“Just when you think you’re in control
Just when you think you got a flow
Just when you get on a roll-
Oh here it goes, here it goes, here it goes again”
- Ok Go!
My mother always told me, “Don’t look to see who is behind you in the race, look ahead to see who is still in front of you.” That mentality has stuck with me through the years, for better or for worse. I have a competitive streak, and I constantly compare my achievements to that of other people. With that said, as I consider the past six months at site, it’s hard for me not to see my period in Chimundo as “time wasted.”
I read the blogs of my fellow volunteers, and I’m jealous of all the things that they have achieved while I have floundered at site, sought productivity and encountered only obstacles, and wondered if maybe, just maybe, it’s me that’s lacking.
This is a horrible way of thinking, I realize, but on a purely objective level (and that seems to be how Peace Corps operates) I have accomplished very little. I have developed ideas, programs, plans, community connections, but unfortunately, none of these will be realized.
In several weeks I will be moving to Chicumbane, a site one hour away from Chibuto and right outside of the city of XaiXai. It was a difficult choice to make but one that will enable me to work with organizations (I will be paired with two) that actually need a volunteer.
I’m leaving Chimundo right as my first tomatoes and okras are ripening, right as I’ve finally begun to feel at home here. I’m leaving a safe community, a nice house, my good friends/site mates, and I’m starting again at zero. But I am not here to live a complacent life. I don’t want to spend the rest of my service banging my head against a wall out of frustration or boredom.
Anyone who knows me well knows that moving is definitely, definitely, the bane of my existence. It’s such an overwhelming ordeal, and one that sends my stress level skyrocketing through the roof. I don’t know how to pack lightly. I can’t bear to throw anything away. I don’t sleep well in new environments. I can’t remember anybody I meet. I’m completely lost and disoriented for the first few weeks. Eh pa! How did I get so lucky, that I get to do this all over again for the second time in six months?
Peace Corps is supposed to help me transport all my belongings, with the exception of my dogs. So I’m currently imagining throwing Mel and XimaXima onto a chapa, where they will doubtlessly terrorize all the other passengers and possibly cause children to burst into tears. Should be fun. I’ll keep you updated.
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
The Kindness of Strangers
Peace Corps staff member Ilidio arrives in Chimundo on Thursday for a site visit. This is Peace Corps’ first encounter with escolinha director Irma Monica and Irma Monica’s first encounter with Peace Corps, and unfortunately it doesn’t go as well as any of us expect. While the African sun goes down and the air becomes chilly, we all sit down to talk about my role as a volunteer at the escolinha, but cannot seem to reach any sort of mutual understanding. They ask me what I want to do here, and I tell them plainly, “Organizational Development.” I want to help build the echolina’s organizational capacity from within. I want to help them create a monthly and annual budget, and revise their current outdated documents- the escolinha’s mission and vision statements, learning objectives, preschool curriculum, employee time cards and job descriptions, and more.
Irma Monica says she cannot make any promises. It’s not her area, she says, and she doesn’t have the time. She has a garden to cultivate, new buildings to construct, the existing buildings to clean up. She is working to give the escolinha a “new face,” and the internal stuff is just not her priority.
After the meeting, as Ilidio is giving me a ride to XaiXai to hang out with Jess before she moves to Cabo Delgado (the northernmost province of Mozambique), we discuss my work situation. It’s not looking good. Irma doesn’t seem open to working with me and would rather me just babysit children all day, as I have been doing. Ilidio, to my complete surprise, asks me if I would be open to moving sites.
To suddenly pick up and move, after six months of community and workplace integration, not to mention the Herculean effort of setting up my house? It never crossed my mind. I say the first thing that comes to mind: “Only if I can bring my dogs.” Ilidio laughs, but it’s true. How can I leave XimaXima and Mel, my canine children, homeless in a society that won’t care for them to the extent that I have? Peace Corps certainly isn’t going to fly two full grown dogs anywhere, and I can just imagine trying to transport them into a chapa and all the terror and chaos they would instill among the other passengers.
I remember stepping into my dirty, empty house for the very first time, and crying in the face of all the work that needed to be done. A dining room table, a bed frame and comfy mattress, kitchen shelves, a backyard fence, an herb garden, a super expensive fridge, a bookcase/dresser and two rambunctious puppies later, my house is finally my home. To say that the Peace Corps settling-in allowance I received in the beginning to set up my house wasn’t enough is an understatement. I’ve spent time, money, and tremendous effort in the past months, and I’ve come too far to just bail out at the first sign of adversity.
Peace Corps places so much emphasis on community integration, but will readily pull a volunteer out of his/her community without so much as a chance to say goodbye. Jess had one morning to pack up her things and leave for good. Even so, her case is a little different, as her evacuation is an issue of her safety.
While I think it would be interesting to experience a different part of Mozambique, a new community, and a different kind of work, the reality is that moving is so, so complicated. The more I think about it, the answer is no, no I don’t want to move if I have a choice.
I spend the night in XaiXai with Jess. The next morning, Friday, as Jess and Ilidio are heading back to Chibuto to pick up the rest of Jess’s belongings, they drop me off at an intersection of the EN1 (National Highway). I am heading for Tofo beach in Inhambane province to spend the weekend with another volunteer Drew, and his sister and her husband, who are doing a crazy 4-month trip around the world and are in Mozambique for a week. It’s not so hard to boleia alone. The first car I flag stops; it’s a huge semi carrying cement and the driver asks me how much I can pay to ride with him. I tell him I’m a volunteer without much money and I put on my best poker face as I thank him anyway and wave him off. He looks at me for a minute, sighs, and then tells me to get in.
There’s another guy in the passenger seat, so I am relegated to the back of the cab, where I sit on a dirty-looking mattress and pass the 6 or so hours by laying my head on my duffle bag and dozing off. The truck, weighed down with bags of cement, goes about 40km an hour and continuously bounces me on the mattress, but I make it to Maxixe eventually and the guys even buy me a cold soda on the way.
In Maxixe, I take a ferry ride into Inhambane and meet up with Drew and gang. A 15-minute chapa ride is all it takes to get to Tofo, where we have rented a house. It’s a fantastic house, too, close to the beach and fully furnished with 4 beds (with mosquito nets!), a kitchen, and (OH MY GOD) a hot running shower. We spend the weekend hanging out at the beach and exploring the small Tofo market where I buy capulana pajama pants, a capulana halter dress, local piripiri (hot sauce), colorful cloth batiks, and several painted wooden plates that the man engraved for free. By the way, I am the queen of bartering. The trick is to lay down a price lower than their seemingly final offer, and then walk away if they don’t accept. Ninety percent of the time they’ll find you later and mumble fine, you can buy it for the price you want. I’ve got quite a collection of souvenirs already in my suitcase.
I wake up several times the first night to find that the mosquitoes have discovered a hole at the top of the bed net and are serving themselves to a buffet on my face and arms. The bastards hang out on the net next to my bed and pillow and wait for me to turn out the lights again before resuming their party. I hunt them all down with a vengeance but it’s too late- in the morning I have no less than five large itchy bumps on my forehead, making me feel once again like an acne-peppered teenager. In addition, I’ve got two bites on my left shoulder, one on my back, three on my right hand, and two on my wrist. I coat myself in bug spray and carefully tuck in the net the next night, and sleep like a baby, with the sound of ocean (and not the buzzing of mosquitoes) lulling me to sleep.
Sunday, we ferry back across into Maxixe and go our separate ways- Drew and his visitors back north to Vilanculos, and I back to Chibuto in Gaza. The trip home is a bit lonelier, as cars don’t seem to want to stop and pick me up, and I really wish I had a travel buddy. After the discouragement of being passed by about 20 cars, I am finally picked up by a Mozambican man and his son, a toddler drinking a giant juice box who won’t talk to me but just stares at me the entire time with soulful eyes. The man offers to drive me to a police stop where he has friends who can have passing cars pull over and ask them to give me a ride.
On the way, we talk about all sorts of things and I am impressed with his knowledge of politics and economics. He has just returned from studying abroad in France and living in Portugal for many years, so he is not your typical geography-oblivious Mozambican. I also give him infinite points for not being creepy in any way.
As he speaks, I can sense the love and pride he has for his country, even as he acknowledges Mozambique’s shortcomings. We talk a little about my work as a volunteer and he agrees that Mozambique, as well as the continent of Africa as a whole, is increasingly donor-dependent when it should be working towards sustainability and self-sufficiency. We talk about the rise of the Euro, and the decline of the American dollar.
We enter a fascinating discussion about the rising Chinese presence in Mozambique. He explains that more and more Chinese are immigrating to Mozambique to seek economic opportunity and to escape overpopulation. The division between poor and rich China is significant, so it’s mainly the poor Chinese who come to sell cheap Chinese wares to an equally poor population. The social conditions and climate are not so different between the two countries, so it’s not a particularly difficult adjustment. Plus, Chinese development of Mozambique means access to Africa’s natural resources, such as wood.
The man, Pedro, drives me about 15 minutes further than his own destination. He asks me if I want to be dropped at a chapa stop, to which I respond no, I don’t have much money because I’m a volunteer. It’s too complicated to explain that boleia-ing is my preferred way of travel because it’s easier and faster and saves money and prevents me from being squished in an overcrowded chapa for long periods of time. As we arrive at the police stop, Pedro smiles at his son and says in a conspirational whisper, “We’re going to help our friend get home.” He pulls out a couple of bills from his pocket and offers them to me. I refuse, but he insists. “You’re here helping my country. A lot of Mozambicans take it for granted that foreigners come to our country to help us when in reality, we need to help them too.” I tell him that he has already helped me by driving me here. He says that when he studied in Europe and had very little money, other people were kind to him and helped him. I can’t tell him I actually do have money to get home, without sounding like a liar. He presses the money into my hand, and asks one of the policeman to help me find a ride back to Chibuto.
I want to slyly slip the money into grocery bag between the seats, but the kid (who apparently has a Chinese name) is watching me, still sipping his juice. I get out of the car, with not enough words of gratitude to thank Pedro, and he gives me his phone number to contact him if I ever pass through Maxixe again and need any sort of help. He makes me promise to text him and let him know when I get home safe.
The policemen offer me a chair and converse with me some more as we wait for cars to pass. A bus headed to Maputo approaches, and they all agree, “This one.” They flag the car down and ask the driver to take me. When the cobrador refuses for less than 250mt, the four policemen get indignant and begin arguing with him while I sit and stare. Finally they compromise on 200mt, and they send me on my way. As I get in the bus, I turn back to find all the policemen waving jovially at me and telling me to come back soon.
In the past few months, I’ve experienced an escalating disillusionment about being here in Mozambique but it seems that really all it takes is the kindness of a couple of strangers to (excuse the cliché) restore my faith in humanity and lend me a sense of optimism. If little Pedro grows up to be like his father, the future of Mozambique looks pretty good.
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
The Season of Tangerines and Crying Children
Since Reconnect Conference, I’ve been in a pretty deep rut. I keep having to remind myself that a lot of the Peace Corps experience is about managing expectations and that things will improve, although a third volunteer from MOZ15 just ET’d (Early Terminated), because he wasn’t getting what he wanted out of his experience and figured he could be more productive at home.
I never expected to come to Mozambique to be a free babysitter for 20 toddlers, but that’s exactly what I feel like at the escolinha. In my dreams, I am haunted by a chorus of children whining, “Mana Vivieeeeeenne, he hit me! Mana Vivienne, she took my toy! Mana Vivienne, he stole my chair!” It doesn’t help that more and more often, I find myself alone with the children for 5 or 6 hours with no coworkers in sight. It’s extremely frustrating, not to mention exhausting, and it’s all I can do not to SPRINT home as soon as 1pm hits so that I can nap and/or watch endless episodes of Glee.
Back home, I was never particularly a fan of TV shows but in Africa, I’ll take all the mindless entertainment I can get. Bring it on, Glee and The Office, and horrible chick flicks (Ie. “Confessions of a Shopaholic”) that I absolutely would not tolerate back in the States. I avoid serious or depressing movies like the plague because, well, after reprimanding children- excuse me, working- all day, I just don’t have the brainpower to concentrate. Plus, movies like that are just not that fun to watch alone.
Last week, a Peace Corps volunteer was raped in central Mozambique and I found out about it through a news link a friend from home emailed me. I was surprised that Peace Corps did not feel it necessary to inform Mozambique volunteers of the incident, and that the rest of the world would know about it before we did. The week before, a volunteer in Chibuto was assaulted in her house and the incident was severe enough that Peace Corps is now moving her to a different site.
Let’s just say with all these incidents going on, I haven’t gotten a restful night’s sleep in a while. While I don’t feel UNsafe in my own community only 5km away, I wouldn’t consider myself completely safe either. I’ll always be perceived as a foreigner with a lot of money and despite locks, window and door grates, a fence, and two dogs, it’s possible something could still happen. I hide my valuables when I’m gone, I never leave the house after dark, I sleep with an airhorn and a hammer under my bed… It’s better to be too careful than not careful enough.
On a more positive note, it’s been getting colder here and tangerines are in season! They’ve been in the market for a while but before now they were green and sour. (It’s a wonder the children know the color orange when all the oranges and tangerines they see are predominantly green.) Even so, you really can’t complain when each one is only 1 metical. I also found green beans the other day, which was unbelievably exciting. I bought a whole kilo and spent the week cooking them up in different ways- garlic green beans, lemon pepper green beans, spicy green beans…
Anyway, does anyone care to send me seeds for my garden and awesome dress patterns? I am currently on a sewing binge, which gives me an excuse to buy pretty capulanas. I’ve been using Yoko’s sewing machine (I’m secretly hoping she’ll give it to me when she completes her service next April) in the evenings but during the day I sew by hand which takes up a lot of time- something I have plenty to spare.
The other day, I accompanied Yoko to work in order to pick up a kitten that her colleague had agreed to let me take. Not for me, regrettably, as I have decided that having another mouth to feed isn’t ideal for my travel-infused, 2-year temporary living situation. It was a 45 minute walk to Bairro Samora Machel, which made me super grateful that my workplace is approximately two minutes away from my house.
On the way back to Chimundo, kitten box in hand, I had a hard time getting a boleia because I was surrounded by Mozambican women also heading back from their machambas. I walked quite a ways in the afternoon sun with a kitten trying to claw its way out of the box, before a man in a tractor stopped and offered me a ride. I accepted, and then realized that the tractor only had one seat- for the driver. I ended up sitting on the engine, holding on to a pole with one hand and clutching the box with the other, watching the road pass beneath me, hoping I wouldn’t fall or drop the cat, and realizing very acutely that, well, I’m in Africa.
I gave the kitten to Irma Monica to keep at the escolinha (rat problem, you see), but unfortunately it died the next day, having ingested rat poison. It wasn’t my cat but I still felt a great deal of sadness as I held its limp body in my hand; I’d gone to great lengths to bring it somewhere I thought it would be safe and yet it had met its untimely death. I was a bit offended when Irma Monica then promptly asked me to find her another kitten, as if I had some sort of cat generator in my house. I’ve mentioned time and time again, Mozambicans just don’t see animals the same way.
I did miraculously procure another kitten the next day, when one showed up uninvited to Erica and Alycia’s house, possibly a stray. It stayed with me for a night and terrified my dogs and attacked my hands as I was trying to sew. Pretty cute. Even so, I relinquished it to the escolinha, where it promptly escaped over the weekend and left me rolling my eyes, wondering why I put in the effort.
I never expected to come to Mozambique to be a free babysitter for 20 toddlers, but that’s exactly what I feel like at the escolinha. In my dreams, I am haunted by a chorus of children whining, “Mana Vivieeeeeenne, he hit me! Mana Vivienne, she took my toy! Mana Vivienne, he stole my chair!” It doesn’t help that more and more often, I find myself alone with the children for 5 or 6 hours with no coworkers in sight. It’s extremely frustrating, not to mention exhausting, and it’s all I can do not to SPRINT home as soon as 1pm hits so that I can nap and/or watch endless episodes of Glee.
Back home, I was never particularly a fan of TV shows but in Africa, I’ll take all the mindless entertainment I can get. Bring it on, Glee and The Office, and horrible chick flicks (Ie. “Confessions of a Shopaholic”) that I absolutely would not tolerate back in the States. I avoid serious or depressing movies like the plague because, well, after reprimanding children- excuse me, working- all day, I just don’t have the brainpower to concentrate. Plus, movies like that are just not that fun to watch alone.
Last week, a Peace Corps volunteer was raped in central Mozambique and I found out about it through a news link a friend from home emailed me. I was surprised that Peace Corps did not feel it necessary to inform Mozambique volunteers of the incident, and that the rest of the world would know about it before we did. The week before, a volunteer in Chibuto was assaulted in her house and the incident was severe enough that Peace Corps is now moving her to a different site.
Let’s just say with all these incidents going on, I haven’t gotten a restful night’s sleep in a while. While I don’t feel UNsafe in my own community only 5km away, I wouldn’t consider myself completely safe either. I’ll always be perceived as a foreigner with a lot of money and despite locks, window and door grates, a fence, and two dogs, it’s possible something could still happen. I hide my valuables when I’m gone, I never leave the house after dark, I sleep with an airhorn and a hammer under my bed… It’s better to be too careful than not careful enough.
On a more positive note, it’s been getting colder here and tangerines are in season! They’ve been in the market for a while but before now they were green and sour. (It’s a wonder the children know the color orange when all the oranges and tangerines they see are predominantly green.) Even so, you really can’t complain when each one is only 1 metical. I also found green beans the other day, which was unbelievably exciting. I bought a whole kilo and spent the week cooking them up in different ways- garlic green beans, lemon pepper green beans, spicy green beans…
Anyway, does anyone care to send me seeds for my garden and awesome dress patterns? I am currently on a sewing binge, which gives me an excuse to buy pretty capulanas. I’ve been using Yoko’s sewing machine (I’m secretly hoping she’ll give it to me when she completes her service next April) in the evenings but during the day I sew by hand which takes up a lot of time- something I have plenty to spare.
The other day, I accompanied Yoko to work in order to pick up a kitten that her colleague had agreed to let me take. Not for me, regrettably, as I have decided that having another mouth to feed isn’t ideal for my travel-infused, 2-year temporary living situation. It was a 45 minute walk to Bairro Samora Machel, which made me super grateful that my workplace is approximately two minutes away from my house.
On the way back to Chimundo, kitten box in hand, I had a hard time getting a boleia because I was surrounded by Mozambican women also heading back from their machambas. I walked quite a ways in the afternoon sun with a kitten trying to claw its way out of the box, before a man in a tractor stopped and offered me a ride. I accepted, and then realized that the tractor only had one seat- for the driver. I ended up sitting on the engine, holding on to a pole with one hand and clutching the box with the other, watching the road pass beneath me, hoping I wouldn’t fall or drop the cat, and realizing very acutely that, well, I’m in Africa.
I gave the kitten to Irma Monica to keep at the escolinha (rat problem, you see), but unfortunately it died the next day, having ingested rat poison. It wasn’t my cat but I still felt a great deal of sadness as I held its limp body in my hand; I’d gone to great lengths to bring it somewhere I thought it would be safe and yet it had met its untimely death. I was a bit offended when Irma Monica then promptly asked me to find her another kitten, as if I had some sort of cat generator in my house. I’ve mentioned time and time again, Mozambicans just don’t see animals the same way.
I did miraculously procure another kitten the next day, when one showed up uninvited to Erica and Alycia’s house, possibly a stray. It stayed with me for a night and terrified my dogs and attacked my hands as I was trying to sew. Pretty cute. Even so, I relinquished it to the escolinha, where it promptly escaped over the weekend and left me rolling my eyes, wondering why I put in the effort.
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
The Art of Mandar-ing and the Art of Boleia-ing
I woke up two nights in a row convinced that there was an intruder in my house. The first night, the wind causing the tree branches outside to sway back and forth made it look like someone was moving around inside my room. I tried to lay still despite my terror and thought frantically about the whereabouts of my air horn, my pepper spray, my computer, and my phone. When I finally turned on the light, I was relieved to find that my opponent was, in fact, my standing fan and that I had not kicked it as hard as I could, as I had considered doing.
The next night, I was awakened by the sound of thumping on the roof and, after listening to it for quite a while, considered the possibility that someone was walking around overhead.
Needless to say, I did not get much sleep either of those nights. The following morning, I walked outside and almost laughed with relief as I realized that all the noise the previous nights was a result of the wind pushing my overgrown tree branches against the tin roof, which amplifies all noises to the extent that a light sprinkle of rain can sometimes sound like a heavy downpour.
I hadn’t realized before how long the branches had gotten in the past few months. But enough was enough. I needed some restful sleep; the branches had to go. I set to work on pulling down the branches I could reach, but there were some I couldn’t get to. So I did the next obvious thing: I had the neighborhood kids take care of it. My Art Club boys and a few of their siblings climbed up the tree and hacked down all the offending tree branches with a machete, and then under my supervision spent the entire afternoon trimming the rest of the tree until it was about 1/3 of its previous volume.
Now, this might sound dangerous (and I was slightly alarmed when they produced the machete and began hopping up the tree like monkeys) but it turns out, Mozambican kids are very handy with machetes. Here, using a machete is like a life skill.
As two children hacked away at my tree, I had another drag the fallen branches into the trash pit, one sweep my yard and veranda, and the remaining three kids “dog-proof” the wire around my garden because Xima and Mel are getting big enough to leap over it. For several hours of work, I paid each child two pieces of candy and we all retired happily.
In Mozambique, any adult can “mandar” (order) any child to do something. For example, it’s common for my empregada to mandar her grandkids to cart water for me and sweep my yard instead of doing it herself. At first, I was uncomfortable with mandar-ing the neighborhood children to run errands for me but I have since gotten over it. Now after drawing, my four Art Club boys always ask if I have work for them to do. I usually say no, but there are times in which I feel particularly lazy so I’ll send them to buy things at the nearby loja, or see if my site mates are home, or pick up trash in my yard, or chase away other kids stealing my sugar cane, or even wash my jeans (which, by the way, are a huge pain to hand wash). Most of the time, these kids just don’t have anything productive to do.
The benefit of my mandar-ing is the universal children’s bribe: CANDY. While kids will follow orders regardless, I always make sure to thank them and to give them a couple pieces of candy after they finish (which Mozambican adults usually don’t do). The result is an endless supply of little hands to help with my chores and a wonderfully functional working relationship. Sometimes other Peace Corps volunteers, even ones I haven’t seen in a while, will say to me, “I heard you’re really good at mandar-ing kids” and I just shrug because, well, what can I say?
I got one quiet, beautiful night of tree branch-less sleep before I left the next day with Jess for Vilanculos, a popular beach city in Inhambane province. It was our first time north of Gaza Province. The trip took 10 hours and four chapa/bus transfers. We arrived right as it was getting dark, and met up with other volunteers at Baobab’s backpackers hostel.
The occasion? The annual PCV Beer Olympics… Something only a group of young Americans would ever think of. The teams were divided by region: North, South, and Central. The events included an Opening Ceremony with the lighting of a torch, which was accidentally dropped by the bearer. Each event (Shotgunning contest, Flip Cup, Dizzy Bat, and Smash Ball) gave each team the opportunity to win points. However, if anyone passed out with their shoes on, someone else could draw on their face and win points for his/her team. As you can tell, PCV’s are a very mature group of individuals. Last year, the trophy (a monkey carved out of a coconut shell, with a penis and a giant beer bottle on its head) went to Central but this year it was won by the South.
I can’t say I was very into the whole concept of Beer Olympics, as I ended up missing the first three events while I was out shopping and exploring the Vilanculos market with Jess and my good friend Helen, but it was a good excuse to leave Gaza, hang out at the beach, and see all the other volunteers. All in all, 47 volunteers showed up for Beer Olympics, which is over 1/3 of all volunteers in country!
On Sunday, most of the volunteers began heading back to site. Jess and I, along with another volunteer Matt, stayed the night at our friend Drew’s so we could see a little more of Vilanculos before we made the long journey home. We walked along the beach at low tide (the water leaves shore almost further than the eye can see) for about 45 minutes to get to Drew’s site, which is outside of Vil but right next to the beach. We were all very impressed with what a nice house Drew has, fully furnished and with electricity, a shower, and running water.
As the tide was still low, the four of us swam out to the sand bar. Bodies of water can be very deceiving, appearing small or shallow when in fact they are much bigger and deeper. It had been a long time since I’d last swam, so the 15-minute swim against the current was super tiring. Right as we were heading back, a boat approached us and two South Africans offered us a ride, which I gladly accepted for all of us because the tide was coming in. When we got to shore, another group of South Africans was standing around watching. “It’s a good thing they went and got you guys, or you would have been in big trouble!” They said as if we had all been drowning. We rolled our eyes and thanked them and left the beach.
Dinner was at a quaint little restaurant called Casa Guci’s. Jess and I ordered some wine, a seafood platter, and lasagna. The food was okay but overpriced, but it turned out that the waitress messed up on our bill and we ended up paying significantly less than we were supposed to.
The trip back to Chibuto the next day was, of course, lengthy, but entirely successful because we boleia-ed the whole 700 km in 8 hours. Boleias are the preferred way to travel because they are much more comfortable than chapas, usually much faster, and free. Hitchhiking in the States is considered dangerous, but the culture of boleia here makes it actually safer to travel in the private car of a stranger. Whereas chapas are way overcrowded and sometimes take the form of the back of a pickup truck, the people who stop to pick up others are often sympathetic and driving nice cars. As a foreigner, it’s much easier to get a ride because people (Mozambicans, South Africans, and other foreigners) wonder a) who I am b) what I’m doing in Mozambique and c) why I don’t have a car. All you have to do is stand on the side of the road, in the direction you are going, and flag down cars by extending your hand and forefinger.
There are a lot of techniques and theories floating around as to how to get a boleia. I am personally convinced that boleia-ing is easier for girls, because I usually never have a problem and I’ve noticed that most of the people who stop to pick me up are male. However, Matt disagreed because he also never seems to find it difficult to find a boleia either. On the other hand, his site is more “mato (way in the middle of nowhere) and he is the only white person for miles around.
While some volunteers never ask for boleias, others are seasoned pros. Funny tips on boleia-ing I’ve heard include: look visibly and dramatically sad if cars pass by without stopping and sometimes they’ll reverse, ask for boleias at gas stations when people are filling up their cars, guilt people into letting you ride with them by telling them “I work for your country,” etc.
Me and Matt’s discussion of boleias led us to consider the idea of an experiment to collect statistics on who gets the most boleias, what times of the day boleias are easiest to get, and where to get these boleias. This, of course, is impossible because every volunteer’s experience varies so widely throughout Mozambican and would require country-wide participation, as well as an experimental control.
We could only conclude that boleia-ing is easiest for volunteers that appear “different” from the native population (African-Americans are usually mistaken for Mozambicans and therefore lose out on the boleias from foreigners and South Africans). Boleias are more difficult to find on Sundays and on holidays because fewer cars are out on the road, and on Mondays because although there is a lot of traffic passing by, cars are usually full. Boleia-ing, like mandar-ing is an art, and I plan on perfecting both during my two years in Moz.
PS. Updated wish list:
Pesto (instant, or in a jar)
Hollandaise sauce mix
Easy dress patterns
Yummy snacks – Still good on Goldfish for a while, but Cheezits welcome
Pretzels… honey pretzels preferred
Bleu cheese dressing
Ground coffee
Fruity teas
Dog flea medication
Dog treats
Old magazines (for the kids to make collages)
The next night, I was awakened by the sound of thumping on the roof and, after listening to it for quite a while, considered the possibility that someone was walking around overhead.
Needless to say, I did not get much sleep either of those nights. The following morning, I walked outside and almost laughed with relief as I realized that all the noise the previous nights was a result of the wind pushing my overgrown tree branches against the tin roof, which amplifies all noises to the extent that a light sprinkle of rain can sometimes sound like a heavy downpour.
I hadn’t realized before how long the branches had gotten in the past few months. But enough was enough. I needed some restful sleep; the branches had to go. I set to work on pulling down the branches I could reach, but there were some I couldn’t get to. So I did the next obvious thing: I had the neighborhood kids take care of it. My Art Club boys and a few of their siblings climbed up the tree and hacked down all the offending tree branches with a machete, and then under my supervision spent the entire afternoon trimming the rest of the tree until it was about 1/3 of its previous volume.
Now, this might sound dangerous (and I was slightly alarmed when they produced the machete and began hopping up the tree like monkeys) but it turns out, Mozambican kids are very handy with machetes. Here, using a machete is like a life skill.
As two children hacked away at my tree, I had another drag the fallen branches into the trash pit, one sweep my yard and veranda, and the remaining three kids “dog-proof” the wire around my garden because Xima and Mel are getting big enough to leap over it. For several hours of work, I paid each child two pieces of candy and we all retired happily.
In Mozambique, any adult can “mandar” (order) any child to do something. For example, it’s common for my empregada to mandar her grandkids to cart water for me and sweep my yard instead of doing it herself. At first, I was uncomfortable with mandar-ing the neighborhood children to run errands for me but I have since gotten over it. Now after drawing, my four Art Club boys always ask if I have work for them to do. I usually say no, but there are times in which I feel particularly lazy so I’ll send them to buy things at the nearby loja, or see if my site mates are home, or pick up trash in my yard, or chase away other kids stealing my sugar cane, or even wash my jeans (which, by the way, are a huge pain to hand wash). Most of the time, these kids just don’t have anything productive to do.
The benefit of my mandar-ing is the universal children’s bribe: CANDY. While kids will follow orders regardless, I always make sure to thank them and to give them a couple pieces of candy after they finish (which Mozambican adults usually don’t do). The result is an endless supply of little hands to help with my chores and a wonderfully functional working relationship. Sometimes other Peace Corps volunteers, even ones I haven’t seen in a while, will say to me, “I heard you’re really good at mandar-ing kids” and I just shrug because, well, what can I say?
I got one quiet, beautiful night of tree branch-less sleep before I left the next day with Jess for Vilanculos, a popular beach city in Inhambane province. It was our first time north of Gaza Province. The trip took 10 hours and four chapa/bus transfers. We arrived right as it was getting dark, and met up with other volunteers at Baobab’s backpackers hostel.
The occasion? The annual PCV Beer Olympics… Something only a group of young Americans would ever think of. The teams were divided by region: North, South, and Central. The events included an Opening Ceremony with the lighting of a torch, which was accidentally dropped by the bearer. Each event (Shotgunning contest, Flip Cup, Dizzy Bat, and Smash Ball) gave each team the opportunity to win points. However, if anyone passed out with their shoes on, someone else could draw on their face and win points for his/her team. As you can tell, PCV’s are a very mature group of individuals. Last year, the trophy (a monkey carved out of a coconut shell, with a penis and a giant beer bottle on its head) went to Central but this year it was won by the South.
I can’t say I was very into the whole concept of Beer Olympics, as I ended up missing the first three events while I was out shopping and exploring the Vilanculos market with Jess and my good friend Helen, but it was a good excuse to leave Gaza, hang out at the beach, and see all the other volunteers. All in all, 47 volunteers showed up for Beer Olympics, which is over 1/3 of all volunteers in country!
On Sunday, most of the volunteers began heading back to site. Jess and I, along with another volunteer Matt, stayed the night at our friend Drew’s so we could see a little more of Vilanculos before we made the long journey home. We walked along the beach at low tide (the water leaves shore almost further than the eye can see) for about 45 minutes to get to Drew’s site, which is outside of Vil but right next to the beach. We were all very impressed with what a nice house Drew has, fully furnished and with electricity, a shower, and running water.
As the tide was still low, the four of us swam out to the sand bar. Bodies of water can be very deceiving, appearing small or shallow when in fact they are much bigger and deeper. It had been a long time since I’d last swam, so the 15-minute swim against the current was super tiring. Right as we were heading back, a boat approached us and two South Africans offered us a ride, which I gladly accepted for all of us because the tide was coming in. When we got to shore, another group of South Africans was standing around watching. “It’s a good thing they went and got you guys, or you would have been in big trouble!” They said as if we had all been drowning. We rolled our eyes and thanked them and left the beach.
Dinner was at a quaint little restaurant called Casa Guci’s. Jess and I ordered some wine, a seafood platter, and lasagna. The food was okay but overpriced, but it turned out that the waitress messed up on our bill and we ended up paying significantly less than we were supposed to.
The trip back to Chibuto the next day was, of course, lengthy, but entirely successful because we boleia-ed the whole 700 km in 8 hours. Boleias are the preferred way to travel because they are much more comfortable than chapas, usually much faster, and free. Hitchhiking in the States is considered dangerous, but the culture of boleia here makes it actually safer to travel in the private car of a stranger. Whereas chapas are way overcrowded and sometimes take the form of the back of a pickup truck, the people who stop to pick up others are often sympathetic and driving nice cars. As a foreigner, it’s much easier to get a ride because people (Mozambicans, South Africans, and other foreigners) wonder a) who I am b) what I’m doing in Mozambique and c) why I don’t have a car. All you have to do is stand on the side of the road, in the direction you are going, and flag down cars by extending your hand and forefinger.
There are a lot of techniques and theories floating around as to how to get a boleia. I am personally convinced that boleia-ing is easier for girls, because I usually never have a problem and I’ve noticed that most of the people who stop to pick me up are male. However, Matt disagreed because he also never seems to find it difficult to find a boleia either. On the other hand, his site is more “mato (way in the middle of nowhere) and he is the only white person for miles around.
While some volunteers never ask for boleias, others are seasoned pros. Funny tips on boleia-ing I’ve heard include: look visibly and dramatically sad if cars pass by without stopping and sometimes they’ll reverse, ask for boleias at gas stations when people are filling up their cars, guilt people into letting you ride with them by telling them “I work for your country,” etc.
Me and Matt’s discussion of boleias led us to consider the idea of an experiment to collect statistics on who gets the most boleias, what times of the day boleias are easiest to get, and where to get these boleias. This, of course, is impossible because every volunteer’s experience varies so widely throughout Mozambican and would require country-wide participation, as well as an experimental control.
We could only conclude that boleia-ing is easiest for volunteers that appear “different” from the native population (African-Americans are usually mistaken for Mozambicans and therefore lose out on the boleias from foreigners and South Africans). Boleias are more difficult to find on Sundays and on holidays because fewer cars are out on the road, and on Mondays because although there is a lot of traffic passing by, cars are usually full. Boleia-ing, like mandar-ing is an art, and I plan on perfecting both during my two years in Moz.
PS. Updated wish list:
Pesto (instant, or in a jar)
Hollandaise sauce mix
Easy dress patterns
Yummy snacks – Still good on Goldfish for a while, but Cheezits welcome
Pretzels… honey pretzels preferred
Bleu cheese dressing
Ground coffee
Fruity teas
Dog flea medication
Dog treats
Old magazines (for the kids to make collages)
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