The Train

It is rumored by some fellow PCVs that Mozambique runs one of the only passenger trains left in this part of Africa. I have been reading my Mozambique guidebooks and have not found anything to confirm this, but I do know that the train I took last week is AWESOME.

Mozambique is a large country, with most of its area stretching from north to south, with most of the development in the south, stemming from bustling Maputo, the capital, which lies practically on the country’s southern border with South Africa. Most of the traffic and roads that are passable and frequented take people in this longitude-direction. In the far north, there are not many paved roads and a promising throughway east to west is only traversable with a private car, and even then, not at all times of year. Because of all this, the train, which takes you from Nampula (Mozambique’s third largest city and about 150-200km from a large industrial port on the Indian Ocean) west to Cuamba (an extremely dusty, wild-west-esque town that lies at the south of a province that is mostly pure bush and wild reserves, but which also borders Malawi and Lake Malawi). Therefore, this form of transport is highly utilized by people wanting to travel east to west, and it brings a lot of produce and other goodies to this more humble, northern part of the country. One of the PCVs that live in Cuamba is a walking billboard for the train, so a few friends and I decided to take it, and then visit the famously beautiful lake.

We got to the train station at 4am with our second-class tickets in hand. Second-class is the highest class offered, and sometimes it is not even an option. Third-class is much cheaper, but you are packed in on hard wooden benches, well over-capacity, and with ever-accumulating sacks of onions, beans, corn, and more. So we broke the bank and spent the extra $8 to travel in the “lap of luxury:” second-class. We were three people, and got our own little room with a futon-like padded bed/seat. We spent the 11-hour ride lounging with our feet up, playing cards, drinking beer, and eating the food that could be bought through the window at every stop. Or we could often be found standing in the hallway, with our heads out the window, taking in the breathtaking, mountainous scenery. The train traveled at a grand-spanking 30-40mph and had some technical problems, but we didn’t care. Honestly, it was the most comfortable travel experience I have ever had (there is even a cantina that sells beer and half-chicken with fried potatoes! Imagine that, Mozambique). Yes, on a 10-hour international flight, you now get your own personal TV and movie selection, and free drinks, but you are still sitting immobile in a 2ft by 2ft box when in economy class. This was like having our own living room as we rumbled, grumbled, and bumped along, with the whole 2 cars we witnessed on the adjacent road all day, easily passing us (it is the dry season, however, and thus the roads are a little easier to maneuver). Some of the train stops are probably only denoted by an interesting looking-tree, but others have cement 1-room stations. At every stop, there are women and children selling food through the windows: large, discounted quantities of tomatoes, carrots, and onions; huge sacks of who knows what; and snacks, which we eagerly bought up: boiled eggs, roasted peanuts, tangerines, oranges, bananas, bread, Mozambican falafel, etc. I. LOVE. THE. TRAIN. Really though, the train should be featured on a travel show, and should be a hit with the truly fledgling tourist-industry here.

I have also been continuing to volunteer at the hospital, and every time, I notice new things. The women bring these forms to their pre-natal visits, of which they usually get 1 or 2 during their pregnancies, and children have cards to keep track of weight, vaccinations, de-worming meds, vitamin A doses, etc. And it makes sense, there are no computers to store the information, but on the other hand, the majority of the people frequenting a health posts out in the bush are illiterate. They don’t know their age, which is why women with 7 children will say they are 20 years old, they rarely speak Portuguese, and they cannot read or understand the date that is listed for them to return for their next consult. But what are Irma and I to do? Neither of us is from northern Zambézia (Irma is from a neighboring province) and therefore we don’t speak the local language. So we try our best. As opposed to the education system, I believe that even a half-assed health system is better than nothing. Even if all we accomplished in five hours was giving 30 babies vaccines against polio and giving out 30 packets of birth control (to women who think they don’t have to take it on days they don’t have sex or if their husband if not there, because they don’t understand the instructions we give them…), that is still something important. Even if the infant or maternal mortality rate is lowered only by 1% because of this health post, its existence and the work the small staff does are justified. But I have recently had an internal debate. Apparently, the measles vaccine, once the bottle is opened, must be administered that same day. So if they only administer 2 doses out of a 10-dose bottle, they have wasted 8 whole vaccines and run out before their new Ministry of Health/UniCef shipment. So they implemented a new system: they only offer the measles vaccine on Fridays. At first glance, this seems to make sense. But everyday, women come in from 3 hours away to get the vaccine and Irma tells them to come back on Friday. Now, even if they understood the words Irma said, because they attended at least some school, they inevitably don’t have anything that tells them the date at home. So I assume many do not come back on the right day and many babies are without the measles vaccine even though the health post has it in stock. So which is better: giving out the vaccine everyday and running out before the end of each month because of the wasted doses, or only giving it out to the people who happen to be there on Fridays? Which system inoculates more babies? I am truly searching for an answer. Yet it seems to be a veritable conundrum that can only be solved with a statistical study that I have no desire to instigate.

I asked Irma why women come from so far to the Invinha health post when they have them in other towns nearby. Her answer: 1. They like to have a nun around and 2. Because our health post employees steal less of the medications than they give out. Apparently, other health workers throughout the country (and I assume the continent) steal the meds and sell them to people who need them at a higher price than the almost miniscule fee they are supposed to give them out for at the health post. The supply runs out quickly and only those with money are getting meds. Invinha is famous for actually giving out vaccines and medications, and only stealing a little. I’m glad that is the bar upon which a trustworthy, health center is judged at.

In the US, I feel like doctors, nurses, and family members are very supportive and encouraging of a woman in labor. Here, they are not. They leave them be and really the only interaction between nurse or traditional midwife and patient is to check how many centimeters she is. So here I come, white, with no nursing experience, and I am holding women’s hands and telling them things I think might motivate them about how great they are doing. And every single time, Irma, the other female nurse, and the 2 traditional midwives laugh and make fun of me. And I only slightly care because I just can’t sit back and watch women in pain, screaming in Elomwe about who knows what, without trying to give them some support. Here, the family members that come with the women to the health post to give birth (friend, sister, mother, aunt, or other random female relative) must stay outside, shooting the shit with the other relatives-in-waiting, cooking over fires, and only entering the birthing room to give sips of water and capulana to the screeching women. But they form a small community out there, as I assume men in the 50s in the US did, though instead of cigars and scotch, they have corn mush and sugar cane.

 I would like to dedicate this post to my grandma Ruth, a true matriarch, and an absolutely incredible grandmother, mother, wife, and so much more. I love you and miss you and am doing my best to approximate a version of the world´s best stuffing.

BABIES!

Well today, 4^th of July, I delivered 2 babies.

I have recently been helping out one of the nuns that is a nurse in her shifts at the health post. Usually, I just help vaccinate babies, give out birth control, and give brief pre-natal visits (which solely includes an HIV test and measuring their bellies). I prefer this side of the 6-room health post because I get to play with babies and see super pregnant women who walked on foot for hours from deep in the bush (some of which are my old students who dropped out of school after becoming pregnant). The other side of the health post is where the sick people go. Who would want to deal with babies with diarrhea or old men with worms oozing from their wounds when they could play with healthy babies and laugh after watching super bush women stare at the scale and be scared to step on it or to stand on it completely in the wrong way? It is also awesome to witness women that, when asked how many children they have given birth to, say “João, António, Maria, Octávio” and then show you five fingers. Or to hear the argument that ensues among the women waiting with their babies in the hall after someone has responded to the question “when was the baby born?” with the answer “day 33.” Irma Laurinda (the nun who is a nurse) lets me give vitamin A drops to babies, administer the polio vaccine (again, giving drops to babies), and measure the pregnant ladies’ bellies. Many of the women have scars in sets of three lines or in patterns on their thighs and abdomens that I meant to ask Irma about as we walked home, but I forgot. I assume they are either part of an initiation rite for young girls or a “treatment” from a traditional healer. I will keep you posted. Irma says soon I will graduate to injections. Aside from the fact that I have absolutely no medical training, the fact that I am white and a college grad apparently deems me sufficiently qualified for such tasks in the eyes of the staff at a rural, supply-less health post in the middle of Mozambique.

But today, I delivered 2 babies.

Irma was on baby-delivery duty today so I tagged along. There were four women in the room, all laying there mostly naked on hard beds with no sheets, blankets, or pillows, and all moaning at different frequencies. In a mandate of utter cruelty, the women in the early stages of labor must watch the women in total agony two feet away. One woman was wrapped so tightly in her capulana to try to block out the noise and to attempt to not witness her inevitable fate, I thought she might suffocate. Another woman had come in to get a routine pre-natal consult and Irma realized this lady was about to give birth right then so off we went to deliver. This woman, I never knew her name since she didn’t speak a lick of Portuguese, had previously birthed 8 other children, 5 of whom were still alive. Now, the Mozambican bedside manner is nonexistent, so while Irma chastised the lady for being lazy and not “giving enough force,” I held her hand and told her I believed in her and all that other mushy shit I thought might motivate her through the pain. And had she understood a word of my Portuguese, perhaps I would have helped. But I do know she appreciated my presence on some level because when I had briefly run over to where another lady on the verge of giving birth was screaming on the other side of the room, she yelled something I didn’t understand and motioned for me to come back. So I stayed by her side and wiped the sweat from her face on the capulana she had brought with her to the “hospital” (giving birth in Mozambique is BYO because you must bring your own sheets, baby-swaddling stuff, and post-partum diaper paraphernalia). And finally, after crapping all over the bed, bleeding uncontrollably, and splaying fluid everywhere (which I realize is normal, but no one seemed too concerned about the fact that she was lying right on top of the mattress that the next woman in labor would use), my new best friend gave birth to a beautiful baby girl. “CONGRATULATIONS! IT’S A GIRL!” I yelled and she kinda grunted unhappily, not too interested in holding her daughter. I, on the other hand, ooh-ed and ahh-ed over the baby for about 45 minutes. Irma kept saying that the lady should name her Ana after me, but seeing as the lady didn’t understand us, I would bet that didn’t actually happen. But then immediately, with almost no warning, the other lady gave birth to a huge baby boy. “CONGRATULATIONS! IT’S A BOY!” I yelled, and the new mother, as this was her first, bluntly said, “A man? Damn. A man was what has made me suffer and now I have another man to take care of.” Point. Well. Taken.

Overall, it was awesome. I was there on a good day: all the mothers and babies lived. Apparently, that squigy ball thing that is used to take fluid from the babies’ noses has been misplaced for some time at this health post, and a lot of babies are dying because of it. Apparently, this is not something that comes in the monthly supply box. But not today did anyone succumb to this ridiculous and preventable death. (I have asked my sister to bring a box of these things when she comes to visit at the end of the month so the problem will temporarily be solved then). But the experience really made me think: here are these women, giving birth with no fetal monitors, no epidurals, not much sanitation, no doctors, no family members allowed in, no fucking sheets on their beds, squeezed in one room with all the other women in labor, with their vaginas out for the world to see through the windows, and they are birthing beautiful babies. At least a lot of the time. High-risk pregnancies are sent to the city, but still it is crazy to realize how natural the whole process is when in the US, it seems very scientific. When my new best friend’s baby had its head out, I literally froze, thinking “I can’t touch it, I don’t know what I am doing!” but I later realized that was stupid. I had on gloves and a mask and all I really had to do was gently ease her out. But I was concerned at that moment about not fucking it all up and wrapping the umbilical chord around the baby’s neck or something. Maybe next time I will actually “receive” the baby. Irma then regaled me over our late-afternoon “lunch” about women who routinely come running into the “hospital” bleeding everywhere and clutching a 20 minute-old baby: “I didn’t make it and gave birth in the middle of the road!” they yell. And about the women who give birth on their dirt floors because their husband and their friends are all out at the moment. She must cut the chord herself, and then trudge hours to on foot to the hospital. These stories and the poverty they represent, and not actually seeing all the blood and gore of a baby being born are what make me sick to my stomach.

Unfortunately, this was also the first day that a woman we had been giving a pre-natal visit to came back with a positive HIV test. I will never forget her face. She was young and beautiful, slightly cross-eyed from needing but never having had the means to buy glasses, and wearing a bright green shirt that said, no joke, “I am a sex god.” She just broke down upon hearing the news. In a crazy twist of emotions, this was only about an hour before I held a healthy newborn in my arms. As an education volunteer, I know people who are HIV positive, but unlike health volunteers, my daily work doesn’t revolve around it. So I was not prepared. But I don’t think that hearing someone deliver that news is something anyone is ever prepared for.

Last week, two of my favorite neighborhood kids, Gigantinho and Belsa, were in a motorcycle accident with their father. Gigantinho came away with just a wound on his forehead that is healing nicely. Belsa, on the other hand, has half of her face covered in bandages. The skin on half her face is totally off and one of her nostrils is mostly gone. As I told their mom, I am relieved that solely aesthetic parts of them were injured, but it is still pretty bad. The risk of infection and who knows what else with the not up to par care they received at the health center makes my heart break. Any sort of reconstruction is clearly a pipe dream and out of the question, and that is why any sort of skin ailment, burns, or a guy I saw with massive growths all around his face, are secondary to other complaints and illnesses. But they are kids, and resilient, and I am not too worried about permanent damage. It is still shitty and scary, and why you can get kicked out of Peace Corps for riding motorcycles.

Trimester 5 Down, 1 To Go

This week was the last week of the second trimester (only one more!), and therefore, an important week of revision, answering questions, attending to notebook checks, verifying that all students have completed the assignments of the trimester, and more.

In America.

In Mozambique, however, the school decided to cancel class all afternoon Tuesday for an impromptu teachers’ meeting. Typical. I took advantage of all the teachers being held up in the meeting and combined my classes of students, gave my lessons, and then casually slipped in to catch the end of the meeting. What I learned at the meeting: our school ranks at an impressively low 154^th in the country. Now I do not know for sure how many secondary schools there are in Mozambique, but the lowest ranking I saw on the charts was 183, so I would venture somewhere around there. This fact definitely does nothing for moral. And many schools that I know are much more disorganized than mine had higher rankings, owing to more rampant corruption, grade-changing, and overall fraud.The 29^th worst school in Mozambique is what a shred of honesty gets you. Furthermore, Zambézia is the second lowest achieving province overall. Sweet. And finally, I also learned that on the 12^th grade national exams one must pass to graduate, in 2011, only 9.1% of students at my school passed the first round (if you fail, you are given another chance a month later). Passing in Mozambique requires only achieving a 9.5 out of 20 or higher, or equivalently, at leasta 47.5% (in America, passing is 70%; can you imagine a school system full of students getting 55s and thinking that is good?! Because that is what you have in Moz…). That means that 90.9% of 12^th graders last year at my school did not understand at least 52.5% of the material they were expected to. 90.9% of students got less than a 48. A devastating blow. This therefore means one of two things: 1. Students in Mozambique are exceptionally stupid (which I onlymostly disagree with) or 2. The standards are way too high for the reality of what students are capable of learning and teachers of teaching. My vote is on the latter, with perhaps a hint of the former mixed in…

Then on Thursday, with exams to commence Friday, they canceled first period of both the morning and afternoon sessions to discuss with the students the process of the exams and to call up and reward the best students in each class. Now, I am not necessarily against the dissemination of this information, but I am against cancelling the class period 5 minutes before it started when I had planned either to do a review or a final evaluation, depending on the different subjects I teach. Then the rest of the day was given over to the students to copy long texts in Portuguese and English from the board because they would not each be given their own exam paper on exam day. Needless to say, I lost my shit. Why can’t we ask for students to contribute the 2 meticais per test it would take to make copies?! Normally I am against asking poor students to give money to take a test, but in this scenario, considering the alternatives, I liked it. Well, I was informed, the government, which provides nothing to the school except the salaries of the teachers, and this usually months late, has mandated that the schools cannot accept money from students for the final exams. The government provides the exams, chock full of errors, well beyond the abilities of the students, and often on topics not required in the curriculum, and insists we use them. But they only provide one copy for each discipline for each grade. One copy of the 8^th grade math test only gets you so far for 400 eighth graders. So the school, now with no money from the government to make copies and without the ability to charge students, must raise the necessary funds. All this the day before the first exams are to begin. Now this is a quandary if I ever heard one. Ultimately, I “loaned” the school the money to make the copies, and yes, I realize I will never see that money again, because I was sick of all the bullshit. I know this act is not sustainable and that it is not advisable by any standards of development. But it was something I could concretely do to help because I could not think of another alternative aside from smashing all the students in the gym, typing the tests into the computer, and using the projector. With all the problems we have been having with energy recently, I ventured not to suggest this for fear of further chaos. And the hope is that next trimester, when my school has begun to make money from the copy machine my wonderful friends and family helped to buy, they can turn that money into the copies of final exams. At least, that is the hope.

As has been my mantra all year, education here is a joke: teachers and students alike view it as such. One of the nuns that run the girls dorm is from Swaziland, a neighbor of Mozambique that, like all its neighboring countries, is English speaking. So she likes to chat with me. On Thursday, we had an hour-long bashing session of the Mozambican school system, as apparently the Swazi schools are more, effective, strict, transparent, and honest, at least according to her. No one takes academics seriously we agreed. It is just not good for the spirits to see 35 year-old teachers cozying up to 16 year-old students instead of going to class. It is demoralizing to give out zeros to half the class because they all cheated on the assignment. It is downright upsetting to have class cancelled on you at the last minute on a regular basis. It is devastating to witness 17 year-olds at the school party drunkenly announcing that they want to sleep with Professor X or Professor Y. AndI hate planning fun, interesting lessons only to have many of my students be unable to open up their minds to properly absorb and comprehend information, because after years in a mind-numbingly boring scholastic situation, they are unable to do anything except incorrectly vomit information from the board onto the assignment without an inkling of understanding. Watching illiterate students copy shapes of letters and words in the ninth grade does nothing to make you want to keep on teaching. Such is the way of the Mozambican school system.

And finally, I also wanted to comment on barulho (noise). Sometimes I will wake up briefly at 1am and be totally unaccustomed to the deafening silence I encounter. I savor it in my two-minute half-asleep, half-awake daze, because I know that the next time I wake up, the racket that is inherent in Mozambican life will inevitably be in full throttle. Living in Mozambique is anything but quiet. From roosters crowing to people sweeping their front yards to dogs fighting and barking incessantly to a few women getting a jumpstart on the day’s grain pounding, the commotion and clamor start before daybreak. And all day, there are people talking loudly, the din of buckets being filled with water, the disturbance of children screaming, and so much more. My yard is the neighborhood, and these close quarters do nothing to deflect the sound blast. And to top it all off, all day and until late at night (maybe like 10 or 11pm here), except on those glorious days when the energy has gone out, people are blaring music. I often go to sleep to the sounds of horrible Mozambican rap and then wake up at 5am to the same song on repeat. And the night after the school day party last week, it seemed like every teacher’s house in the neighborhood was hosting 30 drunken students and a cacophonous cornucopia of bad music that lasted 3 days. And with Independence Day on Monday, I am steeling myself for another jarringly loud rave. I would like to qualify this last paragraph that I do appreciate the vivacity of life in Mozambique: there is always someone around to chat with, always some leaf-tearing or rice sorting to help with, and life is never totally dull. But it damn sure is loud.

Bowzer Is Back

Some genius yet masochistic Peace Corps Volunteer decided it would be a good idea to bring 5 seasons of Bravo’s hit show “Top Chef” to Mozambique. I stupidly decided to start watching it. It is one of my favorite shows back home (I mean what could be better than a reality show about people who are actually talented, and that talent being in the realm of creating delicious food) and I soon became engrossed in it. But, it was a unique type of torture because I am wholly unable to make, or even purchase, any of the food I am seeing on the screen. Here are people making 5-star food while I am eating starchy pasta with no sauce because the market didn’t have tomatoes that day. But one lazy Sunday afternoon, I was in my room watching an episode of this beloved show when all the kids of the neighborhood came tramping and screaming up to my porch. I unhappily dragged myself away from my computer and asked them what was up. “BOWZER RETURNED!” they yelled. I told them that was impossible since Bowzer died two months ago, and they just repeated themselves, “BOWZER RETURNED.” And then as if on cue, a little runt of a dog that looked exactly like my adored, deceased dog Bowzer streaked in front of my house. Upon further inspection, I obviously noticed that this dog was not in fact Bowzer, but probably his offspring. And now the whole neighborhood thinks it is hilarious that my one-balled dog had succeeded in procreating, and in producing a similarly one-balled child at that. I aptly named this new dog Bowz Jr, a nice appellation in comparison to most of the other bush dogs that were christened by me as Black Dog, Brown Dog, Piece of Shit Dog that enters my house and chews things like my computer charger chord, STD dog, etc. He is totally scared of me, as all non-Peace Corps Volunteer dogs are in the face of people here, and I do not touch it or allow it in my house, because it has not received a Rabies shot I’m sure, but I can’t help but feel a certain connection to it. One neighborhood woman called him my grandson…oy.

This past weekend, I took some of the kids who do morning announcements at my school to a leadership conference (if leadership is mostly related to learning about gender, sexual health, and HIV…) with 3 other schools put on by PCVs. Overall, it went well, but per usual, the participants (students and teachers) were greedy about everything. Some idiot foreign aid official decided decades ago that giving people in developing countries a massive per diem when attending a training or conference was a good idea, and now every time we put on a training or conference, we reap all the negative effects: “This free money is not enough,” “My free t-shirt is too big,” “I must go walk around the city and buy a keepsake before I go home,” “I don’t get my own room?!” “Do you have any smaller bills?” “I don’t like this free food” were just a few of the complaints. It is just frustrating because they think that because we are foreigners were have an infinite amount of money to spare and they are owed their share, when really it is not our personal money we are using, the training took a lot to plan and a thank you could go a long way, and the training is not supposed to be for money, but rather to gain skills and knowledge, FOR FREE I might add. But overall, it was a good, informative weekend.

A few of the students, however, got “sick” at the workshop. And not matter how minimal the symptoms, the other teachers wanted the volunteers to take them to the hospital. I outright refused to take the kid with slightly swollen lymph nodes who I had just witnessed wolfing down his lunch and running around during free time. But I conceded for the girl who had chills, a fever, and was crying, and the kid who said it hurt when he took a breath. All the other teachers were certain that the girl had malaria, but I reminded them that yes, she had some of the symptoms of malaria, but until we did a test, we shouldn’t call it that. They were also pissed at me for not taking the other boy who also “had malaria,” though in my non-expert opinion, that diagnosis, without the presence of a fever, is complete crap. I understand that people often get very sick very fast here, and often die, but that does not mean that you need to miss this once in a lifetime conference for a stuffy nose. Mozambicans go to the hospital here like it is their job and it annoys me because they always miss school and other commitments simply because they aren’t drinking enough water in the hot Mozambican sun and got a headache. But I took these two kids to the hospital and it was an eye-opening and very explicatory experience, as it was the first time I had gone to a Mozambican health center. We got there and there was no line or seeming order to the place. Some creepy technician warmed up to the female, crying student, in a manner that reeked of sexual harassment and took some blood for her malaria test. The other kid was simply given a prescription for some meds. I asked him what the nurse had said, and he replied that he should take his meds twice a day. What meds? I asked. He didn’t know and handed me the baggies. It was an antibiotic and some ibuprofen. Now I am no doctor, but I know that just giving out antibiotics for everything is not advisable. And he had not received even the hint or a diagnosis or the concession that he even had something wrong. Two hours later, the girl was also given a baggie of meds “for malaria” she told me. I took the baggie (I had given her the money for the meds, so it was my due to see what it was) and saw it was another antibiotic. Again, I am no doctor, but I know that the anti-malaria was not this med, so I asked her if her malaria test was positive or negative, and she said they had just given her the meds. I figured it must have been negative since they didn’t give her the anti-malarial, and I proudly boasted that I had been right about her diagnosis when I got back and reported to the other teachers. But is struck me: the hospital staff were just on one big power trip. They don’t inform the patients of anything because this is what gives them power: a population of people who don’t know anything about their own health, go to the hospital for the smallest of symptoms, and just blindly follow the advise of medical staff. I was rather pissed off at the whole process. I mean come on, the girl wasn’t even told if her malaria test was positive or negative, leaving her to believe that the meds she was given were to cure her malaria. I hate to think of what goes on when the hospital administers its anti-retrovirals for HIV positive pateints…

And finally, at this conference, one of the other PCVs there eloquently summed up what I had always sensed being here but was never able to rightly express: “The schedule and agenda that Mozambicans demand that every event has don’t actually exist, but the people attending the event do exist. Therefore, as long as there is someone who has something to say, the time and the uncovered topics are irrelevant and the person can go on talking until the end of time.” No matter if no one is listening or if he is repeating what has already been said seven times by other people, it is his right to delay everyone because the schedule is this ethereal, intangible concept. Nicely put.

Topic 5: Money Problems

In a chapa the other day, the driver and I were chatting after someone had just tried to pull a fast one on him and not pay for his ride. The driver highlighted a very common thread here: “Moçambicanos são cheio de problemas” or “Mozambicans are full of problems.” Money problems is just one.

Because community is the overarching entity here, people lend money to family and friends until they have no more money left to lend, or to even use themselves. They now move to the bottom of the money-lending chain and need to borrow from someone. No matter how much money you have, you inevitably follow this cycle. Once money is lent out, there is no expected return date. You shouldn’t expect to see that money again, unless of course, it comes in the form of you asking them to lend you some money at some later date, no matter if the original amounts do not match up. I am fairly certain that people often get the wrong idea of me because I generally refuse to lend money on principle. Yes, I would like to help out, but my Peace Corps living allowance does not afford me very much room to play with each month. I am currently holding a student’s ID card and wife’s bank card hostage until he pays me back the money he claimed he was going to use to remove a cancerous-looking growth that resides on the back of his head. He said he would have the money in 2 weeks. That was 3 months ago. And he is still sporting the awful growth on the nape of his neck. It is nice that Mozambicans look out for each other but it also means that no one ever has any money.

            The reason for this lending-borrowing cycle is that Mozambicans have no concept of budgeting or saving. One of my teacher friends, Bemvindo, desperately wants a laptop and always asks me for mine. As I decline, I always advise him that if he saves 500 meticais a month, in a few years you will have enough to buy a laptop. And if he saves 1000 meticais a month, that laptop will be his in a year. He has a steady job as a teacher and a consistent income that just about matches my Peace Corps allotted living allowance, definitely enough to work with if he is truly dedicated to saving each month. But this concept of saving goes nowhere with him. He always just claims poor: “I have to buy food for my daughter,” “I have to buy soap and other household items,” “I have to buy gas for my motorcycle.” That’s it! I tell him. Put your motorcycle on hold for a little while as you save money. But he always claims he needs his motorcycle (for what exactly I am unsure since he can literally see his place of work from his house). Then ok, we will sit down and make a budget. We wil plan out what you buy every month and see where we can cut back so you can save money and buy your laptop, I tell him. Easier said than done. When we actually tried this once, I started with food. “How much do you spend on oil per month?” He didn’t know how much a bottle of oil cost because he had never thought about it. He either bought it if he happened to have the money or didn’t if he didn’t have the money. He had never actually paid attention to the price. It was like this for every item. He made purchases when he felt like it without thinking into the future or preparing to buy more when the one he had ran out. So I told him, for the next month, write down everything you buy and how much it cost. He didn’t, even when I bugged him about it each week. So I gave up. He didn’t have any desire to do what it would realistically take to buy his laptop; he just wanted me to give him mine. Mozambicans also always want to know how I can afford to go on all these trips when I also insist that my salary is the same as, and often less than, theirs, and they can’t afford to travel as much as I do. I tell them that I plan ahead: I know it will cost me x meticais to take the trip that I want so I make sure that I keep that much in my bank account. Instead of buying 5 beers on a Friday night like the male teachers, I travel to Quelimane. They are blown away and can’t understand why I wouldn’t just buy the beers.

The reason that Bemvindo seems to be unable to plan for the future is a cultural lack of understanding of future consequences. It is why students don’t study for tests or why they come to my door after I have turned in my grades and ask to do a make-up test. It is why they don’t save or budget money. It is one of the many reasons why people have like 8 children. It is why buses do not run on a schedule and meetings/school always start late. And it is because the local, Bantu languages do not have a future tense. I have been told that the local language in Gurué, Elomwe, uses a phrase to indicate the future, that when translated from the local language to Portuguese for me, translates to English as “from here to nothing,” as in “from here to nothing, I fix your cellphone” or “from here to nothing, the chapa leaves.” Or also as in “better sit tight, wait, and make some friends and small talk with the others here as your cellphone is fixed or the bus prepares to leave because it could be a while.” They simply combine this esoteric notion and declaration of the future with the present tense. The time frame is so general and inconclusive that they can get away with totally neglecting the future and no one gets too upset about it. When your first language doesn’t have a concrete way to express future time, it is downright impossible to wrap your mind around future planning.

Mozambicans lack this propensity towards the future with food as well. If they have a lot one day, they will eat until they explode and then have nothing the next. They will go to see if they have corn flour and realize they have none to make for dinner and go to bed hungry. Didn’t you realize yesterday when you used the last of the corn flour that today you wouldn’t have any? It is the same with water. Maybe before you use your last bucket of water, you go get in the water-line so that you have at least something to work with while you wait. That’s what I do and I somehow never go without a bath or without washing my dishes.

            It is great that Mozambicans are so helpful of one another, and I realize that many Americans have the same difficulties with budgeting. But it is still extremely interesting to live in an entire culture that is so unconcerned and indifferent to the concept of what will happen later today, tomorrow, this weekend, next year. In my 11^th grade English classes, we are currently learning the future continuous (I will be doing) and the future perfect (I will have done). I hope I have elucidated some of the reasons why this unit is particularly challenging for us. Perhaps a happy medium between my own hyper-vigilant, American, future planning and the Mozambican, laidback, unworried attitude is in order. From here to nothing, that will be the day.

Apparently, I Am Scary

Apparently, there comes a time in every Mozambican baby’s development in which said baby’s optical maturity achieves a certain capacity to discern skin color. They are suddenly aware that the all-too-pale, hominid-like figure disrupting what would otherwise have been a snuggly snooze wrapped against their mother’s back in a capulana is markedly different from the rest. At about 9 months of age, many babies become afraid of me. While we had been buddies just the day before, BAM! I am suddenly scary and provoke a fit of tears, screams, and attempts to hide behind one’s mother. Then, just as magically, a few days or weeks later, the same baby will brighten and cheer when he lays eyes on me and the admittedly goofy face I am trying to win him over with. I realize that I am a rather fair person, but I had never thought that my skin color could incite such horror as to make a baby cry. Alas, I was clearly very wrong. The women of my neighborhood find this sequence of events incredibly funny and love to joke with me about which babies are currently scared of me, which used be frightened of me, and which are soon to assuredly harbor the same terror of my whiteness. Much to my relief, however, other PCVs have also admitted to elicit the same reaction from babies.

            I am also apparently just as capable at alarming the elderly. It doesn’t happen very often but I have been known to stop a crusty old man carrying lengths of sugar cane on his head or a preciously toothless old woman toting around tomatoes in a reed basket right in their tracks. Like the babies that tremor in my wake, they are scared of white people. But, in this case, I believe, they are mostly afraid I will beat them if they don’t show me respect: i.e. stopping to allow me to pass while bowing slightly at the knees and neck, and then meekly offering up an open-hand as if to greet royalty. I am sure this subservient behavior is a remnant of the old colonial days when the white man ruled all and bred fear. Whenever an instance such as this happens, I make a big effort to humanize myself, greeting them in the local language and holding out my right hand, with my left one cupped under my elbow, the universal way to greet someone of a perceived higher societal rank here. Usually, they accept my peace offering and take my hand, though they have also been known to simply stare back unmoving, and I can continue on my way, idealistically thinking I have done something to improve race relations. I try to think of myself as a harmless white person, perhaps even a helpful one, so I usually walk away rather befuddled and pensive after interactions such as this.

            Though I don’t like to be seen as an imposing figure, I am glad I do not rouse hateful words or violence, as do the Mozambicans that are considered “crazy.” Just earlier today, I was sitting on my porch watching the events of the neighborhood unfold (shocking I know), when a shirtless man came storming into the middle of the neighborhood and promptly broke two buckets that people had left near the water pump. For obvious reasons (buckets are a necessary household item and larger ones such as these can get pricy), people got all up in arms, screaming at the guy, at each other, and generally just ranting and raving. Finally, the man left, and from my porch, I saw him terrorizing some innocent passers-by. My neighbors then talked all day about the “malouco,” until, about 5 hours later (again, I was on my porch reading), the man returned. This time, however, people were not as passive in their response. Some of the young men started beating him: punching him, throwing 5-liter buckets at him, and whacking him with sticks. Not surprisingly, as Mozambicans are generally bored and always looking for a good show and some afternoon entertainment, the whole neighborhood turned out and formed a riotous crowd around the fight. And this time, I was also more enraged at the situation. Careful to stay on my porch, I started screaming things like, “You aren’t helping! Stop beating him! He is sick!” as they forced him out of the neighborhood, passing right in front of my house. Finally, he left bleeding and I ran up to some of the guys who had been the main perpetrators and asked them why they had beaten the guy. “He is not sick or crazy, he has been smoking” was their response. I replied, “Even is he has been smoking, it doesn’t mean you should beat him. He is also a person and clearly something is wrong with him.” I do not believe the man’s actions were due to drugs, but rather, I wholeheartedly believe they were a result of mental illness. I do not believe I made any impression on these guys, but I momentarily felt better about my role in it all. Mental illness is not really understood here, as people who are considered “crazy” can get no help, and therefore generally just roam the streets, eating trash, covered in dirt, clothed in rags, and begetting negative attention in the form of taunts and physical abuse at the hands of other citizens. So I will take a few crying babies and bows of respect as the alternative to that which I witnessed earlier today, which was downright petrifying. Mozambicans are not xenophobic and generally accepting and welcoming of guests, e.g. me. Most of the attention I get is wholly too positive: men who find my being here interesting and think I can give them money or sleep with them (warranting smooching noises as I pass by), or the most coveted prize: to take them back to America. Fat chance.

            I have written recently about the water problems we have here in Invinha. The pathetic water pressure of our tap makes water dripping through a coffee filter look like a steady stream. Last week, the chefe do bairro (head of the neighborhood who handles neighborly squabbles like “The dog of Teacher Ana ate my chicken and I need her to pay me back”) called a meeting for the people who fetch water from each of the 20 houses that use our communal tap. Naturally it was all women in attendance. The flawed system was addressed and ideas for improvement were shared. An hour and a half later, the sun had gone down, and there we stood, in the dark, with screaming, hungry children running in circles around us, and no definitive consensus had been reached. I have learned in my 20 months in Mozambique that when planning an activity or trying to estimate how long something should take here, I must double, and at times even triple or quadruple, the amount of time the American version would last. But I was still a little peeved at the situation. Finally, it seemed that some decision had been made and I woke myself from my Portuguese-overload daze and joined back in the conversation, eager to hear the news. But alas, the new and improved system would be exactly that which I had already thought the system to be. Essentially, we would all put one bucket in line and everyone would amiably take their turn filling up four 20 or 25 liter buckets. The extra buckets of the people who had been trying to cheat the system and have 5 different buckets in line were taken out. Some more bickering ensued, and then we all went home to cook dinner. The next day, a Saturday, I noticed early in the morning that I was second in line. Oh the joy I felt. But seeing as I had to go to the city to run a review session some students had asked for, I couldn’t hang out until I filled my quota of buckets. So I asked a student who lives in the neighborhood to watch for my turn and fill up my buckets for me (honestly not a difficult or uncommon favor). He agreed and off I went. I returned 6 or 7 hours later, my line-stand-in bucket had been moved to the end of the line, my empty buckets remained empty, and the kid I had asked to help me out was nowhere to be found. Naturally, I was outraged. Apparently, you snooze; you lose. You are just supposed to aimlessly hang out in line all day, shooting the shit with everyone in the vain hope that you will potentially get some water and therefore, maybe wash some clothes later in the day. It is not laziness, it is just that there is literally nothing else to do so why not hang out at the water pump for 6 hours? Unfortunately for me, 20 months of Mozambican life has not been able to even create the smallest of chinks in the armor established by the 22 years I spent living in a culture that attempts to fit as much productivity into as little time as possible. I stormed home and sent one of my “houseboys” to fetch me some definitely less than sanitary river water that afternoon.

Crianças (Children)

For Mozambican children, the world is their oyster. They live in the world’s greatest playground, complete with endless places to investigate and endless opportunities to make-up games. They can run around with their friends, exploring, romping in the mud and dirt, and playing to their hearts’ content. Only when it is time for a bath or a meal does someone come and wrangle them up. The kids in my neighborhood from ages 2-7 gambol in a pack, making toys from sticks and trash, drawing at Tia Ana’s house with colored pencils or in the mud with sticks, and using their imaginations to pass the time in a state of utter ecstasy. If it weren’t for the alarmingly high possibility of contracting cholera or malaria, being malnourished, and receiving a poor education, I would totally be a Mozambican child.

Kids are constantly dirty, even the “rich” ones, like the children of teachers in Invinha, because they play in the dirt all day. Visiting the US over Christmas, I immediately noticed that my friend Liz’s three-year old daughter Natalia was sparklingly clean. Not a speck of dirt on her. It was quite a shocking and amazing sight to behold after a year of playing with kids covered from head to toe in dirt. And after a long day frolicking through the bush, the kids will inevitably be given a bath before dinner. It is customary to give small children baths in the front yard. So every day at about 6pm, you can scan the neighborhood and just about every house will have the kids standing there in a line of nakedness, as they await their turn in the bucket.

In one of their jaunts through the greater neighborhood, when nature calls, a kid will just go in a bush. But, other times, they will also just poop on the floor. A fifteen-month-old pooped on my floor the other day. And then started to cry as her mother cursorily cleaned it up with a rag. I immediately threw a load of bleach on the infected area. A few days earlier, I had been walking back home from school when I passed the house of my favorite siblings, Belsa, age 2.5, and Gigantinho, age 5 (yes, Little Giant is his given name). Belsa was crying and Gigantinho was just standing there. When I approached them and asked what was wrong, Gigantinho informed me that Belsa had taken a shit in the coal stove. Yes the five-year old had indeed used the swear word “to take a shit” and yes, as I was horrified to lay eyes on, Belsa had relieved herself in the coal stove. Why? God only knows. Where was their mother? God only knows. This was one of those moments when I think to myself, why in hell am I living in Mozambique? And needless to say, I hightailed it home after that. As far as diapers, most people use pieces of cloth that are generally unable to contain the products they are intended to contain, meaning I only hold kids for about 5 minutes because I don’t want to push my luck too far before one of them inevitably pees or poops on me. And as far as potty-training, most mothers use the philosophy that the child will learn when the child learns, leaving a trail of shit wherever they go until about age 5. Mozambican children are absolutely beautiful, but they are also absolutely disgusting.

Some of the teachers in my neighborhood have a child that works for them, usually a 10-year old girl from the bush that is an orphan and is now essentially performing child labor in exchange for room and board. She hauls water and carts around the babies and does any bitch-work she is ordered to do. It is a pretty rough and unforgiving life (without an education!), but unfortunately, I try to ignore it because there is really nothing I can do about it, though it is indeed devastating to be forced to witness everyday. But every kid once they are about 5 years old, often even younger, will commonly be sent to run errands: Give this to so and so. Go buy (insert last minute meal item like oil, salt, some sort of vegetable) at the market. Go sit in the water line. This is not necessarily child labor (though 5 is awfully young) but a manner of teaching responsibility and chores like we do in the US. But it is still odd to me when I see a kid of 6 years with a baby of 6 months strapped to his back, carting a haul of items from the market back home. Apparently, “stranger danger” and the fear of leaving kids unsupervised for fear of kidnapping or accident does not apply here.

I always try to get kids to use their imaginations as much as possible because I know that once they hit 1^st grade, all of their creative thought will be squashed out of them by the rote-memorization-filled, mind-numbing, utterly dull school system. I have been told by many a Mozambican that I need to start having children because “children are our riches.” I agree, I tell them, but I probably won’t have any kids for about 10 years, and when I do, I will probably only have two, maybe three. Shaking their head in a combination of dismay and disbelief, they walk away. Mozambican women think that it is a, and I quote, “white woman thing” to only have two kids, and at such an advanced age. I would like to observe this conversation about proper child-bearing age between a Mozambican and a black volunteer. But, it is obvious that children are coveted here in many ways. Obviously, parents love their children. They just have different ways of showing it. I had a kid come crying to my door the other day because the picture he had drawn for his mom at my house had been rejected as garbage by her. I told him it was beautiful and took it from his as if it were pure gold. They love their children but are wholly unworried that the schools are crap and the majority of kids finish 7^th grade illiterate and without basic arithmetic skills. So I do what I can to instill creativity and self-confidence in the kids that visit me. They can draw all day if they want, until they poop on the floor, at which time they are swiftly sent home.

            I recently visited Malawi, from a bus that is, as I used the tiny country as a corridor to pass from one Mozambican province back home (Malawi intersects Mozambique to the west of my province) during my school break travels last month. I had never been to Malawi before but can safely make these observations: Malawi is pretty much the twin of Mozambique. The much smaller, heavily-accented, almost linguistically incomprehensible, chock-full of errors English-speaking twin with sweet roads (I don’t think we even came across one pothole in 1 full day of travel!) and brightly painted shops. Malawi is just barely nicer than Mozambique and speaks English as a second language to the local language of Chichewa (meaning the English level is low and many do not actually speak it), but clearly still suffers from the same problems of development. It is, however, an absolutely stunning country, and very reminiscent of my district in Moz, with whole zones dedicated to the cultivation of beautiful-for-the-landscape tea plantations.

            I also recently celebrated my birthday. And do not fret, it was celebrated in true Mozambican fashion: lots of singing birthday and other party songs, me being forced to make three different dramatic and schmaltzy speeches intended to inspire everyone to bring about the “new” Mozambique, hoards of people lined up to “greet” and kiss me, and a ritual cake-cutting ceremony that I had witnessed many times before but never before had to lead, causing me to commit many a cultural faux pas I’m sure. Overall, a very distinctive, but enjoyable day.

            Probably the biggest news of late is that Invinha recently got a tower for the new cell-phone service here in Mozambique, and it has revolutionized the whole town. Welcome to the 21^st century Invinha! I can now send texts, check my email everyday, and take phones from my students when they ring during class…

            And finally, my grant to buy a copy machine and printer for my school was filled a few weeks ago. I wanted to send out a big thank you to everyone who was able to support my school. My director shrieked from excitement when I told her that we had secured the money (I thought she was going to jump out of her habit!). Other teachers and students who have heard the news have demonstrated equally exultant responses. Pictures and personal notes are sure to come as I am able to put the plan into action in the next month or so. Obrigada!