Sisterhood of the Traveling Husband

On Saturday I went with Yoko to a party that took place in a bairro of Chibuto called Samora Machele. I’d never been in that area before, but it’s where Yoko works. She’s pretty well known in that community because she passes by so many houses on the 45-minute walk to and from work and, though she won’t admit it, she’s really good at speaking Changana.
Samora Machele is a bit more rural than my neighborhood, Setenta Casas (70 Houses aka the suburbia of Chimundo). Most of the homes in Samora Machele are made of caniço and fewer people speak Portuguese. Polygamy is also very common.
The party was held in honor of two young widows who had shared the same husband. On this day, one year after his death, they were to shed their black clothes and exit the period of mourning.
The party took all day, as is typical of all Mozambican events, with whole lot of waiting around in between proceedings. The widows had gone to the cemetery in the morning to pay their respects and were returning just as the guests arrived. (Of course, everyone was several hours late, but that’s just Mozambican schedule for ya.) In the meantime, I was watching a group of men carve up the meat of a giant cow that had been slaughtered the night before. I was impressed at how much meat there was, and also very thankful that I’ll never be expected to prepare beef like that, as handling raw meat is just not my cup of tea.
The ceremony began with a quick Mass-like service in which everyone crowded inside the house and sang church songs, before moving outside to sit under the shade of a tree. One common practice I’ve noticed at all Mozambican gatherings I’ve been to, is that women usually sit on straw mats on the ground while men always sit in chairs. Women prepare all the food, but men are served first. Men drink excessive amounts of beer and cheap red wine, but women are typically only served soft drinks. This traditional event was no exception- when we arrived to the party at 10am, many of the men seemed already drunk. Yoko and I sat on straw mats with the other women while a few men preached and gave lengthy speeches in Changana. It reminded me very much of the church services I attended in Namaacha, especially when people started getting up and lining up at the front to offer their presents to the two widows, because they did so in groups while singing.
Meanwhile, the widows sat with their heads bowed and eyes lowered, wearing matching capulanas and looking extremely solemn. If I were to guess, I would have suspected they were at a funeral instead of their “welcome back to normal life” party. I suppose it’s because, like posing for photos, Mozambicans want to express that they are taking the occasion seriously, by putting on their somber faces. Birthday and wedding photos also tend to show Mozambicans looking very gravely at the camera, which seems contradictory in our culture because we consider these such festive events. I was also shocked to see how young the widows are. Yoko told me that they’re my age, in their early or mid 20’s, and the husband was only 24 as well. If Mozambique received as much money for improving roads as they do for HIV/AIDS work, a lot of car accidents and deaths would be prevented.
At this point of the party, everyone took turns presenting their gifts (mostly beautifully colored capulanas) to the girls, who did not look up even once. The gifter would place the capulana around the shoulders of each widow, and a relative on either side would then remove the capulana and fold it up and the next person would go. If the gift was a lenço (and often they came as matching sets), which is a handkerchief-sized piece of capulana that women wrap their head up in, the gifter would place the lenço either folded or unfolded on top of the widow’s head. I thought it was slightly amusing because as the ceremony proceeded and people became less attentive about carefully cloaking the widows in capulanas and lenços, the cloths were practically getting tossed onto the girls and then instantly snatched away by the relatives collecting. Additional gifts included party donations such as crates of soda, ceramic plates and mugs, and a comforter set.
In American culture, it can be rude or awkward to open up gifts in front of everyone. Here, that is definitely not the case. (In Namaacha, I once went to a party with my host family in which our present was some money in an envelope. At my host mom’s urging, I presented the envelope to the host who promptly ripped it open and held up the money for the party to see. I felt rather awkward about it but I could see that they didn’t.)
At the end of this gift-giving session, the relatives tallied up all the gifts and called out the final count. Each widow had received 35 capulanas!! I’m sure I have mentioned, I absolutely love capulanas. I didn’t even hear the rest of the gift count. 35 capulanas!! was what I was thinking. That’s a whole new wardrobe here.
When I met the widows after the ceremony, I was surprised that they talked with me normally considering they seemed so melancholy throughout the thing. “You’re very pretty,” One of them said. “I want to be your friend.” Awesome. They invited me to sit down with them to eat so I did. We had a ton of rice, xima, meat, and beans and it was all very delicious. Afterwards, it was time for tea but it was about 3:30pm by then so Yoko and I bid everyone goodbye and caught a chapa back home. As we left, the widows clutched my hand and demanded, “When will we see you next?” which is always a bit awkward because the answer “I’ll see you when I see you” is apparently not good enough. I mumbled something about “next week” and they seemed satisfied and let me go.
I still can’t really wrap my mind around the whole polygamy thing. It just seems so… foreign and forbidden in our culture. (To be honest, I think I tend to associate it with religious cults.) First of all, sharing my husband with other women sounds absolutely terrible and a recipe for jealous disaster. Here, when men have several wives or lovers, their second is called “Casa Dois” (House #2) and their third “Casa Tres” (House #3), etc. However, I was surprised to see that Casa Um and Casa Dois seemed to get along really well, to be best friends even. They sat together even after the ceremony, whispered to each other, questioned me about America and if I’m single, served each other food.
Yoko tells me that another of her other married coworkers is always insisting, “You should marry my husband.” (Ever heard that one??) So I’m left wondering, what is it like for young women growing up here in this culture? I mean, in America little girls share best friend necklaces but here? Do they grow up wanting to share a husband? I’m half kidding, but the point is, it’s different. There’s no assurance that the one you marry will only be married to you.
I wanted to ask if women are legally or socially allowed to have several husbands. The gender inequality is such that women have to wear black and not take on another lover for one year after their husband’s death but I can’t imagine that it’s the other way around.
I’ve also heard that women wearing black actually attract men like magnets because in this culture it’s such a negative thing to be “alone.” So while technically the widow is not allowed to date or have sexual relations with anyone for a year, this may not be the case.
A lot of Mozambican men work in the mines in South Africa so there is a large population of migrant workers. When, for example, a man has two wives back home and yet another lover while he’s away, this whole Multiple Concurrent Partnership thing is just seething with potential for...well, complications, to say the least.

A dog eat dog world

There are few things more disheartening than coming home from a weeklong conference only to find a giant hole in your backyard fence and your beautiful garden completely destroyed. Half the plant beds are dug up, toys are scattered about, paw prints lead in and out of the enclosed area. The surviving plants are all trampled and sickly, except for the tomato plants that miraculously escaped the massacre and have grown into a jungle in your absence. Oh, and the one basil plant that you have managed to cultivate in the past two months. At least that’s still standing.
All the evidence points to your puppies who, of course, are really no longer puppies, as witnessed by the fact that they can easily leap over the chicken wire you put up to guard the plants. But the moment you glare menacingly at them, they roll over onto their backs with a guilty look that could melt ice. “Sorry mommy,” they whine while pathetically wagging their tails. And the moment you turn your back they shoot out of the backyard like rockets, leaving you to patch up the caniço fence.

So yeah… that was my welcome home. Fortunately, everything else was still intact. Whenever I am away from my house I worry about my things getting stolen, rain leaking inside, when really I should be worried about all the damage my bored dogs will do.
But being home is nice. It rained all day the day after I got back, so I busted out my sweatpants for the first time since being in Africa and worked on my semi-annual Volunteer Report Form (VRF) while drinking tea. It made me nostalgic for coffee shops and my college paper-writing days.
In the evening I went over to Yoko, the Japanese volunteer’s, house and she taught me how to use her sewing machine, which was actually really fun. We are currently making a capulana dress together, with the additional help of a dress pattern. (After coming back from Maputo with two capulana dresses and a capulana purse, I’m beginning to think I have a problem. To curb my spending, I am going to attempt to make my own capulana clothes… But we’ll see how that goes.)
During dinner, which consisted of a delicious Japanese dish made of pork, cabbage, and okra, Yoko and I talked about some of the differences between Peace Corps and JICA. She asked me if Peace Corps has a good reputation in the States and I said oh yes; it’s a very well known and respected program throughout the country. I told her returned volunteers have a lot to boost their resume with and can receive grad school credit for their service. She explained to me that in Japan, JICA does not have a great reputation and that a common criticism of it is that young people go abroad to just waste time and dick around when they can’t find real jobs back home (and it’s actually HARDER for them to find jobs when they go back!). Also, JICA volunteers, like Peace Corps volunteers, receive a monthly living allowance from the government; critics of JICA say that the money could be better spent elsewhere. After the earthquake disaster and resulting chaos, JICA volunteers were essentially prohibited from keeping a blog because the government was afraid of further backlash against JICA.
All of this is extremely interesting to me because I couldn’t imagine serving here for two years without the unanimous support I have received from family, friends, and even strangers. In fact, before I left I never heard a single word of discouragement when I said I wanted to join Peace Corps. (Well, except for one girl I met in Vegas who told me her brother had served in the Peace Corps in Mozambique and then said, “When I went to visit him I stayed at the beach resorts, and those are pretty nice, but most places in Mozambique don’t have air conditioning or electricity or anything. You are going to want to kill yourself. There is like nothing there.”)
The spirit of volunteerism is very much nurtured and encouraged in American culture, but this is not the case in all countries. A third world country like Mozambique, for example, is often on the receiving end of volunteer and funding services, a “donor dependent country,” if you will. They have been receiving foreign aid for so long that it’s become ingrained in many of the systems that run the country. Organizations, my little escolinha included, would collapse without the help of outside money because there isn’t much set up for sustainability. When I first arrived at site, I asked Erica and Alycia’s empregada what she thought of Americans in general. She responded, “I think it’s good that you guys come and give us employment.” I asked her what would happen if one day Peace Corps volunteers were no longer sent to Chimundo. She said she didn’t know… And then she said, half jokingly, “I’d probably starve.”
Volunteerism itself is somewhat of a strange concept to Mozambicans. Even when I explain that I am a volunteer, people still comment, “You must make a lot of money.” When I tell them that no, I receive just enough to live on, they insist, “But you’ll get a lot of money when you go back to America, right?” It’s quite a challenge to overcome these preconceptions.
---
Erica and Alycia are still in Maputo until Wednesday so my aggregate number of mouths to feed (excluding my own) is currently totaling SEVEN: five dogs and two cats. I may have forgotten to mention that Erica and Alycia have been housing a new dog, a shiny black puppy named Mulandi (which means “black person” in Changana). Mulandi is actually extremely wary of humans and has not even warmed up to my, or Erica and Alycia’s presence, although she has somewhat gotten used to us. It’s an interesting situation because E/A have attempted to give her away several times, but she always finds her way back to their house.
I mentioned before that both our households have sort of a reputation for adopting unwanted puppies in the neighborhood. (It’s how I ended up with XimaXima, and how E/A got their dog Bop.) But I’m not sure that I’ve really explained Mozambicans’ attitudes towards dogs, or animals in general.
A few months ago, the neighborhood children showed up with three adorable puppies from the same litter and asked us to take care of them, which we refused. I was very adamant about not letting any of them enter my house or eat my dogs’ food, but E/A did not take the same preventative measures and eventually all three pups ended up living in their veranda. Meanwhile, we would occasionally take them back to their rightful families and ask the parents to please take care of their own dogs, but to no avail. The dogs would follow us right back to Erica/ Alycia’s. Our next tactic, after this went on for a few weeks, was to try to give the dogs away to our friends and acquaintances in other communities. I successfully gave one to a shop owner in Chibuto, and the other two were supposedly to be picked up the following day by someone else. When the next morning arrived, the puppies were nowhere to be found, and they did not return the following day.
What we found out later, was that a neighbor had taken the two puppies and killed them because they had been eating her chickens. We were horrified. How could someone kill two innocent puppies? And without saying anything to us? They would have been placed in good homes if she had only waited another day. And besides, they wouldn’t have had to eat chickens had they been getting fed by their owners.
The child who we heard this from, the “owner” of one of the murdered puppies, told it to us as if he were commenting on the weather, matter-of-factly and without reaction. The neighbor had asked him to pay for the chickens his dog had eaten. He, being just a child, was unable to do so and thus gave the woman permission to take his dog and get rid of it. It’s a sad, sad story. Any American child would cry endlessly about losing a pet. But here, that’s just life. Animals are kept to serve a purpose, be it to provide milk or food, to chase away rodents, or to guard the house.

Reconnected

April 12, 2011

Hello from Maputo! I am currently at Reconnect conference with the other 22 MOZ15 Health volunteers. We are staying at Kaya Kwanga, the hotel where we spent our very first week in Mozambique. Last time we were confined within the hotel due to our lack of language skills, so it wasn’t until Jess and I arrived this Sunday that I realized that Kaya Kwanga is right next to the beach! I can’t believe that escaped my notice last time.

Then again, my first memories in Mozambique were kind of a blur. As Jess and I traveled through the city this weekend, we talked about all the things we missed the first time around: murals, statues, significant buildings and landmarks. With the help of a basic tourist map, I’m finally beginning to feel somewhat oriented in the big city.

Jess and I had an overall great Sunday together. We left Chibuto at 6am and got into Maputo at 9:30am, making good time and beating the Sunday traffic. We checked into the hotel, found out we were the first ones of MOZ 15 to arrive, and promptly left on a search for Thai food. The restaurant was closed, so we settled for pizza and hamburgers (YUM). Afterwards, we visited the Craft Fair, which was both amazing and dangerous …for someone who likes to shop. The government has set aside this park for all the street vendors and artisans to sell their wares, so once you walk in you’re greeted by rows and rows of flashy boutiks and paintings, colorful capulana clothes and bags, and intricate wood carvings and jewelry. It’s a little overwhelming because while there’s so much to look at, many of the vendors are selling the same (or similar) things. I bought two small boutiks, a beautiful (and expensive) floor-length capulana dress, and some wood earrings/ accessories.

Afterwards, Jess and I walked along the Marginal (the path parallel to the beach) and checked out even more capulana wares on the side of the road. I bought a coconut for 15 mets (approx. 50 cents) and drank the juice through a straw. Then the kid who was selling them hacked open the coconut with a machete and I sat on the beach eating the white coconut flesh inside. Tough life.

Seeing all the other volunteers after four months, was of course very exciting. There was a lot of hugging and exclaims of “How ARE you?? How is site?” Together we reminisced about our previous experience at Kaya Kwanga, and oohed and aahed over the buffets of food set before us as if we haven’t had a full meal in months. (Being at an all-expenses paid for conference means three meals a day plus two teatime/snacks!)

The conference itself, not so thrilling. To transition from life at site, to 8am-5:30pm days full of Peace Corps policy, Monitoring & Evaluation, Volunteer Report Forms… Exhausting. But I won’t go into the boring stuff.

The second night, we all got to attend the Peace Corps 50th Anniversary celebration at the Ambassador’s house. We dressed up and took a private chapa (not quite a limo, but hey!) to her beautiful house, mingled, listened to several speeches, and took advantage of the free wine. (I personally love white wine, which is hard to find in Mozambique and even harder to find chilled.) I had three glasses but several of my rowdier peers were guzzling theirs down like water. I know of at least one volunteer who had 8 or 9 glasses. As poor Peace Corps volunteers in the company of wealthy ex-pats, we were also the only ones crowding around the appetizer plates being passed around, unabashedly taking two or three vegetable skewers or carne asada bites at a time. Very classy.

A few days into the conference, Peace Corps discovered that they were being charged money for the Internet that we were using in the conference room, so they cut that off really quick, without giving us advance notice. Many of us had set Skype dates with friends and family back home and were forced to scramble throughout the hotel looking for a connection. The network closest to my room works only on the other side of the building, so I have spent my past couple mornings and evenings outside with my computer. I get eaten alive by mosquitoes (Maputo has a LOT) but it’s worth it to chat.

We were told that Peace Corps funding has been on a slippery slope lately, so I guess for future conferences I can look forward to more sagging bunk beds, 4 to a room, and sitting outside on the ground to use the web.

Six months

I’m 6 months into this and I can barely believe it. Some days it feels like I’ve been here in Mozambique, in Africa, forever. I wake up to the crowing of roosters or neighbors blaring loud Mozambican reggaton-like music, I get shoved into a 30-person chapa that was meant to hold less than 20, goats and chickens cross my path even in the marketplace, that’s all normal. America seems like a dream… something about shiny cars speeding on paved highways and gleaming porcelain toilet bowls that flush themselves at the push of a button.
Other days, it seems like I just got here. I’m still a stranger; I always will be. The day after Kevin left, I went to the Chibuto market to buy groceries, and there I was hounded by calls of “Ching chang chong!” and “Chinesa! Japonesa!” until I almost lost it and confronted some unlucky Mozambican man. I decided it wouldn’t be worth it after all; my Portuguese falters when I’m upset and Mozambicans don’t understand sarcasm anyway. Yes, there are definitely days when 21 more months of this seems impossible and my mind whines to me, “Are we going hoooome yet?”
Six months in is a solid stretch of time though, a milestone if you will. So now I’d like to stop and reflect on my time here so far, keeping in mind the three bullet points of The Peace Corps Mission:
Helping the people of interested countries in meeting their need for trained men and women
Helping to promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of peoples served
Helping to promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans

Number One: Helping the people of interested countries in meeting their need for trained men and women.

In the past month, my interest in the escolinha began to wane immensely. Part of this was because Kevin was here and I would have chosen, hands down, to spend time with him rather than sing silly children’s songs with toddlers all morning. The other reason was because… well, all I really do at the escolinha IS sing silly children’s songs with toddlers all morning. Hardly edifying, all day every day. (Now, I’m not saying that working with children isn’t rewarding- it certainly is. Friday, for example, I gave my usual weekly English lesson, half expecting the kids to lose interest in two seconds. Some did, of course- Having gotten to know and observe them every day, I suspect a few of them have ADD or ADHD or other learning and behavioral disorders, none of which would ever be diagnosed here. “When I say ‘Good morning students,’” I said, referring to what I taught them in a previous lesson, “What do you say?” It was a stretch; I expected them to have completely forgotten. After a silence, one boy said very quietly, “Good morning teacher.” … Except they always pronounce it as “Goo Mawning Teacha” which I find slightly comical. So there. Someone’s learning! I then taught them to greet one another (“Hello! Goodbye!”), and “Jump!” which they loved.)
Back to the point. As much as I love the escolinha kids, I didn’t expect to come all the way to Africa to play with children all day. During my first few months at site, I completed an organizational analysis that I meant to present to the escolinha before the Reconnect Conference (April 11-15 in Maputo). As time has progressed, and the escolinha has experienced some drastic changes in management, I have become discouraged from doing so. Irma Monica and her all-business attitude are doing some really good things for the escolinha and I respect her a lot, but to be honest I don’t think either of us really know what to do with each other. Irma Catarina, the previous escolinha director who has now been transferred, was the one who requested a Peace Corps volunteer. In my short time with her, she was very open to my questions and my presence. Irma Daulisa, my counterpart, was so excited to have me there but then she also was recently transferred.
I work now on a day-to-day basis with a woman named Angelica and the escolinha cook Amiselia (sp?). Irma Monica supervises all activities with a critical eye but is often busy with other things, making her not the most approachable person. The only time she asks anything of me, is when she wants something typed and printed. I find my place at the escolinha floating somewhere in the middle of the hierarchy: Irma Monica sees me as another employee that answers to her (but doesn’t scold me like the others), and Angelica and Amiselia work alongside me but treat me with a formal respect.
I am not integral to my organization’s daily functions, which is GOOD, but it also makes me wonder if they really need me. One success I have met, is getting roll call to be implemented in the daily schedule. For a while, I was the only one doing it and the days I was absent were obvious because on the sheet those days would be completely blank. Now, about 75% of the time, someone else takes care of it when I’m gone. It’s a small success, but hey. Small steps. Behavioral change is hard; you can’t just waltz into a country and expect everyone to drop their methods to accommodate what you think is right.
I am a health volunteer but I feel I have done very little measurable work in the health arena. The reason I was placed at this organization is because it supports Orphans and Vulnerable Children. I’ve taught the escolinha children a hand-washing song, which they are a fan of and we sing every morning. I’ve done a hand-washing activity using glitter, with the neighborhood kids. I’d still like to eventually partner with the Chibuto hospital to do some health palestras (classes) or such, but that takes a whole lot of initiative and I have on my hands a whole lot of laziness. The rest of the week after Kevin left, I locked myself in the house and watched episode after episode of “The Office” and read a book a day.
I’ve heard it said that it’s common for health volunteers to become quickly disillusioned or unmotivated. Unlike education volunteers, our work is often unstructured and depends heavily on the type of organization we are paired with. Beyond that, we are supposed to work within the community, promoting health and whatnot. But it’s not that easy. This is where community integration plays a big role. I guess this leads to…

Number Two: Helping to promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of peoples served

My first day in Chibuto, I left the house ready to conquer the community. I met a handful of people, spent time with them, conversed with them and ended the day glowing with optimism and a sense of accomplishment. Now, looking back on the past months, I see that I burned out of that rather quickly.
Sure, people know who I am. I’m one of only four mulungus (white people) in the community. I can’t walk from my house to Erica/Alycia’s house two streets over without at least a few people greeting me. “Boa tarde, Mana Vivienne!” (Good afternoon!) Even so, I haven’t managed to make any close friends in Mozambique. Er, I mean, I haven’t managed to make any close Mozambican friends. I sure do hang out with the other mulungus a lot. (One of the neighborhood kids asked me one day, “Mana Vivienne, why do you only like to play with the white people?”)
I see that as one of the definite weaknesses of my time spent here so far. It’s easier to hang out with those you are similar to. I am bound to Erica and Alycia because they are also American, also Peace Corps volunteers, and also speak English. I gravitate towards Yoko because although our only common language is Portuguese, we are both volunteers, both Asian, and both love learning languages. (By the way, learning Changana has been a flop. We successfully had two or three classes with Professor Raymundo over the course of four or five weeks- class getting canceled constantly- and then he stopped showing up altogether. Rather typical, actually. We haven’t figured out a game plan since.)
It just seems easier to hang out in the comfort zone. Erica and Alycia, both education volunteers, both Science professors, both blonde and laid back, spend all their free time together. They’re best friends and I envy them that. But as a health volunteer living alone, it’s hard to be exclusive AND not get lonely.
Well… but then there’s the constant heat. Then there’s the fact that I’m crabby and tired after work. Then sometimes I’m not feeling well. Then there are the mosquitoes in the evening. Excuses keep me inside more often than not. (Wait, don’t judge me. You REALLY don’t know how hot it gets here. And the electricity has been going out every single night for about a week.)
The month that Kevin was here, I practically ran home from work to be with him. I would scurry past the neighbors, hoping they wouldn’t see me because then they’d try to engage me in conversation. “Mana Vivienne,” the women would all say slyly, grinning like schoolgirls. “How’s your husband?” “Good!” I’d call back over my shoulder without breaking pace. “We’re good!”
At the end of the month the neighbors began to chide me, “You don’t come around to visit anymore!” I shrugged apologetically and told them I would. But then there was the heat, and then Kevin’s departure and then my depression at his absence, etc, etc. I don’t know when I would have made the time to go visit any of my neighbors had a group of them not called me over insistently yesterday as I was walking home from work.
“You don’t like to leave your house,” One woman observed. “Mana Vivienne, did you cry the day your husband left?” “Your husband is so strong,” Another woman said. “He likes to work. And to clean. He helps out a lot, doesn’t he?” I agreed proudly. “Who is going to wash clothes and dishes and sweep the house now that he’s gone?” I was a bit offended at that one. “Well, I am… Like I always have. I’ll be fine.”
It wasn’t until about the fourth casual reference to my helpful husband that I began to suspect they were either completely impressed by the fact that he does housework at all (unlike your typical Mozambican man) or else they were hinting that I was a bad housewife. It probably didn’t help, Kevin later mused on the phone, that whenever we did laundry, I would do the scrubbing inside the veranda while he would walk outside to hang up the wet clothes. The neighbors probably thought he was a clothes washing ninja master. I explained that in America, it’s not just women that do housework and men that go to work and bring home the bacon. Men cook and clean too… the good ones, that is.
Later on, another neighbor came up and greeted me in Changana. I responded hesitantly, uncomfortable with my extremely limited knowledge. All the women began nagging me to learn Changana. “Have Mana Yoko teach you,” they suggested. “Mana Yoko doesn’t know that much,” I responded, a little bit miffed. “Well, she knows how to say Good morning and greet people at least.” “I know how to do that too,” I said. They were all interested then. “Oh yeah? How do you say good morning?” they challenged me. “Li xile.” I replied and they all grinned at each other like Chesire cats. “Good afternoon.” “Ilhnikane.” (This is the hardeset one to pronounce) They broke out into hoots and cheers, even more so when I correctly translated Good night as “Le pelile.” So there I was, getting laughed at by a group of Mozambican women but it gave me a warm, fuzzy feeling inside. This is where I’m supposed to be, getting to know these women and letting them get to know me.
One of the women came by later to say hi, and she admired my little garden. “What are you planting?” she asked, and I pointed out the tomato and okra, but I’m pretty sure Mozambicans don’t know basil, parsley, and watermelon. I promised her I would make some American food with my harvest and bring it over to her to try. I think I’m going to make some brownies next week to bring over to all the neighbors. It’ll be the start of my renewed effort to get to know the community I live in.
(On a side note, I have spent a lot of time with my little Art Club. If anything, I have met some success with Goal number two, by hanging out and talking to these kids.)

Number Three: Helping to promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans.

I’d say, of all three Peace Corps Mission points, I’ve done this the best. I blog and post pictures regularly (you lucky dogs, you! ;P) and it’s nice to have a reason to write. Some days, (especially after I’ve just finished a good book) I think to myself that during these two years in Mozambique, I should write a novel. I certainly have the time. Just… not the topic. Blogging will have to do. One day, though, look for a published book by me; it’s one of my lifetime goals.
Not only have I conveyed some of my experiences in print via blog and facebook, I’ve convinced another American, Kevin, to come see this country for himself. I’m willing to bet good money that he never would have stepped foot in Mozambique, and maybe not even in Africa, had it not been for me. True, he would have followed me anywhere, but still.
While he was here, he was constantly asking questions about the things he observed. “Why do they do this?” “What is that?” “How do they…?” To the point I’d snap, “How should I know?” He stayed a full month and saw more than just the touristy aspect of Mozambique; he actually lived here with me, in my little bairro of Chimundo. Now that’s worth more than a thousand words. Or a hundred thousand. Or more.
I am hoping to convince my dad and my sister to come visit me this Christmas. Aside from that, my calendar’s free and my guest room is set up. Doesn’t anyone else want to come see Mozambique??

My updated wish list:
More pesto and sauce mixes
Caramel sauce
Dog flea drops
Dog treats
Ground coffee
Worcestershire sauce

Immeasurable Impact

These days with Kevin here I feel more relaxed and, in a strange way, even more at home in Chimundo. What I didn’t really realize before is that living alone, although it sometimes has its advantages, can still be stressful. No one to come home to, no one to make dinner with, no one to go shopping with, no one to talk to, no one to travel with, etc, etc. I often envy Erica and Alycia because they live together and they do everything together. As a female living alone, I worry about my safety, I get scared of the dark, I have to fend off sexual harassment everywhere I go, I have to do all the housework, I have to kill my own cockroaches…

So I was amazed to find how quickly Kev and I could settle back into routine. He’s such a flexible person, adapting to Mozambican life was really no problem. (It probably helped him to know that he’d only be here a month. Exasperating children? No running water? Overcrowded chapas? All minor annoyances that would be soon left behind...)

Because of Kev, I often find myself less occupied with household chores and more willing to talk to and play with the neighborhood kids that came by. (Not all of them, mind you, because some are still as annoying as ever.) But since Kev brought with him a bunch of toys and stuff for kids, I put together a box of art supplies to give the children who ask to sit and draw on the veranda. It’s something simple, but they love it because they don’t have their own sets of crayons, colored pencils, scratch paper. (That’s probably also why, even with the older kids, their drawings are crude and their coloring skills generally lacking.)

Slowly, over time, I have come to recognize the faces (less so, the names) of the many children who live in my neighborhood. I can more or less identify the kids who belong in the “bratty and destructive” category, as well as the kids who are in the “generally good and harmless” one.

What’s also happened is that I’ve ended up “adopting” a group of boys. Rosthilio, Vasco, and Alex are 11 years old kids who live nearby and who come by my house every day after school to draw and color. I let them in sit outside my back door and do their thing while I do mine. I affectionately call them my Art Club and they sometimes refer to me as their art teacher. Every day they ask me what I want them to draw that day and I’ll pick a topic such as “animals,” or “fruits,” or “school supplies.” I believe that giving them a general theme helps them think outside the box of their own minds, where they would normally just produce houses and cars and Mozambican flags and guns. They leave their drawings with me, and I already have a plan for them: at the end of my service, I will bind up all their individual drawings and make a little book for each of them.

The other day I handed them a mirror and told them to draw self-portraits. It was obvious that they rarely see their own faces because each kid spent a long time holding the mirror in front of his face and giggling and ducking his face away shyly. They, being typical children, laughed and poked fun at each others’ drawings, but all in good humor.

Usually I’ll spend some time sitting outside with them and talking to them or coloring with them. (I gave them each a Fred Flintstone coloring book and they color one or two pages a day before moving on to free drawing.) The boys ask me questions about America (“Mana Vivienne, I heard that in America, everyone has a swimming pool!”), ask me how to translate things in English (“Mana Vivienne, why do you call Kevin ‘Sweetie?’”), tell me about school (“Mana Vivienne, I have a math test next week. Will you give me practice problems?”). I try to be a good role model for them and teach them things because it’s obvious they need some adult guidance in their lives. Unlike the girls in the neighborhood, who come by less often because of their household chores, boys rarely have many responsibilities at home and play most of the day (a preview of their adult lives, too.)

I teach them how to play well with the dogs, instead of throwing rocks at them like a lot of the kids around here do. I praise their artwork and encourage them to practice drawing the things they’re not good at drawing. I make them jello sometimes, and let them try new things like lemonade. I tell them about life in America and explain that it’s not all golden, that they can’t expect free things in life without working for them.

One day, I asked the boys to help me with my garden. They helped me dig down into the super compacted sand, and then I sent them to buy some cow manure from a nearby corral. (It was supposed to be 5 mts for a bucket, and 10 for a wheelbarrow-full.) I didn’t have two buckets, or a wheelbarrow, so I sent the boys on two trips, to collect with one bucket and one medium-sized plastic basin. The boys came back at the end asking for more money to pay the guy, who was trying to charge 10 mts per basin, although each basin held the same amount as a bucket and certainly NOT the equivalent of a wheelbarrow. I walked back down to the corral, told the guy off, tossed 20 mts at him (5 for each container) as he shrank down in his chair and meekly agreed that I was right, and then went back home. As Vasco and Rosthilio followed after me with the last bucket of manure, laughing gleefully at my victory, I said to them, “Boys. I want to tell you something. In life, don’t let other people take advantage of you. If you know something is wrong, speak up and don’t just accept it.” They nodded with their usual quiet, “Sim, Mana Vivienne.” As children, they won’t speak up against their elders. It’s a cultural thing. But I hope that as they grow older, they’ll remember what I said.

As I’m entering into my 4th month at site, secondary projects are just now starting to appear on my radar. It might be too much to expect that all of them unfold the way I want them to, but I’m going to try my best to get involved in any and all that come my way. From the onset, I’ve been interested in either JOMA or REDES, youth organizations funded by PEPFAR. JOMA groups are for both boys and girls, while REDES groups are all female. JOMA is communications-based, and can focus on theatre, journalism, photo-journalism, etc. REDES is more about the empowerment of women, self-esteem building, etc. Both organizations would enable me to work with older youth, my area of interest.

My friend Castigo also recently approached me asking for help with his new male youth group and their ideas for income-generating projects (raising livestock). Helping him would probably entail a more business-development approach, but I imagine I could also become involved with other group activities. And in time, it could also become a JOMA-related group.

The main problem I’m facing right now is, not having the right connections to integrate into these groups. I don’t work at a secondary school, so I don’t know any of the kids. I don’t have a viable counterpart as of yet, say if I wanted to start my own group. I rarely leave Chimundo, which means my network of connections is minimal. I have heard of most of these possible projects from Erica who, 8 months from leaving Mozambique permanently, is reluctant to take on more heavy responsibilities and would rather pass them on to a newer volunteer.

I’m hoping that things don’t fall through, and I can get involved soon because I am impatient to start on something new. (And I have a secret fear of lagging in “progress,” compared to other MOZ15 volunteers.)

Work at the escolinha is going okay, although a bit tedious because well, working with children means constant repetition. We sing the same songs and do the same activities on a daily basis. I walk around my house singing children’s songs in Portuguese all day, to the point that Kevin can hum the tunes to some of them. (“Please don’t work at a preschool for the rest of your life,” he says.) My work repertoire consists of the following commands: Sit down! Don’t hit her. Be quiet! Come here! Don’t speak Changana! Eat your food. Share the toys!

It’s not difficult, but it certainly is draining. Some days it’s all I can do to not just grab my bag and run, screaming internally, as soon as 12pm rolls around. I work a half day, which is more than enough for me. I’m a volunteer, not a martyr or a full time babysitter. More often than not, I lie down and nap for a few hours right when I get home; the heat of the day makes it unpleasant to do much else.

In the last two weeks of Kevin’s visit we’ve made chocolate pudding, brownies with fudge sauce, beer battered onion rings, curried couscous, garlic bread, passion fruit vanilla cake. I’ll probably be losing weight as soon as I revert back to two and a half meals a day, with no dessert. On the other hand, I’ll be saving a ton of money by not buying so much BEER, or sodas, or well, everything. I forgot that leftovers rarely exist when there’s a healthy man to feed.

Of love and life in Africa

Tuesday, March 1 seemed like it would never come but it finally did, bringing along with it my long lost lover Kevin from America. I left Chibuto at 5 in the morning and arrived in Maputo at 10. Kev was supposed to get into Maputo at 11am but as luck would have it, his flight was delayed by several hours. I hung out at the Peace Corps office, eating brownies in honor of Peace Corps’ 50th anniversary, and out of boredom, left random notes in the mailboxes of other volunteers. At 1430, I took a taxi to the airport.
I am still astounded at how exorbitant the cost of transportation is in Maputo. A four hour chapa ride from Chibuto to Maputo costs about 200 mets (approx. $6 US), but a short 10 minute taxi ride in the city costs me 350 mts. It gets worse. From there, a taxi ride to the chapa stop called the Baixa, another 350.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. I forgot to gush about how it felt to see Kev for the first time in over five months. I was anxious, almost nervous, as I crowded with the others also there to pick up their friends and loved ones. The Maputo airport was recently renovated, and it’s shiny and pretty, but it’s still nothing compared to, for example, O’Hare International Airport. There was only one glass sliding door, and passengers with their luggage were slowly trickling out. A Chinese couple, an Indian man, a South African, a couple of Mozambicans… but no Kev. After what seemed like forever, but what was in reality probably 15 minutes, a familiar figure with a giant backpack emerged. He looked a bit tired, but just as handsome as always. My heart was beating fast and the lyrics to a song came to mind, “Every time I see your face / My heart takes off on a high speed chase...” We kissed and headed out to our taxi where we held hands and looked at each other lovingly the entire time and probably weirded out the taxi driver with our mushiness.
Getting a chapa to Namaacha was almost a bust. We waited 2 hours at the Baixa with all of our luggage (Kevin wouldn’t put any of it down because he was afraid someone was going to steal it). There was a huge crowd of people also waiting to go to Namaacha (this was supposedly the last chapa of the day, by the way), and I was worried we wouldn’t get on; there’s really no way to guarantee a spot because lines don’t really exist and everyone just rushes the car once it arrives. As soon as this happened, I took advantage of my skinniness (Another volunteer recently declared that living in Africa is the best diet; he has lost 30 pounds since being here) and pushed my way to the front. The cobrador, the guy who collects the money for the chapa ride, noticed me (sometimes it helps being the only mulungu around) and took my duffle bag, motioning for me to get on. People piled in after me but Kevin was still putting our stuff in the wagon attached behind the chapa. There seemed no way for him to get to the door so we did the next obvious thing- he jumped in through the window.
Being back in Namaacha was a lot like going back to the place you grew up. My first memories of Mozambique were formed there; the people and the scenery were things I didn’t really appreciate until I was gone. Everything is much greener now than it was a few months ago. The corn that wasn’t even sprouted now towers above our height, the mangoes are long gone but the avocadoes are in full season, giant and proliferous and hanging like pendulums from the trees.
We stayed at Hotel Xisaka for two nights, and raved about how nice it was up until the morning we checked out… Let’s just say we got seriously jipped out of our metacais. I still don’t know exactly what happened, but I think I misheard the price when I called to check a few months back. But it was all nice while it lasted so I don’t regret too much.
During those two days, Kev and I stopped by my old haunts – we went to Paluchas for chamosas, ShopRite for capulanas, Casa dos Dois for sauages and beer, modista Tia Joanna’s to have her make me a capulana dress.
The last night in Namaacha, we went to my host family’s house for dinner. They made us salad, chicken (which Kevin, with the help of my host mom, killed) and rice. It was a great dinner and I’m lucky to have such an awesome host fam. They kept telling Kevin (through me, the translator) that he is now family, that he has to come back and see them again whenever he is in Mozambique.
Leaving Namaacha on Thursday morning turned out to be a huge pain in the ass because it meant going back to Maputo, where every chapa cobrador seemed out to take advantage of us just because we are foreigners. Chapa rides that should have cost 7 mets were suddenly 50 because we had a suitcase, a duffle bag, and a giant backpack. But we didn’t have a choice because very few chapas coming our direction even had space to put our luggage. One chapa we were ushered onto was already full; Kev and I sat behind the driver and passenger seat, facing the back of the chapa, on top on very hot, uncomfortable metal. The cobrador, amazingly, let on two or three more people who hovered over us with their backs against the roof of the car and their armpits in our faces. I later discovered a bruise on my butt from the 15 minute ride. Another chapa ride, the crying lady next to me had two sick babies, one of which was leaning towards me and also crying, with open sores all over its head that flies were feeding on. I couldn’t help but cringe away, leaning into Kevin, so that the baby wouldn’t touch me. A space opened up near the window and we moved seats; the next unfortunate woman to sit next to the sick family must have complained because I heard some bickering in Changana and at the next stop, the woman with the babies got off.
It took us almost 8 hours to get back to Chimundo. By then, Kev and I were exhausted, cranky, hungry, and dehydrated. We were trudging through the sand back to my house from the chapa stop when I spotted some kids that hang out near my house sometimes. I had them help us carry the luggage. Kev and one of the kids took turns carrying the 50 lb suitcase. I would’ve found it cute, had I not wanted to curl up and pass out. We finally made it home and instantly went to the fridge to chug the bottles of water I had luckily filled up before I left for Maputo. We drank all four or five bottles within 10 minutes, and then paid the kids with candy.
The next day, I picked up my four packages that had been dropped off at Erica/ Alycia’s by a Peace Corps staff passing through Chibuto while I was gone. As always, it was exciting to open my mail and know that people at home are thinking of me.
Overall, in the past week, I have received over 80 pounds of goodies that include a Tinkerbell watch (thank you Anna, for your creative interpretation of “cheap watch”), a lifetime supply of Cheezits, a bunch of Goldfish crackers, lots of drink mixes (I think I’m set on Crystal Light for the next two years), and delicious sauce packets. I’m so grateful for all these things, even if they do take several months to arrive. By the way, my birthday is coming up in three months, HINT HINT HINT. :)
Unfortunately, I think I ate something bad while traveling. For the first time since being in Mozambique, I came down with a serious case of diarrhea and stomach cramps. I spent about five days running back and forth from the latrine, before I called the Peace Corps medical office and was instructed to take some meds. Kev, for the most part, avoided the same issues. I suspect it was the raw peanuts that we ate at my host family’s- it was the first time either of us had tried them, and I ate way more than he did. If you’re wondering, raw peanuts taste okay. Nothing special, and definitely not worth the intestinal consequences.
While I was laying in bed curled up, Kev was cleaning my house, washing dishes, and doing laundry. I bemoaned my inability to eat spicy (read: delicious) foods. (Really? I have to eat rice and cooked carrots for dinner?) “Salt and pepper count as bland, right?” I asked as I shook both vigorously over my lame meal. Kevin rained on my parade with a, “I don’t think so, honey…”
“It’s okay,” he then said supportively. “I’ll eat bland foods too if you have to.” The next day, I found him pouring hot sauce all over his potatoes after he thought I’d gone to bed. So much for bland.
Now that I’m feeling much better, I try to do more of the cooking and let him do more of the lazing around; he is on vacation, after all. (As I write this, he is sitting in the hammock with a book and alcoholic beverage in hand.) So far I’ve made potato salad, deviled eggs, bruschetta, pineapple salsa, guacamole and homemade tortillas, curried rice, macaroni and cheese…
Last week, we made our first attempt at baking. Since I don’t have an oven, we fill one big pot with sand and put a smaller pot inside of it and cover it. The sand makes the heat flow evenly. Our lime squares came out amazingly so we graduated to making apple crisp and coffee cake with mocha frosting. Delicious! With the exception of the occasional sand that gives the desserts an extra “crunch.”
It’s been really exceptionally hot the past few days. During the afternoon even taking a nap with the fan on is difficult. The power has gone out consistently around 7pm the past three nights in a row, but only Sunday night did it stay off for a long time- about 13 hours, which means we could not finish making dinner (electric stove) and could not sleep (no fan). We considered setting up a tent outside, but realized that pitching a (broken) tent in the dark would be practically impossible. And sleeping without something to ward of mosquitoes is not a good idea. I’ve also been fighting a cold, which sounds ridiculous considering the intense heat, but apparently it’s not just me; more than 10 of the 20 crianzas at the escolinha have come down sick in the past few weeks.
This past weekend Kev and I took a day trip with Erica and Alycia to XaiXai beach, where we all laid out in the sun all day and swam in the Indian Ocean and got pretty toasted. Afterwards, we ate lunch at the nearby restaurant and a tourist from New York bought us a round of drinks and a handful of freshly split oysters (sold by an old Mozambican man walking around with a bucket of the freshest oysters you’ll ever find), which we slurped down with a squirt of lime juice and hot sauce. It was quite an awesome day.
Next weekend, I think Kev and I are headed for Bilene or Chidenguele, other beach towns. I feel like time is running out! It’s already halfway through the month and as much as I wish, he won’t be here with me forever.

KEVIN’S VERSION OF THE STORY

I left LA Sunday night excited and ready to start my African adventure. I knew that I had quite a trip ahead of me. Over 23 hours of flight time with a total trip time of well over 30 hours. Getting on to the plane I looked enviously at the first class seats thinking to myself how nice it would be to sit there with all that space and legroom. Arriving at my seat I thought about how cramped it was. After just 3 days in Mozambique I crave the luxury of traveling in that “cramped” economy class seat. Greeted at the door to the airport by Vivienne I think I was a little bit in shock. There is no way that I’m really in Africa and that she is here in front of me. We traveled by taxi to a parking lot where we could take a chapa to our next destination. I was a little surprised that there were no seat belts but Viv didn’t even seem to notice. We got to a crowded parking lot where chapas come to pick people up and take them to different cities near by. I was nervous because there were about 30 people waiting to go to Namacha and I didn’t think we’d get a seat. Vivienne told me she was going to slip to the front and get us seats, I was a little skeptical that it would work. After waiting for almost 2 hours a chapa finally arrived. Viv managed to slip to the front and get into the chapa but I was stuck on to the side unable to get near the door due to 30 people trying to push there way into the van. Viv got the drivers attention and pointed to me, I think he took pity on us, me obviously being a foreigner with a look of despair on my face that was hard to mask. He came over and took my bags but that still left me with the problem of actually being physically able to get into the chapa. That’s when Viv managed to open a window on the side of the chapa and in I went to the jeers, cheers, and laughter of the crowd surrounding the chapa. I thought that the chapa was cramped, a van that is supposed to seat around 14 people had 20 crammed into it. As it turns out this is quite normal and Viv and I had one of the best seats only being stuck on a seat that was supposed to seat 3 people with 4. We started off and I got my first taste of highway driving in Mozambique. To all my friends who thought I was a fast and reckless driver growing up I say this. “Don’t get on a highway in Mozambique!” The drivers here are nuts. Viv told me to just focus on looking at the countryside and not on the road. I’ll admit this helped a little bit but it’s a little hard to enjoy the scenery when you feel like your about to be in a head on car crash at 140kph. Arriving at our motel in Namaacha it would almost seem like we were back in the States. It was modern and quite cozy. It amazes me how the buildings along the street have running water and power while houses merely 20 feet away do not. Later that night we went to Vivienne’s host family’s house for diner. Viv told me that they had saved the chicken for me to kill and I must have looked startled because they all started laughing. The meal they prepared wasn’t that different from one I would eat in the States. Cooked chicken rice salad and corn. We left the next morning to head back to Chimundo and I am now 100% positive that I hate traveling in Mozambique. Imagine sitting, crammed in between people some of which are coughing and clearly sick, on uncomfortable seats for hours at a time all the while wondering if you are going to die because the driver is texting on his phone while passing trucks on the highway with cars coming from the other direction not all that far away. I am quite sure that if I ever find myself in Mozambique again I’ll look into renting a car. The scenery here is amazing! Most of the area we have traveled through is incredibly flat and you can see for miles in all directions. It would be nice to explore more of the country, which has some great wildlife reserves I’m told, but traveling here is expensive and stressful. Having now been at Vivienne’s house for a few days I find it quite relaxing. Honestly I think that I’d be happy with anything I did here as long as it involved spending time with her. It’s amazing how being here for a few days can change the way you think. I feel lazy if I wake up after 6am. You can already hear the neighbors starting their daily chores. It’s best to do things in these early hours while it’s still cool. By 11am it’s already so hot that it’s best to grab a book and a cold drink to lie in the hammock for a few hours till things start to cool off again. Vivienne and I have been experimenting with baking. So far we’ve made lime bars, apple crisp, and coffee cake with a coffee mocha frosting. Everything has turned out wonderful which is a little surprising considering our primitive cooking utensils. I’ve now been to the city Chibuto a couple of times and today I got to try my first Mozambique hamburger. It is definitely different then the ones I’m used to but good at the same time. Made of an actual roll instead of a bun, it comes with a thin beef patty and an egg. Viv informed me that all Mozambique hamburgers have eggs on them. To me it felt more like a breakfast sandwich then a hamburger. This weekend we are traveling to the beach city Xaixai. It’ll be fun to see the coastline and spend a day on the beach with Viv. I feel a little spoiled here where at most I have to do a few chores for a couple hours a day but I guess this is my vacation after all. It would be nice to say here longer then the 4 weeks of my trip but I have classes starting in April. I will admit that it will be nice to return to the comforts of my home with it’s internet and running water. I wonder if how long it will be before I once again take all these luxuries for granted. I keep wondering if I could pack Viv up in my suitcase and take her home with me. It’s been a lonely 5 months without her and it seems it’ll be even longer before I see her again once I leave. My only consolation is to think about the life we plan to start together when she moves back to the States. That is an adventure I can’t wait to start.

Revenge of the Headless Chicken

I spent a day as a Mozambican woman. Which is to say- cooking, cooking, and cooking. My next door neighbor threw a party for her niece's 1st birthday and all the neighborhood women convened to peel vegetables, defeather chickens, fry potatoes, etc, etc.
I started off my Saturday morning at the escolhina where Ir. Monica had called a parents meeting. Not surprisingly, only 5 out of 15 parents showed up. Ir Monica eventually started the 9am meeting at 945, and then because the parents present couldn't reach a consensus about an issue she presented, she called another meeting next week, in the hopes that the other parents will deign to come. Way to reward the ones who already came the first time, who will just have to sit through it all again.
I left the meeting and found a group of neighbors (the same women I had passed by earlier each returning with 25 L jug of water on her head) sitting under the shade of my mafora tree, peeling a mountain of potatoes. I pulled up a chair to sit with them and was immediately asked where my knife was. Not super thrilled about the prospect of spending my Saturday peeling a million potatoes I probably wasn't even going to eat, I explained to them that in America, we sometimes cook and eat potatoes with the skins on. They stared at me in disbelief. 'How?' they asked. I said 'Well, the same way we are doing right now! Just without peeling the potato first. The skin is really the only part with nutrients anyway.' 'But you don't do that with this kind of potato, right?' They insisted. 'Yes, you use this kind of potato too,' I said. The women shuddered as they imagined eating french fries with the skins on.
I ended up spending the day with them, helping them cook for what seemed like 100 people. Rice, spaghetti, xima, beans, potato salad, cabbage salad, grilled chicken... The smoke from the firewood stung my eyes and made me cry so I was excused from the frying and grilling and relegated to the prep work. I learned how to fold chamosas, which are kind of like African potstickers and definitely one of my favorite foods here: Pork and onion filling inside a triangle of thin dough, deep fried, amazing with piripiri (hot sauce). It's a good thing I secretly ate a bunch off the platter while cooking, because by the time I got to them later at the party there were none left.
We also made about 5 different types of salad tossed with mayonnaise. Other than simple oil and vinegar, Mozambicans just don't use have salad dressings. The potato salad, after being tossed with mayonnaise, was then absolutely coated with a top layer of more mayonnaise, to the point where it just looked like a mound of mayo. Interesting.
At some point I noticed that someone had gone out and bought more chickens (I had witnessed one of the women slaughtering at least 10 earlier that morning), all of whom were now huddled together in a mass of fluffy white feathers. These chickens, genetically altered and sold for human consumption, look and act very different from your regular barnyard chicken. They don't have a fully developed brain (which is probably why they don't try to peck your eye out when you pick them up to slit their throat), reach full size much more quickly, and are essentially sterile- generating dependence on the companies that sell them.
'We got more chickens?' I asked. 'Yes,' an elderly lady replied slyly, 'They're for you to kill.' I knew she was teasing, and I also knew she didn't believe I would do it so I shrugged and asked for a knife.
One lady held the body and wings of the chicken while I grabbed the head and cut the throat. The knife, as I feared, was rather dull. I sawed at the neck of the chicken for a while, thinking 'Oh my God, this isn't working.....' while the other woman encouraged me to use more force. I pushed down harder and finally felt the bone give away and the head dropped to the ground, eyes closed. My partner tossed the body off to the side, where it continued to convulse and tremor. We went to work on the next chicken.
After about the 5th chicken (there were 7 in total), the sand behind us was just a battlefield of headless feathered corpses, a few still flapping wings and kicking legs. I was sawing on another neck when suddenly one of the beheaded chickens got up (not unusual, the phrase 'like a chicken with its head cut off' is accurate, but prior to this the chickens I saw who had managed to get to their feet stumbled only a couple of feet before collapsing again) and ran towards me. I was startled but couldn't stop what I was doing so I tried to sidestep the rogue zombie. I was horrified when it turned and came back towards me, jumping against my leg several times even as I danced around trying to avoid getting blood on my jeans. Finally, another lady stepped in and wrestled my attacker away, throwing it far off into the sand where it struggled a few seconds before becoming motionless. Later, I noticed that its exertions had made it the bloodiest of the bunch; while the others had bled cleanly and only around the neck area, the feathers of my nemesis had become red instead of white. And my jeans were speckled here and there with its blood. Even so, chicken later that evening never tasted better.
In the afternoon, a man stopped by the house, apparently a relative of my neighbor. He sat outside on a chair and beckoned for me to sit in the chair next to him. One of the women brought him a plate of food. As he ate, he complained (first attempting to talk to me in bad english, until I sharply told him to just speak to me in Portuguese) that he was so hungry, he hadn't eaten all day, he had been at the bar. Then he tried to show me a text message. 'They need me to go to church early tomorrow morning. How am I supposed to drink tonight,' he complained. I couldn't help but roll my eyes. Wah, wah. Life is so rough for these Mozambican men.
After cooking, (or rather, after I was tired of cooking, because the other women continued long after) I excused myself to go take a bath. I smelled of smoke and sweat and oil.
I was sitting inside my house journaling when I heard the women shouting my name. 'Mana Vivienne, aren't you coming? Hurry! The car is leaving!' I grabbed my purse, feeling a little disoriented and a little panicked. It wasn't until we were driving away that I realized I had forgotten to feed my dogs, who were sitting side by side at the edge of the yard looking at me mournfully.
The car took us straight to the party in Chibuto, where they had rented a big room for the party. We were at least an hour late but still, practically nobody was there yet. Some music was playing but everyone was sitting awkwardly and silently in their chairs.
People began to drizzle in, and I noticed that they were all wearing suits, collared shirts , cocktail dresses, and heels. I had thrown on one of my capulana dresses, forgotten my earrings, and still had on bath flipflops. I'd also not brought a present for the birthday girl. Oops.
It didn't stop me from taking a plate of food and a beer. Humans of all cultures, it seems, react to buffets of food the same way: clamoring to grab a plate, utensils, (multiple even, for their friends and family), jostling each other in line for food. Our day's work vanished in about 10 minutes.
I sat behind a pregnant woman drinking a beer. She had been one of the ones cooking with us during the day. 'You shouldn't hang out with the nuns so much,' she had said. 'You should hang out with me and have real conversations. And we can go to clubs together and drink and dance.'
Now, I watch her down her second beer. I tap her and say in a friendly tone,' You're drinking while pregnant?' She nods happily and waves her beer at me. 'Um, don't you know that your baby could be born-' She cuts me off saying dismissively, 'It's not a problem.'
I sit back, unsure of what to do while she throws back her beer. After a few minutes I tell her, in a half joking tone, that her baby will be an alcoholic. She just laughs. There's nothing I can do so I drop the subject.
Meanwhile the children, all wearing those ridiculous cone party hats, are dancing to the music which, and I'm not sure if it's just the beer kicking in, seems to be getting louder and louder. One 4 or 5 year old girl wearing pink plastic sunglasses is just going all out shimmying with her hands on her hips. She's good, too, as much as I hate to admit a toddler could show me up.
Suddenly, the grown ups are on the dance floor too, having eaten and drank their share. I sip my beer, deciding I'll participate in the dancing after. Except that right as I'm ready to go, I see everyone is drifting out the doors. Just as fast as the dance floor fills, it clears, having hosted maybe 15 minutes of dancing. I guess something else is true of parties in any culture: people come mainly for the food and beverages and once the supply has been depleted, they quickly lose interest.
I stayed behind to clean up with the cooking crew. The music kept going however, and intermittently all the remaining women (and some of the remaining men, sitting around getting drunk on alcohol they had brought) would jump on the dance floor, a strange little after party.
My friend stubbed her toe, ripping the big toenail off. She said it didn't really hurt, but it looked bloody and horrific. I'd probably be crying in her situation. The only person who agreed to cut off the rest of the toenail, which was standing up at a 90 degree angle, was a drunk guy who happened to have a pair of nail clippers and would occasionally pour some beer over her toe to clean it. Note to self: don't stub toe in Africa.
The remainder of the night was spent warding off other drunk guys who either wanted my number or wanted to practice their poor English with me. I'm pretty sure every one of them told me, slurring, that he could give me a ride home. A lot of winners, that's for sure.
I'm very glad that I am American... And that Kevin is coming in less than two days.