Tea Time

At 6 am in Gurué, the fog is so thick it settles in puddles in the corners of your eyes. The mountains about the tea covered foothills slowly appear as the morning sun strengthens. And somewhere in those hills, a group of youth planted cabbage and carrots and tomatoes, and waited for their periodic visit from the NGO representatives that enabled them to do so.

Along the road to visit this new and informal youth farming operation, I am struck yet again by how many babies I see. It seems everyone who is not a male over the age of 10 has a baby strapped to their body. A woman walking down the road carries a considerable load of firewood on her head, simultaneously breast-feeding her child. A woman bends over her modest garden, and the tiny living package on her back doesn’t budge. A woman rides a bicycle alongside our car, a warm ball of baby smooshed to her back and soundly sleeping. It’s a wonder they ever learn to walk at all, but they must, for soon there will be brothers and sisters to carry.

Black, green, and red tea all come from the same plant. Green tea is achieved by clipping just the tips of the youngest tea leaves on these stout bushes. Black comes from more mature leaves, and red incorporates stems into the mix. We drove through rolling, tiered acres of this worldly commodity, an oasis of cool green, until we were on the other side, back in the bush, where we were greeted by a group of smiling, singing, barefoot and brightly swathed African children who paraded us down a path through scratchy dry grass and yellow flowers until we arrived at the plot of land they had recently planted with seeds given to them by World Vision employees. A manual water pump was installed at a nearby stream, and the children were briefed in very basic soil conservation methods, in particular mulching. The idea is to create ownership of the garden, and a sense of identity for these children, many of whom are orphans, by uniting them in an effort that can supplement their diet and enhance their nutrition. They were very taken with us, and I with them. They were what I always hoped and feared when I imagined Africa. Happiness, bright colorful beauty, and tradition in a setting which is ever-unforgiving of weakness, of mistakes.

For one night, I’m back in Quelimane, with the 5 o’clock call to prayer and dust so abundant I smell it on my skin and crunch it into my food long after I’m off the street. Tomorrow begins the journey to Zimbabwe.We will drive 9 hours to the border, sleep in Chimoio, and cross first thing on Tuesday morning to arrive at a 2 day farming training. Here’s hoping that the border patrol will be friendly, i.e. modestly bribable.

Creativity Lives

Africa is like the Dominican Republic in some ways – dirt swept yards, half finished homes left to sprout weeds when the money runs out, drivers honking instead of slowing to warn passersby of danger barreling their way at unregulated speeds, grassy expanses punctuated with towering palm and coconut trees, stray and starving animals. But other things stand out. Like grown men embracing and holding hands in the street, fearless of accusation of the hyper-taboo homosexuality. Instead of 5 people to a motorcycle, it’s the same number on bikes. A man pedals along with one woman perched on the front of his bike, and one on the back, both of whom have infants lashed to their torsos. Driving down the road past one of the many roadside markets, where you may buy shiny, cheap imported flashlights and old baggy clothing among other necessities, a man scuttles along in a chair somehow integrated with an inverted bicycle frame, hand-powered by the gear and pedals he has set up as a crank at eye level. And the houses are ingenious. Lincoln log structures stuffed with rocks and covered with a cementing mixture of muddy sand, these little grass-roofed huts don’t let much in or out. Bricks are made from dirt and fired in even the most remote of settings, resulting in compact little cookie-cutter dwellings that speckle the bush in between cities. Pop music in English, most of which never made it to any radios in the U.S. (except Rhiana, of course), blares from every stereo. Four young boys dress in matching t-shirts advertising “Klin” (clean) laundry soap and dance at the farmers market. We walk by a church called “Jesus es o Senhor” – Jesus is the Man. Can’t argue with that!

On our way to a 3 day conservation agriculture training, we stopped off to observe a small farming operation. Almost immediately upon our arrival, I was presented to a group of 30 or more dark and solemn faced farmers and prompted to introduce myself as a new addition to World Vision’s food security initiative. After smiling my way through a few sentences that could have been more more Brasilian than African Portuguese, more Spanish than anything else, it was back on the road to Mocuba, where we would stay with another volunteer each night after training. Come 5:30 in the morning, it was tea and a mouthful of moldy bread, then 50 kilometers down a bumpy dirt road in a pickup truck with no seatbelt and a driver more coldly cautious of potholes than pedestrians, impressively unmoved by the erratic behavior of distended belly children on the roadside. Clouds of red dust left in our wake swallowed whole the charcoal transferring men and boys on bikes. I was by turns bounced to sleep and carsick (at nights, there’s nothing to hold the eye except the rapidly passing cassava plants and the quickly moving, red compacted road, layers of sandy dirt and dirty sand) throughout the 6 trips we made in 3 days down this road. Shockingly, this is the main road to reach neighboring Malawi.

We arrived at Namanjavira, an animal traction (cows ‘n plows) training center, where a group of farmers from throughout the region had been assembled to receive training in conservation farming: simple techniques, such as mulching and crop rotation, to replace time honored practices that are no longer sufficient for large numbers of people living in resource deficient and flood/drought prone areas. Some of these same farmers had participated in a 2 month long animal traction training course, expensive by Mozambican standards (325$ US), at the end of which they received a cart, a plow and 2 cows. Throughout the training, as I learned about conservation farming alongside these old farmers, I became more comfortable with the idea of my role here as a development worker. Because I received an education that encouraged me to think critically and analytically, the concepts are not difficult to learn. The difficulty in such a position comes in trying to demonstrate the benefits of behavior change to individuals who have been using the same farming techniques for centuries, and in encouraging them to share those techniques with others. But however persistent and determined my job might require me to be, I am glad to be working at the community level with a project that has such great potential to resonate change. The need here is great, and I have access to certain resources to address that need.

On our final bumpy, dusty trip away from the center, a farming trainer from Zimbabwe who had been very helpful to World Vision workers and famers alike throughout the sessions, pointed to a tree and asked us to identify it. It was a coconut tree. I was astonished that he didn’t recognize it, but apparently they don’t exist in Zimbabwe and he’s never tasted any coconut product. Small wonders.

On the next leg of our journey, headed to Gurue to learn about farming youth groups, I looked down in my purse and realized I hadn’t opened my wallet for several days. There’s really not that much to buy when you’re this far out. Occasional trading posts and a pink setting sun over dry, flat expanses and sudden mountains marked our journey into the higher elevations, and then we were in cool Gurue, a quiet town known for its tea plantations. Tomorrow we’ll see what the local youth know about farming, and decide how to apply their experiences in our sites.

See ya later, Quelimane

Today, I found myself in need of a business card. I attended a meeting held by a group of researchers from Johns Hopkins, designed to share the outcomes of their 3 year project that collected information about teenage girls and the prevalence of youth pregnancy and HIV-AIDS. The African counterparts present at the meeting were very curious about the goals and outcomes of this three year project with no tangible results other than manuals and information regarding trends among African youth. To be honest, I was wondering myself, but the researchers reassured us that this was research for research’s sake, and that this information will aid those who, in the future, have the time and resources to conduct projects designed to decrease the occurrence of teen pregnancy and HIV-AIDS infection.

Africa really throws poverty and the distribution of wealth into your face like no other place can. Walking home from a luxuriously sized dinner of shrimp curry, with abundant beer, I passed two teenage boys sitting on the sidewalk and eating out of a cardboard box they clearly pulled from the dumpster, right outside the front door of my walled and gated hotel. The same hotel that, thanks to its hot water and AC, has made my transition from America to this provincial African capital impressively smooth. But tomorrow we say goodbye to Quelimane on our way to Mocuba, for a 3 day conservation farming training. We’ll be outside all day, so thank god for African dead-of-winter weather…60-80 degree range.

An astonishing number of bicycle taxis, while undoubtedly not the most comfy way to travel, make this city considerably quieter than had everyone motorcycles instead. Also, I have walked down the street alone now on several occasions, and an inappropriate word hasn’t been so much as breathed my direction. Just as I get used to this city, it’s time to leave. After training in Mocuba, it’s to site for the first time, staying in the World Vision “compound” (whatever that means) until I can find satisfactory housing. I'll have 2 days to settle in, and then it's off to Zimbabwe for a 2 day training. After that, I look forward to unpacking my suitcases and starting this new life.

Market Day

After a breakfast of papaya, bread, tea and surprisingly yummy fish stewed with vegetables (fish at breakfast seems to be pretty common, a little strange, but flavorful and protein packed), it was a day with a private driver with World Vision, kind enough to help us buy some essentials that we won’t be able to get once we get to site. Yesterday, I got peanut butter, lentils, and curry at a grocery store. Today, we ventured to the world of open air markets for a bicycle and various home necessities.

After perusing several muddy stops, later made muddier by a light rain which caught us under a tin roof, unable to leave without mud streaks on shirts from runoff, we finally chose a blue “City Bike” in need of many adjustments (i.e. taking parts from other bikes to make mine whole). While the bike was being tuned, we set off to look for pots and pans at another market, identically situated among thatch roofed huts and veggie vendors, to look for pots and pans. For around 7 dollars, I bought 2 pots, 6 drinking glasses, and a beautiful if scratchy swath of fabric (tablecloth? bedcover?) from a South African Muslim woman in full cover except for eyes and hands. She played with her phone as we sorted through the house wares, which made me smile, but certainly no more than the other covered women I’ve seen wearing silver sandal high heels and carrying leather fashion purses.

Famished from a morning of perusing, bumpy truck rides and thinking in Portuguese, made infinitely easier and, in fact, possible at all, by our patient helpful driver, we stopped for a coconut “lanche”, or snack. As I watched for the millionth time as a young man used his machete to open the fruit so I could drink the water, and then crack it further open so I could eat the meat, I appreciated the familiarity of the food and recognized it as possibly the best of its kind I have ever had.

Everywhere we went today, there were women young and old toting babies on their back, lashed in by swaths of brilliant fabric. Every last one was fast asleep.

Debriefing

Today we spent several hours with the staff at World (WV) in Quelimane (“Kelly-mahny”) outlining our job responsibilities and learning about what this organization does in Mozambique, particularly in the province of Zambezia where we will be working. It’s very inspiring to be associated with an NGO in a formal position of relative influence. I am beginning to sense that even as a volunteer, I will be in a coordinating, organizing position for local implementation of projects with large scale goals, which is refreshing after two years of the grungiest of grassroots work. Elements of the job I expect to be doing are working with the staff at the office of World Vision in Morrumbala on small demonstration gardening plots, involving local youth in agricultural efforts, inspiring women’s groups be the leaders of farming and health initiatives, and beginning conversations about conservation farming and youth involvement with other development organizations. It seems I have been sent here to be the driving force behind projects that have already been conceptualized, as well as granted the freedom to formulate ideas for and implement new projects. As I challenge my brain to remember Portuguese, I will also be doing what I can to learn important phrases in Sena, the local dialect.

All of this debriefing was being done from a well-lit second floor office, to the tune of a nearby chorus of African voices singing in acapella harmonies. Perfect.
We will be here in Quelimane, the provincial capital, until Tuesday, at which point we will travel to Mocuba for a 3 day training in conservation farming. Then I will go to Morrumbala, my permanent site, where I will begin work with the WV office, staying in a dormitory in their compound until permanent housing can be arranged.

I am very soothed by the demeanor of the Africans I have had the chance to interact with thus far. As opposed to the hopelessly impassioned Dominicans to whom I grew accustomed and was driven fondly crazy by, Africans seem much more reserved and serene, less interested in me and more interested in daily affairs that so often leave them teetering on the brink. For one thing, I can make brief eye contact with a man on the street without being kissed at. And isn’t that, after all, what every girl wants?

I was very saddened to hear that the wildlife population in Mozambique is not as diverse as in the years before the war. Apparently most of the animals were killed for meat, or simply had their habitat destroyed. Reserves and national parks are doing what they can to restore the web of life, but they have a long way to go in recovery. The entire nation does, after so many years of devastating war.

At a Glance

So far it’s…

5 days and 4 cities and 20 hours of air time

Fancy (a.k.a. SAFE) hotels and private (a.k.a. SAFE) drivers

Two lunches with the director of Peace Corps Mozambique

Dinner (curry of “cabrito de mato”, or duiker in English, which is similar to gazelle) in the home of the director of the sustainable agriculture project at World Vision, complete with comfy mismatching furniture and a brood of well-read children with Australian accents

Genuinely kind support staff

Brilliant, breezy weather

Waking up at 5am, fully awake

A switch in my site assignment – from Alto-Molocue to Morumbala

The dusty streets of Quelimane, swarmed with bicycle taxis and the utility vehicles of NGOs

Talk of housing and guards, bicycles and farming initiatives, trips to Zimbabwe and Malawi

A cell phone with internet and bluetooth (a.k.a. the thinga-ma-jigger that will let me have internet in my house, however limited)! And the discovery that I will have internet in the regional office in Morumbala

The realization that my pants my start fitting tighter as opposed to the expected opposite

That’s what’s going on here in a nutshell, condensed because I am thoroughly exhausted. There’s no malaria medication in the world powerful enough to keep me awake tonight!

Daily Confusions

I need to learn which way to look when I cross the street...and stop wondering why there's no one in the "drivers" seat! However, the toilets don't flush backwards so much as straight up...

Also, I was relieved to learn that the manual bearing the title "You Can Make It In Mozambique" distributed to us today was NOT in fact our medical handbook, but a friendly cookbook filled with African recipes.

Finally, our medical debriefing today put the fear of God into me. Between the parasites that bore into your heels and form black egg sacks, the parasites that enter your skin through almost any fresh water source and can cause bladder cancer, and the red welts under your eye that can secrete larvae when squeezed, I may never leave my house. Or the safety of my Mosquito net.

Our office is bright pink and overlooks the ocean! And I have to fly to my site tomorrow. FLY. Or rather, fly to a large city and be driven about 6 hours.

I am truly floored and exhilarated and can't wait to see what's next!

Welcome to the Motherland

Africa. No sooner had we touched down in Johannesburg than I felt her buzzing throughout my entire self. Some call it “depressurizing-the-airplane-cabin”. But I think there was more to it than that.

An unexpected delay in the flight leaving Atlanta (a 16 hour flight, half of which I was able to sleep through having lost every ounce of dignity associated with the use of neck pillows) found us (me, two other volunteers, and another young woman we befriended enroute) in a bed and breakfast which turned out to be a wing off of someone’s private home in a walled compound otherwise surrounded by a desiccated landscape. At night, it could have been any highway. By day, it was a burnt, flat landscape pock-marked with industry and bundled up morning walkers with mysterious destinations. Of course, we didn’t notice any of this at night, and weren’t fully aware of anything until we had a few hours of sleep, a shower to expunge the old plastic/BO smell that has apparently settled into my backpack straps over the years, and a power-protein breakfast cooked by – you guessed it – the grade-school-age daughter of the house. Sausage, ham, fish cakes and eggs all in one meal, and then it was back to the airport for the final leg of the flight which would take us to Maputo, capital of Mozambique.

We were received, with significantly less pomp and circumstance than my arrival to the DR, by one man from the office holding a Peace Corps sign who was incredibly kind and made me feel very at ease flexing my ultra-flabby Portuguese. He took us to the office – a humble affair overlooking the ocean, similar to the DR office in many ways, but with no frills in operation or accommodation, and zero sunburned volunteers hanging around and soaking up all the bandwidth. We even have our very own Alfredo! In the DR, this was the man who always had a smile on, knew everyone’s name, and whose job title you were never quite sure of because he will do anything for anyone at anytime. Turns out the man who picked us up in the airport kind of fills that same roll in Moz.

After a brief meeting with the country director, who actually worked for TVA for 25 years as tiny world fate would have it, we enjoyed the gorgeous temperate weather on a walk over to the embassy for lunch – curried lamb and coca-cola made with pure sugar. Apparently it will soon be summer, meaning it will be light outside starting at 4:30 and in my particularly muggy province, unbearably humid. But for today, we welcomed the moderate weather, and strolled back to the office with full bellies.

The rest of the day was spent hammering out details regarding our posts, where we will be headed on Thursday. I will be in Alto-Molocue, a town whose population no one seems to know, but whose size can generally be gauged by the fact that there is a bank and a gas station. There are also other volunteers nearby, which is always comforting. It seems that we Peace Corps Response Volunteers have been brought to Mozambique to begin conversations between farmers, organizations, and government agencies regarding how they can all work together to insure the future of food security for Mozambicans. We’re essentially mediators, brain-stormers, and have a lot of say on where this project can go, and if it’s even viable considering the ministry of agriculture hesitance to look outside of the government to achieve these goals. It’s a little intimidating to be assigned to such an abstract, conceptual project after doing so much hands on work, but I look forward to seeing where our conversations will lead us. Well, that is, after I remember how to have a conversation in Portuguese. But really, after just 2 days, I can feel it coming back, starting to stew with my Spanish and give it an African flavor.

After a quick nap at the hotel, which left me feeling off kilter and more jet-lagged than I had before, we were off to the director’s house for wine, a home-cooked dinner of shepherd’s pie, coleslaw, and brownies and espresso for dessert, and our turn to use his international phone to touch base with home. So far so good; I am shocked at how un-shocking everything has been up until now. But we’re still in the capital, and I’m sure the real differences in Africa and my previous experiences remain to be seen. After walking around town today and seeing the local artisan work and clothing, I know one thing is for sure; I’m going to need a bigger suitcase when I come home from Africa.