It's been traveling time for the Lechners again! We left Maputo last Sunday a.m. at 5:55 a.m. We drove 13 hours the first day, 7 hours the second day, then 8 hours the third day to reach our first destination - Tete, a city in central Mozambique. Our colleagues, Chris and Katie Nalls and their daughter Abigail live and work here in Tete. Chris and Charlie needed to go to a big meeting in another city prior to another meeting we ALL have to go to in Malawi next week. (are you confused yet?) So, the kids and I are staying here in Tete with Katie and Abigail while the two daddies are at the first meeting. They will hopefully get back tonight, then on Monday we will all drive to the next meeting in Malawi.
We have had fun hanging with Katie and Abigail. Each day a child has been "king" or "queen". They have sat at the head of the table in a special chair covered in a beach towel. King Will wore a crown made from a plastic bag. Abby's crown last night was made from notebook paper. We have had many delicious meals and played games and listened to silly proclamations from our "royalty".
Because my Abigail's birthday is next week - and yes it gets confusing having two Abigails in the house - we decided that on her day to be queen we would have a Happy Un-Birthday Party. For presents we gave each of her brothers 15 Metacals (about 50 cents U.S.) to spend at the market the other day and gave them the task of seeing how many little "gifts" they could buy for Abby to give her at her Un-Birthday Party. It was amazing the little trinkets that they found for so little money - little mirrors, Jackie Chan playing cards, a little notebook, pens, colored pencils - and they were all things that Abby LOVES. So last night we had blowers, a banner, a crown for Abby, cupcakes and her market presents.
Another activity of the week has been knocking lemons out of the Nalls lemon trees! Very exciting for boys. Last night Will and Luke squeezed 12 lemons and we made a gallon of yummy lemonade. We also took a long walk the other day to check out the 'hood and stopped by the house where Chris and Katie hope to get a new Ridgeback puppy. They were so cute when they ran to the gate to greet us.
Katie has shown us the sights (which includes many baobab trees, which I love) and landmarks of Tete and yesterday we even enjoyed having breakfast at the new coffee shop in town.
Our time in Tete has been so fun. Probably the most fun has been being around 19 month old Abigail. She has kept us entertained for sure. And we love Aunt Katie, too! The good thing is we'll all travel together on Monday and be together for the meeting in Malawi, so we don't have to say goodbye to them just yet.
Hopefully pictures from this week will get posted soon.
3 comments:
Those times of fellowship are so sweet, aren't they? And lemonade from your own personal lemon tree? FUN! We had one in our backyard (as well as macadamia nuts - yum!)
Are the roads decent? Or are you climbing in and out of mudholes and potholes and driving 12 miles an hour?
Such a creative idea with the royalty and un-birthday party. I don't envy the long driving, though. We just went to MT, and that's only 9 hours. And 3 pit stops. :)
I can't wait to see the pictures, but the mental images of royalty I have are pretty good! :)
And mmmm. I haven't made lemonade from lemons off a tree since my first Wedgwood singles mission trip in 1990, to Indio, Ca. Sigh.
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