Topic 4: The Help

Most Peace Corps Volunteers in Mozambique have people who help them with the housework to some extent. It’s not that we are lazy (though occasionally that is so) but it is that there is just so much housework to do here in comparison to the US, and as Americans, we generally have other things we would rather do than wait in line for water for upwards of 2 hours a day. In America, you ostensibly have a dishwasher, a vacuum, a washing machine, a dryer, lawn mower, running water, and more. Here, you (or at least I) do not. The people, most generally high school boys or older-ish women, that help out around the house essentially do all the things that machines do in America. That sounds horrible to say I know, but it is true. And also, as (white) foreigners, we are seen as having money and means. I realize that we do not make a salary any higher than our Mozambican counterparts, but that is still widely considered well off. And it is a very Mozambican propensity to spread that wealth by helping to support other people. Most teachers and other people with steady jobs have someone (or someones) that help their wife around the house. At my old house, an older lady supporting her family worked for me, and now I support 2 high-school boys in exchange for their help. I would be considered even weirder than I already am if I did all the housework by myself. And I do not always outsource all the work: I sweep the floor everyday, wash dishes, and often cart my own water. I never wash my clothes or the floor, however.

One day one of my house boys, yes that is the best way to describe him, was washing the bathroom floor (no, I swear this is not a weird task…floors get dirty here! Especially when water gets accidentally spilled on the floor and dirt gets constantly dragged in by people and dogs, like in said bathroom), and I heard the noise of a cap opening and closing. When I looked in after he had vacated the room, everything was still there so I didn’t really care. Then, before he left for home, he looked all meek and asked, “Teacher, if you use it, it’s fine, but do you need that thing that smells good?” I pointed to the lotion. “No,” he said and pointed to one of my extra deoderants. I asked him if he knew how to use it and he pointed to his armpit. So, I gave it to him, and now an 18-year-old kid has women’s deoderant. Lucky him. But really, I feel that cleaning the bathroom and hanging my curtains that day in exchange for women’s deoderant was a totally fair trade.

Are my houseboys the best students? No. Are they the smartest, or even the most hardworking? No. Not by a long shot. Do they stay out of trouble? Well, considering one of them was kicked out of the boy’s dormitory for getting drunk last year, I would venture a big, fat, NO on that front. But are they still good kids and do they still deserve to have work? Hell yes. The two boys that work in my house are best friends, and grew up together in the same, super small, bush town outside Invinha. They are both the oldest children in families that have been orphaned from both parents. They have both decided that despite the fact that their intellectual abilities and academic drive leave a little something to be desired (through no fault of their own, but rather of the school system that has failed them and those like them), they will do anything to get an education, bring that success back, and help their younger siblings. Only the luckiest few high school graduates actually secure a place in a post-secondary school institution or a job that utilizes what knowledge and skills they have amazingly been able to glean from the shitty Mozambican school system, but I still believe wholeheartedly that an attitude that impels someone to value education as much as the boys that work for me do should absolutely be rewarded. So I hired them. 

The deoderant is just one example of how I pay my boys for their work of clothes-washing, floor cleaning, grass-cutting, and water-fetching. Most volunteers pay their help with a monthly stipend. I don’t, because I was asked by my boys to pay them in goods. I pay for them to enroll in school, buy their notebooks, pens, and other school materials, buy their school uniforms, outfit their new house (a little mud shack) with kitchen supplies, buckets for water, and a mattress, etc. When they need something, like to pay for copies for a test or to go home to the bush to visit family, I give them money or the item they have requested (within reason). Being the granddaughter and niece of orthodontists, I decided one day to ask if they had a toothbrush. They replied that they have one. So I bought them another one so they wouldn’t have to share, and some toothpaste. When one of them came to me and said his sister was very sick, would I mind giving him a sheet so she has something to lie on, I brokenheartedly gave him a sheet, blanket, and pillow. One of them received an old iPod for his work last year, and this year the other will get my digital camera (we are working together even now for him to start a business in which he takes pictures when people have parties and then people pay for him to print them in the city. He is very good with technology and can fix anything, including the camera they day after I decided to start letting him use it, so I thought we should try to capitalize on that skill). I also have them cook once every few weeks and they get to keep half of it. Sometimes, they come and say they don’t have any food for dinner, so I help them out. For us, it works: they get what they need when they need it, and don’t have the temptation to spend their entire monthly wages on beer after one weekend. I treat them fairly, which I cannot always say is the norm for the behavior of the other teachers in my neighborhood towards their helpers, and I make them study with me two hours a week. They get a small monetary reward for every passing grade they receive on a test or other schoolwork. Once, they came over when I was eating bread and peanut butter. I made them each a sandwich, and one, with a smile form ear to ear, said, “I have never had peanut butter before. It is delicious!” Those are the moments.

            Two weeks ago, I attended the Carnivale/ Mardi Gras celebration that is held annually throughout the month of February in my provincial capital. It was an organizational feat if I have ever seen one in Mozambique. A whole street was blocked off and lined with people selling Mozambican street food (grilled chicken skewers, sausages, and plate after plate after plate of corn mush). Oh yeah, and there was plenty of beer. It was delicious. Then at around 9pm, a section of the street was blocked off for the dancers. There was one dance troop from each neighborhood of the city with about 10 guys and 10 girls in matching outfits. Until about 6am (aka for the next 9 hours), these dance troops did choreographed dances up one side of the street until they reached a stage, performed on stage, then danced back down the other side of the street. Once back at the starting point, they hurriedly drank a gulp or two of water (from a HUGE keg of water, I’m telling you the organization and attention to detail was rather surprising and quite unexpected) and then danced down the street anew. They were all great dancers, and it was quite a sight, damn good entertainment, and a grand old party. Some cities of the world build floats and give out bead necklaces for Mardi Gras, and others, like this one in Mozambique, think it is good fun and not cruel at all to mandate people to dance for 9 hours straight without a break, and then repeat it every Friday and Saturday of the entire month of February. Oh Moz, never ceasing to amaze and shock me, and then throw a good party.

The Boys: Leonardo (left) and Daniel (right)

Topic 3: Dogs

After returning from America, I plucked the mother of all ticks off my dog Bowzer’s neck. Apparently this thing had been feeding off him for the whole month I was gone because that thing was HUGE and fat. He also had 17 other smaller ticks and my other dog, Devin, had 14. So, on that same, admittedly gross, sentiment, here is my account of the barbarous life of dogs here in Mozambique, and thus inferring how they differ from the “Jewish house-dog” with which I grew up (I would like to credit Mark Berenberg for coining that term).

FOOD: My dogs eat trash. Exclusively. But WAIT! Before you go calling the animal rights people (who, for obvious reasons don’t even exist here), please know that I used to feed my dogs. I used to make them food everyday. That’s right, I used to cook food from scratch for them everyday: corn mush and dried fish, YUM (surprisingly, I can’t buy Purina One at the local onion-selling stand). But, being the “smart” (aka, food-motivated) dogs that they are, they soon realized that they obtain much better fare by making multiple daily rounds through the neighborhood trash pits. So when they stopped eating the food I prepared, I accordingly stopped preparing it.

FREEDOM: The world is their dog park. They can roam for miles without a leash, meet up with their bush-dog friends, fight, play, romp in the mud or the river, and wreak general havoc. They can chase after birds and chickens, get in fights in with goats, splash in the river, and go wherever in the bush that their hearts desire. Sure, their jaunts may sometimes incur bamboo-stick slaps to the face (thanks to a random kid) or a thrown-rock that grazes their leg (maybe this time thanks to a drunken old man), but it is a small price for their constant, true, and unbridled freedom. I have no yard and therefore no valid method for containing them, so they go off, sometimes just for the night (scratching at the door in the morning to spend all the next day dozing in their respective favorite spots on the floor), and sometimes for days at a time. They always come back, however, overjoyed to see me, splaying mud and dirt on every surface of my house, and attending to each other’s newest wounds. My dogs are covered in battle scars from their midnight fights and track dirt everywhere (why would I give them a bath when they will invariably just go roll in the mud five minutes later? I have no means or desire of stopping them from doing so) But I love them. It is the perfect human-dog relationship, I don’t have to do anything for them except remove their ticks and they just chill with me all day, exhausted from their haunts into the bush looking for female dogs in heat to knock-up. I am probably a doggie grandmother many times over by now.

MOZAMBICAN INTERPRETATION: Among my most crowning accomplishments in Mozambique is that I taught some of the neighborhood kids that dogs (at least my dogs) won’t bite if you don’t throw rocks at them. When they wag their tails, it means they are happy and when they come near you and smell you, they are just saying hello. A dog’s lick is equivalent to a kiss and they like it when you scratch them behind the ears or on the stomach. The littlest ones now actually love to touch the dogs (barring I hold their mouths closed with my hand to ensure no foul play) and to see their legs kick freely when you found their “spot.” Mozambicans do not generally touch dogs, they are solely there to offer protection from intruders, because the general cycle of behavior between Mozambicans and dogs is as follows: Mozambicans don’t like and are scared of dogs so they throw rocks at them and kick them, and thus dogs bite people for revenge, and thus people are afraid of dogs, etc. My neighborhood kids therefore had had no previous concept of canine social cues. They now get quite worried when they don’t see the dogs for a day and will inquire about the dog’s whereabouts. My dogs are named Bowzer and Devin, so I am often asked by three year-olds, “Where are Blowsa and Kevinee?” Man, that white lady has some strangely-named dogs. Who names their dogs Blowsa and Kevinee? No one. But apparently me.

MY CHILDREN: Mozambicans refer to my dogs as my children because I let them into my house and scratch them behind the ears, two things the normal Mozambican would never be caught dead doing. They also add quite a bit of craziness to my afternoon jogs. Not only is the white girl jogging in relatively short shorts a spectacle to lay eyes on, but the two dogs barreling next to her are just flat-out a never before seen anomaly. Not surprisingly, Mozambicans do not see dogs as normal running buddies, therefore, the only logical explanation is that they must constitute the family of the weird white girl. Someone once caught me applying flea-meds to my dogs’ necks (though, African fleas and ticks are not always deterred from American flea-meds…) Giving medications is something you only do for family here and thus Bowzer and Devin must be my sons. I am always asked “and your sons?” when being asked how various members of my real family are, a very Mozambican curiosity. Apparently, American women without children (god forbid!) must adopt dogs to fill the no-child void that is so very potent in their strange lives. 

Devin (left); Bowzer as a puppy (right)

I think they like each other's company

Topic 2 Cyclones

            Having grown up in earthquake country rather than snowstorm or hurricane country, I honestly do not know much about storms of any kind. Living in Mozambique in 2012, however, has definitely filled that void. Apparently, hurricanes, cyclones, and tsunamis are all essentially the same thing, just on different oceans and with different wind motion patterns. Therefore, when two cyclones (the hurricanes of the Indian ocean) hit Mozambique the middle of last month, the damage that ensued was rather upsetting. If you think about the destruction that hurricanes do in the US, where houses are made of actually legitimate and strong material, and people have the technological hook-up to be sufficiently warned of the impending storm (and then also the means to evacuate), and apply said destruction to a country where the majority of houses are made of pure mud and straw and are one-story, and most people never leave the district in which they were born, you can begin to understand the ramifications.

            The first cyclone that hit Moz last month was named Dando and it hit the south. Houses went underwater and an utter lack of drainage systems anywhere caused major flooding. Ultimately and most drastically, in the town of 3 de Fevreiro, on the border of Mozambique’s two most southern provinces, a 10m bridge in the national road (which is the sole, and paved, road that traverses the country north-south) became completely flooded by a fast-moving current that made the portion of road wholly impassable. Not only was this entire town, and others like it, submerged underwater (people had hurried to put all their possessions on their straw roofs), but also no commerce or people were able to leave Maputo, the capital, for the rest of the country, and likewise, no commerce or people were able to enter it. Additionally, we know that all other, small, dirt roads were equally impassable because Peace Corps sent a caravan of cars on a mission to take a roundabout path to pick up the volunteers from my group that needed to get to our mid-service conference in Maputo. The cars ultimately had no choice but to turn back. The volunteers that were affected were eventually given permission to take the train to the conference. At lease one mode of overland transport was working. However, because of the roadblock, the country was essentially on a standstill. Everything pretty much stems from the capital, and with Maputo cut off, goods were equally cut off. Those with boats arrived in the town to ferry passengers across the “river,” but all cars, and especially semis, were just plain stranded. Apparently, people just abandoned their cars on the side of the road and robbing of cars and people became rampant. The longer the break in the road remained, the more damage would be caused throughout the country. Fortunately, some sort of bridge was fashioned in under a week and everything began to be able to return to some semblance of normal.

            The second cyclone was called Funso, and it hit a week after Dando (though the bridge debacle hit at the same time that Funso was similarly reeking havoc). It stayed about 100km off the coast for a good week, and essentially stopped moving once it hit the waters outside Quelimane, the capital of my province. Heavy rains and winds hit the province: I believe a portion of one volunteer’s house fell down and others houses’ flooded. Those volunteers in Quelimane were consolidated in a hotel and the roads there became virtual lakes. I was supposed to fly out of Quelimane to get to the conference in Maputo, and so off I went, leaving the normal- amount of rain of Gurué and heading straight into the cyclone (on Peace Corps advice/orders…no I am not being sarcastic here). About 100km from Quelimane, in the city of Mocuba, where the furthest reaches of the cyclone’s radius was hitting, I felt a tangible and drastic difference in the rain, wind, and overall atmosphere. I had entered my first cyclone. I was consolidated in a hotel with the other volunteers from my province and then we waited to see if our plane would take off. It did, and without a hitch. Thankfully for Mozambique, but not for Madagascar, Funso eventually veered east towards the island nation, and no further damage was caused here.

            Massive flooding throughout the country has many negative consequences: roads are unusable and people are misplaced. And since no one has savings here (and insurance is a foreign concept), misplacement is serious and ruinous business. But flooding also means there is a tremendous amount of standing water, which breeds swarms of mosquitoes, and subsequently a skyrocketing prevalence of malaria infections. Standing water is also a perfect breeding grounds for cholera. Just to add insult to injury: oh, your house fell down, you don’t know where to go, and now you have malaria and your children have cholera. Great. Cities are also totally taken down from cyclones: In about 2000 (I’m 100% sure of the year), the entire town/city of Chokwé, in the southern province of Gaza, was wiped out and essentially everyone relocated. In 2008, the same happened in Angoche, in the northern province of Nampula. Obviously, before I lived here, I had never heard of such places and the devastation they encountered, because naturally, it is not international news. So this is my push for Mozambique cyclone awareness, and other natural disasters in similarly non-newsworthy countries.

            Not to change the subject (but that is what I am doing): After the mid-service conference, I spent a day visiting my host-family for the first time since training. I am happy to report they are great: the three boys are growing well and in school, my host-mother has a job being a “janitor” at the town’s administration office, and my host-father is still making the best bread in the whole country. They have added another bedroom to their house, a covered porch, and a clothes-washing basin. I am also happy to say that my host-mother made a distinct and very specific observation about the improvement I have made in the past year with regards to my tomato-cutting-in-my-hand (Mozambique-style) skills. No mention of my actual ability to now express myself in Portuguese and hold a conversation. That would be more logical. No, it is more noteworthy that I can now cut vegetables like a Mozambican. She seemed shockingly relieved. Glad to be of service, mãe. She also, however, made it a point to express her deep concern that I still do not have a husband, and offered her brother to me. Thank you, mãe, I’m glad to know that your 18-year-old brother with no high-school education or job would take me as a wife.

Topic 1: Health

Mark Berenberg, my lovely father, had the idea for me to pick a topic for every blog post and write a post about it. This blog is about health matters here in Mozambique. Blogs to come: dogs, religion, student life, "the help," etc. Enjoy!

Malaria is the default word for being any type of sick except stomach sick. “Oh him? He’s sick; he has malaria” is a common utterance, but I always ask if said malaria-stricken individual has gone to the hospital and done a malaria test. Usually, the answer is no, but, they assure me, he has malaria. If you are have stomach problems, however, you tell everyone about it. People stop the chapa all the time and say, “I have diarrhea! I have to get out of the car!” This person has invariably chosen the back corner seat (and the window next to him is, naturally, broken and cannot be opened in order to be climbed through), and therefore every 30 minutes, everyone must disembark and file out of the bus. The person with diarrhea then finds himself a nice bush to cover his ass, does his business, and the process begins anew a little while later. One day last year, I was sitting in my director’s office doing some work for the national exams. My director, you remember, is a very respected and respectable nun. The other teacher who was supposed to be helping me with the work, was, not surprisingly, two hours late. She finally walks into the office and immediately apologizes to the director-nun, “I’m sorry I’m late,” she begins, “I was up all night with diarrhea.” The director-nun, apparently thinking this is an acceptable workplace conversation, replies, “Me too! I have been having some horrible diarrhea recently.” The teacher then offers, “Maybe it was that goat we all bought the other day.” The director-nun agrees and they, having gotten to the bottom of the diarrhea problem, start to work. I guess when stomach problems are as widespread and frequent as is a stuffy nose, people have no shame in discussing it. I still find it a little taboo.

When you say, “I’m sick,” people become very concerned because they know firsthand how quickly a seemingly common bout of the flu can take a turn for the worse. But, being the gossip-fiends anyone would be if living in such close quarters with nothing to do while waiting in the water-line, they have to know with what you are sick: “Is it malaria?” “Or do you have diarrhea?” as if these are the only two options. But they really want to know and to have you give them the juicy details. “I’d rather not say, just please stop knocking on my door when I’m trying to rest!” is clearly not an acceptable response.

They will also relentlessly ask you about your illness for days afterward. Yes, my headache is gone, it only lasted a few hours, and therefore 5 days later, my headache is, truly, I’m not lying, gone. Clearly my allergies are better today; I’m no longer sneezing and can open my eyes. Can you see my elbow-abcess or infected mosquito bite anymore? No? Then it probably went away. But, really, at least they are concerned. And want to offer me corn-mush and greens because they know I’m not feeling well.

My favorite Portuguese-English mishap is the word “constipação,” pronounced con-steep-ah-s-ow, which inevitably triggers the misguided thought that the word means “constipation” in English. No, you would be wrong Mr. English Speaker. It means you have a stuffy nose. This, I can assure you, makes for an interesting first conversation about a not-to-be-named person’s constipação.

As with religion, Mozambicans commonly combine the western approach to the traditional Mozambican approach: they amalgamate the hospital with the curandeiro (traditional healer, witch doctor, you take your pick at politically-incorrect titles). My friend came back from visiting family and promptly told me her sister is very sick and the only thing that can help her is a treatment from the curandeiro that she will receive in two months, which my friend will be returning to the bush to attend. I have no idea what this treatment entails, but my friend seemed totally fine waiting. I, however, was worried the sister would still be alive then. They probably already went to the hospital, because Mozambicans go to the hospital with the slightest problem (and, thankfully, with grave problems as well), and so if the doctors/nurse couldn’t help, I will gladly put my faith in the healing powers of the curandeiro to help her. The only treatments I know anything about are those for children, because they actually tell me about them. When I told a baby that her shell-necklace was beautiful, the adolescent that was carrying her told me it was a medication. “For what?” I inquired. “To prevent a hot body.” Alright, I can dig it, fevers are a common problem for babies everywhere. When I asked my favorite five-year-old, what the hemp rope around his abdomen was, he replied “A medication.” Again, I inquired “For what?” He told me that it was to ward off evil spirits. Yet again, I can dig it, I would also be heartbroken if an evil spirit got to my favorite kid. The only thing that gets me about the curandeiro, however, is the price. It costs 1 metical to go get checked out at the hospital (the price of 3 mangos), 5 meticais to get a blood test done (the price for 4 good-sized onions), and like 20 meticais for a medication (about the price of a kilogram of sugar). This is fairly reasonable and doable for most people. The curandeiro, I’m pretty sure, is much more expensive. But if half the battle is believing in the value of the treatment you are receiving, then by all means, do what you gotta do to get better.

And to end, my favorite act of familial or neighborly responsibility that I have ever witnessed in Mozambique was when I was sitting and people-watching on my porch (naturally…). A man on a bicycle rode by with another guy sitting on the back. This second guy was strapped to the front guy with a piece of cloth, apparently to keep him from falling off because he didn’t look too stable. Now, the hospital is 15km away (about 10 miles through the mountains), and this front guy was going to pedal his sick brother, neighbor, whoever, all the way there. Talk about community support. 

Amuuurica

As I learned first-hand in my recent, 3 week, too short, stint in America, the difference between life in the two countries in which I have lived is vast in many ways. Immediately after my last post, I became grossly aware of this fact. In no way is this variance more acute than in the way we get around and travel. Inherent in the word “accident,” car accidents happen. But that does not mean they are ok. On December 21, five Mozambique Peace Corps Volunteers were in a fatal car accident. Three were seriously injured but survived. Two others were killed. Though I never had the great pleasure of meeting either of these I’m sure awesome girls, who were sworn in as volunteers only a few weeks prior, as with all volunteers, we consider each other family. This tragic loss has deeply affected the whole Peace Corps family and beyond, to their families and communities back home. It is intensely sad and a tremendous loss; they were only 22 and 23 years old. It is thus with an incredibly heavy heart (this in addition to saying “until 2013” to my family and friends) that I begin my second year as a PCV.

Not to dampen or diminish this well-deserved and admittedly short shout-out to these volunteers, and to elucidate my point about the differences in life in America and in Mozambique, I have included the following comparison between America and Moz.

Say what you will about Mozambican life, but, far and above, it is uncomplicated. The most complicated technology with which one has to combat is the ATM, and I am hands down, absolutely always, the most competent ATM user in the 40-person-long (and ever-elongating) bank line. The most complicated questions of social concern (“will this person be mad if I…” or “how do I break this bad news,” or “I have a complicated question that I am unsure as to how exactly I should phrase in Portuguese) are easily remedied by the simple fact that Mozambicans have relatively short memories when it comes to usually grudge-inducing situations. Furthermore, in an overwhelmingly generalizing sense, they are surprisingly forgiving and have the overall attitude that “everything is fine, it isn’t a big deal.” “There’s no problem” is a major sentiment here and necessary sentence to have at your disposal. A simple smile and “how are you” goes a really long way as well. The most complicated aspect of travel in Mozambique is securing a ride, but once accomplished, the rest is rather simple: just make friends with the other passengers, hold the babies they place on your lap without asking, sit, and wait for arrival.

My main motto and mantra when in America last month, was “America is rough.” For example, using a debit card and figuring out tip is rough. Also, stairs. And iPhones (c’mon people, let’s play scrabble together and not sit on the couch, next to each other, playing Words with Friends, with each other, on our various Apple devices). Cutting large, genetically engineered produce into small pieces can be rather problematical. Burners actually give off legitimate heat and actually have the ability to burn your food (is that where they got their name??) The facility to trick an automatically flushing toilet to flush when it is being stubborn is not an inherent trait though it may at first glance appear to be. Forgetting that a thumbs-up is not a universally used or cool gesture can make for some awkward moments. Not being able to employ the excuse, “Sorry I didn’t return your text/call/email. The cell service/internet has been slow/shotty/down,” forces one to be social. Airport security and remembering all the rules is difficult. Actually, extend that to the rules in general of standard American society. Traffic. Remembering that being white no longer entails me to practically do anything ridiculous or strange that I want without fear of societal judgment or rejection was a quite grim realization (that and the fact that I can’t say inappropriate things in English without anyone understanding). Conservative politics. And, malls (though that isn’t new for me).

On the whole, however, it was great to visit with everyone in DC, Florida, and California. And despite everything, the awesome-ness of the land of plenty was definitely not lost on me. A three-week eating binge is not only expected, but inevitable. Grocery stores go on forever, and restaurants actually serve every single dish they boast on their menu. Other music exists besides Shakira, Akon, and Brazilian/Portuguese emo love ballads. Beer is served in pitchers and the water never stops running. TV is in English and the advertisements do not appear to have been made on the side of a bush/dirt road or in someone’s front yard. You can just hop into your car and the world magically becomes your oyster. Cars make a sound when someone is not wearing their seatbelt and people generally obey traffic signals and laws (pedestrians even have the right of way!) Your clothes traverse the spectrum of dirty to spick, span, and DRY in an hour’s time. Bathrooms are most commonly stocked and equipped with toilet paper, soap, and working locks. A night’s sleep during the month of December does not entail waking up in the middle of the night bathed in sweat. Sleeping curled under a blanket is not only possible and enjoyable without dying of heat stroke, but it is also necessary. Books stores. Stores and restaurants return correct change to you in a timely manner. Floors are dirt-free and the strength of your water-carrying muscles can deteriorate without repercussions. And I can watch TV marathons on an HDTV sitting in a reclining chair rather than a rock-hard wicker couch or a mattress with a Teacher Ana- shaped divot in the middle of it. And possibly the best parts of America aside from food items and individuals that I love, are three simple words: The Food Network. Maybe America is not so rough after all.

And last, the substantial differences of life between the US and Mozambique can be highlighted in the following anecdote, which was related to me by a former Mozambique PCV: I went home to America last year for a Christmas visit and I guess the variation in food and the proximity of my site to the beach really paid off. Everyone said, “Oh, you look so great! You’re so thin and tan!” Then, after three weeks eating American food and living through the snow, I returned to Mozambique to the joyous response of “Oh, you look so great! You’re so fat and pale!” Awesome...

Fruit Has Returned

I wrote this entry about a month ago, before I came back for my visit to the US. Thanks to the feedback from my lovely grandmother and all the readers at Boca Woods Country Club, I realized that I never posted it. I will probably write a new entry after my three weeks in the land of free refills, crisp air, customer service, and broccoli have concluded. Enjoy!

The season of fruit has officially returned to Mozambique. And it is simply fantastic.

The season for litchi, which is the best fruit on earth, though extremely short-lived, only about a month long, and plagued for the first half of it with the Mozambican tendency to pick, sell, and eat produce before it is actually ripe, is the most wonderful month of the Mozambican seasonal produce calendar. Nothing can beat sitting on my front porch, sitting next to a big bag of litchi that only cost $1.20, people watching, and popping litchi after litchi after litchi to pass a Sunday afternoon. If you have never had a litchi, like me before I came to live here, try to find some litchi juice and watch your world transform. The reason we don’t get litchi in the US is that the season for them is so short and they are damn near impossible to transport before expiring, thus there can be no real American market for them. But apparently San Francisco is one of the only places in the US that could effectively grow litchi so I may have found my new profession after Peace Corps: amateur litchi grower and distributer, thereby positively affecting the lives of those consuming my product. I may seem to be over the top about litchi, but 1. They are that good and 2. Living in Mozambique, with the positive lack of new food options, can make a volunteer crazy about food.

Along with litchi, we are also entering the season for avocados, cucumber, mango, pineapple, more easily accessible bananas, and coconuts. Thus, I am back to a diet of cucumber, tomato, onion, and avocado salad sandwiches, and guacamole and pineapple or mango salsa on homemade tortilla chips. Delicious. But, because Gurué district doesn’t have that many coconuts, we also don’t have any lanha, young coconut. Essentially, what you do is find someone selling them, usually an 8 year-old boy who climbed the coconut palm or threw rocks at the lanha to knock it down, and for a measly $0.15, they cut a hole into the top of the young coconut. And then you get about 2-3 cups full of delicious, sweet, rehydrating coconut water. Then you hand the lanha back to the kid, and he breaks it in half, and, with the cap of the shell, you scoop out pieces of the coconut flesh, which at this stage in its maturity is super soft. It is the best snack ever, and I make a point to buy one whenever I see them when traveling outside my district.  

Aside from the re-inauguration of my favorite Mozambican produce, life is pretty monotonous here. I found some paint in my house the other day and gave the kids in the neighborhood paintbrushes and paper. They had a field day with it since it was the first time any of them, ages 2-7, had ever used a paintbrush and paint. Wow, things I take advantage as childhood staples are anything but that here. There is currently a drought going on in my region of Mozambique. It should be raining almost everyday, but it is currently raining once every 2 weeks. People are very concerned about the potential shortages of food and water that may result from the drought, and also worry about the impending deluge that may hit, ruining all the crops everyone is currently planting. I’m really hoping the rains start, thereby normalizing the lives of 90% of the population that exists on subsistence farming. The second cycle of national exams start next week, and then I begin my journey down the continent to Johannesburg, to catch my plane back to the land of clean, paved streets, peppers that come in a variety of colors, and onions the size of my hand.

I was thinking the other day about what will be different in America besides amenities and food. It weirded me out when I first got here that everyone says “Good morning, how are you” before you even begin to discuss making a purchase at the market or when you are simply passing each other on the road. But now, it is just part of my daily, even hourly, routine. And its kinda nice, as it provides a sure sense of community and neighborly-ness because it is considered rude if this conversational exchange is not undertaken. There were certain aspects of life in Mozambique that I was relatively aware of and prepared to approach before I got here: irregular electricity, no running water, different foods (that often make you sick), mosquito bites, practically resource-less teaching, different ideals, values, and roles for men, women, and children, Africa Time (nothing starting on time), etc. But clearly, I had forgotten to try to come up with the positive differences I would come across: always inquiring about the wellbeing of others, respect for your elders, forgiveness, not holding grudges, constant ingenuity in the face of obstacles, a slow pace of life (which can be frustrating, but I have been slowly trying to appreciate the value of it), general propensity to help (even if you don’t need it) and share all that you can spare, blatant trust and reliance on both neighbors and strangers, “little by little” being a core tenet of life, etc. And these parts of life here are even more felt and seen than the (more negative) ones I had initially thought would most greatly affect my day-to-day. Though I will say, with certain conviction and anticipation: genetically modified, diverse in color and type, massively large, easy to attain, and quick to prepare food, here I come.

1 Year Down

Well, I survived a year of teaching. Let Summer Break begin! I’m anxiously waiting to arrive in DC on December 15 for a three-week whirlwind trip in the US!

To sum up the end of the school year, I will say this. Mozambique has it right: smash the majority of your holidays into the last month and a half of school so that just when everyone, (teachers, students, administrators) are all antsy for ferias, holidays, to begin, you get a bunch of days off to facilitate the transition. October is the last month of school, and there are 3 big holidays:

1. Dia de Paz (Peace Day), which is celebrated by trucks ambling around full of soldiers holding AK-47s. When I asked why people were showing off their guns, my neighbors told me, “Well, its Peace Day.” Oh…Right….Duh…

2. Dia de Professores (Teacher’s Day), which is celebrated by teachers throwing massive parties and drinking a lot. There is also an unspoken holiday exactly one week before Teacher’s Day, to officially commence Semana de Professores, Teacher’s Week. So, really it’s a two-in-one holiday.

3. Dia de Samora Machel, which celebrates the anniversary of the death of Samora Machel, the first president of Mozambique as an independent country. This year was the 25^th anniversary and has been called “O Ano de Samora Machel, “ or the Year of Samora Machel.

After final exams, the students in 10^th and 12^th grades have to take the national exams to pass to 11^th grade / to get a 10^th grade diploma or to graduate second cycle, respectively. It is essentially 2 weeks of proctoring, grading, and corruption-prevention (i.e. coding tests before they are graded so teachers can’t read a student’s name at the top and give a biased grade and putting red lines through every empty space on the test answer book so that no one can go back and add anything later, thereby changing what the student wrote and improve their grade). With hundreds of students each taking 5-10 tests, it’s a lot of paperwork, the only solace of which is that Dia de Cidade de Maputo, Maputo City Day, is during this time every year, and because no one is working in the capital, apparently, we are exempt from work as well. But then, we get to do the whole national exam rigmarole again at the beginning of December because the exams are so difficult, the majority of students don’t pass, and they can take an easier version of the test at this time.

My secondary projects and student groups are over for the year. My English theatre troop, 10 students who together wrote a 15-minute play in English about how drinking negatively affects your prospects for the future, came in 4^th place at the provincial competition (out of 6…sad). But they were really great to work with and I am extremely proud of their English accomplishments as well as the awesome discussions we had about making good choices for a brighter future.

We had the good-bye party for my roommate last week, and me and the women of the neighborhood cooked for 12 hours to make the spread that fed 60 people. Gotta love Mozambican women, a group of whom came to my porch at 6:30am asking to peel potatoes. At one point, I think all the kids of the neighborhood ages 2-10 were standing around peeling the garlic. The food was delicious, the dancing hilarious, and a good time was had to despedir, say goodbye, to a great Peace Corps Volunteer, teacher, and friend. And now, on to a year of being the only mukunha (local language for white person) in the area…oh boy.

But other than that, life is pretty routine around here. I have, however, begun to see massive groups of goats and cows grazing on my runs in the bush. I turn a corner, and BAM, 30 cows or 30 goats are coming at me head on. Scary shit the first time around, but now, me and the 8 year-old boys who are herding the animals are buds.

Also, below, I have added the poems my girls group wrote together. They are corny as hell, but have some really positive and great sentiments that I hope they continue to strive towards, and they were really excited that their poems were going on the esoteric idea of the internet that I explained to the few who didn’t know. The un-bolded parts are my English translations.

Os Poemas de REDES

Rapariga Vencerá

Young Women Will Conquer

Tenho certeza que juntas venceremos a violência doméstica

I am certain that together we will conquer domestic violence

Tenho certeza que lutaremos contra o abuso sexual

I am certain that we will fight against sexual abuse

Tenho certeza que todas podemos acabar com a discriminação

I am certain that all of us can end discrimination

Tenho certeza que venceremos a gravidez indesejada.

I am certain that we will conquer unwanted pregnancies.

A Rapariga é capaz de lutar pelos seus direitos

A young woman is capable of fighting for her rights

A Rapariga é o futuro do caminho da liberdade

A young woman is the future of the road to freedom

A Rapariga é chave da oportunidade

A young woman is the key to opportunity

A Rapariga é linda de naturaliza

A young woman is naturally beautiful

A Rapariga preservará o amanha

A young woman will preserve tomorrow

Uma Rapariga saudável sempre têm força de trabalhar.

A young, healthy woman always has the strength to work.

Criança Livre

Free Child

Tu Criança és o que todos esperam

You, child, are what we all are waiting for

Tu Criança tens a oportunidade de dizer não a todos os males

You, child, have the opportunity to say no to anything that is bad

Tu Criança tens direitos de viver numa sociedade livre de todo mal

You, child, have the right to live in a society free of all bad things

Tu Criança és o tesouro duma nação

You, child, are the treasure of a nation

Tu Criança: a educação é a chave da tua felicidade

You, child: education is the key to your happiness

Tu Criança: se hoje choras, amanha sorrirás.

You, child: if today you are crying, tomorrow you will smile.