Uma Grande Confusão: Life Ouside my Culture Takes its Toll

When I arrived here, I was immersed in a new culture that functioned in multiple languages I didn't speak or understand. Even as I became more comfortable with Portuguese, a big part of life for Mozambicans in Namaacha was lived in Changana and remained a mystery to me. Most of my host mother's conversations with Isaura, the woman who worked in her house, or her friends that came by, were in this local dialeto and were completely incomprehensible. Even when they were punctuated by pauses during which they all turned and looked meaningfully in my direction. I would have loved to have learned some Changana, but just learning Portuguese - the language I would need to teach my classes - was challenging enough. Sometimes, when I would try to learn a few words of Changana, it felt like my brain was putting its foot down and actively rejecting this other language. "Can't you see I'm already overwhelmed here!" it would ask.

The idea of teaching in Portuguese terrified me!

And the truth is, it was overwhelmed by all the newness I was asking it to absorb, and not just the new language(s). When I had been living within my own culture, I had had an understanding of what was going on around me at a pretty profound level, something that was easy to take for granted while I remained there. Then, finding myself in the midst of a new culture, I realized that all those layers of understanding that reach down past the superficial were suddenly missing. Even when I did understand the words being spoken, I often didn't understand the why behind the situation. In the US I knew the culture, customs and norms. I knew the way things usually should go in most situations and could easily perceive when something was off. The greater cultural context was familiar, letting me piece things together when I didn't have all the background information in order to make sense of what was going on. All this was gone when I arrived in Mozambique. 

Taking all this familiarity away leaves you feeling pretty lost sometimes. To get by as I was learning the culture, I quickly got used to operating in a state of incomplete information, mild confusion and disorientation. I developed the habit of just shrugging things off if I didn't understand, knowing that either someone would explain it eventually, or understanding it fully wasn't really necessary. For example, I usually just go to the ATM when I need money, but a few months ago I had to go speak to a teller inside for the first time. I entered the bank and the guard directed me to the end of the 30+ person line. There were about five tellers with open windows, and as one person wrapped up their transaction, the next person in line would walk up and stand directly behind them until they could speak with the teller. Then, all of a sudden, a man walked in the door of the bank, paused to survey the line and proceeded to duck under the rope and stand behind the person at the second window until she had finished her transaction, at which point he took her place and made a withdrawal from the teller.

As I watched, I kept expecting the people waiting in line to get upset and tell the guy to wait his turn, but there was no reaction. My head kept jerking back and forth from the man to the line in disbelief of what appeared to be a simple case of a guy not wanting to wait his turn and a crowd of 30 people simply not caring that he cut them all. I kept wondering if I could do the same thing, or was this guy some sort of local celebrity or power-player? Was there a certain kind of transaction that let you sidestep the line? My indignation quickly faded to confusion, which was replaced by resignation to the fact that I was in yet another situation where I just didn't have the context and information to understand what was going on. And in the end, it didn't really matter. I would wait my turn, get my money and head back to school. Even if I knew why this guy had been able to walk straight to the teller without anyone even blinking, next time I needed money, I would still stand in line.

When I first arrived in Chimoio, everything was a mystery. I didn't know where to find anything in the huge market and had no idea who was there to help and who wanted to rip me off. I didn't eve know what some of the fruits and vegetables were. The bustling crowds of people in the center of town were overwhelming. I didn't know prices or quality or what people were yelling at me. My Portuguese has improved vastly in the past six months. I've made friends at the market and look forward to going there. At school, I am still learning the system and still spend a lot of time just waiting for someone to explain to me what is going on, but I usually feel comfortable. I finished a semester of teaching in Portuguese with very positive feedback from my students. I am starting to make some friends and generally feel much more at home here.

The market intimidated me when I arrived, but I went to church with this guy this morning!

That isn't to say that I have stopped feeling like I don't really know what is going on. Although I have learned lot since I arrived, both about language and about customs, I still miss most of the significance beyond the surface. This past Sunday, I went to church with a friend where much of the mass was in Chiute, the local dialeto here in Chimoio, which I have still not begun to learn. The sermons were translated to Portuguese, but much of the talk that would have explained the different parts of the mass were in dialeto. I was completely lost as to when to sit, when to stand, when to get up and introduce myself, when to throw a few meticais into the basket. But this didn't bother me. I just waited for a poke in the ribs to stand, figured it is never bad to give a little money, clapped my hands and enjoyed myself. It was just one more time where I was able to participate in an experience outside my own culture, which involves a bit of confusion, but leaves me feeling like I have grown some.

Last night, my power cut out just as I added a bunch of chopped tomatoes to a pan full of onions and garlic. I groaned, realizing that time had been passing so quickly lately that it had been almost a month since I last bought electricity. Here, I have to pre-pay for my power, bringing cash and the code on my meter to the Electricidade de Moçambique office down the street. They put credit on my account and print out a receipt with a code I type into the meter when I get home. It was only about 6:30 when my credit acabou, so I decided to see if the office was still open.

I arrived to find a line reaching past the end of the building. The door to the office was closed, there were only about three people inside and a couple of people were talking to the guard at the door, but everyone in line was sitting quietly, waiting. The people at the door turned and walked away, leaving the premises without having entered the building. I was confused, but there were only two questions that really mattered, and asked the guy at the end of the line "Ainda está aberto?" When he answered, "Sim," I followed up with, "Até que horas?" To which he responded, "21:00." Good. It was still open for another 2+ hours, so I wouldn't stand in line for an hour, only to have the door shut in my face as the office closed for the night. Beyond that, the way the line was being controlled didn't really matter. I would be able to cook dinner. I sat, thinking about this blog post, actually, and was presented with yet another illustrative example.

I'm getting used to livestock as a part of everyday life: even graduation ceremonies.

After about forty minutes, I was the fifth person in the outside line, close enough to the door to witness the following situation. Two young men who were probably Lebanese walked past the line and approached the guard at the door. One began to speak with him, but I was just far enough away and his Portuguese was just accented enough that I couldn't quite make out what they were saying. I could make out the word cão and was getting pretty confused as to why he would be talking to the guard at EDM about a dog. I assumed I had misheard. Then he turned, lifted the back of his tunic (thobe?) and rolled up the bottom part of the pant leg underneath to show the guard his calf where there were the marks of what appeared to be a recent dog bite. Now I was really confused. Had he been bitten on the EDM property while standing in line? The guard was shaking his head and talking, but no matter how much I strained to make out the words, I couldn't quite hear. The guy nodded, rolled down his pant leg and after a couple more exchanges, they men turned around and walked back to the motorbike parked in the EDM lot.

As they rode off, I tried to make sense of the interaction. The provincial hospital is across the street, so maybe they had been confused and thought that the EDM building was a clinic? The line outside did look like the line you often encounter outside clinics around here. But, both the EDM building and the hospital are pretty clearly marked. The guy spoke Portuguese but maybe he didn't read it? No one in the line looked very sick and almost every clinic line is full of mothers holding babies, which this one wasn't. But why else would someone walk up to an EDM office and show a dog bite to a guard at 7:30 at night? Once again, I accepted the confusion and shrugged it off. I still really have no idea what the who interaction was about.

So, why was I thinking about writing a blog post about how comfortable I have become being confused by what is going on around me? I recently had an experience that made me realize it has gone too far. It had nothing to do with Portuguese or Chiute or Mozambique. It happened when I watched the fourth episode of the second season of The Wire.

I have had dozens of people tell me how great the show is, so before I left for Moz, I made sure I had all five seasons. I haven't had as much time to watch it as I expected, but I'm making my way through. I loved the first season, but finished it a little confused as to why there was one episode that didn't seem to belong with the rest. At the end of the third episode, one of the characters had been taken in for questioning and then all of a sudden in the fourth episode, he was looking at making deals to get time knocked off his sentence. One of the characters, a usually plain-clothed detective, was suddenly back in uniform. I thought it was strange, and even double-checked that I was indeed watching episode four. Since I was, I shrugged it off, assuming that I had missed something of significance regarding the arrest and the uniform change. They introduced two new subplots that never went anywhere. The Wire is really tightly written, but sometimes I have watched shows that start down one path only to change directions. "I guess I just missed some details," I thought to myself, continuing along to finish the season.

The second season opened with a plot featuring the characters of one of the "abandoned" subplots. "How strange," I shrugged once again, "that they would make a whole isolated episode in the first season and only come back to it eight or nine episodes later. But who am I to judge how they choose to structure their show? I'm just along for the ride." Slowly but surely as the episodes progressed, it became clear that the action was happening prior to the episode I had already seen, and what had happened began to dawn on me. I had watched an entire episode of the second season completely out of order and simply shrugged off all the plot inconsistencies. I was so comfortable with things not always making sense that my brain did not balk at the fact that all the detectives were reassigned to a new detail that once again did not exist in the fifth episode. I simply accepted the fact that two main characters were suddenly in prison, having been sentenced without comment by the show.

Watching again in the right order, I couldn't believe that I hadn't seen what was going on the first time. I realized that my comfort with confusion has reached a dangerous level. Getting by here without going crazy requires that I turn down the voice in my head that is always demanding to know why people are doing what they are doing, why things are happening the way they are. But this can go too far. I think it is time to start reengaging some more!