Postponed picnic to Bilene becomes a reality, Matola Noviciate!
Those familiar with Bilene, will tell you that it is an attractive tourist site here in Mozambique. Everywhere you notice the natural beauty of trees huge guarda chuva trees with long outstretched branches that makes you feel a great relief from the heat that is very typical to the area. Here and there you see modern houses for lodging and conferences with swimming pool facilities and deck chairs for relaxing and enjoying the cool breeze that comes with the ripples from the lagoon. From time to to time you are struck by young and old rich men from diverse ethnic groups enjoying themselves through motor boats, swimming, playing volley ball, water motorbikes amusing us not familiar to such entertainments to interpret it as white magic, some simply walk and chat along the white sand beach spread all along the lagoon and some just sit in the mushroom small round huts constructed with natural grass in a very appealing way by local experts with something cold to kill the thirst.
As they say seeing is believing in our mother tongue, The staff organized that our novices go for a day picnic there. with the master we had proposed a Friday, 7th December to return only on Saturday evening. Unfortunately, Brother Angel Mansoa, our weather update resource person surprised us that the proposed dates would be rainy days. After bringing the idea as an agenda topic, we decided to postpone to Monday as we were assured to have lovely weather minus rain. We jumped at the decision within seconds as we all felt it made much sense.
We had agreed to leave at five thirty a.m. but due to things beyond our control, we left at ten to six a.m. We were spared from police unnecessary stoppings both when going and returning. We had prayers as we traveled led by Brother Valia and to tell the truth and shame the devil, it was well animated. Our school has now an appealing shape which has come about through the constant efforts of Brother Antoinio Pisco and Joao Torcado. Workers on the spot assured us that they expect much better changes than what we saw. All in all, we can say that it was a day marked by prayer, eating, drinking soft drinks, walking along the beach as many times as possible until we got tired, few preferred swimming to walking and chatting and David walked for a while and eventually joined me in one mushroom shaped hut. We were chatting and at the same time wondering at different sights: people walking, children swimming, and water motorbikes competitions and the ripples. we had photo taking moments too but few preferred not to appear at all. Brother Mansoa was reading in the minibus until the time of departure at three p.m. We really enjoyed ourselves and we thank God for such a praiseworthy break at the end of the year. Bravo to all our organizers for providing us with such a wonderful picnic and please receive our pats on your backs.
Simeon Banda, fms