No “Rede” (network)

It’s amazing how much two days without “rede” (cell phone network coverage) working makes me (Jenny) feel isolated. We are waiting for the network to get back up and running and it feels like it has been a long time since we had a signal, when in reality it has only been since Sunday (it’s now late Tuesday afternoon). We get our email through the cell phone and so we have not been able to check email and hear from any of our family, friends or work colleagues for two days. We are waiting to hear if all of our luggage came into Beira from their gallivanting in Europe without us. I long to text a friend to ask her to go out for tea sometime and catch up with her after three months away. But there’s no rede.

Tomorrow, Joél was scheduled to go on a trip to visit the sand dams in Tete because the prime minister was going to visit. But it was canceled. The funny thing is how we learned his trip was canceled. The Christian Council of Mozambique (CCM) in Tete was hosting the visit and when the visit was canceled, the director tried to call Beira to let the MCC rep (also going on the trip) know. However, the cell network is down and it seems like most landline phone lines are experiencing difficulties in these central provinces. Sr. Tiago finally was able to contact his CCM counterpart in Beira who then physically went over to the MCC office to inform the MCC rep of the change. Steve, then tried repeatedly to call the CCM Manica office to tell Joél (we don’t have a land line phone). He tried all morning and around 11:30 got through to the office. After talking, Sr. Moriane then drove to our house to inform Joél.

And when we get rede, I will post this.

Tuesday, 27 April