Mozambican weddings aren’t for sissies.

Written on April 30, 2011

Hello again!

I can’t believe I’m writing another blog post the day after I wrote the last one, when I usually only write one a month. But man, what a wedding I went to today! I think it deserves its own blog post. If the BBC is to be believed, the royal wedding yesterday was quite the media frenzy, so maybe you’re all sick of wedding talk. But I promise it’s more interesting than the royal wedding… at least I think so.

My former colleague at the association, Joalina, got married today, and I was not at all prepared for the all-day marathon it turned out to be. It started at eight in the morning and was still going when I finally left just before dark, and I heard that it continued the next day. It seemed like half the town was invited, and even though I don’t know Joalina that well, I was one of the few to get an actual paper invitation. (A perk of being the resident mulungu.)

The first ceremony was at the district registry office, which is near my house. I could hear the singing as I was getting ready, so I knew that weddings must be one of the few occasions in Mozambique when things start on time. I walked over and as we waited for the ceremony to begin, there was singing, dancing, stomping, clapping, undulating, all things celebratory and Mozambican.

The men were in suits and the women were mostly wearing outfits made out of capulanas (waxy fabric with colorful designs) or in western-style shirts with a capulana wrapped around their waist and many with equally colorful headscarves done up more ornately than usual. The bride wore a traditional western wedding dress and a veil. It was obvious that everyone was wearing the nicest clothes they owned. I was no exception – I wore my capulana dress from our swear-in ceremony at the American ambassador’s house.

The legal ceremony at the registry was in Portuguese, so it was the only point during the day when I knew what was going on, as everything from there on out was in Chitswa. There was a government representative there to officiate and, reading from the official script, he told us all that weddings were not to happen in churches, only at the registry. You pray and get baptized at church, but you get married at the registry, says he.

I knew we were headed directly to the church for the religious ceremony afterward, because that’s what my invitation said, so I was surprised to hear that. Then he said we were going to have a moment of silence to think about and appreciate the Republic of Mozambique, or something along those lines. I couldn’t help but think that it seemed like we were in a church at that moment – the church of the Republic of Mozambique.

After the legal ceremony was over, we piled into several trucks and rode in a procession across town to commit the sin of having a wedding in a church, singing all the way. I was in the back of a pick-up truck with at least 20 other people and we were all standing up, holding on to each other tightly like one big mass of bodies. I wasn’t on the edge and we were going slowly, but it was still scary, especially when we hit some low-hanging branches. As we bumped along, I tried to just pretend I was on a subway car at rush hour. I turned quite a few heads as we rode through town, as people did a double take to see if it was really me singing in Chitswa (sort of) with all the wedding-goers in the back of the pick-up.

After the church ceremony, we went back to their house and I thought we were going to eat next. It was around lunchtime and I was hungry. Some of the women had literally been up all night cooking and, sitting over fires around the yard, I could see giant vats of rice, xima (like a dryer version of grits), beef in a brown sauce, and maheu (a mildly sour drink with a corn meal base… it’s good, tastes like apple sauce).

But then I was told we were doing gifts first. There was a large make-shift tent set up in the middle of the yard and underneath was a table for the bride and groom and their two attendants (whose main job it was to dab the sweat from the bride’s and groom’s faces with a handkerchief all day). Surrounding the table was a semicircle of chairs for a select few people who appeared to be family or close friends. Everyone else gathered around, spilling out of the covered area into the hot midday sun and there was lots more singing, dancing, rhythms and general merriment.

To my embarrassment, they came and found me where I was standing in the back and pulled me up to the front and plopped me down in a chair right next to the table of the bride and groom. I wasn’t in the semicircle but a little in front of it, as if I wasn’t conspicuous enough already. Even though I thought I had no business being up there at the front, I knew there was no way I could refuse since that would just be rude. And besides, I was glad to be out of the sun and with a front-row view of the festivities.

So then began the gift giving. I was astounded at the organization and planning that had gone into the orchestration of the gift giving (see previous post for why this is noteworthy). There was an MC with a megaphone, and he had a printed list (where in Mabote can you even print anything??) of various groups – churches, associations, families, etc. – and began calling them one by one. As they were called, the group would make their way to the table, dancing and singing with their gifts in their hands, and make their offerings to the bride and groom. Then the gifts were passed to another side table where they were catalogued and put away. Then the next group was called.

This was a lot of fun to watch and after getting over the shock of practically being made an honorary member of the wedding party, I was having a great time. And I found it really amusing that the bride and groom, in typical Mozambican fashion, did not crack a smile the entire time (even at the ceremonies or in their photos). Though the guests were all smiles and laughter and song and dance, the bride and groom looked like they were being sentenced to death. If I didn’t know any better, I would have wondered who was forcing them to get married. But in Mozambique, it’s customary not to smile at important occasions and in photos because it shows that you are giving the occasion the proper respect.

I even got my own dance group to crowd around me when it was my turn, and I attempted to follow along with them as I presented my gift to the bride and groom (a set of metal mixing bowls with plastic lids). So like I said, I was having a great time… at least for the first 30 or 45 minutes of it. But then the singing and dancing and gift giving kept going, and going for another two or three hours.

We were all starting to bake in the hot sun, even under the tarp, and having to breathe the dust kicked up by the dancers’ feet, and I was feeling so hungry and thirsty that my hands were shaking. I looked at my cell phone clock and it was approaching 4pm and I hadn’t eaten since before 8 that morning (and neither had most of the others). I told myself I’d give it 20 more minutes and then I was going to make a break for it. I knew there would definitely be no sneaking about it, for obvious reasons. But I was almost past the point of caring if it was rude – I was hungry!

Thankfully, though, the gift giving finally came to a close and, as always, the women of my association took care of me. They knew I was hungry without me even saying anything and told me to go sit down on a grass mat and they came back with a plate of food and a spoon, and a cup of maheu. As always, I felt so high maintenance, with them doting on me and even hunting down a spoon when no one else was using silverware. But I was too hungry to even try to tell them I’d wait my turn, no special treatment, like I usually do when they try to pamper me.

I spent the rest of the late afternoon sitting on the grass mat playing with babies while their moms ate, and trying to make small talk with the moms. As I sat there and took in the scene around me, I tried to imagine how it would have seemed to me seven months ago before I came here… so foreign and exotic. But today, it just seemed normal. I was comfortable, and in some handicapped way, I felt like I belonged there.

So that was my first Mozambican wedding. I’m not sure I’d want to go to another one, but I’m glad I had the experience nonetheless.

Tchau for now,
Julie

When gardens grow faster than meetings happen

Written on April 29, 2011

Hey everyone,

Guipelile, mu vu kuile? That’s Chitswa for good evening, how are you? (Pronounced: gee-peh-LEE-leh, moo voo-KEE-leh, in case you were wondering).

So as you can tell from my greeting, I’ve decided that, even though my Portuguese still needs work, I want to try and learn some of the local language to better understand what’s going on around me. Because the thing is, most people at work and around town only speak Portuguese if they’re talking directly to me. Otherwise they speak Chitswa to one another, and a lot of people don’t speak much Portuguese at all. It’s not really a written language so it’s hard to find resource materials. But I have a rough manual that Peace Corps pieced together and a tutor lined up who is going to trade me Chitswa for English... so we’ll see!

But language is not the only challenge on my mind these days. To be honest, there are parts of my work and life here that are hard to talk about in a blog because they’re complicated and I don’t want to be negative or pass judgment on things I’m still struggling to understand. But I wouldn’t be doing this experience justice if I didn’t try to talk about these challenges, because they’re some of the central issues I deal with on a daily basis.

Like what? Well, the way my last two weeks went is one example. Ever since I got back from the conference in Maputo, I’ve been raring to go. It’s like something clicked and I realized, with a shock, that I’ve been here in Mabote for almost five months—nearly a quarter of the way through my two years! There are a lot of things that I want to do here and it suddenly seems like there’s just not enough time to do it all.

Why not? Two years is a long time, right? Maybe you’ve heard this adage: what takes an hour in the U.S. takes a day in Africa; what takes a day in the U.S. takes a month in Africa; and what takes a month in the U.S. takes a year in Africa. I had heard this before I came here, but I thought it must be an exaggeration.

But based on my short experience here, it’s not too far from the truth. The main problem I keep hitting up against is people’s tendency not to plan ahead. It’s not that they don’t get things done – god knows my colleagues at the association would put me to shame if you compared the amount of work we do in a day.

But a lot of people I know here seem to just decide what to do next at each moment. And if they do make plans, there’s a good chance something else will come up and whatever they had planned will start late, or just won’t happen that day. One reason for this is that to them, people always trump plans. That’s great if you’re the person interrupting someone’s plans because you need something, but it’s not so great if you’re the person they made plans with who is now sitting and waiting.

If we’re in a meeting and their phone rings, they answer it and have their conversation. If we’re in the middle of doing something and a neighbor walks up and asks to borrow our scale, but it’s locked inside the storage room and we don’t have the key, they will wander off to go help them find another scale to borrow from the neighboring association. And they may not come back for an hour, probably because they’re sitting and visiting.

One colleague in particular is the queen of this type of thing. When I got back from the conference I asked her if we could sit down and check-in about some things we left off on before I went to Maputo and make a plan for moving ahead. How long would it take in the U.S. to schedule and have one meeting? Maybe a day or two, right? Well, it took us two weeks. It didn’t happen until today and the meeting fell through four times. That is, I sat at the association waiting on her for a several hours, usually by myself in the yard, four different times.

But to be fair, I know it’s not just cultural tendencies. I can’t ignore the very real obstacles they are up against that I just don’t have to deal with. For one thing, there’s a lot more illness and death in their lives. Two of the four times our meeting fell through, it was at least partially because my colleague was sick and had to go to the hospital to get medicine. It wasn’t anything serious, but there are no private pharmacies in Mabote so if you even want something as basic as Tylenol you have to go to the hospital.

And the association was quieter than usual this week (which was why I was sitting around by myself) because, of the three most active members, two of them had a death or serious illness in their family. Not only that, but another member had to be taken to the hospital in the provincial capital, Inhambane City, this week because she’s having a complication from a chronic illness. She accidentally took some of the office keys with her so we were partially locked out. All these things happening at the same time and hampering our ability to get work done is not a coincidence – it’s just the reality of life here.

They also just do a whole lot; it’s common for people to have multiple professions or ways of providing for their family. The colleague I’ve been trying to meet with, for example, has three jobs: home-based care with our association, cashew processing with another association, and she’s a vender at the market. She also goes to school at night (8th grade); is involved in her church and the Mozambican organization of young people; is a single mom of a toddler; and then of course there are the daily tasks of life here like farming, cooking over firewood, and carrying water.

So maybe what looks to me like running around like a chicken with its head cut off is an understandable response to all of the demands of their lives. Because one thing is clear to me: life here is uncertain and closer to the edge. It seems like the mentality is: why worry about next week when it’s enough just to get through this one?

And besides, by next week, anything could happen. Not just personal things, but it’s typical to find out about important deadlines and events from our donor organization or the government just a few days in advance. And it doesn’t seem to phase my colleagues at all. They just scramble to pull things together, and in the meantime anything we had planned falls by the wayside.

So the end result of all of this is that by the end of the month, my calendar looks like a tic-tac-toe board with X’s crossing out the things we had planned that didn’t happen for one reason or another. And me understanding it somewhat doesn’t make it any less maddening when I’m sitting there by myself waiting to see if the colleague in question is ever going to show up to a meeting we agreed upon. No… when it happens on a regular basis I can’t just excuse it away, blaming it on cultural differences or poverty.

Or rather, it is due to both cultural differences and the consequences of poverty, but that doesn’t make it “right”, for lack of a better word. And I don’t think I’d be doing them any favors by not pointing out that it’s counterproductive. I’m not saying that my culture is always “right”, either, and I spend a lot of mental energy trying to figure out when to adapt to their way of doing things, and when try to get them to adapt to my way of doing things (not necessarily in this situation, but just in general). When am I helping them develop, and when am I just imposing my culture or ignoring realities?

There are no easy answers, and sometimes I feel like a dog chasing its tail.

But we did finally have our meeting today! I thought it went well; we talked about these problems with planning and communication and have some ideas of things we can do that might help. For one thing, we’re going to get some chalk paint in Vilankulos and make a chalkboard calendar on the wall to better track things and hold people accountable for showing up to meetings (I would say “on time” but that’s probably wishful thinking). It’s a start, anyway. And after the week I had, it felt like a major victory.

One of the things that keeps me sane at times like these is finding other ways of keeping busy. This week I sort of joined a soccer team at the primary school with a few of the teachers and some of the students – all ages, since a lot of adults go to primary school at night, but it’s mostly teenage girls who play. My English class also started, and I take great pleasure in showing up early and starting exactly at 6:15pm, the time we agreed upon, even if there are only two people there at the beginning. This is English class and we’re on American time, damnit! I told them that and they all laughed, but they still don’t show up on time…

And since machamba (small farming) season is coming to a close along with the rainy season and it’s now horta-planting time (vegetable gardens), I started one of my own last week at the association. Even if it took two weeks to have one meeting, at least my plants are growing! It’s something visible happening, and some days I need that.

That’s all for now. I’m off to bed. Big wedding to go to tomorrow.

Salani kwatzi, (goodbye in Chitswa)
Julie

P.S. Some of you are probably thinking how wonderfully ironic it is that I, who have been chronically late all my life, am complaining about other people making me wait. I officially apologize to anyone I ever left waiting on me (um, everyone I know). Maybe this experience will cure me of my lateness problem. You can remind me later that I said that…