Homemade History and Culture Lessons

Lately we have been trying to fill our spare time learning more about Mozambique. 

There are a couple videos that we really liked.  Neither one features exactly where we will be, but both present some beautiful scenery and valuable snippets into Mozambique for us. 

Friends from California showed us an Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations video on Mozambique.  Grady was salivating over shrimp the size of lobsters and the spicy piri piri chicken!  The video also goes into some of the history and culture of the country.  Colorful celebrations full of dancing in the countryside, a community-wide remembrance of the fight for independence that ended in 1975 and a look at where the Portuguese loaded captured Mozambiquians onto slave ships bound for the Americas all offer us a glimpse of our home-to-be.  (It is not a Christian perspective so the language may leave something to be desired… and parents may want to fast forward through a few of the history scenes as well.)

The travel channel has a site page about the episode, but not the full video at http://www.travelchannel.com/tv-shows/anthony-bourdain/episodes/mozambique.  There are some great pictures though.  I found the episode online but the only official source I could spot was sold on amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Mozambique/dp/B00FEBLLD0.

We also found a National Geographic video on Parque Nacional de Gorongosa in central Mozambique entitled Africa’s Lost Eden.  It was eye opening to see what years of war can do to a region that was once called the “Place where Noah left his ark”.  Now people are working to help rebuild the animal populations and bring the park back into its rightful place as a world treasure.   

National Geographic has some amazing photos from Gorongosa here: http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2013/06/gorongosa-park/sartore-photography.

We would definitely recommend checking online or at your library for availability of the videos!  We found the National Geographic at the library and No Reservations on vimeo.

Our recent purchases are a Mozambique guide book (it’s much slimmer than any other guidebook I’ve seen…) and a country map.  Diego has gotten a real kick out of studying the map with Grady.  He saw Aunt Roberta recently and spent a long time showing here which roads were paved, where we would live, etc., etc.  Apparently he’s been paying attention to Daddy!

We are driving through Kansas now while on a four month fundraising road trip.  Diego has heard our presentation a few times lately.  In it I talk about loving flying and complaining to my grandmother as a little girl that “driving wastes my time”.  Now Diego has begun to tell us that driving wastes his time.  While we love seeing so many friendly faces we are also eager to join the team in Mozambique.  I will admit that there are times when it would be easy to slip into a mindset where this time of preparation is “just a waste of time”.  Please keep us in your prayers – that we fully enjoy and serve without reservations during our time here on deputation.  We want to be fully vested in this time we have still in the US.  Flying in Mozambique will come in God's timing!