The Land of Moz

PepsiCo. and Nutrition in Ethiopia

2012-01-25T09:36:00.001-08:00

Fast-forward from Cape Town (there are no words to describe...) to my new job in D.C., which has already sent me to several very interesting lectures on topics of interest to the non-profit community.

Last Friday, I attended a forum titled 'PepsiCo. and the World Food Programme (WFP): A Public-Private Partnership to Transform Nutrition Across Africa', and was inspired by the observations made by the representatives from these unlikely partners. As MSME (Micro Small and Medium Enterprise) enthusiasts, non-profit workers might be inclined to mistrust multi-billion dollar corporations, perhaps even more so when they claim to incorporate humanitarian acts into their business model. The forum last week, however, put my former perspective into perspective: perhaps PepsiCo. will be part of the solution instead of the problem.

The non-profit sector is full of do-gooders who can hardly afford to buy a bottle of 3-buck chuck at Trader Joe's, including yours truly, while Pepsi and the like are lining their pockets with currencies from all over the globe. But what if there was a way (and more importantly, a will) to use the incredible resources that companies like Pepsi have at their fingertips to make a serious dent in global hunger? With developed world markets becoming increasingly saturated, the movers and shakers at the top of the capitalist food chain are naturally looking toward new markets, and what better a consumer base than the hungriest people in the world.

In Ethiopia, as in most African nations, a large percent of children do not have consistent access to the nutrients they need to become healthy energetic adolescents and subsequently adults who can participate effectively in global economies. Certain nutrient rich, locally produced foods are already a part of the diet and culture and could be the key to improving nutrition from the ground up. Well aware of this, the World Food Programme (WFP) has recruited one such legume to be the star player in their newest campaign: the humble chickpea. This little nitrogen-fixing plant has begun to make a name for itself around the globe, as dedicated carnivores have found a taste for hummus and Indian food is all the rage in cities, but it's always been important to Ethiopia. This year WFP developed a sweetened chickpea-milk compound packaged individually and targeted at malnourished youth that could not be better suited to local demand, and Ethiopian leaders and farmers are simply ecstatic to start manufacturing and distributing the product locally. This is where Pepsi comes in.

Anticipating the concerns of many audience members at the forum, the WFP representative warned us that there's really no reason to be surprised or alarmed that Pepsi may have motivations beyond the humanitarian for investing in this project as this means they are incentivized to see the project through. Because their investment depends on it, Pepsi worked to ensure that the product stays at price-point so as not to become irrelevant, a safety net that is invaluable to WFP as they begin to promote their product, at first in Ethiopia but potentially to a much wider consumer base. Large companies will have an increasingly important role to play in global nutrition, and transparent arrangements such as this one are trail-blazing the way to a new understanding of the potential of public-private partnerships.

As the WFP representative told us, "there's so much more at stake than compassion". Feeding practices during the first 24 months of life are critical in a child's brain development, and access to this powerful package of sweetened chickpea could go a long way in improving that development. Pepsi's long term goal may be to diversify their own source for chickpeas as global demand soars, but a necessary step toward achieving that goal is supporting smallholder farms which leads to improved incomes. Ethiopian farmers have always cultivated chickpea for small-scale domestic consumption, but with Pepsi's investment and WFP's guidance, the chickpea could have a real impact on child nutrition in Ethiopia and around the world.

My Transformation

2011-07-27T23:56:00.000-07:00

Cape Town.

It's uncanny that a mere two and a half hours on a plane can take you to a place so exactly opposite from where you've spent the last year. And it was quite an enjoyable journey at that - it's amazing the difference between traveling on Mozambique's single airline to traveling with the world renowned South African Airlines. I usually hate flying, but an essentially empty plane with a steward who is eager to keep the white wine flowing makes for a pleasant trip! And if riding in cars made me pensive, then flying alone to a new country, yet again, is emotionally almost more than I can bear. I see that money buys the same things everywhere. Elaborate bushy sweaters for the cold months in the Cape, little girls in trendy leggings and pigtails, smiling people who can afford this direct flight. And I know that I am once again leaving those I care about behind, off to see new things and new people, all the while thinking of those I love but left back home long ago.

And then Cape Town. The land of traffic lights (called 'robots' by South Africans), bubble baths, 10pm sushi, 7am yoga, health food stores, museums, coffee shops, stainless steel bathroom fixtures that respond precisely to my temperature and pressure needs, zero struggle to make correct change in stores, recycling bins, wheat bread, washer AND dryer, the newest in fashion, and 5 different ethnic cuisine options on every block. I am beside myself, and more than a little ashamed that I have so easily fallen into the lap of exquisite luxury. Is this what I need to truly be happy? I maintain that I do not in fact NEED it, but is it wrong to want it? To just be grateful for my privilege and move forward?

Last night was an invite only Gibson guitar event that I managed to get into with the help of a friend. I'm so lucky to be here as someone's guest; it's enabled me to dive straight into the social scene, meeting musicians and getting to know all the best local spots. And I'm spending my days as a tourist, wandering around trying to keep my eyes in my head, discreetly ducking into a cafe to pull out my map from time to time. But really, it's quite an easy place to get to know. Big, but not confusing, and after yesterday's City Bus Tour (admittedly NOT the most discreet, but very informative and an efficient way to see the whole city in a hurry) I feel like I could walk just about anywhere I want to go. Maybe I'll go back down to the Water Front and have another Milk and Honey beer with a basket of fried seafood. Or cook up another Mexican feast for the neighbors. The possibilities are endless, and for now, I'm busy just trying to soak it all in. I'm almost thankful for this rainy day, to reflect on the past 3, send some emails, and convince myself this isn't all a dream.

Watering the Mambas

2011-07-01T06:17:00.000-07:00

People say that Africa gets inside you, grabs a hold of something in you. That for many it’s hard to get away once you’ve lived in this land of red earth and tall grass. I’ve seen so many beautiful and so many terrible things this year, and I’ve often tried to put these experiences into words, perhaps sometimes succeeding in communicating the true sentiment of the moment to a reader.

There are many things I will miss. Fresh tropical fruit, and other foods of the season and region; last week we went to the mountain town of Gurue and came back with beans and sunflower seeds for roasting.

The Francisco family of Nguanje; the many children of this tight knit family make up the membership of one of my favorite (sshh) youth groups. This week we visited their garden together for the last time. Jacama kept running ahead of us, jumping out of each bushy hiding spot when we passed, singing one of our favorite tunes. The girls giggled and held my hands.

Cooking with Mozambican women; I cook with my best friend in her home in Quelimane almost daily. She blames me for making her gain weight, and I accept it. This week, we went to Morrumbala for a ‘Dia de Campo’, or field day, with my kids groups, spending the whole night before preparing vitamin rich foods like sweet potato juice and soy milk to share with the children at the celebration. My neighbors came to help as well, peeling oranges as we patted out sweet potato cakes. It was one of the best nights I’ve had in Morrumbala. And on our last night, we went to my neighbor’s house for a dinner of cow liver, my first, and apparently a Mozambican favorite. It wasn’t terrible, as most Americans might fear, but I was glad I chose this evening to teach them how to make banana pudding. A nice palate cleanser.

Other moments of excitement, shock, awe, anticipation, humility. Playing an extra in a Portuguese film. Near head-on collisions; who would expect another vehicle to come around that grassy middle-of-nowhere curve? An unexpected lunar eclipse viewed from the bush. A gift of a goat valuing 15 dollars, a fortune for this family who doesn’t have electricity or running water. Who live in a mud and grass hut in the middle of the bush. Stopping on the side of the road when you can’t hold it anymore to water the grass, and hopefully not water any mambas. Playing mancala in the dirt with kids who can’t write their own name, but who have mastered this intricate game of counting and strategy.

And also many times I just wanted to shut my eyes, to hold the tears in. Children fighting over the chance to have a small cup of soy milk or sweet potato juice; would this ever happen in America? Pedestrian mortalities. Ubiquitous Catholicism which has taken the place of traditional spiritual rites, the result of years of resource dumping into schools, churches, infrastructure. So much good has been done in the name of a God that was not born on this continent. The many, many, many instances of ‘what have you brought us?’ The culture of receiving has been so ingrained here, perpetuated by a generation of foreigners who wish to atone for the sins of their grandfathers, who often feel helpless to do anything but dump charity onto Africa and its people, who have thus transitioned from “Do what you’re told and you won’t be beaten” to “Do what you’re told and I’ll give you a t-shirt that advertises my organization”.

After our Dia de Campo, I was told that the community was very pleased with the day’s activities, but that they were quite displeased with the snack we brought. “Why?” I asked. They seemed to like the sweet potato juice and soy milk and cookies.“Oh yes, they did like them. But they were expecting a full meal.”

At the end of the day, we brought out a soccer ball and the kids played their hearts out until the setting sun commanded our departure. They would have played all night had we let them, and the next day too until their tired, skinny, dirty little legs would propel them no further and they collapsed to sleep, puppies in the dirt. Sometimes I think I’ll give up on effecting complicated social change and simply distribute soccer balls across Zambezia. But how then would I be any different from any of the other dumpers to whom I condescend? To give or not to give, that is the question. Were it as simple as taking the sweet potato off the plate of an 8 year old American who refuses to eat it and popping it into the mouth of a child in Africa…but we know the redistribution of resources depends on so many political, economic, and social factors. “There are starving kids in Africa” is true enough, but it doesn’t make the food come.

I often marvel at the stark differences between socio-economic classes; how must my Mozambican colleagues feel when they go to the bush and see their countrymen who have so much less than them? When they walk past a barefoot woman in the city streets, carrying all her belongings on her back? What they must feel is this: that could very easily be me, and I categorically refuse.

The Speed of Light

2011-05-27T06:23:00.000-07:00

I’ve written on this topic several times before, but highway etiquette here never ceases to amaze me and makes for endless amounts of writing material. Nine months in this country and my teeth must be ground to nubs. All drivers are constantly on the offensive, laying on the horn when I, in their place, would reduce my speed significantly, and nary a seatbelt in sight. Both north and southbound travelers treat the same road as though it were one way. And until recently, I maintained hoped that all the stories I heard of vehicular homicide involving NGO or government cars and rural pedestrians would remain just that: stories. Unfortunate tales that I could try not to think about. But this week, as I accompanied some colleagues visiting from another district to see the junior farmer groups in our province, we came upon an accident that left me short of breath. The feet of a frail woman, most likely old beyond her years, protruding from a black cloth spread across the center of the road. Lettuce from her basket scattered across the lanes, and a government car pulled off on the side of the road.

The woman who sat in front of me crossed herself, and we traveled on. There was nothing else to do.

Another story, the validity of which I hope to never witness proof of, is that of women who actively shove their children into the road when they see NGO cars coming, hoping to receive handsome compensation for the ensuing injury or death. Absolute desperation does very ugly things to a person, and I thank the heavens and whatever is up there every day that life has handed me such good fortune.

Crocodile Crossing

2011-05-23T06:17:00.000-07:00

Road-signs are a bit different here, most notably the ones framing low bridges that warn passersby to mind the crocodiles. “Cuidado Com Crocodilo”. And people would do well to heed this warning, as I just learned that more deaths are caused by crocodiles than any other animal in Mozambique. Not at all surprising, considering that large animal populations in this country have declined significantly in the past several decades. What was a bit surprising was the information that a crocodile had somehow made its way to Quelimane, a relatively large city, where it promptly took up residence in a canal and began terrorizing the neighborhood. My initial reaction was “Why doesn’t the government get rid of it, even shoot it if necessary? After all, a human life must be more valuable than a crocodile’s” and the unexpected response I received was that the crocodile hasn’t hurt anyone (yet) and they would have animal rights groups all over their case. Animal rights groups? In Mozambique?? Where wildlife populations have been systematically obliterated without the bat of an eye? Huh. Guess it’s never too late to start caring.

The numerical results that foreign donor groups demand from on the ground NGO staff often pose unfortunate limitations on our ability to focus a sufficient amount of attention and resources on projects that have the potential to produce very meaningful results. Instead of consistently supporting a modest number of beneficiaries, we’re often running around trying to start ‘x’ number of groups with ‘x’ number of members receiving ‘x’ number of visits in order for quarterly reports to seem meaty when they reach Washington. Conversely, huge amounts of money and effort are dedicated to one-day events that have no real impact on the people our organization was designed to support and care for.

For so many people, this is just a job. Not one they chose because they want to make a difference, but simply the best option for carving out a lifestyle free from the poverty we would, in theory, alleviate. NGOs are among the most important employers in Africa, making for an interesting dynamic. For me, the machine is often frustrating, and has me longing to belong to a smaller, organic operation, albeit working on the same types of projects. But for many of my colleagues, the largest concern is, naturally, where they will find work when their 2-3 year life-of-project contract is up.

And although that has nothing to do with city-dwelling crocodiles, it leaves me equally riled up.

Grasshopper Graveyard

2011-05-04T09:20:00.000-07:00

When I leave in July, I will certainly miss the sites that a small Mozambican city has to offer. Young men holding hands in the street. Two women walking side by side in identical wraps. An old man in a black fedora, riding a pink bicycle with a basket on the front.

Other things I won’t miss so much. It seems every time I return home, a different bug has set up camp in my humble abode (and even, at times, inside my humble body, although that’s another story. The one that tells of all the parasites I have had in the past few years). This time, it was the grasshoppers. Brown ones, green ones, fast ones, slow ones, but at least they crunch when you kill them, as opposed to making the much less desirable squish of a big hairy spider.

All creatures great and small are an important part of daily life here. Mozambicans are endlessly entertained by the commentary a passing piglet in the road can inspire. “That one was asking for it! We almost had a barbeque tonight – hahaha!” Every time.

A Love Affair With Food

2011-05-04T09:19:00.000-07:00

I fell in love with food in Africa. Maybe I also fell in love with Africa through food, but that’s a different story.

Comforts are so few and far between here, so the amount of pleasure a well-thought out and carefully executed meal brings is remarkable. And although it takes a lot of effort and careful planning, I have the resources to frequently create a wide variety of exciting and flavorful meals. This is not the case for most rural Africans, who have experienced significant hunger for so long that food has become the apex of much of their folklore.

“See that mountain over there? With the big white rock on the front of it? That is a door that spirits travel through.”

“Oh? And what do they find when they get inside? Gold? Treasure?”

“No. They find food. Endless quantities of food.”

Six Miles to the End of the World

2011-04-26T06:54:00.000-07:00

It’s amazing how far 6 miles can feel when you’re crashing through the bush down rutted dirt roads. Where every bean tree and corn stalk looks like the last and within 5 minutes, you’re hopelessly disoriented.

After finishing up a visit to 2 new and distant groups yesterday, my driver and I got a bit of a late start heading home. I asked before we departed if he knew how to get back – our guides informed us they were staying behind to head to their nearby homes – and he assured me that he did.

About 30 minutes later, we came to a huge puddle (pond really) in the road that we definitely hadn’t crossed on our way there. Questioning a passerby, we found that we had missed our turn by a long shot. But within a minute, the driver had me convinced he had this under control. Even though every road here looks the same to me, he has had a lot of practice orienting himself using mountains and sun position, so even though we were on a different route, he was still confident he could get us home. So we plunged nose first into the pond.

And promptly got stuck.

I must have let out a frustrated (or terrified because oh-my-god-i’m-not-sleeping-in-this-truck-in-the-bush-with-no-cell-service) sigh because he immediately took to reassuring me. ‘Don’t worry! We’ll get out!’ (He starts taking off his shoes) ‘A much bigger truck passed by here not long ago, so we’re just fine!’ (The socks come off). ‘I’ll just step out here and hook up the traction!’ (I have no idea what he’s talking about and am trying to breathe slowly.)

He hopped out of the car, did something to the front wheels, hopped back in, and freed us without much more ado. I relaxed, but would not do so completely until I got home. The quick African night was upon us and we still had to navigate our way around a new bridge not yet equipped for the passing of vehicles.

High Highs and Low Lows

2011-04-26T06:52:00.000-07:00

I feel certain that never again in my life will I have a job that is equally heartbreaking as it is rewarding. Yesterday I visited a new group of kids for the first time and was absolutely blown away by them; their attitude, their responsiveness, their vegetable garden – everything was impressive and inspiring. They proudly showed me where they had planted carrots, onions, cabbage, collards and asked that I bring them tomato seeds and a notebook so that they can keep track of their work. Maybe the program can survive when I’m gone after all!

And then today. I visited one of the first groups I started months back and their plots were abominable. Waste high weeds and all their vegetable seedlings had dies from a lack of water and mulching. I didn’t even know what to say, so I sat down on the ground, right where I stood in the vegetable garden, and asked what was going on. They were reluctant to speak at all, and only mumbled that some members weren’t pulling their weight with the watering/weeding schedule and that the sun was very strong.

I remind myself that the new group is just that – a new group. They’re still excited, the magic hasn’t worn off. But if my auxiliaries were doing their jobs (and some are more than others) and integrating work with play and education, I like to think that the kids would stay inspired year round. I can’t be everywhere at once, and come August, I won’t be anywhere near them. So I remind myself (I’m always reminding myself, so as not to slump into hopeless depression) that it doesn’t really matter if none of these groups stick with it and become Mozambique’s best vegetable farmers. What matters is that they gain something, be it emotional, educational, or purely recreational, from the experience.

A recent article from the economist, a special piece on food security, explains just how difficult it is to produce food in Africa, as if I needed any more proof. The soil is exhausted, people can’t afford fertilizers, and perhaps most importantly, water is extremely hard to come by. So the fact that these kids are out there at all has to count for something. And I’ll try not to take it so personally that a lot of them show up simply because they hope to get a ride in the bed of my truck.

Black as Night

2011-04-10T02:38:00.000-07:00

Simple things give me great pleasure these days. Wearing my socks inside out so the seams don’t bother my toes. Imagining ice cubes made of coffee. A big steaming plate of matapa. A young boy wearing a shirt that says ‘Gimme a kiss’, stuffing his dirty little face with porridge. Naked babies that run dripping from the bath and screaming with laughter, black skin glistening, dark as night. Cool water is everyone’s best friend.

Upon finding out that I’ve been admitted to NYU for Fall 2011, I accidentally stayed at the office way too late using the internet, then realized I would have to bike home in the pitch black. So of course, nervous and blind and riding too fast, I drove over a hole in the road and went tumbling ass over elbow. Luckily the bike was still rideable, and adrenaline kept the pain away until I was safe and sound in my house.

When I got home, I was shocked to realize it was only 6:30. When darkness comes to Africa, it wastes no time. The sun sets and then, black night.

I’ve spent the past few days in Pebane, a tiny coastal town, helping my colleagues prepare for a health and nutrition fair held on April 7th – National Women’s Day in Mozambique. Many organizations prepared displays and activities for the fair; the purpose of our table was to promote the incorporation of highly nutritious and readily available foods, such as soy beans and sweet potatoes, into the diets of rural women and children. We spent the entire day before preparing cakes and fritters, and when night rolled around, as abrupt and dark as ever, we found ourselves preparing juice by headlamp and listening to Justin Bieber on someone’s computer. (A group of 5 or more people together at night always constitutes a music-worthy party, and that little punk sure is popular here!) A black dog that was docile and friendly all day, adorable holding a coconut shell between his paws and scratching out the oily white meat with his teeth, takes up his role as guard as soon as the sun goes down, barking valiantly at anything that moves. How do they know?

Then the fair. I was, as always, the lone white girl in a sea of black eyes, but many more than usual this time. As soon as word got around that we were giving free samples of fresh soy milk – which took all of 5 seconds – we couldn’t keep the crowds back. Piles of hungry kids, arms outstretched, all but jumped over our tables, even as the men in our group physically restrained them. Such a mix of emotions these situations produce: these kids are all malnourished and need soy milk and sweet potatoes every day, but the goal of the fair was for them to learn about the products and be able to make them in their own homes, not just suck down the current stock. In addition, they were wildly disobedient and made for a very stressful environment. Still, we need more events like this in Mozambique, and hopefully some of the women who visited our stand to buy cakes before all hell broke loose will replicate these nutritious recipes in their own homes. We had planned to charge a symbolic price for all items, milk included. But it’s impossible to deny a child a small cup when she has no money, even if you can predict the rioting that it will cause.

And there’s no amount of stress that a freshly caught grilled rock fish and a dip in the Indian Ocean can’t cure.

Privilege and Motives

2011-04-10T02:26:00.000-07:00

Peace Corps volunteers are conditioned to do whatever we can to fit in. To spend 2 years (or more) trying to “integrate”, living on 200-300 dollars a month, having authentic experiences. And it’s an important learning process. But somewhere along the way, about 2 ½ years down the road maybe, you realize you can’t fit in. Not really. That you never will. I never will. And that’s because anyone I work with, given the opportunity, would swap lives with me. Not that they want to leave Mozambique, or be American, but they would take the privileges I grew up with in a heartbeat. Sometimes I worry that that means that the integration I’ve tried to achieve is a mockery of their lives, of a situation that they never chose. At the very least, it’s self-serving, perhaps ironically, perhaps not.

When this is over, I know that I will make a smooth transition back to life in America. Maybe I’ll go to grad school in a big city. I’ll eat junk food for a while, but then I’ll set rules for myself. Maybe I won’t remember all the details of the DR and Mozambique. But I’ll never lose all the things I’ve learned simply by being here.

And not all of those things are beautiful.

Many white South African business owners in Mozambique harbor post-colonial hatred for dark-skinned Mozambicans while simultaneously profiting from the country’s natural resources. They work in the tourism industry, building beautiful hunting and fishing lodges that are meant for foreigners and priced thusly. When Mozambican NGO workers stay at these lodges while traveling for work, the tension becomes palpable. After visiting one such lodge yesterday afternoon, and having a beer with the deceivingly pleasant South African owners, one of our colleagues who had 2 extra beds in her room invited us to come back and sleep at the lodge. But upon our return around 8pm, with another friend in tow who planned to camp on the beach, the owners threw a race-based hissy-fit of historic proportions. To tell us that camping on the beach isn’t allowed is one thing – to storm into our colleague’s room looking for stowaways; to cut my friend off while he’s trying to apologize for assuming camping was allowed by proclaiming ‘I didn’t expect this from a white person’; to demand that we vacate the premises immediately because ‘this is not a South African squatter camp’ – all of that is a whole different story.

I left feeling shocked by some of the blatantly racist comments that these proprietors made, and glad to be on the other side of a war that clearly never ended. Now my Mozambican colleague’s discomfort around the South Africans living and prospering financially in Moz makes more sense; they’ve clearly seen this before.

The Lives We Lead

2011-03-26T09:56:00.000-07:00

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.

Three Years of Heat

2011-03-24T06:52:00.000-07:00

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

A World Map of Scars

2011-03-20T01:58:00.001-07:00

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.

Buckle Up

2011-03-11T21:33:00.000-08:00

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.

Nightlife

2011-03-09T06:44:00.001-08:00

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.

A Sunflowered Middle of Nowhere

2011-02-28T05:21:00.000-08:00

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

2011-02-18T00:18:00.000-08:00

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

2011-02-14T02:14:00.000-08:00

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

2011-02-14T02:13:00.000-08:00

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

2011-02-12T03:58:00.000-08:00

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

2011-02-10T07:33:00.000-08:00

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

2011-02-03T08:35:00.000-08:00

‘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.

Green Beetle

2011-01-31T04:39:00.000-08:00

On the way back from the campo today, a bright green, metallic beetle flew in the truck window and landed on me. As I squirmed to remove it from my person without touching it – you never know what bites here – the driver sensed my distress (which required minimal powers of perception considering I was doing the hokey-pokey in my seat) and stopped the car. He promptly picked the beetle off the seat where I had managed to corral it and tossed it out the window. When I asked if it was something dangerous, he said no, it just smells weird because “brinca muito com cocó”…

It plays with poop a lot.

Ode to Chinese Wal-Mart

2011-01-31T04:26:00.000-08:00

(*For any one of several small stores in Quelimane, Moçambique run by enterprising Chinese families)

O Chinese ‘loja’
Tireless importer of all things plastic from the Orient
Countless items in endless quantities, of questionable quality
Without you, my Little House on the Savannah
Would stand empty
No washcloths with 0% absorbency rates
Nary a stainless steel spoon that can prodigiously produce rust overnight
Nor a stick-free pan that loses its ‘teflon’ at the mere mention of utensils
O where would I find nail-polish so tiny, yet so defiant when confronted with nail polish remover?
Even when it comes in the form of oily, orange smelling cotton pads, suggesting not a hint of alcohol in its constitution
Hangers for my clothing, and clothespins too, were merely a dream before you
And so many colors you do offer!
O Chinese ‘loja’, who else can convert 85% of their store front stock to ‘Croc’ sandal knock-offs overnight?
Nevermind that you make me check my bags at the door
Your holdings are much too valuable to risk theft, this we know
Bright lights, clean floors, energizing tunes
Hark! Is that Elton John singing in Mandarin?
You inspire us to fill our lives with shiny necessities
For who could live without a miniature salad dressing bottle?
Or a hat with a double Nike swoosh?

Spider Ant

2011-01-29T05:14:00.000-08:00

I ate my last mini Hershey’s bar today. That deserves an entry to itself, but I will refrain from moping.

Instead, I will tell of my new arch nemesis, the Spider Ant, apparently also known as the Red Roman, a nasty creature that comes sprinting, not crawling or even creeping, into my house each night just about the time it starts to get dark outside. With the body shape of an ant, but about 90 times bigger, six spider legs and two more in front that it carries aloft like javelins, this creature gives me gooseflesh in the most insufferably hot of climates. Is it a spider? Is it an ant? Who can say? Locals call it “friend of the scorpion” because, they say, it carries a scorpion underneath it, attached to its stomach. Alksjdoihfmzdbvnlkhaf!!!!

After 2 years of stubbornly refusing to become ‘the English teacher’ in the Dominican Republic, my resolve finally crumbled when my neighbor, the cutest 14 year old girl named Delicia, showed up to my house bearing a small notebook and a gorgeous shy smile, and announced that she was there to learn English. No one has ever tried this exact technique before, simply showing up ready to get started. How could I say no? Especially since all I was doing at the moment was watching my 87th episode of Friends for the day. She already knows quite a few nouns and verbs from school, but can’t speak them very well at all, so we’ve started out by expanding her vocabulary and practicing a lot of sentences out loud. It’s really no work for me – she’s happy if I sit with her for 15 minutes and send her on her way with a little homework assignment. I don’t love that she feels the need to become versed in yet another European language that sadly has taken root and displaced (to some extent) many local dialects, but I can choose to be pragmatic about this: it really could help her get a job someday. But only if she figures out how to pronounce the word ‘shirt’ in a way that doesn’t sound quite so…offensive.

Mango Madness

2011-01-25T07:52:00.000-08:00

It’s mango season, and not a moment too soon. Millions of eager children across the continent have been sinking there solid teeth into green mangos for months, and finally, the fruits have ripened, and their sweet, juicy flesh is a miracle that I can only wonder why the gods saw fit to confine to a few short months out of the year. A delicious treat, straight off the tree or cooled in the fridge for a few hours, mangos offer vitamin A and C, boost the immune system, and protect against infections. I will blame their late arrival in my community for the terrible incident involving my left foot that, thanks to another of nature’s miracles (that of mold growing on another ‘orange’ fruit) has finally healed into an itchy scab. It started out as a little blister on my ankle, could have been a bug or a cut, but I didn’t notice when it happened. Which to me, means it definitely could NOT have been a snake bite, contrary to popular belief. So I did what I’ve been taught – gritted my teeth and scrubbed the fire out of it, hoping that would take care of any potential infection. The next day, it was so painful and swollen I could barely walk, and by the next day, I headed into the city to seek the counsel of a doctor friend. I had to go in for other reasons, but by this point, what my sister has endearingly called my “club foot” was top priority.

Ten days, twenty Co-Trimoxazole tablets and as many Hail Mary’s later, and I am healed! Although I must say, the fact that each pill cost approximately 3 cents was less than reassuring. Seems to have done the trick though, and now it’s just another scar to tell the story of my travels.

Here Comes The Sun

2011-01-25T07:50:00.000-08:00

And all of the sudden, quite unexpectedly, my work seems to have come together as a beautiful symphony, each piece seamlessly connecting to the next to form a cohesive whole. Well, that might be a bit dramatic, but lately I feel like things are falling into place. I spent months spreading my energies here and there, and suddenly it all makes sense and seems to have paid off. Due to a miraculous merger of transport (bike and car), cell phone service, and weather, I was able to visit all 4 of my kids groups in my site this week. I was astounded at how well their crops are coming along – in some cases, the corn was taller than most of the group’s members, a fact which inspired lots of giggling once I pointed it out, and they have done a remarkable job of keeping up with the weeding, a constant problem since the rainy season has descended upon us. (Not that I’m complaining! Please keep it coming! My cucumbers have just started to germinate!) And as always, I was touched by their enthusiasm upon my arrival. Are they excited at the potential of getting to ride in the bed of my truck and then tell everyone they know? Well yes, but it’s more than that. They show me how much they missed me with their smiles, holding my hands, and I feel how much I missed them too. And in this moment, it doesn’t matter if the world of development work is dysfunctional at times, that I can think of a hundred ways to put so much of the money funneled into NGO’s to better use, and that observing change is a long and grueling process. All that matters is that we take a few minutes to skip rope before we go check out our peanut plot.

After finishing the junior farmer’s manual last week, a piece of work that took months to finally come together, we had just a few days before training was to begin; a training for rural staff members who will work with junior farmers which I was largely in charge of planning, organizing and facilitating. Arriving at the World Vision Center in Nicoadala Sunday evening – ah yes, fond memories of the week I spent in this strangely pleasing, cement block compound 4 months ago when we were just starting the junior farmer program – I spent the first night tossing and turning in a bed of wooden boards, too distracted by heat and bugs to actually sleep. This morning, somewhat rejuvenated by tea and a piece of bread (breakfast of champions), I set off at a gallop, throwing more energy than I actually had into the sessions in order to set the pace at a jaunty trot. It really paid off. I got satisfactory, enthusiastic responses, and the day flew by practically without a hitch. We somehow were able to get through 7 sessions, visit a nearby youth group, eat multiple meals and snacks, and even have time for discussions all between breakfast and bedtime. I could not be more pleased with how the first day turned out. I was terrified that the participants wouldn’t respond to my questions and discussion topics (after witnessing this exact phenomenon at a training last week, of which I was thankfully only an observer) and that my sessions would run way under time. But thanks to a few key participants who got the ball rolling, most everyone stayed interested and involved the entire day.

Just as we were finishing up the last activity of the day (planning a daily routine for our youth groups and distributing the manuals), eager to head to our rooms for well deserved rest and shower, the sky which had been grumbling threats all afternoon suddenly opened up and caught us under the grass roofed gazebo, where earlier that afternoon, I had a group of 15 adults playing Simon Says, Telephone, and Musical Chairs. Or Africa-appropriate versions of. If they’re going to play with the kids, they need to understand the games themselves! Someone joked that now they were stuck, when just a moment before they were ready to flee from Mica’s presence because “she talks a lot! Haha!” But stuck as we were, there wasn’t much left to do except…talk some more. When I could no longer take sitting and waiting for the rain to pass, I made a dash for my cell, but before I could get to the shower, the lights went out. This doesn’t happen enough here to warrant carrying around a headlamp, and the center didn’t have any candles, so I set about adjusting my eyes like a cat and soon was showering in the dark, freezing cold water tumbling down from the showerhead as well as the dark clouds outside the bathroom window. For a moment, I forgot the feverish night before, and just shivered happily.

Nothing Mother Nature (or Mother-paper-thin-mattress) could throw at me will keep me from sleeping tonight.

Peanut Farmers

2011-01-23T00:16:00.001-08:00

Due to a miraculous merger of transport (bike and car), cell phone service, and weather, I was able to visit all 4 of my kids groups in my site this week. I was astounded at how well their crops are coming along – in some cases, the corn was taller than most of the group’s members, and they have done a remarkable job of keeping up with the weeding, a constant problem since the rainy season has descended upon us. And as always, I was touched by their enthusiasm upon my arrival. Are they excited at the potential of getting to ride in the bed of my truck? Well yes, but it’s more than that. They show me how much they missed me with their smiles, holding my hands, and I feel how much I missed them too. And in this moment, it doesn’t matter if the world of development work is dysfunctional at times, that I can think of a hundred ways to put the money funneled into NGO’s to better use, and that observing change is a long and grueling process. All that matters is that we take a few minutes to skip rope before we go check-out our peanut plot.

Welcome Home

2011-01-08T00:28:00.000-08:00

Last night was the first I spent in my new house. I’ve learned in recent years that so much of learning to be happy in a new place, perhaps very different from any you have ever known, is being able to carve out a place for yourself, your own personal space. I can already feel that things are going to be different from now until I leave. It doesn’t matter that I spent the first night a bit nervous, cat-napping instead of truly sleeping, that my stove doesn’t work yet and I’m once again subsisting on nibble-able foods. I’m happy. And I’m home.

New Year, New Beginnings

2011-01-06T00:14:00.000-08:00

After an encouraging 2 day conference in Maputo, the capital, a week on Tofo beach in the south of the country, and New Years back in Quelimane with friends, I returned to Morrumbala yesterday, if not the starry idealist of years before, at least invigorated, ready to roll up my sleeves and get back to work.

It’s hard to wrap my head around the non-traditional holiday experience I’ve just come away from. First of all, the extreme heat made it difficult to think of the season as ‘Christmasy’; made it difficult to think at all in fact, as we lounged around on the sandy shores like lizards, hustling from one patch of shade to the next and sweating faster than we could rehydrate.

It all began with a conference in Maputo, the capital. I met with the other Peace Corps Response Volunteers, as well as the director for Peace Corps Mozambique, to share our experiences of the first 4 months as well as ideas about the future of the food security sector. At this conference, we were reminded that we are the first group to attempt to work in food security within Peace Corps Mozambique, a fact I had lost sight of recently. Obviously there are a lot of kinks to work out, such as visas and developing a relationship with the ministry of agriculture, and although we didn’t really know what we were getting ourselves into as response volunteers, I’m glad to be part of a team that is solving problems and paving the way for the very timely work of food security.

Then it was on to Bamboozi, a beachside grass-hut establishment in the sandy-white and shimmery-blue coastal community of Tofo, where barefoot international hipsters surf by day, and by night, gather in 3-walled beach bars with lofts, heavy bass music and colorful lighting. While fun and stimulating, these social hotspots at times seem the same around the world…

I had originally intended to go to Barra beach and meet up with some volunteer acquaintances (it would have been presumptuous to call people I had met only once or twice friends), but as the 10 hour bus ride ran its course, I found myself in conversation with several VSO (Volunteer Services Overseas) volunteers and ended up heading to Tofo with them instead, where I spent an eclectic Christmas among South Africans and Brits, Germans and Finnish, Canadians and Dutch. Christmas Day found us grilling fresh fish and shrimp in a hilltop hut overlooking the big blue Indian Ocean, 12 people and 9 nationalities. And a good time was had by all. Here, the moon wanes faster than I imagined possible. We attended a full-moon party on Tuesday evening, and by the time we took a midnight beach stroll on Saturday Christmas night, it was half gone.

Back in Quelimane for New Years, I attended a house party in a sparsely furnished Portuguese colonial with a Mozzie friend, her family, and some other volunteers. A few days of rest in an air-conditioned home (it pays to be a house sitter in an African metropolis!), and it was back to Morrumbala. Upon arriving with a group of USAID representatives to one of the communities in which I have a kids’ group, my trepidation about returning after a 2 week absence gave way to throat-catching joy when I saw their smiling faces. Clearly they were happy to see me, and as they sang and danced as they always do for visitors (well, not for me anymore when I come alone, but I take this level of informality as a compliment), I could hardly hold back the tears. I thought I was past that immediate surge of emotion I used to feel in these situations when I first arrived to the country, but I guess 2 weeks away put more distance between me and the campo than I had imagined.

When we went to see the kids’ plot, they showed me that their peanuts and pigeon peas were growing quite well, although the unexpected halt of the rains resulted in poor germination of their corn crop. I was dazzled by their energy in this heat; we had arrived late because of transport problems, as usual. And yet there they all had been, adults and children alike, huddled into the modest shade of one of the few large mango trees, waiting to sing to their visitors.

I spent today preparing materials for an upcoming training on Junior Farmer initiatives I will be giving to World Vision employees, and being caught up on the progress made with the kids’ groups by my two auxiliaries while I was away. It feels good to be back. Now if I can just wrangle up a truck, I can finally move into my own house…

A Development Curve

2010-12-15T01:51:00.001-08:00

My ever flexible and changing role as volunteer within a multi-billion dollar international aid and development organization makes it difficult to really nail down my job description, often leaves me feeling lost among the fray, and finally explains why my work the past few weeks has somewhat veered off in a different direction. I guess, to some extent, I have to just sit back and enjoy the scenery.

After hiring 2 new rural auxiliaries, at a whopping 50$ a month each, to help look after my junior farmer groups, I had more time to attend to the most recent request of my organization: that I begin work on rural income generation projects with community health councils (CHCs). I have to say, working with adults was a welcome change in some ways; not having to constantly be entertaining, singing songs and dancing jigs, but rather sharing information in a simple and direct manner, requires far less energy than I’m accustomed to devoting to the kids’ groups. Thus more energy I can concentrate on speaking Portuguese, suffering the brutal elements, and staying awake in the car as I seem to have developed an allergy to consciousness the moment we begin off-roading...

In just two meetings I conducted with the CHCs, however, the danger of a culture of dependency we (as NGO workers) are all constantly aware of was made painfully clear. Neither of these groups have a cent to contribute to start-up projects, and World Vision hesitates, for good and obvious reasons, to become the sole investor in such initiatives. Reasons such as: we’ve invested in this group before and nothing has come of it. Or: if there is no initial sacrifice made on the part of the community, how can we expect them to feel ownership of the project? Throughout Mozambique, postwar crisis response by well-intentioned organizations has lingered and evolved into expectancy that I see written all over the faces of the members of the CHCs – what is she here to bring us? I accompanied a health worker from the city to visit a group several days ago, and after her presentation was complete and we prepared to say our goodbyes, the questions that had clearly been on the minds of the group members the whole time were finally vocalized: “why haven’t you brought us anything today? You gave group “x” skirts, why didn’t we get skirts?” These questions were posed with no measure of timidity, rather righteous indignation at the fact that we had arrived that day empty handed, with no other agenda than to analyze several health problems the community is facing and talk about basic solutions such as improved hygiene and family planning.

It’s less obvious with the children, who ask for simpler things such as soccer balls and jump ropes, and who seem to be interested in holding my hands and working with me in the fields for the sheer novelty of it. With the adult groups, however, a whole new set of questions arise and cannot be ignored: Will we ever find a balance between providing immediate necessities and facilitating education and support that can lead to long-term change? Why does it seem that so many of these programs aren’t sticking, and whose fault is it, if anyone’s? Have the rural inhabitants we aim to aid made a conscious decision that it’s easier to wait for help; are they too underfed and undereducated to summon the energy to follow through with projects; or are they trying their damndest and getting nowhere? In the end, I think it must be all three. I see how hard my colleagues work, and I see how much the rural beneficiaries still suffer, and while some reports may show numerical improvements (increased occurrence of breast-feeding, decreased rate of child growth stunting) it’s hard to see any of this when you make daily observations at the community level. Obviously change takes time, and a comparison of current Mozambique to the country immediately after the war would surely speak of improvement. But even so, I still can’t quite shake the feeling that I was much more productive working as the lone white-woman in my small community in the DR than I am within a large and influential organization. It’s not that I have a problem being a cog, a tiny part of the operation, but sometimes I feel like I’m spinning in a way that doesn’t affect anyone. Maybe I’m simply cut-out for aid work on a more personal and intimate level. And maybe I can even find a way to make that happen within the framework of such a huge and ambitious project.

I left the meetings with the CHCs only after both groups had extracted from me a promise to return. But unfortunately, there’s little I am authorized to do for them until they can demonstrate that they are a group fit for investment. It seems that projects conducted with these groups (and many, many others) before have left much to be desired in terms of sustainability and numbers satisfactory for reporting, and organizations understandably are looking to support groups which they have reason to believe will succeed. But what do you tell everyone else? All of those who have no start-up money, no ace in the hole?

Fast-forward to the following week, in which I visited 2 other districts who are starting up junior farmer programs. I met with 3 kids groups and gave them my now practiced introductory spiel, debriefed World Vision staff at both locations, and finally headed back to Morrumbala to check on my own kids’ groups. Paying a few unplanned visits, I find I can remember only about half of their names, although some of their corn and bean crops seem to be germinating relatively well. But as with the adults, I can see a waning in interest, in drive, in energy. In general, it seems that the work they have been doing with the auxiliaries in my absence is half-hearted at best. They like me enough to work well when I’m there, but I can’t always be there. Maybe we can reconnect after the holidays. Also after the holidays, I plan to spend a few days at the rural health clinic I wrote about a number of weeks back. My goal is to observe their daily routines, determine their greatest needs, collect interviews, photos and stories, and begin the legwork for creating a sponsorship for this clinic by a church or organization in the U.S.

A Thanksgiving List

2010-11-27T13:20:00.000-08:00

I am thankful for…

•The Indian Ocean
•Suncreen
•NGO friends with real jobs and cars, who take pity on volunteers, low men on the totem pole
•Frango Zambeziano (the grilled chicken for which the province in which I live is famous)
•Grilled grouper
•My very capable tailor
•Internet on my phone (and therefore, constant contact with supportive friends and family)
•Packages sent from home
•African music
•Rain

There is so much more I have to be thankful for this year, as every year, but these are a few of the things at the front of my mind. Hope you had a lovely Thanksgiving.

A Beautiful Black Friday

2010-11-27T13:18:00.000-08:00

After an arduous 3 day journey (with a stop off in Nampula for an eclectic Thanksgiving meal), made less so by a ride from a friend, we are finally at Chocas, um fim do mundo – an end of the world.

The cutest thatch-roofed bamboo hut, complete with outdoor shower for post-ocean rinsing, a late afternoon swim in the calm blue Indian Ocean (she’s definitely a woman, perhaps a mother even), a dinner of fresh clams and cold beer, then music back at the hut, swaying barefoot in the sand. A sandy scorpion joins in the dance, raises his tail, but I believe he means no harm. After, a moonlit walk on an expansive white sand beach. The tide is out, so we run around like children, and when I fall asleep in the sand, my friends line my spine with seashells. They tinkle to the ground when I rise. This is the best Black Friday ever.

And this morning, the sound of the ocean and a billowing white mosquito net. Sitting on the back porch under the coconut trees, hammock gently swaying to and fro. I could stay at Chocas for many lifetimes.

The Last Supper

2010-11-27T13:15:00.000-08:00

Today I found myself at the head of the lunch table, staring down the corridor of 25+ hungry men (a double dose of disciples), mounds of rice, and a fish bigger than any I’ve ever seen, marveling at the urgency and efficiency with which they tucked into their meal. These are not starving people, at least not currently, although I can’t speak to their childhoods. Yet they must realize how easily they could be, how little distance there is between them and hunger, and therefore they eat with a purpose, like I’ve seen only Africans do. As I wasn’t standing in wait by the door for the lunch table to be set, I was one of the last people to arrive to the table, and found myself picking through the dishes to put together a full meal. The food culture that exists here doesn’t seem to be greed exactly – if you show up at lunchtime at the home of a Mozambican, they will insist that you eat. Yet when everyone has their plates in front of them, it’s every man for himself on a mission of nutrition. Not having suffered through years of famine and civil war in the not-so-distant past, I can’t personally feel where it is they’re coming from.

The reason for this gathering of 30 people (3 women of which are women) is a week-long training in construction of water tanks for rural areas where water catchment and conservation is tricky. The trainer arrived from Bali, and as he speaks English but no Portuguese, I quickly became the impromptu translator. That was yesterday’s task, and I was treated very professionally as such. Today, however, the manual labor began, and try as I might to shrink myself and blend in by doing little tasks, there are a few men in this group who insist upon calling attention to my womanness. (In general, I have found the men here to be very respectful of me as a professional, but once we break down initial barriers and they learn I’m not a white ice-queen, some of them step beyond the line I appreciate.)

No matter what I did today, I couldn’t escape it. “Hey Mica, why don’t you try to saw? Haha! Or you could dig, heh.” And yet had I picked up the saw, everyone else’s work would have come to a screeching halt and I would have been, to borrow a friend’s phrasing, like a polar bear in a cage. So I ignored their urgings as long as I could before finally asking “Why is the idea of me sawing so entertaining to you? Is it because I’m a woman?” Now obviously, we all knew the answer to that question, but it was the best way to bring attention to their passive harassment, however harmless they assumed it to be. They answered yes, that’s why, and I responded tartly that where I come from, being a woman doesn’t make that much of a difference in such matters – another half truth, but it gets the point across: don’t belittle me and I will participate as an equal. It doesn’t help that I am half the size of most of these men, another reason that their face-stuffing is so curious… Anyway, in response to my comment, one of the 2 other foreigners present at this training announced, to my satisfaction “It’s just because they’re not educated on gender matters” and their giggling trailed off as they looked down at their feet and mumbled something about being educated, perhaps slightly embarrassed or maybe I just imagined it. Either way, I felt like somehow I won this, one of the battles I had chosen. And I do pick them. Every day. As wisely as I can.

Beloved

2010-11-17T03:39:00.000-08:00

Today, we said goodbye to a compassionate field-worker, a gentle and dedicated man who suffered a fatal heart attack at 48 years old. Ernesto Amado, a last name that means ‘beloved’, was in fact just that, not only by his colleagues at World Vision, but by the community and church of which he was a leader, the soccer league in which he was a referee, and his large, loving family.

The funeral began at his home, a small mud-covered structure in an urban neighborhood of Quelimane, where we gathered to hear a sermon and listen to farewell songs in Chuabo, one of the local languages. As we left the house, the wailing began. Women in brightly colored capulanas needed much support to stand as they cried out their pain, but I was most affected by his children, in their 20s and 30s, dressed all in black and staring out at nothing, leaning on one another, eyes glossy and distant.

At the cemetery, we gathered in patches under shade trees, the sun already burning my arms at 9:30am, and watched as the gravediggers finished their job. The women continued to sing, “we’ve arrived at the resting place”. After eulogies were spoken and the casket lowered, we stepped forward to toss handfuls of earth into the grave, then covered it with cut flowers. The women sang “all is calm, we’ve said goodbye to our father”.

Back at his family’s home, everyone must wash their hands. It’s the custom here, to wash away what might have come with you from the grave, the resting place. And after everything, what’s left is the memory of a man beloved for his kindness and dedication to making Mozambique a better, more balanced place, and a lingering tune of pure harmonies in a sandy African cemetery.

Of Goats and Thieves

2010-11-10T23:47:00.000-08:00

The goat tied up outside of my room, destined to be somebody’s lunch, is terrified of me. She jumps up and trips over her rope each time I emerge. I want to tell her, “If you think I’m scary, you’ve got another think coming”, but instead I just feed her moldy bread.

Spent a long but satisfying week in the campo with my four youth groups, all of which now have several plots prepared for corn, peanuts, and pigeon peas. It’s exhausting keeping them entertained, but this week I found a stalwart ally in the form of cookies. As they kneel down and reach up their dirty little hands to receive a meager treat, I wish I had 10 pounds of cookies for each of them, and can’t shake the feeling of a priest at communion.

In anticipation of my trip to the city this weekend, a much needed couple days of socializing with people who don’t require that I sing them silly songs, I went to the salon to have my fingers and toes painted. (Some Peace Corps girl customs are the same everywhere I suppose…) Salons are always a good place to sit and listen, to absorb the culture as a passive observer, and as I was watching my nails go from grungy to shiny chocolate brown, a large group of kids stormed by the salon, urging forward a single young boy. The woman painting my nails gave a one word explanation: thief. Apparently he was being escorted to a central location where onlookers could observe a public beating. I had read about this custom of civilians enforcing order with violence in other African countries, but this was the first time I had seen it in action, and guiltily, couldn’t help but feel a bit safer for it. Then again, maybe stealing from a white woman is an honorable deed. Hopefully I’ll never know for sure.

Just Say No

2010-11-05T01:52:00.000-07:00

A group of rural health workers showed up at the compound today with the intention of vaccinating everyone in sight, particularly the suspicious white woman holed up in the corner room. I informed them, to the best of my ability considering my discomfort (there were 6 of them with very untrusting faces) that as a government employee, I get all my vaccines from Peace Corps doctors stationed in Nampula and Maputo, both very far from Morrumbala where I live. They said no, these are just pills, apparently with the power to prevent everything from malaria to pregnancy to other things I’ve never heard of. Afraid of being scruffed like a belligerent cat, I declined a little more forcefully and planned my retreat. They think I’m a weirdo, but there’s no way I was ingesting anything that came out of that box.

With the imminent promise of rain, noticeably closer each day as the sky turns gray and the wind picks up, we’ve had to step it up with our farmers and junior farmers. We spent yesterday morning preparing a 7x7 meter peanut plot
with one group of kids, but learned our lesson the hard way, as by 10 o’clock it was too hot to work anymore. So last night I went to bed at 8:30, got up before 5:00 and by 6:00 was out in the fields again, preparing corn plots under a much more friendly sky. By 8:15 we were done; rather, there was more work to be done but we had to give up our measuring tape (essential for a well-planned garden) to the adult group. So we spent the next hour or so talking about manure as fertilizer, the water cycle, and playing duck-duck-goose. Or in Portuguese galinha, galinha, frango. Or in Cena cuco, cuco, sato. Or something like that.

On our way out to the campo this morning, several squealing piglets darted across the road in front of us, which prompted the driver to ask me if I eat ‘leiton’ (the root word of which is ‘leite’, or milk). After a few questions, my suspicions were confirmed. She wasn’t asking if I eat some breed of pig that is smaller than the others even when fully mature. She was asking if I eat piglet, called ‘leiton’ because it’s not even old enough to be weaned yet. I didn’t even know how to go about answering this, and think my only response was hmmm.

Just say no to: suspicious vaccines and baby animal slaughtering.

The Frog Princess

2010-11-01T06:56:00.000-07:00

Everything seems to be picking up at once. Work, the heat, the quantity of noisy toads living in and around the guest center…

Ever since I emerged from my room several weeks ago and stepped squarely on a squeaky frog – thank god for flip-flops! – I have been very cautious about where my feet land from about 6:00 onward.

As for the heat, it is reaching critical levels as we wait with dusty, baited breath for the summer’s first rains. Riding my bicycle to and from the office, an unintimidating 8 kilometers round-trip, I arrive home covered from head to toe in dirt thrown up by passing trucks desperate to get to and from the farms at this, the end of bean season. I wait as late as I possibly can to leave the office without letting darkness overcome my ride; the magic time seems to be 5:30. The sun sets and rises so early here, even in the summer, which suits those who choose to awake at 4am to begin the day’s work before the heat becomes unbearable.

After much struggle to understand the dynamics of the World Vision team in Morrumbala, I finally gave up trying to maneuver my plans around my co-workers, and began scheduling meetings with my 4 youth groups at times that suit me and the kids. This seems to be what everyone wanted all along, and as a result, my schedule is beginning to resemble something of a real job. When I’m not traveling to and from the city for meetings, I spend 2-3 days a week in the office and the other days in the fields with the kids, which is less like pulling teeth each time we meet (they’re really starting to like me and look forward to our visits, and clearly enjoy the activities and games I bring). After preparing a 15x20 meter plot for corn and reviewing the water cycle with one group several days ago, I inquired whether they wouldn’t accompany me to a nearby Catholic mission, an enormous, beautiful old building that has stood abandoned ever since the civil war. We walked around, careful not to step in piles of excrement (fowl and human alike…) and marveled at the immense structure, lamenting that no one has taken the initiative to repair and clean it up. After a lengthy and unnecessarily complicated debate about when we would next meet, I left feeling very satisfied with the day’s work, despite the many scratches on my hands and arms from mulching with 8 month dry grass.

Keep Your Eyes Open

2010-10-13T11:54:00.000-07:00

Today, I saw my first green mamba, a snake that, with a well-placed bite, can kill a healthy adult within half an hour, and a child within minutes. The regional coordinator is in town, so we spent the morning visiting various project sites, and on our way to the first one, he suddenly shouts from the front seat of the truck “Cobra! Mamba Verde!” When the car stops, he jumps from the vehicle and fearlessly begins to stride toward a tree covered in craggy dry vines at least 50 feet from the road. Although my first instinct was to run in the opposite direction (as eagerly as So Vasco, our plump cook who for some curious reason propels himself about the acampamento at a whistling jog), curiosity eventually got the better of me and I cautiously crept from the car to get a glimpse of the serpent. It took the regional coordinator verily climbing the exposed roots of the tree, and tossing sticks at the mamba – “Look Mica! Look! There it is! Can you see it yet?” – for me to finally catch site of its green head, and when did I could not fathom how he possibly saw it, hiding under all that roughage, from the road. He explained simply “We’re bush people!” and left me to gawk. This is not your average project coordinator, a man highly respected within World Vision, and I would be remiss if I didn’t note that his keen sense of snake whereabouts and the reckless abandon with which he approached it didn’t augment my respect for him as well.

Our next stop was to see a conservation farming plot, newly prepared by one of the kids groups I met with for the first time last week. Their choice of location is encouraging; with a well and cows nearby, they will have access to water and fertilizer, giving them a snowball’s chance in hell at cultivating vegetables and building successful compost heaps, which is unfortunately more than I can say for most of the project sites where we attempt to implement these projects. Water is such a problem here, and with people waiting in line for hours for their turn to pump water simply to drink and cook, filling gallons upon gallons to water a garden simply doesn’t fly in most places.

The kids’ plot is also right next to a rural maternity ward and clinic, and after a brief tour, I felt simultaneously shocked, hopeless, and inspired. With one dedicated nurse (who could easily find a better paying job in a city) and 20 midwives (who are unpaid and walk their patients for many kilometers to get to the ward), the rural operation has seen 27 births so far this month. And it’s only October 13th. After speaking to them at length, learning that the only contribution the government can afford is kerosene for lamps for night births, and that if the midwives want soap to wash their hands they must bring it from home, we entered the ward where two woman lay on cots, swathed in the typical colorful cloths, clearly in a lot of pain from contractions. No water. No food. No privacy. No family. Just two women on cots curled into fetal positions and moaning gently.

Of course I know that this scene pervades Africa, but this was the first time I’ve seen it, and the dedication of the nurse and midwives was enough to break my heart. No one is helping them, and yet they continue to work day and night to ensure that these women don’t have their babies alone on a dirt floor. After careful prodding, I extracted the opinion that the government is doing all it can, at the local and national levels, to improve healthcare, but that their resources are spread very thinly, in accordance with the belief that a larger number of basic facilities is better than a smaller number of well-equipped facilities. It’s hard to argue with that. My mind immediately flitted to all the places I could begin to raise funds for this hospital: friends, family, churches back home. And even if raising money to buy soap, gloves, and gowns is not “sustainable”, it’s hard to care when the need is so immediate and acute. When the effort and heart are there, but the money simply is not.

What would YOU do?

Adults Only

2010-10-13T11:46:00.000-07:00

In Spanish and Portuguese ( as in all languages I imagine) there are multiple ways to say many words. Because the two languages are similar, I often rely on my Spanish vocabulary to help me communicate in Portuguese, and frequently it works. One way to say “battery” in Spanish (or at least Dominican Spanish) is “pila” (pronounced peel-uh). So that’s the word I’ve been using in Portuguese, and it seemed to be getting the point across, but after happening upon the word in the dictionary today, I doubt I will have occasion to say it again…

Although it could be continental Portuguese, my dictionary informs me that “pila” is a colloquial term for a man’s genitalia, and consequently what ‘Richard’s’ family might call him. As noted above, it’s likely that this word has other meanings as well, but that didn’t quell the panicky feeling in my stomach as I thought back on the multiple occasions on which I have used this word.

A hunt for the word “battery” reveals a one letter difference: “pilha” (pronounced peel-yah). This alongside the much safer “bateria”, which also exists in Spanish, but which as luck would have it I opted against, preferring the secretly erotic “pila”. Apparently the difference was slight enough that no one felt the need to correct me, but the snickers I thought I noticed when I used the word make much more sense now. Consider the following…

Does it have batteries?
What aren’t the batteries working?
Did the batteries die?
Maybe the batteries are old.
Maybe it needs new batteries.

I would snicker too! And if I was bored enough, probably neglect to correct the silly foreign offender. But just to be on the safe side, I’ll be sure to ask next time where I can buy “baterias”.

Cultural Relativity vs. Behavior Change

2010-10-11T07:42:00.000-07:00

When I think of development work, specifically behavior change, in terms of culture and the alterations we aim to make to local traditions, however unfounded in reason those traditions may be, it makes me want to skip out on development work and return to anthropology – focusing on understanding people instead of trying to change them. But then, when I remember that so much of the way people live their lives (i.e. part of their “culture”) is the direct consequence of frivolous, unmonitored development, leaving a majority of the world’s population in misery, I remember why I’m here. Then the biggest issue becomes priorities. Every rural African, by default, has to focus on the immediate present and think about how they will provide for their family THAT DAY. Development work focuses on the exact opposite – influencing decisions that affect long term change and social improvement. Acres of trees and grass, valuable organic material, are burned to the ground every day to round up a few small wild animals that might provide protein for a family for that day…and how can I possibly presume to tell them this is a bad idea? It’s really disheartening.

Anyway, maybe there’s a way to find a middle-ground: changing people’s behavior without encroaching upon their culture, or at least the parts of it that make it unique and special, sacrificing aspects that might be partially responsible for jeopardizing personal well-being, for instance, the omnipresence of cassava, a crop that is known for its endurance but not its nutritional content. A background in anthropology tells me “keep your distance, observe respectfully, and don’t presume that people want/need to change”, and yet my experience as a development worker tells me “it’s the responsibility of developed nations to aid those in distress, those who may in fact be the casualties of the ‘success stories’ that fostered such privilege in more developed nations”. It’s really confusing.

My little soapbox for the day.

Unrelated but also potentially of interest to readers (are you out there?) is the difficulty of finding fruits and veggies in Mozambican villages. The natural inclination is to equate living in a rural town with the availability of fresh, chemical-free produce, but that’s not the case for several reasons. Most of the fruits and veggies I can find in Morrumbala are grown locally. In the States, local fare has become synonymous with "fresh and organic" and is usually accompanied with lots of options; however, that's because even small scale farmers in the States can afford lots of what we refer to as "inputs". Not only does their land have a history of being well-cared for, but they can afford fertilizer and pesticides (organic ones to boot!), they have easy access to water, and the weather conditions are more friendly, or at least can be controlled with greenhouses and shade coverings, etc. Here, you're at the mercy of the desert gods. Everyone has a lot of land, but no water. It's very sandy and hot most of the year, seeds are hard to come by, and transport to markets even more difficult. Small scale rural farmers are lucky to own a bicycle, let alone a cart to truck their wimpy produce into town.

So there are a lot of reasons that food is hard to come by in the rural areas, even if you're a little white girl with money to pay for it. :) And speaking of little white girls, we are definitely not cut out to endure the African elements.... The sun and sand are enough to have me dragging my feet by 10am every day.

The Big Bad Wolf

2010-10-06T11:39:00.000-07:00

On our way back from a disappointing visit to the campo yesterday – the man we were supposed to be helping to set up a demonstration plot employing conservation agriculture techniques hadn’t cleared his bean fields after all, leaving us no space to begin – my colleagues poked fun at a little grass house on the side of the road, saying the owner really must have been lazy to not at least have built a mud house. Upon my inquiries, they explained that everyone knows how to build a mud house and it costs nothing but labor, concluding that “everything in Africa depends on how much work you’re willing to put in”. This seems truer to me every day, even when applied to my work with World Vision, which is significantly less physically taxing than building a mud house.

There exists, in the NGO world as in any business or company, a hierarchy of employees and volunteers. Being white gives me a simultaneous advantage (people listen) and disadvantage (they don’t necessarily trust me), but I’m still a volunteer and only have so much influence. For instance, today we showed up at the office, expecting to spend the morning capitalizing on the much needed internet connection, to find that the person in charge had neglected to pay the internet fees, and now is on vacation in the city, to return at a date TBA. Apparently this is not a new occurrence. Not content to sit and await that evasive date, I immediately commenced to flitting around any and everyone who could potentially fix this problem – ridiculous as it is in the first place since the money to pay the energy and internet comes out of project funds as opposed to their own pockets – making calls to people in the city who had strategically turned off their phones, and generally making everyone in the office here uncomfortable. I may not win the popularity contest by the end of my year here, but I won’t just sit in my room all day and wait for something to happen. Even if I am a volunteer. Knowing I only have 10 months here (which, today, feels like an eternity) makes me want to kick things into gear, but with my colleagues acting a little put out by my eagerness, it seems I must find some sort of middle ground between aggressively trying to make things happen and sitting back and smiling dumbly, nodding passively as behaviors remain unchanged.

As I try to settle in and determine my role in Morrumbala, where I am decidedly the outcast, I feel constantly thwarted by socio-cultural differences that make my efforts seem useless. When I go to the market to buy my own groceries instead of having the cook go for me: The 12 year old cell phone credit sales-boy tries to overcharge me; the guy who sells me vinegar tries to overcharge me; and the guy who sells me coconuts allows me to buy 2 that turn out to be perfectly putrid on the inside. I try my hardest to see things from their perspective – “white skin = money, and I need money, therefore I’ll do what I can to get it” – but it makes me feel as rotten as the coconuts.

I also have the sneaking suspicion that I’m driving everyone at the office crazy with all my questions, but how am I supposed to figure out how anything works around here if they’re not forthcoming with information? For instance, I asked a woman at the office today if there were any markers around that I could use to make a presentation for the Junior Farmers I’m finally supposed to meet with tomorrow. She said no. A couple hours later, I walked into the office and saw a big box of markers. I picked them up right in front of her and said “huh, markers! Whose are these?” She said they were World Vision’s, that they specifically belonged to the Ocluvela project that I’m here to work on. Naturally I asked to use them and she, unable or unwilling to hide her frustration, said that we had to ask the owner first (who, of course, is nowhere to be found and whose name she couldn’t even give, I guess for fear of….marker subterfuge?) and that if I used them without permission they would get upset. THEY’RE MARKERS! Not personal hygiene items, not even a favorite t-shirt, and yet the owner might be angry if I used them, even for a presentation for the children I was specifically brought here to work with! I smilingly stated that that seemed like a lot of protocol for markers, and was met with a blank stare, then a tart retort that she would ask. I don’t mean to insult, or infringe upon a system I clearly don’t understand; all I want to do is the job I was brought here for, which seems clear on some days and foggy on others.

Interactions like these leave the impression that my colleagues are more perplexed by my energy and inquisitiveness than actually happy to be working with me. I’m beginning to feel that, while I desire a career that will allow me to affect social change, I might be better off going the academic route as opposed to working in the international NGO arena, or as an individual development worker at the community level as I was in the DR. I know I’m still new to the game, but it seems to require patience, determination and optimism to the nth degree, whereas I feel my temperature cooling suspiciously. It might be a long year in Morrumbala. Or just a long day.

I imagine the man we visited yesterday, with his unprepared land, felt similarly helpless. As an auxiliary worker, he is paid 50$/month for which he is expected to organize and mobilize the presidents from 4 local farmers’ associations to employ conservation farming techniques in their fields. The “due date” as it were for him to have 5 plots completed is Friday; we discovered yesterday that he has done nary a one. I also discovered, while he was being verbally chided by my colleagues for his lack of progress, that he has several malnourished children who spend the day gnawing on sugar cane, and that the plots he is responsible for are at great distances from one another. The frustrations of my colleagues seemed to be based in the fact that the farmer had misrepresented to them the amount of work he had actually accomplished, and upon our arrival, the falsity of his claims was self-evident. The vegetable patch we visited was completely overgrown with weeds, giving the impression that it had not seen a visitor since the seeds were sown. They gave him one last chance to fulfill his obligations, and because his family relies on the 50$ a month he earns, he might manage to get it done. But even knowing that these were his responsibilities to fill based on the job description, I left feeling much more sympathy for the man than did my Mozambican colleagues, hardened by field experience and the simple fact that to them, this is life. You either build a mud house, or you build a straw one.

To Drink or Not To Drink

2010-10-03T11:00:00.000-07:00

The party dynamic. It’s an elusive concept that differs slightly from city to city, hugely from continent to continent, taking months if not years of immersion to fully comprehend. I’ve been in Mozambique less than 2 months. I’ve been in my site a total of 8 days.

October 1st marks, along with my little (a term that refers solely to age these days) brother’s birthday, the beginning of the fiscal year for World Vision Mozambique. Accordingly, a huge party was planned. Accordingly, many cases of beer were bought.

The formal celebration was a daytime affair, involving lots of singing and dancing, a swarm of children who all felt the need to touch me and were eventually shooed away by a shyly smiling adult, prayer and goat stew which tasted to me like moldy cheese at best, but which I guiltily choked down as everyone around me ate with great gusto (walking through the market the next day, I passed a herd of live goats and got a nose-full that smelled exactly like the stew had tasted…)

And then the party. Scheduled to start at 4pm, it finally began at 10:30pm after all the food had been prepared (by none other than the cook with whom I struggle daily through language, etiquette, and ingredients to strengthen a tenuous kitchen-based bond) and laid out in an impressive display, the crowning feature of which was a cake with GLITTER (which unfortunately looked much better than it tasted). After the blessing, and a cryptic warning that everyone, in serving their plates, should try to remember that others would like to eat as well, the locusts descended. I stood a little bit back, in awe of the food fervor, and allowed my plate to be occasionally graced with the passing samosa or scoop of potato salad. I didn’t even look in the direction of the grilled chicken, as there was a dangerous swarm around it from the moment of its uncovering until the last thigh was nibbled down to the bone. I couldn’t help but feel, whether condescending or sensible, that they had more of a right to it than me. Me, who has eaten well her entire life, who can afford to buy chicken whenever she wants. Me, who has never had to fight for food, nor stuff herself to popping as a strategic plan for the next few mealtimes.

Once everyone was finger-lickin’ full, the beer, which had played merely the supporting role to food’s lead, suddenly appeared center-stage. I turned down several offers for a drink, feeling awkward being one of 4 women present and, as always and forever, the only white person, until it became apparent that 95% of the group was drinking, and at 100 yd. dash rather than marathon speed. It’s always tough to decide what’s best in these situations, where you hardly know a face and certainly don’t know the culture – Do they want me to have a drink? Is it weird if I don’t/do? Do women even drink here? – but everyone seemed to smile in relief when I finally accepted a beer. Or they were making fun of me. Who can tell? As I looked around, none of the other women were drinking. But I’ve long since given up trying to fit-in with any demographic here. I’m going to be watched no matter what, so I might as well make them smile. I’m not a tee-totaler, so why pretend to be if not to some social or professional end? After one drink, I shook hands all around and headed back to the compound, luckily not a 3 minute walk away. It was, after all, several hours past my bedtime.

As with every party where you don’t really know anyone, it was a relief to escape to the safety of my own space. As I write, I can still hear the celebration, and the music seems to be getting louder by the minute…

Writhing Cobra and the Honk of Faith

2010-09-28T06:21:00.001-07:00

As ever, traveling through and around cities, whether on foot, bicycle, or in car, has provided me with an abundance of writing material.

Yesterday, I saw my first African snake. Thankfully, I was propelled by the latter of the aforementioned modes of transport, and therefore couldn’t get a good look at the creature writhing on its slimy back in the middle of the road, noting only that it had a light green stomach and dark back, features fairly common in the Snakes of Southern Africa book I consulted later that evening with my director’s kids. I’m currently staying with them at their house while he’s away on work duties, although they take care of me more than the other way around. The babysitter’s here, and she’s sleeping on a waterbed!

I wouldn’t have expected, or even wished for the driver to slow down for the snake; however, they tend not to slow down for anything – teetering bicycles, semis stopped in the middle of the road – preferring instead a method I have begun to refer to (in my conversations with myself) as “the honk of faith”. It still makes me clench my teeth, ever-gritty no matter how tightly I purse my lips against the sandy, invasive wind.

Also yesterday, we visited one of the junior farmer groups who are preparing a short drama about vegetables for the visiting donor representatives, USAID and the like, who are here this week to observe the project. We were a bit late arriving because of a delay in lunch, which having not eaten anything since a piece of bread in the morning, I insisted we wait for before trudging off into the bush. A little selfish? I dunno, but a girl’s gotta eat! I should have guessed that upon our arrival, I would be invited to speak, to give The Word of the White Woman, although I had planned on simply observing. I’m getting better every day at being put on the spot, so I quickly came up with some encouraging words and fun ideas to contribute to their skit. I just hope they don’t go white with terror, pun intended, when the Caucasian contingent arrives to snap their photos on Thursday.

And last weekend, I took my first bike taxi! It was much more comfortable and much less terrifying than expected. Way to go Quelimane for being so Green!

Sim Vergonha

2010-09-25T02:31:00.000-07:00

Shameless. That's what this blog entry is, as it designed to do nothing more than provide my mailing address and a list of things I would oh-so-love. So with no further ado...

Mica Jenkins
Visão Mundial
attn: Brian Hilton
CP 474
Quelimane
Mozambique

Things that would put a smile on my sun-burnt face include: letters, pictures, black tea, chocolate, mustard, mustard pretzels, yogurt-covered raisins, dried Italian/Ranch dressing packets (Good Seasons, I think it is), hoisin sauce, nutmeg, rice noodles, sesame oil, travel tissue packs, sunblock (Neutrogena spf30 Ultra Sheer is wonderful), wall putty/sticky hooks and fishing line or similar thin twine (for hanging things), a coffee filtering device, bracelet making thread, washable markers, and YOUR favorite book!

Feel free to add to my list as well. :) Obrigada! (Thank you!)

A Hard Day's Night

2010-09-23T00:07:00.000-07:00

Tired of staring at my unopened bag of Malawian coffee, I made a coffee filter last night by sewing a chopped up piece of clothing to a metal sieve. OK, it was underwear, but they were brand-new, never worn I swear!

Today I made a Mozambican child cry with my white skin and dug a live ant out of my ear canal. All in a days work.

Working in the NGO sphere and seeing that aid, however well-intended, can create dependency among the most impoverished families it is intended to support, you can’t help but sometimes wonder, what would happen if all the organizations just left? I’m beginning to feel that the greatest loss would not be the halt of projects that, admittedly, aren’t always as sustainable as they intend to be, but the loss of jobs for the many Africans who are employed by World Vision, Save the Children, The World Food Program, and similar institutions. Every day that I spend here, it is brought more clearly to my attention that volunteer work is, ironically perhaps, a luxury. Having the time, energy, resources, and support to spend your days traveling around and initiating relief projects, as opposed to feeding your children, is not something most Africans can afford to do, and thus why NGO’s have wisely recruited Africans as salaried employees, however modestly compensated, as opposed to volunteers. Although, according to some wise old philosopher, “comparisons are odious”, when I think of the time I will spend here, my goals for the future, and even potential career paths in development work, it’s hard to imagine anything I could do as being anything but luxurious.

A rough night of sleep (mosquitoes in my net and ducks outside the window) left me ill-prepared to face the blazing sun of the campo today as we set out for yet another garden-prep and compost demonstration. Even after applying sunscreen and borrowing a hat (gotta get one of those), my face broke out in angry red dots and I had to hang back from the group a little to find shade. One of 2 women in the training group (the mother’s weren’t really participating) and one of one white people, I had no hope of integrating anyway, so might as well protect my skin…

Getting to Know You (A Song for Morrumbala)

2010-09-23T00:05:00.000-07:00

After a little more practice on my bike today (about 10 km of practice, roundtrip to the office to use the internet), I think the trick to driving in such sandy conditions must be the perfect speed. Too fast, and you lose control. Too slow, and there’s not enough inertia to keep you moving through the really sticky patches. So I’ll just continue to navigate, teeth clenched, toward the most compacted looking spots on the “road”.

Today the cook hard-boiled eggs for my breakfast and made me more grilled chicken, with spaghetti and homemade sauce for lunch. He also informed me that he knows how to make coconut curry and various soups. We’re gonna get along just fine. He’s already my favorite person at the compound, although it’s a close tie with the guy who washed my clothes and fixed the electric water heater in the shower. I’m still surprised by how much of this country’s paid domestic labor is performed by men, but it does seem that every single able-bodied woman has a baby (or two) clamped at all times to her breast.

I finally got taken out to the campo today with some World Vision employees who are working on conservation agriculture projects. We stopped at several farms to see how the owner’s were doing with the new techniques, although on our final visit, I found it difficult to focus on farming. The family we were visiting was quite large, and the smallest baby girl, bouncing on her mother’s hip, was suffering from some terrible rash-like, scabbed over infection on her face, and some notable swelling underneath her chin. When we asked what treatment if any she was getting, they produced a frighteningly grungy bottle of milky penicillin for my observation, injections of which she had been receiving since last Thursday. After firmly stating that I am in no way medically trained, I postured that perhaps the swelling on her throat was an allergy to the medication and that they should mention it to the hospital staff the next time they cover the many dusty kilometers on foot to take the child for an injection. It’s likely that even if it is an allergy, the hospital will have no way of testing it, and nothing else to give her.

Earlier this week, the 15 month old grandchild of a well-known pastor died in the hospital after 2 weeks of diarrhea and vomiting. It’s easy for anyone but a well-trained and well-stocked rural health physician to feel completely useless here.

Happiness is a Grilled Frango

2010-09-21T06:34:00.000-07:00

Today, the cook arrived and changed my life. A short, round man with a friendly gap-toothed smile, he got here just in the nick of time to jolt me from my subsistence food stupor.

I gave him basic ingredients, and in return, he gave me a delicious meal of grilled chicken, white rice, and garlic tomato sauce, a portion large enough for lunch and dinner. I spent the afternoon sneakily walking by the kitchen and taking huge whiffs of chicken sizzling on the air, ecstatic that it was being made for me.

And after I finished lunch and safely tucked away the leftovers for dinner, I nearly skipped away to my room, belching happily all along the way.

Feeling energized (the miracle of protein!) I went for my first bike ride since arriving to Morrumbala, and quickly learned that dry sandy streets are easily as treacherous as wet rainy ones. The ride to a friend’s house was enough of a constant incline for me to happily exert a little effort. The ride home, during which I rotated my pedals approximately 4 times, was infinitely more challenging as I skidded through inches of sand, even dismounting at one point to walk through a particularly challenging patch as bike taxis swerved around me carrying passengers and bags of charcoal. It was my first time, so I’m sure I’ll get the hang of it.

After a satisfying dinner of cold leftovers, I headed to the bathroom to brush my teeth, stepping squarely on a squishy, squeaky toad as I left my room. Lifting my foot, I found that he was not dead, and soon was chasing him back out onto the patio, hoping from a safe distance that I didn’t break any of his tiny toady bones. I guess that’s what you get for lurking in doorways.

To round out a very satisfying day, I gave the cook money to buy me eggs, which he assures me he can find despite my futile and fruitless searches. I have no doubt he knows exactly where to look.

Scrounging

2010-09-20T00:20:00.000-07:00

Living in the World Vision compound, where I have my own furnished bedroom and sitting room, and even hot water in the bathroom (no matter that it’s shared), the biggest challenge so far has been food. The grocery and restaurant scene here in Morrumbala is predictably austere, and with no real kitchen to speak of, I’ve had to get creative with my non-cook foods. The malaria-prone cook has yet to appear – maybe he doesn’t work on the weekends even when not bed-ridden with a tropical disease – so the charcoal stove has been out of the question. My original thought was to hard-boil a bunch of eggs to make sure I’m getting protein, but a scan of local stores and markets on Friday revealed that eggs are much more difficult to come by than I would have suspected. I couldn’t find a single one.

Peanut butter and bread and the occasional hot meal at a restaurant, or cooked at a friend’s house, can only take you so far. I have started taking a daily vitamin, and at least being underfed makes for exhaustion and early nights (that’s dark humor you see). But seriously, I need to figure this nutrition situation out as soon as possible. Work starts this week, so I’ll speak to the office staff in the morning and see what system we can come up with.

Move-In Day

2010-09-20T00:18:00.002-07:00

In spite of the many complex health, education, and socio-political issues that plague Africa, Mozambique actually has got its act together in many unexpected ways. Cell phone coverage is essentially ubiquitous (unfortunately, though, only if you bite the bullet and subscribe to the South African company Vodacom instead of the Mozambican MCell). Electricity is consistent, as opposed to a few spotty hours a day. And water is piped into the cities from large tanks in the rural areas, filled from rivers and lakes, where it is treated and supposedly becomes potable. I think I’ll filter mine anyway. And I found out today that you can buy most of your basic necessities at local markets even in rural areas like Morrumbala, although you must be prepared for them to spontaneously run out of even the most essential items, like eggs.

After waking naturally at 6am (if thousands of tweeting sparrows and a very active and noisy camp staff count as natural), I immediately went about the task of finding food. There is a kitchen at the camp, sort of, but the cook who would normally help me orient myself to the charcoal stove called in sick…with malaria. They say he’ll be back by Monday. I’m momentarily shocked, then sarcastically think “Likely story, on a Friday”. This flippant way of treating a serious tropical illness pervades the country – many World Vision employees have had malaria many times, don’t take any preventive medications or even require their children to take them, and can provide detailed information of which brands of remedies work and which are worthless.

Anyway, with no cook, I decided to head to the market, accompanied by a driver (which I didn’t protest since it was my first time out of the compound – there really is a different weight associated with being a white woman here than in the DR, and this site is far larger than my last community) and stock up on some basic no-cook edibles (powdered milk, bread, veggies, tuna) as well as rice, pasta, and other cook-ables that I eventually hope to use when I learn my way around the place. I envision that peanut butter will play a crucial role throughout my near future. The rest of the afternoon was spent organizing my belongings in my new room, complete with bed, armoire, two tables, 4 chairs, curtains and tapestries. It’s really a nice little space, and even though I may be moving out eventually, I unpacked everything last thing with a sigh of relief after a month of living out of my backpack. This afternoon will be a get-to-know-you walk around town, accompanied by another World Vision volunteer, and then visiting the other Peace Corps volunteer who lives in town. World Vision staff is currently scrambling to turn in annual reports and inventory lists, so it seems for the time being, I am free to wander and get to know my new home.

Arrival

2010-09-20T00:18:00.001-07:00

After one month of seemingly endless travel around northern Mozambique, I’m beginning to grow accustomed to the roadside sites of Africa, but so many things still strike me as foreign and beautiful. A girl, not yet school age, pumping water with from a well with a lever she can barely reach, throwing her tiny weight against the job. Everyone everywhere lounging on grass mats. A dog with a collar?? Oh. Nope. Just a tricky ring of white fur. Women carrying 50+ pounds of water, jugs in both hands and balanced effortlessly atop their heads, with a baby strapped to their torso. A man carrying an entire tree on a bicycle, a firewood javelin. People standing on the side of the road, in the pitch black of night that exists only in Nowhere, on the road from Somewhere to Somewhere Else. Just standing.

The driver from Morrumbala finally arrived to pick me up from the Nicoadala camp at 4:15pm. The poor man had been driving all day long on another work errand before coming to get me, but I guess that’s what they’re paid for. I’m still getting used to being important (read helpless) enough to deserve personal drivers. After unloading his very sensible truck-bed cargo of bleating baby goats and bags of charcoal, we hit the old dusty trail at a sprint.

The entire country is on fire. Everywhere you look, the bush is being burned, and although it was not yet 5:00, I could barely see the road ahead. The alarmingly pink sun sat stuck in a white-gray sky, soupy with haze. Between the dust and smoke, and the driver’s yell-speak (an extremely kind man, his average volume hovers somewhere between ear-piercing and earth-shaking), I could barely see straight after half an hour. I finally asked if we could roll up the windows and turn on the AC, fully prepared to flinch involuntarily when he decided to speak again, but happily his words came forth at a relatively normal volume. I guess he had been unable to hear himself over the smoky wind and dust. I’ve begun to notice that all the drivers, while extremely personable and helpful, have their own little quirks. One likes to listen to the same song on repeat. At length. One is very interested in and equally clueless to world geography. And they all slow the car significantly when I take a phone call, as though I may receive news that would necessitate an urgent and immediate change in direction.

After an unexpectedly short trip of just over 2 hours, he informed me we were just 2 kilometers away from Morrumbala, my new home. In the dark of night, unable to see much of the town, I couldn’t have missed the big city lights. All ten of them.

In the words of a kindred wayward spirit, a famously spunky redhead by the name of Annie, “I think I’m gonna like it here!”

Small Wonders

2010-09-20T00:17:00.001-07:00

Our last night in Nicoadala, we watched Who Wants To Be A Millionaire in Portuguese and made banana pudding, which between the coal burning stove and my Brasilian/Portuguese-American/English-Dominican/Spanish accented instruction, was quite an experience. I’ve come to believe you can make banana pudding anywhere in the world, and have in fact made it on several continents now. And after all, who doesn’t love fruit, cookies, and vanilla pudding?

After leaving a remote farm where we spent all morning teaching a group of painfully timid kids how to organize and plan a garden, leaving them with a bag of lettuce plants to transplant at sundown when the days heat dissipates, we finally arrived at the main road. No sooner had I sighed my relief at being back on relatively smooth concrete (it’s all relative…) than one of the coordinators in the car announced that she couldn’t find her cell phone. We stopped the car and she got out, looked all around the floorboards, checked her pockets, and finally concluded that she must have dropped it somewhere on the farm. At this point we were already late for lunch and had a 2:00 appointment with another youth group to keep, so I suggested that we drive a little bit further up the road to where we would have cell phone service and call her phone to see if anyone had found it. In a worried frenzy she decided it would be best if we immediately returned to the farm, a bumpy 40 minutes away, and looked for her phone. So at 12:40, I found myself back at the farm, guarding the truck while they walked back through the bush to look for the phone. On a whim, I decided to get out and have a look under her seat, just in case, and what to my wondering eyes did appear but a little gray Nokia, seated squarely beneath the front seat. In disbelief, I asked a man on a bicycle to ride out to the farm and tell them to end their search because the phone had been here all along. Sigh. Upon their return I didn’t get so much as a thank-you or a sheepish apology, leaving me to consider that maybe she thought I had plotted against her to hide her phone all along. Impossible. Still, it was a rough ride back to the highway.

But, as always, dessert fixes everything. A late dinner of fish and rice (surprise!) followed by heaping platefuls of sweet pudding put everyone at ease, and then it was off to bed for one more night’s sleep in this white-washed cement camp I’ve grown fond of in few days. Today, it’s finally off to Morrumbala, my permanent site, just a few bumpy hours away.

Next Stop, Morrumbala

2010-09-20T00:14:00.000-07:00

After 3 weeks of unexpected “training”, a word which is used very loosely and can mean anything from sitting indoors at a center and copying notes from a power-point presentation to walking around a farmer’s fields, bugging him with questions about potatoes, to crashing through the overgrown bush, strategically not in front of the line so as to avoid any disgruntled snakes, I think I’m finally going to site on Thursday. However formal or informal the learning process has been during my time here, the bottom line is I do in fact feel more prepared than when I arrived.

I’m currently spending a few days in Nicoadala, at a sleepy “training center” (again, use this term lightly) with a very small group of people (just me and 6 Mozambicans), talking about conservation agriculture, visiting nearby farmers who are actually implementing NGO-promoted practices, and motivating local youth to organize themselves into groups and begin growing vegetables. That’s where I come in handy – kids the world over generally take a speedy liking to me, and my time in the DR left my head filled with ideas of how to get them excited about things they might usually see as mundane. What. You won’t race to carry 50 gallons of water from the far away stream to irrigate the garden? What if the winner gets to braid my hair? Mmm hmm. That’s what I thought. (OK So this may be a bit of an exaggeration. However, I can only hope that African children will be as susceptible to my mind tricks as Dominicans.)

Driving around is still quite an experience, for everyone involved. Most of the places I’ve been taken recently to see farming operations are far enough off the beaten path that those who catch a glimpse of me as we zip dustily by in our indestructible white pick-up truck don’t even have the forethought to make gestures or comments; they’re too busy being completely shocked to see me that all they can do is stare. The most quick-witted manage to throw a thumbs up my way, and impulsive children chase the truck until their little legs can take them no further. Those that, by some miracle, don’t notice the white woman in the front seat, who could very well be the only one they would ever see, are almost as shocked to see a car at all, and skip out to the path to watch until it’s out of site. It’s the most exciting part of their day, and the smallest jump in place and yell “Carro carro carro!” The rest of the time I spend jolting fearfully out of my strangely involuntary bumpy-car-ride-naps as we come unbelievably close to toppling yet another cyclist or herd of goats.

Each night, we return to a modest dinner, tea if I request it, and refreshingly easy and fluid conversation before we’re accompanied by the tune of crickets to an early bed in our ascetic cement chambers. Up at 6:30 to a breakfast of tea and bread, and a modest lunch of xima (corn-meal boiled to the consistency of play dough) and small bony fish, fried if you’re lucky, boiled if you’re not. There’s something to be said about such a simple lifestyle, and in fact I thought I was getting pretty good at removing the numerous tiny spiny bones of my daily fish, until lunch this afternoon, when I met the ‘Temba’. As opposed to the ‘Carapão’, a common and light-tasting fish of the sea, the Temba tastes like it’s river home, and once boiled, comes off the bone more meal than flake. It was challenging, to say the least.

I’m beginning to see why Peace Corps Mozambique has to be so fundamentally different than Peace Corps Dominican Republic, i.e. why volunteers are brought in to work at specific schools or hospitals and are provided housing by their institutions. It’s not feasible to simply arrive in the Mozambican campo, move in with a host family, try to start projects and eventually find my own house, all things I did in the DR. Poverty is too great here, resources are too few, and although I never actually blended into my site in the DR, I was able to integrate myself into daily life and develop patterns that I feel would be impossible in the most rural areas of Africa. I can only imagine the mental and emotional toll it would take until my hypothetical neighbors developed a semblance of normalcy and casualty around me. My differences here have arrived at a whole new level, and actually that’s ok. That’s good. It makes my interactions fresh and, in the end, makes the experience genuine and memorable.

Campokids and Citygirls

2010-09-12T04:49:00.000-07:00

Also, although I formed very dear friendships with many individuals in my campo in the DR, it was obvious that we had little in common. My closest friends were evangelical Christian girls in their teens, and I’m, well, a pants-wearing, alone-living, female world traveler. We often just talked about the weather. But here, I’m working with a city-based NGO and associating with Mozambicans whose life experiences have, in many ways, reflected my own; college, traveling, privileges that most Africans cannot imagine. For instance, several nights ago, I was invited, along with the other American World Vision volunteers who happened to be in Quelimane at the same time, to a dinner party at the house of a young Mozambican World Vision employee. We arrived to find a buffet of food she had prepared, bottles of wine, and candles on the floor for mood as opposed to necessity, all to a backdrop of trendy music. When I left for my hotel, she and her friends went out dancing. It was about midnight. In other words, it was just like being at a small party at home. I felt immediately comfortable with her friends, and realized even further that this experience is shaping up to be very different from my first 2 years in the Peace Corps.

I’m simultaneously disappointed and excited that the relationships I shape here, even with people in my site should I ever arrive, will be fundamentally different from those I had in the Dominican Republic: instead of forming very close bonds with the same small group of people over a two year period, it seems I will have more occasional contact with a wider group. This week, for instance, I am visiting 3 separate groups of children to talk to them about agriculture and starting a youth group. I won’t be able to follow up with them as I did with my youth group in the DR, but after meeting the men and women in charge of the two groups I spent a collective 3 hours with today, I feel that they’ll be able to get along in their new gardens just fine without me. Their lives are so difficult. Most of them showed up to the meetings barefoot and filthy, flies swarming on their smiling faces, and even though I now realize how unrealistic it is for me to ever expect them to act naturally around me (we’re just too different; I’m too healthy, too white, too accented, too educated, too unable to speak African dialects), I hope they at least enjoyed the time that we spent together today. I imagine I’ll have the chance to form closer bonds with small groups of people once I settle in and stick to one place for a while, and a good place to start will probably be learning basic phrases in the local language: Sena.

Oriental Express

2010-09-12T04:47:00.000-07:00

As soon as the Peace Corps mandated standfast was lifted enough to allow travel, we were on a 4am bus out of Chimoio and headed, yet again, to Quelimane. All other volunteers across the nation have been instructed to travel to their sites and stay there until things have settled back down to normal, but having never in fact been to my site, I instead returned to the city for a meeting tomorrow. As usual, I have no clue as to my role in this meeting, but simply that my presence has been requested.

On the bus, a girl somewhere between the ages of 8 and 12 (malnourishment makes it really difficult to tell) was seated below her mother on the floor in the aisle, either from lack of space or lack of money to pay for it. Several hours after leaving, as we were roused from our half-sleep stupors for a side-of-the-road pee break, we looked down to see her sitting in a puddle of urine. I felt for her, as I had strategically dehydrated myself to a state of pruney-ness in anticipation of this 8 hour minimum bus ride, crossing 600 kilometers of nowhere. No sooner had she changed clothes and re-boarded the bus, did her carsickness kick-in and leave her in an even bigger mess than before. She was such a pitiful little thing, I just wanted to take her home (theoretical, yet nonexistent home) and give her a bucket of hot water and a cup of tea.

Thankfully, there were no mishaps along the way and we arrived at the projected hour of noon. In rolls our big yellow bus, equipped with anime-animals and Chinese characters on the outside, wall-papered with cartoon Chinese babies on the inside. I felt strangely transported from the Orient back to increasingly familiar, curiously smelly, dusty Quelimane.

Expose Yourself

2010-09-04T04:32:00.000-07:00

Leaving Zimbabwe, we hear the Zim version of Delila on the radio, speaking in accented English about the importance of loving yourself before you try to love others. We make a stop in town at “OK” grocery store to stock up on things we probably can’t find anywhere in Moz – ground mustard, youngberry jam, celery salt, South African wine, etc. On the road in front of the grocery store, a propped up poster headlines “Man jailed for insulting President Mugabe”, and I feel watched. A taxi company lightens the mood with its scandalous slogan “Expose yourself, get a ride.”

Although the training was run by an organization called Foundations for Farming (formerly known as Farming God’s Way), whose sustainable farming principles are based in a desire to use the planet in its most natural and godlike form, the religious undertones of the sessions had been relatively tame. That is, until I was suddenly and publicly singled out and questioned by the session leader as to whether or not I believe in demons. Apparently they wanted a westerner’s perspective. Unsure of the answer he wanted, and not articulate enough to formulate on the spot an uncontroversial answer re: my belief that “demons” are a metaphorical explanation for the difficult parts of life, like mental illness and disease, natural disasters and accidents, I simply said “No, I don’t believe in demons.” No one seemed shocked, but I still felt type-cast as the Godless westerner from there on out.

I’m torn by the idea emphasized at training of “breaking traditions” in order to encourage behavior change among farmers, even if it means better crop yields. There’s always a fine line where aid and charity end and cultural imperialism begins; however, these farmers had come to learn of their own accord, and maybe their current “traditions” aren’t even based in culture and custom, having no reason or sentimentality, and are simply traditions because they’ve always been done that way. Like plowing the fields. They can’t tell you why they do it, they just do. And as it turns out, plowing in desiccated, flood and drought prone areas often leads to extreme erosion and nutrient lost.

Even through our differing beliefs, the other trainees were extremely kind and energetic, eager to get to know me. The last evening after dinner, I stumbled upon a small group of women singing and dancing lightly under the stars. The song was beautiful, harmonies so easy and natural, and they told me it was their way of worshiping God. I couldn’t understand the words, and I didn’t need to. I tapped along on my orange for a while, and was thankful for the electricity being down, so I could grin ludicrously through my efforts to restrain the quick tears. The next morning, singing their goodbyes, they asked me to film them with my camera, and I couldn’t have been happier. They were thrilled to see themselves played back, and I’ll always have a piece of their beautiful song to carry with me.

Zimbabwe

2010-09-04T04:31:00.000-07:00

Across the border from Mozambique, Mutare is paved roads and neat rows of old houses with collard greens planted in modest front yard gardens. Here, clean and tidy streets echo of British colonialism, which took a different shape and structure than that of the Portuguese in Mozambique, who took exponentially more than they left behind. And Mutare is also a stunning rocky landscape, dotted with schools and clinics, the fruits of international religion-based development. Decades upon decades of missionaries have certainly left their mark, sometimes in the shape of a fist. In our case, it’s in the shape of a Catholic-run training center for Africans (and two grinning-nervous Americans) who wish to learn about agriculture and small business. A training center faithfully guarded, appropriately enough, by 2 skittish Rhodesian Ridgebacks*.

After thoroughly noisy and purposeful stamping, furtive glances and suspicious questions, we made it through the border crossing, where the throb of tension that runs through the country, constant as a heartbeat, is even stronger. In Africa there is an undercurrent of danger to even the most mundane of everyday activities - going to the store, filling up the car with gas. Crossing the border to Zimbabwe is not an everyday activity.

But we can breathe again, and take in the thick opaque orange river, useful for bathing and disguising hungry crocodiles. Starched navy and blinding-white school uniforms migrating across impossibly red and dusty roads. How-do-they-keep-things-so-clean.

At the training center, I am odd man out. The only other white faces here are those of the family in charge of the ag. training, accustomed to playing “bossman”, descendants of the pre-civil war white Zimbabwean farmers, hard and sun-worn and capable, accustomed to the remnants of colonialism; descent roads, dropped eyes, first to the dinner table. Later, a cracked porcelain mug of red wine under a starry black sky, distant hills periodically ablaze with windy uncontrolled burning, help to alleviate the tension of so many day time eyes. What is the wazunga (white) woman doing in our dorm? As I let myself into my tiny room, equipped with bed for sleeping and sink for washing, the electricity buzzes to life and I blow out my candle with mild disappointment. I meet a girl on the way to the hall bathroom, and because she is the only one who has even half considered returning my maniacal over-compensating grins, I do whatever it takes to make contact: in this case, offering her toilet paper as she enters a stall that I know does not contain any. Politely confused, she says that she only needs to urinate and quickly disappears into the neighboring stall. I gotta get better at drip-drying.

For lack of anything else to do, I smile yet again at the women across the hall from me as I return to my room, and just as I am about to duck in, they invite me to sit with them, and suddenly I am surrounded by a room full of wide-eyed, dark-as-night-skinned Zimbabwean women. Clearly in the time it took for me to get from bathroom to bedroom, word got around that I was not a spy or a cannibal.

As expected, the first morning of our fundamental Christian based conservation agriculture training is kicked off with prayer and song. Although 75% of Zimbabweans claim Christianity as their religion, the music blissfully holds much of its traditional character. Clapping and multiple-part harmonies of African words, in Shona, Dbele, Shangani, Sena, are repeated almost as a chant, making my throat catch and my eyes sting with restrained tears. Everyone knows I’m a sucker for a pretty tune.

I feel inspired to be part of a project that is not just a “band-aid”, i.e. not dumping resources into the country in an unsustainable way, but rather teaching techniques that are meant to improve lives at an individual community based level before resonating outward. The leaders of this training go so far as to emphasize that Africans must summon up the pride to break away from reliance on foreign aid, to refuse to seek handouts; however, there is no talk of past abuse from the international community which actively participated in creating the need for aid, no mention of exploitation that maybe created a sense of guilt and obligation among certain donor communities. Maybe it’s better that way; dwelling on heartache could be counterproductive to creating new partnerships. Either way, the NGO presence in Africa would do well to make a concerted effort to decrease dependence by empowering Africans to change their own lives in ways they see fit.

*Rhodesia was the former name of Zimbabwe before the civil war and consequential independence from the British empire.

600 km to Chimoio

2010-09-04T04:30:00.001-07:00

The sun sets red and fast, like blood on the horizon, pouring over the land, and then it’s cool and immediate dark. We’re mostly alone on the highway from Quelimane to Chimoio, the only light the rusty twinkling brush fires spotting distant hills. Men on bikes and women clutching childrens’ hands appear as apparitions on the roadside, walking hastily to nowhere. No one wants to be out at night.

In the cities, the roads are populated by bicycles and white utility vehicles, driven by NGO and aid workers. Should one of these vehicles take to the highway, the occupants are advised to stock up on food and fuel, because between cities, there’s nothing but bush. Teeth chattering, meteor sized potholes sneak up and give my ever-tightening seatbelt a workout. The occasional chicken vendor waves his squawking, flapping fare high overhead as we barrel past, so close my teeth make involuntary hissing noises. Bridges provide safe pass over long dried up, weed-riddled riverbeds, and road signs give pictorial advice about what travelers may expect to see in the road ahead: cattle, gazelles, bicycles, curves, and men, either belted or cut into two pieces straight across the mid-section. The real bridge, the one built to cross the roaring Zambeze river, is a source of awe and disbelief to all Mozambicans, including our driver who insists we stop at the top of its arch to take photos. A uniformed guard, materializing beside us, chastises at length for the photos we take that could apparently be connected to sabotage, until he gives up on monetary appeasement and begrudgingly sends us on our way.

If you leave late (as we did) without food (also us), you will be forced to stop along the way at the most undesirable of spots, Caia or Inchope, to munch stale bread while keeping wary eyes on your vehicle. You’ll breathe a sigh of relief when you are yet again barreling down the highway, because then at least no one can steal your backpack out of the truck-bed, right in front of your eyes. After all, who would stop them?

After seeing my first wild baboon, lounging lazily on the side of the road like a big dog, distinguishable only when it stood and sauntered off into the bush, 4 foot tail and colorful rump held high, I passed the time by scanning the savannah for other creatures, although I’ve been warned that the wildlife population in Mozambique was decimated after the civil war. All I can see, amid the roaring bush fires meant to startle small edible prey such as duiker, snakes, and rats into a scurrying, huntable frenzy, is a few furious and fumigated fowl.

I turn my attention back to the road just in time to see a sign and make a quick calculation: 300 kilometers to Chimoio.

Tea Time

2010-08-30T14:43:00.001-07:00

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

2010-08-30T14:38:00.000-07:00

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. Linkin-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

2010-08-23T23:53:00.000-07:00

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

2010-08-22T23:08:00.000-07:00

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

2010-08-20T06:55:00.000-07:00

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

2010-08-20T06:54:00.000-07:00

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

2010-08-18T07:54:00.000-07:00

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

2010-08-18T02:38:00.000-07:00

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.

Home Sings Me of Sweet Things

2010-06-02T15:15:00.000-07:00

Having been home for almost 2 weeks now, gaining several pounds after eating the necessaries, taking many hot showers, and sleeping in a dream-cloud of a bed, I can safely say that I think I'm past the danger of reverse culture shock. So many people say that the adjustment associated with coming back is even worse than when you arrive in the host country, but I feel nothing but content and blessed to have and do all that I have had and done in just 2 weeks. Maybe it's because I know I'm leaving again (to Mozambique for a year with Peace Corps Response in August - blog lovers, hold on to your britches!), maybe it's because it's summer, or maybe it's just because I have incredible friends and family. Either way, it's oh so good to be home.

The “Swape” Swapper (written 4.13.10)

2010-06-02T15:08:00.001-07:00

We inaugurated our Community Library on Sunday, with a ceremony and lunch for a hundred, followed by a cutting of the ribbon ceremony at the library and a long night of drinking and dancing. A typical campo party, but having traveled all week before (Tour de Sur!), my final energy reserves were depleted. So today I awoke leisurely for the first time in a while. I stretched, yawned, and wandered out onto my porch, where I did my morning surveillance. Porch decorations seemed to be in their normal places. Gate still locked, as I left it the night before. Trees, normal. Road, dusty. And my swape (pronounced “swa-pay”), or mop, was in the exact place I left it to dry after cleaning the day before. But somehow, it looked different. Closer observation revealed it to be not my mop at all, but in fact an older, mangled version of mine. It was missing many strands, which appeared to have been chopped off, and had a random number “90” painted on the handle. My detective skills led me to believe that one of the following occurred in the less than 24 hour period since I had last used my mop:

1) The residual Clorox and floor cleanser left on the mop after I was too lazy to rinse it in fresh water after cleaning ate away half of the mop strands overnight. As for the mysterious number “90”, maybe I just didn’t notice it before?
2) Someone snuck up to my porch while I was napping after vigorously mopping and snipped off half of the mop strands. They also happened to have a sharpie and left their numeral signature on the mop handle.
3) A really tacaño, or cheap, and sneaky individual switched my relatively new mop out for their gnarled one, and as I refuse to believe it was any of my immediate neighbors, must have planned this out and walked a considerable distance each way with mop in hand.
4) A dog ate half of my swape.

All of these explanations seem ridiculous, and are considerably amusing to consider. Maybe I’m just too easily entertained these days, but will continue to ponder until the matter is resolved to my satisfaction.

The Daily Grind (written 3.30.10)

2010-06-02T15:07:00.000-07:00

Once a place becomes home, it’s difficult to continue writing stories about it as if it were unique, although I recognize that new and exciting experiences still characterize my daily life. After living on a small island for 2 years, going many of the same places countless times, you really begin to cherish seeing new places for the first time. After throwing a St. Patrick’s Day party at my house, complete with 20 guests, 20 pounds of “asopao” (Dominican stew), and live music, I received a visit from a brand new volunteer, who had been in the country less than a month and had yet to venture out of the capital. After sitting on my porch with 2 other volunteers for 9 hours straight – after all, she needs to get used to a slower lifestyle – we ambitiously decided to hitchhike to Maimon, a roadside town not far from my community and famous countrywide for its fried fish. We picked from the 8 or so restaurants one that provides clients with the opportunity to choose their own fish. Hungrily, we chose a giant red snapper and an equally impressive groupers (totally over 7 pounds of fish) which were quickly stuffed with copious amounts of seasoning and sent off to the deep fryer – vats of boiling oil over open fire. Pair this miracle-on-a-plate with several cold beers and French fries, and you’ve never spent a better 8 dollars in your life.

When my volunteer packed up to head back to the dusty capital, I joined her and proceeded to my medical clearance – 4 days of poking and prodding to make sure I leave as healthy as I came in, followed by interviews with my bosses. After receiving a clean bill of health, it was back to the campo…

Where I spent a mere two days just breathing in my house, and then off to another campo where two new-ish volunteers had invited me to teach them how to build one of the fuel-efficient cook stoves that were a big part of my service here. I arrived in Yasica with another stove builder friend who will also be leaving in May, and as we didn’t have anything to do until the next morning, we all settled in for a few drinks and street meat. One would think that after 2 years, my stomach would be so steely as to weather even the fattiest of “chicharrones” (real pork rinds), but this is apparently not the case. I can’t remember losing as many fluids as quickly as I did the next morning, and thank goodness for the friend that came with me and was able to take charge of the stove-teach. I was basically worthless until noon, and even then couldn’t move around much without almost blacking out. All things considered, the trip was well worth it as the motorcycle ride up to this mountain-top site was absolutely breath-taking. Even as I was stumbling into the woods to share the contents of my stomach with Mother Nature, I marveled at the beautiful sunrise and the view of the ocean over the mountains miles and miles away.

Back at home now, I finally have a moment to think, which these days, inevitably leads me to realize for everything I won’t miss about this unorganized armpit of an island, there are 2 things I will miss even more. Tonight, it’s being able to hear the exact moment when the rain starts on the roof, and listening to it drip off the leaves long after it has subsided.

A strange character from Jersey (written 2.10.10)

2010-02-17T14:09:00.000-08:00

It seems the only non-Peace Corps foreigners that show up in the campos fit into one of two categories: religious enthusiasts, and enthusiasts of a more corporeal sway – i.e., they like-a da Dominican girls! I’ve seen discouragingly few white, foreign males in this country, even in the cities, and especially near the beaches, who don’t seem to be on some sort of shady sexual mission. So when I heard that Juanita from my community had an American male visitor – her novio, or “boyfriend”, everyone was calling him – I knew it would only be a matter of time before someone arranged for him to meet the only other American in the community, and I was more than a little suspicious of what I might discover in his character.

I was at my neighbor’s house, borrowing a pot in which to fry chicken – a skill I’ve finally mastered! Apparently the missing link was an extra 15 cups of oil – when I spotted someone I didn’t recognize coming down the hill, accompanied by a Dominican boy. I wasn’t sure if this was the visitor, because he looked Latino (Puerto Rican, I later found out, but nevertheless unable to speak Spanish) and certainly was dressed like a Dominican, in a tight white tank-top and colorful athletic shorts nearly falling off his body. His dress was not surprising, considering the gifts he had brought a bunch of the kids – colorful New York Yankees baseball caps entirely too big for their young heads, and an Ipod for his “girlfriend” in a community where she can’t even charge the thing regularly, let alone change the music on it. Practical, if nothing else.

The Dominican boy brought the visitor up to me and said he wanted to “practice” English, which further convinced me this must not be the guy. But after a few confused moments, he switched to English and I discovered he didn’t want to “practice” it, but rather communicate in English as this is his first language – this undesirable fellow was, indeed, the visiting American boyfriend. What follows is a sample of our uncomfortable conversation:

Ghetto beau: So, you live here?

Me: Yes. You must be Juanita’s boyfriend.

Ghetto beau: (genuinely surprised) Whoa, how’d you know?

Me: Um, everyone knows everything about everyone here. How’d you guys meet?

Ghetto beau: Yea, I was on vacation in Sosua (in my head: shady beach town) last year and there was all these girls and then I saw her and I was like whoa, I gotta talk to her.

Me: (blank stare, probably)

Ghetto beau: Huh. So, yea, they were like ‘there’s another American here’ and I was like no way, I haven’t seen nobody.

Me: Yes, I’ve been here 2 years working with the Peace Corps. (short description of what I do)

Ghetto beau: Oh, how can I get in to that?

Me: (quick recovery from absolute shock and disbelief) Well, you can apply online at peacecorps.gov, but you have to be ready for a 2 year commitment, and you should know you don’t get to pick where you go (in my head: in case you just wanted to move here and be “the American that sleeps around and buys people things”)

Ghetto beau: Cool, so what’s the website? P-E-A-C-E-C-O-R-E?

Me: No, it’s C-O-R-P-S

Ghetto beau: Ah, Peace Corpse.

Me: (nod of the head)

Me: So, they said you were working on some paperwork to take Juanita to the states?

Ghetto beau: (more exclamations of how it’s funny that I already know that) Yea, I mean, my Spanish is bad, so I’ve been trying to tell her it takes a while. But yea, we gotta go to the consulate and have an interview. They ask questions like “what side of the bed does she sleep on” and stuff, ya know, to know if it’s for real. But like, I’m not worried, cause this is for real. They say there are girls who just get married to get to the states and then leave the guy, but I don’t think that will happen. I mean, I really don’t want that to happen.

Me: Yea. OK, well…I can explain to her that it will take a while, if you want.

Ghetto beau: Yea, I think she gets it.

Me: OK

Both: awkward nice to meet you’s and such

It was truly horrifying dialogue, and everything I had expected. Where do they get these people?

Feeling the Spirits (written 1.17.10)

2010-01-26T12:25:00.000-08:00

It seems I picked the right day to go to church. I’ve only been to the Catholic church in my site a handful of times, but due to the unexpected absence of the girl who paints my nails, I decided to drop in on the mass, which turned out to be a memorial service in honor of an important community elder who passed away 4 months ago. Although everyone was dressed in black and white, as customs dictate, I decided they would rather have me in my blue skirt and orange t-shirt than not have me at all. I blended right in with the kids in their colorful outfits that state “we’re not old enough to know any better”. That’ll teach ‘em that I’m not as young as they assume!

By the time the out of town preacher (pastor? Father? I’m not really up on my Catholic lingo) arrived, the little church was pretty full. It’s an important week religiously speaking, what we call Patronales, and several of the kids will be taking their first communion soon. As the preacher started warming up to his sermon, we here a loud cry from the back of the church. Heads turn just in time to see an extremely drunken man, someone visiting from outside the community, stumbling down the aisle, on an unmistakable path to the altar, where he interrupts the preacher with an inebriated salutation and proceeds to place the preacher’s hands on his head. Ostensibly, they had healing powers and the man could wait not a moment longer to have them laid upon his lowly noggin. The preacher asked him to sit, which he did, but momentarily was at it again, and the sermon swayed accordingly from the real topic of the service – parting with loved ones – to the ways of the sinner.

Throughout this scene, I stifled giggles with the kids, exchanged knowing glances with the adults, and was generally satisfied that I had chosen to stop in on such a lively event. I usually struggle to pay attention during foreign language, religiously themed diatribes, but I was wide awake this day, and silently thanking God that I’ve never felt the Spirit(s) quite as much as this man.

DeliCATessen (written 11.22.09)

2009-11-24T13:07:00.001-08:00

Sometimes I give my cat more food than she can eat in one sitting, the consequence being that it’s a little less than crisp at the nth hour, due to the constant humidity in the DR. To show her disapproval, she will walk by, sniff the bowl, and head straight for the ziplock bag where she knows her food is kept, meowing each time I brave eye contact until finally, I cave, and give her a little extra fresh food on top of the older stuff. I’ve watched her eat this mixture, and she really does know the difference. No one likes mealy food, but a cat that’s closer to feral than domestic? Now I’ve seen it all!

Deck the Palm Board Halls (written 11.15.09)

2009-11-24T13:03:00.000-08:00

‘Tis the season! To warm up my bath water and make corn fritters, intrigued by a recipe that assured me these oily treats offer a delightful respite from the winter chill. Chill, obviously, is completely relative. Currently, on most days, I can walk from my house to the school in long pants and a short sleeve shirt and not sweat. At night, not only is a sheet tolerable, but my blanket (knitted/crocheted – who can really tell the difference? – by a dear Peace Corps friend) becomes marginally necessary in the wee hours of the morning. Would I freeze without it? Certainly not. But using it has become one of the ways I pretend there are seasons in the Caribbean.

Many of my neighbors already have installed small, artificial Christmas trees in their homes, all aglow with tiny lights, and I’ve even seen the occasional decorative wreath. Now I’m no proponent of acculturation, but I must admit, this tiny sampling of North American culture leaves me feeling warm and fuzzy as opposed to indignant at the island’s permanent home under the umbrella of U.S. influence.

I had noticed some particularly pretty little lights coming from a tree in the window of my neighbor’s house, and after admiring them from the outside for several days, decided to step inside and pay my compliments. To my astonishment, I found it was not a 4 foot tree that had dazzled me, but a tiny tree propped up on a table in just such a way that its light filled the window. I had a good laugh at this and explained it to my neighbor. I don’t think she saw the humor, but humored me anyway with a giggle. After all, ‘tis the season for giving!

Man vs. Beast (written 9.30.09)

2009-10-02T14:17:00.001-07:00

On my way to buy eggs and a Pepsi yesterday – yes, only the bare necessities – I came across a strange scene. A small group of campesinos were gathering around a dead donkey on the side of the road, with an identical but live and visibly flustered donkey waiting nearby. I asked what happened, and the general consensus was that the one had murdered the other. Stories as to how exactly that happened were less conclusive:

1) The one bit the other, and that killed it. (?) With no real visible flesh wounds, I discarded that as absolutely impossible.
2) The live, male donkey had been trying to mate with the recently deceased female donkey. She, unwilling, tried to get away, fell, and somehow broke her neck. This story seemed more likely, so I chose to accept it as valid.

This all happened, apparently, in the span of a few minutes, right before I left my house to do my shopping. How fragile life is! Also, I may not be a native, but I know enough by now to realize that the beast of burden was no pet, but rather a valuable source of labor to the now grieving owner – a really nice guy, who I patted on the shoulder and gave my condolences to as I walked past. I also had a brief interaction with the owner of the culprit, who muttered “that donkey’s crazy” as he walked past to lasso his liability.

Clearly the newly burro-less campesino had to be compensated, and whether it was from a lack of cold hard cash or designed as a slap in the face of ironic fate, he was awarded ownership of the offending beast. I suppose one hauls cacao and alimento for the pigs as well as the other, and that’s what matters in the end. Still, I can’t help but wonder if the transaction didn’t leave all parties feeling like a bit of an ass.

What’s my age again? (written 9.30.09)

2009-10-02T14:16:00.000-07:00

A Haitian-Dominican friend of mine recently found himself asking the same question as Blink 182 did in their late 90s pop-punk smash song. This friend stopped by my house the other day to chat and maybe finagle some help with a homework assignment. Toward the beginning of our conversation, he said “Well, I guess you’ll be getting married right when you get back to the states”. Don’t worry, he’s not like THAT – and by that, I mean the Dominican men who don’t even know me who ask me similar questions with lecherous grins painted on their mouths. I told him, “Well, ya know, I’ll get married whenever I’m ready, but that’s not now. I might want to go back to school first.” We’ve had conversations about ambitions and families before, so I wasn’t surprised when he responded that he also wanted to finish school before starting a family (high-schoolers range in age from early teens to late 40s here). He continued, however, with something I wasn’t exactly expecting. He had always believed himself to be 25 (this year at least), and had even told me so in the recent past. I thought he looked a little older, but who am I to say such a thing. A recent review of his birth certificate, however, confirmed my doubts – he’s actually 30! This information was obviously very sobering to him, as he told me “yes, I’ve always told everyone I’m going to wait until I’m done with high-school and have a job before I get married, but apparently I don’t have as much time as I thought”. He was by no means despondent, and was cheered when I offered that you’re only as old as you feel and act. Still, I can’t imagine looking at my own birth certificate and finding out I’m 5 years older – that would make me almost 30 as well!

Burning Bridges

2009-09-12T08:26:00.000-07:00

Last week in my site, the motorcycle drivers went on strike in attempt to draw the government’s attention to the poor road conditions in our community. When marginalized groups decide to go on strike in the developed countries, they are more often than not empowered enough to make the strike mean something: they target a group or individual that needs their services, a group that has the power to give them what they want and need, and they deny services until those wants and needs are met. In the developing world, however, strikes often affect most negatively the very people they would be designed to serve.

So when the motorcycle drivers went on strike, no one in our community could go anywhere. My 60+ year old neighbor told me she walked several miles out to the highway in order to get to a doctor’s appointment that she couldn’t miss. The lack of transportation services, so far, had affected no one but the usual customers of the motorcycle drivers.

In an angry mob, the drivers took to the streets. They cut down trees to block access to the roads (preventing the authorities from making any repairs even if they had planned to, which they surely had not), burned tires every 100 yards or so, cut all the power lines, and finally, in a dramatic flourish, burned down the community clinic. Although it was an inadequate rural clinic with leaky roofs and no electricity, basic services are clearly better than nothing, and now all community members are forced to go far from their homes for even the most primitive of treatment.

The anger and frustrations that they feel due to inactive, inattentive local and national governments is entirely founded, but their irrational actions have not inconvenienced those that have the power to make a change, but rather themselves, their families, and their neighbors. It’s not fair that they are so disempowered regarding basic necessary repairs to the infrastructure of their community, and their desire to protest is warranted, but unfortunately the target audience is relatively unaffected. Perhaps the mayor of the region will be embarrassed enough to make some small, temporary changes, but ultimately, their outcry will have hit the hardest at home, where their children can no longer get antibiotics and vaccinations within walking distance.

The God of Small Things (8.10.09)

2009-08-12T09:21:00.001-07:00

The title of a beautiful novel by Arundhati Roy that I just finished reading also seems appropriate as title for this blog.

Yesterday, I had my first water filter meeting, and it was completely different from my first stove meeting a year ago. At that point, people still didn’t really trust the new girl in town, probably thought I wasn’t gonna actually do any of the stuff I was talking about, and didn’t exactly flock to my meetings. Now, since word spread quickly that the quantity of filters available will be limited (25 to be exact), they couldn’t get there fast enough. We actually started relatively on time! And there were 78 people present, representing about half the houses in the community. I spoke in Spanish for over half an hour in front of this group, only later recognizing this as an important accomplishment.

Since everyone who came will obviously not be receiving a filter, I’ve created an application that I will be “turning in to Peace Corps” so I don’t get crucified by the majority that ends up without. In reality, I will be making the final decisions, placing the filters in strategic locations throughout the community where the most people can have the most access. If there were 78 filters available, I would gladly solicit that many, but it’s an issue of availability for other volunteers – there just aren’t enough being made in the country to put them in every house.

Anyway, I think I’ve noticed people being especially nice to me today. It’s probably not as calculated as one might think, but one guy brought me 30 bananas today. That’s a lot of banana bread. I guess I’m a little afraid of the power that comes with making this decision, with being the God of the water filters, but it’s mostly self-preservation. I have to live in this community for 9 more months, and I can’t be making 53 enemies who came to the meetings and yet get no filter. Fortunatley, many of the houses are close to one another, and if I plan this right, eveyone should have access to clean, drinkable water, for free, just a short walk from their home.

All in the Timing (written 8.10.09)

2009-08-12T09:20:00.000-07:00

My boyfriend is on vacation on a boat, unreachable. Both of my Peace Corps doctors are in the U.S., leaving behind a substitute I’ve never met. Three of my best friends from the states are visiting me in my site, scheduled to leave in less than 2 full days. There could not have been a worse time to get sick.

Enter gut-wrenching, appendicitis resembling intestinal bacteria.

It started in my community Thursday afternoon as we (me and the U.S. friends) were walking back to my house from visiting the other end of the community. A terrible pain in my stomach, unaccompanied by nausea or a real need to go to the bathroom, that had me doubled over by the time we made it to my house. Luckily, I had one remaining dose of “Spasmosan” ( just as incredible as it sounds – you can really get anything over the counter here), a disgusting yellow liquid laced with barbituates that allowed me a few hours of fretful sleep. Little did I know how much I was going to need that beauty rest.

When I woke, it felt a little better, but probably only because I started pounding anti-inflammatories right away. The next day, on our way down to the capital, I called the substitute doctor, asking her to leave me some form of medication in the office before she left for the day. Even though I wasn’t able to get to the office until 7, she insisted on waiting for me to do an exam – just in case.

After pressing on my stomach and asking a few questions, the sub-doc deemed it necessary to take me to the hospital right away because she was more than a little concerned that it was my appendix. Happy day, and great timing! So me and the friends loaded up our backpacks into her sedan and trucked it over to the hospital, where the real saga began.

I immediately had my blood drawn, a sonogram which supposedly showed appendix inflammation, and my stomach palpitated by 4 male doctors in a less than private setting in the ER. This is a very touchy culture, and although they mean well, their form of comfort (joking around, patting my leg, foot, smiling at my tears, etc.) just served to make me more hysterical when they each reported “yep, looks like you’ll be in surgery tomorrow morning”. One doctor even went as far as to say “I would send you right away, but I want to do a CT scan first”. Yes! I wanted to scream. Do 8 CT scans first! I’m not having surgery in the developing world when my boyfriend and doctors aren’t even in the country!

For some odd reason, they found it appropriate to put me on an IV before they had finished carting me around the hospital, so by the time I got through with the CT scan (if you’ve ever had one of those, they give you an injection of some hot, paralyzing liquid that makes you feel like you’re peeing your pants – I really hope that’s not just a DR hospital perk) and got up to my room, my hand had already begun the epic swelling that was to be the bane of my existence over the next 4 days.

When they finally sent me to my room, I immediately had to be returned to the CT scan room, but at least the news was encouraging: it seemed to be my intestine that was inflamed as opposed to the appendix, so no surgery for now. Yay! I would have clapped had I been able to feel the fingers on my left hand.

So my new struggles were their absolute refusal to let me consume anything, even water, for the next day and a half, just in case I had to be sent into surgery. And, of course, the over-sassy, under-trained nurses that I have heard so much about from other volunteers who have had the fortune to spend a few days in “our country’s best medical facility”. Between the blood tests at 5:00 am, the staff’s insistence that the hospital didn’t have any blankets, and the rolling of eyes when I asked for my IV to be switched to a spot on my body that didn’t resemble the Michelin man, I felt so angry and disempowered that I nearly took the IV out myself. If it hadn’t been for my dear, dear friends, so dedicated to me that they actually slept IN my hospital room on the faux-leather couch and cold tile floor, I would have gone straight from the intensive care unit to the mental health ward. They even changed their flights to stay and make sure I wouldn’t have to go into surgery alone. I felt so lucky and loved, and able to control my would-be homicidal outlashings at the RNs from Hades.

When I was finally allowed to consume liquids, squash soup has never tasted so good. In fact, up to this point, I had done everything I could to avoid it. My final night I was allowed some mashed potatoes, and I almost cried a little. By then, they had basically determined that what I had must be a bacteria – the blood samples showed no risk of infection in the appendix, and an unnecessary number of stool samples ruled out any chance of parasites. They put me on antibiotics and sent me on my merry way, and since I actually made it out alive and feel fine now, my best guess is that they were right in the end.

All of that could have been avoided if I had just gone to the pharmacy and bought some super-strong antibiotics. So what have I learned from this experience? When you’re in the developing world, where everything is OTC…self-medicate!!!*

(*The author wishes to express that this is a joke, and that those who care about her should not fear that her ignorance will negatively effect her health in future potentially critical situations.)

Behind Bars

2009-07-17T15:11:00.000-07:00

What does it say about the quality of life in a country when those that can afford to choose to carry out their lives behind bars? Literally. Those with resources fence in their front porches and windows with heavy duty re-bar, albeit decorative, to keep out things that go bump in the night. Schools always have at least a tall, locked gate, if not circular barbed wire atop 10 foot walls. We can't even dream of putting computers (which we received donated) into our library until we have bars across all the windows, and several layers of plywood nailed up to separate it from the neighboring classroom. Food for thought.

Campo Days (written 7.12.09)

2009-07-14T09:44:00.001-07:00

Yesterday morning, we finished construction on the 20th and final fuel efficient cook stove in my community. I took a deep breath as I rode on the back of a motorcycle to my house (yes, it was walkable, but it’s hot, ok) where I bathed, had a coffee, and then set off to a neighboring community, where a PCV friend has recently finished construction on an aqueduct and was celebrating with an inauguration. We listened to speeches, ate huge plates of food, and danced the night away, me secretly celebrating my accomplishment along with his. Well, not so secretly.

Hey Mica, how are you? OHMYGODIFINISHEDSTOVESTODAY is probably closer to what it was like. Hm.

Anyway, I hosted breakfast at my house this morning for 4 PCVs and 2 Dominicans who work with the water volunteers. It stretched out into lunchtime – pancakes’ll do that – and by the time I made it down to the other end of my community, to a party I had somewhat grudgingly promised to go to, the main event guests had gone to the river. That was fine with me – I thought the whole reason I was invited was because they were expecting rich white-ish Dominicans from the city, some of which lived in/had lived in/or at least had been to “Nueva Yol”. So when I arrived to find the man of the house, who’s birthday we were to celebrate, with his wife and a few choice kids and grandkids, I was not at all disappointed. He was a little upset that I missed the morning events, but I reassured him that I would hang out until the owners of the out of place Hummer and Lexus parked outside his palm board house reappeared to finish their festivities at the tables they had set up behind his house. Socio-economic hierarchies are incredible here. I was late in arriving, but the woman of the house and her daughter-in-law had clearly worked their butts off to make this event as luxurious as possible for the city dwellers, of whom even the women didn’t seem to lift a finger to help.

When they actually arrived from their jaunt at the river it wasn’t all that bad – they smiled politely and basically ignored me, not at all the hideous “I speaka d’English” event that I had dreaded. I was fed well, as always, visited my host parents in the neighboring house, and was sent on my merry way to take some photos of stoves I had yet to document. The last of these stops was the house of one of my favorite women in the community, whom I was glad to have as the last stove recipient – end on a good note. She is a rare unmarried woman in her 30s who doesn’t have some sort of repelling physical attribute, as sweet as she can be, who lives with her equally kind and alarmingly active father who must be at least in his 70s. She was fixing her visiting niece’s hair, and as soon as she perceived that I was gonna set a spell, sent for a soda and we settled in to chat on the front porch, the coolest place on the top of the hill she lives on. On a whim, I asked her to do my hair as well, and after almost falling asleep under her gentle hands, left her house with an interesting braid across the front/ponytail combo. It was what I asked for, but didn’t quite come out like I imagined.

Next stop, informal English lesson. I don’t mind helping this particular girl who asked for help on an assignment, because she tries really hard and is determined to learn. She asked me to read an “exposition” that she had written and was to read in front of her class, and after thoroughly marking it up with corrections, I complimented her on how much of an improvement it was from the last work of hers I had read. As we corrected her paper, I stopped several times to ask her to translate some clumsy passages into Spanish so that I could tell her how to say what she meant in English. She could never tell me what it was she had intended to say, and finally opened another notebook from which she had copied the entire piece! She said that a friend had helped her write it, but she clearly didn’t know what the majority of it meant. Oh dear. But anyway, she’s trying hard, so I guess that counts for something. I left to make a phone-call, promising to return for the dinner of super-fried cheese and fried green bananas (quite less delicious than the tomatoe version). The call was dropped irretrievably right in the middle of a conversation with someone I had been looking forward to talking to all week, so I sulked back to the house and forced down half of what felt like meal 15 of the day.

I hitched a ride in a passing car with a man who, had I known his disposition, I would have avoided if it meant walking to Santo Domingo – lecherous grinning, asking if I was married before I even got the door shut, etc. When I got out of the car, thankfully before we arrived to my house thereby disclosing it’s location to pervy mc-pervson, I walked up to a group of 3 girls and spoke with one about the strange, painful looking blemish that has recently popped up on her face. As I was speaking, another girl whose name I don’t know interrupted me to ask if I’m pregnant (I apparently need to work on my posture, or stop eating everything I’m offered. Or both.) I didn’t quite hear her, but I must have heard enough to throw me for a loop, cause I asked her to repeat herself, and she, completely straight-faced, re-asked her absurd question. I stared at her for a moment, told her no, and the other girls, sensing my shock, helped with “that’s just how she was standing!” I tried to conclude the conversation I had been having before I was rudely interrupted, but ended up just having to split with a “sleep well!” Being a single pregnant girl here has social connotations that pregnant teens in America could only imagine in their wildest nightmares, so I think that’s what shocked me even more than the insinuation of fatness.

That’s the campo. Dios Santo. Ese sol pica y la gente no son facil. I’m out.

Las esposas

2009-07-09T08:52:00.000-07:00

In (Dominican) Spanish, the word for handcuffs is the same as wives. Las esposas.

There's nothing more to say about that.

Shameless Plug

2009-06-30T11:53:00.000-07:00

Another thing I didn't know - how much my Peace Corps work would depend on the fiscal generosity of people back home! But it's a good thing, because it gives everyone interested the chance to get involved. Thanks again to those who donated to my library project. For those who wanted to help but didn't quite get around to it, here's your chance! My PC colleagues and I are planning a summer camp for youth from our site, the theme of which is Diversity and Leadership. I participated in the camp last year with two young girls from my site, and it was a great experience. In order to make the camp happen, we need your help! Check out the URL below to see what you can do:

https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=resources.donors.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=517-290

What I knew (written 6.27.09)

2009-06-30T11:45:00.001-07:00

It’s hard to remember what I knew coming in to the DR. It’s an island: check. It’s in the Caribbean: enthusiastic check! But did I know that men as fat as Jaba the Hut (forgive me, real Star Wars fans, for the certain mis-spellings) sitting on the side of the street would see completely fit to kissy-face me as I ride by on a bus? Did I know how many chicken murders I would witness? Did I know I would have the opportunity to be a weekend tourist? Did I know that there were be so many children age 10+ that don’t know how to read? I dunno.

I definitely didn’t know that there would be so many people willing to work hard, side by side with me, and yet so many who would refuse to lift a finger.

For the past month, I’ve been working with a Dominican mason (we’ll get to that later…) and have completed 11 fuel efficient cook stoves – hopefully a few more by the time this entry actually gets posted – and it’s incredible what a difference the receiving family can make. When they are people who care about and respect me, people who are ready to work for the stove they’re receiving pratically free, it almost doesn’t feel like work. Almost. As close as manual labor gets to feeling like fun anyway. But when they are people who feel entitled, people who would rather sit on their porch and ask redundant questions than pick up a shovel, the experience is painful, to say the least. For example, today we finished the stove of my host mom’s brother, and due to his willingness to work – I think it was the first time I’ve heard “what can I do?” since we started the project – and his positive attitude made it a very rewarding experience. The stove came out looking great, like a rainbow; they’re all loco over bright colors on the top, and this particular man had 5 different colors. He was very satisfied with the product, and I left feeling refreshingly fulfilled.

As noted, working with a Dominican mason (male, which goes without saying really) is an accomplishment in and of itself. We butted heads at the beginning over things like punctuality, reliability, responsibility, etc. but we seem to have found our niche; it could just be that most recently, we’ve been working with families we both like more. It’s most likely the fact that I increased his pay, but he deserved it and we both knew it. Only 9 more to go, and then I can focus on my library, a project I’m so excited about I can barely sleep at night for all the ideas running through my head. A story corner, a photo wall, all kinds of things to make it a friendly place where people want to spend time and learn. Thanks again in advance to everyone who made this project a reality – pictures to come soon!

Pay-Day (written 6.1.09)

2009-06-03T10:12:00.002-07:00

The real one is coming up Monday, and rejoice! I can buy toothpaste and shampoo and cat food! But today, I received a different sort of payment.

Today, we finished construction on our first fuel-efficient cook stove. It may be the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. After months and months of endless planning, mobilizing, grant-writing, agonizing waits, and materials-gathering, even I had my doubts about whether this was actually going to happen. Today, it did, and everything else just melts away.

Looking at the underside of the tin roof, covered in the black char the doñas have been breathing for years, the simple tin chimney we installed seemed more relevant than ever. The doñas, of course, don’t care so much about this as they do about the aesthetic quality of the stove, and I would be lying if I didn’t say I feel so lucky to have masons who are proud enough of their work to pay attention to details. This is what this family was cooking on before, actually a step up from a lot of others, who cook with their pots balanced on rocks on the ground.

And this is what we made.

I hope this feeling lasts throughout the making of the other 19+. We picked a great family to start with, people that I’m very close to and who were more than willing to help with construction. I can only hope that the coming experiences will be half as rewarding as this one.

Priorities (written 6.1.09)

2009-06-03T10:12:00.001-07:00

Yesterday, my 13 year old neighbor told me that in order to celebrate the end of the school year, her teacher (male, but not at all outwardly lecherous) was taking she and a bunch of her (female) classmates to the park in a nearby small city, in order to dance. I asked lots of questions, trying to figure out why, what the possible goal could be, and all she could tell me was that they were going to wear short skirts and shake their little bodies “like this”. It wasn’t exactly what I would call chaste.

This is the same young girl whose father will not allow her to attend my youth group meetings, apparently having something to do with the fact that she attended one without first asking his permission.

I know I must remove my cultural lens, and all that jazz, but I’m pretty lost on this one.

Día de las Madres (written 5.31.09 – Happy DR Mothers’ Day!)

2009-06-03T10:11:00.003-07:00

Today, I made an important strategic move that will, without a doubt, increase my efficiency as a development worker in the DR – I went to church.

I had been many times to the Evangelical church, as my host parents attend religiously (pun intended), but had never been to the Catholic church, much closer to where I now live. What with it being Mothers’ Day, there was no time like the present, so I decided to stop by both to see what was shaking.

The Catholic service was very normal, adhering to tradition, to the extent that a young boy appointed acolyte was dressed in layers in the Caribbean, the robes over his own clothing. The Evangelical service, as usual, provides much material for interesting blogging.

There was all the usual loud group praying, and even louder group singing. But in honor of the day, a group of 15 year old girls prepared an anti-abortion, anti-drinking, and anti-disobeying-your-mother mini-drama, complete with street-thugs and old women, played by the same youngsters. To bring it all home, the pastor embarked on a heart-felt Mothers’ Day gospel, that somehow evolved, or devolved, into 6th grade sexual education. I always have a hard time understanding this man’s accent, but when I tuned in to the subject matter, I made a special effort to pay close attention. The best parts went something like this:

Pastor: Women ovulate every month.

Congregation: Blessed God!

Pastor: Then they have sexual relations, with their vaginas.

Congregation: Glory to God!

Pastor: And each time a man ejaculates, there are 7 thousand sperm!

Congregation: God be lifted up!

Pastor: And do you know what a virgin is? A young girl who has not known a man.

Congregation: Allelujah!

So on and so forth…

Sometimes I think they would “Allelujah” no matter what, as long as their pastor was confident in what he verily yelled at them, fists pumping all the while. I think he could very well say “It’s recently been discovered that eating 6 mangos a week will kill you” and they would support him to the very edge of the earth, although many have been known to eat that quantity in a single sitting.

I guess it’s good to know who’s got your back.

Walk-throughs (written 5.31.09 – Happy DR Mothers’ Day!)

2009-06-03T10:11:00.001-07:00

Funny things happen when I walk through my community. Yesterday, an unusually tiny 5 year old on his bicycle stopped me in my tracks when he insisted, in all seriousness, that I tell him next time I’m going to go running because he would like to go.

I’ve seen all number of funny English t-shirts since I’ve been here – “Fat people are harder to kidnap”, “Drunken Monkey Brotherhood”, and “Baby Girl” worn by a teenage boy are among the favorites – and I’ve even seen a few from USC, my alma mater. But today took the cake. Walking through my very own site, I saw a boy wearing a t-shirt that said Gatlinburg, Tennessee! I tried to explain the significance of it to him, but since most Dominicans think most Americans live in “Nueva Yol”, the relevance was a little lost.

And finally, one of the school professors walked past me as I was leaving my house. She was carrying a beautiful handful of freshly picked roses, and dressed in a way I thought totally hip and beautiful, lots of colors and a silk scarf wrapped around her hair. I wanted to remember her, just as she was, and since I had my camera in my purse, I asked if I could take a picture. Her first reaction was no way! I look so ugly right now! (i.e. I haven’t forced my hair straight and put on 8 inch glittery heels) She finally agreed to let me take a picture, but only after she had removed the head scarf, positioned herself in front of an iron gate, and assumed a facial expression that was anything but natural. I long ago realized that beauty ideals here are very different from mine, but just once I’d like to snap a candid shot without everyone stopping to pose.

Gourmet Eating (written 5.30.09)

2009-06-03T10:10:00.000-07:00

After several days at a conference center in the middle of nowhere with all 18 of my colleagues from the environmental group, at which we gave our mid-service presentations and shared project ideas and successes, 8 of us headed off to Monte Cristi, a beach town on the north shore, to celebrate making it this far. One year down, one year to go! And since we’re all at the point where we’re well-integrated into our communities and actually able to get things done, it should be a busy second year.

Monte Cristi, a town not unlike other coastal spots in the DR, offered several hotel options, all equally infested with inordinate amounts of mosquitoes (even for the Caribbean), so we chose one near the launching spot for small boats that take groups of people to any one of the seven small islands off the coast that offer tranquility and excellent snorkeling, although apparently not in the murky water month of May. But not matter – we still had a great time with a whole island to just the 8 of us for a day!

The first evening in Monte Cristi, we all settled down to a few beers and a fish dinner, an excellent break from the norm of green banana moosh, which we saved for breakfast the following morning. As we were finishing off the fish, one of our friends popped out a fish eye and promptly spooned it into his mouth, explaining to our horror that he always savors this part of a fish dinner. Not to be outdone, to try something new, and to impress my friends, I popped one in my mouth as well. To a chorus of “oohh!”s, it popped right back out into my spoon. Reflexes. Determined, I summoned up all my courage from the depths of my stomach and popped it back in. It wasn’t the taste so much as the mucus-like texture that was insurmountable. A few chews and it was done for, wash it down with a sip of beer, try not to think to hard about what I just did to prevent bringing it back up. Whereas my friend’s fish eye had had a hard pupil-pit that he spat out, mine was pure mucus through and through. Is that better or worse? Who knows. I wish I could say it was an important cultural experience, but the Dominican waitress was quick to regard me with disgust. But my friends all think I’m totally cool, and isn’t that the most important thing in life?

Sticks and Stones (written 5.21.09)

2009-05-25T06:48:00.002-07:00

After much anticipation, grant writing, hurry-up-and-waiting, and endless community mobilizing, I was finally able to begin buying materials for the stoves this week. After going to the hardware store to get an estimate of how much money we would need to buy half the materials now, I traveled several cities and modes of transportation to the south in order to transfer the money from my account to that of the hardware store owners – 27,055 pesos, or 773 dollars, ¼ of our grant, gone in the blink of an eye. I felt satisfied knowing that I wouldn’t have to travel with this much cash on me, but it’s interesting how money flies so easily, even in the developing world. Especially in the developing world. Anyway, after this transfer, it was back to site to wait on the 5-6 large trucks that would be arriving in 2-3 days. That’s right, you heard correctly folks. I spend upwards of 1,000 U.S. in a country where that goes a long way, and can’t get a guaranteed arrival time, or even a date, for my materials. So I hurry-up and wait, something I’m very good at by now.

After a light afternoon rain, characteristic of the month of May here, my first truck showed up with a bed full of sand for mixing cement. We go house by house dropping the materials off, because I don’t trust that everyone would come pick their materials up from a central location before they could be stolen. On our way to our last stop, we’re flagged down by a dona who says there is another truck at her house, waiting on me to tell them where to go. So I hop off the sand truck and onto the bag-of-cement-sheets-of-zinc-1x4-rebar truck and make my rounds all over again. People seem in shock that materials have actually arrived, which I like to think is the reason they seemed somewhat ungrateful, saying things like “where’s the rest of it?” and “can’t you put it 5 feet to the left?” instead of “Oh gee, muchas gracias.” I have to remain positive, trying to see things from their point of view (which is, wow, this is actually happening, we might see this project through to the end), or else I will go crazy and feel less valued in equal but opposite proportion to the amount of work I put it.

At the end of yesterday’s deliveries, I felt tired but satisfied. I have been fretting for months about this material delivery business, and it wasn’t so hard after all. I waited around at home for several hours to see if another truck would show up, until about 5:00, when a heavy rain started and I thought they wouldn’t possibly send anything else for the day. I allowed myself a shower and a hot tea, and just as I was settling into the evening, a truck came roaring down the road in front of my house with about 300 cement blocks. I was expecting 300 cement blocks. But they didn’t stop in front of my house like the others had, and they roared by again about 15 minutes later with an empty truck, not so much as glancing in my direction. I hoped against hope that it was a coincidence…that someone else had recently ordered 300 cement blocks?

Too good to be true. I set my alarm for 8:00 this morning, as I had no idea when the next truck might show up, and as I was hitting the snooze at 8:15, an inappropriately happy voice, accompanied by large truck horns, summoned me from my little cabin to inform me that a truck full of sand had just roared past looking for me. I had just enough time to put on my glasses and Chaco’s before running to hop in the truck to make another round of deliveries. I found out that these same men, in fact, had left all the blocks at one woman’s house, and had to coax them into delivering them separately after we dropped off the sand. It was a trabajo fuerte – hard work – but that’s what we had previously agreed to, and I have recently promised myself never again to be stepped on by a Dominican man, if I can at all help it. By 9:45 we had everything sorted out, and I was able to go home, shower, and put a little sustenance in my already tuckered out body. All that’s missing now is 120 cement blocks and another truck of fine sand.

My daily routine, for the past 48 hours, has been conformed to the coming and going of trucks full of sand, cement, zinc, rebar, and wood. Depending on what I’m in the middle of (like shampooing my hair or eating lunch), I feel a certain sense of panic when I hear the sound of gravel being tossed willy-nilly by a truck-driver who has a certain self-assumed similarity to Jeff Gordon (he’s a Nascar guy, right?) Even sitting here now, calmly typing this story, I wince when I hear them coming over the hill. What can I say? I am a product of my upbringing, my familiar environment, and in America, we do this kind of stuff on a schedule!

Of course, now that materials are arriving, everyone and their brother wants a stove. They literally tell me “inscribame!” Sign me up! And I can do little but gawk at them, shake my head with my lips sassily puckered, and tell them “too late!” I spent months trying to mobilize a group of 20-25 people to come to 3 meetings, getting their word that they would pay 500 pesos (not really that big of a sacrifice – the same as a week’s worth of food for 2-3 people) and it’s been like pulling teeth. I’m not sure what exactly were the main contributors to their reluctance – wariness that I would take their money and run? Maybe it wouldn’t be the first time that someone of a higher economic echelon had duped them. But be that as it may, I’m not here just to give. I’m here to work with the community, and sometimes I feel all they want me for is to give them stuff. The kids demand little things – “Give me a pencil! Give me something to drink! Give me a candy! Give me a book!” – and the adults ask for more. “Give me your necklace, give me a stove, find me a white girlfriend.” I try to remain positive, and think of the real, worthwhile connections I’ve been able to forge with a discouragingly small portion of my community. These relationships are what counts, and all the rest is just sticks and stones.

A Good Feeling (written 5.9.09)

2009-05-25T06:48:00.001-07:00

When you greet a Dominican in passing and ask “How are you?” you might receive any one of the following responses:

Muy bien: Very well
Mejor: Better
Mejorcito: A little better
Alli: Here
Aleviado: Alleviated
Aguantado: Holding on
Luchando para vivir: Fighting to live
Entre dos: Between the two

I have felt all of these, and more, during this past week, in which two of my friends and colleagues came to give a First-Aid course in the dilapidated clinic in my site. By Dominican campo terms, it was a major success, although through my American lens, it was, at times, disastrous. Herein lie the details, through which I reflect on the good and the bad, and try to come away from this experience with a feeling of accomplishment.

Although there were 15 women I had either invited or who asked special permission to participate in this 5-day course, only 6 showed up the first day. We had planned the course weeks in advance, me desperately reminding them on multiple occasions to come, Monday turned out to be one of the many obscure Dominican holidays, and most of the women saw fit to skip out the first day. It’s such a mob mentality – they think, well, no one else is going, so why should I? This is (one of) the banes of my existence here.

All week long, the women showed up late, even when I’m begged them to be on time out of respect for our visitors. Very few afforded me this luxury, very typical Dominican behavior. My disappointment was, however, slightly diminished by the fact that once they did show up and we could start, they all seemed eager to learn. Embarrassed to practice the Heimlich and CPR movements, which were the topics of our successful second day of class, but eager just the same.

On the third day, we had some atmospheric issues. One of the women (actually a 19 year old girl) brought her screaming toddler to class every day, claiming she had no one else to care for him, and he was in rare form this day. Further, the heavy rain on the tin room made it difficult to hear, and finally, the women who work in the clinic, one of which specifically requested a medical course, had some sort of paperwork “emergency”, and retreated to a cubicle right behind the desk where we were presenting. They proceeded to cause such a ruckus, giggling and “working out the emergency”, that I had to ask them 4 times to quiet down, to which they responded rather haughtily.

Despite all of this, the women seemed to be learning and retaining a lot, considering that the majority of them probably didn’t finish high-school. We tried to make the course as hands-on as possible, but some of the information you just have to memorize. They took rather well to the manuals I printed off, and were very happy to hear that they didn’t have to turn them in at the end of the course.

The fourth day was going very well, until a man (who already dislikes me because I once confronted him to ask, very politely, that he please stop shouting “Beeoo-tee-fool!” at me every time I pass his very centrally located home) waltzed in and sat down on the perimeter of the all-female class. I started to feel on edge even before he piped up, and apparently with good reason: as soon as my colleagues started talking about electrocution, an important topic here since everyone cuts wires to steal electricity, he butted in rudely to say “Well, you know what we do here? When someone has their hand stuck to a wire and is being electrocuted and can’t let go, we cut them with a machete, because the blood flow helps them let go”. My colleagues vehemently corrected this dangerous “campo myth”, and in fact had a few slides in their powerpoint dedicated to just this: “Nunca le corte! – Never cut them!” It’s obvious to us why this is a terrible idea, but the women needed to hear it. The man, feeling intellectually threatened in a machismo society, took his seat briefly, where he fumed and muttered to himself until he could no longer take it, hopping back up to yell at my colleagues “I don’t know what you do in your country, but that’s what we do here and it saves lives!” They proceeded to calmly try to correct him, and when I saw that that was going nowhere, I stood up and told him that this was a private course and he had to leave. Immediately, and predictably, he turned his anger on me, yelling at me that I needed to be more educated, as my colleagues simultaneously protested that they were doctors. He eventually stormed out, and stood about 10 feet from the clinic yelling back comments that I luckily couldn’t make out, finally walking away. What did the 13 women in the class do while this man was insulting me and my colleagues? Exactly what you would expect middle-aged, uneducated rural women to do: absolutely nothing. I was so enraged that this man had dared to question my friends and be so rude to me in the middle of a course he had not even been invited to, that I couldn’t even concentrate for the next 20 minutes or so. I wish I could have avoided the conflict all together, because the lawless campo is not exactly the best place to be making enemies, but I didn’t really see a way around it. He had to go.

Anyway, the rest of the class went smoothly, with the women doing their practicum at the end. We told them they had to pass it in order to take the written exam the next day, and most of them took it very seriously, except 2 of the women who work at the clinic, who left early without doing the practicum.

On the 5th and final day, I arrived to administer the written test alone, as my colleagues had done more than their share of work and had left that morning to return to their own sites. When I informed the 2 women who had left that they would not be passing the course as they had skipped the practicum (which I did not feel comfortable administering without my colleagues present), they were shocked (who knows why – we told them a million times it was mandatory) and issued a barrage of excuses. “I had something really important to do! My head was hurting, that’s why I left!” I had been fully prepared, since the night before, to fail them, but they ganged up on me, accompanied by a women who had come punctually to every class, saying they wanted to take the test. Finally, feeling the pressure of women twice my age who know the campo-ropes much better than me, I agreed to administer the practicum and let them take the test.

Out of 12 women, I caught 10 cheating. 10!!! I had specifically asked them before, and multiple times during, the test to not talk and to keep their eyes on their own papers, but like high-school delinquents, each time I turned my head one way, those out of my line of vision cheated. I had separated their chairs as much as possible in the tiny clinic, but there was no way to keep all 12 women far enough away from one another. I felt so disrespected, asking these middle-aged women to abide by a simple rule, and yet my threats were empty – I couldn’t fail the entire class. I try to reflect on it positively: they really wanted to pass the course, and they are not accustomed to being students. Their insistence on cheating showed a desire to get the certificates that a majority of them deserved. Still, it made me feel so cold inside.

Finally, I went over the tests with each woman, and passed them all. I was tired, and worn down, and it was a difficult situation to boot: some of the women who had participated most did far worse than those who had at times acted indifferent. Basically, I was just ready to go home and sleep. They all left beaming with their certificates, and I left to crash.

Thinking back on what I’ve just written, (I’m too tired to reread it), it seems incredibly dismal and complaint-riddled. I guess I just need to share with an audience who understands my American expectations at times, but I shouldn’t downplay the successful aspects of the course. My colleagues gave an incredible, patient performance. The women came with enthusiasm, and left a little more prepared to respond to emergency situations. They learned about breast-feeding, which many Dominican doctors stupidly advise against, and I would trust several of them to save me were I to choke on a cherry pit. Passing the test and gaining the certificate gave them notable confidence, and a deserved sense of achievement. It’s a big deal for these women to leave their homes for an hour, let alone 4 hours a day, 5 days in a row. Best of all, I can cherish the fact that we facilitated the sharing and multiplying of valuable information, even if the absorption level did not reach my dangerously high developed world aspirations.

Also, I have doña friends to protect me from the drunk, ignorant creepazoid, so no se preocuppen (don’t worry!). And this morning, walking down to the store to buy some detergent, I got a good feeling. It’s hard to explain, but it happens in one’s site at times, and seems to be a mixture of factors. In this case, it was sleeping 10 hours, hearing good news about the meeting held Thursday about the library we’re starting, arriving at the store on a Saturday to find nice old men instead of young ones who tend to harass, returning to my neighbors’ to help shell tamarind, and being gifted a huge steaming bowl of asopao – a stew with chicken and rice. Sometimes, you have to just take it easy and recover, and that’s exactly what I plan to do for a couple days.

Up In Arms (written 4.22.09 – Happy Earth Day!)

2009-04-28T13:17:00.001-07:00

I was sitting on a bus coming back from a relaxing weekend at the beach (it was birthday, ok! And the Peace-Corps wide “bola race”, in which we hitch-hiked in pairs across the country. Me and Michal came in 5th!) and although it was filling up, so far, no one had made a move to sit by me. Although I had begrudgingly moved my bag off the seat next to me, I was secretly hoping to have a little arm and leg room for the rest of the trip.

We made a stop and on the bus gets, literally, the fattest Dominican I have ever seen. This middle-aged Doña took one look around the bus and decided that sitting by me, the flacita blancita (skinny white girl) would be the best option, and proceeded to do so with much gusto. She was not at all shy about her overbearing presence, and made no attempts to remove her clammy upper-arm from the position it immediately assumed smooshed up against mine.

I’m an environment volunteer, so I feel obligated to chastise the youth in my Brigada Verde group when they throw trash on the ground. But when that imposing figure reached across me, without so much as an excuse me or an embarrassed smile, to throw a piece of plastic out the window, I surrendered immediately. Well, maybe not immediately. I slowly turned my face toward hers (only a few uncomfortable inches away), and was met eye to eye with a look that calmly said “I dare you”. Dominicans typically don’t think twice about throwing a piece of trash out the window, but I swear she knew what was going through my head when I looked at her.

And I lost.

When I got back to my community and walked down the street, I was caught up in about 30 immensely cuter arms, those of the children who had just gotten out of school and insisted on walking down the street with me, fighting to have their arms around my waist and their hands in mine. It’s good to be loved.

Home Library (written 3.18.09)

2009-03-26T09:38:00.000-07:00

In response to an intense desire to read storybooks, and an equal but opposite lack of reading material, we’ve recently decided to start a public library in my community. The initial steps have been taken: we’ve chosen a location in the school, submitted a grant request, and had a very successful first meeting for which our Peace Corps librarian visited my site to get everyone excited; she’s Dominican and passionate about books, not to mention a experienced librarian, so she could contribute a lot that I could not. She was able to bring up several boxes of books to get us started, and the kids have already been checking them out, informally, a schoolteacher keeping a list of rentals in her classroom.

In the meantime, my house has become sort of a temporary library. I have about 30 kids books in Spanish that I will put in the library when it’s up and running, but for now the kids like to come by and read them here, or sign them out with a promise to return them.

Word has spread like wildfire that this library is coming, and I think what makes me happiest about the whole thing is that we finally seem to have settled on a project that seems equally important to me, the foreign development worker, and the community members. Our priorities have definitely been at odds in the past (for example, they want English classes, while I want them to learn how to read in Spanish first), so it’s nice to have found a middle ground in this project of obvious importance.

Shameless plug: I will soon have a grant online to which anyone interested can donate any amount they deem appropriate to the library. Link to come soon.

A Day at the Dominican Dentist (written 3.18.09)

2009-03-26T09:37:00.000-07:00

No one likes going to the dentist, but we all must admit that we love that freshly clean feeling we get after an hour of picking with sharp metal instruments. Last week, I went for my annual cleaning, and although I was admittedly apprehensive to undergo this marginally uncomfortable procedure in the developing world, the office was clean and modern and the dentist spoke fluent English, so I figured everything would be routine. Physically and emotionally, it was anything but.

After the hygienist did the air test for cavities, miraculously finding none considering the amount of sugar we consume in this country, the dentist came in to do the cleaning, which took all of 15 minutes. This is because she picked my teeth faster and harder and less thoroughly than they have ever been picked, following up with a speedy brush and floss, all the while insulting me with a smile: “You’re a Peace Corps volunteer? You don’t look like one. You look like a city girl. Do you wear these boots and skirt in your site? Ya know, you kinda look like a baby. I’m pretty sure it’s because your front teeth are a bit jagged.” Of course, I could respond to none of this because her crazy hands were in my mouth, and then she was gone before I could thoroughly rinse away the small chunks of bloody gums (NOT an exaggeration) that she had separated from their rightful home in her flurry of “cleaning”.

My teeth felt not even the slightest bit cleaner afterward, and “baby” that I am, I cried wee wee wee all the way home.

20 Questions (written 3.18.09)

2009-03-26T09:36:00.000-07:00

I often feel like I’m playing this popular car game here in my site. For instance, some conversations I had just today…

Conversation 1

Man I don’t know that well: Hey, has that guy come yet?

Me: Um, what guy?

Man: You know, the American who was going to come work in the next community over.

Me: Oh, THAT guy. Yea, they haven’t finished filling out their application yet, but when they turn it in they might be able to get a volunteer in their community.

Man: OK

Conversation 2

Me to my neighbor lady: Just wanted to let you know that the first-aid course has been rescheduled for May 4-8.

Neighbor: OK, well you know I have to talk to the women.

Me: Um, what women?

Neighbor: You know, the women I work with at the chocolate factory.

Me: Oh, THOSE women. I see. You’ll have to let them know you won’t be there on those days.

Neighbor: Yea.

It’s kind of like pulling teeth (see next entry). I don’t think it’s that they’re lazy, I think they honestly expect me to know what they’re talking about without specifying. I guess it keeps things interesting.

The Big Cheese (written 3.17.09 – Happy St. Patty’s Day!)

2009-03-26T09:34:00.000-07:00

The activity that inspired this entry happened in the same weekend trip as the tree murder detailed above, but seems to warrant its own title and piece.

There are two kinds of Dominican cheese: white and yellow. This weekend, I learned to make the white, with the help of 14 year old Manuela, the prideful queen of regional cheese.

She was completely enthused, if a bit baffled, when we told her we wanted to learn how to make this delicious dairy delicacy. After all, she makes it and sells it every day of her life, and probably fails to see why it’s interesting, but nevertheless gave an enthusiastic two-hour accelerated course in cheese-making to the fascinated foreigners. Steps are as follows:

Mix several huge metal cans of fresh cows’ milk with a syringe full of some brown, grainy liquid (suggestions?) and let it sit for a while. After mixture thickens, use a long stick to cute a cross in it to let the whey rise. Let it sit for another while. Add a huge pot of boiling water and mix it for a bit, and let it sit again. Insert arms into plastic vat, up to shoulders, and slowly begin to form ball of cheese, by pressing the mass together delicately. When a manageable ball is formed, remove it from the whey into a separate container, and continue pressing out liquid until cheese ball (we’re talking like 30 pounds here) is hard. Cut into small chunks, add an incredible amount of salt, and then force cheese into small wooden boxes, weighted down with rocks to shape cheese into blocks. Let it sit for a while, then sell it all to community members.

The omission of times, quantities, and really any form of measurement is no mistake; that’s just how Manuela rolls. It was a ton of fun, and resulted in a delicious treat to boot!

Breaking and Entering Part II (written 3.17.09 – Happy St. Patty’s Day!)

2009-03-26T09:32:00.000-07:00

Although we don’t receive training in it, breaking and entering seems to be a pivotal part of the Peace Corps experience. First the all-inclusive resort, and now, none other than the house of another volunteer. I was visiting my boyfriend in his site over the weekend, and we decided to go down the street for a barbecued hotdog – a fancy campo date, to be sure. When we arrived back at the house, we played a familiar game: “Do you have the key? No you do”. It’s always him, but this time, he had left it inside the house, and as we had padlocked the door from the outside, we found ourselves in a bit of a pickle. Having no other option, he decided to try to break down the side door, which we perceived to be the weakest entry to the house. After giving it two solid kicks, we decided the little palm-board house was going to come down before the door did; nice to know he lives in a secure home, but I must say an inconvenient time to figure it out.

Both of us working hard not to panic (locksmiths aren’t exactly on call out here), I realized that although the door was padlocked, if you pushed on it, it still opened about three inches before the lock caught, and what to my wondering eyes did appear in the line of sight those three inches provided but the key! It was hanging on a nail on the wall about 7 feet from the crack in the door. Ever the eco-friendly environmental volunteer, my solution was… “Hey! Let’s pull up that skinny baby tree and see if we can reach the key!” This worked surprisingly well, and within 5 minutes we were indoors sitting on two plastic lawn chairs (one of which I broke the next day - long story. Actually, it’s really not; I’m just a clutz.) surprised and satisfied with our ingenuity.

To quote an exasperated homeowner: “I really can’t keep that key there anymore.”

Behind the Times

2009-03-13T08:47:00.000-07:00

Dear Friends,

Today I discovered something beautiful: all the wonderfully kind and supportive comments that you all have been leaving me!

I've never pretended to be particularly technologically savvy, and that combined with the limited amount of internet time I get...well I've just never noticed all the comments you guys are leaving. It has put me in such a wonderful, positive-energy mood to read all of your words, and I thank you so much for keeping up with me! Maybe it was even better this way, cause I just spent the last 20 minutes reading a year's worth of your friendly writing, and I was a bit like a kid at Christmas.

So I must apologize for not responding to all your comments, but I sincerely appreciate them and promise to keep up with them better in the future. Your support gives me the energy to keep going, and now I'm feeling particularly rejuvenated!

Love,
Mica J.

Peace Corps – “It has the power to change you in ways you’ve never dreamed” (written March 1, 2009)

2009-03-11T13:29:00.000-07:00

In the first 3 months, it is drilled into all of our little new trainee heads that Peace Corps is about sustainability, i.e., we don’t give stuff away, and instead make people earn it through manual labor, meeting assistance, and what-have-you so that they will feel ownership and projects will last further into the future. A year into service, however, which is exactly where I am as of our anniversary on February 28th, idealism starts to go out the window and you just want to get stuff done. Maybe it’s out of selfishness, but in the end, we’re all going to leave, and in the end, we all want to leave something behind.

Thus, let the scramble begin. I WILL build stoves as soon as my money gets here, I’ve started work on a small library, and just today a young girl made a comment on my shoes and how they look like they would fit her – I’ll probably give them to her when I leave. They’re 5 year old tennis shoes, and still sturdier than anything she has.

A while back, I did a fundraiser with my environmental youth group to get trash cans in our community, which apparently no one has figured out how to use.

The ground is still littered with plastic and glass as the cans fill up with organic waste; Dominicans, strangely, find leaves and the like to be more of an eye sore than old coke bottles and grocery bags, so that’s what they consider “trash”. So, in an effort to kick-start community awareness, I set up a walk-through with my youth group, scheduled to take place this morning, about an hour ago. We made a big sign, equipped with visuals explaining what can and cannot go in the can, and were going to walk through the community picking up trash and, more importantly, explaining on a house by house basis what the cans are for. Given, not the most fun activity, but we do fun things all the time and they seemed to understand that this is important. Besides, in a big group, they always have a good time regardless of the activity.

Not a single person showed up. I waited for 40 minutes, at which point had it not been for the free motorcycle ride I was offered to go home, I would have gone to the houses of each of our “officers” and demanded an explanation. I know our cultures are different, but I’ve been here for a year, and long story short, they know better by now.

It’s easy to fall into a downward spiral of pessimism on these occasions, so this is what is going through my head: if they don’t care enough to come (not a single one!), and people would rather throw away leaves than plastic bottles, and even if the truck actually comes to pick it up it’s going to get burned or washed into the rivers anyway…why do I even bother? At this point, you might expect for me to offer up some profound explanation as to why, but I haven’t stumbled across it yet.

Bola of the Century

2009-02-22T14:16:00.000-08:00

I spent several days this past week helping out in other sites. There are two volunteers relatively close to me who invited American high-school groups to come help with the construction of aqueducts, and I was asked to come and help translate and also to provide a night of entertainment in the form of live folk music. I was amazed at the amount of trench those kids were able to dig in order to put in piping in order for water from the mountains to reach individual houses, and when we left the celebratory pig roast on Friday night, spirits were high. That is, until us visiting volunteers remembered that we had to cross 2 frigid rivers on foot in the dark in order to reach the house where we would be sleeping.

The community where we had been helping out was far back in the mountains, across several rivers, and even more difficult to reach lately as it had been raining cats and dogs. The last thing we expected, therefore, was to see a car inside the community at the festivities, and a revamped Range Rover with leopard print interior and a sound system to blow your socks off. After eyeing this vehicle, the volunteer I was visiting had the brilliant idea of asking for a “bola”, or a free ride, to his house on this person’s way out to the main road. Obliging and friendly, the driver loaded the 5 of us into the back, and off we set to traverse flowing rivers and flojo (weak) land bridges. The imagery I experienced from the inside of this unlikely SUV was uncanny.

As we sat on the leopard print seats and tried in vain to protect our inner ears, the car filled with a red glow from the tail lights, and I looked out the back to see three young boys running along behind us, their smiles illuminated by the necklace glow sticks that the American volunteers had handed out to amuse them. (As an aside, I noted that given toys and gadgets, such as the costume jewelry and flashlights the Americans brought, Dominican children suddenly seem far less different than those in the U.S.) They ran behind us the whole way home, deterred only slightly by the rivers, catching up each time with smiles never faltering.

I’ve had a lot of free rides in this country, but this one I will never forget. Having just spent all day in the trenches and the evening eating fresh roasted pig and dancing to Dominican songs, it was the perfectly strange ending to a more than vivid 3 days.