Jennifer in Mozambique

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Leaving Mozambique

2005-04-18T06:26:00.000-07:00

So, the day is finally here. Though in the midst of it, this year felt very long, now it feels like it flew by. It's been one of those 'hard but good' years, and I will miss the people I spent it with.

But in the 15 minutes I have before going to the airport, here's what I'm looking forward to:
God Bless America (for)-- pitted olives, seeded grapes, anonymity and blending in, interstate highways, chocolate chip cookies, family and friends, idioms, movie quotes and other references to pop culture, ability to go shopping and do what I want - even alone, Subway and sandwiches in general (in fact anything wrapped in bread or similar starches- a crucial but often overlooked component of American food culture), checks and electronic money (although now I'm so used to dealing in large amounts of cash), Dr.Pepper, customer service and libraries.

Jenn

My journey home (back to Mozambique)-- 5 days long

2004-12-29T10:38:00.000-08:00

We left Friday Harbor on Friday, Christmas Eve. Late that night, in a hotel south of Seattle, I realized I had no idea where my tickets were. There was quite a saga of bag-searching, brain-wracking, favor-asking (Thank you Mo and Sue!!), and stress -- and the timing didn't help -- but eventually they were found and flown to Seattle where we got them on Sunday and got to SeaTac with an hour and a half to spare, or rather spend in the very long line. First the self-service machine wouldn't let me check my bags all the way to Mozambique (apparently it had never heard of Maputo), and then the agent didn't want to let me go at all. Apparently you must have a return flight. But I showed her my new fancy-dancy DIRE (my resident visa which looks like a passport) and that eventually convinced her that Mozambique really wouldn't mind if I showed up.

After that, things went pretty smoothly, considering the rocky start. I even got my bag in Maputo, which I figured I might not ever see again. And it didn't even fall apart until I pulled it off the conveyor belt. When I got home I opened it to see that someone had definitely gone through my bag. I didn't think this would be a problem, because all I was carrying was a bunch of books and chocolate chips and stuff like that. They luckily missed the significance of the 3rd season of West Wing DVDs that I splurged on, and as far as I know all that was missing was a small tin of Almond Joy 'Scoops' that I got in my stocking. And oddly enough, I gained a Leatherman. Yeah. And I was even wanting a Leatherman, and Paul (who knows about such things) says it looks new, too. So I came out ahead in the whole affair. Except for the bag which was my fault.

It's good to be home. (It was good to be home at the other home too. All my 'homes', in fact, up and down the Pacific Northwest. Thank you all who hung out with me.) It's hot here. So not much has changed."

Coming Home. To sleep.

2004-12-08T10:05:00.000-08:00

So the time for going home for Christmas has finally arrived. Almost. Oddly, 3 separate people have referred to the time left as "sleeps". ie, "Oh, you have only 1 sleep left in Guija!" My response: "That's pretty optimistic." In the past month or two, I can count the number of sleeps on one hand. Yesterday I woke up later than usual (6:30) after 3 hours of sleep that felt so good that I bounced around all morning. I said to every expat at least twice-- "hey, I slept!" I have some theories on why I haven't been able to sleep, but none that make sense. But here's hoping that I'll be able to sleep at home, though I'm worried about the combination of factors-- time zones, adjustment to new surroundings, excitement, and sheer exhaustion.

Things on sticks. And other humorous road stories.

I've never forgotten the question of what do I find humorous here. I think it's a good one just because I like to find humor in everything. Even things I'm not supposed to find any humor in, which makes me irreverent I guess, but oh well. Anyway, I think of things and then have been horribly remiss at writing them down for you. But here's one I think of every time I drive between our home and Maputo.

It's amazing the number and the variety of things sticking up in the air. Just on the side of the road, paying attention for a bit, a person can see the following, randomly stuck on sticks: old gas cans, tires, cashews, and plastic lawn chairs (and some look almost sittable). For no explainable reason and with nothing else around. Road, grass, stick in the ground with a jerry can. Or four sticks with a lawn chair suspended between, 6 feet in the air. All I have to say is: ????

Which reminds me of another travelling laugh: the road sign "!". Apparently this sign is in other places besides South Africa (Moz doesn't really have road signs), but we have to ask ourselves, "what does this MEAN?" No one really knows, but whatever it is they must mean it pretty strongly, is all I can figure. I have a habit of randomly walking up to a person and stamping my foot, which I feel is the physical equivalent to that road sign.

And while I'm at it, here's one more funny thing about Mozambican travelling, though this time I'm the one on the side of the road. Every once in a while, I am caught watching a chapa as I wait for it to pass and make eye contact with the person hanging out the window. And without fail, they swivel their head to watch me as they go by, which can't help but remind me of the way dogs stick their heads out windows. The first several times this happened I thought they (and it's always a young male) had stuck their head out the window just to gawk at me. But then I started to figure they couldn't possibly have wriggled out that fast (although I do stand out from quite a long distance, so who knows).

I started to then conclude that the 'out the window' spot (which is an extra 'seat,' in addition to the window seat) is probably preferable to any of the other 20 seats in the chapa. Maybe even despite the flies, dust and possbile branches. Maybe (I hope) they know better than to stick out on the right side of the chapa, meeting oncoming traffic-- that would definitely be a hazard to one's health. Or at least the head. But anyway, here I am rambling about heads and chapas, how odd. Maybe that's what happens when one is deprived of sleep for too long. But at least it's not more chickens, you say.

But I do have a story somewhat related to chickens. And roads yet again, come to think of it. The other day Paul and I were commenting on the heat (47 degrees C in the sun), using the common expression. And then it occurred to both of us that we should just see. So we got an egg, and cracked it on the road. My biggest question: why have I never done this before? Why do we always talk about it, and never take action? An egg is only what, 30 cents? Amazingly, no chapas came for quite a while, and we stood there staring at the road and one very uncomfortable egg, drawing no little amount of bemused attention-- 'those crazy mulungus.' The egg got very runny, and eventually did congeal some, but the sun had gone behind a cloud just as we cracked it. We'll try it some other day, a hotter day and maybe at noon.

So long for now. and maybe I'll be seeing you soon.

Holidays and Home

2004-12-01T08:39:00.000-08:00

It sure does not feel like the holiday season. Last Thursday (Thanksgiving, the American one) was spent in transit to Guija and then cramming a week's worth of work in a few hours. I had been thinking of it, but gave up on the idea of preparing anything remotely Thanksgiving-y. The next morning we left for a 3-day weekend at a beach resort in Inhambane, 5 hours to the north. It was wonderful and very beautiful. But not very associated with Thanksgiving or fall. This week I just about pulled out a Christmas CD, but I just couldn't do it. It doesn't at all feel like Christmas. And I think going home will be like stepping through the wardrobe, especially since it's a fairy-land I have to return from a few weeks later, stepping back through the wardrobe to my considerably warmer, currently more real life here in Mozambique. But it's kind of odd that all my family and friends live in the fairy-land.

Mulungu

I was just reading my friend Sara's weblog this morning and her thoughts on being called 'farang,' Thai for white person, made me think of my own experience. I guess I'm glad to find out I'm not alone. 'Mulungu' is the term for white person here in southern Mozambique, and boy is it used widely. I think of it kind of like a second name, since I respond to it just the same (sort of like in a crowded room you can hear your name over any other conversation). I haven't written about it so far I think because it troubles me so greatly, but also perhaps because I know that in the grand scheme of race relations I have no right to complain. It bothers me to be so conspicuous, and 'mulungu' just does not seem like a friendly name, especially when it is spoken by someone who does in fact know my name.

April and I have various fantasies, occasionally lived out, of confronting this issue: "My name is not Mulungu. You can call me Jenn/April." Mostly it's just murmurs as we walk by or ride the crowded boats across the river, which is more bearable than when people we know or kids talk about us that way. Last week, though, took the cake: I was crossing the street and this girl actually addressed me directly, "Lishile, Mulungu." Good morning, whitey!

The Everyday

Speaking of crossing the street, I was thinking the other day as I just happened to look down as I crossed the street between our house and the office, for the umpteenth time that day-- 'When I go home, I might miss this street, and the crossing of it.'

I may not be aware of it, but I bet I have the pavement of those 100 square meters memorized. Although I'm not always looking down-- a lot of the times I'm continually looking back and forth to make sure I'm not run over by a chapa barreling down a half-mile away-- but its the texture of the rocks and tar, and the mud on the side by our house, and the smell of the trees I walk under while looking up for snakes, and the sound of my name being yelled from across the street and sometimes 100 metres away-- "ZhenEEEEEEfare!", and the exact place the kids usually catch up to me asking for balloons and sweets and chewing gum.

love jenn

All about Midnight, Lefty, Freddy & Osama

2004-11-20T17:28:00.000-08:00

Hello, all. I've been kind of incommunicado lately. Sorry. I've been here 7 months now and the last 4 have been pretty routine. So there's not a lot of news, and I wouldn't mind coming home, but I'm also pretty content with each day. I'm learning classical guitar and reading more non-fiction than I ever would in the states.

As of last Friday, I have now broken through to the sweet land of conversational Portuguese. And being in a country without daylight-savings time, I now both understand and fully appreciate the merit of it. Benjamin Franklin was a very smart man, despite what the Amish think.

The eggs started hatching last week; I think we have six chicks now. Both Midnight and Lefty were laying them, but we think there's 2 different fathers. Midnight was attacked by the white rooster from across the street, who I've named Freddy. A few weeks later Lefty took up with Osama, who was given to us by a Mozambican grandma and christened by Bill, the quirky Canadian. He named another wild chicken Hitler because he had a broken leg and walked with a goose-step.

Osama just started crowing a few weeks ago, starting usually at 4:27am (this is the need for daylight-savings). Since he crows from the courtyard, which reverberates and is only a screen wall away from my room, it was pretty much like having a fire engine outside my door. I say 'was' because Bill snapped one morning and the rooster has not been heard from again. I still don't know what he did that morning--he never did tell me-- but that night he locked him in the tool room and kept him in there until one of our workers who actually wanted a rooster came to get him.

Freddy, on the other hand, was not such a bother to me because he crowed not in the courtyard but from directly under Bill's window. He's been trying to hire a hit man for 100,000MT ($4) but so far no one will bite. I've been telling him the price is too low (because remember this one's not ours). But ironically, last week Bill saw Freddy get hit by a car, stumble to the side of the road and keel over dead. This week, a white rooster is again crowing under his window. I call him Freddy 2, even though we figure he must somehow be the same rooster.

As for the eggs, I'm sure some of them will never hatch, these being the first ones that just sat on the kitchen counter until we all (chickens included) got our act together and made a nest. We were up to 30 eggs before they started hatching. Midnight and Lefty job-share on nest-sitting and chick-walking. It's pretty funny to see 2 really fat hens practically sitting on top of each other sharing a nest. The boss' daughter came out last weekend to see her grandkids, squatting for hours watching them.

So apparently you're never supposed to help a chick out of its egg -- a guard did that because the chick was taking so long and ants were crawling inside -- and later Bill went out and the chick was all bloody and missing an eye because Midnight was just destroying it. I don't understand chickens. But now we're thinking maybe Midnight has gone psychotic, beyond normal animal-nature craziness, because she's pecking at her other chicks too. So we might have to eat her.

I got interviewed for a documentary today, woo-hoo. The husband of our HIV/AIDS program manager is a film-maker. He might make me a music video, too, so we also got a shot of Amos holding a chick. That would be the last frame, to go with Psalm 91:1-2. Except the chick didn't seem too happy, that's the only problem.

Well, anyway, that's my life. As you can see, it revolves mainly around chickens and once in a while I do bookkeeping. I'm going home in just a few weeks. Whoopee! Then I'm coming back for another 4 months.

DIRE, letters, & elevators

2004-10-25T07:55:00.000-07:00

Today I got my DIRE, finally. Now I know what it stands for: Documento de Identificacao e Residencia para Estrangeiros. It's a very official-looking (like a passport) small booklet with my picture (a very bad one) in it.

I sent my first letters from Mozambique yesterday. It was very exciting, and I got extra stamps just to save. And this made me feel like a stamp collector, and I got sort of nervous about that.

And today I rode an elevator at the lawyer's office. I never had before because T. said she saw people stuck on it one time, and so every time we've walked to the 5th floor (which is 12 flights of stairs). But today I was with S. and he called me a coward, so I figured what the heck, and we went. The entry to it was a single push/pull door, just like any other door, and there was no inner door. It was very weird, but we made it both up and down safely, so hooray. For non-trappedness and new experiences.

Election Season

2004-10-18T07:59:00.000-07:00

For those of you who have wondered why I haven't responded to any of your e-mails for a while, I've been stuck in Guija with no access to e-mail for 5 weeks. And now I'm about to leave again. But keep writing, because I am trying to do my correspondence off-line up in Guija.

'Tis the season for elections, all over the world. I'm not sure I'll get a chance to vote, because of the convoluted steps involved at the embassy and my infrequent visits to Maputo. But CNN did an interesting piece last week about expats as a voting group. And it's true-- because we have our own separate issues, different from domestic voters. One of them of course is a heightened sensitivity to international opinion, and that's not just a psychological concern but sometimes a physical one as well. We got a distribution from our head office about terrorism targets-- it was actually something like an Al Qaeda training manual-- and it actually rated nationalities. Americans are number one on the hit list, while Canadians are fifth, even below Spain for some reason. So while we tend to joke about this (what else can you do) with our Canadian colleagues, the reality is still there.

Meanwhile, Mozambique is having its own elections, on December 1 and 2. The race is between the Frelimo party, which is the party that has ruled since independence and is somewhat socialist/communist, and Renamo which was the other side in the civil war that simply ended without a winner in 1994. So if the victor is the Frelimo guy, who is quite radical, there could be unrest against his radicalism and also against the suspicion that Frelimo defrauded two elections in a row. If Renamo wins, the economic situation could become destabilized (most of the big businesses are owned by Frelimo party members) and who knows what else since Renamo has not yet been in power in Mozambique. All of us expats will hang out in Maputo for the election, just in case the situation gets out of control and we need to make a speedy departure. Sorry Mom. But I don't really expect much trouble for us.

On a lighter note, we're planning an employee Christmas party for right after the elections (a concept which seems foreign to all polled), and less than a week later, I'm on a plane home for two weeks.

Jenn's Garden & Chickens

2004-09-22T13:08:00.000-07:00

Jenn’s Garden

I’m sore, blistered, and very dirty, but I feel great. I’m finally starting my garden! I made a 13.5m x 6.5m plot right beside our house. The ground is still being prepared, but I planted my seeds in cereal boxes today. My garden will be mainly for vegetables, those that we can’t buy locally, but I’m also working on putting more green plants and flowers around our yard. I had Bill and Filipe cut up fuel drums and I’m cleaning and painting them to be flower pots.

The whole thing might fail. I mean, it’s an experiment, what more can you expect. The hardest part about this project is the 100 people watching. All our employees and neighbors out in Guija, and then my bosses in Maputo. Will it work? I can’t really explain it, but there’s something in this that means more to me than just a healthier diet. When God comes through, then maybe I’ll be able to articulate it. But I feel a combination of trepidation and expectation, of fear and faith. And I’m excited to watch a larger principle play out, as in Ezekiel 36:34-35: “The desolate land will be cultivated instead of lying desolate in the sight of all who pass through it. They will say, ‘This land that was laid waste has become like the garden of Eden….’” But then, who knows what God may want to teach me in this. It still may not work.

Chickens!

Midnight, who turns out to be female, has been laying eggs all around our house and yard. Maria, our cook, was trying to explain this to me yesterday, that they had found an egg in Bill’s room and then April’s room, and as I explained it in wonderment to Bill, we watched Midnight half-squat and lay another one in the courtyard! I never expected to actually see a hen (in ‘hindsight’) in the process of laying an egg, but there it was. If you couldn’t see that shell, you’d think she was constipated. She doesn’t have a nest, and frankly we don’t know how to make one. And maybe we don’t really want to, because if you’ve gone to the trouble of collecting them in one place and protecting that fragile first moment from the harsh reality of concrete, what do you do with them? If we’re not allowed to eat the mother, are we allowed to eat the children?
But at the very least we are more careful to keep our bedroom doors shut now, because an egg-laying hen is more dangerous than just any old chicken wandering through the house. That first day felt like an Easter egg hunt. I started to wonder if maybe that’s how they did it originally, just let a hen ready to fire go loose through the house, or if they were wiser, the yard.

When we told April she exclaimed, “So that explains why the rooster attacked her yesterday!” And indeed, the rooster has been hanging around a lot lately. I never thought about this aspect of chicken life. I’m not sure I want to.

And on a related note, here’s my new song (guess what it’s called?):
*The colors indicate tune, but some of it’s spoken as well, in a very droll tone of voice, of course.

Chicken, chicken, chicken and rice
With a lot of oil and a bit of spice
And if you’re lucky, maybe a carrot slice
Chicken, chicken, chicken and rice!

Monday, it’s chicken and rice
Tuesday, it’s chicken and rice
Wednesday, it’s chicken and rice
Thursday, beef and fries
And then it’s Friday, and big surprise,
We’re back to chicken and rice!

Rice, rice, rice and chicken
Greasy goodness, finger lickin’
All that skin’ll make your heart stop tickin’
Rice, rice, rice and chicken

And here’s my ode to green beans
I pay homage to those elusive things
Please, can we have some vegetais??
Huh? What more could you want than chicken and rice??

Chicken, chicken, chicken and rice
--Yes, those skinny, pooping things outside—
And if that fails to entice,
Just put it on top of boiled white rice!

But be glad that you’re in Guija--
‘Cuz in the field it’s goat and xima;
And then you’ll be thinkin’, wouldn’t it be nice
Just to go back to chicken and rice!

A p.s. on that—I think our house staff got wind of it, I don’t know if they saw it in my room or it was leaked. As Maria was talking to me the day after I wrote it, she was teasing me about these very things, and I started saying to myself, “This sounds very parallel to a certain song I wrote…” I don’t know, maybe it’s just a coincidence. The fact is, and I did my best to assure her of this, that I still really like chicken and rice, and the figurative Thursday is my least favorite day. (Though that was just a fake schedule in case you’re wondering.)

Mercy

2004-09-18T13:07:00.000-07:00

Here’s what I’ve learned this week:

Mercy, or meeting people in need like the Good Samaritan did in Luke 10:25-37 is a discipline and a habit, not just a gift. I don’t think this is an area that comes naturally to me—I’m usually uncomfortable because I don’t know how to help effectively. And I tend to turn away.

This week I have had the privilege of being forced to grow in mercy. A very old blind beggar recently camped out in our yard, just sitting there for hours singing to himself in between naps. The other day I walked out of the office to see a woman lying facedown in our driveway. Today I noticed a boy had been sitting on our back wall since the night before because he had run away from home.*

I think I’ll keep my failures and successes to myself, and let you fill in the actions yourself—choose your own adventure, sort of.

One thing that helped me this week was the time factor. In America the mercy situations we’re faced with usually come and go very quickly, while driving through an intersection. In Africa they last all day.

But anyway, I am definitely growing in the discipline of mercy— thinking especially on the actions of the Good Samaritan and choosing to do at least something, and then being creative to find something that is both practical and loving. And the good news I’ve found is that as this discipline becomes a habit, and your creativity produces results, it gets a little easier and more natural to help.

*I hope you can imagine and appreciate all the pros and cons aid workers face in making decisions to help outside of their already-set-up programs.

Hot Weather

2004-09-17T13:06:00.000-07:00

Well, it’s hot. This week was the turning point. Even the locals are feeling it. I’m doing okay so far, but it is nice to have the air conditioning in our living room. I’m interested to see how much hotter it gets. And how deep into shock my body will go when I go home for Christmas!

We don’t have a thermometer—apparently they’re hard to find—what’s the point? is the general feeling, I guess. But you know North Americans—the difference between 31 degrees Celsius and 32 degrees is a difference worth knowing.

Every statistic on the weather I read before coming here, and even have seen locally, is blatantly understated. The hottest month is January, and in print the average high is something like 87 degrees Fahrenheit, while my colleagues swear it regularly gets up near 110. So I’ve been trying to figure out whether it’s a conspiracy by the tourist department, or whether the government invested in a small parcel of Icelandic or Antarctic property just to bring the national average down. That would be a good idea, don’t you think?

As you can see, I am caught in between Fahrenheit and Celsius. I’m in that confused no-man’s land, the same that I experience when looking at a road or trying to find the passenger’s side of a car. Growing up right next to Canada, I thought I was pretty comfortable with Celsius, but I realized today that I only know the equivalents of Pacific Northwest temperatures—11 degrees Celsius equals 52 degrees Fahrenheit. I’m lost up in the 20’s and 30’s!

Cape Town Capers

2004-09-15T13:03:00.000-07:00

Here’s what I learned on my vacation in Cape Town:

A vacation over-analyzed is no vacation at all. Are we having fun yet? How ‘bout now? Should we be having more fun? Except now change all those “we”s to “I”s. Because “We” is a classic preventative to over-analysis.
Asking yourself “How pathetic am I being right now?” doesn’t help.
Having a sense of humor about all of this over-analysis helps a lot.
Any benefits for parallel-parking gained by renting a small car are negated by manual steering.
Though I made it okay, it would probably be wise to at least have directions to the hotel the next time I’m in a new city in a foreign country on the opposite side of the road in a manual steering rental car.
I should have spent more time on the beaches, driving through the countryside, hanging out in the small towns. Maybe next time I’ll stay in a small town on the beach, instead of in the city, especially if I’m by myself.
Everything is closed on Sundays, even the coffee shops. This was a disappointment, because being from Seattle, this is what you do on Sundays. That IS rest.
South Africans are quite friendly to strangers/customers.
I like planetariums.
I think South Africa mass-produces its tourist items on a national scale, because I’ve seen the same things in 3 different places across the country, and it’s next to impossible to find a T-shirt without game animals on it, even in Cape Town.
Cape Town is quite a bit chillier than Guija. I wore my warmest outfit 5 days in a row.
The next time I need to take a picture of myself, I should crash a tourist group (I encountered a Chinese-French business group, but didn’t have enough guts to pull this off)—after a longsuffering member has snapped every other individual with his own camera in front of whatever point of interest, I should just hand him my camera too, and smile shamelessly.I might make more of an effort next time to have a travel companion, but on the other hand, it really wasn’t so bad. The Cape was definitely worth it, and after being back a few days I liked my vacation more.

Cape Town Adventure

2004-09-13T09:58:00.000-07:00

Though I haven't written out my thoughts yet on my solo adventure to Cape Town, here are some pictures. It's an amazing place, well worth visiting even if no one else will go with you.

Cape Town Signpost

Cape Point

Cape Town Beach

Jenn at Cape Point

Roundabout, hotel & Table Mountain

My car

View from Table Mountain

Vineyard View

In the neighborhood - photo

2004-09-13T09:36:00.000-07:00

Jennifer & the gang

In the neighborhood - photo

2004-09-13T09:35:00.001-07:00

Backyard Twilight

In the neighborhood - photo

2004-09-13T09:35:00.000-07:00

Smiles

Chickens, chickens, chickens

2004-09-02T09:44:00.000-07:00

The other night the power went out at around dinner time, and didn’t come back on until noon the next day. During this time the water mysteriously disappeared as well. I thought the gas would probably be next, but I was wrong—it was the cable, which won’t come back on until at least Monday or whenever someone in Maputo goes to pay for a new subscription.

But while the lights were out, I had a nice time sitting out on the steps next to our pet chickens, looking at the stars of the Southern Hemisphere. The Milky Way really is milky—I think that’s kind of weird, personally. Midnight and Lefty think so, too.

We inherited these chickens from the boss’s 8-year-old daughter and we’re prohibited from eating them. The house staff thinks we’re positively out of our minds for keeping chickens as pets, and then they don’t understand why we don’t want them in the house. So we often will find one or both chickens wandering through the hallway or popping into the living room to say hi. Sometimes they’ll come into the screened porch during devotions in the morning; they plop right down and listen respectively, then at the last “Amen” they jump up and start wandering around again.

I’ve told their previous caretaker that no matter what her parents say, she can’t have any more chicks unless she’s willing to let us eat them after she’s through. We can’t have a ranch for un-eatable chickens. I do like them, though, I guess. Being so isolated from friends and family, it’s comforting to have something to be affectionate towards, even if it is a chicken. Although I do find my thoughts wandering around questions like “How long is the natural life-span of a chicken?” and “If it dies, will we be able to eat it then, or will it be diseased or just too tough?” Because they’re nice-looking chickens, well-fed and happy.

Maybe if they get run over by a car… not that I’m hoping for this, but that would probably be the best solution for eating some good chicken, unlike our usual scrawny, bare, pathetic sit-and-poop chickens from a cage. Cars go by at crazy speeds, and last month April and I were just standing out front and totally saw a chicken (this one was wild, I think) fall victim to a hit-and-run. No external wounds, and the chicken was still alive at first, with the presence of mind to get off the road, but then it laid down and died right on the steps of our office. Pre-tenderized, too.

So in case you’ve been keeping track, I’ve just formed chickens into three classes:

Midnight and Lefty, and other fat, juicy, well-fed and happy chickens (of which I’ve only seen one other—yes, we were driving along, saw it on the side of the road, and both of us yelled, “Hey look at that fat chicken! That’s some good eatin’!”);
Market-bought chickens, described above; and
Random chickens, in between the first two in quality, and which might be wild or someone’s livestock but just wander around town with no owners in sight.

Among this last class is also a turkey and a rooster, who do no help to those who sleep lightly, clucking all night. The rooster is said to start really crowing at 6:20 each morning, but lately has been drifting earlier and earlier at about 3-minute increments each day. The turkey, well if we haven’t found an owner by Thanksgiving….

Chickens, chickens, chickens - photo

2004-09-02T09:36:00.000-07:00

Lefty, Paul & Midnight

Just plain green beans

2004-08-15T12:22:00.000-07:00

Who knew green beans could be so tough? Or at least to convey the concept across cultures, with a slight language barrier. As I was telling my colleague last night, giving her advice on how to teach the cooks a certain meal: if you want a vegetable side dish, you will have to stick around and actually do it in front of them. There is no way—I have been wholly unsuccessful in my numerous attempts—to explain through words that we want to cook the green beans and eat them. That’s it. On the side of the plate, by themselves, in addition to the main dish. They think I am positively out of my mind.

There has been a different result each time I have tried to ask for green beans, and I always find the result after they leave so I can’t see their faces, but from the evidence of the state of the beans themselves— sometimes cooked but without dinner, sometimes uncooked, sometimes cooked but left in the kitchen— it is clear that they leave highly in doubt that they understood me correctly, that I really could want just green beans, plain.

In case you’re wondering, green beans is really the only fresh vegetable they have around here, so the confusion is centered around green beans, but I’m sure the problem would come up for any other vegetable as well. Green beans has simply become a symbol.

Cuisine

2004-08-02T11:05:00.000-07:00

Ive been cooking a lot lately. Its a nice break from routine (of activities and cuisine), and the appreciation I get makes it really fun. Im gaining quite a reputation. The other expats get really tired of chicken and rice, especially rice*. I find this hard to understand, because I love chicken dishes over rice, cant get enough of em. The funny part is, God in his infinite (and quirky) grace has also given me an appreciation of all the oil and chicken skin that comes with the chicken and rice. I get teased about it now, after I shared this one day-- mmm, chicken skin. But for the sake of the others who are getting a little skinny, I am now cooking with our cooks Maria and Idalia every once in a while and showing them some stuff like baked chicken, mashed potatoes, etc. And I made spaghetti tonight, after a miscommunication with Maria about who was cooking dinner I guess. After we went five rounds on green beans throughout the day, I got home and looked for dinner and found only the green beans, prepared exactly the way I asked. Oh, well. A blessing in disguise, because I was really missing some good old Dad's spaghetti.

*Basic recipe for a rural Mozambican meal:

Chicken (the same very pathetic-looking chicken that was pooping in the yard this morning)
Lots of Oil
Trace elements of vegetables (ie, a carrot chunk here and there, some slivers of green peppers)
Served over rice**

**Rice is served to Westerners, but the locals prefer xima (sheema), a stiff maize-meal porridge. If anything could push me towards going on the Atkins diet, this would be it.

Weather

The weather last week was quite warm and sunny, and I was even pulling back blankets at night. (With the cold of June and July I was sleeping with 3 thicknesses of that fuzzy college-logo type of blanket, which is all they sell in Mozambique.) We went to the beach for the weekend, and it was gorgeous. I was beginning to wonder whether winter was over. But this weekend started out cold and cloudy, and we just broke out into a storm. The other expats went off this morning to help build a house in a village about an hour away. I could not contain an evil cackle as it just occurred to me that because I had to stay and work, Im the only one whos dry.

2004-07-27T07:00:00.000-07:00

I took this when our Land Rover broke down. While we were waiting for our other vehicle to come tow us, these kids just stood there silently watching us. Eventually they sat down, but apparently this was the most interesting part of their day, 4 mulungus (white people) on the side of the road.

Our house has a history

2004-07-26T12:51:00.000-07:00

Apparently the house we live in was occupied by rebel forces during the civil war. Most of the villagers crossed the river, and this house and several others were used as command posts. People died in my house. That’s kind of trippy.

Somehow one government soldier got left on this side of the river. I don’t know if they forgot him or what. But he had a tank, and since the rebels had no weaponry to defeat a tank, he survived for about three weeks in his tank, just him and the rebels. It is said that he killed about three hundred people – a single tank in a town full of the opposition – before he was able to rejoin his own side. Now the tank sits destroyed from a land mine on the dirt road to the bridge, and the man is out of his mind.

Humorous in Mozambique

2004-07-20T08:45:00.000-07:00

Someone asked me once what I find humorous in Mozambique. It took me a while, because many things are different, pleasing, tragic, or just plain interesting. But here's a few:

It's one thing to see a woman walking along with a bundle of wood or a basket of fruit on her head. But you have to chuckle when a woman walks by with a modern duffel bag on her head. A clash of cultures, a clash of times.

The other thing I find funny is the lever gates. They're manual! You drive up and the guard pushes down the heavy, stumpy end, and the lever goes up. Voila, why do we need electricity?

With so many vendors catering to tourists, if you don't want them hassling you, you better not give any indication of interest, not even look at them. This becomes hard when you're having coffee at a restaurant on the beach, and vendors obstruct your view of the beach, forcing you to avert your gaze. But it becomes funny when they're behind a wall, and all you see is a wooden cat bouncing along.

Coming up next time (maybe): "Reflections on the Mozambican movie theatre experience", and "The Art of Telephone Conversation with a 3-second Time Lag"... but don't hold your breath.

We've developed a saying, from last week when we were faced with the decision of whether to order a hamburger in South Africa (our only opportunity usually), or to wait until our expected BBQ the next night. We decided that "Until the hamburger is on your plate (or possibly even in your hand, the way things often go here), don't count on anything."

New Friends

2004-07-13T09:10:00.000-07:00

I’m making new friends—two different women are teaching me Portuguese, and today I started the first English lesson with one of these women.

But my favorite friend is Estelio, age 3, I think. We have a whole pack of kids (all boys usually) that greet us every time we cross the street, asking for candy, balloons, or to have their picture taken. For some reason I can never remember their names, so I’ve asked each one 40 times and still only remember three of them. But Estelio, his was the first name I learned.

I write this to you because I woke up this morning from a dream that someone told me he had died last week while I was in Maputo. I laid in my bed racking my brain to remember if I had seen him since I’d come back, anything to prove it was only a dream. I finally could picture him sitting on our front stoop yesterday with a newly shaved head. Whew. So I took extra joy in watching him this afternoon strut down the street, dancing to the beat of the small parade singing the praises of Frelimo. (Why was there a march, you ask? Elections are coming up, and Frelimo is a major party, the founding party of independent Mozambique, in fact. And why was I able to witness this funny scene? The power was out for an hour or two, leaving us with not much to do besides hang around outside the office, leaning on the porch wall.)

The Big Storm

2004-06-30T09:08:00.000-07:00

There's a big storm tonight. Pouring rain, loud thunder and lightning, and the power has been going off and on. The nice thing about laptops is that you can work on them even without power, so when the power went out the first time (I was watching TV) I realized there was nothing I could do but turn on the computer and get to work. Odd, huh?

Nelspruit, South Africa

2004-06-18T09:07:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we went to Nelspruit, South Africa. The drive was really pretty and just what I needed. There were lots of hills/mountains, greener fields, orange trees and poinsettia trees, and palm trees too. And the town had broad but curvy and hilly streets; it was really nice. But to get through the border took way longer than we expected, and then we had stuff we had to do, so by the time we had to go back we really were only able to do a few things of business, not nearly what we had on our list, and nothing of personal stuff. So it was bittersweet, because I had such a list-- warm clothes, blanket, mocha (I found a place!), and really I just wanted some leisurely shopping time. Originally we had asked (and been approved) to take an overnight on our own dime, and I was so excited about that. But then our trip was moved up in order to get a winch on the truck in time for someone to take it to the field, and an overnight wasn't really possible. Though with all that happened, I thought we might have to take an overnight anyway. And putting on the winch didn't work out after all. But the weird thing was that as the day got worse in terms of circumstances, it also got better because I threw more and more of my expectations out the window.

2004-06-16T09:06:00.000-07:00

Mothers and babies in line for food.

2004-06-16T09:05:00.000-07:00

Church by the river at the end of the road.

Road Conditions

2004-06-14T09:06:00.000-07:00

Well, the potholes are just occasional, which are in a way more dangerous because the rest of the time you can go up to 120kph, but you have to pay attention for the potholes or else they'll flip your car probably. The worst one was what we thought was a branch in the middle of the road, and as we got closer we finally realized it was a huge deep hole! Thank God somebody thought to put those branches in to warn motorists.

Character Sketches

2004-06-13T13:04:00.000-07:00

Chaúque (a name as common in Southern Mozambique as Smith)- 28 years old, from the Central Region, so his first language is Tete, or something like that. I like to follow him around because he speaks Portuguese (which I can understand okay) with the other Mozambicans instead of Changana. He spent 5 years in Malawi as a refugee during the civil war, so he's fluent in that language (whatever it is) too. His English is excellent, and he is very funny, as well as sarcastic. His response to appreciation is always "You are not welcome."

His life revolves around his desire to go back to school. He was trained as an electrician in the 14-yr Russian-style educational system, and completed one year of university in South Africa. He's been working to save money to go back for a degree in electrical engineering, but the Rand is working against him by getting continually stronger. He hopes and plans to return this December, though, and often makes statements like "One year from today I will be studying for my exams" but with glee in his eyes not found in most American college students.

Macuacua (as popular in Southern Mozambique as Johnson)- speckled gray hair, huge white smile, very smart and very gentle. He has children and grandchildren, lives in Chokwe, and has been working for SP since they first arrived in 2000. I've heard he's been a miner in South Africa, as well as a school-teacher. I saw the evidence of years of teaching last week when a problem arose in a candy distribution. My co-workers had the idea to give the neighborhood children each a piece of candy for the Children's Day, June 1. Well they were soon mobbed by uncontrollable, unintelligible (due to the language barrier) children, and they fled the scene. As they did, they made no warning to me, walking unassuming into an already volatile situation.

I was soon trapped as well but made my escape into the safety of the office. We thought that was the end of it, but pretty soon we saw that Macuacua was out there, miraculously organizing (with strength of purpose and gentle pushes) these children into 2 straight lines, girls and boys, smallest to largest. We just stood there on the porch, safe from the throng, with our mouths gaping.

He acts like a loving, fun father to the other Mozambican staff-- they're all guys in their twenties or early thirties, and it's fun to watch his role in their horsing around.

He always carries around a House and Food magazine, and we've been wondering whether he really is reading it or whether he just uses it as folder for his papers. I think it's the latter, though when I asked him yesterday he said he reads it sometimes too.

He says I'm a good keep-booker, and likes most that I admit when I'm wrong. I found this out yesterday as he told our whole managers' meeting one of my bigger mistakes. :-)

A Drive on the Wild Side

2004-06-13T13:01:00.000-07:00

A Drive on the Wild Side
Or, road conditions and traffic patterns of southern Mozambique.

The highway from the Limpopo bridge in to Maputo is a lot like Route 20, the Mt.Vernon side of course, not the nice 4-lane Anacortes part. But add people walking all along the side, occasional livestock and bicycles, chapas (those taxi vans that probably seat 10 but fit 20) stopping on the side of the road to pick up passengers, no shoulders and random potholes.

Passing is common and expected, tailgating is prevalent in the time before passing, and there is something about flicking the headlights for communication, but I haven't figured out what they are communicating, though it's not what it would mean in America- your brights are on. And I'm suspecting it's about as vague and versatile a communication as is "Aloha."

In towns and in Maputo there is a third lane, which is a passing lane in the center. This is unofficial and unmarked, in fact it is right astride the dotted center line. But cars on both sides kindly stay towards the outside of the road when they are not passing.

Speaking of lines, most of the time I don't see any. But when I do, the outside solid line is yellow, and the center dotted line is white. Now you could say this is the opposite as America. But if you look at it a little differently, I say it's the same: in both cases the yellow is always on your left and the white is on your right.

Now here's a math problem: It takes us, driving in our Land Rover at 120km/hr (75mph) 3 hours to get from Chokwe to Maputo. Yesterday I asked how long the whole trip takes if you are riding in a chapa, because first you have to wait to catch a chapa, and then it stops all along the way to Maputo. The answer? Also 3 hours. Hmmm. The explanation is that the chapas are all in competition with each other: if one gets to a stop first, it picks up all the customers. And remember, you're never out of room on a chapa.

Not a straight line

2004-06-03T08:56:00.000-07:00

I don't have much to say in a straight line, so I'll just include separate things that might help to give you a picture of the culture and life here– A popular story that explains livestock behavior:
There once was a cow, a goat and a dog that took a bus ride. The cow paid the fare full and fair; the goat got off at his stop without paying at all; the dog paid too much but the driver refused to give change. So that's why the cow doesn't move from the middle of the road when a car comes-- he paid his fare. Goats, on the other hand, run like crazy when a car comes because the goat knows he still owes. And the dog chases after the car trying to get his money back.

I was told this story (and found it to be very true) when last week I went on a trip to the districts of Chicualacuala and Chigubo. 25 hours of driving on very bumpy roads, all in three days. Chigubo especially is completely rural. One of our group from northern Mozambique who speaks great English, is just hilarious and lives with the expats-- put it this way: When I worried whether we had enough emergency money for anything that might come up while we were in Chigubo, he replied, "Even if you had one million US Dollars (that’s a lot of zeros in meticais), it wouldn't help you in Chigubo, because there's nowhere to spend it."

On a more sober note, many people--children, actually-- are dying around here. Mainly from Malaria. It seems every few days we find out about another of our employees whose child or nephew has died. One of them I had met the previous day, as his mother carried him around on her back while she worked. Every time I've told someone about that death, I've unconsciously held out my arms to indicate "he was this big/long" rather than saying he was about 4-yrs-old.

I count 6 deaths in the last month, plus 2 more very sick children, and 2 adults (including my humorous friend who went on our trip with us) who had bouts with Malaria but are better now. Just yesterday (after we'd already come to Maputo) we found out from Amos, my assistant who's just the dearest man in the world (I plan to write a character sketch sometime), that his granddaughter had just died.

Kruger National Park

2004-05-23T08:55:00.000-07:00

So I just returned from a weekend in Kruger National Park, South Africa. I had to go to South Africa to get a new visa anyway, so we decided to make a trip of it. Kruger is right by the Mozambique-South Africa border so it was very easy. We saw lots of elephants and giraffes, some zebra, a few hippos, lots and lots of gazelle, impalas and kudus, but no lions, rhinos or leopards--this time. Very weird and cool to be so close to such big animals.

I am pretty much settled in. The team house still has basically everything we need, but it is noticeably rougher living. We now have a hot water heater, so morning showers have helped me in establishing a routine. Right next door is a park, and as I went out to sit on a swing I was very soon surrounded by children. They knew no English, so we had to communicate by Portuguese. They definitely know more than me, but I'm not sure how fluent they are since it's something they learn in school. Evenings are long but I've so far kept myself quite entertained with reading, learning Portuguese, playing guitar and singing, and doing some art. I've been really appreciating hymns lately, and am starting to memorize some favorites.

In Canicado

2004-05-06T08:54:00.000-07:00

Note: Canicado=Guija. It's called both, and Guija's shorter. I'm going out there tomorrow.
So I went out to Canicado last weekend. I took pictures with my digital camera, hoping to give you a visual image of where I'm living, but I just now found out that apparently I brought the cable for my printer instead of for my camera. Oops :-{

Guija is 3 hours on a paved road from Maputo. At Chokwe there used to be a bridge across the Limpopo (which is maybe 200 ft across) to Guija, but it was destroyed as a defense during the civil war to protect the refugee camp (that's how Chokwe started) from the army advancing from the north. So you either take a very quick boat ride, or drive west to the next bridge, and then 22 kilometers back to Guija on a very bumpy dirt road that is undriveable in the rain. That last 22km adds on an extra hour. On the way, you pass what I guess I would call traditional African villages and compounds, complete with mud and thatch huts and everything. Guija has modern buildings and a paved road-- the one that used to run all the way to Maputo-- but it is a strange little town because it is now so isolated. After driving an hour through very rural territory, we all of a sudden came to Guija, turning out of what felt like a driveway on to the main road running through the town. The native language throughout the Gaza province is called Changana.

Around Maputo

2004-04-29T08:52:00.000-07:00

Last night we went to the Polana, the ritziest hotel in Maputo, for coffee. We just sat and talked over dessert, and then we walked out by the pool, and looked over the edge of a cliff out at the Indian Ocean. It was dark, but I was just pinching myself and saying "Wow. I am at a fancy hotel, looking out at the INDIAN Ocean! Can I believe my luck?"

The currency here is the metical, plural meticais, pronounced "meticash", and there are almost 25,000 of them to the dollar. This poses interesting problems: 1)I have to practice the Portuguese words for "One million, eight hundred forty-two thousand, five hundred MT (meticais)"-- you know in language classes they only spend like five minutes on those big numbers! 2)I have to exercise different mental math muscles-- quick, what's 1.2 million divided by 25,000? or 500 times 500,000?

E-mail is wonderful

2004-04-27T08:51:00.000-07:00

Yeah, e-mail is wonderful. I'm glad that it's helped you. It's a very different e-mail atmosphere than in Russia, and of course I didn't have any in Pakistan. But I mean, I'm just sitting in an office all day, and I have to be here even if I don't have anything to do, so I just e-mail, and it's ethernet, so from where I sit I could just be anywhere in the West. It's weird.

Arrived in Mozambique

2004-04-25T08:47:00.000-07:00

My Portuguese prof wrote back and so I wrote him this-- I think I'll keep writing him, just for the forced grammar practice. It took a long time to write this, but today at least, I don't have a lot else to do. And what the heck, I'll translate it for you too! :-)

Bom dia! Good day! Agora estou aquí em Maputo. Now I am here in Maputo. Vou estar aquí no escritório/casa por umas semanas. I am going to be here in the office/house for a few weeks. Eu chegei ontem. I arrived yesterday. Minha bagagem era tarde, mas está aquí agora, felizmente. My baggage was late, but it is here now, fortunately. Falei com o homem que me ajudou com a bagagem (which turned out to be só minha mochila) e era fácil. I talked with the man that helped me with the baggage and it was easy. Isso era uma surpresa. Mas não sei se ele tem duas mulheres e cuatro filhos, ou se dois dos filhos têm as mulheres! But I don't know if he has two wives and four sons, or if two of his sons have the wives! Quero falar com o guarda com frecüencia- ele é uma audiência cativa. I want to talk with the guard frequently- he is a captive audience.

Na quarta-feira eu e os outros americanos irão à Africa do Sul para os vistos. On Wednesday I and the other Americans will go to S.Africa for visas.

O tempo é bem. The weather is nice. E quase inverno, assim não muito quente nem úmido. It is almost winter, so not very hot nor humid. Mas é ainda pegajoso. But it is still sticky.
Tchau,

Thinking about travel

2004-04-04T08:45:00.000-07:00

Just one thought so far: Traveling across the world by plane is an interestingly gradual way of being introduced into another world. Starting in the airport is pretty much American culture, with a touch of international flavor because I checked in at the int'l desk. In Atlanta, waiting for the flight to Johannesburg, I was in America but with a whole bunch of Africans. This was even more the case in the South African airport and on the flight to Maputo, but yet still the whole thing was in a familiar, Western context. And now of course I'm here and I remember, oh yeah I'm in a different country. And I'll be here tomorrow, and the day after that, and the day after that.... It hasn't really sunk in yet. The last month and a half has been a bit too surreal.