Feliz Natal! Holidays, PC Moz style.

The dust is finally settling from quite a Peace Corps Christmas adventure. One thing I have to start out by saying: I love Peace Corps volunteers. I loved all the returned volunteers I knew before I came here. They were all such warm, kind people who were also so good at getting sh*t done. In grad school, I noticed that the RPCV's were the people who did what they said they were going to do when they said they would do it. And usually cheerfully. Wanting to join that club is probably part of what got me here... And my first Christmas here in Mozambique only reinforced those feelings.

This year's Christmas celebration actually started with the university's holiday party last Friday. We have only had two meetings with the directors there - most of their focus has been on wrapping up 2012 and fixing the apartment of Don, the other PC volunteer who arrived here with me. But on Friday, we met with the director of the school and also the coordinator of the MBA program. As it stands, it looks like I will be the coordinator of the Communication for Development department and will be teaching a business management class within that department. I may also be helping the school start a radio station, once the licensing has been completed (a dream-come-true opportunity for someone who always wanted to work at the UMass station, but never did). Eventually, I will be picking up modules on Global Markets and Business Strategy within the MBA program. More on all of that later. At the meeting, our director let us know that we should come back around 6:30 or 7:00 that night for the school's holiday party. Hoang, the volunteer who has been teaching at the university for the last year, had told us about the party, including the "amigo segredo," the Mozambican version of a secret Santa gift exchange.

Don, Hoang and I arrived at around 7:15, what we were thinking was a slightly late, but entirely appropriate time in a culture where things get started at a pretty leisurely pace. We found a dark, empty function room and a hallway lit only at the very end. As we walked towards the lights, our administrative director appeared from around the corner and let us know that preparations were still going on in the kitchen. After insisting some with the ladies prepping veggies, I managed to snag a knife and a spot at the counter and helped ready some of the salad ingredients. Eventually, after joining an impromptu sing-along of "It Must Have Been Love" with my director on guitar, we wandered onto the roof deck and helped with quality control on the mounds of chicken and beef being barbecued.

Rooftop grilling at UCM. É um processo.

Cut to 10:15 when we were all finally pushed downstairs to where chairs had been set out in a circle around three long serving tables. Since I had been told to come for dinner at 6:30 or 7:00,  I was nearly keeling over with hunger by then. People started scampering around, herding up the guests and readying them for holiday speeches. After twenty minutes or so, the food began to appear from the kitchen and was set down on the tables. A little before 11, our director welcomed everyone and recapped the year that had just ended for the university. As he wrapped up his speech, he asked for a vote on dinner versus gift exchange. As I was on the edge of fainting, it was perfectly clear that everyone would want to eat and then enjoy the Secret Santa on full, satisfied stomachs. What I didn't know is that everyone else had gone home and eaten in anticipation of dinner not being ready until midnight. The vote went overwhelmingly for gifts and the plastic wrap stayed over the food. After each of the 40 gifts had been exchanged - each exchange being documented with a picture of the giver and recipient holding the wrapped gift, another of the gift being opened and a third of the new gift being proudly displayed - dinner was finally served around 12:45. And it was delicious! Also, my director was thoughtful enough to bring small gifts for Don and me, since we arrived in Chimoio well after the exchanges had been determined. I can't wait until I am integrated enough into the culture to know things like, eat before you arrive at the Christmas party. We ended up leaving just as the dancing started at 1:15, since we weren't sure when the next ride would be available. Also, the first of my fourteen PC Christmas guest was arriving at 8:00 the next morning.

Sarah and Andrea at the Luz Verde. Mozambican stockings and snowstorm.

Because I have a large house with lots of extra room and I am in a city that is pretty much in the middle of the Central region of the country, I offered to host any of the Central PCV's who wanted to come for Christmas. Of the 19 volunteers from my group in the region, 16 came to celebrate together (including Don and myself). I was a little anxious about having so many people all in my house, which is large but by no means huge, but knowing the low-drama, mellow, responsible makeup of our group, I was pretty sure it would work out well and I couldn't have been more right.

About half of the group, those who lived closer, had arrived by midday on Sunday. We planned out menus for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day and did the bulk of the shopping before those coming in from farther provinces arrived. By Sunday night, everyone was there and we all went across the street to the Luz Verde for roasted chicken and xima or potatoes. For those volunteers in rural sites, such a healthy dose of protein was a rare treat. Even though we had decided to make chicken for Christmas dinner, everyone dug into their quarter- or half-chickens with gusto. 

Relaxing after many chapa rides from near and far.

The next three days were a whirlwind of cooking and eating, with some shopping mixed in for the people who needed to stock up on supplies while in the city. We feasted on french toast, latkes and freash fruit for breakfast; a spicy vegetable curry, jasmine rice and enormous salad Christmas Eve; and a feast of chicken and fixin's on Christmas, followed by iced sugar cookies, gingerbread, green mango crisp and a mountain of fruit salad and all accompanied by mulled wine and cider. While cooking these meals for a crowd of 16 would usually be trabalho, it was made a little more challenging by the fact that my hybrid electric/gas stove isn't 100%. We found out that the electric oven only heats to about 80°F. Also, one of the electric burners only heats to one temperature (about hot enough to almost simmer water) and doesn't turn off, and the gas tank has a leak. I had been using it anyways, but with the amount of cooking we needed to do, no one wanted that much gas in the air. So we had one electric burner that could be adjusted with a leatherman, but the other burner would be running the whole time, whether or not it was in use.

We clearly wouldn't be able to cook enough for everyone with this situation. One burner was fine for french toast Monday mornning, but even curry and rice would be dificult without two burners. And there was no way to mull wine at the same time or make Christmas cookies at all! Many of the volunteers who were visiting didn't even have electricity at their sites, let alone an oven. Even those with energia were mostly cooking on hotplates as "real" stoves or ovens are very expensive here and most houses don't have them standard. The Peace Corps budget certainly doesn't include one and I am just lucky to have a school that has the money and it willing to provide one, even if it has some problems. The standard method of baking for PCV's is in a "dutch oven," made by filling a large pot with sand or dirt and placing a smaller pot or pan inside. When covered, this creates a hot space that is more than adequate to turn out some delicious cakes, cookies and roasts. So all we needed was some more burners. 

Latkes with pineapple-mango salad; Christmas chicken feast; green mango crisp. 

I had been wanting to get one of the omnipresent carvão (charcoal) stoves that every Mozambican family uses, even most with ovens, since they are much cheaper to run when cooking anything that takes a long time. It is also the best way to grill, which I just love to do. The only problem was that it was now midday Christmas Eve, most stores were closed and we had been running around in the heat all morning. Our best chance would be the mercado down the street, so we decided to give it a try. There is a group of guys with a stand right on the corner of the market that I have bought from a lot. They like to joke with me about going back to the US and have been good about helping me find things at other stands if they don't carry them. We explained to them that we needed a fogão de carvão, hoping they would lead us inside somewhere, but they just shook their heads. "Trinta e oito."  The huge market clear across town. That would entail a chapa ride and wandering through a maze of used clothing, wicker furniture, capulanas, fried caterpillars by the kilo and who knows what else in search of a stove that may or may not have been there Christmas Eve. "É muito longe, não é?" We really didn't want to go that far. The youngest guy who always greets me with an enthusiastic, "Amiga!" saw the dejected looks on our faces and offered, "Eu vou procurar!" (I will go get it).

We wandered through the market and got some other veggies and a quick plate of  food (which turned out to be stewed goat's stomach). We also visited the Peace Corps office and were delighted to find a working two-burner hotplate in the kitchen. I grabbed a cold Coke and we returned to the stand to find a beautiful new carvão stove waiting for us. We promised some of the cookies it would be creating, gave him the Coke and 20 mets, and walked home, four burners richer. And this is why I love Peace Corps volunteers. No one blinked at the amount of food we would be turning out on a charcoal grill, hotplate and one electric burner on my stove. The cookie committee baked up four batches of sugar cookies and gingerbread in a dutch oven over charcoal, all perfectly browned on the bottom and golden on top. Each one was a cause for celebration.

And then there were the chickens. When planning the menu, we all talked about our traditional meals growing up. People threw out ideas of ham, turkey, shrimp or fish. We finally decided to visit the new butcher that had opened just outside the center of town that I had heard good things about, and look for a roast. It would be simple; it would be festive and it would be a treat. We also anticipated that it might be expensive, so as a backup plan, we settled on chicken. Then it turned out that the butcher was closed for the holidays, (Yes, they were closed for the holidays two days before Christmas. Welcome to Mozambique.) so chicken it was.

Ryan, killer of chickens. Sarah and the carvão stove that saved Christmas. Lisa chops pineapple. 

Mozambique is full of chickens. You buy them live at the market, and transport them home either dangling in bunches by their feet, piled into a wheelbarrow, in cages on the back of a bike, or sitting inside a plastic bag with a hole ripped to let its head out. (I will have to take some pictures of the chickens you see everywhere on the streets). Chickens are relatively cheap - 110 metecais (about $4) for an average sized hen, 300 ($10) for the larger - and Mozambican chicken is spectacular. The only problem is they come live, and someone has to transform them into the parts we are accustomed to cooking. We had all had the opportunity to learn how to kill, de-feather, clean and cut up a chicken during training, but none of us were excited about doing the deed and only had the most basic understanding of how the butchering process goes. But that wouldn't get in our way. We are Peace Corps Volunteers; we will rise to the challenge. Two of us agreed that we would be willing to do the actual killing if none of the others who would arrive later wanted to take on the challenge. Monday afternoon we made our way to the market and selected four larger birds, to simplify the live-chicken-into-edible-parts process.

I will spare the details, but it was quite a lot of work. And I learned a whole lot about chickens. We ended up with piles of usable meat and decided to grill some over charcoal, fry some American-style and roast another in a dutch oven. I was really excited to slow-roast one with carrots and onions and herbs and red wine, but the limited space proved a challenge. Cramming that much food in a small pot over coal leads to a reeeeally slow roasting process. But I am stubborn and we had more than enough of the grilled and fried, so we decided that the roasted chicken would be ready in time for round two. While the chicken was cooking, we got to work on the mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, green beans and salad that would accompany the meat. We even made piri-piri  (hot chili pepper) sauce from scratch. And we knocked enough green mangoes off the tree in my yard to make a giant pot of cinnamon-y, oat-y, bubbly crisp. 

Ready to take down some chickens (although we were spared the experience); Mozambican Christmas tree; Jonathan mans the carvão.

After a full day of sweating over the carvão and hotplate, dinner was served. We said a couple of blessings, loaded up our plates and piled onto the front porch to eat in the slightly more fresco air outside. As everyone dug in, silence descended. As I took a few bites of the heavenly, butter-laden mashed potatoes, I thought it was because the food was too good to talk. Then I bit into the fried chicken. Or tried to. The batter on the outside was delicious. Jonathan, who had been in charge of both grilling and frying, had outdone himself. But even though the chicken was moist and juicy - perfectly cooked - the flesh was tougher than anything I have ever encourntered. I locked eyes with Alexandra, who had done hours of work defeathering and cleaning the birds, asked "It's a little tough.... isn't it?" and she just started giggling. She signaled that she would answer when her mouth wasn't full and kept chewing. And chewing. And giggling. And chewing. Suddenly, I realized that it had been about a full minute and she hadn't answered because she was still working on the same bite and collapsed in laughter.

It turns out that the larger birds we had selected are older and tend to be tougher. So, next time, we will just suck it up and deal with killing a few more. Luckily, we still had the chicken roasting on carvão in the back. I added more coals and we let it go all night. The next day, we gave it a try and it wasn't exactly fork-tender, but it was easily chewable and quite delicious. We cut the rest of the grilled and fried chicken off the bones and simmered it up into a big pot of chili the next night. And the bones are all in my freezer, waiting to become soup.

Sarah and Lisa enjoying curry; Blessing Christmas dinner with Irish prayers; Anna and curry.

Despite some challenges, everyone had a great time. The chicken was tough, but we ate well anyways and the cookies and mulled wine made it feel a little more like Christmas, even with the heat. Most of all, I think we were all just happy to be together. We had a chance to hear about everyone's different experiences in their communities so far. Everyone came with tales of quirky neighbors, strange things they found left in their houses by previous volunteers, and the sometimes complicated process of establishing their relationships with their new schools. People shared tips about how they are getting by with limited tools and supplies at site. Most importantly, we were able to share the current feelings of excitement about our new lives here, that are mixed with a healthy dose of homesickness, particularly as we thought about our families celebrating the holidays together back home. Throughout the days, folks would duck out on the phone to have long, bittersweet calls with their parents and friends or shut the door to a bedroom and settle into a Skype session. These calls tended to end with a sigh and sometimes a few tears, but having our friends around for a hug made all the difference.

I have to end as I started, by saying how much I love my Central PC Moz 19 volunteers. We had sixteen people gathered together for five-plus days, without a moment of arguing or drama - even when the dreaded moment of splitting up the bills came. It helps that we had made a whole lot of delicious food for very little money, but there wasn't a single word of argument throughout the whole process. Everyone paid their part and even threw in a little extra for utilities. People took every challenge in stride, without complaint. Those who didn't want to cook did dishes cheerfully. The four girls who didn't have to get on a chapa by 5:00 am on the 27th even helped me clean. By 11:00 that morning, my house was cleaner than it had been before everyone arrived. You would never have known that only hours before, 14 people had been sleeping on every available surface and sharing one bathroom. So all I can say is thank you, to all who traveled to be together for our holiday away from home. I love you all and would have happily had everyone back for New Year's!

And to all: Boas Festas e Próspero Ano Novo!

One Week in Chimoio (and links to additional reading)

After the frantic pace of pre-service training, the last week has been a bit of a shock. Since moving into my house last week, I have had one meeting with my school and a whole lot of free time. I have had plenty to do with that free time: I scrubbed my house down from ceiling to floor; there were piles of laundry to do (by hand on the concrete scrub board out back); I have had errands to run every day, from filling in the household necessities not left by the previous volunteer, to frequent runs to the paderia for fresh bread or mercado for fruits and veggies. I tried my hand at cooking a Mozambican dish: couve (like collards) with a coconut-peanut sauce (good, but I need some practice). And I have been getting to know the awesome other volunteers here in Chimoio. We have eaten at a few local restaurants, my favorite of which was a tiny Pakistani place located inside a basketball/indoor soccer court. There was a soccer tournament going on when we ate there, so we got free entertainment along with the delicious, fiery daal and warm, fresh chapatis.



My first attempt at Mozambican cooking- homemade coconut milk!

 Chimoio is home to a fairly large expat/immigrant population, which brings some diversity to the food - I just learned yesterday that there is a Chinese restaurant with good lo-mein! - and also means Americans don't get as many curious stares as we did in Namaacha. Fortunately, the expat population is still small enough that there doesn't seem to be the same tension that can happen in some of the southern cities that have recently seen a large influx of South Africans. It also helps that Chimoio has a pretty large population - just over 250,000. It has been an adjustment after the familiar friendliness of a smaller town like Namaacha. People don't tend to say "hi" when passing on the street, despite my many friendly (insistent? lonely? desperate?) attempts to lure them with a "bom dia" or "boa tarde." I have about a 10 - 20% success rate, but the replies, frequently with a smile and slight bow over hands clasped at the chest, are so worth it that I won't stop any time soon. Mozambicans have a very charming habit of replying to "Bom dia" (literally, "Good day," the greeting used until noon), with "Bom dia, bom dia, obrigado," and that slight bow, which makes the exchange feel much more genuine.




Catholic Church with motorcycles. Mosque and Chimoians.

  Peace Corps has contributed seven foreigners to the city - three of us education volunteers teaching at the Universidade Catolica, and two health volunteers. Additionally, two former volunteers have returned ten years after their service to work at NGO's here in Chimoio. Yesterday they brought us to a beautiful spot just outside the city proper: a little bar on a hillside overlooking a lagoon where they can let their giant Rhodesian Ridgeback run free. Mozambicans are generally afraid of all dogs, and the looks on their faces when they spot Oliver is a sight to see. Unfortunately, I haven't been bringing my camera out too much while I am getting better aquainted with the city. I have heard plenty of stories of volunteers being pick-pocketed, so I have been cautious. But now that I am feeling more comfortable, I will try to take some more pictures. I did run around the center of town this morning to get the shots included here.


My favorite bakery: "Bread. Peace. Progress. Prosperity."

 
One of my favorite spots is the market. Chimoio's market has pretty much anything you could want when it comes to fruits and veggies. I have also been making a lot of scrambled egg sandwiches because the fresh eggs and bread here are sooo good. I am getting to know the stalls where I prefer to get my lettuce, tomatoes, eggs, lychees, bananas and pineapples. And the pineapple guy has gotten to know me as the girl who can never keep the prices straight! But as someone new to the city, the market has also been a great place to stop and chat with people who aren't Peace Corps Volunteers. Today, I had a long conversation with a kid at the carrot stand about where I came from, how much Mozambicans love Obama (a lot!) and whether or not I could bring him back with me. His brother ended up by joking that I should just carry his head back with me because it was so big. Much as was predicted by volunteers who have been here a year or two, people have asked me if I can get them into America, if I know Justin Bieber, and most frequently, if I need someone to work in my house. But I have also had conversations about recipes or what I am doing here or all the options for playing sports in Chimoio.


Fruit bounty at the mercado.

 So, despite some holiday-season homesickness, I am happily nesting here. Next Friday is the University's holiday party, where we will be able to meet some of our new colleagues. Then next weekend, the other Moz 19 volunteers from Manica and Tete provinces will be making their way to my house to celebrate Christmas. In the tradition of my mother, I intend to be the jolliest Jew in town. It will be great to have everyone over, cooking, baking and decorating the mango tree. I can't wait to hear about their sites and how their first weeks have been.

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With more free time and free access to the Internet at the regional PC office that happens to be down the street, I have been doing some more reading on what is going on in the world of economic development regarding Mozambique, so I leave you with links to a few interesting articles:

• Mozambique, the new frontier of global capitalism: Recently, many natural resources have been discovered in Mozambique and how the government manages foreign investment and mineral rights will be crucial in determining the country's development over the coming decades.
• Mozambique's 'growth corridor' hopes to tackle poverty and turn a profit: I live smack in the middle of a rich agricultural area and transportation corridor that could contribute to increased food security for Mozambique. The Beira Agricultural Growth Corridor is a body that is looking to invest in small-holder farms in the area while promoting commercial agricultural development.
• GSK forms partnership with Vodafone to help increase childhood vaccination in Mozambique: GlaxoSmithKline, one of the world's largest pharma companies, is partnering with Mozambican telecom company Vodafone to develop mobile technologies that will aid in creating more effective childhood vaccination programs.

My New Home

Arrived!

I have finally arrived the Chimoio, the city that I will call home for the next two years. I moved into my lovely little house on Saturday and have spent the last few days scrubbing it clean and wandering through the city, getting to know the streets and finding nesting materials :-) The best part of my living situation, so far, is the backyard full of fruit trees - mango, papaya, guava, passion fruit and even grapes! You can find almost any fruit you want at the local market, but grapes are a rare and expensive treat, so the sweet, purple, concord-like fruit vining through the grates on my window was a happy surprise. The wicker loveseat on my front porch is pretty nice, too...

My cute Mozambican house!

Chimoio is the capital of Manica Province and the fourth largest city in Mozambique. With a population just over 250,000, it is a walkable city with just a touch of hustle and bustle. Manica is the heart of Mozambique's agricultural industry and the market is overflowing with fruits and veggies. I already found a bakery with fantastic bread and little burned-sugar covered flaky pastries that I am going to have to pretend don't exist if I don't want to invest in some bigger jeans.

The temperature is cool for this country, although the sun still packs a punch midday. It has alternated rain and sun since we arrived on Wednesday which means the electricity has been hit-or-miss, too. I do have running (cold) water in my house, but it is turned off over night and can suddenly disappear various times throughout the day. One of my first tasks was to fill a bunch of buckets while it was running so I could continue to clean when the faucets stopped working for hours at a time.

My grape/passion fruit/bougainvillea arbor

The climate seems to make this a fertile region for bugs and critters, as well. I have seen everything from mosquitoes and cockroaches to spiders of all shapes and sizes, strange things that look like a cross between a dragonfly and a giant ant, a bumble bee the size of a walnut, and an 8-inch-long snail with a shell the size of a softball.

Tomorrow I will get to visit the University with the other volunteer who will begin teaching there this year. We already met the three other Peace Corps Volunteers who live in Chimoio, two in the Health program and another teacher who has been at the University for a year already. It's a nice little PC family!

The Central crew outside the airport

One nice perk about living in Chimoio is that I am a 10 minute walk from the central region's Peace Corps office, which makes mail easy. My new address is:

Anna Derby, PCV
Corpo da Paz/U.S. Peace Corps
C.P. 331
Chimoio
Mocambique

Mail will usually take about three weeks to arrive, although some things take more or less depending on weather or whim of the mail gods. Any cards, letters or pictures would be much appreciated. Despite the relative ease of internet contact, there is something comforting about a real, written letter I can hold! If you feel up for sending a little something (dark chocolate? good tea? parmesan cheese?), flat-rate envelopes from the USPS are only $5-$10 to send here. But really, a picture and a little story about what is going on in your life would be just as sweet. My phone number is still 258 84 184-5631 and I am happy to get calls and texts!

I hope all is well with everyone back home. All the babies, engagements, and Christmas trees make me happy, with a healthy touch of homesick, of course.

Ave Maria, Cheia da Graça

Every trainee here has had a different experience with their homestay families; some have faced more challenges than others - whether it be issues of personal space and freedom or a shortage of nutritive food - but as a whole, we have been astounded by the generosity we have encountered here in Namaacha. Much as we are "volunteers" who receive a monthly stipend, free housing in some of the nicer accommodations in our communities and free high-quality healthcare, our families are not paid to host us, but only given a monthly payment to "offset the cost" of having us in the house. For those families with too many mouths to feed, this amounts to a windfall and a good amount of the payment isn't reflected in the quality or quantity of food the trainee is receiving. We can only assume that the money is being used to pay for thing that the family usually can't afford. Other trainees have been eating prawns brought in from Maputo that are way outside the budget funded by the Peace Corps. Two trainees have running water in their houses, while the majority have outdoor pit latrines full of cockroaches at night.

The front yard of my host home in Namaacha

I really lucked out to be placed with a woman like my host mother, Maria. Many friends who have come over for a meal or afternoon tea have commented on what a nice house it is. Some call it a mansion, while others go straight to castle. It is a nice house, even by US standards: a spacious split-level made of stone that stays cool in the heat. Although there is no water in the plumbing fixtures, we do have a gas stove and a refrigerator. We even have a microwave, although it next to useless at night when the electric grid is under too much strain to provide adequate power to heat a plate of food in under 15-20 minutes. The living area has two walls of floor-to-ceiling sliding glass doors that let in light almost all day and provide beautiful views of the sprawling machamba (subsistence farm) that surrounds it. As I write this, I am watching a neighbor cut a branch from a mango tree outside the window. I can see a plot of corn, a handful of papaya trees, and three litchi trees covered in nearly-ripe fruit. The birds-of-paradise dropped their flowers a few weeks ago, but the jasmine is in full bloom. On the other side of the house you can find fields of peanuts, mandioca, beans, garlic, onions and salad veggies. The garden takes a lot of work, and requires the help of the woman who works in our house, a neighbor girl who works outside regularly and some others who come at planting times. But my nearly 70-year-old host mother is out there, too, seeding, weeding and harvesting.

Part of the garlic harvest. My meals here weren't bland.

My mãe is a worker, whether it be in the machamba, Tuesdays at the local convent, or staying well past midnight helping the Cruz Vermelha (Mozambican Red Cross) during the bi-annual pereginações (pilgrimages) to Namaacha's Catholic church. She has been back-and-forth attending trainings as the president of AMODEFA, a local organization that runs youth programs promoting family-planning, combating HIV/AIDS and giving voice to girls and young women. She was actually a founding member of the Namaacha chapter back in the 1990's. And this is her retirement. She worked as a clerk in a municipal office until mandatory retirement at 65. She and her late husband put their three children through college, including their oldest daughter who attended university in the UK. This daughter now works in Maputo at the Irish Embassy, while the middle son runs a trucking company and her youngest is a professor at the teacher training college in Maputo. While the spacious freezer is probably what impresses most of her neighbors (especially because she lets them use it to store their chickens), it is the well-stocked bookshelf on the back wall of the living room that catches my eye. In a community where many can't even read and most books are prohibitively expensive, a full bookshelf says a lot about where someone is investing their time and money. 

With her goddaughter's grandson and another trainee

As one of our language trainers who had worked with her at AMODEFA said, my host mom is the kind of woman a community like Namaacha needs. I knew the moment I met her and saw her shirt that read "Women have the right to vote and be counted" that I was about to get to know someone with an interesting perspective on life in Mozambique. One of the best motivators for improving my Portuguese has been my desire to have conversations with her about more complex issues. Those conversations have been coming along, but I look forward to meeting her for a cup of tea some time in the future when I can form better questions and express myself more clearly. I know that I will be able to ask her about nearly anything I encounter in my community and get a perspective informed by a balanced blend of education, experience and extreme generosity of spirit.

One of the many beautiful trees in her yard.

Although I won't be leaving Namaacha until tomorrow morning, I unfortunately had to say goodbye to my host mother on Saturday. She has been traveling back and forth to Maputo for the last few weeks caring for her daughter-in-law who was sick with tuberculosis and sadly passed away on Friday. My mãe had been traveling two hours each way to the hospital to visit her daughter in law, clean her, change her clothing. Finally, last weekend, she even traveled to Swaziland to pick up the South African version of Depends for her. When I stopped home during lunch on Friday, she was on the phone and I overhead her telling the story of calling the hospital to check on visiting hours and finding out that the patient in question had already passed away. As I tried to express my sympathy in my broken Portuguese, I gave her a hug and she started crying on my shoulder. All her family was in Maputo and she was home alone, so I ran back to class to collect my belongings and rushed back home.

When I returned, we sat and drank tea and talked more about her daughter-in-law and what was going to happen for the funeral. Over the course of the conversation, I realized the complexity of the relationship with the woman who had just passed. I knew that my mãe's "grandson," Kikas, who came to stay some weekends was actually her grand-nephew. What I hadn't known was that his mother had disappeared from the family when Kikas was nine months old. The woman who my mãe had been spending so much time and effort caring for had abandoned her son and husband more than twenty years ago, occasionally making promises to visit that she never kept, while my host mom raised Kikas like her son. When her daughter-in-law reappeared in a hospital bed, deathly ill and asking for help, my mãe didn't hesitate to make weekly trips into the city to care for her when no-one else would.

That is just the kind of person she is. When someone is in need, you help them; be it a young girl visiting AMODEFA because of an unwanted pregnancy, a relative in the hospital, or a neighbor without a freezer. Or a young American Peace Corps volunteer, learning to navigate a brand new culture in a foreign language.

Mãe and filha