Me, hiding behind a face that is not mine, and Jer, looking smashing, as: himself.

through someone else's lens.

This morning, I received a cd in the mail of Heidi's pictures. Heidi was in Mozambique with me for two weeks, and captured a couple of interesting moments:

Here is Camilo, pontificating about the challenges and rewards of field work.

Me eating either a) instant baby food or b) instant soup from my metal mug

A full-group shot in Gorongosa...

The photographer man who would not stop talking in our chapa that broke down by the side of the road on the way back to Beira. This is us, stuck by the side of the road.

It's pretty here, in the fall.

I have been back in the U.S. for a few weeks, now--the longest stretch of time I have spent in the land of the "free" since May. And the first time I have truly re-settled somewhere here in several years. I have traded conversations with rural Mozambicans and bright-eyed college students from Beira for a sea of culturally experienced, diverse, and very bright worker bees who are hell-bent on saving the world from the consequences of global climate change. In a multi-million dollar building with a great porch, where I can still escape outside and read forest change and household welfare literature to my heart's content under the eaves until it starts getting too cold here on Cape Cod to do so (just to clarify...that is where I work, not where I live... ;) ).

I love all of my realities of the past year and a half: my house full of melodramatic Brazilian women with the slightly-too-laid-back landlord and the lab in Belo Horizonte full of good-natured programmers and spatial modelers, my self-sufficient, on-the-go self that (sometimes) feels the adrenaline rush at the thought of showing up in a new city or a remote village and feeling so very out of place. The staying put in one place until I've got those people who surround me that I can dial up after a couple of beers at 2am--who don't mind if I drop by their house insanely early without knocking and hang out with their pets--the comfort of having another place (group of people?) that I refer to as "home". The visits to my other homes that have built me up and rejuvenated me--times with my family, Jer, Aurora, Kerry, Rebekah, Callie, Matt, Christa etc. in the past year that have blurred the present and the past, and reminded me of the ways in which the people in my life have shaped my experiences so completely.

It gets confusing though--sometimes I feel like I am simultaneously so sure of who I am and what it is that drives me--what I need, want, and have to give-- and so very uncertain about my ability to do everything that I aspire to, well. Life, love, social change. Being a scientist, a girlfriend, a friend, a sister, a daughter, someone who moves, someone who stays put. Someone who lives in the moment, and someone who sets goals and invests in the things that she values; who integrates all of the things she sees and does in order to do these things more wholly. Takes all of these different realities and lets them shape her into someone stronger. A better academic. A more intuitive person. Someone who listens and absorbs more fully, cries more often, allows herself to be angry occasionally, acknowledges that she has fears, and embraces confusion and insecurity. I want to be this someone...but also someone who lets my hope and my intuition--not my confusion, my insecurity, my fear, or my anger--inspire the way that I live my life.

The novelty of hot showers and drinkable tap water...

...has not yet worn off.

I thought at the very least I could put up some more pictures of my last couple of weeks of field work. The month, in summary, was high-intensity, stressful, rewarding, and fun. I had a total of one sick day, which was the last day in the field...who knows whether this resulted more from sun exposure, sheer exhaustion, or actual digestion issues?

Frank keeps telling me to take some time off, so I am trying to phase-in, and doing the equivalent by making a blog posting while in the office, and I will later go home for a nap and to make it outside. The tents are airing in the yard, and I attempted to remove some of the red Gorongosa mud from their bottoms this morning.

Getting water is women's work. It occupies an enormous amount of household time, especially when a woman may walk up to two hours to a water source and then have to wait in line--

My campsite was right next to the water source at the Dept. of Agriculture compound in Inhaminga. Because the water only runs from 6:15 to 6:45 AM, this means people were congregating around my tent to wait in line, often while I was still asleep!


Cotton is a major cash crop in the districts of Cheringoma and Gorongosa. The economics of it are particularly interesting, because the pesticides and seeds needed to grow it are often sold on pre-harvest credit, which often leads to a sort of positive feedback cycle of indebtedness to the cotton company. We did meet a few people who were doing quite well, however, and below you see the fruits of the most recent harvest at the house of the local secretario.

Kids in Mozambique are often quite scared of me. These kids (below) got closer than most, and were excited to have their picture taken with me.


During our stay in Inhaminga, we got to welcome the national secretary of the FRELIMO party, which was a big deal.

Things like this in Mozambique are greeted with much dancing, singing, and celebration.


On a day off, we took a trip to Monte Gorongosa, and spent a few hours in the rain hiking to a beautiful waterfall.

Of course, I was unable to resist getting in for a dip, though I was already freezing and didn't spend very long in the water. Note the fleece and bikini fashion statement that was necessary after this act. If you look more closely, you can see me turning blue.


Fire in Mozambique is used for agricultural clearing, like most other places. This fire, though, was set by a group of hunters to flush out cane rats, and other edible animals. The guy we interviewed just after walking by this burning area said that he would lose his stand of bananas as a result of this action.

A smart bird or a dumb bird? What happens when someone wants those bottom (supporting) bananas?

This girl was not so sure about the camera thing...but met me with a steady gaze.