A Sunflowered Middle of Nowhere

Our most recent road trip to a training center in Lioma, about 2 hours past the beautiful tea producing mountain community of Gurué, left lots of time for introspection as these trips always do. Plus there’s always something new to see. This time, I thought a lot about how rural Africans interact with the road itself; why does an African cross the street? It could be to get water. Or maybe they simply forgot the street was there at all. Still unaccustomed to paved highways, people amble across slowly, without looking either way, or even sit in the middle of the road until they see a car – inevitably a white NGO truck – barreling toward them at speeds no amount of last minute brake-slamming could diminish enough to make a difference. A woman with 20 liters of water on her head steps into the road and panics when she sees us coming, genuinely shocked that a car is on the road at all. I grit my teeth and hope that she can maneuver out of the way in time. Eventually, I succumb to highway hypnosis and doze off, only to be jolted awake by a particularly severe brake slam and gasps from my colleagues (which only accompany the closest of calls), my eyes flashing open just in time to see a small child barely escape the crush of our tires. I didn’t sleep much after that.

Then we were in Gurué, indulging ourselves with seasonal avocados at 5 cents a pop before continuing on to Lioma through the sunflowers and towering eucalyptus trees, with thread-like branches of tinkly green leaves gently drooping and swaying around trunks in a constant state of molting. This is the only forest I have seen in Africa. When we finally arrive at the center, in a starry middle of nowhere, the electricity is out and the center has but 6 candles. There will be no bathing tonight. After preparing tuna salad in the dark, the light finally comes back but at this point we don’t miss it so much.

On the trip back, men with shovels are filling holes in the road. They see us coming and toss down their shovels to hold out their hands for an offering. Please, see the work we’ve done? There is no other work, so please pay us for making the road that much safer for you.

Then the black mamba passes in front of our car. So I spend the afternoon in terror as I crash through the bush behind a barefoot farmer who is taking me to see youth group plots. He steps lightly, quickly outpaces me, so I speed up to keep him in my sight. They’ve chosen remote areas, close to water so that vegetable production will be possible, and because this visit was last minute, I am wearing sandals. A bite from a mamba can kill a full grown adult within minutes. I calm myself by insisting that I there’s no use worrying about things out of my control. Mambas generally rest during the day and stay in trees anyway. So why did the mamba cross the street? So much long skinny green grass….and finally we’re in the clear, have arrived at the vegetable plot. And I try not to think about the fact that this is merely one leg of the many visits I have planned for this day.

The Cookie Monster

In order to get the kids participating more openly, I sometimes bring cookies with me to use as incentives. Answer a question, get a treat. But what really happens is after we finish with all the questions, I end up giving out cookies anyway to the ones who were too shy or young to respond. I mean damn. They’re hungry. Am I really going to tuck half a pack of cookies back into my Aldo purse? (Which I bought for 40$ in Charleston…jerk.) Nor am I going to keep giving cookie after cookie to the few kids who speak up. Even when I do, they end up giving them to the others who haven’t gotten any, and I have to bite my lip not to smile or burst into tears.

Ole What's-His-Name

Today I had a comic breakthrough with my colleagues. The two men I hired to help with the kids’ groups have always been nothing but respectful and humble with me, too polite almost, pleasant reverent and submissive to the point of making me feel awkward. But today, I got my first genuine laugh out of them. They’ve chuckled and smiled before, but by Mozambican standards, what I coaxed out of them today could be considered a hee-haw. And it was achieved simply by admitting that with all these men running around with ‘A’ names – Armando, Armandinho, Adolfo, Alberto, Albano, Alfredo – I often can’t remember who is who, even the people I work with on a weekly basis. I’m normally so good with names, but this alias alliteration is too much. I was very glad I admitted it, however, because the reaction that it elicited was worth having to ask your own mother a thousand times – “I’m sorry, what’s your name again?”

Also, in honor of Valentine’s Day, I asked one of my kids’ groups to prepare a drama, and told them that I would come prepared with one as well. Theatre and role-play are extremely useful learning tools here; kids that merely stare at their hands folded in their lap when asked basic questions will take on a whole new persona when it’s their turn to stand in front of the group as an ‘actor’. While my drama was short and agriculturally themed, theirs went on for nearly 8 minutes (doesn’t sound long, but it actually is). Eight minutes of adlibbing about a man who had 3 kids, one boy and two girls. He sent the boy to school to learn and the girls to work as prostitutes. The daughters brought home money, the man drank it away, and all was peaceful on the home front. Until the girls were diagnosed with HIV (communicated by curling up into fetal positions on the ground and whimpering) and the father learned his lesson. Depressing, but relevant, and I certainly couldn’t accuse them of not following the prompt; it’s just that love and sex mean different things to rural African children than they do to American children.

Some Things I Love About Africa

That I can go over to my neighbor’s house wearing a worn out camisole, a skirt I got at a used clothing store, and a cheap cardigan that doesn’t even match, and be told by the young girls “ooh! You look pretty!”

The sounds – of crickets at night, neighbor kids squealing, pasada music from Cape Verde pumping from the stereos, local dialects. NOT the smells – the people a curry-sweat conglomerate, the streets a raw sewage nightmare…

That despite the hardships, it’s good for my body. A diet consisting mostly of natural foods and daily exercise.

Women and their babies. Swathed tightly in colorful fabrics, so not a moment of workable daylight will be wasted.

Tailors on every corner. Everyone sews, and there is an abundance of material everywhere you turn.

Matapa. Green leaves+garlic+coconut+peanuts boiled into mush = heaven on earth, and nutritious to boot. And if you’re fancy in the city, toss in some shrimp!

I hear there are big animals on this continent. Maybe I’ll see some one day…

When you walk in a house, you take off your shoes. When you sit down at the table, you wash your hands in a basin. What’s simple is true. And cleanliness is next to godliness.

If a child is to wear one and only one article of clothing, it is a t-shirt. Not underwear.

The Prophet of Morrumbala

The driver who takes me around from campo to campo has a real talent for taking the most concise piece of basic information and turning it into an epic tale, and never at a volume less than ear-piercing. His favorite themes revolve around family life in Mozambique; conversation starters have been “MEN IN AFRICA LIKE TO HAVE LOTS OF KIDS SO THEY CAN PUT THEM TO WORK IN THEIR FIELDS!” or “WHEN TWO PEOPLE GET MARRIED, THE HUSBAND HAS TO MOVE INTO THE WIFE’S FAMILY’S HOME!” We’re talking about really revolutionary stuff here… Anyway, he means well and is as nice as he can be. But damn man, I’ve got to get me some ear plugs!

The World Is Not My Caribbean

Driving down the road, so many things still remind me of the Dominican Republic. The robust lady swathed in cheap purple fabric, gyrating in the doorway of a hut to music that moves the very soul of her. Mangy dogs. Kids that run after cars and motorcycles, hoping for a lift. And yet, this isn’t the Caribbean. Both do many of the same things, but never with the same intensity. People don’t smile and visit as much here. They can’t afford to. And they certainly don’t give as much, for the same reason. They give everything they can, maybe everything they have. But what they have is significantly less than most other people in the world. They laugh and yell, but more reservedly, less frequently. They trust, but not as blindly. And by doing these things, they survive.

The two auxiliaries that I hired several months ago to work with my youth groups are two of the nicest guys you could ever hope to meet. For the work they do, they receive 50$ a month. They have families. They live far away. They spend hours every week on their bicycles to earn this money that is vital for their survival. And last weekend, while at church, one of them was robbed. Someone came to his house, took everything of use, which couldn’t have been much in the first place, and then set fire to the mud and grass hut. Now he literally has nothing but the clothes on his back. And when I met him at the office, he smiled and was just as polite as usual, though his face showed exhaustion beyond anything I’ve ever known.

Incidents like this leave me reeling; how could something so devastating happen to someone so good who has so little? It’s more than unfair, worse than unholy. And what can I do, other than fumble around in my purse and awkwardly offer him a few bucks, which he accepted gracefully? And place another call to the city office, where they have yet again forgotten to arrange his monthly salary.

A Vida Bonita

‘Bonita’, or beautiful, is a word used much more generally in Portuguese (and Spanish) than in English, often employed where we would say ‘nice’, ‘good’, or simply ‘normal’. So I try not to feel weird when multiple people, such as colleagues or my landlord, tell me “I saw you riding your bicycle and you looked ‘bonita’.” Considering the climate and amount of energy and focus I invest in not tipping over into the sand, I highly doubt that ‘beautiful’ is how I look.

I can now add yet another country to the ever growing list of where-i-have-made-banana-related-desserts. Today my neighbor invited me over to make a cake, so I shared my mom’s banana bread recipe with her. And it came out wonderful, so moist and fluffy – probably because she beat the tar out of the batter with her huge wooden spoon. All in all, a great success and entertaining to boot.

Aaaaand my new guard doesn’t seem to understand much of my Portuguese. Excellent.