My family loves to joke around. A lot. Actually, all the time. Which is good but since everything is done so differently here I really can’t tell the difference between major cultural divergence and them just giving me a hard time for a good laugh.
Earlier this week, after seeing my sunburn t-shirt lines my irmao told me that the pink skin looks better than my pale-beyond-pale skin, and to even out the sunburn I could either (1) walk around town naked (2) or hang myself up on the clothes line for an afternoon. Supposedly his wife was once as white as me and he just hung her up in the sun for a few days.
Wish it was that easy, then all the neighborhood kids wouldn’t yell “malungo” at me everytime I walk down the street. It’s not really said in a derogatory way…. more of a statement of observation… I like it better when they give me shy smiles and try out English phrases.
Today I was a part of an impromptu dance party in a friend’s living room (boom chica chica) with a herd of primary school age boys. Unfortunately I was unable to bring out the dance moves I learned from my host sister and niece— I need more practice and am not even sure I even have the joints/muscles to do the things they can do. I’m convinced Mozambiquans are born with extra bones or something. THEY CAN DANCE LIKE NOBODY’S BUSINESS. The boys today had different moves than my host sister… more thematic (?) moves. There was the Magician, where one person lies on his back on the ground and moves his limbs up and around according the wizard-like direction of another person standing over them; Rope- climber, using invisible rope to pull yourself straight-up from the ground; Guitar Player, air guitar with one leg being the guitar; Wind-up Doll, etc etc.… the list goes on. . . .
….. someday …..maybe I’ll be as good
…. maybe enough potatoes will give me the extra joints. After one trainee calculated how many fish he eats per week here (about a small school of fish), I realized I could to an analogous calculation with my consumption of potatoes, which comes out to a grand total of 25-35/week. I not sure what can be converted to in terms of bushels but I conservatively put my monthly potato consumption at about two acres worth.
Good thing I like potatoes.
Side note: I guess this wasn’t clear in the last post… but the girls who live in the house with me are part of my Mozambiquan fam fam. PCT don’t live together.
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Really quick hellooooooo!!
Greetings from Mozambique!!! I’m settled (maybe unpacked is a better word. I’m still getting to know things) into the community where we are doing our Training for the next few months. So a quick rundown:
Host Family=AMAZING!! I lucked out. My host dad (I call him big brother, and he calls me his youngest sister) is a self-described cowboy with dreams of going to the home of all good westerns: TEXAS. Actually, Texas is pretty much the only place that Mozambiquans know about … it’s an automatic in if you’re from there (Oregon… blah… not a city… nope…. not a village either….hmmm. California is met with blank stares too). He has been giving me extra Portuguese lessons in the evenings, which have been much more useful the actual classes I’ve been taking. His wife is one of the toughest ladies I’ve met, but full of warmth and welcome. There are two other girls who live in the house and a grandmother (my Mama… just got to be careful which “a” I emphasize or it comes out inappropriately…oh Portuguese). They do talk a lot about their other volunteer from last year—standards are high. But they keep saying that when my parents come they can’t stay in the hotel the have to stay with them (the other volunteer’s parents came a few months ago for a couple days… it was a big hit)…. so get ready for bucket baths mom and dad!
Rather than one larger building for everything, their home is a collection of smaller buildings facing inwards towards a well-swept dirt yard with mango trees. There is a building with three bedrooms and a dining room (with TV and endless hours of steamy steamy Brazilian telenovelas…. scandal has a whole new meaning), another building with a kitchen (learning how to cook over coal), and then a third with the grandmother’s building. There is an outhouse a little ways away. The community has a severe water shortage so even though the bath has piping to a water tank, the water level is too low for it to function. Lots of carrying around water. And getting up a 5/530am to do things like clean my floor before going to class/lecture. I'm still totally useless and wimpy in comparison....
I have a nice room, looks like I have a princess bed with the mosquito net up (that damn thing is so annoying it better be working, I keep getting netted in the early mornings or when I have to get up in the middle of night). Lots of posters which are reminiscent of a certain Peruvian hostel (Chels and Kate you know the ones)…
Living with a host family is always a little awkward, and I am such a baby here because EVERYTHING is done differently. For the first few days I kept hording trash because I couldn’t figure out where the burn pile was. Basically, I speak a lot of Spanish. And despite some similarities there are a lot of major differences between Spanish and Portuguese. Like pasta. I’ve been telling them I like to cook pasta all week. But since pasta means paste in Portuguese I’ve really just been telling the about my culinary explorations with paste. Ah all those weird looks I was getting make so much sense now….
So trying to make that leap into Portuguese.
The PCT group is really nice. None of that competitive air that I’ve heard can happen. Weirdly Westwind connections have extended here to Mozambique… seriously… how does this happen everywhere I go?!!!
Oh and to anyone who that got that big send out email, the address on there is wrong, so don’t send anything to it. I’ll email the correct one when I get it….
Host Family=AMAZING!! I lucked out. My host dad (I call him big brother, and he calls me his youngest sister) is a self-described cowboy with dreams of going to the home of all good westerns: TEXAS. Actually, Texas is pretty much the only place that Mozambiquans know about … it’s an automatic in if you’re from there (Oregon… blah… not a city… nope…. not a village either….hmmm. California is met with blank stares too). He has been giving me extra Portuguese lessons in the evenings, which have been much more useful the actual classes I’ve been taking. His wife is one of the toughest ladies I’ve met, but full of warmth and welcome. There are two other girls who live in the house and a grandmother (my Mama… just got to be careful which “a” I emphasize or it comes out inappropriately…oh Portuguese). They do talk a lot about their other volunteer from last year—standards are high. But they keep saying that when my parents come they can’t stay in the hotel the have to stay with them (the other volunteer’s parents came a few months ago for a couple days… it was a big hit)…. so get ready for bucket baths mom and dad!
Rather than one larger building for everything, their home is a collection of smaller buildings facing inwards towards a well-swept dirt yard with mango trees. There is a building with three bedrooms and a dining room (with TV and endless hours of steamy steamy Brazilian telenovelas…. scandal has a whole new meaning), another building with a kitchen (learning how to cook over coal), and then a third with the grandmother’s building. There is an outhouse a little ways away. The community has a severe water shortage so even though the bath has piping to a water tank, the water level is too low for it to function. Lots of carrying around water. And getting up a 5/530am to do things like clean my floor before going to class/lecture. I'm still totally useless and wimpy in comparison....
I have a nice room, looks like I have a princess bed with the mosquito net up (that damn thing is so annoying it better be working, I keep getting netted in the early mornings or when I have to get up in the middle of night). Lots of posters which are reminiscent of a certain Peruvian hostel (Chels and Kate you know the ones)…
Living with a host family is always a little awkward, and I am such a baby here because EVERYTHING is done differently. For the first few days I kept hording trash because I couldn’t figure out where the burn pile was. Basically, I speak a lot of Spanish. And despite some similarities there are a lot of major differences between Spanish and Portuguese. Like pasta. I’ve been telling them I like to cook pasta all week. But since pasta means paste in Portuguese I’ve really just been telling the about my culinary explorations with paste. Ah all those weird looks I was getting make so much sense now….
So trying to make that leap into Portuguese.
The PCT group is really nice. None of that competitive air that I’ve heard can happen. Weirdly Westwind connections have extended here to Mozambique… seriously… how does this happen everywhere I go?!!!
Oh and to anyone who that got that big send out email, the address on there is wrong, so don’t send anything to it. I’ll email the correct one when I get it….
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