Twyla and I have been looking for a larger goat than what we have at Mieze. We want one with a larger udder that would be easier to milk. Our idea is to keep it here at the house and experiement with various feeds, seeing what affects the changes in feed have on milk production and quality.
So we have been looking ... which I mentioned to young minister who comes by here and who we know fairly well. He said in Mieze Church there was a man who knew where large goats were and that he would be glad to show us. We made an appointment to meet them Saturday morning for the "Great Goat Hunt'.
Saturday at 9;30 AM we meet and make plans. The man says it is quite a ways to where the goats are ... 100 kilometers. At this news I get a little hesitant. I know that distance often does not mean the same to Mozambicans as to us. As I was sorta backing away from the trip the others were saying "it's not that far" .. "we have time" etc.- all of which was true.
So we head out.
Two hours and 120k later we are getting low on fuel and talk begins about how far it is yet. Oh .. it's a long way they tell me. I knew it! At Chure we find a 24 hour station and fill up. Fuel was cheap there, it only cost us about 1400 metacais to fill the tank. ($38 TO $40 U.S.)
We continue to drive until we come to a place where we are told to turn onto a dirt road. The dirt road is like all dirt roads in Mozambique... rough. Now we cannot go more than 30 kph and often slower. Time drags by. The road gets smaller and rougher. About 1PM I ask, "How far is it yet?" and the man says, "Oh .. 5 kilometers." At 1:30 PM we are still not there. I said, "I am sorry but we are going no further. We must get home before dark and we have come a very long way." The man said he understood and then volunteered the information that it was still a long ways to his village. Great.
We turn around and head home. By the time we get back to Pemba it is dark. We had not taken any food with us and had not eaten all day. We stopped at a restaurant about a half mile from home and had a great meal!
We did find a couple nice-sized goats much closer to home .. and within 20k of home I found a huge herd of goats that we are going to check out. And we saw some really neat country... parts of which most Westerners don't see. It was well off the 'beaten path' ... I think we beat our own path in places.
I shared the story with several missionaries here and they just laughed and said, "Oh yeah! I have done that a lot of times."
Personally I think the guy was just looking for a free ride to his old village. LOL!!!
Love to all
Jim & Twyla
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