Crafts, Cats and Coastlines

Lunch...Prego no Prato

Don and Mike get 2 first class seats for downtown Maputo

Looking up the Indian Ocean coastline from the restaurant

Seaside lunch downtown

Morris Norris is at work on the table

First off, I am happy to report that Tim is feeling much better today. He is a little weak and tired but he says the flu like symptoms are all gone. Thanks for all your prayers. They were answered!

Today was a much needed rest day for the team. We got up at the usual time and had breakfast at 7 as usual. After breakfast and devotions we relaxed (some of us played Rook) until time to tour downtown Maputo. Maputo is a city of about 5 million people. Mid morning we loaded into two vehicles and traveled about a half hour down to the city center. Our route took us through many narrow bumpy dirt streets with no name. Eventually we came out onto a nice brick street, lined with palm trees that lead straight to the ocean. At the Indian Ocean we turned south and headed along the coast line toward downtown.

The first stop was a very nice city park with a craft mall winding all the way through it. We shopped for wood carved crafts and other locally made wares. The sales people were very pushy to make a sale but very willing to bargain for price. So it was normal to end up with a price at half or less than half of their initial price quote. However they did not like taking no for an answer and would follow us all the way to the trucks if we refused to buy something if we had shown even the slightest interest in it. Most of us found some very nice handcrafted boxes, wall hangings, and the most popular of all, large curved slices of tree bark with carved women’s heads rising up from the top. I think the salespeople called them “families”, but we came to call them “choirs” since they look like African choir scenes to us.

After shopping at the craft park we drove a few blocks through downtown Maputo to another park that had an ocean side restaurant. We had lunch on a patio overlooking the Indian Ocean. The food was very good. Most of us had Prego no Prato (minute steak on a plate). The dish is served with a fried egg on top. It was very good. The sea breeze, the food and the company was very nice. After a couple scoops of ice cream we headed further into down town for a brief shopping spree at the downtown market. This market is not as nice aesthetically as the one in the park and this one has much higher pressure salesmen then in the park. If we so much as pointed at an item the closest salesman would follow us all the way through the market trying to sell that craft to us. Even when we were loading into the trucks to leave we could not shake them. Only when we drove away did they finally stop trying to make one more sale. We drove back to the campus and rested for the rest of the day, enjoying the company of the Bauza’s and the Restrick’s over dinner. Now it is dark out and a beautiful full orange moon is lighting up the night sky. It was a perfect sunny day once again today.

The mason who started laying block on Friday was back today working with Carlos and a crew of seminary students to lay the foundation blocks on the north side of the building. Hopefully early next week we will be able to fire up the cement mixer and pour the ring beam that will contain the gym floor.

…News Flash from Connie Sharrock…Mike Norris’ cat has made his debut! He has found his way to a position of usefulness on the kitchen dinner table. Named by Bob McMillan, Morris Norris is useful as a Peanut Butter holder, a handy seasoning holder, sweetener tail dispenser, and if you tip his front paws forward you have easy accessibility to the dinner napkins…Morris Norris, what a useful cat!!.....