Written on January 21, 2012
Hi everyone,
Happy belated new year! Maybe it’s a bit late to be saying that, but here things are just getting back into full swing after the festas (holidays). School just started up again this week, the market and stores around town are still reopening and replenishing, and some government and NGO employees are still trickling back into Mabote from the bigger towns and cities.
I myself am a major desaparecida (literally: disappeared person) from Mabote these days, having taken a long holiday break not too long after I got back from my Great Northern Adventure. Mozambicans love to accuse each other of disappearing whenever they haven’t seen each other in a while, and I’m about to do it again tomorrow because I have yet another conference to go to in Maputo, the capital.
In preparation for leaving again, I did laundry this morning. It’s been overcast and raining on and off for a few days now, so while drying my laundry out on the clothes line usually takes less than an hour in Mabote’s parching heat and brutal sun, today it was not so simple. Hanging your laundry out to dry during the rainy season is always a gamble, and sometimes calls for doing the laundry rain dance: running back and forth to the clothes line as rain threatens and then clears.
But doing laundry today was even more interesting, thanks to my meddlesome neighbor. At first it wasn’t raining so I put my clothes out on the line, but then when it started sprinkling I moved them onto my covered porch, where I have some strings rigged for just this purpose. But then my neighbor, who was also doing laundry, started telling me how I wasn’t going to get good air circulation on the porch. So we spent the better part of the morning debating on and off about whose clothes were going to dry faster: mine hanging on my covered porch, or hers out on the line getting periodically sprinkled on. To me is seemed obvious: why would you hang your clothes out in the rain?
When it finally looked like the sun was coming out I moved them out to the line, but then she marched over and started re-hanging all my clothes, telling me that the way I had hung them was not optimal for the fastest drying. I know she was trying to help, but it’s my damn laundry! Even if I had to go to Maputo tomorrow in damp clothes, what does she care? Living in such a close-knit community has its joys and frustrations, and maybe it sounds petty (ok, I know it’s petty), but today it was mostly frustrating.
I tried to imagine a similar situation happening in the states: what if I were doing laundry at my old laundry mat in Harlem and looked over and told someone they were folding their socks wrong? Doing something like that would probably earn you a dirty look, if not expletives, or worse… I once saw a fight almost break out over who was using a rolling laundry basket first. And in suburban Birmingham, you’d probably never even have a chance to tell your neighbor they were doing their laundry wrong because everyone is so insulated in their own houses. But even if you had the chance, you’d probably be too polite to say anything.
I finally decided it wasn’t worth fighting over, especially when she was, after all, trying to help me. So I relented and just started following her instructions like I was a child learning how to tie my shoes. She had me leaving each article of clothing out on the line until it reached a point of being mostly dry from being washed (even if sprinkled with raindrops), and then bringing it onto the porch to finish drying completely. I hate to admit it, but I did eventually see the sense in her process, even if it had me running back and forth doing the laundry rain dance more than I would have liked. But I’m sure I will be grateful tomorrow when I’m sitting on the plane to Maputo in dry clothes that don’t smell mildew-y.
Speaking of my trip to Maputo, and of this neighbor, she has asked me to take a couple of things to her family there. It’s very normal here to ask someone to transport things for you, or bring things back, when they’re traveling. In fact, I’ve also been asked to bring back a certain brand of soap for another colleague, and another Peace Corps volunteer said someone once asked them to take a loaf of bread to an extended family member living in New York.
But what she’s asked me to take to Maputo is slightly more noteworthy than a loaf of bread or a box of soap. She’s asked me to carry two butchered gazelle legs onto the airplane. (Gazelles are referred to as carne da casa, or bush meat, and are slightly smaller than deer.) When she asked me I had to stifle my laughter as I pictured the look on my fellow volunteers’ faces when I show up at the airport in Vilankulo with two gazelle legs in tow. I immediately agreed, thinking this opportunity was too good to pass up… when else will I ever have freshly slaughtered bush meat as my carry-on?
But beyond laundry woes and bush meat deliveries, things here are going pretty well this week (my first real “work week” since the festas). I met with a neighboring association to explore the possibility of the next volunteer placed here working with both my association and this other one, which has very similar projects. I already knew several of their members and there are a lot of family and social connections between the two associations, but I hadn’t ever sat down with them in a work-like context.
As it turns out, they had been harboring a lot of jealousy about the fact that I only work with my association, which I was placed with via a Peace Corps partnership with our NGO donor. But the other association said they are very interested in having the next volunteer be a dual-placement, and even starting to work with me now.
Seeing as how I’m always scrounging for productive things to do, I’m kicking myself for not making more of an effort with them sooner. But to be honest, attempting to work productively with my association is pretty frustrating a lot of the time, and I wasn’t sure I wanted twice the frustration. But based on our meeting yesterday, I think working with this other association might be a different experience. We shall see, but I’m looking forward to potentially having two opportunities to implement some things I’ve been hoping to do.
Other than that, my friend and English class co-organizer and I have been getting ready to start the next round of classes in February. This time we’re trying to make them more official and are planning to have tests and give out certificates at the end, with the idea being that they can then put on their resume that they are “certified” at a basic or intermediate level.
Six months ago I would have thought it unnecessary, but Mozambicans put a lot of stock in officialdom. I was once told at the post office that a letter of permission I was trying to turn in so that a friend in Vilankulo could pick up my packages for me wasn’t acceptable because it hadn’t been stamped by my employer. The fact is, any organization or enterprise here that is at all legitimate has their own official rubber stamp, so I suppose we’re going to have to get a stamp made to use on the certificates.
Another work-type update is that I’ve started helping this same friend start a small business. He’s relatively educated, motivated and very active in the community, but as it turns out, what I thought was his main job of working at the courthouse is actually an unpaid apprenticeship. It was supposed to lead to a paid position but I recently found out that he’s been working there without pay for the past three years because of the continued promise that this apprenticeship was leading somewhere. He’s taken the official test to be a court worker and has followed up several times, and each time he’s been told that they are processing his paperwork.
He’s in a tough position because if he quits now then he will have “wasted” those three years, but how long can he just keep working for free and hoping that one day the powers that be – the wizards behind the curtain – will one day deliver him the means to make a better life?
So he’s starting to look for other options, like this business of selling women’s beauty products in the market. Even if we don’t accomplish what I’d like to in the next ten months at the association, I feel like the things I’m doing with him will at least be something I can look back on and feel good about.
Anyway, I’m going to leave this blog shorter than usual since I spent too much time on laundry today and haven’t even started packing. Next time I promise I’ll write about something more entertaining than laundry.
Até a proxima (until next time),
Julie
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