Discussion Guide
About the author:
After graduating from college in 1969, I became a missionary nurse for the United Methodist Church assigned to work a mission hospital in Mozambique. This assignment required that I learn Portuguese sending me to Lisbon where I first experienced living in a country with an extensive secret police system. Two months after I arrived in Mozambique, I was deported and worked for two months in Swaziland until I obtained a work permit for Rhodesia. Eventually, I returned to Mozambique having learned a lot about independence movements in Africa. During the five years that I worked for the United Methodist Church, I served as a nurse in various capacities in Mozambique, Swaziland and Rhodesia.The inspiration:
Once I returned to the U.S.A., family and friends asked me to write about my experiences, but it wasn’t until my husband and I moved to Taos, N.M. that I was able to focus on writing and learn how to present my story. While all of the events of the books are true, they’ve been re-sequenced and fictitious characters created to tell what happened more fully than I could describe in a memoir.Characters:
Amanda Bechtel is a young woman in her twenties when she leaves the United States for the first time to work as a nurse and teach in the nursing school at Cachimbo Mission in Mozambique.
Katerina Stith experienced missionary life when her parents were missionaries in Portuguese Timor, but never as a missionary herself, until now.
The Greenes are a missionary family that Amanda first meets in Lisbon and again in Mozambique.
Olaf Wigforss is the administrator for Cachimbo Mission station and often advises Amanda on situations she confronts in Portugal and Mozambique.
Eva Nelvig a single missionary nurse from Finland and Matron Choto the Shona nurse administrator for the Nyamadoro Mission Hospital who guide Amanda to learn about the people and culture in Rhodesia.
Lázaro and Calisto Humbane , brothers who are a male nurses and colleagues working closely with Amanda. They help her learn fragments of the local African languages as they work in the triage office of the Cachimbo Mission Hospital.
Questions:
1. What would you have advised Amanda to do regarding the plan to fly to Johannesburg without a visa for Mozambique?
2. What did you know about the wars for independence in Africa that occurred during the same time period of the Vietnam?
3. If you have you experienced living in a situation with secret police or a system of government informers, how do you describe the challenges with regular communications?
4. How do you feel about the situation Jaime, a.k.a. Niku Kimbanda, finds himself in and his choice to flee Portugal?
5. Do you feel that Jaime put Amanda at risk? If so, how?
6. What meaning do you take from the underground resistance poem at the end of Chapter 5?
7. If you had been in the New York office responsible for African missionary activities, would you have allowed Amanda to go to Swaziland and Rhodesia and then return to Mozambique? Explain the reason for your answer.
8. How does speaking another language give you different insight into other countries and cultures?
9. What is your opinion about learning the local languages? While Amanda learned Portuguese, the United Methodist work in Mozambique was conducted in Xitshwa and their work in Rhodesia was in Shona.
10. If you were Amanda would you have taken photos at the ‘concentration’ camp? Why, or why not?
Topics for Further Research and Discussion:
Topic #1: US International Policies
The United States actively supported the Portuguese army with materials and armaments against the Mozambican freedom fighters. How is this policy perpetuated today in other places around the world? What consequences might it have for Americans?Topic #2: The current situation in Mozambique and Zimbabwe
Describe what you know about the current situation in each of these countries. How has independence fared for the people of each country? What are your news sources?Topic #3: Single Women in Mission
What is your reaction to the relationships Amanda developed with the local people? How does it influence your regard for the work of single women in mission?Topic #4: Rev. Manganhela’s Death
Do you think missionaries are more protected by being US citizens than the nationals who hold positions of leadership in the church? Explain your response.Topic #5: Collaboration with a Nganga
How or should medical missionaries work with traditional healers like the nganga?Topic #6: Recent U.S. Events
Have there been situations, events or policies in the United States since the war in Iraq that seem to parallel situations that Amanda experienced in Portugal and Mozambique? Explain the similarities or differences.
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