Written July 11, 2011
Hey everybody,
Tudo bem? (Everything well?) Seems like I just posted a blog, but I’ll be coming out of Internet hiding early this month because next week I’m headed to a conference in the town of Boane, just outside Maputo (the capital).
I feel like it’s nothing but conferences these days. I just attended another one the last couple of weeks here in Mabote. Our donor organization and some other outside partners were training fifteen new home-based care volunteers for our association. I asked to sit in, but by about day three (out of twelve) I was kicking myself for that. It’s not that I didn’t get anything out of it, but it was hardly worth it to have to sit through session after session where they mainly spoke in Chitswa (or, in the trainers’ cases, Changana and Chopi, but they’re close enough to be able to communicate with each other). By day six I had come down with a cold that turned out to be quite debilitating, so I had to miss a few days. The timing was uncanny, I tell ya.
So in case you were wondering how my Chitswa is coming, there’s your answer… it’s not really. After a couple months of beating my head against the wall, I think I can say with some certainty that this is one language barrier I will not be overcoming. As it turns out, learning Chitswa is nothing like learning Portuguese. I think I’ve mentioned before that Chitswa isn’t really a written language. But in addition to the lack of written materials, the other challenge I’m finding is that no one knows how to explain the grammar. Even having a tutor just turned out to be frustrating (for both of us, I think) and unhelpful.
People will just say to me, “This is how you ask for water, ‘babel babel babel.’ And this is how you ask someone how they’re feeling, ‘babel babel babel.’” And that “babel babel” part is actually made up of really long and hard-to-pronounce words. Like, for example, today is July 11th. The word for eleven? Khumeniyinwe. The word for July? Malatacikwinyani. And I can’t just memorize a bunch of sounds for everything I might want to say… I need rules! Patterns!
Having recently started teaching English, I can commiserate with people not knowing the rules of their native language. “It just is!” I want to say sometimes. “That’s not right because it sounds wrong!” When I first started, I didn’t think I’d need a book. After all, it’s my language… I know it in my bones. But as I’m now seeing, that can be both a blessing and a handicap when you’re trying to teach it. So even though it drives me crazy that no one can explain Chitswa to me… I get it. They don’t even have books or rules they learned in school to rely upon. Like me with English, they just know it in their bones.
People often tell me that Chitswa is easier than Portuguese and that I’ll pick it up in no time (though they say that less and less these days…). One Sunday several months ago I was at church with my friend and colleague, Amina. The service, of course, was all in Chitswa. She translated for me for about the first ten minutes and then stopped. I assumed she got tired and I didn’t mind at all. But then an hour or so later she turns to me and asks, “Do you understand?” I was confused at first, wondering if they started speaking Portuguese after I’d zoned out. But they hadn’t, so I told her, “Of course not, they’re speaking Chitswa!” She looks at me, kind of perplexed, and says, “Open your ears!!” As if it were that easy.
I feel bad that my Chitswa isn’t getting much better because I know it would mean so much to people if I could speak more of their language – their real language. When Mozambique chose Portuguese as their official language after independence from Portugal in 1975, it was a pragmatic decision. They needed a language to unite them as a country, to start to form a national identity. I’m told that up to that point, and even after, many people identified more with their ethnic/language group – some of which cross national borders – than with this outline on a map called Mozambique.
Now, it seems like there’s a divide between more educated, cosmopolitan Mozambicans from larger towns and cities who speak Portuguese on a daily basis, and the large number of rural farmers who, if they speak any, only speak enough to get by. Just how little Portuguese many people in Mabote speak was driven home to me during the training these last two weeks. It actually started off in Portuguese but then it became clear that most people just weren’t following, even though one of the requirements to be a home-based care volunteer was that they could speak Portuguese.
But if you’re a subsistence farmer barely getting by and an international NGO says they want to pay you a monthly subsidy to work in the community, but only if you can speak Portuguese, then you obviously aren’t going to write “barely speaks Portuguese” at the top of your resume. People don’t like to admit they don’t speak Portuguese very well because they feel like they’re supposed to know it, even though many people here, especially women, haven’t had much of an opportunity to learn. It’s like there’s shame in only speaking Chitswa, which is sad to me. Why should someone have to feel ashamed for speaking their own language?
In fact, my closest volunteer neighbor, Mandy, told me that a friend of hers in Makwakwa has decided that she doesn’t want her baby to speak Chitswa at all, only Portuguese. In reality, if she stays here, it will be impossible to keep her daughter from learning Chitswa from other people. But it just goes to show how local languages are sometimes looked down upon.
As much as it’s inconvenient for me as an English-speaker to have to attempt to learn two new languages to live in Mozambique, and – from a practical standpoint – as inefficient as it is for one country to have so many different languages, I hope they hold on to their local languages even as globalization and development spread. It’s hard for me to imagine a Mozambique without them; it seems like such an important part of their cultural heritage.
And I don’t see why there’s not room for multiple languages. Even with the burgeoning demand for English, I can easily imagine Mozambicans speaking their local language, Portuguese and, if they want to, English (some already do). As it is now, students study English and French in school in addition to Portuguese. One thing that I’ve been impressed with here is their comfort with, and even thirst for, being exposed to other languages.
I’ve seen people keep their cell phones in English even when there’s a Portuguese option, and I’ve also seen people watch movies in Chinese, with English subtitles. One of my host families in Namaacha was doing that one night and they seemed to be enjoying the movie so much, laughing and carrying on, that I started to wonder if, somehow, they actually spoke some Chinese. When I asked, my host mom said, “No, but listen to how funny they sound!!” And then she tried to imitate someone speaking Chinese and everyone cracked up, especially me. So wrong, but the irony of someone whose primary language is Changana – as “funny-sounding” as it gets to my ears – doing an impression of someone speaking Chinese… priceless.
When it comes to openness to foreign languages, I like their attitude. We could use some of that in the U.S., where some people seem to think that the influx of Spanish is something to be feared and stamped out. (Did you catch the “This is Alabama; we speak English” ad from last year’s gubernatorial race?) People here just don’t get it when I tell them that before I came here, I pretty much only spoke English. “But besides English, what else did you speak?” “Just English.” “Not even French? And what about your local language… what do you speak with your grandmother?” “Just English.” They just look at me weird, not quite believing.
Anyway, I hope you’re all enjoying your summers and having some fun. I’m excited to be hanging out for a couple days in Maputo before the conference. Whenever I spend time in Maputo, it feels almost like I’m on a little vacation back to my old life… eating in restaurants, taking hot showers, and maybe most of all, that glorious feeling that I used to take for granted of being anonymous... i.e. no one gawking at me or calling me mulungu.
And the feeling of being on vacation is amplified because the city is a convergence of so many diverse influences that you don’t quite know where you are. It’s a port city and some parts are beautiful and feel almost Mediterranean. Yet there’s also plenty of communist-era square concrete architecture that makes you feel like you’re in Eastern Europe. And on top of that you never really forget you’re in Africa, with the aggressive street vendors and taking chapas (jam-packed minibuses) as public transport.
Incidentally, being in Maputo also makes me feel like my Portuguese sucks, whereas in Mabote I sometimes get lulled into thinking that I’m practically fluent. Just goes to show, again, the rural-urban language barrier. And I’m pretty sure if I arrived in Lisbon or Rio de Janeiro tomorrow, I’d be totally floundering.
After the conference I’m going to visit my friend Anne’s town, Fidel Castro, in Gaza province. (Yes, that’s actually the name of her town.) She’s invited me to go with her to a traditional lobolo (bride price) ceremony. Should be interesting!
Fica bem, (Stay well)
Julie
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Friday, July 1, 2011
Give me your shoes.
Written on June 8, 2011
Hey everyone,
Happy summer! Wow, I can’t believe it’s already June. Any fun summer plans? Since it’s technically not summer here, I guess my “winter” plans include another conference in Maputo in July and, hopefully, the Timbilas (xylophone) music festival in August down in Zavala, the “killing chickens on the beach” town I visited in March.
But I think today’s a pretty exciting day: it marks my six month anniversary of arriving in Mabote! Hard to believe I’m officially a quarter of the way through. It definitely hasn’t been an easy transition, but at the end of the day, I’m really glad I’m here.
Having been here six months, I feel like I’m finally getting over – or at least getting some perspective on – things that used to really bother me. Like, for instance, what happened to me in the market today.
There’s a common phrase in Mozambique that I probably hear at least once a day: estou a pedir. Literally, “I’m asking for…” but it feels more like “give me that.” People – often kids, but not always – ask me for all kinds of things: the mangos I just bought, the hat off my head, the shoes off my feet, the capulanas I use as curtains, even my photos of friends and family, and especially money.
When I say no, they just don’t understand. People seem confused and disappointed. “Why won’t she share what she has with me?” they wonder. “It’s not like she can’t spare it… everyone knows all white people are rich,” goes the mentality. Well, today in the market a woman got pretty feisty with me, seemingly indignant at the injustice of it… me not sharing. I have no idea what she was saying as she clutched my hand and berated me in Chitswa, but it couldn’t have been good.
I’d say my feelings about all of this have gone through several stages. First I was just shocked. Internal dialogue: “Are you seriously asking me for my shoes? What am I going to do, give them to you and walk home barefoot??” And then there was anger. “NO, you cannot have my curtains! ... Why? Because they’re MINE and there’s this thing called personal property!!” And there have been days when I didn’t even want to leave my house because I just couldn’t deal with people staring at me, calling me mulungu, and asking me for things.
But then one day a while back, I was talking about all of this with a colleague from our donor organization, a Mozambican guy about my age who lives in Vilankulos. He worked his way to where he is with the help of a scholarship and vocational training he received after being orphaned at a young age. He told me that when he was a kid, he thought the same thing that most of the kids (and plenty of adults) around Mabote seem to think. And that is, to paraphrase him: that all white people are rich, that they know more than black Africans do, and that they’re here to give us things. He added, with a smirk, “after all, Jesus Christ is white.”
Another white Peace Corps volunteer told a story during training about something that happened once when he was way out in a remote area doing home visits with one of his organization’s activistas (home-based care providers). When they showed up to one man’s house, the man started getting agitated and upset, going on and on about something in the local language having to do with the Peace Corps volunteer.
After a while, the activista told him that the man was upset because he thought that he, the volunteer, was Jesus Christ’s brother, and didn’t understand why a son of God would come all the way to his house and not bring him anything. Several of the churches that I’ve been to here have those cheesy Jesus portraits on the wall with the long flowy hair, the beard, the white skin with the angelic glow. If that was the only white person you saw on a regular basis, you can see how you might get confused.
My colleague from Vilankulos went on to talk about how, after independence in 1975, most of the white people who came here were teachers, doctors, aid workers, or other professionals. They were filling the gaps left when most of the Portuguese fled after independence, leaving behind a largely uneducated population with very few professionals.
Even before Independence, I read that Catholic and Protestant missionaries ran most of the schools in existence. My colleague said that when black Mozambicans first started becoming teachers, some of the students balked, saying, “How can you teach me anything? You look just like me.”
And then there are white South Africans. Those who have the money to take their holidays on Mozambique’s beaches generally aren’t doing anything to counteract the “rich white people” stereotype. They tear through Mabote in their sport vehicles and go inflate prices in Vilankulos where, even if they pay 50% more than what something should cost, it’s still cheaper than in South Africa, so they’re not too worried about it.
My colleague said that he knows of at least one restaurant that keeps two menus, one for white people and one for everyone else. And according to him, as recently as 2004 there were stores in Vilankulos with signs in the window prohibiting black people from entering. “They ended Apartheid and brought it here,” he said.
After that conversation, and others like it, things started to make more sense. It’s just logical. How can I blame or get mad at someone for assuming that I’m rich and am here to give handouts when that’s what experience has taught them? If you’ve never seen a white person who wasn’t seemingly rich, why would you believe they exist?
My colleague said that he didn’t really understand until he visited Belgium. When he saw his first homeless person there, he was dumbfounded. “Look at that man, he’s so poor… and yet, he’s white!”
He suggested that when people ask me for things, I should stop and talk to them and open up a dialogue to help them understand who I am and what I’m doing here (and what I’m not doing here) and to challenge their stereotypes about white people.
It was good advice, and I try to follow it when I can. Of course, when the person doesn’t speak any Portuguese, like the woman in the market today, it’s a lot harder. But even so, having a better understanding of why people do the things they do helps keep me from getting all bent out of shape about it.
That’s not to say that I handle it perfectly now, or that I don’t still have conflicted feelings. After all, some of the things I say to people for simplicity’s sake, like “I’m not rich, and I have to eat too” or “I can’t give you my shoes because then what will I wear?” are not entirely true. Maybe not even remotely true, from their perspective, if they really knew how many pairs of shoes are in my closet or how much money is in my bank account.
While I’m not rich by developed world standards, and my Peace Corps stipend doesn’t even meet the minimum bar to file taxes in the U.S., it’s still a lot more money than most people in Mabote have. And if I gave someone my shoes, I would be able to get along without that pair, or just replace them.
But I haven’t yet figured out a simple and kid-friendly way to say, “I’m not giving you money (or shoes, bread, etc.) because it’s not sustainable. I won’t always be here and I want to promote self-sufficiency, not create more dependency. And though I do have some extra money, I can’t afford to give away money to every needy person in town, and how would I choose?” That’s just a mouthful.
And I can already see the blank stares on their faces as they look at this “rich white person” making a bunch of excuses for why she won’t help them. It’s a lot easier to just try to convince them that I’m not rich, even though compared to them, I am.
And even after all of my logic, I still have to ask myself, “What kind of person looks at a malnourished child and won’t give him a banana?” I mean, for god’s sake, my cat looks better-fed than some of the neighborhood kids do. I’ve seen my colleagues at the association give away bread or cashews to needy kids, and they have less than I do. In a lot of ways, sharing and communal living is just the way it is here. And am I not a member of this community?
So as you can see, I do a lot of arguing with myself in my head. But in the end, I think I have to stick to my logic about wanting my impact here to be sustainable, even if it does feel crappy sometimes.
Anyway, on a more cheerful note before I sign off, happy fourth of July! Okay, so it’s not the fourth of July yet, as I write this, but it probably will be by the time I can post it. Some of us are thinking about having a good ‘ole American fourth of July party in Vilankulos… that is if we get ourselves organized in time and if the Chinese “Wal-Mart” has any fireworks.
Mozambique’s Independence Day is actually pretty close to ours, on June 25. I’m sure there will be a day-long program of festivities here in Mabote; there have been a lot of those lately for various commemorations and holidays. On Nurses’ Day a few weeks ago I was actually in the parade along with my association’s activistas. It was a funny feeling to be marching behind soldiers wearing communist-looking uniform and carrying AK47s while singing old war songs. I felt like we were marching off to join the revolution. Viva a revolução!
I didn’t yell that, but I kind of wanted to. Anyway, be safe with the bottle rockets and beer!
Até logo,
Julie
Hey everyone,
Happy summer! Wow, I can’t believe it’s already June. Any fun summer plans? Since it’s technically not summer here, I guess my “winter” plans include another conference in Maputo in July and, hopefully, the Timbilas (xylophone) music festival in August down in Zavala, the “killing chickens on the beach” town I visited in March.
But I think today’s a pretty exciting day: it marks my six month anniversary of arriving in Mabote! Hard to believe I’m officially a quarter of the way through. It definitely hasn’t been an easy transition, but at the end of the day, I’m really glad I’m here.
Having been here six months, I feel like I’m finally getting over – or at least getting some perspective on – things that used to really bother me. Like, for instance, what happened to me in the market today.
There’s a common phrase in Mozambique that I probably hear at least once a day: estou a pedir. Literally, “I’m asking for…” but it feels more like “give me that.” People – often kids, but not always – ask me for all kinds of things: the mangos I just bought, the hat off my head, the shoes off my feet, the capulanas I use as curtains, even my photos of friends and family, and especially money.
When I say no, they just don’t understand. People seem confused and disappointed. “Why won’t she share what she has with me?” they wonder. “It’s not like she can’t spare it… everyone knows all white people are rich,” goes the mentality. Well, today in the market a woman got pretty feisty with me, seemingly indignant at the injustice of it… me not sharing. I have no idea what she was saying as she clutched my hand and berated me in Chitswa, but it couldn’t have been good.
I’d say my feelings about all of this have gone through several stages. First I was just shocked. Internal dialogue: “Are you seriously asking me for my shoes? What am I going to do, give them to you and walk home barefoot??” And then there was anger. “NO, you cannot have my curtains! ... Why? Because they’re MINE and there’s this thing called personal property!!” And there have been days when I didn’t even want to leave my house because I just couldn’t deal with people staring at me, calling me mulungu, and asking me for things.
But then one day a while back, I was talking about all of this with a colleague from our donor organization, a Mozambican guy about my age who lives in Vilankulos. He worked his way to where he is with the help of a scholarship and vocational training he received after being orphaned at a young age. He told me that when he was a kid, he thought the same thing that most of the kids (and plenty of adults) around Mabote seem to think. And that is, to paraphrase him: that all white people are rich, that they know more than black Africans do, and that they’re here to give us things. He added, with a smirk, “after all, Jesus Christ is white.”
Another white Peace Corps volunteer told a story during training about something that happened once when he was way out in a remote area doing home visits with one of his organization’s activistas (home-based care providers). When they showed up to one man’s house, the man started getting agitated and upset, going on and on about something in the local language having to do with the Peace Corps volunteer.
After a while, the activista told him that the man was upset because he thought that he, the volunteer, was Jesus Christ’s brother, and didn’t understand why a son of God would come all the way to his house and not bring him anything. Several of the churches that I’ve been to here have those cheesy Jesus portraits on the wall with the long flowy hair, the beard, the white skin with the angelic glow. If that was the only white person you saw on a regular basis, you can see how you might get confused.
My colleague from Vilankulos went on to talk about how, after independence in 1975, most of the white people who came here were teachers, doctors, aid workers, or other professionals. They were filling the gaps left when most of the Portuguese fled after independence, leaving behind a largely uneducated population with very few professionals.
Even before Independence, I read that Catholic and Protestant missionaries ran most of the schools in existence. My colleague said that when black Mozambicans first started becoming teachers, some of the students balked, saying, “How can you teach me anything? You look just like me.”
And then there are white South Africans. Those who have the money to take their holidays on Mozambique’s beaches generally aren’t doing anything to counteract the “rich white people” stereotype. They tear through Mabote in their sport vehicles and go inflate prices in Vilankulos where, even if they pay 50% more than what something should cost, it’s still cheaper than in South Africa, so they’re not too worried about it.
My colleague said that he knows of at least one restaurant that keeps two menus, one for white people and one for everyone else. And according to him, as recently as 2004 there were stores in Vilankulos with signs in the window prohibiting black people from entering. “They ended Apartheid and brought it here,” he said.
After that conversation, and others like it, things started to make more sense. It’s just logical. How can I blame or get mad at someone for assuming that I’m rich and am here to give handouts when that’s what experience has taught them? If you’ve never seen a white person who wasn’t seemingly rich, why would you believe they exist?
My colleague said that he didn’t really understand until he visited Belgium. When he saw his first homeless person there, he was dumbfounded. “Look at that man, he’s so poor… and yet, he’s white!”
He suggested that when people ask me for things, I should stop and talk to them and open up a dialogue to help them understand who I am and what I’m doing here (and what I’m not doing here) and to challenge their stereotypes about white people.
It was good advice, and I try to follow it when I can. Of course, when the person doesn’t speak any Portuguese, like the woman in the market today, it’s a lot harder. But even so, having a better understanding of why people do the things they do helps keep me from getting all bent out of shape about it.
That’s not to say that I handle it perfectly now, or that I don’t still have conflicted feelings. After all, some of the things I say to people for simplicity’s sake, like “I’m not rich, and I have to eat too” or “I can’t give you my shoes because then what will I wear?” are not entirely true. Maybe not even remotely true, from their perspective, if they really knew how many pairs of shoes are in my closet or how much money is in my bank account.
While I’m not rich by developed world standards, and my Peace Corps stipend doesn’t even meet the minimum bar to file taxes in the U.S., it’s still a lot more money than most people in Mabote have. And if I gave someone my shoes, I would be able to get along without that pair, or just replace them.
But I haven’t yet figured out a simple and kid-friendly way to say, “I’m not giving you money (or shoes, bread, etc.) because it’s not sustainable. I won’t always be here and I want to promote self-sufficiency, not create more dependency. And though I do have some extra money, I can’t afford to give away money to every needy person in town, and how would I choose?” That’s just a mouthful.
And I can already see the blank stares on their faces as they look at this “rich white person” making a bunch of excuses for why she won’t help them. It’s a lot easier to just try to convince them that I’m not rich, even though compared to them, I am.
And even after all of my logic, I still have to ask myself, “What kind of person looks at a malnourished child and won’t give him a banana?” I mean, for god’s sake, my cat looks better-fed than some of the neighborhood kids do. I’ve seen my colleagues at the association give away bread or cashews to needy kids, and they have less than I do. In a lot of ways, sharing and communal living is just the way it is here. And am I not a member of this community?
So as you can see, I do a lot of arguing with myself in my head. But in the end, I think I have to stick to my logic about wanting my impact here to be sustainable, even if it does feel crappy sometimes.
Anyway, on a more cheerful note before I sign off, happy fourth of July! Okay, so it’s not the fourth of July yet, as I write this, but it probably will be by the time I can post it. Some of us are thinking about having a good ‘ole American fourth of July party in Vilankulos… that is if we get ourselves organized in time and if the Chinese “Wal-Mart” has any fireworks.
Mozambique’s Independence Day is actually pretty close to ours, on June 25. I’m sure there will be a day-long program of festivities here in Mabote; there have been a lot of those lately for various commemorations and holidays. On Nurses’ Day a few weeks ago I was actually in the parade along with my association’s activistas. It was a funny feeling to be marching behind soldiers wearing communist-looking uniform and carrying AK47s while singing old war songs. I felt like we were marching off to join the revolution. Viva a revolução!
I didn’t yell that, but I kind of wanted to. Anyway, be safe with the bottle rockets and beer!
Até logo,
Julie
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