Pangono-Pangono

I've mentioned before that I've been taking Nyungwe lessons with my next-door neighbor and good friend, Quizito. He's an excellent teacher and after only two months of formal learning, I can introduce myself, talk about my home, family, and work, and accomplish basic tasks like asking about price, negotiating, telling annoying cobradores to shut it, etc.

My favorite word in Nyungwe is pangono-pangono, "little by little". It's incredibly useful, as it's basically a Nyungwe version of "um pouco normal" and you can respond with it to anything.

"How's school going?" Pangono-pangono. The spirit of this response in English would be "It's going."

Well, life in Mavudzi is going pangono-pangono. It's a little weird, actually, how normal everything seems. With only two weeks of class left in the trimester, followed by almost a month free and then just over two months left of actual work, it feels like things should be hectic -- and, in a way they are. I have a countdown to this year's English Theater Competition that freaks me out every morning as its one number smaller. I spend several hours each day working on resumes and applications for post-PC programs and jobs. I've been deep in planning mode for my epic journey with Lisa across southern Africa in November.  These are constant reminders that our time here is almost up.

On the other hand, though, life is normal.

Yesterday, a goat ate my lunchtime salad and I was sad about it. Later that afternoon, Izaquel helped kill and chop up the goat for our friend Alcídio's dinner.

This week, we have tests that no one told us about. To be expected.

Every twenty minutes, someone comes and shouts "Com liçensa!" at our door, wanting to charge their phone or paint their nails or pick up a toddler that wandered in to look at our books or pet the cat.

Life continues. Pangono-pangono.

Photo credit: Laura M.

Dust, Anybody?

Because I live so close to Tete City, I go into the city about once a week, to go shopping, to gorge on pizza/meat/indian food, and to see my friends there. This past weekend, with Laura away, I was planning to spend a quiet weekend at site. On Sunday, I planned to watch the World Cup final with Izaquel at another teacher's house, after spending the morning sweeping, mopping, doing laundry, and cleaning my room.

Except then Izaquel went home. And then the power went out. And that other teacher with a TV wasn't even here. And then I got lonely after 48 hours of practically not seeing anyone. So when Laura texted me on Sunday, saying "We're all going to go out and watch the game together! You should come!" I immediately packed a bag and headed to the road to catch a ride.

LITTLE DID I KNOW.

It was a Sunday afternoon, when traffic is always slow, so I knew it could be a while. After about 3 cars passed me, either too full or too mean to stop, about an hour in, I finally flagged down a dude in a small white pickup truck. There were already about a dozen people and a few chickens in the back but I managed to squeeze in, perched on the corner of the bed's edge and gripping both walls with my fingers. I introduced myself (in Nyungwe!) to the people who didn't know me, and we set off.

We practically flew to Tete City. Usually, in chapas, it's a very leisurely stroll through the communities that lie in our path. (Oh look, there's a new banca in Chidimba.... aw, someone's selling goat meat in Catipo...look at the naked kid running around in Caunje, that's nice). This time, it was a whirlwind, especially because I didn't have my bandana that I usually tie around my head to prevent "openback hair." So my hair was flying all about, whipping me in the face, and my nose was running with the snot just flying right out of my nose and into the wind, and my butt was hurting but there was nowhere else to sit lest I spoon an old man or crush a live chicken.

That was only the beginning. THEN, we got to the road construction stretch. Our road had been in such bad condition before they started fixing it that it was more potholes than road -- the last 10% of our journey used to take almost half the travel time, because we used to have to drive so slowly. But then, when President Guebuza came to visit a few months ago, magically the road crews appeared to tear up the old pavement and started fixing the road! Naturally, when His Excellency's entourage left again, the road repairing immediately stopped, and we were left with an incredibly dusty, even-worse-than-before unpaved detour.

It was down this hilly and ankle-deep in dust detour that our lovely pickup truck driver plowed into without bothering to slow down. He skidded around edges, jostling us around on the bumps so much that I thought I might just bounce out, and threw up MASSIVE amounts of dust. Ladies covered themselves and their babies with capulanas to protect themselves from the dust, looking like mummies. Men held hankies to their mouths and noses, as if to evoid ebola, and I had to make due breathing through my t-shirt, and probably inhaled enough dirt to lay the foundation of a small football field.

That ride was kind of a blur. In retrospect, I probably should have gotten out and waited for another car. But in the moment, I couldn't let go to signal the driver to stop, and I couldn't shout because of the dust, so I just hung on and hoped for the best. When we finally screeched to a stop in Tete City, the women slowly emerged from under their capulanas, like molting caterpillars, and the men used their hankies to slap the dust off their skin. Everyone looked around, in a daze. We were all covered in about half an inch of dust.

And then we started laughing.

It started with the old man sitting next to me. He looked around, and just started giggling. Some others joined him, and soon our entire group was cracking up at the ridiculousness of the situation. We looked awful.

"You know," I said between laughs, looking at my now brown jeans, "I washed these clothes just this morning,"

"AHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA!" they erupted.

"Look!" said a man, holding up his arm next to mine, "We're the same color now!"

"TEEHEEHEEHEE!" Peals of laughter!

"I've decided," said a pregnant lady, "to name my next child Poeira ('Dust')"

"HOOOHOOOHOOO!" we cried together, tears of laughter rolling down our faces in muddy streaks.

Soon after, we parted ways, and I walked to my nearby friend's house, feeling not at all presentable for a social event, much less for the bible study she was hosting.

"Hi," I said, when she opened the door. "Can I use your shower? I'm er... a little dusty."

  

In the end, we did go out and watch the World Cup final together and it was amazing. I'm so very proud of Germany for playing so well and showing the world what champions they are. It was definitely worth the dust.

Izaquel's Day Out

"Teachers, I want to ask a favor," Izaquel said to us one day, "In order to enroll in eleventh grade next year, I need an identification card. I have to get it from the city. Will you take me?"

And so it came to be that, several weeks later, we found ourselves in the back of a pickup truck with Izaquel and some goats, bumping along the dusty road towards the big city.

The actual process of getting the I.D. card was not difficult. We strode into the office, and within twenty minutes Izaquel was sitting in front of a camera and fingerprinting machine.

"What's your name?" the heavily pregnant woman attending to him asked brusquely.

"Izaquel Váz Solar," Isaquel said nervously, looking very small and keenly aware of the several hundreds of dollars of equipment around him. 

"How do you spell that?"

"I-Z-A-Q-U-E-L," he said, handing over his birth certificate.

"Hmm." The lady squinted at the document. "No, your name is spelled with an I in it. I-Z-A-Q-U-I-E-L."

"No," protested Izaquel, "That was a mistake at the hospital. It's supposed to be without an I. My father told me to---"

"Don't you even know how to spell your name?" the woman accused, "It's right here. It's with an I. Ponto final. End of Story."

Izaquel glowered, but didn't argue. What can a scrawny sixteen-year-old do to change the mind of a lady who clearly doesn't want to deal with the extra paperwork for a name correction?

The lady muttered something about "these ruffians from the mato" and went on processing his application.

It wasn't until later on, as we emerged from the dingy office into the brilliant sunlight of the streets of Tete that Izaquel finally stopped frowning.

"Lunch?" asked Laura, and we started towards one of our favorite places to eat.

The rest of the day was, in a word, fantastic. We took Izaquel out to lunch, where he ate a plate of chicken bigger than his face.

"Can we just eat already?"

Giant plate of chicken... yum!

Half an hour later... an empty plate and a huge smile.

After lunch, we went to Kwachena, a market that's a bit outside of the city and chock full of calamidades. We wanted to get Izaquel some decent pants and a nice shirt, since he wears the same thing pretty much every day. We let him pick them out. Instead of classy pants and a dress shirt, he chose blue athletic shorts and a brown short-sleeved shirt with sparkles all over the back.

"Are you sure?" we asked each time.

"YES!" he said.

Then we told him to pick a jacket, since we didn't like seeing him shiver every morning. He carefully examined rows and rows of coats, and eventually came across a gigantic, white, women's ski jacket. He tried it on, and it didn't fit him at all, but the minute he wore it, a huge smile crawled across his face, and that was that. We bought the jacket, and started heading home.

I think my favorite part of the day was watching Izaquel pick the most ridiculous things to wear. I think Izaquel's favorite, other than the giant plate of chicken, was the ice-cream at the end of the day.

"I'm glad we ate the ice cream together," he told us afterwards, "Otherwise, I wouldn't have known that you can eat the cone. I would have thrown it away!"

I'm glad we got to eat ice cream together, too, Izaquel.

First ever ice cream cone!

The End of Simba's Reign

One of the roughest days of my Peace Corps service was the day that my dog, Poppy, died. Death of pets is rough anywhere, but it's worse here, where it's easy to get extremely attached, but there's little to no veterinary care available. I wouldn't wish that desperate, panicked feeling of helplessness on anyone.

And yet, yesterday, my roommate Laura had to go through exactly that.

Laura found Simba on the street when he was a tiny puppy, and raised him until he became big and fat. Laura and Simba went everywhere together, to the point where, if she wasn't accompanied by her usual canine companion, people in town would ask "Onde está Simba?" Simba was very energetic, and he loved people. Whenever we came back from a trip, as soon as he heard, saw, or smelled us, he would come bounding towards us, with flapping ears and a wagging tail. I didn't like Simba at first -- he was too noisy, too slobbery, too exuberant -- and yet, Simba grew on me. Who couldn't love him? Still, he was 100% Laura's dog, and she adored him unconditionally.

Through Simba's favorite activity, exploring, he picked up some kind of nasty disease that ravaged his body. Little by little, he shut down. He stopped eating, stopped drinking, and, yesterday afternoon, he stopped breathing. He died about two feet from where Poppy died a little over a year ago. We buried him next to her.

Here's to you, Simba. You were only with us for six months, but you were a good dog. Have fun romping around with Poppy in the canine afterlife.

Baby Simba, small enough to hold in a one hand.

Simba's first chapa ride

What a handsome young dog!

Playing with the boys

Rest well, Simba.

Calamidades at the Market

Shopping here is so much more interesting than shopping back home. With a hundred vendors crammed into a tiny market,every single one of them wanting to sell you something, it can be a bit hectic -- an incessant background noise of "Oi! Hey! Hello! Amiga! Friend! My friend! Dona! Sister! Look here! My sister!" Once you learn to drown that out, though, there's nothing so interesting as wandering around a large market, hand tightly grasped on your purse, smelling chamussas and bolo, seeing the vibrant colors exotic of fruits and vegetables imported from more fertile places, and passing row after row of fascinating calamidades.

Calamidades are second-hand clothes, sent from developed nations, that arrive in the boatload in Africa and are distributed in giant plastic-packaged cubes to various vendors. Some calamidades are just dumped on the floor, and you have to do the work yourself, looking for the nice skirt in a sea of old t-shirts, leopard-print overalls, and striped-neon leggings. The upside? These finds are rarely more than 10 meticais -- about 30 cents.

In other instances, the calamidades vendor will sort through piles, pick out a particular type of item -- puffy jackets, polo shirts, or jeans, for example -- and then hang them up on make-shift clothes-hangers in their "specialty store", and charge 50-100 mets per item. (About $1-3) While these are more expensive, you can usually find better quality items this way, and you don't have to wade through a hundred old t-shirts that say things like "Springfield County's 5th Annual Hog Cook-Off 5th Place Champions" or "Dr. Jeffries' Orthodontics Office's Team Teeth!"

Calamidades are fun because you find so much hilariously random stuff there. When Peace Corps volunteers go in a group together, we play a game to see who can spot apparel from their home state first. New York and California have it so easy. I got particularly excited on one occasion when I found a "2011 Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo" shirt. I went to that rodeo! I also saw a Texas Folklife Festival shirt once, and a Dallas Cowboys jersey.

Other gems include t-shirts of questionable repute, one memorable example being a shirt proclaiming "I'm Not a Gynecologist, But I Can Take A Look." People will buy these without knowing what they mean, which explains why my star student in night school regularly wears a shirt that says in big bold letters, "Harden The Fuck Up." I equate this behavior with whatever mentality causes Americans to get tattoos of Chinese characters they don't actually understand.

Some people make calamidades shopping into an art, like my good friend Anna, the Queen of Calamidades. She can spend hours looking through a dusty pile of clothing for that perfect item. I certainly don't have that kind of patience, but I've had a few brilliant finds: A large canvas Eddie Bauer bag that fits absolutely everything and makes me feel like a rugged awesome photographer for National Geographic ($10), a pair of yoga pants and a purple tunic that I bought offhandedly one day in Messica that have since turned into my most worn travel clothing ($4), and, most recently, a really awesome United Colors of Benetton canvas backpack that I take on all my short weekend trips ($7).

Mozambican markets simply are more fun to shop in than American chain stores. I used to get a rush from flicking through the newly discounted items in the 70% Off section in Target. I think those days are over. My advice: If you ever make it to Africa, make sure to go shopping in a real market at least once. It's hectic, it's loud, it's smelly, but it's fun.

Sandals imported from the Masai in Kenya and Tanzania.

The beadwork is all hand-sewn.

So many things to look at!

Egg pyramid!

Thumbs up for used shoes!

The End is in Sight

It seems like just yesterday that I nervously walked into a conference room in Philadelphia and sat down quietly at one of the tables strewn with pens and nametags, awaiting the beginning of the unknown adventure in front of me.

Then, twenty-seven months seemed like a long time. I didn't know much about Mozambique, I didn't know what to expect from Peace Corps, and I didn't know any of the people sitting awkwardly at the table with me. It's hard to believe that since then, two years have passed and I'm nearing the end of my service.

A few days ago, the volunteers in my group, Moz 19, got our official COS (Close of Service) dates -- the date that we will officially stop being a PCV and become an RPCV (Returned Peace Corps Volunteer).My last day as a Peace Corps volunteer will be November 21st, 2014. That's in 143 days, or four and a half months.

On the one hand, I'm very excited to go home. I can't wait to be back in the land of ice cream, yoga, netflix, smartphones, big-as-yo-face burritos, and, naturally, cheesecake. In a way, I've been looking forward to going home ever since I got here.

And yet, I'm going to miss this place. I had a really nostalgic moment yesterday, as I was in class with my favorite 10th graders. They were putting parts of the story "The Ant and the Grasshopper" in order, and they were laughing, talking -- involved in what they were learning. One of them jokingly asked if he could turn his assignment in written in Nyungwe instead of English, "so that Teacher has to do her homework too."

Back when the end seemed really far away, it was all we could think about. Sitting in the back of a rattling old pickup truck in a cloud of dust on a potholed-filled road, the thought "Only one more year" was comforting. Now that it's "Only four more months," it feels much less comforting. It's terrifying!

Still, the next few months will be action-filled. We're finishing up the second trimester of school this month, and then we have two weeks of vacation in August. In September, we have our final conference, and later that month is the English Theater Competition that I'm organizing this year. In October is Teacher's Day and we'll hopefully be painting a giant world map on the side of our school, and then by mid-November,school (and Peace Corps) will be over. I'll travel to Namibia and South Africa with Lisa in December before flying to Germany to spend Christmas with my family. Before going back to the States, I'll meet two old friends in Prague and hopefully pay a short visit to some other friends in the U.K.

So, to all you people back home reading this, I'll see you in January 2015. Get ready, cause I won't be!