Sorry Hermès, You’ve Got Nothing on the Capulana

Those who know me well are most likely aware of a strange, little fetish I have developed over the years. Yes, it’s true, I have an unhealthy obsession with scarves.

I can’t really explain it--it’s a strange little tic. I just love scarves. The way they look and feel and keep you warm and elongate your neck and make you feel momentarily like Audrey Hepburn. For some it’s chocolate, others cigarettes, FOX News, mystic tans or Michael Bublé. What does it for me…scarves!

I have heard the slanderous tongues of those who call them pretentious, others who call them the trimmings of a prude, and still others who claim they are just a second-rate accessory to headbands on Gossip Girl.

Blasphemous fools!

I think they are perfectly lovely.

But, being that I am in northern Mozambique where cold is more or less nonexistent, scarves are about as ridiculous and as nonfunctional as water beds.

What’s a girl to do?

Well, lucky for me, my love and infatuation of scarves has since been projected onto the capulana. In fact, the only thing here that successfully counteracts my loathing of chapas is my love of capulanas.

A capulana, my dear readers, is this beautiful, colorful fabric that women here and in other African countries use to wrap around their waists as a sarong. It is not exclusively used for clothes but also as curtains, table cloths, towels, sheets, head wraps, rags, cloths in which women strap their babies to their backs or bundle up food to cart on their heads. There is an infinite use to the capulana. It truly serves every practical function.

When the Arabs disembarked in Mozambique and began to integrate, they brought with them the capulana, the long rectangular sarong that Muslim women used to wrap around their waist and cover their heads. The Arabs forcefully encouraged African women to adopt this style of dress. And after years and years of this fashion indoctrination the capulana became a part of African women and a part of African culture. Women here came to love the capulana. They took the idea of it and made it their own, adding beautiful, bold colors and designs.

There is a special capulana to commemorate every holiday and celebration--Independence Day, Christmas, Women’s Day, Children’s Day, weddings, elections, rites of initiation. There are also capulanas that commemorate specific people. I have seen capulanas with the faces of Michael Jackson, Obama, Guebueza (the Mozambican President), and even Pope John Paul II graced the beautiful fabric of a capulana. The designs featured on capulanas are as diverse as the capulana itself. There are tie die capulanas, capulanas with stunning African patterns and images, capulanas with random objects like high heels, casseroles, turkeys, cupcakes, maps, and anatomy a la Georgia O’Keefe.

Now, most women here wear the capulana very tightly around their waists to accentuate their derrieres--badonkadonks that would send Beyonce spiraling into a Iago-like state of envy. Always conscious of this, Mozambican women tend to strut especially slow and honey-like when wearing a capulana. Thus, their pace is about equal to a Chinese woman with her feet bound. I have neither the patience nor the frame nor the swagger for this, and my long American legs like to take long American strides. So while I do don the capulana traditionally for various occasions, my site mates and I have taken to buying a capulana and taking them to the tailors for them to make an assortment of other more functional clothes for us--dresses, shorts, pants, shirts, everything!

Because Africa has slowly eviscerated most of the clothes I brought, my entire wardrobe is now essentially all capulana clothes. And I must say, our capulana inventions and designs would make Tim Gunn proud.

Make it work.

Being that capulanas are such a huge part of being a Mozambican woman, folks here adore that we adore capulanas. Whenever I wear something made from capulana, they like to tell me, “Oooh, Margarida, now you are Mozambicana.” It is such an enormous part of the culture here that even Mozambicans equate being Mozambican with the capulana.

So, to those fashion capitals of the world Paris, Milan, New York City I say, suck it. You may have Dior, Versace, and Vera Wang but Mozambique…we’ve got capulanas.




Modeling a little capulanaware. This one is my favorite capulana ever. And yes, I had them make a scarf for me.




My beautiful site mate Erin with one of her lovely capulana creations.



Yes, those are capulana shorts. I wouldn't be caught dead with them in Angoche but they're nice for other places.




A turtle capulana. Hah.



Another one of my favorite capulanas.



Erin and I with our butterfly dresses. A crowd favorite here.

I Just Felt Like Running

In the opening scene of Cool Runnings, the guy heads out at the break of dawn for an early morning run. We see the full sun slowly rising up over the sea, almost as if it is being born out of the ocean water. The dude sprints past a pack of giggling children offering up high fives, across a white, sandy beach and down a palm tree lined dirt road. He passes by a friendly group of old and weathered fishermen in their sailboats and then through an admiring group of chatty women carting baskets on their heads. All the while he greets everyone with a good morning and a wave.

Except for the fact that I am in Africa, white, a girl, geriatric-ly slow, and sans a really sweet Jamaican accent, that scene truly serves as a pretty accurate representation of my running situation here in Mozambique.

Running.

I always thought it was such a silly ritual. For years I watched my brother run and run, all the while thinking he was a masochist with entirely too much time on his hands to be devoting so many hours to running. Running from nothing and for nothing. Just running.

I don’t know what it was--maybe I took one of my brother’s crazy pills, but one day I too, just felt like running. It was relaxing and calming and made me feel good. I wish I could say I was born to run…that I was a natural but let’s be honest, I’m slow, have terrible form, have to wear custom orthotics, refuse to do speed intervals, prefer flat terrain, and once had a fellow runner on my favorite trail convinced that I was training for the Special Olympics. Let’s just say I will not be shipping out to run Boston anytime soon. Still, no matter how slow I am or how often my knees give me problems or how awkward and uncoordinated I may appear, I still just love running.

So, upon arriving in Angoche, my home for two years, one of my first tasks was to scout running routes. As luck would have it, I found a nice little dirt road that leads out past the salt fields to a beautiful stretch of open beach. On early mornings it is usually me, the road, a few fishermen headed out to sea and several small groups of women off to farm their little plots of land.

Those first couple months were definitely an adjustment. Because I arrived in the heart of summer here, I tried to be out on the trail no later than 4:45 A.M. to try to beat the heat. Some days though, even at that time, the temperatures were well within the 110s.

And when I first started running on the road, people were downright confused. Every single person I encountered stopped dead in their tracks and stared at me as I trotted on by. Little children who had never seen a white person before were terrified. In fact, several children out of sheer horror at the sight of me burst into tears and ran screaming for their mothers.

Once the kids realized I had no intentions of eating them or harvesting their organs or taking them off to the Land of Tall White Girls or making them wear clothes, they became infinitely friendlier. Now there is a core group of kids who will wait on the side of the road for me when I pass by. My site mate Erin and I, on a run together once, taught them the concept of a high-five. Now, every run the kiddos will see me hobbling along from a distance, and they will mobilize to form their high five line. They make me feel like Jackie Joyner-Kersee…that is until some of them start to accompany me on my run and eventually have to slow down to a glacial pace so I can keep up. Quasi naked, barefoot, and sometimes with loads on their heads, those kids can still run faster than I can.

Besides the kids, I have another favorite part of my run. You see, there’s this section in the road where some mornings, if I time it just right, the full African sun will be coming up, silhouetting a row of women working their plots of land, the alternating downswing of their hoes operating like a cog in perfect rhythm. The coconut trees create a sort of canopy and the reflection of the water from the salt fields makes the women in their beautiful capulanas appear almost angelic. I half expect a giraffe to pop its head up and serenade me with some Bob Marley or Justin Bieber song. That’s how surreal it is--that picture for me--it is so beautiful and quintessentially African it should be on a calendar or in the optimistic closing scene of one of those Sponsor-An-African-Child-for-75-Cents-a-Day commercials.

I try to relish the beauty in these vistas on my runs, though, because at any moment I could happen upon someone going to the bathroom on the side of the road. There is a big lack of latrines in the neighborhood closest to the road I run on so a lot of people just stumble out in the early morning for a public pooping exhibition. I have to be careful of fecal matter everywhere I step.

Along with the high-fiving kids, I have found that there is a solid group of people that has become accustomed to seeing me running and will keep tabs on me. If I start out thirty minutes later than usual, I will hear at least three or four people when I pass by tell me "Atrasou hoje" (You were late today). Once, after being away from site for a week, Erin informed me that she had been inundated with concerned folks from the trail wanting to know if I was sick because they hadn’t seen me out running.

Having these folks start to understand this crazy ritual and get used to seeing us running for other reasons than to avoid a careening chapa driver or to catch a chicken gone awol, well, it gave us an idea. You see, every year Angoche commemorates its founding with three days of festivities including a motorcycle race, a sewing contest, a sail boat race, live music, speeches, traditional dancing, and…a foot race. Historically, they have never had a woman enter the 10K foot race because it is reserved for “homens fortes” only strong men. Women, we were told, were physically incapable of running that distance. Nearly every person gave us this forecast.

So, what did we do? We signed up and entered the men’s race.

Angoche Day quickly arrived, and I found myself at the starting line in front of thousands of gawking Mozambicans, my ashen legs seeing the light of day for the first time in 11 months, getting ready to go all Title IX on their asses.

I have never felt so exposed, spectaclized (yes, I just invented that verb: spectaclized, as in to be made a spectacle of) and so damn determined.

They blew the whistle, and off we went. The race was a continuous loop 6 times around the main drag. The streets were lined the whole way. Some people cheered, some clapped, some hollered out marriage proposals, everyone stared. Not only were we women running in a man’s race, we were also reportedly the first foreigners to participate in an Angoche Day activity. The race was supposed to start at 8 am and in true Mozambican fashion, it started at 11:30, quite possibly the hottest time of the day. We all crossed the finish line to the incredulity of so many. When my friend passed one of the men (she eventually won third place and was even interviewed by the radio) his response was “Como?”-- HOW? That was the response of so many…Como? How was it possible that women could do the exact same thing as the men?

We soon became the talk of the town. Most people seemed to get a big kick out of it--I’m not sure if it was because I was running or because I was wearing shorts and they could see my knees. Some people congratulated me, some told me that the whole race my face resembled an exhausted goat just after giving birth, others told me I embarrassed them because I didn’t win. They didn’t understand why I didn‘t just quit after someone had already won. I explained our goal was to show that we could run the same distance as the men and faster than a lot of them. I just wanted to show them and all the marginalized girls here that they shouldn’t listen to those nay-sayers who are constantly telling them they are incapable of doing something.

With the Angoche Day race over, I am back to trotting along on my road at my own pace with no plans of using running to make any more grandiose statements on gender equality. Just running to run.

It’s funny to me that in the states there are magazines and stores and doctors solely devoted to runners. It would be ridiculous to me if I hadn’t at one point actually used the services of all three of those things. For the longest time I was so convinced running was a science. And like force equals mass times acceleration, maybe it was a scientific equation I would never master.

I think though, that after a year of running in Africa (my Nike pedometer thingy tells me I’ve logged over 1,000 miles in Mozambique) I am starting to understand why celebrities who want to run a marathon or something choose to come here to train. Whether it’s with Maasai runners in Kenya or giggling children in Mozambique, Africa makes me realize how innate and beautiful and cadenced running is--and how anyone can do it. I don’t think it’s a science. I think it’s music.

Roho ya we ykale sana

In Mozambique, I have found one thing to be truly universal and incorruptible: Death. No one is immune.

I see and hear about death a lot here, every day in fact. Being a health volunteer in a sub-Saharan African country riddled by HIV makes it nearly impossible not to. Whether from a student, colleague, or friend, I am always getting reports of a recent death. Life cut short is not a tragedy, it’s an inevitability.

This Mozambican familiarity with death and subsequent indifference to its effects is a morbid reminder of things I don’t think I’ll ever understand. Then, one of my colleagues explained that a large reason for the stoic reaction to death stems from the bloody civil war, a war that raged for 17 years and killed a million Mozambicans and which only ended in 1992, a relatively short time ago. For so many people, war and death have been a staple in their lives.

During the civil war here, the RENAMO soldiers (unanimously considered the bad guys) routinely targeted hospitals and schools, indoctrinated child soldiers, and used rape as a weapon to spread disease.

I was informed that that is why there is an impassiveness that accompanies death. “Margarida,” he said, “Everyone had at least one person they loved die during the war. Some, their whole families.” He went on to explain that even today, after almost 2 decades of peace, it is still strange for Mozambicans to show emotion at the mention of death. They are automatons in that sense, he said because if they cry and mourn too heavily for someone today, they will then think about those they lost during the war, or because of HIV, or because of any number of things that are killing Africa and “Nossas lagrimas nunca hão-de parar.”
Our tears will never stop.

Besides, he wanted to know. What good does it do to weep for someone? To him, showing emotion or crying at death was not only impotent, but also insulting to those who were suffering with or without your tears.

This Mozambican philosophy on death and dying recently entered my register when I received word that someone from home, Jessica, a mentor of sorts for me, a fellow Knight, a small-town Nebraska gal who also ventured to the red soil of Africa, and a girl I grew up admiring and wanting to be like was killed in a tragic car accident.

Being in Africa leaves you with lots of time to think and question and ask why. Why such a truly good and beautiful person? Why someone with a heart so big and generous? Why her? Why now? Why at all? Why? But Mozambicans don’t ask why. There is an unquestioning acceptance of death here. Whether it is HIV, a witch doctor’s spell, hunger, bad hospital conditions or any of the other unmentionables, Mozambicans see death as something that is out of their realm of control--it is destiny, not to be circumvented.

I read a book about the civil war here and one person’s observation on why it is Mozambicans seem to be so detached about death. He wrote, “People here have to be laid back to avoid having their personalities destroyed by disappointment and death.” Their stoicism isn’t a failure to engage. It’s a way to survive.

I guess from just the little I know about death, I still can’t imagine it gets any easier to endure each time, no matter how capable Mozambicans are of compartmentalizing. I would think your heart just breaks a little every time.

Good thing Mozambicans have strong hearts--perhaps fragmented, but they are strong.

That is just one thing Jessica and Mozambique have in common--strong hearts. And Jess, by donating hers, ensured that it will continue to love and be loved.

When I told my colleagues about Jessica, they at first seemed very unsure of what to do in the presence of foreign tears. And although it may have been strange for them to see me emoting at death when people here don’t because of the sheer masses of tears and anger and whys that would emerge, I saw in all their eyes what can best be described as empathy. They seemed to be telling me, “Margarida, we don’t understand your clothes or your accent or most of the things you do, but we understand this.” They recited for me something they wanted me to relay to folks back home about Jessica. It is an old Koti proverb they say here when a loved one passes away.

Roho ya we ykale sana
"Her heart now rests in peace."

And for how much space Jessica’s heart had to make to contain her love and goodness, maybe it deserves a rest.

It feels presumptuous to try to rationalize or say anything more.

Ramadan

I had an overzealous friend who, with every good intention, once informed me that I had as much game as an asexual amoeba and was most likely destined for a lonely life full of Nicholas Sparks’ novels and Lifetime original movies. To circumvent this, she offered to be my Mr. Miyagi in the realm of dating. After I objected to her twisted version of “Wax on, wax off” and then uncovered and deleted the Match.com profile she secretly set up for me, I finally decided (since if you can’t beat em’…pacify them until they forget about it) to at least indulge her on her philosophy of courtship and why I was so bad at it. Ever the Emma and well aware of my idiosyncrasies, she composed for me a list of things that I was NEVER under any circumstances to do in the presence of the opposite sex:

1. Reveal my childhood fantasy of being David the Gnome so I could wear a red cone hat and ride around on a fox all day.
2. Quote It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.
3. Bust out my British accent (which always inevitably turns into Pirate anyway).
4. Wear skinny jeans.
5. Defend Flannery O’Connor.
6. Challenge anyone to an arm wrestling contest.
7. TALK ABOUT RELIGION--instant buzz kill.

“Clarification point,” I requested. “Number 7, religion. You mean don’t talk about sex, politics, or religion, right ?”

“No! Go ahead and talk about sex and politics all you want,” she said. “But religion…Hell NO, pardon the pun. All it does is invite controversy and awkwardness. You want on the white lace road to Weddingland? Then remember this when you’re chatting: No to transubstantiation. Yes to American Idol.”

Now, as a history major (that may not count for much but let’s throw in the fact that I’m an avid Jeopardy watcher--I’m still holding out for a Ken Jennings Bobble Head doll) as well as a 3-time Perfect Sunday School Attendance Award Winner boo-ya, I was well aware of the schisms that have resulted from a lack of acceptance or intolerance of different religions in the history of our world.

But surely as a semi-intelligent person, I was certainly capable of carrying on a civil conversation about religion and why I believe what I believe, right?

Or was my friend right? Should one stick to secular conversation in all social situations?

I got to thinking about this conversation recently, when after a long hiatus from current events updates or other information from the outside world, I managed to get on the Internet. Immediately I checked my email, Facebook and then of course the scores of the Husker games…priorities…and then I trolled the BBC website in order to figure out what has going down in the other corners of the globe.

A story that I came across that immediately piqued my interest dealt with the plans to construct a Muslim Center near Ground Zero and the hoopla that it was inciting.

I thought about my friend’s insistence to avoid the topic of religion at all costs because of all the chaos it invokes, I thought about 9/11 and the religious connotations that always surround it, I thought about Islam and how sad it was that a group of religious fanatics could sully such a beautiful faith, and I thought about how in such a short amount of time my proximity to Islam had changed so drastically.

If you’ll indulge me, I would like to share some of my experiences and observations of moving from a pretty universally Christian circle of acquaintances to being plopped down into the middle of a community that is predominantly, I would say over 80% Muslim.

Let’s start by trying to put that degree to some use. Here we go, then, a little history lesson: My site, Angoche, has a an almost Biblically colorful history. Long before the Portuguese arrival to Mozambique in the 15th Century, Angoche was independently ruled by Sultans and an important commercial center on the Arab-Swahili trade routes. In fact, it was one of Mozambique’s earliest settlements and an important stop on the gold and ivory trading post.

The consensus with most people I talk to here is that the Arabs were simply seeking a mutual business partnership with Mozambique rather than a colony to lay claim to. In fact, the remnants from the Arab/African exchange is wildly evident today from the capulanas the Arab women brought with them, now used almost everywhere in Southeast Africa to the descendants of the numerous Arab/Mozambican marriages and the religion that came with them: Islam.

Today, one can just look at the most popular names here…Fatima, Anima, Mussa, Amade, Ossufo…to understand just how big the Arab/Muslim integration was into Mozambican culture.

When the Portuguese arrived and colonized Angoche, they too brought with them their religion: Christianity.

So, we’ve got the predominant Muslim population that resulted from Arab integration and intermarriage. We’ve got a large Christian group that emerged from Portuguese colonization and attempted conversion. Toss in a large Hindu Indian population that lives here and while we’re at it let’s throw in those practitioners of the traditional animist beliefs and you’ve got what would seem like a hot bed of religious tension.

Surprisingly, Angoche is nothing of the sort. Never have I heard a discussion of whose God is the right God or which religion is better. Religious harmony and toleration here is incredible to me, something Bono would write a song about.

Sometimes I imagine Angoche to be like a reverse Hagia Sophia, that famous church turned mosque turned museum in Istanbul. To me, Angoche seemed to go through so many different religious stages that it finally decided to just be a neutral museum where all religions can be represented and appreciated. Still, it is obvious from the prayer caps, rugs, and tunics I always see around that Islam has been and will continue to be the Grand Exhibit.

Islam, that enigmatic faith to so many Westerners.

Historically, we have romantic images of Richard the Lionheart headed out to the Crusades to fight the Muslim infidel. Presently, we have images of subjected, burqa wearing Muslim women and Jihadist fanatics.

My experience is so far from this, it’s comical. Peace Corps volunteers are prohibited from proselytizing about religion, which is fine since I’m entirely too ignorant and self-involved to try to convert anyone of anything either way. What I can do, though, is share with you what I’ve seen and been a part of here.

Okie dokie…

The Call to Prayer. The first time I heard the Call to Prayer from the mosque I was terrified. It sounded like the song of a very sad ghost. Hauntingly and hypnotically beautiful. Now, after hearing it every day so many times, I have come to find it comforting, like a lullaby.

Friday is an extremely holy day. Muslims are supposed to go to the mosque five times to pray on Friday. Meetings and events have to be organized bearing this schedule in mind.

We keep an extra prayer rug in the office for when my colleagues want to pray. I feel like a pervy Peeping Tom every time I happen upon one of my colleagues praying, prostate on the floor with their hands outstretched. But they never seem to mind.

Friday is also when I see the most amount of poverty in Angoche. On Friday, a Muslim is not supposed to turn away a beggar asking for alms and so every Friday all the poor people will line up outside the bakery knowing the owner is a devout Muslim and will not disregard this tenet.

A lot of people associate Islam with the oppression of women. Let me break it down for you folks. The plight of women in Africa and in Mozambique has nothing to do with religion but instead with years and years of cultural norms. Muslim women are not subjugated more so than any other women here. Being a woman in Mozambique is hard. Being a Muslim woman neither exacerbates nor mitigates that.

I‘m not saying that culture and religion are mutually exclusive. In fact, probably the opposite. It makes sense that parts of religion and culture will take on aspects of each other. Like when you’ve slept so long with the same pillow that it contours to the shape of your head.

For example, Muslim women here are encouraged to wear the head wraps--not a full on burqa like you might be imagining, but a wrap to cover the forehead and hair. Some of my most devout female Muslim colleagues and students I have never seen with a head wrap. It was made clear to me that it was a choice. I also see on a daily basis women who are not Muslim who love to wear the head wraps. It started out as something religious and has since been absorbed into the culture.

Muslim women here are not prevented or in any way discouraged from going to school. In fact, there is an excellent Muslim secondary school where a lot of non-Muslim students choose to study because it has a more expansive curriculum and the teachers actually show up to teach.

My counterpart is probably one of the most devout people I know and actively participates in a program where he visits sick members of his congregation to see how they are doing and bring them anything they need. It reminds me of meals on wheels…but without the meals or the wheels. The sentiments are still there.

There is a definite link between the Islam that many people here practice and the traditional beliefs and machinations of the witch doctors. I can’t reconcile this. I think it is something that I just don’t understand yet.

One of the reasons the HIV prevalence is lower in the north of the country where I am is directly related to the fact that the Muslim population is so much greater here. Muslims are not supposed to drink alcohol and so whiskey-induced unsafe sexual practices happen less frequently. Also, circumcision is a key component in the Muslim faith, and studies have shown that circumcision significantly helps prevent the transmission of HIV.

In the Muslim faith, it is extremely impolite to shake hands, exchange change, or offer something with your left hand. Also, for many the left hand serves as the toilet paper substitute. So besides being a religious no-no, it’s also really friggin’ gross.

Pondering this difference of religions was especially interesting to me this last month as many of my colleagues, students, and friends were observing the holy month of Ramadan. Ramadan involved a whole month of fasting during the day and more frequent visits to the mosque. No food or water from sunup to sundown. It made for a rather crabby, unproductive month as students and colleagues became kind of narcoleptic, falling asleep during the day from lack of energy and because they had to get up in the middle of the night to eat. Also, during the holy month most of the music playing was suspended which was depressing because Mozambicans sure love to dance.

I wish I had the wisdom of Solomon to better understand and relay the different nuances of the religion here. I apologize that I don’t. I guess, though, if I could just leave you with one thing I have learned here is that while the topic of religion may be taboo, enough to have made my “Things to Do to Avoid Cats and Spinsterhood” List, maybe it’s because it’s misunderstood and branded a certain way because of the actions of a few.

People who do such awful things under the veil of religion seem to not be following their faith in its pure form.

The Islam, thoughtful and caring and pacifist that my colleague in this sleepy little African town practices is vastly different than the Islam associated with September 11.

Hello, Goodbye

For me, this summer in Africa took a cue from the title of a Beatles song (Or, I guess if you’re more inclined, the song from that Target commercial or Glee episode).

“Hello, Goodbye.”

And since my sentiments on goodbyes are fairly well known (I consider goodbyes to be like middle school and stirrup pants--an inescapable depravity of life), it was a bittersweet season.

I guess in all reality, it started with a goodbye as one of my site mates, Alex, a partner in crime and sage in all things Mozambique, said goodbye to Angoche to return to the states.

Everyone here has since been offering me condolences because they say the three of us (Alex, Erin--my other beautiful, amazing site mate, and I) are like family and it‘s like one of my sisters left. I guess when you’re in such a bizarre place so far away from everything you know and love, having someone around to remind you of all the familiarities of home is instantly comforting. Whether it was just speaking English together, cooking an American meal, playing UNO, commiserating about our recent bouts of tropical illness, or making dated cultural references to Saved By the Bell, it has been such a blessing to have two other amazing girls/friends/sisters here who understand the gauntlet of emotions you go through every single day.

So, when one in our Crazy American Branca Trio left, it was a hard, very sad goodbye.

The thing that did not permit me to dwell on it, though, was the visit of my dear friend from home. Hello, Claire! And hello to the Crystal Lite, new books, girly smelling products, and news from home that she brought with her.

Hellos are infinitely more fun.

Words cannot express how wonderful and refreshing it is to see a beloved, familiar face and have them see your new life and world. My literature professors while grading my papers always admonished me to show, Margaret, don’t tell. Show.

This place is nearly impossible to accurately describe using words so having someone here I could show, rather than tell…well, it was pure bliss.

Her trip entailed an evening on the town in Maputo, a weekend outing on the beautiful and haunting Mozambique Island, a chapa ride straight out of the depths of hell back to Angoche after which I am thankful she still agreed to be my friend, the meeting and greeting of so many of Angoche’s resident personalities, bucket baths, mosquito nets, the frequent lack of electricity, a dip in the waves of the Indian Ocean, a traditional Mozambican birthday party, a boat ride to a private, palm tree canopied beach, an 8th grade Mozambican biology class, capulana shopping, piri-piri eating, and ultimately and inevitably, another sad goodbye.

Every time I introduced Claire to someone new in town, they first wanted to know if she knew Obama or was my daughter. After I explained she was a friend, they responded incredulously, “Margarida, she came all the way here just to see you?! Wow! Ela é uma grande amiga!” Yes, I agree. She is a great friend.

Sometimes it’d be nice just to be desensitized to the constant hellos and goodbyes, but I really don’t think it will ever happen. Hello, goodbye, hello, goodbye. That’s just how it goes.

And one big hello on the horizon is to the new group of volunteers that will be arriving in Mozambique next month. It’s hard to believe that one year has passed since I said goodbye to my home and hello to Africa.

When it comes to coping with everything Africa throws my way and all the hellos and goodbyes that go with it, I remember Alex, Claire, Erin, the rest of the volunteers here, and all the wonderful people back home, and I take a cue from another Beatles song.

I get by with a little help from my friends.



Erin, Alex, and I at Alex's Despedida Party



To me, this sums up quite accurately our whole relationship.



Claire's first chapa ride. Don't let the spaciousness and functioning seats fool you. This was just a tease.



Claire and I standing on the famous anchors of the historic ghost town, Ilha de Mozambique.


Claire with Fabiao, the mailman, and one of the nicest people in Mozambique and the world.


Beautiful Claire waving goodbye to beautiful Angoche.

Waka Waka

Several summers during college I lived together with 5 of my girlfriends in this beloved little white frame house. On those rare idle summer evenings when nothing--not margaritas, not mullet hunting, not Russian Roulette, not even Apples 2 Apples--seemed to trip our trigger, we would entertain ourselves by popping in a movie.

Side note: When we first moved in, we harnessed our inner Monks and in our OCD stupor, we managed to create the most intricate movie cataloguing system ever. Eat your heart out Blockbuster.

Soooooo, when the tequila ran dry or the weather turned wet or when any entertainment options that necessitated putting on a bra were unanimously vetoed, we resorted to our anally arranged movie collection, all the while congratulating ourselves on our undervalued skill of cinematic taxonomy. Our choices ranged from the following categories: action, drama, period drama, comedy, romantic comedy, vulgar Apatow-ian comedy, Disney movies, television shows, Classics, eye candy movies, pretentious movies only the critics and your smart friends claim to enjoy, movies you are mortified to possess (ummm…Lake Placid 2, Spice World, the whole Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen straight to DVD collection), and then, of course, there was the Sports section.

Whenever we were at an impasse in our movie decision process, the category we always turned to was sports. It was the great unifier--the middle of the Venn Diagram. It didn’t matter if you were more Anna Wintour than Jim Thorpe. Everyone could relate to a good sports movie. Everyone. Because although most sports movies stick to a formula that is painfully predictable, it is also one that makes you feel good about life. Everyone loves a good underdog story which is what most of the best sports movies are (Little Giants, Mighty Ducks, Space Jam, Bring It On!!!).

And it is also what Mozambique is, the underdog.

It came as no surprise to me, then, that my little Mozambican town rallied together in a show of solidarity and collective pride that Africa played host to the biggest sporting event in the world…the World Cup.

Africa United, the commercials broadcasted. United by the pure and simple love of a sport, soccer.

Nooowwwww, before my arrival here in Mozambique, I would definitely not have considered myself a soccer fan. First of all, I never played it. Secondly, in Nebraska, nothing eclipses Husker football. And lastly, my dad’s dislike for the sport seemed to rub off on me. To avoid getting a Howard Stern sized smack down from the FCC, I will refrain from using the expression he likened it to.

But being here with that vuvuzela noise and all those sport endorphins so close, I became hooked. I loved every minute of the World Cup. Before all my favorite teams were eliminated (by “favorite” I mean teams that either had the best looking players or the most offensively short shorts), I was catching every game with the locals in the only place here that has a television.

And talking World Cup action with the community members garnered me major brownie points. For instance, the owner of the local bakery and I became best buds because he was just as fired up as I was about the US being robbed of its third goal against Slovenia. Damn straight, Mr. Ossufo. WTF!?

But it’s not just professional soccer. Soccer in all forms here is just a way of life. At any point in the day you will encounter some sort of pick-up game. Kids, adults, boys, girls, Mozambican, Chinese, American, Portuguese. Everyone. And because there is really no equipment or soccer balls, they have to improvise. Bare feet on an open plot of land, with tree branches staked into the ground to mark the goals. Just playing a game they love. Their creativity and resourcefulness still amazes me. I have seen soccer balls fashioned out of almost every sort of material. It’s really quite unbelievable--like when Benny the Jet Rodriguez pickled the Beast! In Mozambique, you don’t have to build anything for them to come.

While most of the soccer fields are pretty rustic, Angoche does have one big field with actual goals where the local town team plays. And these games are major town events and a great way to mingle. Attending my first soccer game here was probably one of the most entertaining things I have ever experienced. After watching just a few World Cup games, I began my transition to the dark side…aka into a fan of soccer (I’m sorry, Dad, please don’t call me Benedict Arnold. I can’t help it. I mean, have you seen Cristiano Ronaldo!). Anyway, ogling the Copa Mundial players, I have been amazed at the finesse and fluidity of the athletes.

I don’t know why I thought an amateur Mozambican game would be the same. Suffice it to say, it wasn’t. The game was rogue, unpolished, and tears were involved. It was like Mozambique meets the WNBA. There may be no crying in baseball, but there definitely is crying in small town Mozambican soccer. One thing I’ll give em’ though, they’ve got flare. Whenever there was a remotely good play, both the spectators and players would celebrate with a soiree of acrobatics. When the winning team scored the only goal of the game, the whole team erupted into flips up and down the field. What now, Kerri Strug!?!

Maybe it’s not technically soccer that I am enjoying--perhaps it’s just being surrounded by so many people who just so much love a game. It’s like being back in Memorial Stadium.

What can I say, sports fans, Africa was most definitely an exciting place to be this summer. The World Cup was a welcome distraction from so many other things and one of the most successful ways I’ve found to get to know folks here.

Ahhh, the power of sports.

It’s enough to make me want to eat a box of Wheaties, put the SportsCenter theme song on repeat, and chant Rudy Rudy Rudy!

Or I could just pop in a good sports movie. I like rooting for the underdog.

We Can't All Come And Go By BUBBLE

Magic carpet. Yak. Dog sled. Enterprise. A yellow submarine. The Death Star. Cinderella’s pumpkin coach. Unicycle. Being shot out of a canon. Fred Flintstone’s feet. Piggyback. Centaur. Station wagon.

Of all the bizarre, paranormal, and unconventional modes of transportation that have ever existed in the history of the world, there is nothing…nothing folks…that quite compares to what we’ve got here in Mozambique. Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to introduce you to “The Chapa.”

A chapa, my friends, is basically any vehicle that is used to transport people and things from Point A to Point B anywhere in Mozambique. Like the word ironic (thanks Alanis Morissette) a “chapa” has a very loose definition. Semantics aside, the chapa is what anyone who wants to get anywhere in Mozambique uses to travel. It is the heart of the public transportation system. And unless you’ve got a car here, which most people sure as hell do not, then you are left to the mercy of the chapas. The typical chapa is generally a converted 12 passenger mini-van but because my site is a bit isolated, the chapas that run to and from my town oftentimes are big, open-back pickup trucks.

When it comes to traveling in Mozambique and chapas specifically, I have a very love-hate relationship. Each chapa ride I award myself 110 integration points--10 because it is such a big part of everyday life here and 100 because it friggin’ sucks. I have recently put in my petition to Jeff Probst and CBS for them to begin filming a Survivor 47: Chapa edition. It would be cutthroat because when it comes to riding in a chapa, survival is a testament to one’s tolerance level, threshold for pain, Job-like patience, and a robust sense of humor.

What I mean by sense of humor is that when it comes to chapas, you will see things so ridiculous and find yourself in situations so uncomfortable that the only thing you can do--the only thing that will possibly make the ride more bearable--is to laugh. One of my first chapa rides, I was in a large, open back transport pickup truck sitting on top of a lumpy bag of coconuts with three other people, fish juice flying in my face and my feet dangling over the edge because we had to make room for the goats. Throw in the fact that I was the only white person (I usually am the only white person on a chapa) tucked in amongst 40 other Mozambicans who looked at me like I was one of those Yao Ming-sized blue creatures from Avatar. On average, Mozambicans spend about 2 to 3 hours of our chapa rides discussing with each other just what exactly I am and whether I am lost or crazy. The eternal question, my friends. What can you do except laugh?

You know, it ultimately wouldn’t really matter if I was some sort of extraterrestrial creature because there is nothing, and I mean nothing, that they won’t allow onto a chapa. If more people and their things want on, people squeeze to make room. There is no capacity level. They have a verb here they use specifically to describe riding in a chapa. It’s called “sardinar.” Yes, that’s right. “Sardinar.” As in, to be like sardines.

When sardinar-ing in a chapa, proximics are uniformly ignored. I realized very quickly that like Scotcheroos, hygiene, and infrastructure, my penchant for personal bubbles was just something I was going to have to get used to living without.

Chapas are, after all, an industry and everything that you find on a chapa--whether it’s chickens, fish, small appliances, goats, charcoal, or large barrels of produce--it has a price. Anything that boards a chapa has to pay. Therefore, they want to fit as much on it as possible. If people have already squeezed so tightly sitting down, they will ask you to move your feet to make room for people to stand.

Now, I know I tend to have a hankering for hyperbole, but there is absolutely no way I could exaggerate “the chapa.” It is pure craziness. Not only because it is so awkwardly crowded--one ride someone’s armpit was so close to my nasal canal I nearly asphyxiated--but also because a lot of times the roads are so bad and the drivers are worse.

In Nebraska we have what we like to call minimum maintenance roads. Here I call them zero maintenance roads. It’s as if King Kong and Sasquatch decided to pound a bottle of Vodka each and then play drunken hopscotch up and down the road. That’s about the size and scope of the potholes. And because in Mozambique where vehicles rather than pedestrians, bicyclists, and little old ladies crossing the street have the right away, chapa drivers are usually Richard Petty wannabes with slightly better driving tract records than James Dean. Even atheists pray on Bingo night and on chapas.

Okay, so my site is about 4 to 5 hours by chapa from the provincial capital. What happens if you have to go to the restroom? Well, in my case I prefer to do anything, even risking extreme dehydration to ensure that I will not have to pee en route.

But if, perchance, a pre-journey Fanta proved to be too enticing for me and nature started screaming my name, I would not be entirely screwed. Usually, about halfway through the ride the driver pulls off on the side of the road and anyone who has to go literally jumps out and hightails it out into the bush to do their business.

Some of the lazier, less gun-shy pee-ers will just go right there on the side of the road in front of everyone. I once even witnessed a Mozambican who-can-pee-the-farthest-competition. Apparently when it comes to traveling in Mozambique what they lack in comfort and luxury they make up for in cheap entertainment. Kind of like Atlantic City. And ironically (it seemed a good time to pop that word in) people seem to emerge from both places in similar conditions: covered in dirt, sweat, rain, quite possibly fish juice or breast milk, sunburned, and exhausted.

As miserable as I am making chapa rides out to sound (and they usually are), in all honesty some of my best stories have arisen from these travels and the people I have met on them. I guess if it were easier it wouldn’t be such an adventure.

“And life is either a great adventure or nothing.” I’ll give you 17 of my integration points if you can tell me who said that. Nope, actually I won’t. Those points are too valuable. I’ll just tell you. It was Helen Keller.

And to tell you the truth, you’d probably be better off with her behind the wheel of a chapa than most drivers here. But what can you do? The Batmobile doesn’t make pit stops in Africa, and we can’t all come and go by bubble.

For right now folks, of all the crazy and bizarre ways to travel, I guess I’m in a chapa.

Expecto Patronum: Harry Potter meets Mozambique

This summer before departing for Africa, I had for the first time in a long while a hefty amount of free time. Figuring the next two years would be an exercise in deprivation and self-sacrifice, I decided to spend my remaining time stateside in a state of carefree hedonism.

So, I entered a bowling league, subsisted off a diet of pepperoni pizza and Bisonwitches, watched the entire series of Mad Men in two days, tried to start a Fight Club, and went on a rigorous search to find the best margarita in town. My true triumph in excess came, though, when my good friend convinced me to read the Harry Potter series.

For a gal who wrote her thesis on Shakespeare, HP seemed to be one small step up on the literary scale than US Weekly. But seeing as I wasn’t entirely devoting my last three months to intellectual endeavors, I figured what the hell.

So, I read the first one. Then the second. Then the third. In a little over a week I had polished off all seven books. I was consumed. All other things ceased to exist. I found myself heatedly discussing Quidditch strategies with a third grade boy named Melvin while waiting in the checkout line at the supermarket. As he was walking out with his mother, I overheard her tell him I was a cautionary tale--the dangers of methamphetamines, she explained. I started calling people dirty Muggles and waving imaginary wands at them when they pissed me off. My sister caught me trying to mount the kitchen broom hoping it would fly. I even tried to order a Butterbeer at a downtown bar. After the bartender cut me off, I again overheard someone mention something about the dangers of substance abuse. Not my proudest period in my life--having multiple people think I was on crack.

Still, having been in Africa for six months now, I have realized that reading Harry Potter was some of the best preparation for Mozambique I could have done.

See, you may think love potions and evil wizards and people that can transform into crocodiles or snakes or lions are all a part of some fictional magic reserved for the pages of J.K. Rowling, J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis or any other initial loving fantasy author.

But to most Mozambicans, these things--this magic--is real.

I suppose my interest in these supernatural beliefs began when a Peace Corps friend in a neighboring province informed me that someone in her town had been eaten by a crocodile while bathing in the river. When I informed my Mozambican colleagues about this tragedy, they told me that it definitely wasn’t a real crocodile but a magical one. “Magic is everywhere in Mozambique, Margarita” they told me.

Again, cursing my shoddy Portuguese, I asked for clarification. But, indeed, I had heard right and their ensuing explanation opened up a Pandora’s Box of Mozambican mysticism, animism, and magic.

They explained to me first about the curandeiros, or Mozambican traditional healers. I knew a bit about the traditional healers because during our training we had the opportunity to visit one. The healing power of a curandeiro is vested in one person and is passed down to a family member through the generations.

Oftentimes, people will go to the curandeiros seeking remedies for problems they are too embarrassed to go to the hospital for. Gonorrhea, something which most curandeiros (many of whom are skilled herbalists) can cure, is a biggie.

My colleagues, who work in the community to raise awareness about HIV and its causes, have a simultaneous veneration and frustration with curandeiros. Sick people go to the curandeiro and many times the treatment requires that the patient’s skin be cut deeply with razors, after which the curandeiro rubs a healing root into the wound. The medicine is supposed to travel through the bloodstream forcing out the sickness. A major problem is that often curandeiros will use the same razor on several different patients.

This is especially dangerous because curandeiros also serve as a sort of judicial system where razors are the litmus test. I was told of an instance here where within a group of people, it was known that one of the members had stolen something. In order to discover the true culprit, they all went to the curandeiro who ordered them to each cut themselves with the same razor. The person who didn’t bleed, or who bled the least, was deemed guilty.

HIV Prevention 101: Shared razors in a country where the HIV prevalence is upwards of 20%=bad.

My colleagues told me they believe that for most curandeiros, the sentiment is good--the desire to heal. But for the right price, they also said most curandeiros will dabble into darker magic. To keep the metaphor alive, because why stop now? My coolness factor couldn‘t possibly plummet anymore, let’s revert back to Harry Potter.

If all the curandeiros were mandated to attend Hogwarts, there’d be a few who would be tossed into Gryffindor or Ravenclaw. The majority, though, would go to Slytherin.

For people willing to pay, the curandeiros can provide love potions, good luck elixirs, spells to help people get rich, become invisible, or to transform into some sort of animal. An area near my site is famous for its people who can turn into lions.

Where sinister magic is concerned, traditional healers are patronized when people want to curse someone, if they want the curandeiro to inflict an illness upon someone, or as my colleagues informed me was the case in my friend’s town, if a person wants to send a hungry crocodile after someone. Curandeiros accomplish this by invoking a feticeiro, which roughly translates into witch doctor or evil wizard. This is where Tolkien would squeal with nerdy, eerie fascination.

A feticeiro was described to me as an evil spirit inhabiting a person who is all the while aware of their feticeiro status. But no one else is. When someone goes to a curandeiro wanting to make someone ill, it is the curandeiro who sends a feticeiro after the victim, some poor schmuck with the unfortunate luck of pissing off the wrong person. The feticeiro leaves its human body, usually only at night, to go out and wreak havoc. If you had a bad dream, a feticeiro was probably passing by somewhere. If you heard dogs barking loudly, it is most likely because they saw a feticeiro.

This widespread belief in magic and the interest in the occult is not something to be taken lightly as it seems to serve as a scapegoat for so many things.

Someone was eaten by a crocodile--no doubt it was a feticeiro.

Someone suddenly became sick--they were certainly cursed and should not go to the hospital but straightaway to a curandeiro to get the curse lifted.

The harvest was bad--someone surely must have angered one of the ancestors. Whelp, someone needs to shoot down to the curandeiro’s hut to see how to appease the angry ancestor.

As many health workers here are discovering, so many of the problems and ensuing solutions can be rationalized away with magic.

Let’s imagine there is, to all outside observers, what appears to be a young and healthy person. However, this person is living unknowingly with HIV and suddenly gets sick, deteriorates rapidly, and dies. It is so much easier for the parent of the deceased to simply believe that their child’s death was caused by some unpreventable paranormal activity rather than to try to understand the workings of a clever biological, sexually transmitted virus.

It is simpler to explain away something terrible with magic and wizards and curses instead of dealing with the reality of the situation.

This is not Narnia. Or Middle Earth. Or Hogwarts. The magic here is not something out of the pages of a fantasy novel. A heck of a lot of people believe it is real. And understanding it--or at least why people need to believe in it--is a big step for me in understanding Mozambique and figuring out just what in the Sam Hill I can do to make myself useful here.

Because after meeting so many wonderful Mozambicans, seeing several different parts of this stunning country, and learning about the history and customs…well, (I’m sorry, I simply cannot avoid this terrible pun) Mozambique really is a magical magical place.

Oh, and to Melvin, that lippy little brat in the supermarket checkout line who, after our little Quidditch disagreement, vindictively divulged how Dumbledore died before I had read it, don’t worry. Apparently you can’t curse children.

You are cordially invited...

I was invited to a big party by one of my colleagues the other day for her nine-year-old son. Immediately upon hearing this, the following internal monologue/stream of consciousness ran wild through my mind:

“A party! Whooooooooo! How fun. It’s probably a birthday party. I love birthday parties. Except when there are clowns. Ugh. Clowns are creepy. And those big shoes! Overcompensating much!? Do I bring a gift? What do nine-year-old Mozambican boys want? Do they have Spider Man in Mozambique? Damn mosquito. Cake!! Ooh cake. I wonder if there could be cake. I miss cake. Betty Crocker. Crocker brocker bo bocker banana fanana fo…oh. I really really really miss cake. Warm, chocolate, moist, melt-in-your-mouth…”

until finally my cake fantasy was interrupted when she told me the party was not to celebrate his birthday but rather to celebrate his return.

From where, I inquired. She said he was returning from his “Rite of Initiation” in which he had spent thirty days away from home out in the country. Here in northern Mozambique, many of the old traditions are still practiced including male and female rites of initiation. For the girls, the rite of initiation is basically a glorified sweet sixteen party with food and presents and traditional dancing. The age is completely arbitrary, though, since the female rite of initiation signifies to all party goers that the girl has just had her first menstruation.

Imagine Hallmark trying to market a “Congratulations On Your First Period” greeting card. It’d be a disaster because in The States, talking about that female transition is completely taboo.

To illustrate my case, picture yourself in two different movie theaters that are both equally packed--let’s say it’s opening night of the next Twilight movie. In the first theater, someone yells “Fire!” You might get banged up a little in the ensuing chaos of people bolting to the exits, but your chances of survival are good.

In the second theater, someone shouts “Tampon!” Now, I hate to be a fatalist but unless you brought Bear Grylls with you, you are going to die. The stampede of people trying to escape anything that deals with female menstruation will crush you easier than a kernel of delicious but grossly overpriced movie theater popcorn.

In Mozambique, however, this new stage in a young girl’s life is not embarrassing or something to be ashamed of. No Carrie shower moments here. Instead, it is a cause for celebration and announced to the whole world in the form of a rite of initiation party.

Party on, Wayne.

For boys, the rite of initiation is not so cut and dry. (That will be funnier in a few paragraphs. Just give it time.)

I asked my colleague more about what the boys’ rite entailed--what goes on in her son’s thirty days away from home. After some continued explanation and the realization that it still wasn’t all entirely sinking in with me, she used her hand to imitate scissors and proceeded to simulate a cutting action. I’m fairly certain she even said, “Snip snip.“ Being perennially slow on picking up subtle hints and innuendos, I promptly asked, “But what in the world could a nine-year-old boy possibly have that needs cutting?” The room burst into uproarious laughter until I finally figured it out. Ohhhh.

Yikes.

The boys say goodbye to their families and go out into the “matu,” (a Mozambican term for the boondocks) for thirty days with elder men in the community, other boys, and a nurse hired by the families. It is here where each one is circumcised, signifying that he is no longer a boy, but a man. And when they return, their families throw a party.

Party on, Garth.

Not every boy or girl has a rite of initiation, my colleague explained. Some families just don’t practice this particular custom. Other families can’t afford it. For girls, it depends on whether the family can afford to throw a party. For boys, it is if the family can afford to pay for the nurse.

She assured me that the whole procedure was very safe and that the actual operation was performed by experienced medical personnel. I was still not entirely convinced on the whole process or the health implications that could arise, and I had a hard time understanding how anyone could fathom a nine-year-old boy a man (anatomical adjustment or not).

But what I’ve learned in Mozambique is that in so many situations here, the best thing I can do is just to listen, not judge, and try to understand.

I immediately decided anything Spider Man might not be appropriate for a circumcision/snip-snip/passage into manhood party.

My colleague was so excited about her son’s return she was cataloguing for me everything she was doing/cooking. I meekly, all the while thinking my question foolish, asked if there would be cake. Of course there would be cake she said. She seemed to understand the absurdity of a party sans cake.

“RSVP, Margarita?”

Abso-frickin-lutely. I just hope there's no ceremonial cutting of the cake involved.

With This Cow, I Thee Wed

I have no mirror. The sweltering heat has turned my hair into a permanent state of frizz beyond any means of containment. And I have this weird rash forming on my upper arm that looks freakishly similar to SpongeBob SquarePants. Perhaps most attractive of all, though, is the fact that I have the strong scent of a high school boys locker room. Not that I have intimate knowledge of the odors of a boys locker room--I have only heard the horror stories--stuff Hitchcock couldn’t dream of.

Still, my grizzly appearance and foul musk have not frightened away my would-be husbands. That’s right. Since arriving in Mozambique, I have been proposed to more times than I can count. Mrs. Bennet would be appalled at how I have turned marriage proposal rejections into an art form.

My first proposal, a man offered to slaughter a cow in my honor if we could get married. Ok, I’ll admit it. I was a little flattered. What gal doesn’t appreciate a good cow? Ladies, forget those half-assed Casanovas with their chocolate and flowers! Wait for someone who comes a-knocking with bovines.

Despite my initial susceptibility to flattery, I have since come to find these incessant propositions incredibly annoying. Now, I know exactly what you’re thinking, You’re thinking to yourself. “Duh, Margaret, they can’t possibly resist you because not only are you a whittler of wit, but your ethereal beauty is also powerfully disarming.” Touché, my wise friends. I can’t fault them their good taste.

The sad truth of the matter is, though, that it has almost nothing to do with my charming personality or (under normal circumstances) Ava Gardner good looks. (My wannabe hubbie and I rarely speak more than two sentences to each other before he pops the question. And ummm…remember my earlier reference to a boys‘ locker room. Yeah, I smell like a communal jockstrap and look even worse!)

Instead, most of their desire resides in the fact that when they see me, they see “white” and “American” and automatically the cash register in their heads goes ka-ching. They equate me with opportunity. My site mates here and most of the other girls in my training group can swap stories for hours of bad Mozambican pick up lines. Men have wanted to marry me so I could take them back to America with me, so they could learn English, or as one gentleman told me, “Margarita, you are tall like a man and look like you would have big, strong babies.” Ohhh. Be still my beating heart. The poetry. A regular Oscar Wilde, that one.

And it’s not just Mozambican men who want to rush to the altar either. Many male Peace Corps volunteer friends here have received similar proposals from Mozambican women.

Shucks. I hope I am not making all Mozambicans out to be these opportunistic nymphomaniacs with Charlie Sheen-sized libidos. It’s just that here, most people wear their hearts, and their hormones, on their sleeves. They say exactly what’s on their minds, and that in no way excludes the times when their heads are in the gutter. Verbal filters and subtlety are nonexistent. If they think your baby is ugly, they will tell you. If you have a giant zit on your face, they will point right to it and tell you. And if they want to marry you because you’re white and they think that will lead to a better life, they will tell you. Or (in my particular case) if they just want to marry you because you look like you would reproduce linebackers, you bet your britches they will look you straight in the eye and tell you. It’s not done out of cruelty or malice. They just say what’s on their minds and what they believe to be true.

The implications of this brazen forwardness on the Mozambican sexual culture and its link to the HIV prevalence rate could be the topic of a series of anthropological and socioeconomic books.

For now, my solution to this problem is to explain that I, unfortunately, already have a namorado (boyfriend). Yes, that’s right. I’ve invented a fictional boyfriend back home. He’s lovely. He’s six foot three and a dead ringer for Marlon Brando circa A Streetcar Named Desire. He’s an Olympic qualifier in the Pentathlon, speaks fluent Urdu and quotes John Donne. Anyway, there are some people here who always ask about him. They are hoping he will come visit me in Mozambique. I explained that it might be difficult since he is currently splitting his time between Lake Como (he has a modest little villa there) where he is working on his memoirs of which Paramount has already purchased the rights to and Antarctica where it appears he has discovered a mutant penguin species.

Blatant lying? Okay, yes.

Outlandish? Of course. (My Mom always did tell me I had a very wild imagination)

A tad bit pathetic? Maybe. But, it’s not like I have a blow-up doll or anything.

I instead prefer to think of my boyfriend as an effective defense mechanism and a means to set an example. If he and I can illustrate fictional fidelity in a place where multiple concurrent partnerships rather than monogamy are the norm, then I think my delusional hunka hunka man is accomplishing something here.

Once I start picking out the fictional colors of my fictional wedding to my fictional namorado, then I’ll know I’ve got bigger problems beyond my creepy cartoon-shaped rashes and caveman hair. But for now, I’ve decided that if it helps me demonstrate that a young woman can come to Africa by herself without a man, live here without a man by her side, work here without a man, function without the need or intent to find a new man, and try to make a difference without a man. Well, then I am just fine with using my imaginary boyfriend to explain to my hopeful Mozambican suitors why I just can’t accept their cow.

Terms of Bereavement

Dear friends,

I am here, Africa. The land where Kilimanjaro rises like Olympus above the Serengeti (thanks Toto), where Simba and Mufassa philosophized about the circle of life, and where Kevin Bacon was allowed to play basketball. This is Africa. This is my new home. And to chronicle my Peace Corps adventures here in Mozambique, a lush and beautiful country on the eastern coast of Africa, I thought I’d share this little blog.

While I tend to find the whole idea of a blog rather self-indulgent in a Jack Kerouac kind of way, some people have requested it. At least this way, as opposed to having it forced upon you from my Grandma or in a mass email, people at home can decide for themselves if they want to subject themselves to my rantings. Well, here you go masochists. I am nothing if not an enabler.
So while I have technically been in Mozambique now for several months and am starting to get settled in at my permanent site, I thought I would rewind and start at the beginning. Sometimes, you just need a little context.

Back then we go to September 29, a chilly Nebraska fall morning when I officially left for the Peace Corps. That is, however, after a brief tryst through the tenth circle of hell I like to call packing. The next two years of my life were stuffed Procrustean-like into two suitcases. And since my Dad affectionately likes to call me Imelda Marcos, I continue to celebrate my shoe picking decisiveness. Three pairs baby.

The night before my departure, my Mom had persuaded my siblings to come home so we could all break bread together in what she deemed my “Last Supper.” She has a very sinister sense of humor.

At 3:00 A.M. in atypical Goll fashion, the troops mobilized. My whole family awoke and accompanied me to the airport to say “goodbye.”

By the way, I find the very essence of the word “goodbye” to be a giant contradiction. The only time I can even faintly remember goodbye being an excessively cheery occasion was when the Von Trapps were singing about it. “So long, farewell, auf wiedersehem, adieu.” They just confused me into thinking they were happy with their harmonious multilingual usages of goodbye. Damn you, Liesl. I don’t care how anyone expresses it, goodbyes (especially goodbyes in the back of a cold airport security line) are terrible.

If you’ve ever seen the movie Love Actually, and since it’s just past Christmas I’m thinking many of you may have busted it out, then you might remember the closing scene and thus equate airports with Heathrow and thus with London and thus with British accents and thus with Hugh Grant and of course thus with happiness. But for me that morning of my departure, even with all the excitement of my upcoming adventure, Eppley Airport was the saddest place in the world to me.

Meeting the other volunteers in Philadelphia and having people to commiserate with regarding goodbyes was a saving grace. Philadelphia was also nice because it gave me a chance to try to locate a showing of “The Night Man Cometh.” It was a failure. The Gang must have been up to some other degenerate shenanigans (If you’ve not seen the truly awful yet wonderful “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” please just disregard this last part.)

So, following a night on the town in the city made famous by the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air (Okay, everyone together now. I know you want to. “Innnnnnn West Philadelphia born and raised…”), a 3:00 A.M. bus ride to JFK International Airport, a 15 hour plane ride to Johannesburg, and another short plane ride to Maputo, we disembarked in Mozambique. Ahh…

After forty straight hours of traveling they immediately shuffled us off to this beautiful, swanky hotel for some decompression time and final sessions (not to mention final showers). I still am unsure about the philosophy of why they did this. Maybe it was a little calm before the storm--our own little Xanadu before they shipped us off to the boonies.

Okay, maybe I‘m being a little hard on our training site. Namaacha, a cold, rainy little city on the borders of Mozambique, Swaziland, and South Africa, was a wonderful community full of some of the most hospitable people I have met. My homestay family consisted of my mother, father, two little sisters and a little brother.

I would compare my host mom to the witch in Hansel and Gretel. That sounds terrible, I know, but I am referring to the fact that she was constantly trying to fatten me up. Our Mozambican host moms had a gossip network that would put junior high girls to shame, and one of the things they liked to discuss most was whose host son or daughter was plumping up the most. Needless to say, my host family loved to feed me. In what is probably construed as a giant paradox, I spent my first three months in Africa freezing cold and uncomfortably full.

Several people have asked me about the actual houses, bathrooms, water, roads, etc. As for the accommodations, everyone here had a different story, but my family’s house had electricity (yep, television and refrigerator) and an indoor bathroom with an actual toilet. No running water but it was a toilet as opposed to a latrine. Showers became bucket baths. I would describe the roads not so much as roads but more as goat paths. My house was cement with tile floors. My room was painted, and I constantly had large insect, rodent, and reptilian lodgers. Rocks kept the roof in place and sometimes when it rained, I was certain the whole house would collapse. I thought it was beautiful.

My daily routine for the first ten weeks went basically as follows: Portuguese class, health technical sessions, Mozambican cross cultural sessions, more Portuguese, some catharsis time with the other trainees, and then home to spend time with the host family. It would take a while to enumerate everything we did and everything we learned so I thought I would just share some casual observations, significant events, and particular musings about training and Mozambique that have accumulated so far. I apologize for the mass generalizations about a country full of dynamic and diverse people. I am banking on more mature, poetic insights to come later on in my service. For now, I’ve only got my junior-high-boy-sense-of-humor.

Music:
In Mozambique, there is rhythm in everything. From the way people walk to the cadence of their conversations to the way my little sister scribbled out her name. A beat can be found in the most mundane tasks and in inanimate objects.

Music in Mozambique is loved and appreciated in all its forms. Traditional Mozambican music, American pop music, my family even popped in an Elvis CD. They couldn’t get enough of “Hound Dog.”

Dancing is its own dialect. Children here don’t really have first steps; they have first hip thrusts.

I don’t care what kind of music elitist you consider yourself. Spend time in Mozambique and your Ipod will slowly but surely accumulate the musical stylings of Ne-Yo, Celine Dion, Chris Brown, and Rhianna. Guarantee it.

Cleavage smeavage:
I have seen so many exposed breasts here that I am quickly becoming un-phased. Boobs are not something women pull out of their arsenal of feminine wiles. They are not pornographic, but simply anatomical instruments for breast feeding. I have seen them whipped out at parties, strolling down the street, and in church on Sunday. Mozambican breast feeding would put Hugh Hefner out of business.

Anne Boleyn:
My host family was having a party and I had the dubious honor of beheading the chicken. With a dull knife. I named it Anne Boleyn. I was the only one who was amused.

“Out, damn’d spot! out, I say!”:
Spray N Wash!? Shout?! Tide!? Puhleeeease. Amateurs. My mãe in Mozambique could get the stubbornest of stubborn stains out of clothes. The way she attacked that laundry with her hands was something straight out of The Art of War. It was incredible. Laundry here is all done by hand usually against rough surfaces. Delicates do not survive long. However, my clothes are cleaner now than they were on the day I bought them.

Time:
For a lot of people, time is the most disobliging of things. When you want it to slow down, it speeds up. And when you would give anything for it to hurry up, it drags on. It is always there, reminding you that there is absolutely nothing you can do to affect it. Here in Mozambique, people seem to just ignore the arrogance of time. They operate in their own time zone--Mozambican time. The pace is so much slower and while most of the time I enjoy it, occasionally my Type A personality rears its ugly head and I just want to go go go. I think this adjustment to time will just take time.

I have frequently seen people mowing their lawns--with machetes.

Many Mozambicans love terrible action movies. Jean Claude Van Dame is to Mozambicans what David Hasselhoff is to Germans. The fixation is inexplicable and bizarre.

Mozambicans can have full conversations in nothing but grunts.

If you are a pedestrian in Mozambique, you are semi-suicidal.

Carting things on your head is definitely an art form perfected by many Mozambican women. I saw one woman with a bucket of water on her head, a baby on her back, and her two hands full of sacks. It was incredible. There are few things stronger than a Mozambican woman.

Mozambique vs. a cheeseburger:
When Todd Chappman, the Chargé d’Affaires, aka the interim Ambassador to Mozambique came to speak to us, he remarked that we Americans are an idealistic people. We were founded on those principles (somethin’ somethin’ life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness)--and with that idealism, the belief that we can change things, there comes a cost. In the case of Mozambique that cost is $1.50 every year for every American to be exact. Six quarters is just part of the price of global leadership he said. He then listed off several reasons, economic, national security, etc why investing in Mozambique was important and ultimately cost-effective to the United States. I am no economist. I actually only ever read “The Economist” for the book reviews. A supply and demand curve literally makes me physically nauseated.

So with my only economic experience coming from luck-luster Monopoly performances and after just writing a slew of surface level platitudes about Mozambique and Africa (Whoa, you mean to tell me they like to dance in Africa!? You don’t say!), what could I possibly say to convince people that their six quarters would not be better spent at the McDonald’s Dollar Menu?
I guess I would just say that I have seen the value of the people here--even if I can’t quite articulate it, and I think a buck fifty in Mozambique is a sound investment because it is an investment in people. And people is the greatest resource. Hah! Karl Marx couldn’t beat the idealism out of me.

Then again, I am only rounding out my first full month at my permanent site in Angoche, Nampula in northern Mozambique. I’ve got plenty of time to let my idealism morph into cynicism. However, judging from my initial reactions of Angoche, this sleepy little old colonial port city right on the ocean where you can occasionally see dolphins splashing around, I am banking on that not happening.

Yes, I survived training, my first holiday season away from my family, and my first month at site. And while my Portuguese is improving at the rate of a constipated turtle, I have managed to locate the market, the post office, and halleluiah, an Internet café.

I thought I would close this first entry (congratulations if you’ve made it all the way through. I applaud your resilience) with a few choice reactions from people upon hearing I was going to Africa with the Peace Corps. I still find them endlessly entertaining. Terms of bereavement, if you will.

“The Peace Corps, huh? You know what Richard Nixon said about the Peace Corps, don’t you? He said it was a haven for hippies and draft dodgers.”

“Two years is sure a long time.”

“Mozambique! Are you [expletive] crazy!?! They have an AK-47 on their national flag.”

“Nobody puts Baby in the corner.” (Referencing the fact that the main character in Dirty Dancing wanted to enlist in the Peace Corps. Whatever. She’s got moves.)

“Two years! Wow! That’s a long-ass time!”

“I bet you have like seven pairs of Birkenstocks.”

“Couldn’t find a job, eh?”

“What’s the adjustment stage like when you return? I bet you’re going to come back an oddball.” (Thanks, Dad)

“Two years! Are you freaking nuts? That’s so long.”

“You don’t have a boyfriend, do you? No, I didn’t think so. Well, it’s probably a good idea then for a single gal your age to try your luck abroad for a while.”

“Two years is such a long time. Hopefully they have beer there.”

(One little old lady whispering not too discreetly to another little old lady) “My, goodness, she already looks black.” (Referring to my apparent overexposure to Vitamin D and UV, aka my tan.)

“Whoa. Twenty-seven months. That’s like over two years.”

But my favorite and so far the most accurate came from my professor/thesis advisor/life sage extraordinaire…“Margaret, you will learn much, cry hard, laugh often, and come back a fuller human being.”

Mozambique and Nebraska sure are very different--two small spots on a big globe (both only entering the radar of some twelve-year-old vying to win the Geography Bee of Random and Obscure Places). Still, they are both now what I call home.

I will do my best to update this as much as I can. Please know I miss you all and think of you often (it was especially fervent during the holidays). I now have a more or less permanent address so feel free to send me anything. I have a big affinity for the lost art of letter writing so I promise to write back. Happy holidays and all my love from Africa.

Margaret Goll
Escola Secundária de Angoche
Caixa Postal #8
Angoche, Nampula
Mozambique