Back in January 2013, when I had just moved to Mavudzi, I wrote a
post about an average day in my life. It's Peace Corps Week this
week, and we're supposed share our experiences here with Americans
back home. I thought it was time for an updated version of what what my days are like.
I wake up to the sounds of empty
plastic jugs being jostled around. Izaquel and his cousin Carlos are
here to fill our water – they come even when we tell them we don't
need any water, always quiet and always polite -- and Laura's up and
about, a capulana tied
around her waist as she makes her morning coffee. She's already swept
the floor and is in full productivity mode.
“Morning,” I say sleepily as
I emerge from my room like a bear just awoken from hibernation. Laura
and I mix up some powdered milk into two bowls, pour cornflakes on
top of them, and munch contentedly as we sit at the table.
The silence is broken by Márcia,
our friend Conceição's two year old, tottering by. She's not
wearing pants, as usual, “Amiga!” she shouts as she wanders
by our door. This is literally the only thing she says to us, but she
says it every time she sees one of us. We wave. “Amiga!” she
continues to shout. “Amiga! AMIGA! AMIIIIIIIGA!”
She gets distracted by
the arrival of Edivalda, her three-year-old friend. “Edi!” she
shouts now. “Edi! Edi! Ediiiiiiiiii!” We tend to refer to Edi as
Duckpuncher (that's a story for another time) and we're not super
fond of her. She tends to repeat your name over and over and over
again until
you finally ask “WHAT!?” at which point she'll stop and think,
clearly having not had anything important to say at all, and then
come out with something stupid like “There's some soap over there.
Do you see it? The soap? It's over there.”
Eventually
Márcia and Duckpuncher find their third compadre, a bald little girl
named Vánia that
we call Doorstop. (We have nicknames for all
the neighborhood children.) The three of them run away to play in the
dirt, giggling and screaming the whole way.
Laura
and I retire to our beds for some mid-morning reading. We've taken to
reading the same books so we can talk about them later, like a
two-person book club. Last week we read The
Grapes of Wrath,
this week it's Hemingway. As soon as I lay down to read, the cat
silently jumps up and curls herself up in my lap, collapsing into the
hammock of my skirt and purring happily. I read a few pages, and then
inevitably doze off, but I pick it right back up again twenty minutes
later. Our noses are still buried in our kindles as we eat lunch, and
our neighbors must think that we do nothing but read all day.
After
lunch, I see Laura off to school, wearing her white professor's bata,
and I have the house to myself for a little while. I put some things
together for the community library, and then spend a little while
writing application essays for various post-Peace-Corps endeavors.
“Sensa?”
A small voice breaks my concentration. 11-year-old Castelo is at the
door, and he wants to borrow my soccer ball to play with his best
friend. They take the ball to go play, and as they walk to the field
other boys appear out of nowhere until a full game is in progress. It's like they have sixth sense. ("There's soccer nearby. I feel it!") I
can still hear them screaming and laughing as I put on my own bata
and head to school for my favorite time of the week – lessons with
my tenth graders.
My
tenth graders are what I look forward to all week – they're the
most well-behaved, the most studious, and the most fun classes to
teach. They look forward to me, too, since I'm one of their only
teachers that doesn't just make them copy dictation the whole day –
so we're all excited to be there, which makes for a wonderful
learning atmosphere. All too soon – bong,
bong, bongggggg – a double period is over, and Laura and I go home.
Laura's
exhausted from teaching, but her puppy Simba is ever-so-energetic.
She looks down at him – he's drooling on her bata – and then looks back up
at me. “River beer?” she asks, and I respond “Of course!” as
I always do.
We
start walking in the direction of the river with the dog running
happily alongside us. As we wander through the village, we saudar
everyone – the boa
tarde's
and como esta's
and mashoma
tani's
never stop. There's Laurita, who catered our REDES conference and
makes the absolute best Mozambican beans ever. There's Julita, the
sassy student in my class who is too cool to answer questions but is
secretly knows all the answers. There's Alcídio, the art teacher,
who more than anything wants to be a photographer.
On
the way to the river, we stop by Vasco's store to buy two ice-cold
Manicas. Vasco is a night student of mine – chefe
de turma
(class president) and very smart. His girlfriend, Crimilda, with
golden hair weaved into her own, is in my daytime class and is the
smartest in her class. A crowd of children is sitting cross-legged in
the sand in front of the banca,
watching a novela.
Vasco gives us our beers, and we walk on the cowpath through the tall grass down to
the river.
The
Mavudzi river is at full force right now, due to the rains, and the rushing can be heard from afar. We sit on
giant boulders on the river's edge while Simba plays in the shallow
pools that have formed around the rocks. To our left, children take
their evening bath in the river, thrashing around nakedly in the
water and dunking each other. To our right, an old man tends the
crops in his machamba
on the riverbank. We sip our beers and soak in everything around us.
As
the large orange sun slowly sinks to the horizon, we wander home,
lazily placing one foot in front of the other until we arrive at our
doorstep. The colors in the sky are so breathtaking that we stop and
sit on our veranda to watch the last sliver of orange disappear
behind the mountains.
It's
the animals, of course, that break us out of our sunset-induced
reverie. Simba's hungry, and so is Kitty, who has woken up and is
being very vocal
about her desire for food. So we cook, both for our animals and for
ourselves. Tonight it's stir-fry – spicy, just how we like it –
and served over steaming rice. (The animals get fish boiled in xima.) While we eat, we swap classroom stories
and gossip about our students.
As
the last delicious bites disappear from our plates, we hear voices
outside – our next door neighbors – and go out to join them.
Fanilio and Quizito are sitting out, enjoying the cool night air, and
chatting. Fanilio is the Questionmaster – he always has a million
and one questions for you, each response leading into
another question. Quizito is... well, he's the Perfect Mozambican
Man. He's smart, he's compassionate, he plays guitar, and everything
he says is insightful. Laura and I sit down and join their
conversation. As they chat quietly, I stare up at the sky, where I
can see the Milky Way stretching across the immensity of the
Mozambican sky. I disengage from the conversation and lose myself in
my thoughts for a minute. Just look
at
those stars! Imagine how--
“A NEW DAY! AAAAAH,
AAAAH!”
My
train of thought derails, as I'm drawn back to the here-and-now by
the voice of Celine Dion.
“LET THE RAIN COME DOWN
AND WASH AWAY MY TEARS!”
Morais, the Third Musketeer of the bachelor pad next door, has arrived. Morais is one of the loudest people I've ever met, but is always good for a laugh. He loves to crack
jokes, he loves to do silly impressions, and most of all, he loves
Celine Dion.
“LET IT FILL MY SOUL AND
DROWN MY TEARS!”
The
quiet, gemütlich
atmosphere is gone, but Morais is on a roll, so we're too entertained
to notice. One time, he couldn't stop talking about how much he loved
beans (“I love beans! I LOVE beans! I love BEANS!”) but today,
he's getting ready to take a bath and is trying out his English on
us.
“I am... dirty. Dirty!
I want to bath. I want to... wash my... bod. I WANT TO WASH MY BOD!”
He
keeps shouting “I want to wash my bod!” as he gets ready for his
bath, his voice battling with Celine's for volume. (“LET
IT SHATTER THE WALLS FOR A NEW SUN!”) As Morais leaves to 'wash his bod', Laura and I say goodnight and go home, still hearing the muffled
sounds “A New Day” through our shared wall.
We
toss the animals out for the night, and Laura flops on the couch to
read a few last chapters. I make us delicious hot chocolate topped
off with Amarula, which I sip while picking out weak chords on my
guitar. I'm really not very good at the guitar, but Laura says the
sound relaxes her, and playing guitar makes me miss music (and
musicals) less.
Soon,
though, we're both too tired to keep our eyes open and we get ready for bed.
We turn off the lights, lock the doors, say goodnight, and crawl
under our respective mosquito nets, feeling the safety that comes
from knowing you're out of reach for camel spiders, snakes, and giant
grasshoppers. Laura falls asleep as soon as her head hits the pillow,
but I read for another half hour, and then I close my eyes and think.
How
did I get so lucky? How will I ever be able to leave this place in
nine months?
I
drift off to sleep, dreaming of Duckpuncher and Celine Dion and the
rushing waters of the Mavudzi river.
Tomorrow is a new day.
All I can say is ... what a fantastic post! I feel like I'm hanging out in Mavudzi with you. Sounds like paradise to me :)
ReplyDelete-Linds
Nice, very nice. I can relate - thanks for sharing it so well. Mrs. H.
ReplyDelete