Are Africans lazy or Americans crazy?

There is a fisherman in a small coastal town in Mozambique. Every morning he wakes up early and goes fishing. After he catches three large fish he goes to the market and sells two of them, and uses that money to buy the things his family will need that day. The third fish he keeps for his family to eat. It doesn’t matter that there are more fish in the ocean, and that he could probably sell more if he wanted to. The point is that he doesn’t need to. After selling the two fish, he goes home and takes a nap.

There is a businessman in urban America. He works twelve hours a day at a stressful job with a complicated title that no one understands. He doesn’t remember which of his children play which sports, and he has no idea what subjects they like at school. He talks to his wife in person for ten minutes a day. He buys iPads and giant TVs and expensive clothes and luxury cars and other things he doesn’t need to make his family think that they’re happy and have a good life.

Malawi

Malawi!!

I had an amazing trip to Malawi last week! I went with three other volunteers, one of which is dating a rather wealthy Portuguese/Mozambican who has a car. The first night there we went to the lake and stayed at a really nice resort, which the wealthy boyfriend had arranged, but turned out to be more expensive than he had thought, so we were planning on leaving the next day. Coincidently, there was a video/camera crew coming the day after to make some videos/brochures promoting tourism in Malawi, and the owners of the resort needed some people to model and be interviewed. So they gave us a great deal: 75% off lodging and food, and FREE water activities, as long as they could take pictures/video us. We accepted!

First water activity: snorkeling. Lake Malawi is full of an endemic fish called the Cichlid, and other types of fish. Snorkeling tip: take a piece of bread with you, and tons of fish will come super close to eat out of your hand. Second water activity: sunset yacht cruise. They have a yacht called Mufasa, and the first night we were there was cloud-free, so we went out on the lake the see the sun set from the water. It was so beautiful, and free champagne was included! Mufasa has two bathrooms, a full kitchen with a fully stocked bar, and sleeps 10 people. Third water activity: kayaking. There’s an island not too far off the shore, so we kayaked our way there and back. Fourth water activity: water skiing. They have a “training bar” to teach people how to water ski. It stick off the side of the boat so you can practice first before going out on the rope. I successfully learned, and realized that water skiing is a lot more tiring than difficult. Fifth water activity: sailing acrobatics. I didn’t know really what I was getting myself into when they asked me to do this, but it was awesome! First, I got all suited up in a wet suit with these water-shoe boots. Then they gave me a giant diaper-looking harness to put on around my waist/legs, and we were off to the sailboat. There I attached a hook on the boat to my harness, which meant that I could lean out over the water as we sailed along. What with the wet suit and flying over the water, I kind of felt like a super hero off on a mission. We later decided that my super hero name would be “Flying Bass,” and that my mission, for example, could be that there’s another sailboat that was having problems, and I had to fly out there to give them supplies/help, and then we elaborated even more that there could be a baby on the other sailboat that I had to go save. We presented this idea to the owners, to make this movie and have it be part of the video, but for unstated reasons they opted not to take advantage of our brilliant creativity.

In addition to water activities, they also had various games, including Scrabble, a pool table, and a trampoline! I’m happy to report that I still know how to do flips. The room had hot showers, fluffy pillows, warm comforters (it was winter there, and it got cold at night), hair dryers, full-length mirrors, and were so clean. And the food! Beautifully arranged fruit plates, bacon, pancakes, yogurt, jasmine tea, burritos, chicken, avocado, chick peas, pasta, three-course dinners with chocolate cake, lemon pie, fish cakes, yum yum yum!! And we got along really well with the owners and the other staff there, they all gave us hugs goodbye when we left. I’m now considering the idea of working at a resort in Brasil next year, or in Argentina or Chile.

After we left the lake, we wanted to go to an animal reserve, but, as often happens in Africa, there was an unforeseen complication: Malawi ran out of gas. About a month or two ago, the Malawian president kicked out the British ambassador, who promptly withdrew all funding from Britain to Malawi (which was about 20% of the national budget) and cancelled Malawi’s foreign exchange, thus Malawi ran out of money (all public workers haven’t been paid since), and couldn’t buy gas. We waited in line for almost 5 hours trying to get gas the day we wanted to leave, but could manage to. The next day the boyfriend was able to get just enough gas for us to make it to the border, but I think he ended up paying the equivalent of about $15/gallon. (Just to give you an idea how much that actually is in Africa, my Peace Corps stipend comes down to about $7.50/day.) The five hours spent waiting in line for gas was supposed to be spent going in to Blantyre, the largest city in the south, to get some souvenirs, which we were unfortunately not able to do. But, despite not seeing the reserve and not getting souvenirs, we had a great trip!

I must say though, that hearing the Malawians speak English makes me very worried about the quality of my Portuguese. It was very difficult to understand many of them, and I seriously hope that Mozambican Portuguese is much more similar to Portugal’s than Malawian English is to Britain’s. We did find out that apparently in Malawi, much schooling is done in the national Bantu language, and not so much in English, so hopefully that’s why.

And about the video/pictures, I’m not sure if they’re online for general viewing or what, but if I find out I’ll post the site.

Anecdotes

The unit I’m currently on with my students is about drugs and alcohol. I wrote a text about the effects of drinking, and I mentioned that many countries prohibit selling alcohol to people under a certain age. In Mozambique, the drinking age is technically 18, but that is not enforced at all, and parents often send 10-year-olds to go buy them alcohol. The students thought it was hilarious that in the US you have to show your ID to buy alcoholic beverages. But what if you forget it? But what if you don’t have an ID? But what if you’re already really drunk and you can’t go to the store yourself, what do you mean you can’t send your kids? They thought I was lying when I said that a store will deny selling you alcohol if you don’t have an ID.

In a past unit at school, the topic was literature. I decided to teach the students about limericks and similes. It was a big hit! I gave them the assignment to write similes, and here are some of the best ones I got:
I’m black like charcoal. I’m black like the blackboard. He is bad like Bin Laden. Sambo is strong like David Beckham. (suck up!) Eduardo is smart like a computer. (written by Eduardo, a slightly egotistical student) He was as short as a chicken. This boy is as polite as Jesus.

Sambo has a really adorable neighbor who is about 2 years old. The other day his mom bought him his first pair of shoes, and it was hilarious to watch this kid try to walk in shoes for the first time in his life. Barefoot he walks normally, but with shoes he would pick his left foot up really high, and then drag the right foot. And he looked at his feet the entire time. I think he was having trouble balancing because of the toes being enclosed or something. It made me think of the servant in the movie “The Birdcage.”

In the US we often hear of the terrible working conditions and low wages in Malaysia and elsewhere. I’m sorry to report that I participate in the exploitation of poverty to get cheap labor. I have a guy here that I pay to wash clothes, wash dishes, cart water, and do various other tasks. On average, he probably spends about 1-1.5 hours working for me per day, so let’s say 40 hours per month. Each month I pay him 400 meticals, which means that he makes 10 meticals per hour, which is about 30cents per hour, and $13 per month. He has a wife and 4 kids.

Description: Houses

Most houses in Mozambique are made of local materials. In the north, a typical house is made of mud blocks with a thatched roof. To get the blocks, you dig a hole next to where you want to build a house to get your mud. This way you don’t have to transport the blocks, and you have a nice trash pit for when the house is finished. You mix the mud with a little bit of water and put it in rectangular (brick-shaped) molds to form the blocks. Then you let the blocks sit in the sun for a few days. To construct your house, you dig a small trench about 8 inches deep for the foundation, including the outer and inner walls. To lay the blocks, you start at the corners and work your way out, making a sort of step-pyramid at each corner that grows with each additional layer of blocks. To hold the blocks together mud is used. Sticks and string are also used in this process to guarantee that the walls are being built straight, both horizontally and vertically. When you want to leave space for windows or doors, you can put bamboos across the top to support the blocks above the space.
A typical house is about 15 feet wide and 30 feet long, in my estimation. It will include the main living room, two bedrooms, and a dispensary, which can be used as a kitchen, or another bedroom. Each of these four rooms will be based in one of the corners of the house. (The cooking is done outside, and meals are usually eaten outside as well.) It will usually have two doors, each exactly in the middle of the 30-foot walls, positioned such that if both are left open you can see directly through the house. If the house is made with just one door, you may not later knock out blocks to make a second door. If you do, someone in your family will die. It will have either three or four windows, all on the 30-foot walls. The 15-foot walls never have windows. An average house of this type will have about 7 people living in it.
Roofs are angled in the typical manner that one might imagine, with sloping sides that peak in the middle of the 15-foot walls. To make the roof, you first lay a tight grid of bamboos. Then, if you can afford it, (which most people can), you use rolls of what resembles trash-bag plastic or a very flimsy tarp to cover the bamboos. On top of that, you put roof thatch, which looks pretty much like straw, or like dried reed-grasses. Then, so the thatch doesn’t blow away, you cover it with a widespread grid of bamboos. The peak is reinforced with extra plastic and thatch. The roof hangs about a meter in front of and behind the 30-foot walls, creating small verandas in front and in back. You will rotate your cooking/sitting spot around the house, depending on the time of day and positioning of the sun so that you are always in the shade.
Pretty much anyone here knows how to make a house. If you’re really poor, you will make your own, maybe with the help of some neighbors. If you’re not so poor, you can pay someone to make it. If you don’t have much else going on in your life, you can make the blocks in about 5 days, construct the house in about 6 days, and get the roof done in about 2 days, if the supplies are ready. All in all, a house can be made, from start to finish, in about 2 weeks. Most people don’t do it that fast because they have to go to their farms and do other stuff, but if you hire someone to do it, it can be really quick.
In the south, houses are often made of sturdy reed bases, with woven/braided banana or coconut tree leaves as the roofs. The bases will have vertical wooden posts periodically, which support horizontal bamboos, which hold the reeds in place. I imagine that the roofs are made in a similar fashion to roofs in the north, with bamboos and plastic, but I’m not sure.
I was going to leave the bathroom out, but I just decided to include it. Your bathroom will be separate from your house. First, you dig a very deep, but not too wide, hole. Then you put boards across most of the opening, leaving a 6 x 6 inch square uncovered. This is the hole where you will do your business. The boards are then covered with mud. This area is enclosed by roof thatch walls, using bamboos to hold them in place. The bathroom is roofless (I still can’t figure out why, it would be cheap, easy, and convenient for it to be covered, but no one does it!), which makes it very cold to take a bath in the wind, even with heated water, and very inconvenient to have to relieve yourself when it’s raining. A cloth can be used to close the doorway.

Greeting Children

The school is about a mile from my house. To get there, I take a path that cuts through my neighborhood. About 30 seconds into my walk the first kid sees me. “Good morning!!” he or she shouts to me. I respond. The kids in the next house hear and come to the path to yell good morning, which alerts the kids in the following house that I’m coming, who then come to greet me, which signals to the kids in the house after that to come out, and so on and so forth. All in all, there are about 3-4 solid minutes of greeting kids as a walk through my neighborhood. The main road that goes to the school doesn’t have many houses, so the only greetings there are with the people who pass going the other way, but seeing as how those people change every day the greetings aren’t as enthusiastic.
Now most young kids in Nacaroa don’t know how to speak Portuguese, or they know how to say certain phrases, but don’t know exactly what each one means. Therefore, common greetings with these children go as follows:

Me: Good morning!
Kid: Good morning!
Me: How are you?
Kid: How are you?
Me: I’m fine.
Kid: I’m fine.

Kid: Good morning!
Me: Good morning!
Kid: Good afternoon!
Me: Good MORNING!

Kid: Good morning!
Me: Good morning!
Kid: How are you?
Me: I’m fine!
Kid: Good morning!
Me: Good morning...again!

Sometimes we greet in Macua, but I think the kids (and their parents) enjoy it more when they greet me in Portuguese. And once isn’t enough! When I come across a group of them they all should “good morning” together. I respond. But they don’t know which one the response was for, so they all keep shouting “good morning, good morning” repeatedly as I walk by. The kids on the way to the school are used to seeing me every day and get excited to come greet me. Kids who I come across in random places have various reactions. Some hide behind the other people they’re with. Others cry. Others wait until I’ve passed, and then yell good morning after me. Others respond normally, but then giggle excitedly with their friends once I’ve passed. Others yell “good morning,” but then run away and hide without waiting for a response. Others just stop and stare at me.

Quality vs. Quantity

Quality vs. Quantity
Quality and quantity are enemies. Where there is quantity, quality is often not important, and rarely achieved. Where there is quality, quantity suffers. But how do you balance this inverse relationship to get what’s best for everyone? If you focus on quality, what will change if you increase quantity by 1%? Probably nothing. What about 5%? 20%? 50%? How do you draw the line between doing what’s best and what looks best?
Let’s look at schools in Mozambique. They say that completing 7th grade is mandatory (but in reality it’s no more mandatory that having a driver’s license to drive) which makes putting caps on class size difficult. An average primary school classes has about 50-80 students. Even with optimal resources, well-trained teachers, and involved parents, getting a good, quality education would be difficult. Now change that to minimal resources, minimally trained and minimally dedicated teachers, and illiterate and uninterested parents, and what do you get? Students who enter secondary school (8th grade) without knowing how to read, write, understand or speak Portuguese very well. Students who can memorize that A=B and B=C, but can’t deduce that A=C. Students who complete 10th grade without being able to locate their own country on a map of eastern Africa. Students who need to use a calculator to do 3x7.
So my question is this: is it better to have 80 students who kind of know a little bit about a few subjects, or 40 students who know a fair amount about most subjects, and 40 kids who are illiterate? Because, in my opinion, if the lower achieving 50% of the students just got kicked out of school, the remaining 50% would be able to learn a fair amount. The “humanitarian” has to answer that all children have the right to education, and that all 80 students have the right to go to school. But what if realizing this right for the lower achieving 50% jeopardizes the education of the higher achieving 50%? What if, in the higher achieving 50%, there exist students who would be capable or learning how to be engineers, doctors, and various other professions that Mozambique imports from China and South Africa, at the benefit of these other countries? But these students never have the opportunity to show what they’re capable of.
In my opinion, from what I’ve seen here, Mozambique would have a better future sooner if all kids didn’t have the right to education. I know it sounds awful, but it’s true. At a public school here, it’s nearly impossible to get a quality education, and rare to get even a decent education. Example: I give tests that have 20 multiple choice questions, each question having 4 options. In two of my classes I asked the students what grade they would statistically get if they randomly guessed for every question. Out of approximately 70 12th-graders, exactly one knew that the answer was 5. If that’s half-way through 12th grade, imagine what all they don’t know after 7th grade. Is Mozambique educating its citizens to be able to lead and develop the country in the future? Will it always have to hire people from other countries to do things that are too advanced for them to do themselves? Will it always depend on foreign aid to fund all aspects of its functioning?
I know I sound pessimistic, but I’m also being realistic: Mozambique does not currently have the resources and infrastructure to give every child a quality education. Yes, we can say that they should work on building more schools and training more teachers. With what money? And what about right now? I know as a democratic American I’m supposed to say, “but even if the child can learn one thing that will help them in their lives, then it’s worth it for them to go to school.” Fine. If there were enough schools and teachers I would be 100% for that. But given the conditions that actually exist, is it worth it for one child to learn one useful thing while robbing another child of learning five useful things?

Giving Birth

Giving birth is a battle. Sometimes there’s a cry and a sigh. The result of the birth being a tie in which mother and child win life. Other times there’s a cry and silence, the child killing the mother and taking her soul as a trophy. Or there’s a sigh and silence, the mother killing the child, but preserving her own life. And finally, there’s total silence, the result of the birth being a tie in which mother and child kill one another in the fury of the battle.

From Paulina Chiziane’s “O Alegre Canto da Perdiz” (The Happy Song of the Partridge)

Cinderella: An Ungrateful Crybaby

When we read the story of Cinderella in the US, we hear about a poor, mistreated girl who was unjustly forced to do housework, sleep with rats, eat left over food, and wear old, torn clothes after her mother’s death and father’s remarriage. In the US, Cinderella is a fairy tale; something so sad and unfortunate that it could never happen. In Mozambique it is the life that many children are happy to have. Children here, even those with both parents living and married (which is rare), do basically all of the cleaning around the house. This includes washing the clothes and dishes by hand, sweeping the yard, helping to care for younger children, helping cook, going to the market, helping in the fields, and carting water in 20 liter jugs carried on their heads, etc. But many children here don’t grow up in a house with both of their parents. For children who have lost one or both of their parents, or come from poor families, common situations include:
1. One or both parents died. The child is adopted by a neighbor or relative.
2. The father abandoned the mother or denies that the child is his. The mother probably has no money, so A) she sends the child to live with a neighbor or relative OR B) the child has to help a lot in the fields and doesn’t go to school.
3. The parent(s) have no money. They send the child to live with a neighbor or relative.
4. A neighbor or relative wants help around the house or caring for a child so they ask the child’s parents to send the child to come live with them.
5. There isn’t a school near the parents’ house, so they send the child to live with a friend or relative in a larger town.
6. The parents split up and neither one wants the child, so they send it to live with a relative.
7. The parents are young and want to finish school, not get married or start a family, etc, so they send the child to live with a relative.
Notice that almost all of these situations end with the child living with a neighbor/friend/relative, which the child will refer to as aunt or uncle, regardless of biological relationship. These aunts and uncles are then responsible for feeding, clothing, and in general caring for the child. In return, the child must help a lot around the house, in the fields, caring for younger kids, etc, which these children do obediently, respectfully, and without self-pity. They brag about how much water they can carry and debate who’s stronger. They show pride when they can make their nieces and nephews (the kids of the “aunts and uncles” are referred to as nieces and nephews) stop crying or go to sleep. They responsibly hold the money they are given when they are sent to the market, giving their friends glimpses to make them jealous. At mealtime, children are often given a communal pot of food to fight over. It includes the leftovers from the adults, which are usually high in starch and low in vitamins and proteins. Almost all of these kids, and many adults, sleep on reed mats on the floors of houses with rats. In terms of clothes, most children own one school uniform, less than 5 skirts/pants/shorts, about 5 shirts, and one pair of flip-flops. All of these items, except maybe the school uniform, are used and well-worn. And this is life. There isn’t any reason to cry about it, whine about doing work, feel bad for yourself, or expect this to change. And luckily, there’s no fairy god-mother to throw you off with images of dances and princes and beautiful things that will never be yours.

Football and Witchcraft

Last year there was one main football team in Nacaroa that played against teams from other districts. At the end of the year the man who sponsored the team got angry and took away their equipment and uniforms. At the beginning of this year he decided that he wanted to sponsor them again. Most of the players said they didn’t want to play for him anymore, and formed the Workers Football Club. They contribute money each month to pay for equipment, uniforms, and traveling costs. Some players went back to play for this man, and he recruited some other people to form a team called the Mambas. The Mambas charge people to watch their games, which was previously unheard of here. They make a big to-do at the beginning of their games by driving the players on to the field in a truck.

Needless to say, the Workers and the Mambas are rivals, and this rivalry has created a lot drama in Nacaroa. One Mamba who was renting a house from a Worker was kicked out. Another Mamba who works for the Worker coach was told that if he wanted to keep his job he couldn’t be a Mamba. A Mamba stole a Worker’s cleat so he wouldn’t be able to practice. The Mamba’s sponsor threatened various Workers when they formed their new team, saying that he was a very important man in Nacaroa and that they didn’t want to be on his bad side. And so on and so forth. The two teams did various things to sabotage the other.

But sabotage in Africa includes an element that doesn’t exist in the US: witchcraft. When the Mamba’s got in a small car accident on the way to a game, it was because the Workers went to the witch doctor to put a curse on them. When the Mamba’s goalie had stomach aches and let in an easy goal, it was because the Workers put a curse on him to make them lose. Luckily, there are ways to protect yourself against such curses. Because of this, the witch doctor has become an important element for both teams, even traveling with the Mambas to away games to provide the necessary protection. Ironically, since the two teams that exist this year are composed of players that all played together for the same team last year, they both use the same witch doctor. Talk about a conflict of interests and violating the Hippocratic Oath.

The witch doctor has many ways to protect the team. First, he may instruct the players whether they should or should not have sex the day before/day of the game. Second, he may instruct the players about certain foods they should or should not eat the day before/day of the game. Third, he participates in a pre-game ritual with the players that may include painting the feet with charcoal, washing the head with water prepared a certain way, putting a paste of various herbs on the heart, or various other rituals that will protect the players. And fourth, he inspects the field and the goals to make sure the other team (either from Nacaroa or the opposing district) hasn’t put any sort of cursed object.

If you disobey the instructions of the witch doctor, your ancestors will punish you. When the Mamba’s goalie let in that easy goal, they were quick to accuse the Workers of having cursed him. But a few trips to the witch doctor and a small investigation revealed that he had taken a bite from the forbidden apple, and had stomach aches because his ancestors were punishing him for not obeying the witch doctor’s dietary guidelines.

On a final note, unrelated to football, but continuing with witchcraft, there has been a huge problem lately with people bewitching animals to go steal things from their neighbors. For example, you can take your cat to the witch doctor who will give it powers to be able to go into your neighbor’s house and swallow all their money. Then it will come home and spit out the money for you. In fact, just yesterday, this happened. Two neighbors sent their bewitched cats to go steal from the neighboring house at the same time. The cats each went into the other house and stole money. But on their way back to their owner’s houses they ran into each other, and knew what the other one was up to. The bigger cat swallowed the smaller cat, and went back to his owner. When the owner of the smaller cat realized what happened, he got some neighbors with him to go confront the owner of the bigger cat. When they got to this house and knocked on the door, they discovered that the owner of this cat was actually a snake. I’m not exactly sure how it ended, but there are several eye witnesses of the one cat swallowing the other, and no one in Nacaroa (except for me) doubts that this happened. I can’t emphasize enough that people here REALLY BELIEVE THIS SORT OF THING EXISTS, AND ARE LEGITIMATELY WORRIED ABOUT THINGS LIKE THIS HAPPENING TO THEM.

A "wedding"?

I’m the god-mother of the wedding of an already-married man, and I’m not even Christian. Let’s start at the beginning. First, some background information about Mozambique: 1) Teachers get randomly assigned to work in random places throughout the country. The goal is to diversify things, but the reality is that it really just splits up families, and increases infidelity. This same process applies to all government workers, including nurses, doctors, and police. These government workers have one month of vacation per year, which means that they hardly ever get to see their families if they’re sent really far away. 2) In Mozambique you can only legally be married to one person. But no one really bothers getting legally married because it’s expensive and they don’t feel like it. Many people do traditional weddings that are culturally recognized, but hold no legal standing, and other people just start living together and calling each other husband and wife with absolutely no ceremony whatsoever. But socially and culturally speaking, they’re married. This way, when things start going bad you can just leave each other and not have to deal with divorce. Or you can have multiple wives this way, which is more or less socially acceptable. Alright, now on to the story: You remember Nhambe and Isaura from the post about healthcare? Nhambe is from Maputo and got randomly sent here as a teacher. When he came here he left his wife and son back in Maputo, 2500km away, hoping to be able to transfer back soon. When that didn’t happen, the only solution was to find a girlfriend here. Well, Nhambe and Isaura dated for a while, and all was going well. She knew that he was married, but his wife knows nothing about her. But then she got pregnant. According to cultural tradition, that means that he has to present himself to her family, which is more or less saying that you’re married or going to get married. Isaura is from Nampula City, and all her family lives there. Nhambe is from Maputo, and has absolutely no family here in the North. Traditionally at a presentation like this, all of his family should be present, especially his parents, god parents, and the family elders. Since that wasn’t possible given the distance, Sambo and I were his representatives, acting as god parents. (Sambo and Nhambe are socially/culturally brothers since they’re both from Maputo and have no biological family here.) Luckily for me, Nhambe and Sambo don’t speak Macua, so it was all done in Portuguese, which isn’t normal for an event like this. Here’s how the presentation goes: (There is a table with several chairs. On one side are Isaura’s parents, god parents, some siblings, and other relatives. One the other side are Nhambe, Sambo and me. Isaura sits at the head of the table.) Isaura: Good afternoon. My family, I called you hear to present you to the man I managed to get for myself. I’ll let him introduce himself. (Nhambe introduces himself and then her family members come one by one to kiss his cheeks. This is repeated with me and then Sambo.) Isaura: Alright, now I’ll let my family present any questions they have to Nhambe. Father: My first questions is, what do you mean by “the man I managed to get for myself?” What did you get him as? A neighbor, a co-worker, a friend, boyfriend, husband...? (Isaura and Nhambe look uncomfortable and don’t say anything.) Father: What exactly is the relationship between you two? (No answer.) Are you two telling me that you’re married? Isaura: Yeah... Father: Are you sure? Because the way you phrased it didn’t indicate that. Nhambe: Yeah...we’re married...(continues to look uncomfortable)... Father: Ok. (Asks where Nhambe works, lives, is from etc.) So, Nhambe, you said you’re from Maputo. I just want to make sure you didn’t leave another wife there. Did you start to make a family there before you left? Nhambe: (looks very nervous, legs shake uncontrollably) Well, when I left Maputo left my wife there, but now I’m really far away, and the relationship is cooling off, because of the distance and all, so she’s there and I’m here... [side fact: Nhambe’s wife and their son live with his parents.] Father: My daughter, did you know about this? Isaura: Yes, he explained this to me. Father: Ok. At least he’s honest. [side fact: Nhambe’s wife, parents, etc no absolutely nothing about the existence of Isuara and the fact that she’s going to have his baby.] Well, that’s all of my questions. No I’ll let the god-mother ask questions. God Mother: I don’t really have any questions. I just wanted to give my advice, and ask that you both be responsible and communicative in your relationship. The fact that you called us all here today shows that you at least sat down and talked about this, which is a good start...etc...etc...etc. Then Sambo said some words, apologized for not having the elders present, and reinforced that it was because of the distance. Her father suggested a celebration later in the year for which a few direct family members could come to represent his family. Sambo and Nhambe assured him that would be possible, but it definitely won’t be. Then we ate a nice meal, cut the cake, and drank champagne. They are now socially/culturally married. Not once, at any moment, was there mention of love, happiness, or forever.

$1

For $1 in Nacaroa you can currently buy:

-3 eggs
-1kg of potatoes
-30 good-sized limes
-juice powder sufficient for 5 liters
-a little more than ½ a liter of gas
-1-1.5kgs of rice
-1.5 kgs of wheat flour
-10 ears of corn
-1/2 kg of quality beans
-15 medium-sized onions
-15-20 poor quality tomatoes
-15 “breads” aka rolls
-5 good quality flashlight batteries
-30 boxes of matches
-at the tailor you can get a purse or a pairs of shorts custom made, as long as you provide the material

Afternoon Tea

One thing I have really come to love lately is afternoon tea. The ritual goes something like this:

Once the sun starts to set, around 5pm, I start to heat the water. If I’m going to cook dinner at home that night, I use my charcoal stove. When I first got here I absolutely dreaded lighting the charcoal because it got my hands dirty, took forever, and had a very high failed-first-attempt rate. By now, I’m a charcoal-lighting pro. I’ve discovered that the best way to do it by using a dustpan to scoop the charcoal into the stove, and then use roof thatch the get the flame going. The entire process, which used to take about half an hour, has decreased to just five minutes. If I’m not going to cook dinner here, I just use my gas stove, which is much easier in the short term, but more expensive and inconvenient in the long term because it’s difficult and pricey to get the tank refilled.

Well, I get the flame going and put the teapot on the stove. While the water’s heating, I roll out a reed mat on my porch. I bring the teacups, teabags, sugar, and best of all, limes. The tea is Mozambican tea, from the tea fields in Gurue, in Zambezia province. The sugar, which is of course brown sugar, is also a Mozambican product, and the limes are literally fresh off the tree. Like you literally send a student or other kid to go climb the tree and take down the limes so you can cut them and hand-squeeze the juice into the tea. Flavored teabags don’t exist here, except for in the expensive South African stores, but during lime season there isn’t a flavored teabag I’d rather have.

In Mozambique, everyone drinks tea; it’s not primarily for women as it is in the US. And tea, in Mozambique, is to be drunk piping hot. My two-year-old neighbor can tolerate hotter tea than I can. (I think that this must lead to taste bud damage, because Mozambicans like to put a lot of salt on everything.) Sambo can down an entire cup while it’s still too hot for me to comfortably sip. Morning tea is also a must, according to all Mozambicans, but I don’t always have time for that (What do I mean not have time? I’m so white. Why don’t I just go to work late like most other people here?), and it’s definitely not ritualized like afternoon tea.

A peculiarity about tea in Mozambique is that a thermos is a must. You can’t boil the water in the teapot and pour it directly into the teacups. It must go from the teapot, to the thermos, and then to the teacups. I’m not sure of the exact reason, but I think it must have something to do with the fact that a woman must have morning tea ready by the time her husband wakes up, and afternoon tea ready by the time he gets home from work. A thermos allows her to make sure the tea is ready in time, but doesn’t proceed to waste charcoal or occupy the stove after the water’s ready. It also guarantees that if he dilly-dallies for two minutes the water won’t cool down to an unsatisfactory temperature. And the thermoses here are of optimum quality. You can boil water at night, and it’s still piping hot for morning tea, or morning bath. They also come in all sizes, up to 3 liters, which is almost a gallon.

O Zahir

My internet flash drive is working again, which means I can put up all sorts of random posts on a more regular basis!!

I’ve been reading an interesting book called “O Zahir.” (In Engilsh: The Zahir) It’s by the same author who wrote “The Alchemist,” Paulo Coelho. There’s a phrase that’s said in the US that goes something like, “Good friends are the ones that are always there to help you celebrate, but true friends are the ones who are always there even through the bad times.” This book brings up the opposite idea: that good (or not-so-good) friends are there during the bad times so that they can feel better about their lives and get attention and sympathy for whatever unfortunate thing has happened to you, while the true friends are the ones who are there to help you celebrate, and truly enjoy your successes without feeling jealousy or resentment about your good fortune.

Healthcare

Sambo has a friend, Nhambe, who’s a teacher in a small community about 20k from Nacaroa. Nhambe and his girlfriend, Isuara, often come to Nacaroa to do some shopping, since Nacaroa is a city compared to where they live. Every time they come here, they ask when we’re going to come visit them in Nachere. So one Saturday we decided to go visit them. It was really cool to pass all of the super rural communities along the way, see the kids playing in the rivers, and realize that Nacaroa isn’t as rural as I thought. We had a really good time, but as we were leaving both Nhambe and Isaura started complaining of stomach aches. We didn’t really think much of it, because that happens all the time here. When we got home, we sent a text to say that we arrived safely, and Nhambe responded that he had diarrhea and was vomiting. We didn’t really think much of that either, because that happens from time to time and isn’t usually anything super serious.

That night we were awakened around 3am by someone banging on Sambo’s door to tell us that Nhambe was in critical condition, and was here at the hospital in Nacaroa. Apparently the diarrhea and vomiting had gotten worse, and either he wasn’t able to keep any fluids down, or they didn’t think about trying, so he got really dehydrated and started convulsing. Luckily, Isuara’s a nurse and lives at the health clinic in Nachere, so they were able to call a health technician (here a technician is above a nurse) to give him an IV. The technician thought that Nhambe was having a seizure, so he gave him some shot, which made him go into a coma and stop breathing. Somehow someone knew how to do CPR, or else guessed, or else Nhambe started breathing right around when this person tried CPR. So they called the ambulance (yes, they do exist here), but it was “unavailable”. I don’t know what it could have been doing that made it unavailable, it wasn’t transporting sick people. So they woke up someone important in Nachere who had a car, and managed to get Nhambe transported to Nacaroa in the middle of the night.

So we went to meet them at the hospital in the wee hours of the morning. As Nhambe is hardly conscious, has been vomiting and having diarrhea all night, the technician tells us that we should be making him eat. Because he expelled all the food in him, we have to insist that he eat to replenish it. Well, from my 2-3 hours of health sessions per week during training, and from my occasional consultations of my health manual, I was quite sure that you weren’t supposed to make someone eat under these circumstances. I tried to suggest that maybe he just try to drink a little water, but I was overruled. They made him eat some porridge, and he continued throwing up. Then he went to sleep, so they didn’t make him eat for a few hours. They debated what to make him eat for lunch, and decided on soup. Since I live really close to the hospital, and have a gas stove (much faster than using charcoal like everyone else here), and know a little bit about what someone in Nhambe’s condition should be consuming, I offered to make it. His girlfriend said that no, she would make it, but I told her to just stay by his side and that I’d be back soon, and left before she could try to decline again.

Back at my house, as I made soup (heavy on the broth, with just enough tiny noodles to fool the nurses into thinking it was soup rather than just broth), I showed Sambo my health manual. Under the diarrhea section it says, in underlined print, “DON”T EAT SOLID FOODS FOR 24-48 HOURS,” which is simple enough English that he could understand. It also listed food to eat, and foods not to eat, and when you can start eating what. It also said to take rehydration salts. Back at the hospital Nhambe ate some soup, aka broth. I asked the technicians if he could take rehydration salts, and was told that those were only for after the diarrhea has already stopped, which is definitely not accurate. On the packets it says, in English, French, and Spanish, “For the treatment of diarrhea.” They still said no. And Nhambe refused to do anything without consulting the technicians, and Isaura always concluded that everything the technicians said was correct. I wanted to just lie to Nhambe and Isaura and say that I had already asked the technician and that he had approved, but Sambo said that the technician would find out and get mad that we did stuff without his approval, and would stop treating Nhambe. I didn’t think that sounded like such a bad thing.

Nhambe continued in stable conditions, the vomiting stopped during the first day, but the diarrhea continued. On Tuesday-Wednesday I had planned to go to Nampula to meet up with some other volunteers, so I bought some antibiotics at the pharmacy there, after Sambo consulted the technician, of course. He started taking the antibiotics, but continued two more days with diarrhea. I also bought bananas for him, but of course he wouldn’t eat them without consulting the technician. I went to consult one, and convinced him that he should approve bananas, so we went to tell Nhambe. While I had been gone, another tech had entered, and had decided that bananas were bad. The scientific explanation: “Bananas are bad for diarrhea. They seem good because right after you eat them you don’t have diarrhea. But they’re really bad because they stick to the inside of your stomach, so then when you eat other food it all just comes out as diarrhea.” That is a direct translation, not altered or exaggerated. I wanted to just say, “That is absolutely not true,” but I knew that they would just get mad, not change their minds, and that Nhambe would still not eat them, so I just gave them a look that indicated I didn’t believe them, but didn’t say anything.

After two days of antibiotics the diarrhea stopped, so on the third day they decided that Nhambe should stop taking them. At the pharmacy in Nampula I got specific instructions from the pharmacist that he should take them for 7 days. I told this to the technician. “Yeah, but the diarrhea stopped, so he doesn’t need them anymore.” Isn’t it bad to stop taking antibiotics before the full dose? Nope. But can’t the sickness come back even stronger if it’s not all taken care of? Nope. But everyone knows that with the malaria medications you have to take all of them, you can’t stop once you start feeling better. Unrelated.

Around this time Isaura’s mom decided that the only explanation for this prolonged illness was that someone had put a curse on Nhambe, and everyone else agreed. (Medical incompetence/unsafe food or water couldn’t have anything to do with it.) So she went to a witch doctor to explain the situation. The witch doctor consulted some shells and bones, and concluded that someone in Nachere was jealous and hated Nhambe, and had therefore gone to a witch doctor to send some sort of bug his way. This bug provoked the diarrhea and vomiting. The antibiotics had subdued the bug, but it could, at anytime, reappear and make him start vomiting and having diarrhea again. (Never mind that unclean water can do exactly the same thing.) To remove the bug completely, Nhambe would need to go to a witch doctor also, to get some remedies and undergo some processes that would rid him of this bug forever.

Now it’s never wise to act on the opinion of just one witch doctor, so the next day Sambo and another friend went to see another witch doctor to get a second opinion. According to them the readings overlapped enough that it was clearly “africanism” (curses/black magic/etc). The second witch doctor, after hearing that Nhambe was sick, consulted the shells and bones and concluded that Nhambe was either feeling a dry stomach, a headache right in the center of the forehead, or aches and pains in the joints. Well, considering she knew was sick, those seem like some of the most obvious guesses, and she was wrong about the headache. Both of the witch doctors warned that this wasn’t the first time someone had sent a curse his way, and interestingly enough they both said the first attempt was an attack at the family jewels.

Since the readings “corresponded,” they decided that Nhambe had to go visit in person. The witch doctor asked him to bring some flour to make porridge and a chicken, live of course. He went with the same friend who had taken Sambo earlier in the day. Once they got there, the witch doctor (who was a very old woman who worked topless) put some of the flour in a pot of water over the fire and said that if it made porridge like it should, then the sickness came from God, but if it didn’t make porridge, that was a sign that someone sent a curse. Well, obviously it didn’t make porridge. Then Nhambe had to hold the chicken, still live, and if it acted dead that was confirmation that it was a curse. Obviously, it was confirmed. So he kept holding the chicken and the witch doctor said some chants and whatnot, and the chicken started acting more alive, which showed that the curse was leaving Nhambe. Then she gave him some roots and told him to boil them in a pot of water every day before he took a bath, and then after his bath he should use that water last to cleanse his body, and keep doing that for as many days as it took for the roots to not leave any color in the water. Then he braided some reeds to make a string that he was supposed to wear around his waist. I’m not sure how long that was supposed to be.

Nhambe is currently in good health. I unfortunately didn’t get to go along on the visit because the witch doctor’s hut was a little ways from Nacaroa so they went by motorcycle. Sambo has also decided that we can never go to Nachere together again, because he's afraid that someone might try to put a curse on him. I pointed out that several people have probably already tried in Nacaroa, and since they haven't had any luck in Nacaroa why would it be any different there? Apparently one's ancester's spirits can protect one from such curses, but eventually these spirits get tried, so it's better not to put yourself at risk too much.

Random thoughts/observations

-Nutrition for pregnant women is part of the 5^th grade curriculum.

-One day I was going with a friend to make a cake at another location. She came to my house so we could go together. I was bringing some supplies, which I had already put in a pot and wrapped with an African cloth, to be socially acceptable, of course. When my friend got here, I grabbed the supplies to leave. She took one look at me carrying the bundle in my hands, and was like, “Are you just going to carry it like that??? Here, give it to me to put on my head.”

-For the first time since I’ve been here, I finally, in February 2011, saw something fall off of someone’s head. It was a man going to sell some biscuits in the market. In a large plastic basin he had put the biscuits, and on top of the biscuits he had a small dish with sauce for them. Apparently the biscuits shifted, causing the sauce to spill, which broke the equilibrium. He managed to catch the basin before it fell to the ground, but exactly 13 biscuits spilled to the sandy dirt. He dusted them off, put them back in the basin, and went on his way.

-If you give a kid half of a cracker they will think you are the most amazing person in the world.

-No one believes me when I say I don’t have a fridge or TV in my house here.

-According to common knowledge: cucumbers cause fevers in kids, when a woman has her period it’s impossible for her to make a good cake,

-Reasons someone might come to my house that would never happen in the US: to get their chicken that got into my yard, to ask for some lit coals, to ask for a cracker, to ask to charge their cell phone, to ask me to fix their cell (obviously I can do that, I’m white),

Items that every Mozambican household has, or has arrangements with neighbors to use:

-Pilao: A giant mortar and pestle used to make flour from corn or peanuts, made of wood.

-Pilaozinho: A small mortar and pestle used to crush garlic, rock salt, or other small things.

-Panera: A shallow woven reed bowl about the size of a manhole cover used to sort rice, peanuts from shells, and other things

-Relador: A wooden thing resembling a footstool, but with a serrated metal rod/disk on one side. You sit on the footstool and pass coconut over the serrated part to grate it.

-Cuador: A wooden frame with fine, wire mesh. Used after the coconut it grated to squeeze the oils/liquids out of the gratings without the gratings falling in the food.

-Culher de pau: A long-handled wooden spoon, usually with a really small, shallow spoon part.

The start of year 2

Hey! I have some more time to write now. I’m pretty excited about the school year that just started. Last year I taught 11th grade, and there wasn’t a 12th grade. This year I’m teaching 12th grade, which means that the only students I have are the ones that passed last year. So I know them, they more or less understand English, and they’re used to the way I teach! Only about 75% of the 11th graders from last year passed to 12th grade, and of the ones that passed, about 15% of those didn’t passed English, which means they just do the other subjects that they did pass. (If you fail more than 2 subjects you repeat just those subjects in 11th grade again.) So I only have three classes, and each class only has about 40-50 students, so I should be able to do some more fun, exciting projects this year. My standard workday this year is classes from 8:30-12:00, but on Fridays I start at 7:00. I also have Wednesdays off.

In terms of other projects, I’m going to get my English Club started again once I get back to site. I went to the District Administration last week to talk about reserving the room in the community centar that I used last year. Some guy there told me I would have to pay 1,500 meticais each time I wanted to use it!! (I make about 7,000 a month.) Well that wasn’t about to happen, so I had to go talk to some other people but I was assured by them that I would not have to pay and that the other guy was crazy. Another project I want to initiate this year is a theater group that will perform plays about HIV, gender issues, corruption, etc in the town center on various holidays. I hope to be ready to have our first play be performed on Womens’ Day, April 7th. I’ll also be having an English Theater group again, and I’ll be organizing the regional competition for the northern provinces, but that won’t be until around September.

I really enjoyed the holidays. I travelled all the way down to the south of Mozambique by ground transportation (buses, hitchhiking, etc), stopping several places along the way to visit other Voolunteers, before meeting up with Sambo at his sister’s house in Inhambane Province. She lives on the coast near some islands, so we took her kids to see the islands with us. The beach there was beautiful, and you have to take a tiny little sailboat to get there. Then we went a little more south to his brother’s house. He also lives on the coast very close to some beautiful beaches, and has three adorable kids ages 3-11 who I loved playing with. We stayed there for Christmas, and then went down to the capital, Maputo. We stayed in the city a few days and then went to Ilha de Inhaca, which is where Sambo is from. Once again, I got to enjoy some beautiful beaches and scenery. Unfortunately, during this part of our trip is when his niece drowned, but we managed to get in several fun days before that happened. Then I took him to Namaacha to visit my home stay family from training, which was really fun. The two brothers that were finishing school when I was there have since started working, and there were several improvements to the house now that they have some money. They want Mama to stop working because she’s getting older and they can support her now. Unfortunately Mama wasn’t there, but all three of my brothers were. I decided to buy a plane ticket and fly home to avoid the 2-3 day bus trip on an over-crowded bus with no bathroom, which I think was a great choice.

I’m in Maputo now doing my 1 year medical check-ups. I’m also taking advantage of the internet, food, and the movie theater they have here! Yesterday we saw The Switch, and today we might see Jacuzzi, just because we can. I don’t think either one of these movies got good reviews, but it’s in a real movie theater with popcorn!! I’ve also added greatly to my already over-sized souvenir collection, but I figure after being gone from the US for 2 years plenty of people will want gifts, so I just keep buying all the pretty things here that I can’t get at site.

Other news/comments:
-I got robbed last week. We left two plastic chairs and a key chain in the yard next to the porch while Sambo and I went inside to listen to music. While we were inside, someone took them from the yard.
-I have absolutely no idea what to do with my life when I’m done with Peace Corps. Ideally, I’ll move back to Raleigh and get a job in the linguistic cartography field. The only problem is, that field hardly exists, is definitely not well-established (or even established at all) in Raleigh, and I would be completely unqualified for.

-About 4 hours ago I developed an interest in possibly pursuing a Masters in public policy. But I really don’t want to ever take the GRE.

-I am currently waiting for the 3D, green, beaded hippopotamus that I am getting custom made for me.

-There is a terrible drought in Nacaroa. The crops aren’t growing at all, which sucks for me, but more so for the farmers. Along with this comes cholera and diarrhea as people drink swamp water. (I still have a good water source, don’t worry!)

-Food I’ve been excited about eating here in Maputo: pizza, cheeseburgers, cheese, bagels with lox and cream cheese, ice cream, thai food, fruit.

-Food that I get excited to find in Nacaroa: tomatoes that are NOT rotten, canned ground beef.

-An excerpt from my father’s 2nd grade report card: “Hygiene: Lewis has a handkerchief and knows how to use it properly.” I have also started using a handkerchief. I’ll practice all year, and maybe by the time I leave here I’ll also know how to use it properly.

Everything about a death and a funeral in Mozambique

I'm not sure if this entry is 100% finished, but I don't have time to add more, so it'll go up like this. I'm also pretty sure it has terrible grammar, but oh well.

Over the holidays I went with Sambo to visit various members of his very large family. Overall we had a great time, which hopefully I’ll be able to write more about, but there was an unfortunate event that occurred. We spent New Years on Ilha de Inhaca (Inhaca Island), which is where Sambo’s from. While there, we decided to take a bunch of his nieces and nephews of various ages to the beach. Living on an island, most of them know how to swim a little, or else know that they can’t go in deep water. But one niece, Joaninha, had rarely been to the beach, (which no one thought to tell us when we headed out) and therefore didn’t really know where she could or could not play in the water. At one point I was giving a snack to some of them on the beach, and Sambo was playing with others in the water, and neither or us realized that Joaninha wasn’t around.
So I was on the beach eating crackers with some of the kids when all of a sudden one of them was like, “Look, someone passed out!” I turned to see a man carrying a little girl, clearly unconscious, in his arms. It hadn’t even crossed my mind that it could be one of the kids that had come with us until another nephew was like, “That’s Joaninha!” We called Sambo, and the man carrying her laid her on the beach. She’d clearly been vomiting. I tried to think back to CPR from 10th grade health class, but couldn’t remember exactly what you were supposed to do. The man and Sambo pushed on her stomach and a bunch of water/vomit came out of her mouth and nose. She still had a pulse and was breathing a little. They found someone with a 4-wheeler to take her to the hospital.
I took the rest of the kids back to the house, and then went with the older ones to the hospital. When we got there I went in the room where she was. The doctor was cleaning vomit out of her mouth and nose with guaze and some suction thing. Then he put a long tube in her nose, and looked at her, and took it out, and put it and took it out a few more time, and then left it in and hooked it up to an oxygen tank. Joaninha was still unconscious. He declared that she was “out of danger” and left, instructing the nurse to put in an IV. I later found out that he wasn’t a doctor, that a doctor comes a couple of times a week to the island, and that this guy was some kind of technician.
Well we waited around a couple of hours, and the technician came back. He found it “shocking” that she hadn’t woken up yet, and was immediately concerned. He called (phoned, not summoned) a real doctor, then gave her antibiotics and an anti-inflammatory shot. “Out of danger” no longer applied. He now proclaimed that she could either live or die (duh) and that at this point it was still “too early” to say. We rotated who stayed at the hospital, and when Sambo and I were there she woke up! She drank some juice, he gave her a tissue and told her to clean her face and blow her nose, which she did, he asked her where it hurt and she was able to mumble a coherent, logical answer. She was clearly struggling to breathe, so the technician found an (adult-sized) oxygen mask, played around with it trying to figure out how to use it, put it on her, and she passed out again. Another aunt came to stay there during the night, and they planned to transfer her to the mainland early the next morning. Sambo and I went back to his brother’s house and went to bed, relieved.
Sambo got a text early the next morning asking him to come to the hospital. We figured they were getting ready to transfer Joaninha. He went. Soon after I got a text saying that she had died. I went to the hospital. Apparently during the night she had woken up a few times, drank more juice and milk, and even asked to go to the bathroom. And then died.
In Mozambique:
How do you transport a dead body? You put it in the back of a truck along with the passengers. Wrapped in colorful Mozambican cloth.
How do you react if you’re a 25-year-old man and you’ve just been told that your 6-year-old sister died? You don’t. Not at all. Not even a gasp, a dead-drop, a shake of the head, a curse, or a widen or blink of the eyes. You just say thanks for the information, and then you serve yourself a glass of water if you want. No need for anyone to do that for you, you’re a man, it’s not that big of a deal. Granted they had different mothers and I don’t think he had ever lived in the same place at the same time as her and therefore didn’t really know her much, but still.
How do you break it to the other cousins who were at the beach and saw what happened that she died? (All the adults knew of the death already) You wait a few hours, until the kids are being loud and not helping you with the work, and then you say, “Hey! Stop being loud and start being helpful! Joaninha died ok? She’s dead! So shut up and do what I said!” And the kids will shut up and do what you said, and they won’t cry because it’s not the first time someone they knew died because people die all the time.
What about burying the body? In Grandma’s back yard. (next to her sister’s grave, who had died the year before) In a coffin made by the men. A tiny little coffin for a 6-year-old’s body. With the body wrapped in white cloth leaving the face showing. In a grave dug by the men and later filled by everyone, including me. And then everyone takes a flower and plants it above where she was buried.
What is a funeral like? While you wait for everyone to get there, the women start cooking. When “everyone” is there, first the closest family members go look at the body. Then the more distant family members. Then the friends, neighbors, and everyone else look. Then everyone starts singing, and some of the men carry the coffin from inside Grandma’s house to the grave in her yard, that has to be dug the same day as the burial. And everyone keeps singing. And then everyone goes up to put some dirt on, and then when it’s full everyone goes again to plant a flower there. And then the women go back to cooking, and then serving food. Then the non-family go home, and the family stays. The women cook more and most of the men drink. Then you eat more, and cook more, and possibly drink more, and talk with the other family members etc. Repeat for 3 days, adding in sleeping at night. The cooking was fish and rice for all lunches and dinners.
Let’s clarify: by “the women cook,” I mean that the Mozambican women cook, and the white woman is allowed to cut tomatoes, potatoes and onions, as long as the peeling of these vegetables is done for her. But first you must confirm that she is capable of such a task by asking her if she knows how to cut onions. (They really, literally, asked me that.) And by “talk with the other family members” I mean that if you speak Changana (the local African language there) you talk with the other adult family members in Changana (even though you speak Portuguese fluently), and if you don’t speak Changana (me) you play with the kids. So basically after the funeral and burial I had another 3 days of boring patronizing-ness.
But at least here there was no looking for someone to blame, as I’m sure would have happened in the US. So, while it was quite sad at the time, there is very minimal lasting guilt regarding the whole situation, so that’s healthy.