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.