Culture Clash? Melting Pot? My life here is full of contrasts.

My life as a Peace Corps Volunteer in a midsized Mozambican city is one of stark contrasts. Life in general in a developing country in the era of globalization is full of contrasts: woman walking down the street carrying baskets of fruit on their head while texting. A man leading his goat through the paved parking lot of the big, multi-national grocery store. But this weekend has really put those contrasts front-and-center for me to appreciate. To illustrate, let me walk you through the last couple of days.

Friday was the university’s official opening ceremony for the academic year. As it is a Catholic institution, the day began with a mass. The service was a sort of microcosm of  the intense blend of cultures that exist here. We sat in an plastic chairs set in rows in an auditorium whose walls have been painted with two large advertisements declaring in Portuguese that Coca-Cola is best enjoyed cold. The professors all sat to one side, most wearing their caps and gowns. (As no one told me to bring my graduation regalia to Mozambique, I was wearing the capulana dress that I had made for our swearing-in ceremony).

For a relatively small group (maybe around 30 full time), the faculty is diverse. Predominantly male, but with maybe six or seven women, we are Mozambican, Zimbabwean, Ugandan, Polish, Dutch, Italian and American. Our Mozambican director was educated in Texas, while the Polish director of the English department went to university in Britain, but is now married to a Mozambican.

As the mass began, the Mozambican Bishop of Chimoio entered, flanked by three other priests, two African and one French. Their vestments were what you would expect: fine white fabric edged with ornate, metallic-threaded embroidery. But the bishop’s cassock was also adorned with an appliqué of sorts, in a capulana-like fabric printed with fish. His mitre was beautiful, embellished with brightly colored patches of fabric alternating with leopard print. They walked past the choir of university students all wearing matching white UCM polo shirts, the women in matching wrapped capulana skirts and the men in jeans or pants made of the same capulana. They took their seats at the altar that had been fashioned on the stage and decorated with swaths of capulana and tulle.

The bishop and other officials at a ceremony in January.

Throughout the mass, the choir sang hymns in Portuguese, Chitewe (the local language of Chimoio), and Shona (another local language). Some were in the chanting style of masses I have attended in the US, but many included the beautiful harmonizing and clapping that characterizes the traditional acapella Mozambican music I have heard here. I met the French priest before and he speaks fluent Portuguese (with a charming French accent) but I saw a few times that he was also singing along with the hymns in Chitewe.

The mass was followed by a series of speeches by various administrators and finished with a presentation by the Minister of Mineral Resources for Mozambique. A well-educated, impressively-experienced woman, she gave a detailed presentation on the history and current state of mineral resources in Mozambique, then opened the floor to questions.

My favorite interaction of the day came when a first year student studying law stood, not to ask a question, but to take the opportunity to offer his criticism of the government. The student was eager to lodge his complaint regarding the state of development in Mozambique, specifically infrastructure and healthcare. He did not like that so many Mozambicans leave to go to hospitals in South Africa and other neighboring countries. The ministra took it all with good humor, interrupting his complaint about a recent trip to a hospital with, “You left alive, didn’t you?” and pointing out that as a law student, he would have to learn to back up his case with more facts. I should note that the student made all of his rambling, poorly-focused argument while wearing skinny jeans that were falling off of his butt and large headphones around his neck, using the cord of them to gesticulate.

It was a pleasure watching the woman who had graduated high-school during a time when Mozambicans with a secondary education numbered in only the triple digits and finished college during the civil war, when there were as many people in the country’s one university as there are currently enrolled in college in the province of Manica, skillfully take down the kid who is a beneficiary of the current boom in development here. And all with a smile. Yet another contrast in cultures, just this time it was between different generations of Mozambicans.

The ministra speaks about mineral resources.

Saturday, I spent most of the day planning my lessons for the coming week. More specifically, making PowerPoint slides for my lessons, something I did not expect to be a regular part of my work as a PCV. During the morning, another volunteer came by the house with a Mozambican friend of his who we will be hiring to help take care of our yard. We have had an ongoing drama surrounding the cleaning of our yard, which finally seems to have been resolved. The house I live in is much bigger and nicer than I should have as a PCV and it has been very difficult to find someone to just cut the grass and trim the hedges for a price we can afford. The last person who came by to quote wanted to do a full landscaping job with two assistants and charge us half our monthly stipend. I think it is hard for most to understand that, despite the fact that we are muzungus (white/foreigners) living in a large house in a nice part of town, we do not have large salaries.

The young man who will now be helping us needs the money to pay his way through the last two years of high school. As we talked about the payments, he told me that really all he cared about was having enough to finish his education. He explained that his mother had died and father lived in a northern province with his other wife and new family. “He is living his own life” now, the boy explained to me with a shrug. We finalized the agreement, he left with a guava from my tree to the house he shares with his grandmother and cousin and I went back inside to finish my work at the nice table in the three-bedroom I have to myself.

In the evening, after finishing my lesson plans and Skyping with a friend in the Peace Corps office, I had dinner at a pizza restaurant with two fellow volunteers. We were surrounded by tables of expats: one of Japanese JICA volunteers, another overflowing with South African and British men and a third with a Brazilian woman and her companion. We had a long conversation with the JICA volunteers in Portuguese. It was a little surreal.

But today promises to be one of the most surreal so far. This morning, my Canadian VSO friend and I met up with one of the young men who works at my university to go to church. The worker was one who had helped renovate the dependencia behind my house for the other volunteer who lives there. We had the opportunity to talk plenty while I was doing laundry or they were taking a break from their work and he asked if I would come to his church some time. This was in December. He asked again last month, but it this was the first week when it would actually work. We met at the school and he explained that the church was “bem perto” (really close), but we would have to take a chapa. His way of saying it wasn’t close at all, but he didn’t want us to decide not to go. No worries, it was only 8:30 and I finished most of my lesson plans yesterday.

We took the chapa to the edge of Chimoio-proper and got off on a dirt road. After following winding paths through corn fields, mud-brick and thatched-roof houses, and eventually crossing a stream, we arrived at the little Igreja Missão Baptista Internacional de Moçambique. The church was only established last June and is currently housed in a small, simple, windowless building also made of mud-bricks with a thatch roof. The one room consisted of riser-style benches facing an altar with a portrait of Jesus and four chairs arrayed behind it. We were led to the front and told that as guests, we would be sitting in two of these chairs, beside the pastor and his assistant. Oh, and as we entered the church, my friend from school’s brother asked, “You are ready to say some words? To preach?” No. No, I am not.

Igreja Missão Baptista Internacional de Moçambique

Shortly after we arrived, the room began to fill with parishioners. The pastor explained that the service was supposed to begin at 9:00, but many were accustomed to arriving at 10:00. While they were waiting for the rest of the congregation to arrive, those present began to sing. The twenty or so worshippers there included children, young mothers in t-shirts and the omnipresent capulana wraps, young men in slacks and ties, and a two or three stooped avós (grandmothers). The songs were all in Chitewe, so I couldn’t understand the words, but the music was beautiful: a sort of overlapping call-and-response, with one or two people taking the first lines and the others singing the rest, all in rich harmonies. The only accompaniment was a pair of maracas and everyone’s clapping. Occasionally, the women would break out in a stomping dance; one pregnant, another breastfeeding a baby tied to her by a capulana, a girl of about 6 or 7, and a tiny girl in pants that wouldn’t stay up and her mother’s giant slip-on pink shoes. One of the avós joined in at times, to complete the range of generations.

Once it began, the service itself moved along at a decent pace. My friend greeted the congregation, went through the schedule for the service and explained that there were visitors today. (All with his English-speaking brother translating the Chitewe). We each got up and introduced ourselves and I got an enthusiastic round of applause when I greeted them with the one Chitewe word that I know. There was more singing and dancing interspersed between the testimonials of those present, the sermon from the minister and prayers for the sick. In lieu of preaching, I agreed to read the bible verses that the pastor had selected. It was clear that our presence and participation meant a lot to the small congregation.

After the service had ended, the crowd of parishioners left to pray for a sick member of the church. We stayed and spoke for a little while with the pastor. They brought us cookies and soda and insisted that we eat and drink. We ate some of the cookies, but when a crowd of children peeked through the door, I asked if it would be okay to share with them. The kids eagerly took the cookies and ran out to play. We listened as the pastor told us the story of how the church had been founded and the many challenges it had faced in its first year. Once the snacks were finished, we walked back to the chapa, stopping to drop chairs at the house my friend shares with his brother, sister and her children. He explained that he is currently saving to build a house of his own so that his wife and kids can move in from the distrito (rural area).

So, why is today surreal? After starting with a morning in a church service in Chitewe, full of traditional music and dance, surrounded by people living in much simpler homes than where I live, I am getting ready for dinner with the US Ambassador to Mozambique and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State. Like I said, my life here is a study in contrasts.

Update: Here is a picture of me with Ambassador Griffiths and DAS Brigety (as he explained, he is the assistant to the deputy in charge of African Affairs). We had a really nice dinner with them and two other State Department staffers. They answered all of our questions and took time to hear all about what we are doing here in Manica. Apparently, he tries to meet with Peace Corps Volunteers whenever he is traveling through Africa. It was fascinating hearing more about the workings of the State Department and nice to know that they will take the time to sit down with us little guys.

Third Goal Activities, or I am a minor celebrity in one 8th grade classroom

Life has gotten a whole lot busier lately! Between preparations for school (which starts next Monday - eek!) and some side projects I have picked up, I haven't had too much free time. Also, I finally recieved my correspondence match and have been working on a letter to send to them. Peace Corps has a program that fits into the "third goal" activities of sharing the experiences of Volunteers abroad with communities back in the US. From peacecorps.gov:

Mission

In 1961, President John F. Kennedy established the Peace Corps to promote world peace and friendship.
The Peace Corps' mission has three simple goals:

1. Helping the people of interested countries in meeting their need for trained men and women.
2. Helping promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of the peoples served.
3. Helping promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans.

Things like this blog also fit into the third goal, as do activities like classroom visits by returned volunteers.

So I will be sending letters and pictures to an 8th grade class back in Massachusetts throughout my time here in Mozambique. In my initial emails with the teacher, I passed along a link to this blog and she used it to create a bulletin board in her classroom. I was a little surprised by how excited I was to hear that there is now a bulletin board with a map of Mozambique and pictures of me and my house in a class in western Massachusetts. Check that bucket list item I didn't even know I had!

Since I didn't have a chance to write a proper blog post, I figured I would share the letter I am sending to her. It doesn't have a whole lot of information that I haven't already shared here, but provides a good summary of my experience so far!

Olá, alunos da Profesora Smith. Estou bem aqui em Moçambique, mas não sei ao lado de vocês.

One of the most challenging - and most rewarding - experiences in Mozambique so far has been learning Portuguese, so I thought I would share a little with you all. An interesting thing about greetings here is that people will tell you that they are doing well, but instead of asking how you are, they will say “Estou bem, mas não sei ao seu lado,” which literally means “I am well, but I don’t know about on your side.” You can then respond with, “Eu também estou bem,” meaning, “I am also well.”

Thank you for all of your questions. I will try to answer as many as I can. For a lot of them, I will only be able to tell you about the small part of the country that I have seen so far. Ms. Stone told me she will put up a map, so you can see where in Mozambique I live. I have only been to two other parts of country and it is HUGE! It is the 35^th largest country in the world. It is twice the size of California and almost 30 times bigger than Massachusetts! Since it is so big, there are all different kinds of people living very different kinds of lives. Some places are really hot all year and others get cold in the winter, but I don’t think it snows anywhere. There are really beautiful beaches, tall mountains and some places with nothing but grass for miles. So to answer Conor’s question, the landscape looks different in different parts, but most of the parts I have seen are really beautiful. I will include some pictures so you can see for yourself.

What does Mozambique look like?

I live in Chimoio, the fourth largest city in Mozambique and the capital of the province of Manica. Provinces are what we have here instead of states. There are ten provinces in total in Mozambique. Manica is right in the middle of the country and it borders Zimbabwe. It only takes about an hour to fly to the capital city of Maputo, but it would take about fifteen hours to drive or take a bus, because the roads are really bad. One of the biggest problems in Mozambique is that there aren’t a lot of paved roads and the ones we have are not in very good shape. It makes traveling much harder than in the US, unless you can afford to take an airplane, and it makes it harder to get food or other products from one part of the country to another.

While I was in training, I lived in a smaller town called Namaacha, which was on the border of Swaziland, but I didn’t go to Swaziland. I did hike to a place where the borders of Mozambique, South Africa and Swaziland all come together. I am including pictures of that for you. Shelby asked about sights in Mozambique. There are some famous places like an island called Ilha de Moçambique and a huge dam called the Cahora Basso. I haven’t been to them yet, but I have seen some really beautiful sights hiking. There is also a lot of wildlife, although not as much as there used to be. Mozambique has had a lot of conflict in the past and lots of the elephants and lions did not make it through the years of war. There are people working on restoring the populations now, but it is a slow process. There are lots and lots of venomous snakes here, too. Luckily, I haven’t seen any yet, but some of my friends have found snakes in their houses and yards. In Mozambique, it is really important to cut the grass around your house short enough that you will be able to see if there are any snakes.

Hiking sights

For work, I am going to be teaching classes at a university, one English class and another about how to manage a business. That one will be in Portuguese! The Peace Corps has a very good language-training program, so my Portuguese has improved a lot since I arrived in Mozambique in September, but I am still nervous about teaching a class in a foreign language. Portuguese is the official language here, because Mozambique used to be a colony of Portugal, but there are also lots of local languages, the ones people spoke before Europeans were here. Most people still speak them at home, or in the markets and on the streets. Where I live, people speak Chiuwte. Some others are Ndau, Changana, Xiswa and Emakhuwa. Since I am still learning Portuguese, I haven’t tried to learn the local language yet, but I hope to eventually.

I live by myself in a nice house with an extra bedroom where my friends can stay when they visit. Since I live in the capital of our province, lots of other volunteers who live in small villages have to come here to buy food and other supplies, or to use the bank. It is fun to have them come spend the weekend and hear about the experiences they are having. Every Peace Corps Volunteer has a very different experience because every site (town or village) is very different. I am excited to go visit more of my friends to see what their houses are like and meet their friends in their communities. There is another volunteer who lives next to me and we share a yard. This is his second time in the Peace Corps. He was a volunteer in Tonga when he was much younger and now that he retired, he decided to come back and be a volunteer again. There are also three other volunteers who live in other parts of the city, so don’t worry Oscar, I am never lonely! But I have also started making friends with teachers at my university and other people from here in Mozambique.

A lot of people wanted to know about the weather here. Since we are in the southern hemisphere, it is summer now and it is really hot. Other parts of the country are much hotter than Chimoio, but it is usually between 80 and 90 degrees here and very humid. Then it will rain and everything gets much cooler for a little while. Lots of times when it rains, the power in my house goes out, so I always have to have candles nearby. Although most people in the city have electricity in their houses, many who live in more rural areas still do not. In my whole district, only 30% have electricity at home. I have not been here in the winter yet, but I am told it is cool in Chimoio. I have running water in my house, but I only have cold water. When the weather gets colder, I will have to heat up water on the stove to take a bucket bath instead of taking cold showers. But I am really lucky to have running water at all, because less than 15% of the people in my district have water in their houses and they have to carry water home from a well or collect it in buckets when it rains.

Food is one of my favorite things to talk about! There is some really good food in Mozambique, but it all depends on where you live. Since I am in a city and my province is very fertile, I can get all kinds of great stuff here. There is a market down the street where I can get fresh fruits and vegetables. The climate here is tropical, so the fruit is spectacular. I even have fruit trees in my backyard: mangoes, papayas, guavas, grapes and passionfruit. There are lots and lots of bananas here, too, and they are really cheap, so everyone eats them everyday. They are smaller and sweeter than the ones we usually get in the grocery stores in the US. I eat fruit in my yogurt, on my bread with peanut butter, by itself. If you have any good ideas about how to eat fruit, please tell me! One thing I really miss here in Chimoio is seafood. Mozambique has amazing fish and shrimp and lobsters, but only if you live on the coast. Since it so hard to ship food from one part of the country to another, it is hard to find any seafood here in Chimoio.

People don’t eat very much meat because it is expensive, but chicken is more common. There are grocery stores and butchers in the big cities that sell meat, but lots of people raise their own pigs or goats. Goats are really common and you see them tied up all over the place, in peoples’ yards or just on the side of the road eating grass. I have even seen them tied to the tops of buses driving through town! Also, people carry chickens around in their arms, or on their bicycles or in wheelbarrows. I have started getting used to it, but it still looks funny. But for most people, meat is mostly eaten on holidays and special occasions.



I have been eating well here

One of the most common dishes people eat regularly is beans and rice, or beans and a dish called xima (shee-ma), which is like mashed potatoes made out of cornmeal. It is kind of like polenta or grits, if anyone has had those. People here use it to pick up other food with their hands instead of using a fork. We also eat a lot of greens, like the leaves from abobora, which is like a pumpkin, or the leaves of manioc roots, called matapa. My favorite way these are prepared is in a sauce made from coconut milk and peanuts. It is delicious! Another common way to cook things is in a caril, which is like a curry with tomatoes and onions and lots of spices. Since Mozambique was on the trade route between India and Portugal, there are lots of Indian spices here. Also, there are lots of influences from the Portuguese colonists. They brought things like tomatoes, onions, garlic, cilantro, chili peppers, corn and rice. Another delicious things left from the Portuguese is their bread. There are bakeries everywhere that make small- or medium-sized rolls fresh throughout the day. You can walk in at almost any time and get bread that is crusty on the outside and chewy on the inside – and hot if you are lucky!

Christine asked about the clothes here. Most men wear regular American-style pants and shirts. A lot of the clothing actually comes second-hand from the US. They wear jeans and t-shirts or slacks and button-down shirts to dress up. Some women wear American-style clothes, too. They wear jeans, skirts, dresses and blouses or t-shirts. But they also wear a traditional wrapped skirt called a capulana. It is really just a big piece of printed fabric that can be used for many, many things. Women also use them to carry their babies, or as table cloths, or curtains. (Not the same one they wear, though!) They wear the capulanas with t-shirts to do work around the house, or with nicer shirts to go out. They aren’t formal enough to wear to a job at an office or a school, but you can make dresses out of the capulana cloth that are formal enough for any occasion. In general, women and girls here dress more conservatively. Outside of Maputo, you almost never see someone wearing a skirt or a dress that shows her knees and you rarely see tank tops with narrow straps.

Capulanas!

I think the hardest of your questions for me to answer is what my favorite experience has been so far. I have had so many different kinds of experiences already and they are fun or satisfying for different reasons. Christmas here was one of my favorites. Since we were all homesick, 15 of my volunteer friends came and stayed at my house and we cooked tons of food and had dance parties. Another was the model school we had during training. After eight weeks of preparation, I finally got up in front of a room full of Mozambican students and taught a Math lesson in Portuguese. I was so proud when they could answer all of my questions correctly. Since I am still learning the language and the culture here, just getting through a normal day here can be challenging, so sometimes really little things are more satisfying than you would imagine. One thing that is really hard about learning a new language is getting comfortable enough to make jokes. I really like being able to make people laugh, so the first time I made a joke in Portuguese and the director of my school laughed, it was one of the best days I have had since I got to Chimoio!

But I would have to say that my favorite thing about being here so far has not really been an experience, but the people I have met. When I first got here, I lived with a Mozambican host mother who was one of the kindest, most generous people I have met. She raised three children who all went to college and have good jobs, even though there was a civil war going on when they were growing up and most people were not even finishing high school. She helped me learn about the Mozambican culture and how to cook Mozambican food. I have started meeting all kinds of wonderful people here in Chimoio, too. Mozambican people tend to be incredibly warm and welcoming. Families are large and inclusive, and they will treat anyone who comes to their house like they are a part of their own family. Even people who have very little for themselves will offer food and drink to guests. And they love to laugh. The people here are what make it a wonderful place to live.

Lastly, someone wanted to know what you can do to help. Right now, just learning more about Mozambique and its people helps support the work the Peace Corps is doing here. Our mission is to help the Mozambican schools and health system, but also to share our experiences with Americans, so they understand a little more about how people here live. So please keep asking more questions and looking at the pictures I send and tell your friends and families about what you learn!

I saw pictures of the snowstorm that Massachusetts just had. I hope you are all digging out and keeping warm!

Abraços,

Anna