where am i?

As would be expected after being in a place for coming close to 2 years my surroundings are feeling pretty familiar. Even though it's familiar to me I'm reminded many of you probably have no idea what it looks like here. So, I thought I would send a few pictures to give you an idea. Many places it's not the greatest idea to stick my camera out the window so this no fantastic photography. 

I live in Chimoio, Manica province:

This is the road to my house:

This is the gate into my house:

This is our property:

And the entrance to our house:

This is Shoprite, the grocery store. If you continue up this road our house is less than 100 meters to the right, off this very bumpy road:

This is La Plaza, the best cappuccinos in town. I usually drop Nede off at school on Monday mornings and meet some friends here to start off the week:

And this is Nede's school:

This is the post office, corrieos, where I love to collect my packages. Most things get to me unless something enticing is written on the outside of the box, someone else then chooses to help themselves: 

This is the market where I buy all my fruit and vegetables:

Right across from the market is Vapor, the best pizza available for miles:

 That's all for now. As familiar as this all is I am far too often reminded that I am not at home here. I will always be a foreigner. No matter how well I know the language, not matter how much cultural understanding I think I have, I will never know what it's like to be born and live my life in a place like this. I wish it weren't so but, I don't fit. I'm often frustrated by the different world-views that I try to conjoin. Impossible. I guess culture is culture no matter where I am, the only saving grace we have is to try to live in a Kingdom culture. This can and should be my attempt no matter where I find myself. And I guess, this is part of my journey where I continue to find out what Kingdom culture even is. Nede and I will always have a different culture, won't we? It's my desire that the culture we represents most is a culture that Jesus would smile upon-- being part of "thy kingdom come..."

And when I look at this airplane building that's being constructed, I have no idea where I am!!!! It seems like it belongs in Epcot, not the outskirts of Chimoio. 

 

 There it is. It's seems like I'm in a very strange place.