Written on March 21, 2011
Hi everyone,
Happy spring! I have to admit that I’ve lost track of when Easter is, but I do know that it’s Cadbury cream egg season. If you’re lucky enough to be anywhere near a Duane Reade or Walgreens, please eat a cream egg for me. If chocolate isn’t your thing, I hope you’re at least enjoying the flowers blooming and the leaves sprouting. It’s starting to be a little less hot here, especially in the mornings and evenings, and people say “winter” is coming. I will be interested to see whether 50 degrees really will feel as cold to me as any New York winter after having made it through my first African summer.
Well, is it just me, or is there more than the usual amount of news-worthy things going on in the world? I finally got a short wave radio that works (with the help of some wire I duct taped to the inside of my roof) and am now addicted to the BBC. After more than three months of listening mostly to bad dance music* on Rádio Comunitário de Mabote, it’s pretty amazing to get regular updates about the situation in Japan and all of the political happenings in North Africa and the Middle East.
The Japanese earthquake and tsunami affected me more personally than it otherwise might have because the weekend before it happened, I had spent all day Saturday hanging out with a bunch of people from Japan in my friend Angela’s town, Zavala/Quissico. It was the birthday of her friend Sota, a Japanese volunteer who also lives there, and some of his friends were there to celebrate.
The day started off with eight Japanese, four Americans and three Mozambicans packed into a rented pickup truck with four live chickens, several pounds of fresh fish and a good many cases of beer. After 30 minutes or so of dodging low-hanging branches and trying not to fall out as we navigated the rutted, dirt road, we pulled up to the edge of a steep cliff that led down to this gorgeous, secluded beach. We carried our cookout supplies – squawking chickens and all – down by foot and set up camp for the day.
When the time came, I couldn’t bring myself to help kill the chickens… I felt bad for them, after having somewhat bonded in the pickup truck. The Mozambicans did the chicken killing that day, and the Japanese did the plucking and cooking. The Americans? We helped with the eating, and that’s about it. Much to my woodsman father’s shame, I have no idea what to do with meat that’s not already pre-killed, cut and wrapped in styrofoam and cellophane. But at some point before I leave here, I’m going to have to force myself to kill a chicken, lest I be a hypocritical meat eater.
I wondered beforehand how the day would go, with this random mix of people from three different continents. But it turned out to be a lot of fun, with everyone mingling and mostly sticking to Portuguese, our only common language. I had to laugh at us: this group of Japanese and Americans, talking like Mozambicans (or trying to).
There was one awkward moment, though. Later that night when we were all hanging out back in town, I asked one of the guys where he was from in Japan. I figured I probably wouldn’t know it, but was just making conversation. Well, turns out he’s from Hiroshima. That possibility had not crossed my mind and it was a startling realization. I couldn’t think of what to say, so ended up just looking down and mumbling, “I know it.” Angela and the other two Americans, Anne and Megan, started giggling at my awkward response and it was contagious… to us, in that inappropriate/nervous laughter sort of way (and let’s face it, the beers didn’t help).
Not one of my best moments, clearly. After we got ourselves under control, Angela managed to apologize and, thankfully, the moment passed. Anne told me later that she had asked him the same question a few minutes before I did, but had played it off by telling him – in her jovial, Anne sort of way – how her family had still been in Ireland back then. Unfortunately, I had no such ‘out’ handy.
Another memorable anecdote from our cross cultural birthday party was when one of the Mozambicans said that if he looked really closely, he could tell the difference between white people and Japanese people. Then he turned to one of the Japanese guys and said, “You’re not white?” as if he just wanted to make sure he had it straight. “No!” the Japanese guy laughed, “I’m yellow!” Then the Mozambican guy looked even more confused and the rest of us were pretty amused.
Believe it or not, I’ve been called Chinese before by kids in Mabote who, like our friends that day, don’t see the racial difference between me and the Chinese guys they’ve seen working on the road. But at least “muchina!” is a break from being called “mulungu!” all the time.
As we rode back from our secluded beach at sunset, Anne and I were talking about how cool it is that this is what we can do with our weekends here: hang out in some pretty exotic places, where you never know who you might meet. Another weekend back in February, some of us went snorkeling off of the Bazaruto Archipelago, a national marine park near Vilankulos. I’ve heard it said that getting Mozambique is like winning the Peace Corps lottery, and I can’t deny that it has its perks.
So come visit me!
Let’s see… what else? Things are still bumping along here in Mabote. Sadly, my pet spider Toby has left my outhouse in search or buggier skies. But I love having Wena the cat around, not just for company but for the added benefit of keeping the critter populations under control. He prefers eating bugs, spiders, lizards and the occasional small snake to my canned tuna… the good little bush cat that he is.
As far as productivity goes, one new development is that a friend of mine has organized a group of people who want me to help them learn/improve their English. There are about 15 or 20 them, mostly NGO and healthcare workers, plus the English teacher at the primary school.
It’s not something I would have imagined myself doing, but English is in high demand here. It helps people get jobs and move up the ranks in international aid and development organizations and opens up opportunities in the tourist industry and in South Africa. We’re planning to start in April, so many adventures in language ahead, I’m sure.
Today is March 21 and I don’t think I’ll be able to post this until mid April when I’m in Maputo for a conference. We’re coming together to debrief our first four months at our sites and I’ll be staying in the same hotel I was in right after I got to Mozambique in September. So I’ll have free wireless! For five days! Not to mention 24/7 power, running water, good food, a pool, and a lot of people I haven’t seen since December. I even get to fly from Vilankulos rather than suffering on chapas for two days. I cannot wait!
Love and chocolate eggs and spring colors,
Julie
*Re: the bad dance music. Has the song Stereo Love (aka the accordion song) made it to the States? I think it must be Eastern European or Scandinavian. Though annoying and repetitive at first listen, I can almost guarantee that you will be dancing and singing it by the twentieth listen. Just sayin.
