(From December, 2012)
I’m sitting on a reclined beach chair with my toes
dipped in the gently lapping waves of the Gulf of Thailand. Each
methodical surge of aqua-marine water fills in the spaces between my
toes and pulls my beach chair ever so slightly into the sand, while
it pulls my consciousness quietly into a blissful trance. The sun
sinks behind me into a technicolored sunset and thoughts of where
I’ve been and how I got into this idyllic paradise rise and fall
with the pulse of the waves.
Here and now, this toes-in-the-sand paradise, all started three years ago when I accepted my invitation to become a PCV in Mozambique. Nine months of waiting for my assignment was followed by that momentous arrival in Maputo, Mozambique, and an exciting but at times frustrating pre-service training. Then, before I knew it, I was in it, the main event. 24 months of Peace Corps Mozambique. I don’t need to rehash all the stories that spawned from those marvelous, scary, at times impossible, but invaluable twenty-four months. Then, before I knew it I was counting down from 12 instead of up to 24. 12 turned into 6 turned into 1, and all of a sudden I was counting the days instead of the months.
About a week before I would head to Maputo in preparation for my official close-of-service on November 30th, 2012, I celebrated Thanksgiving with Hannah in her quaint little town of Kaunda. We had been planning on spending Thanksgiving with friends at a nearby site, so when plans changed and we were on our own for Thanksgiving we found ourselves lacking some of the key ingredients for a traditional Thanksgiving dinner, namely, turkey, gravy, any of the ingredients needed to make stuffing, pumpkins for pumpkin pie, cranberries, and the list goes on. You name it, we didn't have it. But, we were determined to use our combined four years of Peace Corps ingenuity to conjure up a satisfying expression of American cuisine on this special day.
To be clear, the challenge in front of us was formidable. If you know anything about Mozambique, you know that the prospect of running over to the local grocery store to pick up a 20 pound Butterball would be downright laughable. Option number two would have been to procure a live turkey. Turkey's aren't that common in Mozambique, however, and one would probably go about obtaining one by scavenging the area for a homeowner who had some domestic animals and offering to buy his turkey off of him. That might have been a possibility in some parts of Mozambique, but in the remote and scantily populated district of Chiuta, finding any kind of turkey, alive or dead, was a virtual impossibility. Thus, we set our sights on the next best option: to secure a live chicken and pretend it was a turkey for the sake of the holiday. We were told that none of the roadside stalls in town sold chicken, neither frozen nor alive, so, with this in mind, and 24 hours before Turkey-turn-chicken go-time, we set out into the bleak African savanna in search of our elusive holiday meal.
It didn't take long for us to discover that nobody in this town had chickens that they were willing to part with. Down but not out, our only hope this late in the game was to send a boy to the neighboring village with money to bring back a chicken. Our liaison in this operation, Hannah's colleague, Veronica, only required a cursory glance into the yards of the neighboring houses before zeroing in on her targets: two teenage boys walking aimlessly caught in the slow lethargic rhythm of a hot Mozambican afternoon. She called out the boys' names, and, with a rapid squeezing of her outstretched hand, motioned for them to approach us. Her voice modulated into what I would have classified as a coquettish southern drawl, except that it was in Portuguese. Then, in the way a southern belle might convince a farm-boy to carry her grocery bags home for her, she said, “now this here's Professora Ana and her boyfriend, Ian. They need a chicken for one of their American holidays tomorrow. You boys wouldn't mind running on down to the next town and picking them up a nice looking chicken, would you? You're not doin' anything else right now, are you, boys? And when you bring the chicken back, you wouldn't mind killin' it an' takin' the feathers off so these folks can have a nice meal. Now, wouldn't that be nice? Don't go stealin' their money either, ya' hear?” She may have even ended it with a wink, and the boys slunk away in search of a bike they could borrow to ride to the next town.
Here and now, this toes-in-the-sand paradise, all started three years ago when I accepted my invitation to become a PCV in Mozambique. Nine months of waiting for my assignment was followed by that momentous arrival in Maputo, Mozambique, and an exciting but at times frustrating pre-service training. Then, before I knew it, I was in it, the main event. 24 months of Peace Corps Mozambique. I don’t need to rehash all the stories that spawned from those marvelous, scary, at times impossible, but invaluable twenty-four months. Then, before I knew it I was counting down from 12 instead of up to 24. 12 turned into 6 turned into 1, and all of a sudden I was counting the days instead of the months.
About a week before I would head to Maputo in preparation for my official close-of-service on November 30th, 2012, I celebrated Thanksgiving with Hannah in her quaint little town of Kaunda. We had been planning on spending Thanksgiving with friends at a nearby site, so when plans changed and we were on our own for Thanksgiving we found ourselves lacking some of the key ingredients for a traditional Thanksgiving dinner, namely, turkey, gravy, any of the ingredients needed to make stuffing, pumpkins for pumpkin pie, cranberries, and the list goes on. You name it, we didn't have it. But, we were determined to use our combined four years of Peace Corps ingenuity to conjure up a satisfying expression of American cuisine on this special day.
To be clear, the challenge in front of us was formidable. If you know anything about Mozambique, you know that the prospect of running over to the local grocery store to pick up a 20 pound Butterball would be downright laughable. Option number two would have been to procure a live turkey. Turkey's aren't that common in Mozambique, however, and one would probably go about obtaining one by scavenging the area for a homeowner who had some domestic animals and offering to buy his turkey off of him. That might have been a possibility in some parts of Mozambique, but in the remote and scantily populated district of Chiuta, finding any kind of turkey, alive or dead, was a virtual impossibility. Thus, we set our sights on the next best option: to secure a live chicken and pretend it was a turkey for the sake of the holiday. We were told that none of the roadside stalls in town sold chicken, neither frozen nor alive, so, with this in mind, and 24 hours before Turkey-turn-chicken go-time, we set out into the bleak African savanna in search of our elusive holiday meal.
It didn't take long for us to discover that nobody in this town had chickens that they were willing to part with. Down but not out, our only hope this late in the game was to send a boy to the neighboring village with money to bring back a chicken. Our liaison in this operation, Hannah's colleague, Veronica, only required a cursory glance into the yards of the neighboring houses before zeroing in on her targets: two teenage boys walking aimlessly caught in the slow lethargic rhythm of a hot Mozambican afternoon. She called out the boys' names, and, with a rapid squeezing of her outstretched hand, motioned for them to approach us. Her voice modulated into what I would have classified as a coquettish southern drawl, except that it was in Portuguese. Then, in the way a southern belle might convince a farm-boy to carry her grocery bags home for her, she said, “now this here's Professora Ana and her boyfriend, Ian. They need a chicken for one of their American holidays tomorrow. You boys wouldn't mind running on down to the next town and picking them up a nice looking chicken, would you? You're not doin' anything else right now, are you, boys? And when you bring the chicken back, you wouldn't mind killin' it an' takin' the feathers off so these folks can have a nice meal. Now, wouldn't that be nice? Don't go stealin' their money either, ya' hear?” She may have even ended it with a wink, and the boys slunk away in search of a bike they could borrow to ride to the next town.
An hour later a bicycle that was one loose screw away
from crumpling into a cloud of dust came rattling up to our door with
one boy in the driver's seat, one boy sitting side-saddle on the
frame in front of the other boy, and an exhausted looking chicken
bound and hanging upside down from the handlebars. The boys
dismounted with our prized chicken and the bicycle seemed to give a
creaking sigh of relief as the weight was lifted. I let them keep
the change, and while the chicken they handed me was a bit scraggy
and malnourished, it would have to do. I handed one of the boys a
knife and a bowl and turned away while the deed was done.
Afterwards, we threw it in Hannah's neighbor's freezer for the night.
On the afternoon of the big day, we did an inventory of
our food supply to see what we could make for that evening's meal and
realized that we could pull off a decent imitation Thanksgiving. We
had all the fixings for garlic mashed potatoes, a pound cake and, I
almost forgot, a chicken. I skinned and removed the guts from the
chicken (which was a messy affair) and then I marinaded the chicken
in a tomato barbecue sauce (essentially ketchup, tomato paste, garlic
and chili powder). Alongside the garlic mashed potatoes (we sauteed
the potato skins with butter and garlic and added them back into the
potatoes), and the pound cake Hannah cooked, it was a delicious
Thanksgiving meal to remember.
After Thanksgiving, I boarded my last LAM (Mozambican
airlines) flight ever and exhaled deeply when the miniature propeller
plane touched down in Maputo. I spent four days at the Peace Corps
office in Maputo, receiving final medical and dental clearance,
closing my bank account and signing form after form. And then on
Friday, November 30th,
with one final signature, I unceremoniously ended my Peace Corps
service.
As the days wound down in Mozambique I consciously checked off all the “lasts” that I was experiencing, some of them I was happy to check off and others I would be sad to see go. There was the last ride,the last three hour wait at the intersection in Inchope; those were good “lasts.” But there was also the last biology class, and my last English class, my last JUNTOS youth group meeting, my last night in Mangunde, and last words of farewell to the students whose lives were the reason I became a volunteer. There was, of course, the last squat on my hole-in-the-ground latrine,the last bucket bath, the last exam proctored and graded, and the last student pestering me about charging a phone, borrowing a camera, or asking for a pen. But, after everything, there were more sad “lasts” than good ones.
As the days wound down in Mozambique I consciously checked off all the “lasts” that I was experiencing, some of them I was happy to check off and others I would be sad to see go. There was the last ride,the last three hour wait at the intersection in Inchope; those were good “lasts.” But there was also the last biology class, and my last English class, my last JUNTOS youth group meeting, my last night in Mangunde, and last words of farewell to the students whose lives were the reason I became a volunteer. There was, of course, the last squat on my hole-in-the-ground latrine,the last bucket bath, the last exam proctored and graded, and the last student pestering me about charging a phone, borrowing a camera, or asking for a pen. But, after everything, there were more sad “lasts” than good ones.
The end-of-the-year party that I threw for my English Club was one of the most memorable “lasts” I had as my time in Mozambique wound down. Hannah and Mike helped by spending the afternoon cutting up and preparing seven chickens to serve for the dinner. After an afternoon of eating and dancing I showed the kids a slideshow of pictures from the year and then they all got up one-bye-one and talked about how much I meant to them and how much that admired and respected me. It was a wonderful and heartfelt end to a chapter of my life that I'll never forget.
After signing my papers in Maputo I boarded a bus to Johannesburg and the the next chapter of my life began. Through the next three weeks, my journeys took me to Abu Dhabi, India, and now, Thailand. It looks like I'm about at my limit, though, so I'll have to reveal the exploits of this magical adventure and my arrival in America in my next edition.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year everyone!
