I Don't Know What I Expected (but it sure wasn't this!)

Last week, my school sent me to a formação – training or workshop – in Beira, Mozambique’s second largest city. Beira is on the Indian Ocean coast, about three or four hours from Chimoio by chapa, along a stretch of the EN6 (national highway) that has been left in such disrepair that it has reverted to a dirt road in places. Chimoio and Beira are the mid- and endpoints, respectively, of the Beira Corridor – what used to be a major transportation route across the narrow waist of the country for goods and people moving from Zimbabwe (Rhodesia at the time) to Beira’s ocean port. The complex politics of Mozambique’s civil war (that in reality involved a number of non-Mozambican players) and the period following it led to significant damage to transportation infrastructure and left Beira a still significant port city with tall buildings and deep potholes.  

One of my fellow travelers on the bumpy road to Beira.

Beira is still a beach city, too, and my hotel room had a beautiful ocean view. Unfortunately, the city’s untreated sewer water empties into the sea and the beaches are known for pickpockets, so when I had a couple of free hours between check-in and dinner, I decided to spend it inside, indulging in the wifi, air conditioning and view of waves and palm-trees. After taking my first hot shower since December 8, I settled in front of my laptop with a contented sigh and a thought that my Peace Corps experience sure was playing out differently than I had expected. And so when I later ended up on a Facebook chat with a friend back home, that’s what I ended up saying to him. Our connection dropped, though, so I didn’t have time to elaborate and he ended up sending a message later saying, “Tell me, how is the Peace Corps different from your expectations?” The hot shower and AC triggered the original comment I made to him, but seeing the question phrased like that has led to some deeper reflection. How exactly has this experience been different from my expectations?

On a campus tour during our formação.

Part of the difficulty in answering the question lies in the effort I put into not setting expectations before arriving. Between my RPCV friends and volunteers I had sought out specifically to ask about Mozambique, I knew that everyone’s experience is so different that expectations would be nearly useless. But somehow, despite going in with very few specific expectations, my experience has still managed to be outside those I had (or didn’t realize I had).

One clear expectation I had was regarding the pace of life for a PCV. I think that many Volunteers begin with an idea that they are being sent to a country with so many unmet needs that they will be inundated with things that need to be done and spend all of their time improving the quality of life in their community. Then, they arrive to find that their community, despite its deep level of need, moves at its own pace and there is only so much a single volunteer can do to affect change. To combat this shock, nearly everyone I spoke to warned me that the hardest part of Peace Corps service is the almost unending amounts of free time I would find myself struggling to fill. To prepare, I bought and loaded up a Kindle, invested in a number of yoga and anatomy manuals, brought knitting projects, journals, anything I could think of to fend off the boredom. I can tell you one problem I do not have here: free time I can’t fill.

In case your Anna’s Peace Corps Experience Cabula (cheat-sheet) isn’t handy, here are the essentials of my situation. I live in the fourth-largest city in Mozambique, along with four other PCVs, a few volunteers from other organizations and a small community of ex-pats, ie an instant friend network for a new PCV. Chimoio is also home to the Peace Corps office that serves the entire Central region of the country and there is a steady stream of Volunteers coming through the city. Chimoio is far from lonely.  

Although I arrived in training as a secondary Math teacher, I now work at the Engineering faculty of the largest private university in Mozambique as the coordinator of the Communications track. This means I have the privilege of attending about four hours of meetings each week, have to oversee the schedule, teachers and grades. I also teach two classes within that program, second-year English and Gestão de Empresas (Business Management), the latter in (sometimes still very broken) Portuguese.

My university

The experience of a PCV in this kind of setting is very different from that of one in a rural community or working for an underfunded community organization. Work is not hard to come by. Along with the work for the roles I already described, it has been easy to pick up side projects researching how best to improve the PC Mozambique website or trying to develop a curriculum for income-generating projects for secondary-school girls, simply because I am constantly exposed to the work being done by other volunteers and the gaps they need filled.

The university itself supplies a constant stream of extra projects, too. I was in Beira, where this train of thought began, for training on blended learning – the combination of classroom instruction and online learning – for English teachers at UCM. I left agreeing to help implement the new system since I have experience using e-learning platforms and as a project manager and a software company. I knew coming into Peace Corps that all my previous experience was up for grabs, but I sure didn’t expect this particular skill set to be tapped within the first four months of service. 

My English colleagues and the workshop presenters.

Also, I had my laptop in Beira because I found out two days before my trip that our MBA coordinator had left with four students still finishing work on their thesis. Don and I, the two PCVs with MBAs, were being tapped to help them through their final weeks of work. Since I was travelling, I would need my laptop to communicate with the student focused on Entrepreneurship who I would be helping. Luckily, three of the four students ended up working with another professor, leaving only the final editing for us. Either way, even editing someone’s masters-level thesis is not something I expected as part of my Peace Corps experience.

The level of connectivity I have has also been a surprise. I had been told that phone-based internet access and USB modems that use mobile phone SIM cards were changing everything about how people communicate in developing countries, but I arrived in Chimoio to find my house was a 10-minute walk from the PC office where there are two computers or free wireless access for laptops. Not a tiny smartphone screen or a modem I have to buy data packages to use, but regular old desktops and laptops with free access. BUT THEN, then I found out that I would also have an office with my own personal computer at school. So while I usually only use my phone at home, I have nearly unlimited access to internet in two places that are an easy walk from my house. Both connections suffer from some reliability problems (quite a few problems, actually) but it is still connectivity waaaay beyond anything I expected coming in, which may in reality contribute to the faster pace of life.

One of many (often food-based) Chimoio PCV gatherings

Being in a city also leads to things like giving directions to my house that end with “I’m the fourth house on the right after the stoplight,” which is not a phrase I expected to use as a Peace Corps Volunteer. I have a spare bedroom, power and running water. But this city still lacks many modern conveniences like a laundromat; so, I wash my clothes by hand on a concrete scrub-board. My house is large and nice by PC standards, but still has its share of problems, from a very crafty rat that my PCV neighbor finally helped eliminate, to the shower drain that currently will not empty in less than 24 hours. Until I hire an empregada to help with these things, they will keep using up plenty of time.

Right now, with so many things demanding time and attention, I force space into my schedule for the things that keep me balanced: running in the morning and yoga in the evenings. Blogging when I can. When I take my lunch break, I may run errands, but I almost never continue schoolwork over my meal. I try to keep my computer off and take an hour to read a book or one of the precious copies of The Economist my saintly mother mails me. Since I have morning and evening classes, I frequently arrive at school at 8:00 am and leave for the night at 8:00 pm, so turning off for lunch is necessary. But boredom is never a problem.

Sometimes, I find time to make jam!

All in all, this is a good thing. I am not having the more typical (if “typical” exists in the Peace Corps) experience of a smaller community and slower pace, but I am getting to know a different part of the Mozambican culture. My students and colleagues are part of the emerging middle class. All of my colleagues are just as busy – running programs, teaching classes, taking masters’ courses, or doing community projects. I have found that here, people who like to work tend to work a lot. Like any Peace Corps Volunteer, or probably most teachers in any setting, it’s hard to know if my work makes a difference. As we were told during training, we are here to plant seeds whose fruit we may never taste. But I am certainly growing from the experience and enjoying the work along the way.

Language and Power

“Mali is one of those barely governable countries which nobody except its hapless inhabitants much worries about, until disaster suddenly looms, threatening to spread poison beyond its borders.”

Thus begins an article on “France, Mali and Algeria” in a January issue of The Economist. The article goes on to advise France’s President François Hollande to make sure he doesn’t “get stuck” meddling in the affairs of the former French colony, ending with the wisdom:

Provided the south is reasonably safe, Europeans and others should help with economic development and military training. But for the country to have a hope of working properly, Malians must also sort out their chaotic politics. A year ago, soldiers at the head of Mali’s ragged army overthrew an elected government. On paper, civilians are back in charge, but no one is sure who really pulls the strings. Outsiders can clear the way, but in the end it is the Malians who must mend Mali.

My hackles went up with the first line and stayed up throughout the two-thirds of a page about the ongoing conflict in Mali and France’s involvement therein. I have never been to Mali nor have I met a Malian. I do love the music of Amadou & Mariam, but I couldn't tell you a single thing about the country other than the capital is Bamako and about a year ago, the Tuareg tribe in the north seized a large portion of the country away from the government. For all I know, all of Mali’s inhabitants, other than the aforementioned musical couple, are indeed hapless and deserve nothing but pity from the rest of the world. But I doubt it.

Maybe Mali is just “one of those countries,” you know, those barely governable ones. Like all those other ones. You know, the ones we needn't much worry about. At least, so long as the poison stays inside its borders. Until then, let the pitiable Malians sort out their chaotic politics. Us outsiders can just watch from a distance as the ragged army stirs up some problems, but just the kind that concern the hapless inhabitants. I mean, if it starts to spread in a way that might threaten some Europeans and/or others, we will have to get involved, but only until we can hand it off to the Africans, since it’s really their problem, after all.

I am still trying to figure out exactly what it is about how this tiny article was written that makes my blood border on boiling. It’s something about taking the entire country full of people and lumping it in is “one of those barely governable countries,” in such a dismissive way. Similarly, characterizing the entire population as “hapless,” is about as condescending as you can get. And the need to tack on “ragged” when describing the army. I’m sure it isn’t the high-tech war machine that America commands, but that extra adjective sure seems like an unnecessary dig that only serves to support the overall message that Mali is nothing but a dusty, undeveloped sandbox full of backwards people who are better left to their misery unless they can’t keep it within their own borders.

I currently live in a country that went through decades of internal struggle that cost thousands of lives and left its infrastructure (both physical and intellectual) decimated. Much of the educated “European and other” population fled by the end of the fight for independence and because of the colonial education system that excluded most native Mozambicans, the country is still struggling to build an adequate supply of skilled professionals. The roads and transit are still in disarray. The truth is, Mozambique just does not have the resources to clean up the mess that was left after Portuguese occupation and the civil war that followed without the help of “outsiders” who are here to help “clear the way” for Mozambique to run its own affairs. Some in the form of international NGOs, but many others in the form of  multinationals drawn here by immense mineral resources.

So an article like that in The Economist leaves me with many conflicting feelings. First, I can’t help but imagine that 25 year ago, such an article could have been written about my current home, characterizing it as another “one of those” countries. Using the same condescending, dismissive language to describe the people I see everyday. Some of my students and colleagues at school would have been part of that population of “hapless” inhabitants just wandering the chaotic streets trying to stay out of the way of the “ragged” army. But I know those people and they are not pitiable. They have been through a lot, but they are real people deserving of respect. My guess is, Malians deserve more respect, too.

Beyond that, I just don’t know how to feel about the advice the article gives. Sure, I agree that Mali and all other former colonies should have the right to decide their own futures. I think that it is crucial to let these populations rule themselves without Europeans (or Americans or Asians, for that matter) deciding who should run the countries or how they should be run. But something about the way it is presented feel less like advising France to leave Mali to be the decider of its own destiny - because it is a proud nation full of people who deserve independence - and more like The Economist feels that France ought to take a nice long-handled broom and sweep the “poison” back within Mali’s borders without getting any of the contamination on its own hands. Then France should hightail it out of there and let the Malians go back to whatever it is they were doing before the disaster started looming, while the rest of the world was busy not much worrying about it.

And the truth is, when the Europeans hightailed it out of Mozambique, sometimes destroying crucial equipment or infrastructure as they ran, they left a nation hungry to be the driver of its own destiny, but without the resources it needed to do so. Now, there are South African, Chinese, Brazilian, European and other companies moving in with offers to construct roads, ports, and railways in exchange for mineral rights. There are KFC franchises in Maputo. Many of the shop owners here in Chimoio are Chinese, Indian, Middle Eastern or from other African nations. The “Europeans and others” are very present here, but many in roles that are looking to make money without a clear commitment to the betterment of the country.

So, is a country in dire need of infrastructure and educational investment really free to decide its own destiny just because the rich nations decide to stay politically disengaged? Not to say in any way that “Western intervention” is a good thing, just that an article like this makes me wonder about the intention of a policy or political decision versus its real-life consequences. Going into an “underdeveloped” country and telling the government what to do is just as condescending and disrespectful as dismissing the country as pitiable and not worth much worry. But the line between helping and meddling isn't always clear, and neither is the “optimal” level of support to offer a developing country. Where does aid end and subsidizing a broken system begin? If the system is broken, is best just to walk away?

But discussing any of these issues seems worthless if the people coming from positions of power, the ones who have the ability to invest in and support developing countries, use the kind of language that was used in this article. It seems to me to reflect a belief that Mali is not worthy of the diplomatic niceties of respectful speech, or even being clearly distinguished as a specific country, different from others also experiencing conflict. If this is the starting point, how can we in the “developed world” be trusted to take any action that is in such a country’s best interest? Maybe I am overreacting, parsing language down to its finest details is one of my greatest joys, but I do feel strongly that the words we choose reflect our values, and these words do not represent how I want the West to be perceived by the rest of the world.

Observations on a Silent Samba

This past weekend was Carnaval in Chimoio. Not to be confused with the feathers-and-sequins affair in Brazil, or the city-wide booze-soaked party of Mardi Gras in New Orleans, Carnaval in Chimoio features dozens of high school dance teams marching through the streets and finishing with a competition at the fairgrounds. The celebration isn’t publicized, so I didn’t learn it was happening until Saturday afternoon when a young Mozambican friend texted me an invite to watch the judging. I had spent most of the day planning my lessons, so a break to hear some music and watch some youngin’s shake their booties sounded pretty good.

We walked across town to the fairgrounds, chatting in English. This friend is a student at the Universidade Pedagógica here in Chimoio. He was born and raised in a tiny town in the neighboring province of Sofala and had multiple Peace Corps Volunteers as secondary school teachers. Without ever living in an English-speaking environment, he has achieved an impressive level of fluency. I have met a few young Mozambicans here with an astounding drive to learn English, especially those who recognize the opportunities that it can bring. I have given away all the magazines I have finished reading and passed around thumb drives full of music: there just is not much English-language material available here and most of the American music on the radio is NOT the kind that anyone should use to learn the language.  [Note: any Time/Newsweek/other accessible, preferably non-trashy magazines sent here will find a good home with a young English-learner. Mailing info can be found here.]

We arrived at the fairgrounds just as the last few dance groups were entering. After fighting through the crowd to buy our 25 meticais tickets – and repeatedly telling the kid who greeted me with “baby” that I was not in fact his baby and I would not be buying his ticket despite his switching to calling me “senhora” – we passed through the gates and were greeted with the delicious smell of grilling chicken and the sight of hundreds of secondary school students in brightly-colored costumes awaiting their turns to march to the judging area and show off their Mozambican-flavored samba skills for the audience.

They started with a mini-parade, each team dancing around a banner declaring their school’s name, wearing matching outfits consisting of layers of ruffled, satiny material in alternating colors. Mostly short skirts and bikini-style tops for the girls and knee-length shorts and vests for the boys. I don’t think I have written much about Mozambican dancing, but let me tell you, the vast majority of Mozambicans I have encountered can dance and they love it. They can stomp their feet and shake their hips with a velocity that seems to defy the limits of human physiology. And they do it effortlessly. As a muzungu with two left feet, I get pretty envious. (Most people here are pretty entertained when I explain that I have dois pés esquerdos.)

After the entrance parade, each team had the opportunity to strut their stuff for about fifteen minutes front and center. The first group was large, probably about 40 students, arrayed in two parallel lines, girls matched with boys. Then suddenly, about halfway through this first performance, the sound system cut out just as a new song was beginning. As the dancers paused and looked around at their teammates, a quiet murmur passed through the crowd of hundreds of paying customers. Then, instead of the building noise of an indignant crowd not getting its money’s worth, or the peeved stomping of teenagers who had spent weeks rehearsing a routine they now couldn’t perform, the crowd quieted, the dancers exchanged a last few glances, seemed to shrug, and restarted their routine without the benefit of music. They stayed pretty well synchronized and gradually regained a decent amount of energy and enthusiasm.

At first, I shook my head a little: “What are these kids doing, pretending like they still have music?! You can’t samba in silence!” Then it dawned on me what I was watching. These are teenagers who have experienced a lifetime of things like sudden power outages. Here, if you gave up every time there was an unexpected turn like no music for your dance competition, you wouldn’t get very far.

Very quickly during training in Namaacha, I got used to the power flickering off and on for varying stretches of time, particularly when the weather was bad. There were always candles on hand and I always knew where my headlamp was. The lights would go out, a few candles would be lit and life would continue. In my house here in Chimoio, it isn’t an infrequent experience to turn the faucet on in the middle of the day only to find there isn’t any water flowing from the pipes. I always have a few bottles of drinking water filled and buckets of wash water stored in the bathroom. A dinner party would be a challenge and laundry goes on hold, but life goes on. If the water stayed off, I have a holding tank in my front yard that I could boil and filter when needed. Here, unpredictability is routine.

Just this morning, I arrived at school to find that the power was out. I had planned to use Powerpoint slides and a projector, but that idea was out the window. Luckily, I could borrow a laptop to read my slides, as it was a class in Portuguese that would have been quite a challenge to give from memory. But, if the laptop hadn’t been there, I probably would have been flipping through my textbook to pull out the key phrases in Portuguese, and my students probably would not have blinked. As it was, I dictated the short case study I wanted them to analyze and for most of them, it was probably just a throwback to their secondary-school classes, where most teachers dictate large blocks of text to students who don’t have books of their own.

In the few experiences I have had traveling within Mozambique, my flights have been delayed for multiple hours with not real explanation of why. I have spent hours sitting in a chapa just waiting for it to fill before we can even start our trip to the next city. But the stories I have heard from people who travel frequently make these sound like a study in German efficiency.

Just when I think I have learned food prices, they change. Carrots in the market vary from 50 to 100 meticais per kilo, depending on the availability that day. Eggs go up and down from 5 a piece up to 6 and back down to 5. If you have the money and you want to avoid major price fluctuations, you can go to the giant, modern land of cans and jars and hermetically sealed plums: Shoprite. Just don’t assume that because they had chunky peanut butter last week, they will have it today. Or any peanut butter at all. They may have a broad variety of imported cheeses, or a completely empty dairy case.

Very little here is truly predictable. In just a few months, I have already learned to roll with it for the most part. Showed up for a meeting with someone who went on vacation without telling anyone? More time for lesson planning. The person who was supposed to clean the yard came at noon instead of 8:00 am? Gave me the morning to do laundry while I was waiting to let him in. A rat ate the bread I planned to use for my egg sandwich? I bet I could use agua e sal crackers to make a decent matzoh-brei.

For students who have grown up with this kind of unpredictability, the natural response to losing the music that accompanies their dance routine is to continue. At times, for those of us who are used to a more predictable environment, one that enables us to feel more in control of our circumstances, this comfort with things going awry can sometimes seem like an infuriating passivity. When something goes wrong, you are supposed to do something about it, dammit! But that presupposes a well-defined, predictable norm from which to stray. When awry is the norm, maybe having the tenacity to keep going according to your plan without letting your environment derail you is the best response. In the case of the Carnaval dancers, after a couple of minutes of dancing acapella, the music kicked back in, the crowd cheered and they continued without missing a beat.

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