Daylight savings anyone?

Fifth day in Mangunde.  It is hot here.  Word on the street is that it’s going to rain soon, but I don’t see it happening.  What is bizarre is that it seems to be hottest early in the morning.  You wake up at 6, step outside, and are like, whaa..come on, now.  You would think that you might have a couple hours of nice cool morning air before it starts to really boil mid-afternoon, it starts out with a bang though– really humid and at least in the 90s before noon.

The problem is that the sun rises at an ungodly early hour.  5am and it's already bright and starting to heat up.  The roosters start their thing at like 3, and maybe the sun gets the hint and starts poking its head above the horizon come 445 or 5, and then it’s dark by 630 at night.  Has anyone heard of daylight savings here?  We could salvage another hour or two of daylight here people.  I think it could be the solution to the pervasive problem of sweat-soaked t-shirts at 7am.

When it does rain, it rains hard.  Rain here is a sign of auspicious things, so while you are miserably slogging your wet ass through the mud, someone is sure to chime in that this is boa sorte or good luck.  It’s never quite as uplifting as they think it is when people say that to you.  Really the worst thing about the rain, and this is how I know I have changed in Mozambique, is that you always, without question, have to wash your pants after it rains.  You only got a half day’s worth of clean pants usage?  Too bad.  Here is the problem with the pants and rain; there are two immutable truths here in Mozambique that stand in the way of a peaceful co-existence between pants and rain: (1) As far as I know, no one has ever successfully navigated through a day of heavy rain without getting mud all over their pants.  It simply cannot be done. (2) Potentially even more prohibitive that number 1 is that no one has ever left their house under the watchful eyes of a mother, grandmother or maid with mud on their pants.  Mozambican women have a veritable sixth sense for detecting even the smallest spot of matope on your pants.  It’s much akin to their other pant-related skill, which is to detect when someone is trying to fugir the house with un-ironed pants.  It doesn’t matter if you are already 15 minutes late for class; she will make you go back in the house, get the iron and engomar those calcas.  Showing up to class with un-ironed pants is a much more grave concern than showing up a half hour late. 

I’m trying to develop theories to explain this uncanny extra-sensory perception as it relates to pants, but so far the best I have come up with is that Mozambican women are just not human.  This non-human theory is consistent with other observations I’ve made: first, the women here can balance an in-human amount of weight on their head without it falling.  Second, they have no discomfort in pulling out a breast mid-conversation to start feeding the infant that you didn’t even know was wrapped up on their back.  Seriously, it can be very distracting if you’re not accustomed to it.  When I arrived at my site and met the maid that I would be living with for the next two years, the very first thing I saw of her, even before making eye contact and greeting her, was her nipple.  I didn’t know whether I should look away and give her time to re-adjust things, or just carry on as if nothing was strange.  I now know, based on the amount of times I’ve seen that same nipple since our first meeting, that the appropriate response was to just pretend it’s not out there and carefully maintain eye contact.