people come to the house we are just vacating.  We just dug out our well a bit deeper in the new property (we do not have city water there).  But when we move out of the old property the supply of water for many people will be cut off.  On the new property we will be faced with the decision of who to give water to and who we won’t.  At the house the water was coming in at a trickle sometimes stopped for a day or two.  But at the new property it is questionable if we will have enough water for ourselves if we use it at a normal level, bathing washing clothes and all.  We will need wisdom on how to deal with this situation.  Water is available for the people elsewhere but they have to pay for it, (we don’t charge) it is not really expensive really, except when you are poor most things are expensive no matter how cheap.  But we are finding people are not willing to dig out their own wells they would rather just take it from us.  Then some just don’t have wells nor money.  How do we discern between these people, the lazy and truly poor and not with hold a life need from those who really need it.

The boys school is out for their summer holidays.  We have to wait a couple of weeks before we know how they all did in school.  Some of the boys will spend about 6 weeks at a camp called teen missions.  It is the highlight of the year for many of them.  Many times the boys come back all fired up and have had an excellent time seeking the Lord.  But there have been times when they have come back full of legalism or religiosity.  Please pray for the boys that go that this will be a real time.

I wrote all that last night, and I can say that in the last 24 hours things have changed.  Water is not a problem now.  We had a major wind and rain storm today and it rained 130mm (5+ inches)  in 3 hours today with hurricane force winds to make it more interesting.  Needless to say that presented a few problems as well.  Mud huts don’t fair well in these conditions.  All our south facing walls shall we say… dissolved?  The well that was  4 meters deep and near dry is now at ground level water table.  The flood plain is… flooded.  Even as I write this I can’t believe how much water fell from the sky.  But we have two tanks one for fish one for dipping wood, one filled 30 cm (12 inches) and the other 50 (20 inches).   The well, sadly, with all the run off going into it had 2 meters of sand washed into it and settled 6 inches.  Our property is the highest point where incline of the flood plain starts.  Even with a meter difference from one end of our property to the other (100 meters) we still had to dig trenches to drain the flooding.  All the property to the north of us (the high ground flats) turned into a lake.  All the property to the south of us (the plain) turned to rivers.  The roof to one of the houses we watched go up and down as the wind tried to take it off and we had to retreat from the battle of saving our houses from being flooded for about 30 mins. because of all the lightening strikes in our very close proximity.  In the end the roof stayed the walls melted and the water drained.  I am very grateful for the rain, I am very grateful for the roof sticking around.  There was one point I was hanging myself from the trusses trying to keep them on the house.

In the midst of the storm our goat had another kid!!!   Welcome to Kedesh a new brown black and white male!

 With the news of the disaster gone out we also had a generous donation to help finish our proper house on the new property so we don’t have to have all these worries with the mud huts.  It has been a full day.  But didn’t stop there.

I called the people that had rented the house we were moving out of, as mentioned above they couldn’t move in for a while, so I thought I was calling with ‘good news’ that we could stay in the house longer while we made repairs here.  I was then told that they had decided not to rent the house!!!  That made us illegal squatters, and liable for rent that they had told us they were paying.  We have very humbly gone and explained to the owners of the house our situation.  We were the ones that informed him that these others were not moving in.  We also told him what had happened to us and asked for a bit more time to move out.  He was pleased with us staying since he had to find new tenants now.

Now the next day later we have had a day of sun and gentle breezes so everything could dry out.  I had moved all my stuff and office things into the new place the day before the storm and was well pleased with my new accommodations!  Now everything is moved out drying in the sun, scraping off the mud.  We really didn’t loose anything just a matter of cleaning up and drying out, a few pages stained in my books is the most I have to complain about.

The rains picked back up again today but the normal type of rain, so everyone stayed dry and cozy.