Expose Yourself

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Creativity Lives

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

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

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

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

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

See ya later, Quelimane

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

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

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

Market Day

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

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

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

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