Gestures

Seeing as Portuguese is obviously not my first language, I have a new appreciation for any and all hand gestures.  And lucky for me, Mozambicans have some pretty sweet little moves they do!

- Lots of people here are fans of the double wave – which I love. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, refer to the scene in Love Actually where Hugh Grant (the Prime Minister) gets out of his car and waves to the public.  To do the double hand wave – you first need to stop walking, put on a biggg smile and frantically wave both hand. 

- We are also all about the double cheek kiss over here. I’m pretty sure I always have a big smile on my face when I do the cheek kiss.  It’s just so friendly, I can’t help it!

- The “left hand to right elbow” move  is a big one. Any time you accept something (like a gift) or shake someone’s hand, you put your left hand on your right elbow as you receive/shake with the right hand.  It’s a sign of respect.

- the “criança” (child) signal.  This is when you make a little cup with your hand and then use said hand to indicate height (and therefore age) of a child.  For example, “my little brother is coming to Africa” would necessitate a cupped hand at chest level – not so young (and if I was indicating the actual height of my little brother it would be wayyy above my head!). BUT. “When I was 4 I fell got this scar on my arm” would be a cupped hand below the hip. 

- the sun dial.  This and the criança move are my personal favorites.  Basically, this is a way of indicating time.  Maybe I want to know what time our basketball game is this Saturday and Crispen (one of my students) wants to tell me to be at school by 8 am. So he’ll make a squinty face (important) and look at the sky. Then he’ll make a blade with his hand and point at where the sun will be at that time. “Teacher, come to school at 8 (about a 25º angle) and we will go home at ummmmmm 12 (90º angle with arm straight up in the air). ”  Perhaps this is why we have trouble starting on time around here lol!

Culture and Education

Normally my blog posts are just to update my friends and family at home about my life here in Mozambique. I’m not a “writer” per se and anyone who knows me well, knows that words don’t just flow out of my mouth in a particularly eloquent way.  But yesterday I found myself in the middle of a conversation so interesting, I almost wished I was at Rhodes so I could use it to write a paper (not a bio lab report paper, but a paper that would normally scare the pants off of me and magically consume an entire week of my time).  Anyways, this fictional paper would focus on the clash of culture and education levels in Mozambique. Basically, what happened is this…

This week, all of the teachers at our school have been attending a mandatory “formação” or training geared to Salitian schools.  Yesterday’s enthralling topic: conflict resolution.  Conflicts with other professors, conflicts with the director, conflicts with students and mediating student-student conflicts.  I have sat through my fair share of peace corps training session about such things and I have also sat through many a Mozambican meeting where people talk just to hear their own voice. Needless to say, I was not thrilled to be stuck in the collision of these two. 

After we broke into groups to discuss a few questions (“do we learn from our conflicts? Why?” and “what tools do we have to resolve our conflicts?”), we discussed them as a group. This is when I stopped doodling and started actually writing down what people were saying.

 The first professor who spoke made the comment that education is our tool – it is the greatest tool we have and therefore lets us better solve our problems. To which another professor negated by saying that his parents had very little education and his grandparents never saw a book, let alone a school in their lifetime – and they still managed to resolve their conflicts.  It was and still is our culture and it is our history, he said (sidenote: Mozambicans are very proud people and when they get going on “a nossa maneira” or “our way” it tends to be a long and prideful conversation).  Keep in mind: Mozambique is so underdeveloped because of its recent history of war. First for independence from the Portuguese and then a very long civil war (which didn’t end until the early 90’s).  Social infrastructures – like schools- are just now getting on their feet, so to speak. Regardless, the man was making the point that you don’t need an education to solve your problems.  This was then answered by another teacher who gave the example of Mozambican families who live out in the bush.  If the parents of that family had attended school –and recognized how valuable it really was – they probably wouldn’t marry off their 12 year old daughter before she got to the 8^th grade (which is very common in many parts of the country – its just the culture, whether you agree with it or not). And she probably wouldn’t allow the same thing to happen to HER daughter.

So now we have this conflict between the very respected culture and the history and the “way” of the Mozambican people,  and tools that education can provide to move forward. And to top it off, we’ve tossed the ever-present gender issue into the equation.  Another professor then posed the question: well does the girl from the bush not want to go to school and study because she’s not from a “culture” of education? Or is she an equal of the 12 year old girl in the city who will make it to at least 10^th grade? The next man who spoke said the, yes, the girls are surely equal and deserve the same opportunities. 

I guess these are just some of the challenges of developing a country.  I see the same thing all over Moatize – which is a becoming a boomtown because of the mines.  There are tons of little mud houses surrounded by goats and old women cooking on little carvão grills with babies on their backs and half dressed kids running around. And right next to the mud house is a huge industrial building with foreigners in air-conditioned, GPS equipped Ford trucks – who are employing the sons of the old women in the mud houses.

OK, I’m not sure where I’m going with this now – but I thought it was worth sharing.   

25 de Junho

Mozambicans celebrate their Independence Day on June 25 (this year marked 36 years of freedom) which happened to be a Saturday.  Helen and I went to the town square are where people were gathered with drums and banners.  We also happened to be their when the governor of Tete rolled in (in his 6 car entourage, with a BMW….) and stuck around for the national anthem before heading home. 

That Friday, Eduardo (our other roommate) had explained to us the importance heads at parties. Yes. Heads. As in cow head, pig head, goat head.  Apparently, every good party or wedding (or anything worth celebrating) needs a head. So, Saturday morning when we came home we were greeted by a giant cows head.  I’m talking, a full on head. Just chopped off.

Then the testosterone fest started.  Cooking is very much a “woman’s” job in Mozambique, but the head…. That’s a different story. Cooking a head is a man’s job.  So Eduardo, one of his friends from work, the father and teenage son of the family with live near, and some other random boys got to work on the head.  First they built a fire with some bricks set up in it to singe all of the hair off the head. Then spent a good deal of time with an axe chopping the head into small enough pieces to fit in a large pot.  Basically, the entire head was boiled with just water and salt (as not to spoil its natural delicious flavors…. So I was told).  Then, they waited.  Senour Janeiro – the dad of the family, and oldest member of the “head crew”- was presented with a small plate of brain and tongue to taste test.  Once he had given the OK, everyone was served a small bowl.  At this point, Helen  and I were forced to join the bro-fest.  Apparently, head at a party is like cake at a party (everyone has to receive at least a bite…… “you don’t turn down birthday cake, do you?!”) and no one can leave before the head is served. Once again, “do you leave a wedding reception before the bride and groom cut the cake?” (…..got it, Eduardo. I understand that you’re going to make me eat the head).  So, Helen and I sat outside with all of the men and tried the head … which I covered in piri-piri (hot chili sauce).

Not exactly fireworks, popsicles and burgers on the grill… but another interesting moment here in Mozambique.

run the world girls

I think I mentioned the “REDES weekend” in a previous post – but basically, REDES is a group for high school aged girls in Mozambique that promotes healthy and successful futures.  It was a Peace Corps initiated group that has existed nationwide for some years now.  Even though my school is mostly boys, I thought that the girls at Dom Bosco could really benefit from a program like this.  So when I offered to host a weekend “troca” for the four groups in Tete (like a mini conference) at our school, I figured it would be a good way to get the ball rolling. But ohhhhh the joys of hosting 50 people for a weekend!

Helen and I did a pretty good job of getting all of our shopping done the weekend before everyone arrived.  All of our market friends were moreee that happy to help with our food needs (“we need 200 pieces of bread” “Two, you usually buy two” “Yes, I know, but I need two HUNDRED”).  So the supplies took over our dining room as tens of kilos of rice and beans and whatnot piled up.

Naturally, the Friday that every one was to arrive, I overslept for my class (way to start the day Audrey) and ran out the door without washing my face and with 3 kilos of dried fish in my backpack. (You know how in cartoons there’s a dog with a steak on a fishing pole and the pole is tied to his back? So he’s constantly chasing a steak that’s dangling in front of his nose? That was me, but in reverse. I kept walking faster and faster trying to escape the smell of dried fish, but it was chasing me on my back!) Anyways, I made it to class, dropped off the fish and headed home to take a bath before I had to clean the conference room where we were staying and having our activities.

Figuring things could only go up from there – Helen and I went back to school to help the girls clean.  They immediately sassed me about the condition of the dried fish – apparently it can not be left in a plastic bag (let alone 5 plastic bags) because it will become moist and spoil. Right, of course – I clearly have no idea what I’m doing with this fish. Which was very unfortunate, seeing as the guy I was paying to cook for us for the weekend was no where to be found. AND, the gem that he is, not only did he leave, he left with the keys to all of the kitchen supplies. 

So I’m running around our school (which I’m realizing is giant) trying to find someone to help with the food situation. The other 40 people should be arriving now and we need to get  start the dinner process. I happen to run into our director on his way out, and he informs me that the water has been shut off to our entire school. Are you kidding me?! I have 50 people living at this school for the weekend, and we don’t have water? How are we going to cook this food? How are they going to take baths (God knows they love taking baths)? These girls have been on a chapa for 4 hours and I don’t have water for them to drink?! (my frustration level is now seriously on the rise).

So after furiously begging the Padres to help me (sidenote : the Bishop has showed up for a weekend visit – unexpectedly.  So they, too, were in way over their heads), and being denied I had an unfortunate display of emotion.  I don’t think anyone reallyyy knows what to do with a crying girl – let alone a crying American girl in front of her older, male, Mozambican colleagues. Anyways, my only solution to the water problem was to send my own girls out with 20L jugs to find and carry water back to the school.  They were not thrilled, to say the least, but they pulled through! AND, the other Mozambican women that were there whipped some dinner for everyone – sans hired-cook.  Way to go girls of Mozambique! Ha!

Since we just had one giant conference room to use for the weekend, everyone brought their own straw mat and camped out on the floor.  It was vaguely reminiscent of a grade school slumber party, and I literally thought they (and as a result, everyone) would NEVER sleep. But they did, and in typical Mozambican form were up at 5 am.  Little did they know that since they were the first to wake up, they were the lucky ones who got to carry water! ……. Not. They were really tired of me dragging them out to get water. I was tired of it too.

The weekend ended up being a huge success for all of the girls. They made amazing purses out of capulanas, had lessons on sexual health, HIV/AIDS and pregnancy (which is extremely beneficial for them), played soccer and basketball, and planned their “beautiful and healthy futures.”  We ate delicious food. Each group performed some bad ass dances - in the dark, because the electricity went out - and had an all out dance party. 

Even though it was a logistical NIGHTMARE (I couldn’t bend the fingers on my hands until Wednesday) and I don’t think I’ve ever been so exhausted, it was worth it knowing that the girls who participated loved it!

PS. Did you know that the dancing in Beyonce’s new video for “run the world girls” is inspired by a Mozambican dance group?! They can danceee!!