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Glimpses : Places
Beira City Market:
Once you've been in the Beira market you will never forget it. It burns into your memory the unique sites, sounds, and smells, of its inhabitants. It's set in the middle of downtown Beira, near the main square. Shaped as a simple square, it stands two stories tall with entrances on of its four sides to both floors. With a dilapidated appearance enhanced, by the aged and peeling paint, it doesn't look like much, but in reality is an adventure waiting to happen.
The lower floor is filled with a myriad of fresh produce, spices, and beans. Everything is grown by hand on small plots of land and that exudes an ambiance to the produce that goes beyond anything a major grocery store could accomplish. I've gone in and found a plethora of spices, ranging from simple garlic and parsley, to the pungent curry powders, coriander, and spicy ginger root. And then there are the legumes. All types of beans are present, green beans, butter beans, lentils and more. This wide array of produce creates a cacophony of smells that is so distinct.
On the second floor is an array of curios and fish mongers. Some of the more interesting curios are the selections of hand made fans. They are made of palm fronds fastened to a center with string around the outside so that when you open it by its two handles the fronds fan out into a circle creating a very efficient fan. On one end of the upper floor is the fish, and oh, can you smell them! All sorts of sea food is available from peixe pedra and peixe de montega (local variety of fish) to carapoa (barracuda), and a variety of shell fish, camaroa (shrimp or prawns) and crabs, and one of my favorites lulas (squid). Beyond just the sites and smells is the chatter of people buying and selling. It's a constant soft roar or rumble that is very familiar and comforting to me because it reminds me so much of home.
Wings Restaurant:
Wings is located in the Scandinavian compound, which is right across the main road we live off of. Many Sunday lunches have been eaten here with friends and family. It was one of the only real restaurants around for years, so we frequented it often to give Mom a break from cooking. Beyond just a place to eat it was a place to escape the sultry Beira weather. For awhile it was one of the few air-conditioned buildings in the city, so it offered a wonderfully cool and dry escape. You could hear the air-conditioners cycle on and off during your meal, attesting to the humid weather outside.
Of course we didn't just go for a cool, dry place; we also went for the food, and boy was it good food. If you wanted steak with chips (fries) you could get the wonderful Tornedo. Another favorite was the pizza. While it is nothing like American pizza it was all we could get in Beira and it was good. Of course, the sea food can't be forgotten, fried shrimp which you then doused with lemon juice, or the grilled squid, which I never ordered myself but instead always had a taste of my Dad's. Another seafood dish, which may have been the best dish served at Wings was the shrimp curry. It was wonderful, a slightly spicy blend of curry and coconut over rice with tiny shrimp mixed in, simply superb.
When I was younger it also had the allure of a playground, the only one in town that I knew of, so while the parents would talk about grownup things, us kids would go out and play on the swings and wooden fort. As the years passed the playground became less and less of a draw and I spent more and more time listening to our parents and their friends talk. And as I grew up, Wings grew up with me in away as the play-ground slowly fell apart, the fort rotted along with most of the other wooden things until there was nothing but four swings remaining. I can remember spending hours with life long friends on the now gone playground and more recently the lunches with my Mom on the many Sundays when Dad was gone. We'd come by Wings on our way home from the chapa cien stop after church to our home and decide to stop for lunch. A lot of life was spent in the fenced in Scandinavian compound with its guards at the gate and bunches of white buildings. It is another place that really reminds me of my home.
Lake Salyer:
After my Mom's parents left the mission field they went to Oklahoma and started working as Camp Director's. After a few years our district sold the old camp, Oakridge, and bought a new one, Lake Salyer. My Grandparents now live on the campground and that's where we call home when we're in the states.
Even before my Grandparents moved out to Lake Salyer we still went there to fish. Lake Salyer is a sixteen-acre, spring fed lake. It has bass, sunfish, crappie, a few cats, but mainly we fish for bass. Nothing is quite like going out on the lake on a warm summer day and fishing till dinner. The smell of freshly cut grass, the gentle rocking of the boat and the breeze blowing through the trees is one of the most relaxing things in the world. Of course then there's the excitement of the catch, when you haul in a bass that's fighting for its freedom. Nothing beats that thrill. After admiring the fish we toss them back so as to let other people catch them, its no good to take the fun all for yourself, so the policy on Lake Salyer is strictly catch and release.
The camp has more than just good fishing its also beautiful. The area is filled with red sandstone creating some gorgeous cliffs. The one that's best known is right across the lake from the grill. When the water is calm you get wonderful reflections of the cliff in the water, just beautiful. Because of a ready water source the rest of the camp is covered in trees making hiking lots of fun and making it easy to get totally immersed in God's creation.
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