Take a Right on Passive Aggressive Road

 

A woman turns to me and says, “Could you please pass the passive aggressiveness? It looks scrumptiously tempting tonight.”

“Oh, sure, here, let me spoon some onto your plate. Is this enough?”

“Não, quero engordar, menina.”

“No problem. Ok here.”

“Ainda não. Ainda não chega.”

“Now?”

“Now have you had enough?” I think to myself while delicately trying to force smiles and compose social decency enough to get myself through the day and be a mature individual. The woman to my right continuously feeds off the lush, fatty and ever plentiful plate of one of the most bountiful attitudes I have unfortunately found to be a huge part of my personal experience here in this beautiful country, and that attitude and mentality is none other than the worst type of aggressiveness, none other than the grand daddy of all let-me-slowly-torture-you-and-laugh-while-you-suffer aggressiveness. Come on, people, we all know it. We’ve all been there. We’ve all done it (and if you say you haven’t you’re lying).

Let’s traverse down the road of none other than passive aggressiveness.

Now, of all roads for us to pick our lovely afternoon walk together, this one is certainly not the peachiest, nor is it filled with luscious coffee shops for us to get unusually caffeinated together. However, I’ve decided—after long deliberation and the persistent, reminding nag of this road’s existence—the traverse is worthwhile, necessary, and unavoidable. Worth mentioning for crystal clarity, though, is that these experiences are mine and mine only. They are not meant to be generalized to all Mozambicans or other volunteers. The topic-at-hand has continuously been a very present and consistent part of my life here; it constitutes much more time and mental energy than I would have ever fathomed possible.

And let’s get to walking.

What a beautiful day, a day filled with the most beautiful clouds I have ever had the pleasure of seeing in my entire life. Do you see how they plume out towards the top as if they exploded violently out of a jar into the deepest and richest sky blues? Oh, and the air! The freshness of being in the Moçambican matu (bush) with none other but the greens of mango trees, tall grasses, and oddly shaped flowers. And didn’t you say you were thirsty? Let’s grab a drink, especially since we don’t know how long it will be until we can find another soda.

“We’d like duas Coca-Colas, por favor.” Thanks, e vamos!

What a beautiful school! We have to go in it. I’ve never seen such a well-constructed school in Moçambique before, how awesome. The teachers greet us and chat. And amidst our chat enters two young and jovial female teachers. They fix their eyes on me.
“Olá, como está?”

“Estou bem, obrigada, e você?

“Estou……………………………”

Suddenly, within the prolonged nasal pronunciations of the ever clogged-up sounding slur that Portuguese brings with it, a teacher fixates her radar and complete concentration on me, and glares.

What is she glaring at? Why isn’t she answering me?

Her eyes deepen into her skull a millimeter as her gaze becomes heavier. She no longer is processing conscious thought and the only activity to which she is doing at the moment is a full body analysis of every article of clothing I’m wearing, how I look, the patterns and textures of all the inter-workings of my blouse, the fact that my shoes are different, the fact that my hair isn’t fake and isn’t braided to my other hair, how my teeth are straight and that I still have all of them, the fact that she smells coke on my breathe and wishes that she also had one, etc. Her gaze is more than fixed; the paralyzed non-movement and incapability of doing any other action yet remain in a drunken lull of analysis tells me everything, and worse, makes for an awkward, uncomfortable interaction.

She knows all of it.

She perceives all of it.

She wants to figure out all of it.

And from here starts a slew of questions, and as each is answered, her deepened eyes come back to life as she storages each piece of information ever so caringly within the recesses of her mind.

1. How old are you?
2. How long have you been in Moçambique?
3. Why are you here?
4. What do you do here?
5. Did you finish university?
6. Oh, interesting. Already done! Do you have children?
7. You don’t? I have 3. Well, you’re married, right?
8. But don’t you at least have a boyfriend here?
9. Aren’t you going to be lonely here? You need to get a boyfriend.
10. Ok, Fidelity. Fidelity?
11. So you don’t have a farm, right?
12. Yea, I thought. That’s probably why you look so nice. Where do you get your clothes from?
13. I like your blouse. Can I have it?
14. But we’re friends. Don’t friends always share?
15. Oh, but you can always buy another one. Don’t you want to be my friend?
16. One day I’ll take you to my house. How does that sound?

The questions never stop. Forgive the bluntness, but the likelihood that each is crafted with a very particular secondary intention and onward motion to continuously grapple and pull more information out of you to get a mint-condition, perfect collector’s edition baseball card of you with all your following statistics and information is likely, in my opinion, to be high.

As each question is accordingly unraveled, with it comes a deepening in malevolence and acute jealousy coupled with an awkward adoration and respect that spirals into even deeper dislike and discomfort.

3. Why are you here? 

Me: I’m here because I wanted to help another country that is less developed than my own and have a chance to help develop the capacity of individuals towards personal and community goals.

Moçambicana: I’m here because I was born here. I live in a poor country and if I could I would move to South Africa for the opportunity to get more money.

4. What do you do here?

Me: I’m a high school teacher and work a lot. As a result, I’m actually very busy and wish I had more free time to get to know Mozambique and this community better.

Moçambicana: Before teaching I stayed home and cooked. This is my first year teaching.

5. Did you finish university?

Me: Yes, I graduated with a degree in philosophy at the age of 22.

Moçambicana: I haven’t gone to university yet but really want to.

6. Do you have children?
Me: No, I do not. I’m too young for that in my life right now.

Moçambicana: I had my first child when I was 17. I just had my 3^rd child six months ago.

7. Aren’t you going to be lonely here? You need to get a boyfriend.

Me: That’s honestly just not a part of my culture. Although it’s normal here to be dating or married to a multiple men, I really just don’t want to do that nor would I be happy with that. Rather, I’m happy just dating the one person I’m dating.

Moçambicana: The father of my children lives in South Africa and is a miner. I have a boyfriend here, though.

12. Where do you get your clothes?

Me: Most of my clothes are from America and I brought them with me when I came here.

Moçambicana: Silence

13. Can I have it?

Me: No, I need my clothes or else I’ll get cold or be stuck naked.

Moçambicana: You don’t need clothes. You have a lot and can go buy more whenever you want. Give me your shirt.

16. One day I’ll take you to my house. How does that sound?

Me: Great.

Moçambicana: Silence, again.

“Teachers here walk demoralized,” the chemistry teacher tells me while we’re walking home from night school in the pitch black. I stumble clumsily on the unevenness of the road and stupidly embarrass myself; thankfully, in the darkness he can’t see much. I intently listen. “They aren’t valued by others—whether it’s the community or the school directors. We work many hours for not much money while the entire community believes that we skip classes or have inappropriate relationships with the students. Even if we are hard, sincere workers, no one will recognize it so there’s no incentive to be that.” We stop after having reached my house. He continues, “And if you want to go on with your life to university or realize dreams you have, you’re not going to be able to unless you’re a part of the political party. People want to keep you demoralized so that everyone is in the same position; we’re all suffering, don’t you get it? As soon as you go on and do something better than others, they are already thinking of ways to bring you back down to their level—down to how educated they want to keep you, what you wear, what your house looks like, even what you eat. It’s jealousy at its worst; we’re a poor country, and unfortunately we still have a mentalidade de pobreza even though we’re developing. That’s why we walk the way we do. That’s why we do what we do. Está a perceber?”

He asks if I understand.

Now, how could I not understand?

Isn’t it obvious why an American would be the target to some not so indirect passive aggressiveness?

We’re young and still have our futures to make.

We’re educated.

We don’t have children yet.

We have nice clothes.

We have access to money.

We have the possibility of having only one steady boyfriend or girlfriend that more than likely is not cheating.

We’re coming to this poor country, where others are suffering, because we want to.

Even worse, we volunteered to come to this suffering country—without pay.

We’re generally all very nice.

We’re generally all happy people.

A nightmare has entered my mind. It reeks a foul stench. It laughs an evil laugh. It dances a sickly dance. A nightmare has entered my mind not yesterday, the day before that, the month before, or even the year before. It entered when I was only a little girl while playing house with my brothers and sisters. There I was, a doctor with a family of five—my wonderful husband and my three beautiful children, one boy and two girls. We all live in a large, well-kept home on the side of the street with friendly neighbors who all respect us. We are happy as a family. My children are healthy. There’s no other care in the world. Now that I am older I can see that my dream—my husband, children, house, occupation—is really nothing than the beginnings of my nightmare. Yes, it marks the beginning of knowing that that dream, that stupid, pesky dream, will never be my own; those were not the conditions I was born into, nor is it the culture to which raised me. That dream haunts me, and as of now, it thunders into my memory with a sharpened sting each time it is recalled.

And here she is, this American, coming into my school having just enjoyed a refreshing soda. She is educated, will be supported by the economy and political power of her country’s well doings, will have a husband that supports her and who is faithful towards her, will have as many children as she wants without her husband forcing her, will have prospects for having the ability to choose her occupation when she returns to America. And my god, she is so beautiful, too! Look at her hair! It’s so smooth and not ugly like mine. And her skin! It’s so creamy and white. Mine is just black.

And here she is, this American, coming into my school having just enjoyed a refreshing soda. She is educated, will be supported by the economy and political power of her country’s well doings, will have a husband that supports her and who is faithful towards her, will have as many children as she wants without her husband forcing her, will have prospects for occupation when she returns to America. And my god, she is so beautiful, too! Look at her hair! It’s so smooth and not ugly like mine. And her skin! It’s so creamy and white. Mine is just black.

Benjamin Franklin once said, “Guests, like fish, begin to smell after three days.” Um, correction, Mr. Franklin, make that less than three hours. Fish and American guests stink after only three hours, apparently. They bring with them the wafting realizations about what others are not. Others are not educated. Others are not employed. Others do not have nice clothes like this American girl. Others do not have faithful husbands, wives, boyfriends and girlfriends. In this one person, in this one measly twenty-something-year-old American girl, is everything I am not; she is none other than my walking nightmare.

Thankfully, guests, whether they are guests of the house or school, are unlike fish in that they have the capacity to empathize and understand the feelings of others, and with that, I’ll take my cue, Mr. Franklin. I suppose it is none other than my time to go, to depart, to bid my farewells.

We carefully gather our things and head out the school’s gate. We fasten the door behind us and continue on in the well-maintained and established road. Instead of feeling offended, upset, or depressed, more understandable is to know that road to which we walk. No one frolics here frivolously; we walk with a purpose on this road, with a purpose to understand the walk and experience of others. “How easy it is, though, to get offended, upset, or depressed!” I think. Better, though, to leave it, leave it all, exit the school, fasten the gate, and walk away. “I’m thirsty,” says my friend. “After all, it has been several hours.” She makes a good point.  Let us leave, walk away, and move on. And what do we do? We get on with our lives. With compassion we leave that which we cannot help, that which we did no harm yet understand why we would be salting the wound, and that said, let’s go find that coke, shall we?

The Life of a Woman

Every single morning I wake up to a very specific noise. I wish I could onomonopia-up this noise, and if I could, it would be likened to a “whoosh whoosh” done in a raspy Louis Armstrong voice. I awaken with the crisp air and high-pitched rooster calls to none other than the sound of Mozambican women making the quintessential Mozambican, if-you-visit-this-country-you-obligatorily-cannot-leave-without-eating-this-food, national dish—xima, or ground corn that is then cooked into a tasteless porridge and served with cooked greens, meat, or beans. This is the life of a woman.

Hours before she was hand-grinding xima in a clay pot with a large, wooden rod, she was in the fields, collecting corn, planting peanuts, de-weeding her family’s farm, thrashing through large cassava plants, and perhaps, if she’s lucky, weeding through her rice field making sure the birds are no where in sight. She works alone, or rather and more accurately, they work alone—all the women, together, as a cohesive unit of matriarchs going to the farm while their husbands are sleeping at 5AM. “Alone” is a harsh word; in fact, our woman is not alone. She is accompanied by the most common of Mozambican accessories, a baby tied onto her back while she takes her hoe and digs, digs, digs. After collecting her daily rice sac of goods to take home to her family and husband, she searches for dying trees to chop down for firewood, the most common way of cooking here in a place where still a good half percent of the inhabitants have zero electricity. The sun is getting high in the sky. She is in a hurry. Take the baby. Put it on my back. Grab the firewood. Secure it tight. Put it on my head. And the sac. Where’s the sac? There it is. Get the sac. Carry it in my right hand. We’re ready to go home, baby and I. This is the life of a woman.

Put the baby down.

Make xima for my family.

Clean the house or else the husband will get mad.

Give the husband bath water.

Feed the kids.

Get kids to school.

Scrounge for lunch.

Prepare it with small girls.

Order girls around to help.

Eat and feed husband.

Process food that came from the farm that morning.

Scrounge to find something for dinner.

Prepare dinner.

Husband comes home; demands a bath.

Make husband comfortable.

Feed family and husband dinner.

Clean up.

Prepare everyone for bed.

Have sex if husband wants to.

Sleep.

Wake up at 5AM and repeat.

This is the life of a woman. She cooks. She farms. She’s ordered. She cleans. She has kids. She cares for her husband. Oh, and did I mention? She has kids, lots of them. Every verb revolving around our woman’s life reeks of domestication; her success as a domesticated being is correlated to how well she waits on the hand and foot of her husband and children. Everything is done to ensure that he—as a man, a strong, capable, and masculine edifice—is well cared for.

“Well, what if he isn’t cared for correctly? What if she didn’t de-weed the farm well enough today? What if she was tired when she came home and didn’t really want to have sex? What if the food she made was too salty? What if she left for too long with her friends and now her family is eating dinner two hours too late?” you ask.

Easy answer: our woman is unfortunately and probably beaten.

Shouldn’t people be reprimanded for not doing their jobs?

“Mi-Mi,” the hairdresser condescendingly slurs, “Você não tem o direito de casar aqui em Moçambique. Você não pode aguentar com a nossa maneira de vida..”

She tells me I don’t have the right to get married here in Mozambique. In other words, I wouldn’t be capable of living the lifestyle of a woman.

Wait just a minute, puh-lease…

Last time I checked, I was a woman.

No, hold on, ringing affirmation: I am a woman.

As of late, I have had the privilege of learning so much about these endlessly strong women that I live with, especially since I almost exclusively only hang out with and know women (reasons why would entail another blog post). They are without a doubt some of the hardest workers I have ever seen in my entire life. And with the privilege of getting to see the walks of their lives, I too have been opened up into the life of a woman.

Our woman speaks:

“The other day, the American teacher and I cooked at this party together for guests until 11PM.”

“I taught the American teacher how to make Mozambican food; she knows how to make it now.”

“Last week we went to the farm together. We got corn and took out peanuts.”

“The white girl knows how to make matapa? Sheh!”

“Mi-Mi, cook this chicken. I’ll make the xima and then we’ll eat when my husband arrives.”

Yes, yes, all these things here: this is the life, the worries, the activities, of a woman.

In all respects, I feel more than lucky to be so involved in the lives of these women; it is a huge honor to know that they can trust me with seemingly mediocre tasks such as cooking a chicken or washing leaves, as ridiculous sounding as that is. With each obstacle of trust gained, though, I approach the glaring-at-my-face and inevitable red line of none other than their expectation for me to become a woman, or, at least, a Mozambican one.

Recently my boyfriend—or, as people always call him here, my “husband” (yet another blog post why that might be)—came to visit where I live. Boy did that really cause a HUGE raucous with my women friends, seriously.

Our woman speaks again:

“What did you make for your husband? Why didn’t you make him more meat?”

“Mi-Mi, why are you letting him wash his clothes? What is wrong with you?”

“Make him these eggs tomorrow morning. You need to feed him well.”

“Serve your husband dinner.”

“Put more beef on his plate now. He’s almost done eating all of it.”

No, no, this is all wrong. This is not what I taught her to do, to be! This is clearly not the life of a woman.

She continues:

“This girl here did not cook lunch on Sunday. What did she eat? Only bread? When her husband was here she only made meat twice when he should have been eating meat everyday at every meal. She only goes to the farm once a month and she’s lazy and should go more. When I get up at 6AM and clean my house I don’t see her cleaning her house; it must be filthy in there. She doesn’t have kids and is already 24 years old. When I was 24 I had three kids and my first child was 5.”

As the jury of women votes, I realize that despite the confidence to which I have gained with so many of these wonderful women, I could never live their lives. I could never wait hand and foot on my spouse, serving him food and drinks as to ensure that he does nothing other than lift a spoon or hand to his mouth. I could never sell my life to the constant lookout for food to eat in the farm and firewood on my head. I could never resign myself to domestic violence and stay in that relationship. I could never sit at home having four, five, six babies starting at the age of 18. In short, I could never be these women.

The jury voted and the verdict is in: Mi-Mi is not a woman. She does not perform her aforementioned duties as listed chronologically above, nor does she care for her husband properly. On such grounds, she is dismissed from the female gender and earns no title of being called a woman.

A sigh of relief is released. A woman I may not be, but with it I keep a personal integrity that perhaps is difficulty earned here by the dangerously rebellious only. I’m lucky, as probably most American women are, to have an education, a job, life opportunities, the right to choose whom I want to marry, the luxury of not depending on my husband financially, the right to not be beaten, the choice to decide when I want children or even if I do, and the strength to shun complacency and speak my mind.

As I release my sigh, I intake a heaping gulp of air to both mourn and celebrate the lives of Mozambican women. I mourn in thinking what their lives could have been like if they were also given ample opportunity to at least finish high school and perhaps do a job, any job, that does not chain them to their houses and husbands. I mourn for their happiness and naively hope that they are blissfully content and energized. I celebrate, though, their strength, their incredible ability to continue on in their Myth of Sisyphus lives, pushing the same, large boulder up the hill day in and day out while they selflessly give everything they have for the lives of their husbands and children. I celebrate their capability to cope with life, their lot and disposition, and the acute prowess they have accumulated over the years to survive as best they can with what they were given. Now, perhaps I am a woman in some twinkling definition; however, a celebratory holler should echo out to all these beautiful ladies as undoubtedly some of the strongest creatures on earth.

Senhor Nietzsche Comigo, Sempre

Dear Nietzsche,

Thanks. Germany. America. Cape Verde. Moçambique. America.

Love,

MS

And About That Attitude You Got…

“Girl, that attitude you got stinks.”

This is precisely the sentence I play over and over again in my head. Depending on the day, it varies. Here are some of its brother variations:

-“Why am I, with this high of a concentration, so aggravated?”

-“Have I always been this perturbed by my outer environment?”

-“Am I really this mean?”

-“Girl, puh-lease, why you trippin’?”

-“Dang, you’s a straight fool.”

Each is representative of a larger conclusion of an even larger phenomenon that is webbed between my relationship with the outside world I am interacting with—that wildly vivid, living constant of Moçambican culture to which I’m SMACK dab in the middle—and the personal phenomenon of feeling where I absorb this culture and then create emotional stances and reactions towards it.

I must say, I’ve been positively obsessing over this topic for the last, well, probably the last month. I look over to my molding, old petri dishes and examine my past.

Was I that perturbed by my environment in New Mexico, where I spent my childhood? Nope. That mold is relatively healthy.

Was I that perturbed by the Californian, high school environment? Nope. That mold, although it has an embarrassing rebel streak, is even healthier.

Was I that perturbed by the Californian university environment? Definitely not, though that mold surely does reek of liberalism and a very strong cup of coffee.

Was I that perturbed by my first leg of living abroad in the beloved Cape Verde? Another definite no. The mold reads that my heart grew at least two times its normal capacity during that year.

I peer over to the petri dish labeled “Moçambique” written on in it with creamed masking tape and black sharpie. Something is clearly going on there. Creepy crawlies. Spewing colors. Tree-looking things. Cheese-looking things. Black holes that even Hawking would gawk at.

I take off my goggles and stupidly ponder.

Moçambique has bewitched me into examining one’s ability to feel frustrated or annoyed. Furthermore, it sparks the warranted questions of—and you’ll have to excuse my French here but the evocation of the word seems absolutely necessary: “Have I always been this big of a bitch? Or are the environment in which I’m living and outside factors contributions to my sour mood?”

All teachers here wear lab coats. We wear it to essentially not dirty our clothes in chalk, and it helps give a more uniform look and more professional feel in the schooling environment (or at least I think so). My lab coat, “bata,” is falling apart. It’s dirty. Two buttons are missing. Every time I wear it I’m pulling off new strings. I tug at my string and realize the entanglement with which I’m messing with, always wanting to give up yet still getting annoyed at those stupid, hanging strinsg. One string here, another there. Another string here, another there. More and more strings, coming off my bata, and with each string comes the examination, “What kind of string is this, where did it come from, and why don’t they ever stop coming???”

With my petri dish at hand, lab goggles off, and falling apart lab coat, I take my string and go to the only place I know to go: the microscope.

10x magnification

20x magnification

30x magnification

40x magnification

50x magnification

Ah, there it is.

This string, a descendent of the cultural material, comes from the “mandar” spool.

Mandar in Portuguese is to give orders to, or simply, to boss around. It constitutes a very defined and highlighted presence here in the culture of Moçambique. Family members and friends work together in very complicated hierarchies of ordering each other around with little to no manners. The man of the household sits perched as the women in the house make his warm water for a bath. The mother orders her child to buy tomatoes. The teacher orders the student to wash a cup and get him water. The client orders the store clerk to look in the back of the store to find the freshest produce. The male orders the woman to get him a drink. My personal opinion can be summarized as thus: in a country that seems to value (consciously or unconsciously, that is) hierarchical systems of bossing each other around without reciprocating the usual politeness that Americans might be accustomed to, it makes it difficult to realize one’s desires or be able to do what one wants to do without also participating in a culture that seems to value bossing each other around. Is it possible that I have assimilated to Moçambican culture by treating people with fewer manners because that is culturally acceptable? Does my attitude stink because I know “Give me 5 onions” instead of “Could you please give me 5 onions” will more efficiently and effectively give me what I want?

I take another string.

This string, a descendent of the personal material, comes from the “law school” spool.

Currently I am studying for the LSAT to enter law school. Surprise, surprise, right? Ha ha, just kidding. Basically the whole world knew I wanted to go to law school even before I did. I always knew my second year of Peace Corps would be compromised by taking time to study, but I never thought my service would be interrupted with a country transfer in which I had to integrate into my community all over again, something that takes exorbitant amounts of time. Believe me when I say that with a job of teaching over 350 students and studying for the LSAT while living in a developing, poor country and all while having to integrate into one’s community and speak another language is not an easy task. Does my attitude stink because the added stressors of life make me a poor candidate to show patience and grace in times where I selfishly try to develop and obtain my own life goals?

Another string.

This string, a descendent of the geographical material, comes from the “solar” spool.

Moçambique is literally the hottest place I have ever been to in my entire life. Worse is living in a house with a tin roof that makes sleeping in past 7:30AM impossible. Out of obligation of not dying, I cannot stay in my house from 7:30AM to around 5PM. Some of people’s—including my own, too—best defenses against the sun are sitting on a straw mat under a shaded tree and sleeping. It might appear as though people are lazy, but I assure you, it’s probably just them submitting to the heat of the sun and recognizing that nothing can be done than to submit defeat and sit in one spot without moving until sunset. Heat rash, heat stroke, dehydration, daytime homelessness. Does my attitude stink because the sun is so hot I sometimes cannot think straight?

Yet another string.

This string, a descendent of the cultural material, comes from the “discrimination” spool. “MALUNGO!” I hear them yell. “Malungo” is dialect for “white person.” There’s an almost everyday battle of having to show people that although I’m “white,” I’m not this weird specimen that just oozed out of another planet. I should note that I think I’m winning the battle (yay!), but I’d be lying if I said this was easy. Does my attitude stink because I constantly have to justify that although I may be not African, I can still be a good, relatable person who wants to learn more about Moçambique?

They never end.

This string, a descendent of the health material, comes from the “accidents and health problems” spool.

Recently I had the misfortune of getting bit by a dog and having to get the rabies treatment. Soon after I had an almost brush with malaria and was having strong malaria symptoms. Thankfully it wasn’t that, but I couldn’t digest food properly for a while. Both were not fun. The health and feeling of normalness I take advantage of in America is not a luxury here. Does my attitude stink because I literally don’t feel like myself in terms of having good health?

The answer to all these questions is very, very, very simple.

Q) Does my attitude stink?

A) “Girl, your attitude does stink.”

Not only that, but it stinks to the high heavens. It stinks even worse than is fathomable; we all know there are way more falling strings that need tugging than this.

I write with humility when I say that Moçambique, although a beautifully stunning and bountifully rich country, has taken a toll on my attitude for better or worse. I find it difficult to be a good human being here—a human being who has the graces of patience, compassion, sympathy, understanding, and openness. I wish not to traverse over the ponds of what constituting a good person is or is not; I take it that we all intuitively can understand what practices are considered good and bad examples of human behavior without great philosophical tugging and debate. Moçambique has complicated my abilities to try to be a better person and continuously tests my patience. That said, I hope to swallow this next year of my life with a large glass of humility hoping that it gives me the nutrient rich subsistence of patience and magnanimity. May this glass take with it my attitude and, well, help me be a better, well-rounded human being. Here’s to trying our best, cheers!

Vignettes of the Odd

Today I went to a supermarket owned by a South African man that had free espresso shots for his customers waiting at the checkout line. People lovingly had the most arrayed of items tucked away in their baskets as they enjoyed the luxuries of living as people with money in the capital city—leeks, fresh goat cheese, tortillas, flax seeds, and smoked salmon. A beautifully tanned, primed woman adorned in Prada and immaculately bright painted toes and matching manicure casually looked over the selections of tofu. Smoked, fresh, or low fat? There I sat, mentally tucked in my delirium as I thought to myself, “Where am I? Because I’m certainly not in Moçambique!”

A woman collects mangoes from her tree next to her house made of straw with no solid floor to sleep on other than the floor of the earth itself. “Look at all these beautiful mangoes! Yes, this is certainly going to be a good holiday season,” she says to me. Yes, indeed it will be a good holiday season for her as a woman whose luxuries of life include securing for herself a basic meal of ground corn that she picked that morning alongside the equivalent of a 2-teaspoon serving size of green leaves for vegetables if she’s lucky. Her clothes are too small, too sun-washed, too torn, too old, too battered, too everything. Yet still, look at those mangoes! Her one mango tree outside my house is her sole source of income, the only means she has to acquire any money imaginable. She is not concerned about tofu, flax seeds, and smoked salmon, nor is she concerned about how she wishes both her manicure and pedicure be done in the brightest of turquoise colors. This has to be Mozambique.

She tells me, “People are going to the house because of the rat poison.” The what? Rat poison? As I sit quietly on my straw mat in one of the only shaded parts outside of my house, I see a screaming, chanting, and energized crowd barge down the road. I put my book down in silence, still unsure what to say and what is going on. Chanting. Singing. Praising. Yelling. My Portuguese stammers as my ability to comprehend is doubted. What about rat poison? Fire? What does this have to do with fire? Another neighbor of mine was tragically killed by another one of my neighbors less than 10 houses down. Rat poison was put into his beer, and he died tragically. He was 24. In an angry daze, my neighbors and locals in the market formed a riot and burned down all the straw houses of the alleged suspect who committed the crime. All the houses: burned. The concrete house to which the family was building: crushed to the ground with sledgehammers and hoes. After the burning, a woman, the mother of the household, sits in sheer depression, stirring her night’s dinner on a fire underneath a piece of tin she lodged against an existing wall that was left intact. She had nowhere to sleep. Everything was destroyed.

“Come on, Mims, just wait for me and we’ll head to Xai-Xai together,” says my neighbor and good friend. I sit under the shaded tree, waiting for her and absolutely loving that she already calls me “Mims,” just like how my friends do in the states. We go to the side of the road and wait for a chapa, or public mode of transportation in a vehicle that most resembles an American van. The chapa comes. People rush from all ends of the road and lunge their bodies into this tightly packed sardine box car, and in these moments I think it impossible that this large of an amount of human mass should fit into this space without defying some law of physics. No. Way. Am. I. Fitting. Myself. Into. This. Chapa. What happened? Yup, of course: I put myself into the chapa. As I lie across the top row of passengers, three Mozambicans squeeeeeeeeeze themselves into the car, and suddenly, I find myself, there, lying across a row of people, with three more people squished in between my legs. I stop and think that this is what it must be like to give birth—spread out across a bed (of people, that is), with not only one, but three, count them three, people coming out from in between my legs. Hilarious. Mozambique is just hilarious.

“Eu tenho direito de ficar e dormir com dez mulheres!” he screams. He what? Oh, he says he has the right to sleep with ten women at once. While I worry about the three sprouting bodies lodged between my legs as I slowly sink into a bed of human comforter in a moving sardine can, I think to myself out loud, “oh, Moçambique, you hilarious, hilarious country.” Men agree with him. Turns out, according to the democratic vote in the chapa, he does have the right, as a Mozambican man, to sleep with and date more than ten women. Is this Mozambique? What do the other men have to say?

“Mi-Mi, you know why women need to be guided by men? Why women are submissive and why they need to be taken care of? Why the man is stronger than the woman?” “I’ll tell you,” says a 26 year old most condescendingly. “Women,” he continues, “have 43 chromosomes and men 48, so women are genetically inferior and have less developed brains.” It’s times like this where I wish to have been born with perfect abilities to express, pronounce, and articulate every thought and sound in the Portuguese language. Clearly, men have some guidance, strength, and protection to provide for their fragile women.

Wait, though. I remove the box from the corner of my room in my straw and concrete house with windows that don’t shut and doors whose cracks at the bottoms aren’t really cracks; they’re wide tunnel openings for insects and large bugs with a sign above that says, “Vacant with free lodging”. I jump back and see a most upset scorpion perked and ready for battle. Oh dear. Should I kill it? No, it’s too big. That would be too messy and logistically terrifying. Ok, plan b. Put a bowl over it. Whew, situation under control. Wait. That’s scary. It’s obviously still there. Didn’t your mother tell you never to put a band-aid on a problem that requires a surgeon? Well, mine did. Ok, work up the courage. Yes, courage worked up. Portuguese 501 Verb book goes scorpion killer tool. In one fowl swoop “whack!” It’s dead. Finally, the terror is quelled. This place is terrifying.

SMS text: “PCVs in Gaza should pack emergency bags and prepare to evacuate to Maputo due to flooding.” O que? What? I’m going where? We’re doing what? Terror ensues yet again. Tens of thousands of people go misplaced. Large, main roads connecting the country and cities get cut off. Landlocked cities become conceptual islands with no promising means of transporting food and vital items as larger, more supplied cities get cut off due to flooding. Cities and valleys providing agricultural products watch their corn turn brown and die. Farms turn into oceans. Although hoes were once the main tools to maintain the land, hoes are now replaced with boats as people search around scrounging for whatever they can. Fifteen thousand crocodiles go loose from a South African farm and swim out into the main river flooding the surrounding areas of where I live in Mozambique. Crocodiles. Scorpions. Chromosomally defected women. Cheating men. Transportation. Riots. Poison. Mangoes. Tofu. Turquoise-colored manicures and pedicures. Poverty. Sun. Shade trees. Life. Service. Teaching. Attempting to love. Peace. Hope. Thought. Is this Moçambique?

Não sei. I just don’t know. Still, within the ins-and-outs of the lives of others and the encapsulated hilarity and vignettes of the odd, I just stand with my jaw wide open thinking about the richness of this country and the distinct situations of life I’ve been fortunate enough to experience here. “Where am I?” I think. “I’m certainly in Mozambique,” I think again, yet what this place is or could be for the next year is beyond my understanding. Welcome to life in Moçambique.

Related News Articles:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-21206347

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/26/world/africa/15000-crocodiles-escape-from-south-african-farm.html?_r=0

The Realizations and Lessons Learned of a Random Youngin’

In a measly, mere week, I will have tied the bow on the marvelous present of being a resident in the beautiful country of the Republic of Cape Verde. During this year, I taught 7th and 8th graders as a high school English as a Foreign Language teacher. I resided in an agricultural, rural valley on the island of São Nicolau with my wonderful roommate who has now moved to Namibia to help local artists create more successful business ventures.  On the 27th of September, I will start anew in Mozambique, continuing on with education and teaching.

To both usher in the newness of Mozambique and mourn the flourishing friendships and continuation of care in Cape Verde, here are the musings of a random youngin’, of that weird crazy who’s off on this nuts, larger-than-life experience. Here are my lessons learned and realizations after having lived abroad in the Republic of Cape Verde. I hardly consider myself someone who is worthy of offering my realizations, but in a time of closure, of moving on, nothing seems more appropriate than to reflect on one’s time in seriousness, and of course, with laughter and a light heart.

LL: Lesson Learned
R: Realization
*Note: a lot of these are LL and R, just labeled as one or the other.

LL: Better to feel awkward in a new, uncomfortable situation than to not take advantage of the situation at all.

R: Never underestimate the usefulness and efficacy of a good plastic bag.

R: Flashlights rock.

LL: Just because Cape Verdeans can climb mountains in flip-flops does not mean you can.

LL: Teaching is the hardest thing I’ve ever done.

R: Being shy never got anyone anywhere.

LL: If you have a knife, bucket, and a beach scarf, you can do ANYTHING!

R: I am a very reserved person, and as a result of this, I can harm friends and family unintentionally by not opening up. To those I love, I’m working on this, but in the mean time, thank you for still supporting and loving me.

LL: When in doubt, don’t drink the water.

LL: Relationships, platonic and romantic, are the hardest, most rewarding existing thing people can experience.

R: “Wow, I CAN hike after all!”

R: A new chapter in one’s life does not mean the abandonment of one’s culmination of experiences in the past; instead, it is an interesting, invigorating addition to the fabrication of a more diverse, educated, and well-rounded person. Personally, being outside the scope of academia has been a huge struggle as I battle to cling onto my past education. Letting go of this paradigm and instead viewing my time here abroad as an addition to my education has been one of the more difficult experiences I’ve been through.

R: America is a very, very odd place.

LL: Being an American woman gets a person into all kinds of weird marriage proposals and “conquistador”/”apaixonado”-type experiences. Don’t confuse men’s motives. You may be beautiful, but that passport, muito bonito, ne? Cuidado, ladies of the U S of A.

R: Mmmmm, goat is actually quite tasty. Why don’t people eat this in the U.S.?

R: I never will be able to walk on uneven rock surfaces like Cape Verdeans can. It’s just not in the cards for me. Dangit!

LL: Small talk goes long distances.

LL: Purposely put yourself in embarrassing, uncomfortable situations with locals to learn the language. You will not regret it, and that’s a promise.

LL: Life long friends are everywhere; just take the time to realize this.

LL: If you have salad on your plate, EAT ALL THE SALAD!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Oh those dear precious greens…

LL: BE PATIENT. It will all turn out fine in the end. Seriously.

R: I can’t imagine anything in the world that would help a person better realize who they are than taking their world, i.e. their culture, language, and family/friends., out from under their personhood. To those that wish to know themselves deeply, I highly recommend living abroad.

LL: Be careful where you step in a farm. You never know what lurks there.

R: The Atlantic Ocean is very salty!

LL: The accidental eating of an ant never hurt anyone.

Como Matar Porcos

Ladies and Gentlefellow of the Mundo,

I know you’ve wondered on those late nights, on those star-studded, brilliantly speckled nights where the universe takes itself with force to dig deep into one’s girth as one breathes the fresh dew of a summer’s eve at eight at night. I know—you’ve wondered. You keep awake as you ask yourself life’s most perplexing questions:

Q) “Is there a God?”

Q) “What is the meaning of love?”

Q) “Does the rule of universal substantiation in first order logic, where one establishes a characteristic for one object and universalizes it to all objects even make deductive sense?”

Q) “Why is macaroni and cheese so good?”

Q) “What ever happened to Dave Chapelle, anyway?”

and…

Here’s the real question that keeps us up at night, the one that creates such magnificence in our curious minds that we prefer to put down our Shakespeare and instead dedicate our wholehearted attention to this very question:

Q) “How do I kill a pig?”

An excellent question. Look at the succinctness of those words, less than 10! We’ve all wondered. And here we are, Shakespeare on the bed-stand, in complete doubt biting our fingernails.

Have no fear, ladies and gentlefellow. I am here to take all doubt from your minds. Follow me along the informative journey, along the path where few have taken, along the path Shakespeare would take himself I’m sure, along The Road Not Taken.

Follow me along the path of how to kill a pig. For your viewing pleasure and the next time you need to pull a Bear Grylls, here for you is how to kill a pig. You’re welcome.

Step 1: The Killing

Well, in order to kill a pig I’m guessing you all knew this was coming. Insert a knife into the pig’s neck. The pig will violently, and I mean violently, scream for about 2 whole minutes. The loud, low-toned groan coupled with a screaming shrill ought be recorded for wanna-be hardcore bands; I’m sure it would improve their…well, hopefully it would improve something. Wait until about 5 cups of blood leave the pig’s neck and until the pig stops moving. Check the eyes for death.

Here the men cut the pig’s throat and collect the blood, thus killing the pig.

Step 2: The Plugging

Plug the neck wound with whatever you have. Here we’ve used bark of a banana tree. You don’t want that delicious blood to exit. If not, how else would you make pig blood sausage? Duh, people! In the mean time, get gasoline, and lots of it.

The pig plugged with banana tree bark, ready to be lit on fire.

Step 3: The Lighting

A) GASOLIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINE! The roof, the roof, the roof (I mean, “pig”) is on fire! Douse the pig with gasoline and light it on fire. The purpose is to take all hair from the pig’s body in that the skin is used to make bacon. Eating a hairy pig just isn’t desirable, so go ahead and take all that off via burning the hair.

B) After the pig is sufficiently burned, scrub it with jagged rocks to remove the outer skin layer and excess burned part. Clean off with water.

The pig lit on fire

The charred pig that is being roughly rubbed with rocks to take off the top layer of skin

Step 4: The Cutting (Cortando)

Cut the pig open from the genitals up. Cut through the fat but be sure not to puncture the organs. You will insert your knife into the intestines, so cuidado, ok? Cut the pig open to the mouth. Don’t be shy. Get in there with your hands and open that guy up. You will see steam exit its body due to its hot body temperature. Yup, a fresh kill alright.

Watch as the senhor cuts the pig open from the intestines up

Didn’t see where and how you need to cut? Here for you is a detailed picture.

Step 5: The Removing

Ok, there are several elements of importance here. Cut the tongue from the mouth and cut out the esophageal tract. You will pass the heart, lungs, etc. Cut those out and set them aside in a bowl. Those are good eats, so cut those into bite-sized pieces for later. Now you are at the intestines and stomach. Literally scoop everything out (see picture below), cutting where necessary, and put all that into a large bowl or bin. Parabens, you have now cleaned the cavity. How do you feel?

Here you can see the tongue hanging from the man’s hand at the end, along with the throat until the lungs, which are lighter pink fleshed organs.

You see what I mean when I say literally scoop EVERYTHING out? I meant it.

Step 6: The Skinning and De-legging

Skin the entire pig, leaving all fat intact in order to make bacon. Cut the desirable cuts of meat, such as the ribs and loin; put aside in a large bowl in order to dissemble into bit-sized pieces for eating with the lungs and heart. After all meat from the sides of the pig is gone, alongside de-skinning, cut the legs off.

Cutting the legs and prime cuts

Step 7: The Whacking

As you can see, you’re left with the skin for bacon and the head with spine and outer meat intact. I myself tend to think the head and spine sort of look a little bit like a seahorse, don’t you? This is where it gets pretty messy. Essentially, you’re going to chop the spine up and the head open into large pieces, about the size of my hand. People use these cuts for soups and stews.

Seahorse

Pretty graphic, I know, but you can’t have a Step 7 entitled “The Whacking” without there being, well, crazy whacking!

Step 8: The Salting (Salgado)

Bacon’s salty, right? Right. Ok, so now we’re going to grab a huge bag of salt and liberally apply rock salt to the skin and some of the large-boned meat cuts, such as the head and spine.

Ok, we’re finished! Now we clean up, cut the bacon bits into smaller pieces to cure, put all the meat bits in a safe space for curing, and wash the area where the pig was killed. Voila!

Wasn’t that easy and informative? Don’t you already feel prepared to go hiking with Bear Grylls? Also, blood sausage, heart, and lungs: doesn’t that sound delicious? Now, here we sit—after having put aside life’s more important questions about macaroni and cheese and God—with the answer to life’s seemingly most important question, which is none other than how to kill a pig.

Next time, then, someone asks, “Hey, Fred, how do you kill a pig?”

You can answer, “First, my name isn’t Fred, and come with me on a journey of 8 easy steps and I’ll tell you.”