August 25, 2012
Can you believe it’s already the end of August. I can’t.
Every time I write one of these blogs I’m surprised.
The last few weeks have been crazy; let me first tell you
about a wedding I went to. The wedding
I went to was in a little village (or group of huts all within an hour or two
walking distance to the nearest water source)
called Mawhenee. I was invited by
my friend Alberto and was excited to take him up on the offer. The village was about an hour and half away
on my bike so he told me that we would be spending the night, I said “no
problem, sounds like fun”.
The trip turned out to be a blast though exhausting, by “spending
the night” what Alberto really meant was: get to a friend’s house at 4pm, leave
for the wedding at 9pm and START the wedding at 2:30 in the morning. That’s right we STARTED the wedding at 2:30
in the morning and then proceeded to dance until 10am. I didn’t take part in the dancing right way,
it seemed to be something that only the women were doing for the first 4 hours
or so, then around day break some of the guys, Alberto included, started to jump
into the dancing circle, at which point I decided to dance as well.
The dancing was quite unique, one person would play the
batuque(drum), someone else would start singing a certain phrase (this was all
in the local language Chindau so I was lost as to what was actually being sung)
and that one phrase would be repeated in rhythm with the drum for about 5-10 minutes
per song. Everyone would circle around
the fire and do a repeated dance movement copying the leader of the group as
they circled around the fire. I wouldn’t
call the dancing particularly beautiful by the American context of dancing, but it had the effect of putting
you into a trance. The music was so
rhythmic and everything was in tune to the beat of the drum that 6 hours and sunrise
passed before I knew it.
At about 8am after a few hours of dancing the wedding actually
started at which point the wedding party slowly made their way out of the hut
that they had been in the whole night ( the wedding party was not present for
the majority of the dancing) when I say
slowly I mean SLOWLY they inched forward bit by bit so that they probably
walked a total of 20 yards in 10 minutes .
They had over them a sheet that stayed on them covering all of their
faces until the end of the ceremony. At
some point during the ceremony the bride started nervously convulsing, I
interpreted it as nervous anxiety at the prospect of starting married life and
leaving her family, however Alberto informed me that it was a demon. They then disappeared for about a half an
hour in which time I believe they exorcised the demon. Some call it a demon some call it nervous
anxiousness either way I seemed like the same types of emotions that typically
occur at weddings.
After the wedding we ate breakfast and then headed back to
Mangunde which of course took 5 hours longer than I expected because time here
in Mozambique is viewed very differently than in America and if someone says
will be back around 10am what they actually mean is “we’ll get back eventually if
not today than definitely maybe tomorrow”.
The other exciting thing that happened on the following week
was a visit from Ian (my roommate) ‘s parents. That was particularly exciting not only to
be able to show of Mangunde to some non-Peace Corps volunteers but it also left
me with a sense of excited anticipation for when my family comes to visit
around Christmas time. I had to work
most of the time so I didn’t see Ian’s parents much during the day however I
got to know them a bit in the evenings and I enjoyed their and Hannah’s company
(Ian’s girlfriend a fellow PCV who lives in Tete, Mozambique). The most exciting part of their visit was a
dinner that we had at my good friend Alberto’s house wherein some of the local
school groups that Ian runs gave performances this was followed by a wonderful
goat dinner with pineapple for desert cooked by Alberto’s wife.
The following weekend, the first weekend in August, I had
whirlwind trip to Chimoio where I participated in my first professional skype
meeting with some other Peace Corps Volunteers from different parts of the
country and our Country Director. The
meeting went well and I ended up spending a few days with a PCV from my
training group Hoang who lives in Chimoio.
Another exciting note about this trip was that I finished the book I was
reading “Pillars of the Earth” on my way up to Chimoio. SUCH A GOOD BOOK it’s a serious page turner and
I recommend it to everyone(It’s got everything, sex, intrigue, political scandal,
and the whole good triumphs over evil theme that we Americans seem to eat up so
readily).
The following weekend(the second weekend in August) Ian and I invited any and all volunteers
willing to make the trek to Mangunde to our house for a pig roast in
celebration of Ian’s and Mac’s birthdays (Ian turned 25 on August 3rd
and Mac turned 24 on August 16). The
party was a blast we had 8 volunteers come down from different parts of Manica
and Sofala, we showed off our site and we ate well!! Just thinking about all of the delicious
things we ate makes me salivate. We
started the weekend out with Mac and Cheese.
Mac and Cheese is an extreme delicacy here amongst PCVs in Mozambique
and the fact that we had Mac and Cheese made from Velveeta (courtesy of our
recent visit by Ian’s Parents) was a huge hit.
This was followed by a huge egg scramble in the morning, Eggplant peanut
curry for lunch (How to make a peanut curry will be something I have with me
for the rest of my life, thank you Ian), and then roast pig served with roasted
apples and pineapples (covered in cinnamon and sugar) and topped off with a
chocolate cake for desert. It was a
darn good weekend!!
Than the following weekend (the third weekend in August) we
had the provincial science fair. I
worked the majority of last trimester on preparing the students in Mangunde for
the local science fair, and I spent the majority of the beginning of this third
trimester helping our finalists prepare for the provincial science fair. The Provincial fair was held in the city of
Beira, the second largest city in Mozambique, and was both a proud and
memorable moment for me. Mangunde ended
up taking home 3 awards which means half of the students who went to the fair
from Mangunde won prizes and beat out a lot of other student who come from much
bigger schools. The fair was an all day
event that started at about 6 in the morning for me and didn’t end till almost
7 o’clock at night. I and all of the
other volunteers were super busy helping David( Science Fair coordinator) out
in any way we could. I was really
impressed with some of projects that found their way to the fair and I’m
looking forward to doing science fair again next year.
On a side note, this was my first time in Beira and it was
an interesting place to visit, though the visit was brief. Upon arrival to Beira I was struck by a
sudden and strong sense of nostalgia, after living very far from the developed world
for so many months driving into Beira sent my mind back to times when I was in
Tampa, Florida something about being in a tropical city makes me remember my
youth. Beira has a definite “city” feel
to it with cars, hustle and bustle, movement and activity and all of it made me
miss all of those little convinces I had while I lived in the states. I was able to go for a run during my time in
Beira as well which allowed me to check out the beach and some of surrounding
area. In a big city like Beira the
contrast between the rich and poor of Mozambique is extremely apparent. I found myself running by mansions with beautiful
gardens in their courtyards and hummers in their driveways and then less than a
minute later I would pass by run down shacks by the beach where the local
fishermen live. 95% of Mozambique lives
in the worst poverty the world has to offer and the other 5% live like kings
and queens by comparison. It just doesn’t
seem right.
After returning to Mangunde from the Science fair I found
myself overwhelmed with work for the first 2 days of the week and only upon
finishing up one of the many highly unnecessary tasks that my school likes to
assign to me did I start to feel relaxed, for the first time in months I might
add. After the last few weeks of going,
going, and going, I finally have enough time to sit down relax get ahead on my
lesson planning and write a blog.
My emotions for the past few weeks of been in a serious
slump there were a few weeks where I honestly thought I was depressed. My emotions here in Mozambique are always oscillating
between the extremes I’m either really happy and excited, or extremely annoyed
and agitated. Only after having a few
days to relax do I realize how much of these negative emotions were due to the
stress of being too busy(overworked and underpaid has a whole new meaning as a
PCV). Here in Africa more than any other
time in my life do I realize how much a few hours of quite time a week mean to me. In
Mozambican culture, quite alone time, is not valued and even looked down upon
as anti-social behavior, this simple fact can be exhausting at times but
between running and reading (and most recently season 5 of Dexter) my stress
levels have plummeted and I find myself enjoying once again my teaching
routine.
I also recently finished the book “Confessions of an
Economic Hit Man” this is a MUST read
for anyone interested in getting a broader view of how America has handled international
affairs in the past. A very well written
book that makes me want to learn more about how America interacts with the
world outside of its borders.
