Friday, July 16, 2010

Just Trying to Get From Point A to Point B

My grandparents and aunt called to wish me a happy birthday, and at some point someone asked me to tell them something crazy that had happened: “Hm… well yesterday a truckdriver who drove us down held a machete to his throat and said he was going to commit suicide because I wouldn’t return his love, he was joking….I swear…” Yikes! Okay, one of those times things sound way more intense then how it was in the moment and the second the words left my mouth I wished I could suck them back up, put a stopper on any anxiety that I could cause. (Why couldn’t I just tell a normal story about going to get meio frango at that little new stand near my friend’s house and the cute lady at the counter who served us). It is just so easy to spill out about the nuts, the bad, and the worse, but without the context of the good and the great it doesn’t make sense.

Transportation. I think probably everyone in PC Moz (if not all of PC) blogs about transportation at some point, how could you not? And I feel like if someone asks for a “crazy adventure story” they will get a story about transportation.

Public transportation: chapas: little white vans that are designed to fit 11 people but usually carry 20-30 people, no joke: 4 people per bench plus a couple of babies, a large plaid zip suitcase, and a some of chickens, maybe a caged pigeon (the worst was when there was a live sheep shoved under my seat, and it gave off the strong odor of rotting cheese and fear). Chapas are usually rusty, thick-exhaust producing, roped together death traps… sometimes you get lucky and the plastic on the seats isn’t tearing and scratchy, the paint is flawless, and the speakers are actually good enough to figure out what song is being played. At Inchope, the major crossing for me to catch rides, there is a charred chapa skeleton, victim of an engine fire or explosion, a little reminder about the lack of the enforceable-safety laws to motivate you on your way. Really I have nothing positive to say about chapas themselves, but I have this weird liking for chapa drivers and workers (I am also semi-obsessed with public trans drivers for trimet back home, you know they have good stories to tell at the end of the day… so this chapa driver intrigue might not be an opinion shared by all volunteers). They are usually helpful, honest Businessmen (except sometimes they say they are leaving RIGHT NOW when they are really going to be sitting for another hour) who point you in the right direction when you look totally lost, and up for a little chatting if you are sitting in the front. So far the only incidents: a few popped tires in the middle of nowhere, once the hood started smoking and the driver poured water, which was carried to the vehicle by an ancient women from her hut next to the road, all over the …engine?… and we were on our way.

Up north most of the transport is open-back flat bed trucks. Once two women got in a fist fight, which was physically limited by the 25 people standing and sitting around them. Open-backs mean big sky wind and sunburn, and for whatever reason I see more male passengers drinking in the open backs then the regular chapas.

Buses are my least favorite. The rows have fold down seats so that there is no aisle, the last row sits 5 across rather than 4 like the other aisles… I’m not sure, guess the bus is slightly wider in the back? Once coming home I was stuck in the back seat, and this adorably cute fat baby was sitting next to me with his mom (so we were 6 across technically). I dozed and woke up because my leg was damp, okay more than damp, it was wet. Juices from the baby’s cloth diaper had leaked on me. A man up front started complaining about the smell and the mom started changing her babe. It was a difficult process to coordinate because we were all packed so tightly on the bench that I would say we were more like snuggle-buddies than strangers on a ride home together. I pressed my fontside up against the bus wall, stuck my nose out the window and took big calming breaths hoping that the yellow baby sludge wouldn’t get on my backpack. Poor mama!

So, public transport is an experience but I’ll take a private car anyday. I don’t have to worry about a private car falling apart halfway into a trip. Hitching is, in my opinion, a safer option and my preferred mode of travel. I meet businessmen, workers, tourists, ex-pats and I awkwardly try to make engaging conversation, not that small talk has ever been a strong skill of mine. But it usually works, somehow, the chitchat goes between two complete strangers.

When public transport is not coming and private cars aren’t passing, you can pay to ride in a semi. Semis are slow. I avoid them but sometimes you just have to keep moving. In terms of what happened the other day, what I mentioned to my grandparents on my birthday: I ended up in a semi with two friends I was traveling down south with. They snoozed on the trucker’s mattress, and the driver turned up the stereo and started to serenade me with passada songs: “Listen to these lyrics, they are for you, listen carefully.” He passed his cellphone to me: “Your friends will never know, look they are deep asleep, they don’t have to know, just give me your number.” He talked about how if he had a white American woman traveling around with him in his truck nobody would question him, nobody would challenge him, everybody would just be in awe, and everybody would know he had unique prowess intelligence and success. I told him my husband (um … yeah that one who is teaching English down in Vil) would be soo angry with me, I just could not give him my phone number, and so on. The driver persisted: teasing joking complimenting. He started fiddling under his seat and pulled out a machete. And I thought: Oh no! Machete, again! He held it to his throat, he was going to commit suicide if I didn’t give him my number, he was heartbroken, he could not live without my love…he said everything with a little smile but tried to keep the theatrics serious … and, machete still out, he started singing passada songs to me, again.

Thursday, July 15, 2010

Making Business

Though I feel, in some ways, like I have just rolled off the airplane, there comes a point when you forget that Business could be conducted in any other way than what is at hand. Before this Mozambican commercial system gets more normalized to me, I feel like I owe it a description… and this will more than satisfy repeated requests from Dad for mundane details of the ordinary life.


The Road Into Town:

Couches. Lots of couches. That is the first thing I noticed driving into Chimoio when I moved. Surprised? I sure was. The couchmakers line the main road going into the city and their products are pulled up alongside the road. These are really nice looking couches with a straight-out-of-Lazy-Boy SuperMegaStore look: sharp lines, various styles with decorative pleats at the headboard or along the corners, tight tan or black vinyl, wooden feet, usually sold in a couch loveseat armchair combo set. Granted I’ve only been in two houses with couches since getting here, but there must be a market because there are sure a lot of couches being made. What makes these couches special (at least in comparison to Lazy-Boy) is that they are built essentially with just hard manual labor. Every time I ride or walk by I learn something new about how you make a couch and there seems to be a few key components: chicken wire, used heavy bulk rice bags, and plastic grocery bags… you see: once the vinyl is pulled decoratively over the basic frame you don’t really have to know what’s inside the couch… that is if you are just looking at it… sitting on one, well that is something else. Wicker furniture venders sell their wares alongside the couches, for buyers seeking an economic alternative. I, personally, had a to go with a wicker item, specifically a standing basket shelf, but it is full of a healthy population of woodworms that are munching it down, leaving little yellow sawdust piles on my bathroom floor. In the mornings, the couchmakers wipe down the couches that are left sitting by the road day in and day out, the wicker furniture venders carry in their sets—2 chairs+loveseat+small coffee table can be roped together and carried all at once on your head or bike… if you are skilled.

The couchmakers share the road with chalkboard makers, woodshop co-ops. Street sold chalkboards are painted plyboard, so after one lesson you can’t hardly use it again and students complain so it is better to get the real thing. The woodshop wares are fine quality chairs, cupboards, tv stands (bookshelves not so common), bedframes (nothing beats the one chosen for my room: seductive purple velvet headboard, classy I know) cribs, etc. all well crafted with attention to style. Various carpenters share a shop (shack with a powerline) and tools, and each one has their own style or specialized item.


In town:

Being American I am constantly bombarded by whoever selling whatever, heck I’m foreign, I’ll buy whatever… men’s suit jackets:yes…baby shoes:yes…brooms:yes…briefcases:yes. If it’s been a legally acquired good it will be draped around arms, if it is an illegally acquired good (usually cellphone, sometimes jewelry) it will be held down low by the crotch and flashed up… a technique that would result in a lot of guys getting slapped in the face if it were used in the states. If there is a niche, or something that could be a niche even if there isn’t a market for the item, it is filled. In the city, people want money and will do what it takes.

There is a corner with shoe polishers. There is a corner with men who buy and sell dollar bills. There is a corner with legless men who repair shoes. Their tricycle, hand cranked/peddled wheelchairs (basically a metal chair enhanced with spare bike parks) sit on the street while they work on the curb. There is a corner for the medicinal (and probably some non-medicinal ones too) drug venders with their little suitcases propped up on a wall filled with packages of pills, and they will run fast and manically if the police seem like they are moving in, though this has only happened once that I’ve seen. The black sandals you see around town are made from old tires, and they are cut and stitched together by men working next to the bicycle repair lean-tos. On all corners there are boys selling prepaid cell phone credit, they clump together and each shake a long laminated ribbon of linked used cards as you walk by… “credito credito credito”. For one cell company you can whistle the jingle and they will come running, shaking their strips at you, eager for the sale.
In the park you can buy grey egg sandwiches in plastic bags to go with your mini-bagged koolade-like frozen beverage, or your bagged yoghurt. On the main road the newspapers are sold next to candy, which is laid out thoughtfully on homemade cardboard box displays with the lollipops propped upright in little holes. On rough days I go for the round chocolate bomboms instead of the street egg sandwich, still not brave enough for that one. In front of my work, ladies sell bananas and tangerines (now that they are in season). One lady also sells these rather alien looking baked goods: flakey cones with hot pink cream (if Barbie were a flavor these would be Barbie flavored) filling and sparsely stuffed chamussas.


In the Station/On the road:

The most … insistent… vendors hang out at paragems, where the overflowing chapas (like a minivan but really crappy) move in and out. Candy, chips—my favorite are straight from Maputo and the chutney tomato cheese beef etc. flavoring turns fingertip skin dark magenta, crackers, sodas and waters (though the bottles are usually refilled and glued shut: no that is not a Fiz beverage it is actually a Divita juice powder rehydrated), socks and belts, and fried dough knots piled in baskets and covered with cloth (sometimes they are sweet and soft, more often dry and disappointing). All paragems have the same vibe. As your chapa pulls up the vendors come running, the boys with bagged cashews will run alongside the windows trying to seal the deal as the chapa or bus putters on, the women will come with flat woven rice sifters filled with fruit on their heads…. 10 at once all with bananas or all with tangerines… and they wail at you to buy buy buy. Based on the discounted sale items, usually on the brink of expiration date, at the local supermarket I can accurately predict the hot items that will be at the paragem in coming weeks.


The Way of Business

The philosophy of making Business, of selling your product is different Mozambique than America. Okay that statement seems self-evident . . . duh, Alexandra, of course it is! But sometimes completing a transaction is so mystifying, and I can’t help but come out of the deal asking: But why…? Here the customer is not always right, actually the customer can sometimes be an inconvenience especially if there is a working tv in the shop. But why is it so hard to buy white envelopes? But why didn’t you show me this voltage regulator initially when I asked for this specific style? But why are you saying you don’t sell markers when I can see markers displayed behind the counter (is my Portuguese really that bad)? The pressing-pushy mood of Transaction on the street is the opposite from the leisure Transaction in a shop. The Buyer in a shop is in no hurry and the Seller is not to be rushed. A business owner will, frequently, harshly criticize a shopworker on the floor in front of customers (me, in my head: hey it’s cool if this is a bad time for me to buy something here I can come back later… me, actually: don’t make eye contact). But why were things so heated in there? In the market once a woman selling eggplants and greenbeans scolded a herd of other vendors for harassing/bombarding me (carrots carrots carrots beans beans beans tomato tomato tomato potato potato potato pumpkin pumpkin pumpkin). But why won’t you just let me be? But why do you have to say everything 100 times over? This woman leaned under the hanging scale dangling from the top of her stall: “She has eyes, she can tell what you have laid out!” One of the men said, “I’m just trying to tell her what I’ve got, I just want to make sure she knows! I’m just trying to make a sale!” …. Oh that is why, just making Sale.



The Players of Business

Regardless of where the place of Business is, and I would say this is true in the states too, there is the collision of vendor, buyer, thief, and beggar. For me the most irritating are the beggar boys in town, 5-10 years old, they will stand under your chapa window, or chase you down the street, and try to look at pitiful as possible (“mili mili mili”), one arm slung over their forehead, their pained expressions well practiced because they don’t know any better and not much more is expected of them…. asking the mazungo is like playing lottery, except they have nothing to lose. Child beggars make me extremely uncomfortable, and frustrated because I know that my coins are going straight to a little cake, but their poverty and lack of opportunity is real. I feel disgusted with how the way I communicate with child beggars, awkward with how spoiled I am, and depressed that this is how the world works.

Okay… a slight digression: I’m not sure about the validity of this but I heard that, especially in Southern Mozambique, South African vacationers will toss candies out of their car windows at the kids on the street as they pull in with SUV plus trailer (if they have a boat trailer they probably are from Zim not SA, check the license plates, I swear everyone in Zim has a boat that accompanies them on all trips… I’m not sure where they go boating but there are apparently lots of boating hot spots in Moz) plus food plus supplies for eternity as if they were entering Armageddon. And the kids love the sweets because who wouldn’t?! The beggar kids are there because, sometimes, they get goodies. If you can’t already tell, I am critical of creating a generation who expects handouts, this is the paradox of help. Less so with hand-outs from tourists and more so with foreign aid efforts I wonder: how do you help without making dependents, how do you help by empowering? Or do we just say fuck it? I try to think no.