It seems only fitting that the weirdest day in Africa thus
far has landed on Halloween, known here as Dia da Bruxas. While talking to my
best friend at home I realized it is quite hard for me to fully capture the
feeling of today in words—I think a lot of it has to do with our mindsets and
the stress we are under. But I am going to attempt to share my odd day with
those of you at home, if only because I want to get the story out.
A quick back story, in my house right now is my host mom, my
host brother, and my host sister. I’ve introduced them in previous posts. But
obviously my brother and sister have a father (if you didn’t know that, I am a
biology teacher and can give you a lesson) and their father is in fact my mom’s
husband. He lives in South Africa building houses. It is quite common for
fathers to be gone the majority of the year working else making money, often
while starting other families. As a result the mothers sometimes have a
boyfriend or something in their village. The idea of not having a partner for
more than a week is inconceivable to many here in Mozambique (so that’s always a
fun education about how just because I’ve left America for 2 years does not
mean I need a Mozambican man).
Back to today.
It all started last night really. A massive…a dare say minor
tropical depression…graced Namaacha with it’s presence. Let me tell you how fun
tornado speed winds and golf ball sized hail Is when you have a flimsy tin
rood…and I definitely spent a good hour cleaning mortar off all of my stuff and
out of my room…my walls literally crumbled around me. It was an INTENSE storm
that we all immediately reported on our Facebooks and wallowed together today
over the lack of sleep it caused and the day without energy that followed. It
was the most intense storm so far and scared even those of us who have lived
with the likes of hurricanes and tornadoes in our lives. So we were all in a
pretty weird mood today to begin with…it’s Halloween, we’re having a Halloween
party tomorrow, no one slept, and we’re leaving on Sunday for our week long
site visits with current volunteers—energy and excitement was high making
school almost impossible for all of us. Following school, my lingua group and I
decided to take our usual trip to our mini America—Total Gas Station. It’s
close to where the Bio teachers live and offers Lays potato chips, Simba chips
(not American…but close to it!), ice cream, Cadbury chocolate, and Cocoa-Cola
Light (their version of Diet Coke, which, after a week without Diet Coke was
just fine for me). When we arrived we could tell that one of the customers was
a little off but we couldn’t tell exactly was going on. Well…our Portuguese is
good enough that we figured out after about 10 minutes they were fighting with
the clerk who didn’t want them to sell drugs behind the gas station and they
were calling the police. There was a lot of screaming and a lot of accusations,
so naturally, we left. Really bummed that we didn’t get our American snacks and
weirded out that that there was
drug fight in little Namaacha. We went for our plan B. Xavier’s is our favorite
bar and James, the son of Xavier serves delicious samosas (even I think they’re
delicious and I’ve sworn off of Indian food). We entered and James knew
immediately what we were looking for and broke the sad news that he had no
samosas. This seems like a minor problem…which is why I said some of this may
just be our mindsets…it was a BIG DEAL. So we go to plan C…pão
with soy chicken nuggets (yes, they have those here) stuff inside. On our way
we run into a Japanese lady we’ve seen wandering around Namaacha. Turns out she
is a teacher volunteering for the Japan version of Peace Corps…who knew that
existed!! So we were able to communicate with someone who speaks Japanese, not
English, because we all speak Portuguese, which sounds less cool than it really
is. It’s different than talking to someone from Namaacha who, DUH, knows
Portuguese, or talking to current volunteers who also speak English. It was way
cool. Well…plan C was a bust. There was no pão near us…so weird because
there’s ALWAYS pão. So we gave up and returned to our houses. My house was
still energyless, so I was bracing myself for a night of accomplishing nothing.
Halfway through dinner, energy returned to Barrio B. Here, it’s monumentous
when energy comes back. You can’t escape the cheers of excitement. Almost
simultaneously, our door opens and this man with a suitcase walks in. Turns out
it’s my pai??? No one knew he was returning to Namaacha this evening and my
host mom has spent the rest of the evening shooting me hilarious faces. I’ve
tried to pick up what I can with my Portuguese, but she is talking mostly in
Changana, if at all because he’s here so she doesn’t really want to announce
she’s not pleased at this addition to our house. But her faces say it all, and
it is hilarious. I think she and I have bonded a little in communicating only
with facial expressions.
So that’s my weird day. Maybe it is just weird to those of
us here in Africa, but I felt like sharing what an atypical day in Africa is
like. I hope I did the story well and was a least a little entertaining. If it
wasn’t entertaining, try to put yourself in my shoes and imagine what today
felt like. It was weird.
Before I head out, I will update you on my site visit. So a
site visit is designed for us to get an idea of what the next 2 years will be
like, outside of our little training summer camp in Namaacha. I am visiting a
volunteer in Gaza, which is just north of the Maputo Province (I’m sorry. If
you want to understand exactly where Gaza is, I’m going to ask you to do what
my Geography teacher would always say…get a map). All I know so far is that I
will likely get to visit a beach. I’m sure I’ll have much more to say about it
next Friday when I return.
Now I must bid this day ado. It has been much too strange
for me. And tomorrow I have a language oral exam and I would like to prove that
I do in fact know some Portuguese. I certainly cannot wait for the day when I’m
fluent enough that I accidentally forget to switch out of Portuguese to English
or forget simple English words. I know that day will come, it has been promised
the science teachers that it just happens naturally because we literally cannot
use any English in our classrooms.
No comments:
Post a Comment