As the only foreigner working with World Vision in Morrumbala, and a white woman to boot, I’ve had to come to terms with the fact that my coworkers will always treat me differently. I don’t think it’s really racism; it’s more complicated than that. Even if one was inclined to dislike white people, they know unabashed prejudice is out of style. They’re kind and respectful to me, if reserved, almost as if they originally expected me to act superior (Because so many foreign whites have acted that way. So many still do) and are now reconciling that with the fact that I’m actually friendly, smiley, and look younger than I am. I try to imagine what it would be like if a dark-skinned foreigner entered an all-white work environment in America (do those exist anymore? I’m sure they do), speaking broken English and attempting to integrate into projects. People would smile and be cordial and helpful, especially for the first couple of weeks, maybe even take him or her out for a drink after work. But would they ever really connect?
Every woman we drive past on the road has a baby strapped to her. Every last one. Health organizations proclaim ‘family planning is key!’, but telling people it’s a good idea to limit the number of children they have and handing out birth control pills won’t have any effect on a Mozambican man’s idea of family. He needs to prove that he is virile, and can be the head of a family. He wants dozens of little workers for his fields, even if he can’t feed them. So, every woman on the road has a baby strapped to her. Every last one.
I’m learning that it’s not just me who needs to spend weekends in the city, who feels that there’s no real potential for a social or personal life in Morrumbala. It’s all the rural NGO workers. We lead transitive lives. I heard a Mozambican coworker saying the other day that no one longs to build a life in Morrumbala; you have to go where the work takes you. She said if you stay too long in the campo, the city is shocking upon your return. I was intrigued to find out that Mozambicans who have lived here their whole lives feel the same way that I do. In some ways, we’re not that different after all.
Saturday, March 26, 2011
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Three Years of Heat
After a night of sleep made very rough by intense heat, I awoke wishing more than anything that I was heading to work in a big chilly city. I could stop and grab an enormous coffee, and I wouldn’t even mind being caught in traffic. I could listen to NPR.
Instead, I woke up just as overheated and damp as I had gone to bed the night before. I pulled on my clothes, ate a squishy ripe banana, and slathered my face in sunscreen in the bumpy truck ride to the campo.
I thought the worst of the hottest season was behind us. Think again, loira*.
*loira = blondie
Instead, I woke up just as overheated and damp as I had gone to bed the night before. I pulled on my clothes, ate a squishy ripe banana, and slathered my face in sunscreen in the bumpy truck ride to the campo.
I thought the worst of the hottest season was behind us. Think again, loira*.
*loira = blondie
Sunday, March 20, 2011
A World Map of Scars
My body has become a world map of scars. Everywhere I go, I carry stories with me, some more exciting than others. On my knee, from falling down on a dirt road hill in the Dominican campo, tearing an even bigger hole in my old jeans. A scratch on my stomach from Chinola, in my house in the DR. My foot, from a piece of rebar sticking out of the sidewalk around a baseball stadium in Santo Domingo. The other side of my foot, a spider bite maybe, here in my house in Moz, and another mark reminding me of the Christmas holidays I spent barefoot in Tofu. And now two more bites on my arm and knee that will surely scar. I take the world with me wherever I go.
Friday, March 11, 2011
Buckle Up
Some days I wish I could just take a truck and drive around all day giving lifts to people going here and there with incredible loads, on their heads or balanced on bicycles. Eight bamboo floor mats rolled up and stacked one on top of the other. Ten bags of charcoal. Twenty, forty, sixty liters of water. Other days I’m incredibly frustrated that people seem to have no healthy fear of cars and the road. How is it possible that they are not at all worried about being run over? I’ve asked this question so many times, both in my head and aloud, and a few days ago, my new driver gave a shocking but also credible response: they know that if they get hit by an organization car (very identifiable with our brightly painted logos) then they’re in for a lot of money. So they don’t try that hard to get out of the way. In fact, according to him, they actively WANT to be hit.
But what does he know? He ran over my neighbor’s papaya tree and didn’t even apologize.
But what does he know? He ran over my neighbor’s papaya tree and didn’t even apologize.
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Nightlife
I arrived to Quelimane on Friday, looking, to quote a friend, “like an aid worker from the Sudan”. Hair a-tumble, skin caked brown with dust, which could almost be mistaken for a great tan were it not for the sweat streaks running down my neck. Ah yes, this is why I avoid public transport at all costs.
On Sunday, they picked me up in a huge truck to return to Morrumbala. I didn’t even see them waiting on the side of the road at first because I was expecting our usual, an average sized pickup truck. The driver was prepared for the long haul, drinking straight from a sweating 2 liter bottle of Coke. He clearly knew something I did not.
And then it was revealed to me. We would be taking a detour to pick up some bicycles in another quite distant community before returning home. Is that ok with you Mica? Well we’re already on our way, so I suppose so. Never mind that it’s already 4 o’clock. The truck doesn’t even belong to my organization, so I can hardly complain.
When we stop to pick up another passenger, someone who actually belongs to the same organization as the truck but whom the driver didn’t know was coming along when he agreed to take me, the man is startled to see me in his seat. His surprise turns to loathing when he is informed that he will be riding in the bed of the truck all the way to Mopeia. ‘Who is this entitled white woman?’ his face says. ‘It’s not my fault!’ I silently retort. I want to yell it, but instead I just play dumb as I usually do in these situations. And I resist the urge to apologize because that would be admitting that I was privy to this arrangement.
So I try not to think about the angry man bouncing along in the truck bed. Inside the cab the mood is light. (Well, other than the endless close calls with pedestrians and cyclists. Drivers here have such an attitude about those who get in their way, almost as if they wouldn’t mind killing a few if it would teach the others a lesson.) The other person riding along with us is an unusually empowered, forward thinking young woman who spent several years living in the capital city of Maputo, which can make a big difference on a person’s outlook. When the driver received a few phone calls that were obviously from a woman, our car-mate began to chide him shamelessly, asking what he thought he was doing taking on all these girlfriends when he has a wife at home, poor thing washing his clothes and just waiting for her man to come home from work. I couldn’t help but giggle, a bit nervously – everyone knows many Mozambican men are unfaithful to their wives, some openly, others covertly, but hardly anyone talks about it. My poorly concealed amusement only fueled the fire, and soon he was in full-on defense mode, hopelessly negating the obvious. All in all, not your average Mozzie car-talk.
In the late afternoon light, a strange and unnatural red and white light goes streaking through the sky, like a plane crash. Soon it was dark. I was surprised by the first owl, but quickly became accustomed to these huge, graceful creatures decorating the dirt roads we crossed. We don’t travel at night very often. Finally we arrive in Mopeia, where we spend an hour at the office, unloading this, loading that, etc. When we finally take off again, it’s past 8 o’clock and we have many kilometers of dirt road ahead of us.
On this final leg of our nocturnal journey, a single bunny barely escapes the crush of the tires. I think both my travel buddies were hoping for rabbit stew. Then a much more foreboding creature appears: an enormous black snake is crossing the road in front of us. Much too big to be a mamba, but likely still deadly. The driver swerves to miss it, and the other passenger makes me roll up my window lest the creature was able to get a belly-hold onto the truck. “It might have jumped on!” I know this is preposterous, but still feel a little better once the window is closed. Now every gnarled branch in the road poses an imminent threat. I imagine all the snakes and baboons of these forests in their own sinister, evening fight club. I notice too late that I’ve been involuntarily flexing my abs, trying to stay put in my seat as we cross over the bumpiest of terrains. Now my stomach is sore.
When I finally arrive home around 11pm – a ridiculously late hour for me to return to my house at site – I kill a spider-ant that is so fat it spurts brown guts half a foot across the floor as I jump on it. I think he thought I had moved out and the place was up for grabs. Sorry chubby.
And now I’m back to trying to let go of things out of my control, particularly transport troubles. On Monday I was supposed to head out very early in the morning in order to visit 2kids groups. But the car had a flat tire and wasn’t ready until 10 so I only got to visit one group. The others were left waiting. The next day we drove out to see the group that I had missed, fully aware that no one would be around. Fortunately we ran into a few of the kids and I apologized profusely for a situation that was out of my hands. Some days I think, “I could be doing so much more. If I didn’t need time for me, to breathe and take it all in and separate myself from all of it. And if I had the resources to realize all of my ideas: money, cars, fuel, staff, etc. I could really do a lot more.”
Not wanting the day to be a total waste, I decided to do an interview with one of the volunteer midwives who works at the hospital next to the kids’ garden. I had been planning to interview the nurse first but she’s a busy lady, and now she’s on vacation for a whole month in the city. So I sat down with the midwife and one of my coworkers who could translate from her local Sena into Portuguese that I can understand, and we talked about the maternity ward: her work as a midwife, resources the hospital is lacking, etc. The goal of gathering this information, along with photos, is to build a support network between this hospital and potential donors in the United States, namely churches or women’s groups.
Yesterday was also International Women’s Day, a fact I had strangely forgotten when I was conducting the interview. My neighbor had mentioned a party in passing, but I was still startled when, around 6 o’clock, a stunningly beautiful young woman I had never seen before arrived at my house and informed me that she had come to escort me to a party at her house, where I found my neighbor happy-drunk, swaying to the music and reveling in her womanhood. Everyone cheered when I walked in – did they think I wasn’t going to come? How lame do they think I am?? I gotta get out more.
On Sunday, they picked me up in a huge truck to return to Morrumbala. I didn’t even see them waiting on the side of the road at first because I was expecting our usual, an average sized pickup truck. The driver was prepared for the long haul, drinking straight from a sweating 2 liter bottle of Coke. He clearly knew something I did not.
And then it was revealed to me. We would be taking a detour to pick up some bicycles in another quite distant community before returning home. Is that ok with you Mica? Well we’re already on our way, so I suppose so. Never mind that it’s already 4 o’clock. The truck doesn’t even belong to my organization, so I can hardly complain.
When we stop to pick up another passenger, someone who actually belongs to the same organization as the truck but whom the driver didn’t know was coming along when he agreed to take me, the man is startled to see me in his seat. His surprise turns to loathing when he is informed that he will be riding in the bed of the truck all the way to Mopeia. ‘Who is this entitled white woman?’ his face says. ‘It’s not my fault!’ I silently retort. I want to yell it, but instead I just play dumb as I usually do in these situations. And I resist the urge to apologize because that would be admitting that I was privy to this arrangement.
So I try not to think about the angry man bouncing along in the truck bed. Inside the cab the mood is light. (Well, other than the endless close calls with pedestrians and cyclists. Drivers here have such an attitude about those who get in their way, almost as if they wouldn’t mind killing a few if it would teach the others a lesson.) The other person riding along with us is an unusually empowered, forward thinking young woman who spent several years living in the capital city of Maputo, which can make a big difference on a person’s outlook. When the driver received a few phone calls that were obviously from a woman, our car-mate began to chide him shamelessly, asking what he thought he was doing taking on all these girlfriends when he has a wife at home, poor thing washing his clothes and just waiting for her man to come home from work. I couldn’t help but giggle, a bit nervously – everyone knows many Mozambican men are unfaithful to their wives, some openly, others covertly, but hardly anyone talks about it. My poorly concealed amusement only fueled the fire, and soon he was in full-on defense mode, hopelessly negating the obvious. All in all, not your average Mozzie car-talk.
In the late afternoon light, a strange and unnatural red and white light goes streaking through the sky, like a plane crash. Soon it was dark. I was surprised by the first owl, but quickly became accustomed to these huge, graceful creatures decorating the dirt roads we crossed. We don’t travel at night very often. Finally we arrive in Mopeia, where we spend an hour at the office, unloading this, loading that, etc. When we finally take off again, it’s past 8 o’clock and we have many kilometers of dirt road ahead of us.
On this final leg of our nocturnal journey, a single bunny barely escapes the crush of the tires. I think both my travel buddies were hoping for rabbit stew. Then a much more foreboding creature appears: an enormous black snake is crossing the road in front of us. Much too big to be a mamba, but likely still deadly. The driver swerves to miss it, and the other passenger makes me roll up my window lest the creature was able to get a belly-hold onto the truck. “It might have jumped on!” I know this is preposterous, but still feel a little better once the window is closed. Now every gnarled branch in the road poses an imminent threat. I imagine all the snakes and baboons of these forests in their own sinister, evening fight club. I notice too late that I’ve been involuntarily flexing my abs, trying to stay put in my seat as we cross over the bumpiest of terrains. Now my stomach is sore.
When I finally arrive home around 11pm – a ridiculously late hour for me to return to my house at site – I kill a spider-ant that is so fat it spurts brown guts half a foot across the floor as I jump on it. I think he thought I had moved out and the place was up for grabs. Sorry chubby.
And now I’m back to trying to let go of things out of my control, particularly transport troubles. On Monday I was supposed to head out very early in the morning in order to visit 2kids groups. But the car had a flat tire and wasn’t ready until 10 so I only got to visit one group. The others were left waiting. The next day we drove out to see the group that I had missed, fully aware that no one would be around. Fortunately we ran into a few of the kids and I apologized profusely for a situation that was out of my hands. Some days I think, “I could be doing so much more. If I didn’t need time for me, to breathe and take it all in and separate myself from all of it. And if I had the resources to realize all of my ideas: money, cars, fuel, staff, etc. I could really do a lot more.”
Not wanting the day to be a total waste, I decided to do an interview with one of the volunteer midwives who works at the hospital next to the kids’ garden. I had been planning to interview the nurse first but she’s a busy lady, and now she’s on vacation for a whole month in the city. So I sat down with the midwife and one of my coworkers who could translate from her local Sena into Portuguese that I can understand, and we talked about the maternity ward: her work as a midwife, resources the hospital is lacking, etc. The goal of gathering this information, along with photos, is to build a support network between this hospital and potential donors in the United States, namely churches or women’s groups.
Yesterday was also International Women’s Day, a fact I had strangely forgotten when I was conducting the interview. My neighbor had mentioned a party in passing, but I was still startled when, around 6 o’clock, a stunningly beautiful young woman I had never seen before arrived at my house and informed me that she had come to escort me to a party at her house, where I found my neighbor happy-drunk, swaying to the music and reveling in her womanhood. Everyone cheered when I walked in – did they think I wasn’t going to come? How lame do they think I am?? I gotta get out more.
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