Sharing of Citrus by the Sea

Wednesday was my first day since I have been in Mozambique that I had more than several hours to myself. I ate lunch by myself. I ordered a double espresso, for myself.

The government office building where we have temporarily scrounged up some work space has a seven-flight walk to the DPCAA offices. Sometimes, I bound up the stairs. Other times, I plod. I am still thoroughly confused about the flow of people and car traffic here. People seem to climb stairs on the right, drive on the left. Walk down the middle of the sidewalk.

Something about everyone else’s speed always makes me feel like I am the fool that is in a hurry, and like I am constantly apologizing for moving at a culturally unacceptable speed or bumping into people when going against the flow. Fortunately, I look both ways at least twice. So, despite the fact that I automatically look left first (rather than right), with some cross-checking, I have so far managed to not be smashed by a car.

The government office building closes right at 3:30. I wasn’t sure how long it would take me to walk back to Rob’s house, but I have been missing my walks and my runs, and so I decided that it was my goal to find it on foot. Frank drew me one of his quick maps yesterday before he took off into the field with our field supervisor of sorts, Camilo. Landmarks on said map were the street with the mango trees. Golf course (flat area with grass that floods in the rainy season). Mosque. Hospital.

So, I set off on foot. I found the street with the mango trees. Some teenagers on their way home from school say hello…I say hello back (in Portuguese). They ask me why I am walking—I tell them that I like to walk. They say: “it saves money!” Somehow, this struck me as completely illustrative of something very profound. Me, walking like I am in a hurry to get somewhere, carrying a backpack laden with laptop and assorted electronics. Because I like to walk and worry about my figure and otherwise am stuck in office buildings and vehicles. Them, walking because they want to save 10 Mets. Walking slowly and talking to each other.

Another guy with long legs who works for the water company catches up with me a little ways along at the roundabout. He offers to show me Beira on the weekends. I politely refuse his offer with some excuse about traveling with my boss and working on weekends, and we part ways not too much further along.

I am carrying a bag of oranges and nectarines that I bought from a woman on the street. Electronics, and oranges. I had found the road that runs along the beachfront (far enough up from the Hotel Grand—a shell of a luxury hotel from back in the day that is filled with squatter communities—that I missed the sketchy part of town). Not too far up the road, some girls crossing the street stop me, saying (in English): “Hello! How are you?” I turn to them saying: “fine, and you?” They smile and laugh. One girl pipes up: “I just wanted to ask for a tangerine…” They all giggle. I open my bag with a grin. “Alguem mais? (Anyone else?)” One more sticks her hand in. “We can share,” they say.

I continue my walk up the waterfront. I pass by the little waypoint for the chapas, where they sell water and more fruit. Men are walking down the other side of the road by another market. Must be a fish market. Some of the fish take two men to lug them around…one with the head, the other with the tail. Women and men on the beach have some sort of small fish (sardines?) laid out, drying on the sand.

After a bit, I hear two men on my right yell to me the equivalent of (in Portuguese): “hook me up with a tangerine, sister.” I’m sure they half expected me to ignore them. Maybe by this point in my walk I was looking tired and over-laden with fruit. ;) I walked over and asked the guy whether he wanted an orange or a tangerine; he took the orange. I offered his companion one, but he politely refused.

I don’t know what all of this means, but it made me smile, the citrus sharing. Perhaps the next time I want a delicious Mozambican orange and find myself without, I will scan the street for someone carrying a bag. And then, I will march up and ask them for one.

Random note about cultural takes on condoms:

Not too long after arriving in Mozambique, I read a New York Times article about how Trojan had been unsuccessful at marketing their new commercial, where a pig who is talking to an attractive woman at the bar goes into the restroom, comes out with a condom, and suddenly becomes the handsome object of her desire. Apparently it was rejected by the networks for its focus on sex appeal/pregnancy prevention rather than disease prevention and health.

In contrast:

I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised when we walked into the Director’s office at the Universidade Pedagogica da Beira to find a little basket of condoms (like one that would have little mints or York peppermint patties in it in the US) with a sign: “Help yourself!” Wrappers here emphasize the durability and efficiency of their product. Bathrooms and hotels are overflowing with them. 20-30% of the people here have HIV. I wish it were as easy as convincing people that condoms are sexy here in Mozambique; maybe once they get the convincing-people-that-condoms-might-save-their-lives thing down, they will worry about the having-them-in-administrative-offices-offending-the-sensibilities-of-the-public side of things.

From my hotel window...the only place I have had the courage to dig out the camera.

My first few days in Moçambique.

I arrived in Beira last Thursday, and was picked up by Frank and a guy with his arm in a cast, named Rob. We returned to a guest house run by a Zimbabwean woman named Debbie, where I quickly grabbed a shower and then headed out with Frank to have a drink and catch up. We were picked up at our table by the sea 1.5 hrs. later by Debbie and her husband, where we progressed to a photography exhibition by two area wildlife photographers, one of whom specializes largely in photos taken while diving. Free beverages and snacks that went like hot cakes. I was pretty much struggling to have a coherent conversation by that point, though I had a quality nap on the (carpeted) floor at the Johannesburg airport after some delightful curry and after setting my alarm on my cell phone.

Friday morning, I slept in until about 9:30. Frank and I then caught a Chapa (a little white minibus that crams many people and basically functions as the inner city bus transport here in Beira) to the downtown area, and went to the shopping center that mainly consists of a bunch of empty stores and a sandwich shop. (A money laundering venture?) The sandwiches were quite good, and we caught up with Gaia (from Danida), who is a partner of ours here in Mozambique and who is helping us sort out the funding business through the government agencies here and identify partners. We then had a meeting (the three of us plus Candida, a woman from the DPCA) with the head of the Department of Geography at the local Universidade Pedagogica, a public university. We are hoping to collaborate with them, perhaps both in terms of providing an outlet for some student research, and also perhaps in terms of being able to come up with some interviewers for our field staff in September. He was enthusiastic, and we set up a meeting with the Director of the University for Monday (today) to have a formal conversation about it.

After that meeting, Frank and I grabbed a taxi and went and grabbed some things from Debbie’s guest house and made the hour journey to Rio Savane, a little rustic compound of huts with a restaurant on a sandbar/barrier island between the Rio Savane and the Indian Ocean. We chose a hut, set up camp (my hammock found some trees…I think when I am back in July I am bringing a tent, though, as trees are in somewhat shorter supply than in Brazil), and then went to have a drink on the beach. Dinner was great seafood with mediocre French fries.

Sat. morning, we had breakfast and set out for a walk around 9:30. We passed many fisherman and stopped to check out some primitive fishing villages. We checked out some fish that we thought about buying, but passed them by. We walked until we were about tired of walking, and then we hopped in the Indian ocean, for the first time in my life! On the return, we stopped at a very old and presently unused lighthouse, which we could not climb because the ladders were in disrepair. And frankly, even if they had looked remotely sturdy, it still would have been a harrowing climb. We climbed to a hill instead, and surveyed the floodplain. We watched some villagers (unbeknownst to them) take some water from what must have been a well in the sand. As we walked back down the beach, we watched all the fisherman descend upon the beach at approximately the same time in their dugout canoes with homemade square sails, patched together with fabric of various colors. When we returned, it was one-thirty, and we decided we must have walked about 18k! More seafood, and then I read on the beach until a most beautiful sunset. And then, watched the stars for another good while.

There was a serious wind most of the night, and I was awakened when it started to rain, at 7:30. Rather than try and put the rainfly on, we just threw our stuff in the hut and went and drank coffee, and then met and talked about the project for a couple of hours. The bus that was supposed to leave at 9:30 am (that we had turned down) wound up having engine trouble, and not leaving till three. So, we…you guessed it….ate some more seafood, and packed our stuff to leave. On the way back to town, we picked up a very sick woman with her mother. I thought she was in labor, but Frank thought not…either way, she was in very intense pain and had tears streaming down her face.

We returned and grabbed our stuff from Debbie’s guesthouse, and then headed downtown for a hotel switch, some email checking, etc. I had some interesting conversation with a couple of South Africans and a British man living in Mozambique over a salad (first one in days…)…the racism around here is rather “chocante”, as they would say in Brazil. (Shocking? Jarring?). Similarly, the reality has been quite chocante for me here—it is quite a different world from Brazil. The goods for sale on the street are used rather than new…the people are barefoot and eat oranges, not ice cream cones. Car traffic is somewhat sparse, and the buildings are faded and sagging. I feel strange and alien…and grateful to be able to speak the language, albeit with a slightly different accent. The people do have big smiles and shiny white teeth that stand out sharply from their faces, and they have a different way, a different smell. They eat oranges and yams and sell charcoal. The women have infinite ways of intricately tying their hair into colorful pieces of fabric, and there seems to be a small percentage of Muslim women that wear the veil. I saw 5 or so in the back of a pickup as we were walking to a meeting today.

Three meetings today: one with Klaus, a consultant for the Bureau of Statistics, who is trying to get us the most recent population information for the communities that we are interested in sampling, so as to stratify our sample. This, my friends, is extremely exciting. Particularly because our alternative to do this is to count huts from satellite imagery, which we may still try and do to corroborate the INE estimates. Second meeting with ORAM, a government agency that is working in delineating communities and establishing formal community structures. They have worked extensively in the geographic region we will be sampling in, and we need their partnership to make things come off. The woman had a big laugh, and they (in general) seemed positive. Meeting number three was with the Director of the University we had visited on Friday. He, also, was positive, and told us to send a letter of formal contract for partnership. Frank and I will be putting our formal Portuguese to the test, it seems, and finding a rigorous editor.

Our big score for the day was purchasing a cell phone and creating a contact list in a little under an hour and a half, after deliberating the two cell phone operators in Mozambique, stopping by an independent (black market?) cell phone dealer, and crossing the street several times. We wound up buying a phone from the Vodacom guy (who seemed trustworthy) but then buying a chip from the MCell people, because we had been told that MCell had service in the area we would be working in. So now, we are contactable. This is sort of key when trying to create partnerships.

I know this is a little discombobulated and hurried, but we are meeting Rich, a guy from the Gorongosa national park for dinner, and I want a quick shower.

Probably Wed. we will be headed out in the field to do some community visits until the following Friday.

Beijos to all.

hmmm

In Brazilian airports, they sell tropical fruit and forest product everything. In Johannesburg...they sell safari attire. Interesting. I suppose this should not surprise me. I would write more, but my laptop battery is about to die. My mother reminded me that I had heat stroke the last time I was in Africa...when I was one. I told her I did not remember, and therefore was probably lacking the appropriate amount of fear. Nonetheless, I hope to avoid a repeat.

And, on Wed., I'm going to Mozambique.

When I see an elephant or a warthog, I will take its picture. Quickly.

Other things I did while in the US of A

(Please let me know if you want pictures that might be yours, removed--Jer, Kerry)

Went sailing...for the first time. Ever.

With Phil,




Jer, and Betsy.


Visited with some of my favorite people by the fireside (Sorry, Matt and Christina...we didn't take any pictures by fireside gathering number two!)


Bathed in hot spring water...that had been pumped into a hot tub. In Hot Springs, NC. They really could have been lying (about the fact that it came from a hot spring) and we would have never known.


Frolicked with Aurora's new family member, Buksi. And got some tiny dog lovin'

Diego also enjoyed frolicking with Buksi



Had lunch dates with my mother.

Bought a pair of sunglassess that cost more than 10 dollars for the first time in my life.

Hiked, and climbed a fire tower.

Moved many of my possessions into a storage unit (sorry, no picture...)

Made a trip to the Mozambique embassy, and managed to get a visa back in the mail before I left the country again (always a feat).

Watched two couples make big promises (my brother and me, at my cousin Rachel's wedding, below)

Drank lots of good coffee and ate lots of fine fare

Avoided getting a speeding ticket/ticket for my inspection and/or county sticker being expired
or my muffler being entirely rusted through

Changed my travel plans, at least twice.

Ate lunch with Rebekah Helsel Carswell, and got to touch her tummy(or, rather, unborn child). I should have taken a picture, because I had my camera in my purse.

Visited with Will Flatley and Katie Garst in Blacksburg, VA. made Campbell, the adorable baby girl, laugh.

Caught up with Greg Amacher over a survey instrument. Laughed at intervals through the whole meeting, as always.

Made a Lowe's run with my brother in the Ford that would not start. Pop started it and jumped it at least once, each. We left it running while stopping by the outfitters to avoid having to jump it a second time. Threatened to steal large amounts of outdoor gear and shovel them into our running vehicle. Made the employees laugh, nervously.

Worked with Jer and his family on his house!

Powerwashed. Yeah, baby.



Laughed, cried, and did silly things with my family (also note the motorcycle ride, from the posting below, which was another first!)