A Million Points of Light

Woo! It’s been a busy week. What’s that? The relentlessly bored Peace Corps volunteer now has two organizations and more than enough on her plate?

Chicumbane is great! (Aside from the fact that my house is perpetually in the shade and, well into Mozambican winter, I’m freezing my butt off. I wear socks to bed!) I currently have sweatpants on and a fuzzy blanket wrapped around my shoulders. Dinner was Chinese corn chowder, which brought back good childhood memories and thoughts of my mother.

I’ve been going to both orgs every day, one in the morning and one in the afternoon… But some days I find myself waiting around for nothing, and other days I feel like I need to be in two places at once. It’s only the first week, so I keep reminding myself to just sit and breathe, although I’m itching to DO something. The question, though, is not “What do I even do?” but rather, “Where do I even start?”

I suppose you’re interested in what it is I’m working with, now that I’m not babysitting toddlers on a daily basis. Here is a brief summary of both orgs:

CACHES

The organization that Peace Corps felt would be a perfect fit for me. Roughly translated, CACHES stands for Child Artists Fighting Against HIV/AIDS. Here… Art, theatre, and musical expression meet sexual health and HIV/AIDS education! Goals include: promote creativity; encourage healthy choices and behaviors; give children a structured environment to play and learn (after school). They meet every day of the week, in the afternoons around 3-4pm and, unfortunately, right before it gets dark and I have to scurry home. A relatively new organization, actually started by a previous Peace Corps volunteer. Currently has about 50 children, ages 4-14.

TSEMBEKA

A Christian home-based care organization funded by EGPAF (Elizabeth Glasier Pediatric Foundation). The organization consists of 100 volunteer activists who do home visits to the HIV+ population, in seven neighborhoods of Chicumbane. The org works with the local hospital, and does weekly support groups and mini-classes in the community. Also partners with Habitat for Humanity.

Currently, a group of Habitat volunteers are here to build houses for OVC’s and vulnerable families. I had a chance to meet them and was surprised to see that they were all white, middle-aged women! Turns out, they are part of a group called “Women for Hope,” comprised of women from the United States, England, Germany, Ukraine, Canada, and South Africa, who are united in their desire to actively “make a difference,” beyond just donating money to an anonymous face. I accompanied them on several home visits and had a chance to see houses already built by Habitat and meet some of the families impacted by Habitat’s work in the community. Along the way, we “mulungos” (white people) attracted quite a crowd of giggling Mozambican children who adored being in the spotlight of all the whirling cameras.

Aside from work, I’ve been working on community integration: greeting neighbors on the way to work, shooting the breeze with coworkers, attending community functions, chatting with the old man I buy bread from, etc. The previous volunteer didn’t particularly like children, which means that I don’t constantly have little faces at the front door, and my trash remains untouched. It actually gets a little lonely. I’ve asked the next door neighbor’s 6-year-old daughter Tania to bring her friends over sometimes to draw, because I miss my Art Club.

By the time I had left Chibuto, I was more or less recognized even in the city. But here, I start all over again with the “Hey China!” from men who have yet to figure out I’m not interested, in responding or otherwise. Last weekend when I was coming home from XaiXai, the guy next to me on the chapa was “discreetly” trying to take a photo of me with his camera phone, holding it up suspiciously in the air as his friend peered at the screen to make sure I was, indeed, in the photo. Like I’ve never used a camera phone before. I swatted it out of the air, tempted to toss it out the open chapa window. (And, because I was the one sitting next to it, the chapa window was indeed open, letting in the lovely cool breeze and drawing disapproving glares from the rest of the chapa patrons.)

The dogs attempt to follow me to work every day, twice a day. I yell at them to go home, but they just wait until I’m out of sight and then come trotting behind me, grinning, once I think I’ve successfully escaped. However, they’ve learned to maintain a smart distance to avoid getting smacked. I may need to start locking them up in the house, before they figure out where I work and become frequent visitors. But lucky, lucky puppies… Since dried fish comes from Chibuto and is so expensive in XaiXai, I have now switched to using fat and leftover meat from the butcher’s. How do they repay me? Of course, by trying to chew up the thick foam pads I’ve given them to use as beds. Silly mutts.

Home Sweet Home

It feels like I’ve been here in Chicumbane forever, but in a good way.

Moving was a stressful ordeal, as always. Ilidio showed up at 10am with a Peace Corps truck, which we piled up precariously high with everything I own in Mozambique. It was quite an intense game of Tetris to fit everything in the bed of the truck, but we managed to get everything in one trip. On the way to Chicumbane, we had to stop several times to check on everything in the back. At one point, I saw something flapping around in the side mirror and, alarmed, I demanded a halt on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere. Turns out, it was a roll of toilet paper that had come undone and was waving cheerfully in the breeze. We continued on our way, but not until I had removed the ridiculous streamers.

When we arrived at my house, my landlady and my empregada were there waiting for me, as well as a few of my colleagues from new organization CACHES who helped take everything out of the car. There was no time to rest, however, because immediately after, Ilidio and I went to the CACHES office with the coworkers, where we all had a little meeting. Then, a quick lunch with Ilidio at a nearby barraca (we were starving, and had been snacking on my Snickers bars on the drive to Chicumbane), and a meeting with my other org Tsembeka. (I will talk about my new orgs in a later blog post, once I get a general idea of what they do and what I will be doing.)

During both meetings with my organizations, Ilidio stressed the point that I am, well, ME. I’m not the previous volunteer Emily, or the volunteer before her (Meghan?)… I am a Peace Corps volunteer as well, but I am my own person with my own strengths and my own personality. I really appreciated this emphasis because I’m nervous about expectations placed on me. Whereas I was the first health volunteer in Chimundo, and had to “blaze my own path through the wilderness,” here in Chicumbane I’m living in someone else’s shadow. Kind of like how in the movie “The Devil Wears Prada,” the main character Andrea is still constantly called “Emily,” her predecessor, until she proves her worth. Even the predecessor’s name is the same!

When I tell other volunteers about moving to Chicumbane, their immediate reaction is, “Oh, Emily’s site?” Or when Ilidio and I got to Chibuto and had to meet someone in the community, our reference point was “Emily’s house.” I spent most of the first night in Chicumbane de-Emily-fying the house, not because I have anything against her (she’s actually been a great help through our email contact) but because well, it’s my house now, my space, my site, and my work.

The dogs are adjusting quite well to the move. (No more fence to keep them confined!) At first, they were a little freaked out and looked ready to bolt from the yard when I let them out of the crate… But once they discovered the grass next to the house, they were sold. Watching them weakly meander around sniffing the ground immediately after exiting the crate, was actually pretty amusing. They had both gotten sick during the ride (probably the bumpy unpaved route to get to the house from the main road) and were both soggy and disoriented, foaming slightly at the mouth. Mel had a dangling pendulum of drool hanging from her mouth, which reminded me of her first (and only other) car ride in her life, the day she arrived at my house as a sad little puppy with drool dripping off her chin then as well. The first night in Chicumbane, while I stayed up unpacking and organizing, both puppies fell fast asleep on the towels I laid out in my room and actually snored.

The craziness of moving lay not in the packing up (I defeated procrastination in college, and now actually begin things almost absurdly in advance), or in the actual moving (although that was not a walk in the park), but in the UNpacking of everything. The extensive bits and pieces that filled up my old house (easily two or three times as large as this house) in conjunction with the furniture and miscellaneous Emily belongings already here, made everything hectic. I felt as if my life had become one of those memory card games, where you flip over a card and think you know where the matching one is but of course, it’s not that one. However, once everything was squared away and look! I can actually see the floor again!, I was surprised at how easily I adjusted to my new home. This small, three room cement and canico house, which shares a yard with another family, actually fits my mental picture of “the Peace Corps experience” better than the last.

Of course, it’s also taken me a while to get oriented in my neighborhood. When Yoko came by to visit briefly on her way to Maputo, I had to ask the neighbor girl to walk me to the chapa stop to meet her. On the way back, I noticed a trail of orange peels on the ground leading from the market to the little street my house is on. Once Yoko left and I was forced to navigate the route again, I pulled a move from Hansel and Gretel and followed the orange peels all the way home. J

You Say Hello, and I Say Goodbye

The realization that Chibuto will soon no longer be my home, makes everything take on a new color. On my way to the city, I walked halfway out to the main road before deciding to turn back to get my camera. As I strolled by again, I snapped pictures of a boy weaving a straw mat, and of a teacher having class outside (not because the weather was so nice, but because many schools don't have enough classrooms and/or desks and/or chairs).
In Chibuto, I stopped by my Chinese friend Lee's shop, and broke the news to him that I'll be moving soon. He was really sad about it. Of all the people I've met here, Lee is one of the best. He came from mainland China with his wife a number of years ago, but she got pregnant and went back home. He says he's going back too, when he has enough money, but it won't be for at least a few more years. I don't think he's ever met his son.
His Portuguese isn't very good so he has a hard time communicating with even his store help. I talk to him in Mandarin and I think for him it's a huge relief to have someone to speak his native tongue with. I only see him once a week, when I go to Chibuto to do shopping, but whenever I buy anything, he always gives me a discount. (If it's something small, he'll often give it to me for free.) He'll bring me things from his house that can't be found in Mozambique like chopsticks, Chinese noodles, dried clams… Just one foreigner helping out another.
I think he's lonely. I gave him a puppy a few months ago but unfortunately, it ran away. When I told him about moving to Chicumabane, he said, "I won't have any friends here anymore." I promised to come back to visit, and said that we could always meet up in XaiXai for a beer or something.
Before continuing my errands, I asked to take a picture of him in his store to remember everything by. Afterwards, he pulled out his phone and asked to take a picture of me. His empregados, who all know me, all started pulling out their phones and taking pictures of me too and suddenly I had no idea who was taking pictures of who. A brief and awkward photoshoot ensued, one that must have confused the customers entering the store.

I finally was able to tell my Art Club kids that I was moving, as well. They hadn't been by in a few weeks, as they've been busy gathering straw to bring back and weave mats with. (I don't think that they've even been attending school because of this family project.)
When I told them about Chicumbane, they asked me, "So what are you going to give us when you leave?" which kind of offended me. I told them that they should be the ones giving me a present because I always give them stuff, and they just laughed. I went back into my house shaking my head at the "ungrateful brats" but twenty minutes later, they were back again at my fence with folded up pieces of paper in their hands. As I opened them up, both boys hid their faces in their hands, embarrassed. They had both written me (on lined paper ripped out of a school notebook, and in terrible cursive) a short card/letter that stated sentiments along the lines of: "Mana Vivienne, don't forget me I really like you and have a lot of fun with you. I will be really sad when you leave. Have a good trip." One of the pieces of paper had a heart and arrow, and the other a scrawny person (that is meant to be either me or him, I'm not sure) surrounded by accidentally phallic looking trees and flowers. I couldn't help but laugh. I just love these kids. I wouldn't give them an A for creativity, but I'd definitely give them an A for heart And maybe I'll even give them a few toys when I leave.

It's hard to express what a great friend I've found in Yoko, the Japanese volunteer. (I am close with Erica and Alycia too but it's a little different, because they've always had each other.) Interestingly enough, JICA volunteers are mostly male (completely contrary to Peace Corps) so Yoko doesn't have very many girl friends in Mozambique.
We cook for each other a few times a week- pork is her specialty and desserts are mine. (I gave her a copy of the Peace Corps Moz cookbook, and suggested she translate it into Japanese to submit as a JICA resource- I'm surprised they don't anything like that, because it's been so useful during my service.)
We are working on creating a little garden for her, where we will transplant all of my blossoming tomato, okra, and watermelon plants. That way, at least someone I know will be able to reap the benefits of my hard work.

Wish me luck! I'm moving tomorrow.

The Best & The Worst

June 1 was a national holiday- Dia da Criança (Children’s Day). To celebrate, we had a party at the escolinha. I didn’t have to help cook, but I did have to entertain the children for 7- 8 hours while the others did. I also blew up about 50 balloons (where is a balloon pump when you need one!?) that Irma Monica strung up for decoration, but by the time we actually started the party only about five remained, having all been destroyed by the heavy wind.
When it finally came time to eat, we all sat down to a grand feast of grilled chicken, goat, noodles, cassava root, potato salad, vegetable salad, French fries, and cabbage salad. At least there’s one day a year I am rewarded for being an unpaid babysitter.

June 2 was my 23rd birthday, but I spent most of the morning on a chapa going to Maputo for the REDES planning conference. (And, sadly, I got the buttcrack seat, the terribly uncomfortable spot between the bench and the fold-up seat. Also- Mozambicans would rather breathe in stale, recycled body odor chapa air the entire time, than open up a window to let in fresh air. But that’s another story.)
I got lost on my way to the hotel but eventually made it, albeit in a bad mood. This was immediately rectified by the presence of my friend Jordan, a volunteer from the north who happened to be in Maputo for medical reasons, and who I ended up sharing a room with for the weekend. We went out to lunch and got delicious Thai food and passionfruit ice cream, and then went shopping at the craft market, which ultimately made my birthday a fun one. I was also fortunate enough to pick up a package at the Peace Corps office, and thus was able to get my birthday presents in a timely manner.
(In the package, among other things, was a box of See’s Candy truffles. I ate one the night of my birthday but was surprised to discover the next afternoon that actually two were missing from the box. The choco thief had placed the ruffled paper of the stolen chocolate on top of the one I had eaten, to make it appear as if only one was gone- except for the giant gap among the truffles. When I brought the box downstairs and told the owner of the hotel, she promptly called over the two maids and made me explain the situation again. Both maids immediately began denying the deed, saying they had no idea where the chocolate even was, that they don’t even eat chocolate, that chocolate can be found at the market so why would they need to eat mine? I just shrugged and went back upstairs to take a shower, during which the two maids barged in again to confront me and found only Jordan. “Did YOU find anything missing? “If we ate her chocolate why didn’t we eat THESE then?” They asked, picking up her crackers. I found the whole situation rather amusing, but made sure to hide my valuables at the bottom of my bag for the remainder of my stay.)
Jordan and I actually went shopping several more times over the weekend, as she loves spending money as much as I do. (BUT, most of the stuff I bought were gifts for people back home.) The second time we were at the craft fair, two men who had unsuccessfully tried to sell a batik (cloth painting) to me the previous time waved me over as we were leaving to offer me a small yellow batik (not the same one) as a birthday present. I was so surprised that they’d even remembered me from several days prior, but it made me very happy because most of the time all the vendors are trying to rip me off because they think I’m another tourist.
The REDES conference took up actually very little time, and was more of a small group conversation than anything. (That’s why we had so much free time.) We had to go over the preliminary schedule for the National Conference in August and make some changes. I am trying to get more involved with REDES, although I don’t have a group yet (because of the moving situation). I’m also looking into taking over the National Financial Coordinator position for the upcoming year, but that’s only in the preliminary stages.
Overall, one of the best weekends I’ve had in a long time.

THE WORST CHAPA RIDE EVER
I headed home on Sunday (June 5) on a chapa/bus that took FOREVER to get me home. The trip should have been four hours but took over six, because the car wouldn’t start (and had to be pushed a few times) and then looped through XaiXai before arriving in Chibuto.
As I got on the bus, an obnoxious man leaned in through the window and yelled “CHINA! CHIIIINA!” To which I responded, “I’m not China. Go away.” Apparently, that wasn’t blunt enough for him because he continued his annoying litany, until I lost my temper and began yelling back at him “MOZAMBIIIIQUE, shut up” and trying to push him out of the window so I could close it. All the while, no one was doing a thing to help me, even though almost every person on the bus was a woman. Couldn’t they see that I was being harassed and that I needed some help getting rid of this guy? They could’ve told him off in Changana to leave me alone (which obviously I didn’t know how to do, and Portuguese wasn’t cutting it). But the man refused to budge, and he kept hollering, “CHINA, I want to be your lover! CHIIIINAAAA” and no one would raise a finger to help me.
Meanwhile, I was still trying to get situated in my cramped little seat (another flimsy fold-down chair) with my duffle bag, my purse, and my large box. The ladies to my right and my left both had two children each, none of whom had seats. So the only room they had to stand in was what was meant to be my leg room, and I was forced to put everything on my lap. I accidentally pushed a little girl with my duffle bag and the mom leaned over to tell me “Watch out, there are children here.” And I snapped at her, “WHAT exactly do you want me to do.” Immediately following this whole ordeal, the man behind me leaned over his seat and began talking to me/hitting on me. Even after I said that I was married, he kept asking where I lived and suggesting that he come over sometime to “visit” me. I put my head down and tried to sleep but he would continue to try to instigate conversation until I finally said to him, “I am MARRIED. I have a HUSBAND. He lives at my house WITH ME. Do you get it?” At this point he backed off for a bit (he resumed later), but I just didn’t understand why any of this was happening in the first place, considering I had just made a huge scene about one man making lewd comments at me. Does anger not come off the same way here? I feel like I made it very clear to everyone on the chapa from the moment I got onboard, that I was not in a good mood and I did not want to tolerate anyone’s bullshit.
I’d like to think I’ve cultivated a “tougher skin” since being here in Moz, especially when it comes to racism and sexual harassment. I’ve come a long way, and it’s not easy. But obviously, I’m only human and there’s a limit to things I can tolerate. This chapa ride was probably the worst I’ve experienced thus far, because it was a culmination of all the things that piss me off. I spent a great, relaxing with my friends but I felt like all of it was instantly nullified by one chapa ride.
I finally got home in the dark, (with a broken sandal, no less) after I managed to step on a tree branch WITH HUGE THORNS. One of them (of course) lodge about an inch into my foot and I sat on the side of the road cursing and crying as I pried it out. What a terrible, terrible day.

Moving day is fast approaching (one week!), and Irma Monica still has not received official notification from Peace Corps that I’m leaving, although I broke the news to her a few days ago. I’m not sure how they expected me to continue putting on a front of normality the EXIT door is already open in front of me. I have high hopes for my move to Chicumbane, because God knows I need a change in my life right now.

Here It Goes Again

“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.

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.

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.