New Year, New Beginnings

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…