Mangunde Shorts, Part One

Good morning!  Here in Mozambique, it is a cool and refreshingly calm, relaxing Saturday morning.  This quality of inertia has been increasingly more difficult to come by as the weeks and months have barreled on.  I slept in until 8, and then lazily sunk into a book for the morning, unaffected by the sounds of an already bustling Mangunde that were filtering through my window – hoes cracking through dry and desiccated dirt, babies crying for their mothers, and the omnipresent background noise of Angolan pop music.  With my door closed, I was in my fortress, safe from the constant barrage of students’ pleas and requests.  With the door open, you are vulnerable, a boxer with his gloves down, a sailboat caught in a windstorm. You are forced to heed the requests of a desperate mob – they want the ball for soccer, to charge their cell phone, help with physics homework, to learn guitar, to use the computer lab, to play chess, to ask for a loan…the list goes on.  No, this morning, my door was closed; I was impervious and cracked a sinister smile whenever I would hear the unanswered pleas of “Excuse me, Teacher” float into the house from behind the closed door.  No, this morning is mine. 

There are few things in life more enjoyable than a lazy Saturday morning, in my opinion.  As you may have guessed, it has been awhile since I have had this unique pleasure to sit and decompress; enjoy a cup of coffee, albeit instant coffee, with a piece of toast in my hand, my feet up and my book open.  The last month for me has been a whirlwind of school responsibilities, figuring out how to get things done in a vastly different culture, and finding time to escape and enjoy life.  It has been an exercise in treading water.  With my tippy toes barely touching ground beneath, and my neck arched back, lips skimming the surface of the water and sucking in one breathe at a time, I felt like I was always fighting to stay on top.  But, day by day, I have managed to survive.  When it’s all over I collapse into bed and, with my body at the finish line, ready to click the off button, my brain holds outs for a few more desperate minutes, planning what tomorrow holds in store.  But when sleep comes, and a glorious sleep it is, I fall hard and deep, dreaming of worlds near and far, and a home that is both here in Mangunde and one which lingers in America.  When I am pulled out of that dreamy trance, I am sucked back into the world of things undone.  But not today.  Today is Saturday.  There is no done and undone.  There is only breakfast, my feet on the chair in front of me and my book in my hand.

As you may be able to predict, my current state of Saturday-morning-decompression will be fleeting and short-lived.  Soon it will be replaced with a swift and crippling compression.  My door will open, and like the rush of a tsunami wave crashing over the protective levees, life with all of its responsibilities will sweep under my feet and drag me into its tempestuous current.  It is, however, a current that I submit to willingly and one that you shouldn’t try to fight against.  Let it sweep you away; let it disarm you; and trust that you will end up in a new and exciting place.