Rains: feast or floods?

The rains have subsided and the heat has returned but for once I’m happy about it. Until yesterday it had rained every single day since my arrival back in Mozambique. It never lasted more than an hour but the accumulated effects of rains here and in Zimbabwe and South Africa have swollen the Limpopo River to the top of its banks. My morning runs take me over the bridge and I’ve watched the tops of trees disappear under the rising silty swell. The once shallow, lazy river is now an angry brown snake, swirling violently around the bridge columns. One morning the eastern bend was obscured by mist and it looked like a vast bay opening up to the ocean.

The talk among neighbors is of flooding. The devastating floods of 2000 are still fresh in people’s memories. The renovation of my school was part of the recovery effort and we only re-opened the doors last semester. Broken farm equipment, desks, filing cabinets and other flood-damaged materials littler the school campus in rusting piles. Even the paint on the houses still shows signs of “the night they’ll never forget.” Dona Nelia was telling me that they awoke with water to their knees and had to leave most of their things behind. She pointed up to a faint line in the chipping white paint of my house near the top. “That’s how high the water got,” she explained.

At first this year’s rains were good news. Josefa explained that January is a “month of hunger” because people spend all of their money and eat all of their food during the excess of the holidays and then are left with nothing. The rains have brought excellent yields in corn, pumpkins, sweet potatoes and other crops. “Now the poor people will eat,” she said. But feast could become famine if the Limpopo continues to gorge itself on rain.

This afternoon, after a long day of sweating, I went for an evening walk behind the school. Where there were once plowed fields there is a wilderness of grass and resin plants high over my head. I feel like an insect in the grass. When I got to the riverside I saw that, despite the pause in rains the past two days, the river level had actually gone up slightly. I came back and reported to Dona Nelia and another neighbor who were sitting outside on a straw mat. They said that the upstream dam is discharging little by little. Apparently the halting of the rains has not put us out of danger. Dams in South Africa and Zimbabwe will also have to discharge. People in the flood plains may be forced to evacuate.

Here in my neighborhood we’re going on with business as usual. Watching the skies with a weary eye and praying we don’t hear the loudspeakers calling for evacuation. It’s an unsettling feeling to think that your fate is in the hands of the weather gods or the politicians who decide when and how much water to let out of the dams.

To the folks back home, there’s no need to worry about me. As an American I have the unique privilege of an entire support team monitoring the situation and looking out for my welfare and safety. What I worry about are my friends and neighbors who don’t have the luxury of escape and who don’t deserve to repeat the heartache of the floods.

The Photo

A woman stands, arms at her sides, looking at the camera. Her sleeveless blouse sags on her skinny frame. Around her waist is a capulana, on her head a kerchief. Her feet are in flip flops. It’s late afternoon and the light casts a long thin shadow to her left and casts a warm glow on the two mud houses behind her. One house has a thatched roof topped with an old tire and a corrugated metal door painted with words you can’t make out. The words say “Puff Daddy.” I was hoping to capture this incongruity when the woman appeared. She spoke only Changana so I indicated that I wanted to take her picture. She posed as such and I took it and brought it to show her. Normally people are satisfied with seeing themselves in the screen but this woman wanted something. She began talking urgently, with me not understanding a word. Her unknown demand became more and more forceful and finally I excused myself and jogged off.

The mystery woman lives in the mud hut village behind our school. I call it the Riverside because it sounds classy. Really it’s quite beautiful. The houses are made of mud but the yards are tidy and swept and planted with flowers and shrubs. The space between yards is filled up with corn and pumpkins, chickens and goats. The worn footpath winds along the Limpopo River, a million-dollar view.

I used to take that path during my runs. People would wave and say “hi” and neighborhood kids would drop their games and start running with me. By the end of the neighborhood I would have quit a gang of followers. I would run backwards, do grapevines and high knees and laugh as they tried to copy me. At the last house they’d turn back and I’d go on running in peace.

After the photo incident I began having anxiety about running through Riverside. The same woman, if she saw me coming, would run out and block my way in the path, yelling at me in Changana. It happened a few times and I finally stopped going that way.

When I printed some photos for my REDES group, I put hers in the lineup too, thinking I’d mend things by bringing it to her. I never got around to it before the break but on Sunday I decided to do it. It was a hot sunny day, 100% humidity after all the rain and I was dripping with sweat. I appeared in her compound and walked over to the shade where she was sitting on a straw mat. There were children beside her sucking on mangos and a younger man in a chair.

“I’m here to talk to the grandmother,” I said.

He smiled and gave me his chair. I sat down and greeted her in Changana.

“Hello. How are you?”

She smiled, “I’m fine and you?”

“I’m fine. It’s hot!” She responded with something in Changana. I nodded goofily then pointed at the corn, tall and green after the rain.

“Food! Well. Eat.” She said something I didn’t understand then I turned to the man and said, in Portuguese, “I have a gift for her.” He translated and I handed her the photo. She took it, ran her finger over it, looked up at me, then back at the photo. After a minute she burst into a grin and took my hand, squeezing it and chattering.

“You did well!” translated the man. They analyzed the picture and figured out where she was standing when it was taken. She said something about the school.

“I am teacher! I teach!” I explained in Changana, pointing at the school. Her face changed as if she finally understood why a strange white girl appeared at her house in the first place. She grabbed my hand again.

“Friend, my friend.” I said. She smiled and nodded.

“I go,” I said, “see you later.” They offered me mangos but I declined politely. As I walked home in the hot sun, I felt light as a feather. That is likely the only photo she’s ever had of herself. Now I have a new friend and can once again go running through Riverside.

Mail

Dear friends and family,

The price of a post office box in my town has gone up to something unreasonable, so rather than renew it for this year I'm asking that all my mail, letters or otherwise, be sent to the Peace Corps office in Maputo at the following address:

Clancy Brown
Corpo da Paz
345 Avenida do Zimbabwe
Maputo, Moçambique

Letters and packages do so much for my morale and I really appreciate them but I have to warn you that some things get "lost" in the system. Corruption is a fact of life here. Please don't send anything large or expensive. Some things arrived in weeks, others in months, others never got here.

If you don't mind the risk, I'd love some snail mail or packages. If not, e-mails are wonderful. News from home in any form is always welcome!

Verdant Transformation

I arrived at the Maputo airport on Thursday to pouring rain which, in addition to my hefty luggage, was reason enough to cough up 350 meticais for a taxi to the chapa stop. It has continued raining on and off since I returned. Rain brings cooler weather and it has helped my transition from Maine winter to Mozambican summer. It also brings the landscape to life. The dry, dusty, dun-colored Mozambique that I left has transformed into a verdant paradise.

This morning I went for a run with Rex. Tall flowering grasses had overgrown the school compound and I picked my way through carefully. When we made it out to the rutted muddy back road my skin was speckled with seeds. At 5:30 in the morning the bird songs were raucous. It seemed that every bird I’ve ever seen was out singing and chasing off competitors. It was beautiful and distracting and I kept slipping in the mud, much to the amusement of women walking to the fields.

I started watching my footing and noticed interesting tracks in the mud: small rodents, goats, birds and something that looked like a weasel. A rodent skittered in front of us and Rex followed him into the grass but didn’t make it far through the thick growth. The trees were heavy with fruit and standing water had created an abundance of insects. The tall grass looked like great habitat for birds and rodents alike.

I wondered if snakes were taking advantage of the abundance too. One time I asked someone why most people’s yards are swept dirt. They explained that grass attracts snakes. That rodent running by would be good snake food, so would bird eggs… The more I thought about it the more nervous I got. I’ve been told that black mambas, the most poisonous snake in the world and a common sighting around here, are territorial and if you make the mistake of trespassing they’ll go after you. Looked like prime territory to me.

The snake phobia finally got to me and I turned back early but I won’t let it keep me from venturing out again later with my binoculars, though I think I’ll stick closer to civilization. You don’t see too many snakes near people’s homes because they’ve all been killed. I respect the mamba but I’ll let her have her territory and we’ll have ours.

From One Home to Another

I’m home! … my Mozambican home that is. It’s confusing when I call multiple continents “home.” I just returned today from a month long break in the United States. While stateside I did experience some “reverse culture shock,” but my overall feeling from the trip was one of comfort and support. I was amazed to see how many people love me and are thinking about me. I’m truly fortunate. I was also reassured that all the things I left behind will be there when I return – family, friends, mountains, good coffee, nachos… I’m a little shaky after a long day of travelling, but I want to take a moment to reflect on some observations of American life after spending a year overseas.

The first thing my dad did after picking me up at the Portland Jetport was to drag me to Best Buy. You can imagine the sensory overload of 50 high definition flat screen TV’s blaring at me at once. Then we stopped at the grocery store. I cannot explain the absolute euphoria I experienced walking through the aisles. Anything I could possibly desire was at my fingertips! Let’s just say I was on cloud nine. It was overwhelming: the choices, the opportunities! I felt like I needed an algorithm to decipher the cereal aisle. I settled on wild Atlantic salmon and asparagus for dinner with a nice bottle of white wine.

Food was a centerpiece of my visit. I was reacquainted with cheese, ice cream and other marvelous dairy products, though my stomach took a while to catch up. I experienced coffee anxiety in front of a café counter while I gaped at the endless menu board. The clerk grew impatient.
“Well, what do you like?” she asked helpfully.
“Coffee… I don’t know. What do you suggest?”
“Do you like milk? How bout a cappuccino?”
I said “sure” but the options kept on coming: whole milk, skim or 2%? Shade grown? Organic? Fair trade? Seasonal flavorings – gingerbread, eggnog, peppermint? Small, medium or large? For here or to go? Restaurants presented the same overabundance of choices, especially a place we visited in Florida that boasted the country’s largest array of beers on tap – talk about variety!

I believe capitalism creates as many problems as it solves but coming from Mozambique, a formerly socialist country, I was able to appreciate some of the advantages of the American system. Offering something to please everyone is part of capitalism’s tendency to fill every niche. For the consumer, it means that if there’s something you want then someone’s bound to be selling it. In Mozambique there are a lot of things I can’t easily get: cheese, good coffee, quality shoes. Even when I can get it, there’s only one option. Cereal? expensive imported Corn Flakes. Another advantage of capitalism is customer service. In a competitive marketplace you’ve got to please your clients. It was so nice to be well attended at a restaurant and be able to order anything on the menu. In Mozambique the waitress acts like you are wasting her time and the menu is just a tease with appetizing dishes that they don’t actually serve and never have.
“I’ll have the pizza.”
“We don’t have that.”
“Ok then, how about the fish?”
“We don’t have that.”
“Right… the seafood stew?”
“We don’t have that.”
“Well, what do you have?”
“Chicken.”
I usually ask them to make me an egg sandwich. We then wait two hours for our mediocre food while being eaten alive by mosquitos. I prefer to eat in.

Customer service wasn’t the only difference in personal interactions. One thing I noticed while stateside was that nobody noticed me. A few strangers said “hello” or started small talk, but mostly I was free to walk down the street without anyone turning their head. I didn’t mind the lack of unwanted public attention because I had plenty of attention from family, friends and boyfriend the whole time. In contrast, I haven’t been back in Mozambique even 24 hours and I’ve already been called “mulungo,” been surrounded by gawkers at a chapa stop, had my hair stroked by strangers, been asked for money and had two random people insist on taking my phone number and calling me repeatedly.

In the United States we are living in a world that is increasingly connected but with paradoxically fewer personal interactions. One example comes to mind. I was taking a ferry out to an island in Casco Bay with Allie. It was the typical winter crowd of weathered natives: lots of flannel, cartharts, paint-stained jeans, timberland boots, hunter’s orange. Mainers aren’t the most talkative bunch but there is typically friendly conversation and gossip among locals. I was watching Allie play with her iPhone and noticed that it was strangely quiet. When I looked up, six of the eight other people on the ferry had iPhones in hand, busily scrolling and texting and twittering away. Nobody even noticed the people sitting right next to them.

At first felt assaulted by all the attention I received when I returned to Mozambique, but now that I’m back at site I feel welcomed and loved. Neighbors and students heard I was in town and stopped by to say “hello.” The folks at the store and vegetable vendors were happy to see me and asked how my family was doing. People waved, someone stopped to give me a ride home, the neighbor kids peered around my veranda giggling and the dogs flopped themselves on the ground wagging their tails.

I’m happy to be back in Mozambique but it will take some time to readjust. I miss Sean a lot. I miss my family. But I just need to give it time. As Sean said, I still have important work to do and I’ll be done before I know it.

PBS 3 Part Series

Check out this 3 part series on Mozambique. So far they've only posted part I. Due to limited internet capacity I can only read the dialogue, but it sounded like a decent overview to me.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/health/july-dec10/mozambique_11-22.html

Seems like the reporter only went to Maputo and Inhambane though...

WanChiton

What is “WanChiton” you ask? Why it’s the capital of the United States of America! Well, that was the best answer I got on the bonus question of a recent Chemistry test. Some at least guessed places in the USA: New York (spelled “Noy Ork”), Los Angeles, Miami, California... Others were way out in left field: Malaysia, Beijing, China, Madrid, Mexico, Italy, Europe, Brazil, Botswana... Some of them were convinced they were right. Once came up to me after class, “teacher, it’s Italy! What?? You sure it’s not Italy?” “WanChiton” got half credit. To be fair, I doubt most Americans could name the capital of Mozambique.

I add bonus questions like that to give me a laugh while I’m grading. Otherwise it’s a depressing activity. Some students are doing well but a majority are not improving like they should be. I had high hopes this time around since I sacrificed several lessons to review, gave multiple after school extra help sessions, wrote study guides, coached them on study skills… It makes me think that some just don’t care and others have had their brains cooked by 8-12 years of rote memorization. Tests are rough, but when I look at their performance on individual topics almost everyone has shown improvement. Extra help sessions make me the happiest. More than once I've had a struggling student start hooting and hollering and dancing when he finally got something right. It’s a great feeling. I concentrate on the small victories.

I’ve gotten used to the way of things at school but sometimes it’s frustrating. Tuesday morning was a typical example:
I went to school two hours before class so I could print some lesson plans and tests. There is one working printer in the office and it only takes discs. The disc drive on my computer is broken so I took my flash and a CD to the computer lab in the other building. It had rained, so there was a field of slippery mud in between. I got to the lab only to find it locked so I traversed the mud back to the office. Apparently someone had just taken the keys so I went back to the lab. No luck. Back to the office. Apparently the keys were with the director who was nowhere to be found. I went back to the lab, muddy and annoyed, and found it magically open.
Another teacher said, “why don’t you ask a student to carry the printer from the office up here to the lab?”
“I’m afraid he will slip in the mud and drop it.”
“Oh, you’re right. Then we wouldn’t be able to print anything!”
My disc took 25 minutes to format and then I finally made the transfer. Right as I got back to the office and stamped the mud off my feet, the power went out. I talked to the secretary. “Yeah, someone has to go to town and buy more electricity. It could be a while.” At this point I had 40 minutes until class. I went to the side of the road and caught a ride to town then walked to a place with a printer and computer. As soon as I sat down the computer crashed. I left and walked to the other end of town to the only other public printer. After paying 4 meticals per page, I looked at my watch. 10 minutes until class. I sprinted to the chapa stop only to find the chapa already full.
“Are you sure you can’t fit one more?”
“No, look, it’s full.”
“Please? I’m in a hurry!”
The driver nodded and I dove in head first over the front row. My back was arched against the roof and they closed the door on my butt. The woman whose face was in my armpit didn’t seem to mind.

When we arrived at school, they opened the door and I fell out backwards. I handed the driver 5 mets. He demanded 7 so I gave him the rest without protest and ran to class, arriving just in time for my 2:00 pm class only to find out that my students were still working in the kitchen… They showed up 15-20 minutes late and some didn’t come at all. This happens often enough that I’ve learned to adapt, though between that and the slow pace of learning I have only gotten through a fraction of what I hoped to cover this semester. And what I had hoped to cover is an even tinier fraction of the national curriculum. Those students who expect to finish my class with a 50% average and then pass the national exam have another thing coming!

On a brighter note, the water came back!! Perhaps you saw my blog about pumping water. That went on for the better part of two months. Last night at our study session a student burst in the doors and said “water’s running!” The class erupted in cheers and singing and dancing. Students lifted each other up in the air and shouted for joy. One said, “good! I haven’t taken a bath in almost a week!” The hand pump we were using is a real pain. It’s broken so most of the water comes out the sides. It's the only working pump for the school, the professors’ neighborhood and two villages behind the school so there are always a lot of people there with all of their water jugs. You have to wait your turn. The water itself is disgusting, briny and cloudy. Josefa asked me to stop wearing white clothes because they were coming dirtier after the wash. Anyway, now our 20 minutes of running water three times a day feels like a huge luxury!

Other good news: I'm coming home! My family bought me a plane ticket so I can go home for Christmas/New Years. I'll be arriving Dec 6th and leaving Jan 5th. I'll spend most of the time in Maine but also a week in Florida and a few days in Vermont. If you'll be around I'd love to see you! Just e-mail me or call my house.