Yesterday evening the top story on our news was the attempted sabotage of Cahora Bassa, Mozambique’s huge hydroelectric dam, located about 120 km from Tete where I live. Four foreigners were caught with 1000 lbs of a corrosive substance. See BBC for more details. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8034327.stm)

Cahora Bassa was a project started by the Portuguese. When the time of independence came, FRELIMO and Portugal had agreements to not harm the dam as it was still under construction. After independence, Portugal retained possession of the dam but agreed to hand it over after a specified amount of time. About 18 months ago, the dam was finally handed over to Mozambique’s possession, and Mozambicans rejoiced. I see t-shirts all the time that say “Cahora Bassa é nossa!” (Cahora Bassa is ours!). In addition to supplying all of Mozambique’s electricity, CB also helps to supply Zimbabwe and South Africa. It also helps with flood control on the Zambezi river and forms a reservoir that is a source of revenue from tourism and fishing.

The wall of CB is about 60% of the size of Hoover dam in the US, but the volume of water it holds back is over 150 times as much, so you can imagine how devastating an effect the dam failure could have. I don’t know for sure, but I would guess that the entire city of Tete could have been underwater. Thank God they were caught!

Although no harm was done, it was a shock for me to think that someone would try to destroy one of Mozambique’s biggest assets, especially when Mozambique is a country so low on the scale of development. Though terrorism is never condonable, it is easy for me to see why people would want to do things to the US (we are big, powerful, and rich). But to hurt Mozambique? I just can’t even understand why. My host father thought that perhaps the attack was the result of anger against Mozambique for taking possession of the dam from Portugal.

I guess I will probably never understand the motivation of terrorists. All I can do is say a big prayer of thanks that we were spared the flood.

Once upon a time, Holly had 10 days of vacation time for her year in Mozambique. “Where should I go and what should I do?” she asked herself. After some initial waffling, she decided to save them all for a fantastical voyage to the land of Tanzania to visit her friend Bret from Valpo. Having spent nearly 8 months in Moz, she was ready for some time off.

So, on Thursday, April 2, she set off before the crack of dawn in one of those crazy little mini-buses, in search of . . . nature! As she began to climb in elevation towards the Malawi border, she already knew it was gonna be good . . .

Arriving in the city of Blantyre was like going through a time warp. There were huge buildings, ten banks on a block, and even restaurants serving ice cream!

After wandering a bit, she located the guest house she had reserved. With a garden like this, she felt like perhaps she had arrived in heaven. And to her further delight, there were extremely comfortable couches (apparently that’s a thing in Malawi), a completely equipped kitchen, and hot water inside.

The next day, Holly went on a quest to dig up the roots of her foray into social justice, the project that inspired her to join Valpo’s Social Action Leadership Team, Project Peanut Butter [PPB was Valpo’s World Relief Campaign in 2005 and when I saw that such a small group of students had managed to raise $10,000 for this project, I knew I had to get in on that action]. Much to her surprise, the friendly lad who had been assigned to show her the project was fellow Valpo grad (and friend of a friend) Jay Reinking! So off she went to an intense day of learning about malnutrition in Malawi and how PPB is trying to halt it. Here are some nurses teaching project participants about health and nutrition:

Project Peanut Butter helps fight child malnutrition by giving children a vitamin and nutrient rich peanut paste made in Blantyre from peanuts, oil, sugar, and milk powder. Mothers come every 2 weeks over an 8 week period to monitor their child’s health and make sure the child is improving. The program already has a success rate of over 80 percent. Jay and some other medical school students are researching whether it would be possible to substitute some soy for the milk, which would be more locally available and lower cost. It was a crazy day of seeing mothers and babies nonstop. At the end of the day we finally had a chance to catch our breath.

Tired but full of life, she hit the sack, because the next day was a 12-hour trek northward. Holly was shocked to find that in Malawi they even have many greyhound type buses and some even have luggage storage underneath (!). Though it was a long day of sitting the views were amazing and constantly changing.

(you can’t really see it here, but there was a HUGE rainbow arching across the whole wide-open sky)

The next day Holly passed through the final stretch of Malawi, some of which was along the lakeshore of Lake Nyassa/Malawi. When she crossed the border into Tanzania, she had a brief moment of panic in which she realized that people don’t really speak English there . . . but she bought a phone card and was able to get in contact with Bret who was . . . unfortunately trapped on the other side of water impassable for a bus. But it worked out ok because Bret had a peace corps friend nearby where Holly could stay the night. The next day they met up and from there it was smooth going.

You would be bored out of your gourd if I gave you the play by play, but basically Holly spent a lot of time outside – some of it hiking to waterfalls, some of it by/in Lake Nyassa, and some of it hiking around the mountains.

One of the waterfall hikes brought out some pent up tension between Bret and his German roommate Phil (just kidding!) . .. . although there was a rather scary incident with a falling rock.

The most exciting part of the trip was the mile-high climb from a village near Lake Nyassa to Bret’s house high in the mountains above. As usual for this time of year (still the rainy season there), there were lots of clouds engulfing the mountains, but they did break a few times to give them a marvelous view of the lake. All that green you see on the right side is the most delicious rice she had ever tasted in her life . . .

They passed through a stunning mix of landscapes – from the saturated tropical foothills covered with bananas and rice, to thick grassy slopes, to a rainforest that suggested sloths, to finally a more alpine landscape that seemed like it could be any North American forest (except for the odd banana tree). The hike was mostly straight up, but Holly enjoyed it because it was not another cramped and bouncing bus.

Back at Bret’s house, Holly enjoyed a few days of cooking delicious foods over a charcoal stove, walking about the mountains, playing cards, watching movies, playing guitar, and soaking up the sun as the blessing it truly is there in the delightfully chilly villa of Bulongwa.

Thus, fully rejuvenated, Holly returned homeward to Mozambique. But not before making a stop to climb “Pride Rock” (as coined by peace corps friend Andrew) . . .

Much of this year I’ve been thinking about what I want to do next, after this SALT experience. That’s one of the reasons I wanted to do this – I wanted to figure out what God is calling me to do long term. Instead of answers I’ve found that I’ve really just come up with more questions. How do I fit into the world? What should I do with my life? What is service? What is development and what are its end goals? The future just completely overwhelms me.

In fact, going into this year I kind of thought I would fall in love with the job and that I would end up staying longer. I mean, the job description was practically written for me. But that’s not quite what happened. In theory the work seems so important (what’s more important than to help people combat hunger and thirst?), but in the day to day I constantly struggle with what my role should be. I have spent nearly the entire time here milling over this question of whether I should stay or not. There have been some experiences that I have loved, but also a lot more really hard experiences than I expected. I’ve been lonely here.

So, while most of you probably had no idea I was even considering staying, this is just a note to say that I’m coming home. It has been a hard choice for me to make. I’m a bit disappointed in myself, since I thought this was going to be my dream job. It’s hard not to feel guilty too, especially when the people I care about here so frequently ask me why I won’t stay. I don’t know how to explain.

My mother’s advice was that I should find where my heart’s delight meets the world’s need. So Mozambique, though I have come to love you deeply, I don’t think this work is my heart’s delight. The problem is . . . now I have no idea what is . . . I guess I have a whole lifetime to find out . . .

So now I shall commence to say goodbye to Mozambique as the time here flies towards its conclusion. There is something about this beautiful land that has seeped into my skin that I hope will always stick with me. Maybe I’ll be back some day. But for now, I will try to soak up the things about this country that have made me a better person.

One of the things I’ve been meaning to do since I got here is to visit MCC Moz’s other sand dam project in the district of Guro, on the other side of a river from Changara district where I work. Well, this month it finally worked out, although I was delayed a week by the flu. Last week I finally got to see our sister project. Here’s how it went:

Monday – Caught the bus to Guro (4 hours, due to conflicts between the passengers and the bus guy who insisted that 19 people could ride in the aisle of the bus). Tony picked me up and we drove the nice dirt road to the subdistrict seat of Mandie, located on the Luenha river (2.5 hours, ran over a HUGE black snake along the way). Stopped at the CCM warehouse to pick up a few things and continued to drive on a jolting forest track to the village campsite in Mphata (2 hours). From there Tony showed me 3 of the dams.

Tuesday – Drove back to Mandie to try to meet with the local administrator, who turned out to not be there (2 hours, flat tire along the way). Drove to Guro to get the tire fixed, but it turned out to be a more serious problem requiring a new tire (2.5 hours). Drove to Chimoio to get more money and buy a new tire (5 hours, another flat tire that was able to be fixed).

Wednesday – Got more money out of the bank and bought new tires. Drove back to Mandie, picking up the administrator in Guro, but arrived too late to continue back to the campsite where all of our stuff was located (8 hours). Slept part of the night on the cement porch of the warehouse and part in the backseat of the truck after it started to rain.

Thursday – Spent the day driving around the forest with the administrator to meet with new villages and see potential sites. Visited 4 villages and walked to numerous streams to see potential sites. The administrator accumulated pumpkins, corn, a chicken, cucumbers and other gifts as communities gave him incentive to place dams there. As darkness fell, we almost got lost when we tried to pursue a forest track that didn’t exist and the truck almost got stuck. Thankfully we made it back and were able to change our clothes for the first time in 3 days.

Friday – Another day visiting villages. In one community we were shown an old well built by the Portuguese that was providing a constant stream of water from horizontal pipes underneath a couple hills. In another community we saw a small primate in a treetop and the villagers threw rocks at it until they killed it, apparently because it steals their crops. It was a pretty little thing that looked like a fox with hands instead of paws. In another community we saw a huge natural sand dam created by rock formations. By the end of the day the administrator had accumulated 2 watermelons, 2 pumpkins, 8 cucumbers, 1 chicken, a huge pile of peanuts, corn on the cob, and the dead primate.

In spite of all the unforeseen adventures and all the driving (I do not much enjoy riding around on most of the roads here), as well as feeling sort of sick the whole time, I kind of liked Mandie. We spent a lot of time hiking around the woods to get to streams and it reminded me a bit of the forests of West Virginia that are dear to my heart. There’s something so peaceful about being under the trees. It was fun to see Tony interacting with the community leaders and trying to explain what would make a good site. At this point in the project, people are interested and excited, no matter what problems or lack of interest they may show once the work starts.

The dams I got to see were quite impressive. In spite of working with much smaller work crews than what I am used to, they have built some pretty big structures. At the oldest dam I saw, which has been working for over a year, you could literally see a line of green where the water under the ground is allowing weeds to grow where nothing grew before. That is cool! I hope and pray that more dams will continue to have that sort of effect as our two projects continue.

Sadly my most reliable camera batteries died after 3 photos, so I didn’t get any record of my Mandie adventure. If it had been working, I think I would have taken hundreds of photos. It is autumnish here and so beautiful even though the leaves don’t really change colors. I will have to remain with the pictures and memories in my mind . . .