Home Sweet Home

As I mentioned before, this year I have a new roommate, Pam. And because of my wonderful new roommate, we decided to redecorate our entire house. So here it is, in picture form, even though I know this will lower the amount of Peace Corps street cred I get..... By alot.

First, my beautiful new bedroom:

Things to note: a fan held together by a chair and duct tape, the mosquito net over my bed, the bed sheets made from bulk capulana, and some lovely notes from you on the "bulletin board"

You can't find white paint, but you can find chalkboard paint. Weird, i know. Also, a painting I got at Victoria Falls

My mirror has a problem staying on the wall.

The living room:

Dinning room table and cool elephant capulana (plus a peak at our orange kitchen)

Guest bed and bookshelf

front door

And the kitchen:
I couldn't get any decent pictures of the finished product, but here is with us painting it a beautiful orange, because how many times in your life do you get to have an orange kitchen?

Yes, thats a paint roller attached to a very long piece of bamaboo.

Love from,
Steph

A Mozambican funeral

Monday was met with tough news: the daughter of my school director was dead.

I had never met the girl (a girl even though she had died in childbirth, as so many women here do) but because her mother was my neighbor and friend I found myself jammed in a car with a bunch of other professors and a few of their wives on Wednesday heading into the city for my first Mozambican funeral. 

The first thing that I noticed about this funeral was that it was not at a funeral home. Instead, what looked like every person for 10 square miles had descended on the house of the grieving family. Outside, men wandered about. None wore black, but were instead vested in a rainbow of colors. This was nothing compared to the beautifully patterned capulanas that all the women (including me) were wearing (this is a sad post, but I do want to proudly mention that my capulana did not once fall during the entire proceedings, which, trust me, is quite the accomplishment).  Luckily, one of the wives took me under her wing and lead me inside. After taking off our shoes, we entered the main living room, which was completely full of women silently sitting on the ground and staring at a long coffee table covered in candles and flowers in front of the door.  It was completely silent. There was no cry, no whispering, no clandestine moving around on the hard concrete floor. Just complete silence. Somehow, my guide managed to find a trail for us through the sea of women to the back of the room. There, I saw not everyone was sitting, but the “chief mourners,” the girl’s mother and sisters were lying on a thin foam mattress, covered in blankets and capulanas, despite the summer heat that left me sweating wearing only a t-shirt and shorts under my capulana. As we approached, there was movement for the first time as the women slowly sat up. And then, as we kneeled down next to them, they released the most primal and heartbreaking wail. I wish there was a better word for it than wail. That is no fit way to describe the sound of pure pain and emotion that these women were making. It was almost as if this sound of loss had traveled down through the millennium from the first mother who had lost her child all the way to 2013. The women wailed, and the director’s wife grabbed me and clung to me, shaking screaming “my daughter, my daughter” over and over.

After about a minute, we were released and the other women somehow made room for us among them.

Once again there was silence.

Every now and then more women would arrive and the wailing would commence again, setting off the motherless newborn in the next room.

After an indeterminate amount of time, the other women started moving and shifting and by some apparently secret signal, about half of them stood up. All I could do was watch from where I was shoved in a corner next to a cabinet.

Then I realized that they were bringing the coffin into the room. It was horrible to watch. The women were screaming, and the coffin didn’t really fit through the small doorway so the men had to shove and push and pull to get it in. I had a horrible vision of the body tumbling out, but luckily  the premonition turned out to be false.

I then learned that this was an open casket funeral. Well. Kinda. There aren’t any chemicals for school labs, much less embalming, so everything was covered with a sheet. This was followed by a pastor and many men crowding into the already over crowded room filled with women half screaming and half singing songs in the local language. Needless to say I was lost. Then the priest uttered my favorite line of the day. “Woman, shut up. There will be lots of time to cry later. The men need to hear me talk to God. Woman. Stop crying.”

Lets do a recap of the scene,

There is me, the only foreigner in a sea of Mozambican woman, sitting on approximately 5 square inches of concrete floor squished between a cabinet, a wall, and three very large and very loud wailing women as I try desperately not to stare at the corpse only a few feet away from me. Above the wailing of both the women surrounding me and the newborn next door, I hear eerie and heartbreaking singing in a language I have no hope of understanding and a priest treating the dead girl’s mother like an insolent child in a language that I kind of understand. Even if there was enough room for me to stand up and run out of the room, I wouldn’t be able to because there has been no circulation in my legs for the past 2 hours.

There have been many times that I have been sad, loney, depressed, homesick, ect in Mozambique, but that moment, right then, is the first time that I truly wanted to give up on this country and go home.

Finally, it was over. We left the sweltering room, the coffin behind us. Many people stuffed themselves into various pick-up trucks with the coffin, while the rest of us walked about a mile to the grave yard where the entire company stood scattered in whatever shade we could find. I couldn’t really see or hear what was going on. The coffin was lowered and then each man in attendance took turns shoveling dirt into the hole (there is no machinery to do such work here).

When everything was done, we made the return trek back to their house. I went down the line, shaking hands and giving my condolences. There was food provided, but instead my Peace Corps boss drove me back to the office, where I was able skype with my Mom and Brother. The only acceptable ending to the day.

Love from,

Steph

Culture Clash

Every now and then for no discernable reason (at least to the Mozambicans who surround me) I turn into a blathering idiot, or a crazy person. It’s really not that (though I won’t deny that sometimes it is) but rather a clash of cultures. Let me elaborate. It’s not just a clash of cultures, it is the slow building up of events. Then there is something that happens, usually something fairly inconsequential, that breaks the camel’s back.  Like on one of my adventure: it was a horrible day of travel, the bus was late and took too long, the only food was crackers and meat that we were too scared to touch. People made fun of us and harassed us the entire trip. But my breaking point? When we had to pay the taxi driver up front and wait in an hour long line to get gas because he didn’t have the money to fill up the tank before we paid him. It still makes me irrationally angry writing about it now.

This time, it was more of a slow burn, or at least it started out that way.  One of the smartest kids in school, Adelino, came over to ask for help.  Well, it was a two part request. First he asked if we had any work he could do. After a load of laundry, he refused to take the money, but instead asked that I give it to the school secretary. You see, he needed a piece of paper saying that he had passed 11^th grade (a report card essentially). He had asked for it months ago, but because he hadn’t had the appropriate “fee” and didn’t want to annoy someone who could “accidentally” fail him, he didn’t push it further. That’s what the crazy American girl is for. (Anger at Mozambique- level 2, frustrated by not surprised)

So I went to the school. But the secretary had already left for “lunch.” So I went back twice more. By the time I found him, it was too close to the end of the day, so I would have to come back tomorrow.

The next day I went back. I gave them Adelino’s name and said what he needed. They looked at me blankly. “He needs a report card”

*blank stares*

“A report card”

*another blank stare*

“Reeeee-poooooort caaaaard!”

*slight snickering* “Oh! A report card.” (Anger level- 4)

The secretary then looked around for 0.25 seconds and found the paper he needed. He wrote in the name. Then looked at me blankly yet again. He needed all of Adelino’s personal details: birthday, birthplace ect. I know that that information is on record. He knows I know. But he wanted a “fee.”  (Anger level- 5) So, in the proper fashion that I learned watching American High School movies, I grabbed the paper and walked out in a huff. 

That time there were stunned blank stares.

Luckily for me, Adelino was sitting on my porch reading an English book and occasionally asking Pam or me for help. I gave the form to him to fill out.  The idea of doing that seemed to cross no one’s mind. 

I then marched back up to the secretary’s office. Word must have gotten out that the American was being crazy, because there was a group of teachers trying to inconspicuously hang around the office door.

I put the form on the table. Now all that needed to happen was that the chief secretary needed to sign it. That, apparently, cost 100mts. Which is the cost of tuition for the entire year. Whatever, rules were rules. I said I would pay when I got the completed form. Of all the things I had said and done that day, apparently that was the most ridiculous. How would the chief secretary sign something if he didn’t have his bribe beforehand? (I know it doesn’t make much sense, but I feel like if you pay beforehand it’s a bribe, whereas if you pay afterwards, it’s a fee. At least that is how I am able to rationalize my decaying moral standards). But I insisted. I would not pay. Not till I have the completed form in my hand. Adelino had already paid once months ago and had absolutely nothing to show for it.  I promised the (I now learned) under-secretary that I would check in on him the next day. I wish I had brought a camera to capture the completely floored look on his face. The idea that not only would I not pay a bribe, but that I wanted the signature the next day was completely foreign.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get to check in the next day. What was supposed to be a quick 2 hour trip into the city to turn in some forms turned into a disaster that ended with Pam and I using our hard saved vacation money to stay in a hotel due to a ride home that was “delayed” 4 hours and a plethora of drunk taxi drivers. Regardless, we got home the next day (Anger at Mozambique level- 7) and I went to go check on the form. It was in the exact same place as 2 days ago.

And the chief secretary was gone. Apparently he would return in a week and a half. Adelino needed this form tomorrow. For some reason, this is what broke me. I looked the under secretary in the eye (or at least tried to, he refused to make eye contact) and said some things in English that my parents would not be proud of. I then, as regally as I could took the paper once again. I considered tearing it up, but that would be counterproductive. I said the paper was mine, gave him the outrageous “printing charge,” and marched out.

I spent the next two hours trying to track down the school director, who it turned out was taking a nap. Sure, the chief secretary was supposed to sign the form, but I figured the school director would work just as well.  I found him and convinced him to sign the form (I’m pretty sure the cake I had given him earlier in the week was a significantly higher contribution to the signature then the pleas of indignation). All that was left was a stamp (I don’t know why, but every official document must be stamped in Mozambique). The office was still open so I went looking through all the drawers and bookshelves for the stamp. At this point, I was going to get this paper signed, stamped and delivered or leave Mozambique forever in a rush of frustration and despair. The stakes were high.

And I couldn’t find the stamp.

Eventually I went back to the school director and asked if he had the keys for the chief secretary’s office, because I was convinced he had put the stamp there so I couldn’t get it.  The school director then gave me a lecture on how everyone here was lazy, and refused to do their work, ect. ect. Twenty minutes later, he finally agreed to open the door for me. As if to convince me that he was not one of those lazy non-workers he had just complained about, he himself went through the office, found the stamp (in under 30 seconds) and stamped the paper.

Apparently the cost of this was another cake, and possibly 3,000 mets to fix his car. I’m pretty sure he was joking.

But he probably wasn’t.

Love from,

Steph

Matapa with Telma

A couple of weeks ago, we made our first meal straight from the garden. Our friend Telma helped us. And by helped I mean did most of the work while we attempted to not be in the way.

First Telma picked things out of the garden. When I asked her what she was choosing, she said "leaves and beans." I was not allowed to help with this part. 

The "beans" that telma picked.

The beans were then shelled and the leaves cut into small strips.

And this is a picture of Telma being traumatized by the Hobbit. I suspect the goblins and trolls caused nightmares

The leaves and beans are then put in a pot to boil for a bit.

 

 Meanwhile, I am permitted to cut the onions.

The onions, peanut powder, and some spices are then added to the mixture.

 

 Wait, stir, and serve!

Bom appatiet!

Love from,

Steph

Stephanie vs. the Creepy Crawlies

Creepy crawlies are a part of life here, much more than in the states. And there is no frost to kill them, so the little vermin never die or leave. To make it significantly more fun, I’ve started keeping score, with them earning a point every time I am scared to enter my own house, and me earning one every time I kill one.

Let’s just say I’m winning J

I’ll start with my (somewhat) honorable defeats. The first was last July with the rats. My room mate ended up kidnapping a cat before we would re-enter the house. The second was more recent. 

The other day after school I was standing on the back porch getting ready to go inside when I hear Pam curse. I ask what’s wrong and move to go inside until she tells me it’s a spider. A MASSIVE spider.

Truthfully, I have no idea how big this spider was because I refused to enter the house. I don’t like spiders. You try reading The Hobbit and the second Harry Potter book the same year and not develop a phobia. I dare you.

Anyways, I refused to enter the house. So I went next door to the director’s house and asked his wife Laura for help. The conversation went exactly like this.

Me: Senhora, could you help me?

Her: Of course! What do you need?

Me: There is a spider in the house; can you kill it for me?

Her: Why can’t you?

Me: I am very very afraid of spiders.

Her: But you are not scared of dogs?

Me: No. I like dogs. I am scared of spiders

(There were about five rounds of this before the idea that I could be scared of spiders but not of dogs could be grasped.)

Her: Okay. Let me get a broom.

I lead her to the door, but still refused to go inside. I know I made the right choice when Pam showed her the spider, high up on the ceiling where the roof meets the wall, and SHE made a little scream.  There was a lot of sounds and the beating of the broom before I heard the word –fugiou- which means, it escaped. I was half way over our fence before I thought to ask where it escaped to. 

It had escaped outside. I quickly made my way inside. We then sprayed the area with so much Bygone (the local brand of insect killer) in the general area that it was about a week before the air in the living room was safe to breathe.

I then immediately went to my bedroom and tucked my mosquito net under my mattress so that no spiders could get in. You see, there is no visible way for this massive spider to go from the inside to the outside of the house. This leaves me only two options: it has secret passage ways in the walls or it can apparate.  Either way, my mosquito net has the same protective spells as Hogwarts, so nothing can apparate in or out. And there aren’t any secret passage ways- I checked.

And a quick list of some of my many victories.

-          A big ugly (most likely poisonous) centipede that refused to be killed by a shoe so I had to use a University chemistry text book to smash it

-          Bats. Including one that ended up in the dish water and I initially tried to use as a sponge before killing it and giving it to the cat to eat

-          I destroyed the making of what we were fairly certain was the beginnings of a wasp nest on the front porch. Sure, I won’t break down the mud bird nest in the same place and they will probably start dive bombing us soon, but what can I say.

-          The cockroach that I squished that had climbed up my jeans. Yes, this means that it was squished between my leg and my pants. Just because I took a shower immediately after does not mean that it’s not in the victory column. Though to this day I shake out my clothes before I put them on to make sure there are no creepy crawlies inside.

-          And just to reiterate, and not seem like a wimp, I have killed a lot of bats. My record is 5 in a week. Don’t worry we have a call in. But you see, Home Depot is swamped this time of year.

Love from,

Steph

Mangoes, Mangoes, Mangoes

It is a sad day in Cookie-town. Mango season is over. In honor of its passing I present to you a blog post all about Mangoes, the best food on earth.


While mango season officially begins the end of October/ beginning of November, you can start to see the treasures growing on the trees as early as September.

When the mangoes are ripe (or sometimes even while they are still green) kids knock them down with sticks and slingshots.

The mangoes are then brought to the market and sold on the street. You know you are a true Peace Corps veteran when you can select one that is neither slightly unripe and thus very sour nor slightly over-ripened and thus so stringy that it takes 20 minutes of flossing to get it out of your teeth.

After the mangoes are safely bought and in the house, you have to decide how to prepare your mangoes. The easiest way is to eat them raw (after bleaching them for a few minutes). The best way to do this is to cut the mango into cubes and then freeze it. Just in case you were wondering, every time you have seen someone on tv eat a mango, it is a lie. It is absolutly impossible to eat a mango without getting it ALL over your face. Just saying.

If you aren't in the mood for raw mango (because you have already eaten 20 this week) there are other options.

1. Mango ice cream

2. Mango Jam

3. Mango Salsa (as seen by the pretty dishware, this was made at the missionaries house)

4. Mango Brucheta (basically the same as mango salsa, but with out the fancy spices and on bread because we are too lazy to make chips.

5. Mango pasta sauce (it looks gross, but is SO good)

6. Mango crisp (the African version of apple pie)

7. And its lesser known cousin, mango turnovers (because making another pie crust was just too hard)

8. Various forms of mango chuney

And that is how you eat mangoes!

Love from,
Steph

Snapshots of our time off

Yes, as PCVs the majority of our time is spent doing our jobs: teaching, secondary projects such as English theater and Science fair, and simply taking care of ourselves by handwashing clothes, keeping the house clean, cooking ect. But we do have some free time. Here are three snapshots of what that looks like:

Campfire

There hasn’t been any electricity for days now. Long enough that I am worried that my site may officially become a “no energy site” which, when I signed up for Peace Corps is exactly what I  expected, but now my only goal in life in to sleep with a fan pointed directly at my face. Tonight though, it is okay. Pam just got a care package with all the ingredients to make s'mores.  We have been looking forward to this all day, sneaking glances out of the corner of our eyes at the bag of marshmallows sitting on the counter, but we have waited till it is dark so we are guaranteed to stay up past 6:45 tonight. She works on the charcoal (there isn’t actually enough wood to make a campfire) and I start out into the wilderness armed only with my flashlight to find us marshmallow roasting sticks. It is short work, and I return to the porch triumphant.  In the background music is playing, The Beatles leaching the last of the power from my ipod and giving it to the small speakers that are telling me all that I need is love. We sing along, turning the flashlight off every now and then to disperse what appears to be all the mosquitoes in province which are drawn to the only artificial light in miles. If only there were no clouds, the stars must be beautiful. We roast our marshmallows (well, I roast and Pam tries every method possible to set hers on fire) then squish them on to broken gram crackers covered in nutella. So, its not a perfect s’more, or a perfect campfire, but as we laugh and sing, eating our imperfect creations, it is a good night.

Pit-Stop

Sometimes in life you stop, look around you, and wonder how you got here. Here I am, standing under a tree, on the side of a dirt road sweating in the noon sun. We had told the boys that we would be there by 11, but it turns out that the chapa driver didn’t agree with our plans, and now I am half way between Cookie-Town and the town out in the bush where Tony and his new roommate Ari live. The car is about ten feet off the road, stuck in the soft sand as it attempted to back up to a house to pick up “a few things.”  The people who were with us on the truck have become acclimated to the presence of two Americans, but still give us plenty of space in the expanse of the tree’s shade. To the tiny villages inhabitants, however, we are still novelties. The village children, in dirty and tattered clothes, form a viewing gallery about 5 feet away. Every time we move, they change position so that their protective barrier remains intact. We haven’t moved too much recently though, so most are sitting and staring. They don’t even talk amongst themselves, just in case the newcomers know their language. I’m chewing on the last bit of my sugar cane, the only snack available at our unplanned pit stop. The sugar cane isn’t ripe yet though, so instead of sugar water, chewing the fibrous plant yield only the taste of unripen bananas. The sugar cane was hard to peal, and we had to do it ourselves with a pocket knife, since none of the small children wielding machetes were brave enough to approach us.  So here I am.  On the side of a road in Africa, sweating in the shade of a tree, the exhaust of the immovable truck in my nose, stared at by children, the taste of unrippened banana that refuses to leave. I am heading to the house of someone I didn’t even know last September, who I can’t imagine being in Africa without,  after a week of attempting to teach Mozambician 9^th graders how to conjugate verbs. My family is thousands of miles away, along with my home and the rest of my life. What am I doing here?

Before I can become to introspective, the afternoon heat driving me to pessimism, I am interrupted by swift curses.  Pam has cut her finger while trying to peal the sugar cane. In a spectacular fashion, as only Cookie-town girls can do, blood is everywhere. Within ten seconds everything is under control and I am tying a piece of capulana around the finger. Our audience doesn’t know if they should be concerned about the injury or amused because the silly white girls don’t know how to eat sugar cane properly. But now it is funny. “What are we doing here?” I laugh as we throw aside the bloody, disregarded sugar cane. Soon the truck will free itself and we will make our way into the bush, a whole other misadventure involving pizza, corn flour and alcoholic dog treats waiting for us.

But hey, at least for now we have a great view.

Guest Star

After school, I am tired. Sure I only work 12:30 till 5:30 but trust me, it is enough.  By the time I get back in the house and throw my school things aside, I am done. The transition from pants to shorts is made as well as an attempt at dinner. If I am feeling energetic, maybe I’ll make caramelized onions and pasta with some of the spices from my care packages. Or like tonight, I’ll just open a can of tuna and mix in whatever vegetables we have to make a sandwich.  In cookie-town the evening entertainment, or at least the entertainment when electricity decides to make an appearance, is television on the computer.  Tonight we have elected on a more intense show, Homeland, suggested by our boss (okay. Upon revision this isn’t funny until you know two things. 1. President Obama is technically our boss 2. In a magazine passed around Peace Corps he admitted to watching and enjoying the show). We are watching intensely, trying to keep up with who is crazy, who is traitorous, and what movie the main girl is from. Then something drops from the ceiling onto the table. Neither of us flinches. A few seconds pass.

“What was that?” I ask distractly still trying to see if I can understand any of the Arabic (I can’t)

Pam looks around behind the computer. “A lizard”

“Oh”

It takes us a few minutes to admire the ridiculousness of the situation. 

Love from,

Steph