Two years ago I was frantically preparing for a vast and
unknown adventure in Mozambique. I remember trying to pack my two
bags and cursing the fact that there was a weight limit on the
flight. In the weeks leading up to my September 29th
departure I made about a hundred lists and went shopping almost every
day to pick up a new gadget or article of clothing that I was sure
would be irreplaceable during my Peace Corps experience.
Well
here I am, a very short two years later, looking back on an
experience that even after 100s of pages of blog I struggle to put
into words. I didn’t use all of the “essential” things that I
bought two years ago and realize now that I would have been fine with
a few necessities packed down into one small bag. While my
experience isn’t over yet, I still have over two months in
Mozambique and one month travelling to India and Thailand before I
arrive home around Christmas time, it is now the beginning of the end
and I can feel the end date ominously hanging over me. I feel the
compulsion to extract meaning from my experience and consolidate all
of the challenges I’ve faced and the effort I’ve put in.
Last
week all of the volunteers in my group (Moz 15) went down to Maputo,
the capital city, for a mandatory close-of-service conference. There
we heard from returned PCVs, talked about post-PC career options, the
close-of-service process, and how to make sense of this experience
that we’ve all just had. It was actually a very well-spent three
days for all of us. Apart from getting to stay in a fancy hotel and
take hot showers, it also got us thinking about our experiences and
how we can look back on such an immense but ineffable time in our
lives. It got me thinking, what have
I learned in the past two years? What do I know now that I couldn’t
have imagined two years ago? Sometimes it’s difficult to step back
and take that perspective. We tend to get so tied up in our daily
lives, the frustrations of working and living in Mozambique and the
joys and difficulties of maintaining relationships with Mozambicans
and other PCVs, but it’s important to be able to see the changes
and all of the rich experiences that have benefited all of us PCVs
throughout our service. In order to sort it all out in my head I
decided to make a list of all the things that I’ve learned over the
course of my two years here in Mozambique and I will present it to
you now:
During
my Peace Corps experience in Mozambique, I have learned…
- First and foremost, that very few things make sense in this country…
- That when someone says they will do something for you, there’s a good chance they won’t
- That when someone says they will meet you at a certain time, they actually mean anytime from 30 minutes to 2 hours after the said time, or not at all
- That when there is ceremony or event run by Mozambicans, the program will always read that the start time is 8 a.m., but the event will never start before 10 a.m.
- That you cannot, under any circumstances, start an event before the chief arrives, even if he is three hours late
- That no one seems to care or realize when an event or meeting begins late and that people think you’re acting irrationally when you just want to start something on time
- That chapa driver are the scum of the earth – they will screw you over and try to squeeze as much money as they can out of you if you are organizing a group trip with them
- Related to the previous theme, that I can get angry when a chapa driver tries to screw me over
- That personal space does not exist
- That I actually miss fast food
- That I will never again complain about having to go put my clothes in the washing machine
- That dish-washers, microwaves and toasters are amazing inventions
- That I wouldn’t even know what to do with a stove that has four burners
- How to pretend I'm cooking different things when I actually use the same ingredients for every meal
- That you can repair anything with a plastic bag – bike tires, balls, water mains, electrical wires
- That a soccer ball made out of bunched up plastic bags is not the same as a real ball
- How to hold hands with other men for long periods of time without feeling uncomfortable
- That nearly everyone actually believes in ghosts, curses and magic
- That when you ask someone here how many times they’ve had malaria they assume you mean how many times this year
- How to cut the egg sac of a parasitic worm out of people’s feet
- How to take a malaria rapid-test with my eyes closed
- That people use condoms for everything but sex
- That you kill a pig by stabbing it in the heart from under its foreleg
- That you kill a goat by slicing it’s throat and hanging it upside down
- That a dried goat scrotum makes an excellent change purse
- That you will offend respected guest if you don’t serve them the head of the goat
- That you kill a rabbit by clubbing it over the head
- That giant rat meat smells like rotting garbage
- That I will miss fresh fruit and vegetables
- That for two months out of the year people eat exclusively mangoes
- That I can buy six huge pineapples for about $2, peel one and eat it whole like an apple
- That I have a clinical addiction to cashews and it made me poor
- How to defecate into a hole in the ground and prefer it to a toilet
- That I took grass for granted in America
- How to appreciate a good pattern of swept dust in someone’s front yard
- How to recognize a dust storm coming and close all my doors and windows in 15 seconds
- How to fit 60 students into back of flat-bed truck
- That students spend more time planning where to hide their cheat-sheets than actually studying for a test
- How to spot a cheat-sheet on anybody – under the chair, in the blouse, on the desk, written on their hands, written on their pants, up their sleeve, in their pencil box…
- How to find gratification in failing students who cheat
- How to wait…
- How to avoid having a break down at the bank even though it seems like the only option
- How to organize huge events without anything reliable to trust
- How to walk across Chimoio with $5,000 worth of cash for a project and not get robbed
- That I am never invisible in this country, even in my own house
- That people are ungrateful
- That people steal
- That few people understand why we are in this country
- That no matter how much time I spend in this country and how much it feels like home to me, I will always be white
- That my garbage pile will never last more than a day outside because there are things in my garbage more valuable that any of some people’s possessions
- That I will never truly understand what it’s like to be poor
- That police in Mozambique are idiots
- That people take justice into their own hands
- That if you steal a lady’s purse on a chapa the community will chase you down and beat you before turning you in to the police
- That corruption is insidious and impossible to confront
- That men have caused every problem this country is facing
- That women are blamed for every problem this country is facing
- That the best spot in a chapa is one of the middle seats in the third row back (you don’t have to get out every time someone else wants to get out, and you’re not next to the window if it rolls in an accident)
- To not sit in the front left side of a coach bus because you might get impaled by giant wooden rods if the bus hits a truck while trying to pass it in the middle of the night
- That people die in this country
- How to not talk about HIV/AIDS even when you know 1 in 5 people are dying of it
- That there is only enough ARV medication in the country to give to the people that have advanced stages of AIDS and are already near death
- That I’ve always taken my family for granted
- That when someone grows up without a family that cares about them, they grow up without any idea of what is right or wrong or what is important
- That as a teacher you can’t teach someone if they don’t want to learn
- That most girls don’t believe in themselves
- That students sleep with teachers regularly to get passing grades and the students are always blamed when they get caught
- That I will never change the core beliefs of this country that are bringing it down from within
- That despite all of this I love Mozambique
- That a day on a white sandy beach with azure water makes me forget all if the problems Mozambique has
- That there are people who care in this country
- That for every 10 students who cheat and daydream in class there is one who learns and asks questions and wants to achieve something more in his or her life
- That for every 10 girls that write themselves off as weak and subordinate there is one who realizes that she can do something more than just bare children and wash dishes in her life
- That for every 10 people dying of AIDS there is one who takes care of him or herself and lives long enough to help spread the message of prevention
- That my time in Mozambique was not wasted
- That for every 10 people who see me and only think “white,” there is one who takes the time to get to know me and together we can make a difference in each other’s lives
This
is my list. It’s a little bit like how my experience is floating
around in my brain now. It’s difficult to put it all together into
one coherent theme. You can only pick out a few strands at a time
and analyze them individually. Just like a mosaic, I feel that
eventually I will be able to step back and evaluate what this
experience has meant to me on a larger level, but until then I have
these shorts clips to look at, each one providing me with an aspect
of life here in Mozambique that I will take back with me to the
states. If I had made a list of expectations two years ago as I was
packing my bags and getting ready to come to Mozambique, would it
have looked like the list I just wrote? Not even close. That’s
life though. You take what’s given to you and try to benefit from
it as best you can, even if it’s nothing like what you expected.
I
hope you enjoyed this blog post. It was interesting for me to write
and forced me to think back on all of the varied experiences I’ve
had here in Mozambique. I’m sure the list will grow as I remember
more things and add new experiences over the next couple of months.
Here at site, I’m getting ready for the end. Next weekend I am
organizing the same regional English Theater competition that I
organized last year, so that is consuming a lot of my time now, but I
am looking forward to it. I still need to write about my family’s
visit back in August and a number of things that have happened since
then, so stay tuned and I will hopefully be writing more soon!
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