Not in Kansas anymore

It's been hands down the craziest week of my Peace Corps experience, and I think that's saying something.

PART I: THE STORM
Tropical storm Dando bore down on the coast of Mozambique on Monday, wreaking havoc and destruction in the provinces of Maputo, Gaza, and Inhambane. I woke up to a text from the Peace Corps Safety and Security officer, warning us of heavy wind and rain, and reminding us to lock windows and doors and "secure any flying objects in the yard." I found this rather funny until several hours later, as the wind threatened to tear off my roof and bring trees crashing over my head, it suddenly didn't seem so funny anymore. In my 15 months+ in Mozambique, I've experienced rainy season... But not like this. I felt like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz and wondered if my shaking house might be pulled up entirely by its roots.
The rain was slanted almost horizontal by the wind, coming down from unusual directions and angles. I had to put out two basins to catch water leaking from the roof. My front veranda was soaked, so for the first time in many months I let my whining wet dogs inside. It was nice to have their company later in the evening though when the power didn't come back on and I could hear rats, also driven inside by the weather, scuttling around in my kitchen. I slept with a candle lit most of the evening.
In the morning, the rain had subsided but I found the two basins almost full of water. My neighbor's kitchen had not fared so well. The roof had come off and the cement fortifying the reed had crumbled. All over Chicumbane, trees and branches had fallen. The avocado tree in the yard had surrendered all 40 or so of its fist-sized, not yet ripened avocados. The mango trees were similarly bare. The power didn't come back at my house for over three days.
On the second night, afraid of the pitch black and the rats, I locked myself in my bedroom, only to discover one of the rats residing there with me. It kept scurrying around the room and trying to climb the window behind my bed (right next to my head), so I slept with a flashlight in one hand and a tinfoil roll in the other (This wouldn't be the first time I've beaten a rat to death in Mozambique) It was, however, too quick for me and I got up in the morning deprived of sleep and defeated by a tiny rodent.
On the third day, I sent my empregada in search of charcoal to cook with, as I had run out of food for the dogs. She was sweet enough to cook me two eggs as well, because I hadn't had a hot meal in days.
My phone had run out of battery completely, so when Peace Corps tried to call to check in with me, they were unable to reach me. Fortunately, I was with my counterpart Sam when they called him next, and I was able to assure them that nothing terrible had happened.
The final night before electricity returned, I discovered a nest of squeaking baby rats in one of my kitchen cupboards, each one of which was about an inch long, bald and disgustingly gummy, like some kind of grotesque plastic toy you'd put a quarter into a gumball machine for. I swept them outside for my dogs to eat.
When the power finally came back on, I could feel the electric current running through my walls in the form of little shocks every time I touched or leaned against them. The next day, my neighbors ran over to tell me that my electrical wires were burning. When I went outside, I could see that indeed, the wires above my house were smoking. I called my landlord, who called the electricians, who never showed up. Having dealt with the Chicumbane electricians before, I wasted no time in also calling my friend Calvino, who is just as knowledgeable and far more dependable. He came over with a group of boys and they set about cutting and rearranging the electricity lines while standing on my roof. Their work also included having to trim down some overgrown tree branches in the way of the lines, which they hacked down with a machete. (Note: This is the equivalent of calling your neighbor during a power outage, and having him come over with rubber gloves, a pair of pliers, a machete, and flip flops, and mess around with a power line. Only in Mozambique.)
Furthermore, Saturday, the day before all of Moz15 was supposed to travel to our Midservice conference, the road to Maputo flooded. I repeat: the ONE route to the national capitol became completely impassable. Which leads to...

PART II: THE RESCUE

The conference was to begin Monday. Most volunteers were flown to Maputo on Sunday while we, the Gaza volunteers, were expected to travel overland. With the National Highway washed out, we were suddenly faced with a big dilemma: How to get to Maputo?
Peace Corps came up with an emergency plan. On Sunday, all 10 or so of us were consolidated at two provincial points: Xai Xai and Macia, and Peace Corps sent three cars into the great Mozambican wilderness to try to reach us by alternative route. (Note: There is no established alternate route. Basically, the drivers went off-roading for over six hours in "bush country.") My group met at KFC in Xai Xai to take advantage of the air conditioning and wait for the car to show up. By 5pm, our hopes had been ignited and doused several times. We received sporadic communication from Peace Corps but no confirmation one way or another. One text message we received from one of the drivers said: "Dear volunteers, please hold on. We are still fighting to get to you. It is not easy but we are fighting." The whole situation seemed surreal, straight out of an action movie. We joked about how ironic it was that we, the closest volunteers to Maputo, were suddenly stranded with no way of getting out and had to be rescured.
As we waited and waited, the other five volunteers and I began discussing alternate ways for us to get to Midservice (including raft, boat, airplane, and helicopter... although our ideas became more and more outlandish as time progressed) and taking bets on what time the car would arrive. Finally, we got another text from the drivers: "Mission Impossible 4 has become impossible." The final attempt to reach us had culminated in the car driving into a forest. We went home incredibly disappointed.
The next day we received new instructions: Get to the train station in Chowke. And off we went, on Mission Get To Maputo day 2. Getting to Chokwe took 2 hours, and then another 5 hours before the train actually arrived. We hung out in front of the ticket counter waiting for it to open, and succeeded in buying our tickets. When the train arrived, however, it was madness. All hell broke loose as people rushed to climb aboard. We had to fight out way on with our big bags, elbowing and jostling other people and getting elbowed and jostled ourselves. Half the people on board had seats, the other half had to stand. A good majority didn't even have tickets- but the fine is only twice the price of a ticket, and still barely more than a regular chapa fare.. well worth it to get to Maputo during a time in which 12 kilometers of cars are backed up at the flood area, and people are sleeping on the side of the road waiting for an illegal boat or for the bridge to be fixed.
The train ride itself has taken about four hours, and we're still not there yet (as of 7pm Jan 23) but we should, finally finally finally, be getting to our destination soon.

PART III: THE CYCLONE

Cyclone Funso, currently in the central regions of Mozambique, is expected to head down South this week. As if our region hasn't been battered enough, we're going to deal with another crazy ridiculous storm that may not spare my house this time. As it stands, I expect to be stuck in Maputo for quite a while.
To be continued...

Summer thievery

Ah, summer. That time of year in Africa when the heat drags you out of bed at 8am (why did you sleep in so late anyway, you lazyass? Oh, probably because you got up to turn on and off the fan about five times throughout the night, waking up alternately sweating and shivering), makes you want to lay down on the cool cement floor in the afternoon despite the sand and the ants, leads you to take multiple cold baths a day, brings overripe mangoes crashing down onto your tin roof with a gunshot bang Ah, summer. Only a few more sweaty months to go.

This morning, I cracked open my morning egg only to have something solid plop into the skillet. It was white and I didn't look at it too closely because it would have discouraged me from still eating the egg. (Why waste a perfectly good egg?) I scooped out the fetus with a spoon and deposited it into my dog's food bowl, and went right back to making my scrambled eggs. (By the way, I should add that while I was cracking the egg over the pan, the pan was not sitting on my stove. It was on my kitchen counter because I've learned that otherwise, I'll get a nasty electric shock from my stove. Apparently, eggs conduct electricity. Every time I touch a pan on my stove, it's with wooden chopsticks or a thick cloth. So ghetto.)

After my eggs and coffee, I decided to cut open a big green mango that had been sitting in my kitchen for a few days. It was a beautiful golden yellow inside, except for a little part near the top that was bruised and a little brown. Whatever. It was sweet and delicious. (The maggots squirming their way out of the brown portion seemed to think so too.) I cut around them and finished the rest of the mango, despite the fact that the small holes here and there hinted that my little wormy friends didn't only reside in the brown part....

No big deal. I'm a Peace Corps volunteer, right? Just as I was sitting down to write this blog, I happened to notice to the left of my bed, the wall was entirely covered with ants. Covered. With. Ants. Grabbed my can of Baygon and went to town, waited til the plink plink plink of ants raining down stopped, and then swept out the pile of ant corpses. I don't find these things horrifying as I do irritating. "Seriously?" I said to the maggoty mango. "You've got to be kidding me," I told the mass ants.

Okay, so things like that don't bother me anymore. What does get me worked up is when I let neighborhood kids color at my front door, and they repay me by reaching in my windows and stealing stuff from inside my house. Yeah.

Earlier this week, I happened to notice that one of my "artwork displays" in the window was missing, a painting that I did of an American flag and a Mozambican flag. I asked all the children, who I have recently been making tissue paper window star and rosettes with, and narrowed it down to two suspects, two neighbor boys I was already not a fan of. These are two 6 year old boys who can barely speak Portuguese, come at 6am to ask to color even when my front door is still closed, and call my name through every window in the house when I don't answer. They climb up my mango tree to take the big mangoes that aren't even ripe, and when I yell at them to stop, they wait until I go back inside my house and try to sneak up the tree again.

So I'm not surprised everyone is saying they took my drawing. In fact, when I ask them, each of them blames the other. I tell them that until I get my drawing back, they aren't welcome to come color at my house. The next day, they're waiting outside my house when I come home. I'm on the phone but it doesn't stop them from interrupting my conversation to say, "Mana Vivienne, estamos a pedir pintar." We're asking to color.
Are you serious? I snap at them that they can't color until they return my drawing. In faulty Portuguese, they tell me that their friend already tore it up. So... they stole my drawing and then ripped it up. That makes a lot of sense. Then they ask to color again. I slam the door in their faces.

When I go talk to the moms, of course, they don't really do anything. "It's just a drawing?" They say, and I can tell they're baffled that I'm so upset. But I'm not really mad over the fact that their kids took a piece of paper, I'm mad that these brats that I let hang out at my house are taking things – anything- of mine without permission. "Okay, we'll talk to them about it" they say unconvincingly, making me feel like a jerk. "Oh, kids will be kids," they sigh, as if thievery is inevitably ingrained in every child. I'm super frustrated.

I get a knock on my door a little bit later, and it's the sister of one of the boys with two pieces of blank white paper in her hands. "I'd like to apologize on my behalf of my brother," she says, holding out the paper. The kid won't even come apologize himself. I tell her to take the paper home, it's not about the paper, I have plenty of paper in my house.

I can ignore chicken babies that fall out of my eggs. I can eat mangoes full of maggots. I can destroy an army of ants. But I can't discipline someone else's kids. (I'm pretty sure my puppy has better manners.) When it comes to that, I can't do a single damn thing.. except withhold the coloring supplies.

Estamos juntos

I apologize for not having updated in a few weeks. Things have been hectic, what with the holidays, my trip to Taiwan, and the tragic accident involving 5 of my Peace Corps colleagues and friends. When I sit down to write, I’m overwhelmed by all the words and sentiment swirling around inside me.
As many of you know, on Dec 20, 2011 two volunteers were killed in a car accident in Macia, a town just 50k away from me. Three volunteers, one from my group Moz15, survived and are still in the recovery phase.
Despite the fact that the Moz17 volunteers had just arrived at site, I considered all of them friends and I felt tied to them in a special way. Alden was the closest volunteer in proximity to me, in Chissano. Mary and Lena had just replaced my old sitemates Erica and Alycia in Chibuto. I was so looking forward to getting to know them better in the coming months. Indeed, I had just gone to the beach with that same group several days before and we’d all been laughing and joking and swimming in the Indian Ocean together. How could something like this happen? It seems almost unreal.
Yesterday, Jan 8, I attended the final memorial service for Lena and Alden in Maputo. (I was unable to attend the previous services throughout the country because I was in Taiwan.) The service was held at the Ambassador’s house on a hot sunny day. All Moz 17ers were present, as were several members of Moz 14, 15, and 16, and many other RPCV’s. It was a beautiful ceremony filled with laughter and tears and I like to think that Lena and Alden were probably smiling down on us from heaven, seeing how their deaths have united our Peace Corps family in the last couple of weeks.
Life’s short. Live it fully. As we often say here, “Estamos juntos.” We are together.